Flower Power

Wouldn't it be great if people would stop trying to contextualise everything? Yes the economy's in a right old state, but we don't have to talk about it all the time. The best way to overcome a problem is to ignore it, right? Nadine Feinson opined that a shift in emphasis towards the personal would mark art in 2009 and certainly this - Alex Echo's s

The iconic Chew The Fat! returns to Corsica Studios with a line-up that defines their sound.

Booty-basslines galore.

They welcome up-and-coming producer Fake Blood, the simply excellent Trevor Loveys and next generation four to the floor producer Foamo.

Naming your self after a Wire song is always a good way to make people take notice, but following it with jerk post punk that sounds like Gang of Four rocking out with Cabaret Voltaire is how to make your band the coolest in London. Basically Ex Lion Tamers have done just that, and if you don't believe us, then you can see for yourself down at The Vic

Them land at Whitechapel rave central the Rhythm Factory for a gigantic February edition.

This is the party-starters third London touchdown (they launched in Brighton a couple of weeks back) and they've got the biggest line up to date. Ghetto house and bassline pioneer Baobinga brings the ghetto bass, Mumdance mashes up garage, bassline, funky, grime, electro, fidget, dubstep, house, techno and jungle (phew) into a huge, nutritious bin full of electronic, radio-active magic which will make you MOVE.

Danish DJ and producer Trentemoller has become one of the biggest names in electronic music over the last few years, with several critically acclaimed releases including his awesome debut album The Last Resort. Having performed with a live band on recent tours, he is now going back to basics with what should be a banging DJ set of minimal techno. Ano

Did you know that the term hermaphrodite comes from the Greek myth of Hermaphroditus? He was turned into an androgynous being after rejecting the advances of the nymph Salmacis. At her wish, the gods blended their two bodies into one. Hermaphroditus' parents were Hermes and Aphrodite, and so the hermaphrodite is male and female by both biology and etym

Plex return with their first party of the year with an exclusive performance by the illusive and mysterious Dopplereffekt. They're a Detroit techno outfit who have never given an interview and very rarely perform live. Thought to be composed of four individuals, the members hide behind German pseudonyms. Their music is heavily influenced by Kraf

Ah look, zee Svedes are coming to London, wiz zer trëndy designer clözing and zer flowing blonde hairs. How åbsolutely super! Since the mid '90s Sweden has emerged as something of a hotbed of contemporary fashion, with a swathe of young avant-garde designers displaying a relaxed calm elegance mixed with a more experimental edge. Designers like

Lo-fi punk chicks Pens headline a show at the Old Blue Last. We've seen these ladies at various points over the last 6 months, and they rock out in a super fun if chaotic, we-look-like-we-don't-know-what-we're-doing way.

Support comes in the form of  Manor House based dance-punks Male Bonding and Dalston noise merchants Teeth.

The Storytellers' Club is not just a comedy club of funny stories. It is arty, leftfield, long-form comedy told by some of the circuit's best.

At Storytellers' nights you could hear comic tales, ghost stories, travel anecdotes, mysteries, horror stories, adventure stories, stories set to music, and of course, the odd love story.

You've got to love The Shitty Limits - in the last few months they've been tearing up house parties one minute, touring Iceland the next, and then waving one finger to the NME when they come looking for an interview? Punk rock or what?

They also pick up marks in the live department too, sounding like a cross between the garage-like hardcore of Nation of Ulysses and the sing-along antics of The Replacements.

New work by artist/brand Takashi Murakami is always likely to cause excitement, and the paintings that go on display this month at Gagosian are no exception.

Murakami is known for the style known as Superflat - kind of Pop Art/animé fusion, and this new body of work seeks to push the style into deeper, darker waters.

An interesting venture towards the political, or a radical reinterpretation of the classical vanitas portrait? Who knows.

The good half of Death From Above 1979 is back with his new band The Mountains.

Basically, to make the leap, all you need to do is take his old band, lose a bit of the gnarliness, throw in some proggy keyboard licks and ramp up the sexiness factor by 1000% and you're there.

Contemporary conceptual art meets classical Buddhism at Rossi & Rossi this month with an exhibition of work by Tibetan-born artist Tenzing Rigdol.

Painting, sculpture and video are all on show, as Rigdol analyses various elements of Buddhist philiosphy and its relationship with contemporary art. So, alongside a selection of paintings, there's This is not a chair, a chair covered in Tibetan Buddhist scriptures, and Scripture Noodle, a video of the artist preparing a soup out of a Buddhist text before eating it from a polystyrene take-away box.

Nicholas de Jongh's latest is a dramatisation of a turning point in the history of British attitudes towards gay life.

In 1953 Sir John Gielgud was poised to make a hotly anticipated return to the West End as one of Britain's leading actors. Just before the run was about to begin, he was arrested in a public lavatory on charges of importuning for immoral purposes. Very George Michael! Except at the time, the nationwide scandal left Gielgud facing the prospect of personal and professional ruination. Then something amazing transpired, and the rest is history - very much a part of Britain's gay cultural history.

A major solo show for acclaimed American contemporary artist Sean Snyder at the ICA this Spring. The exhibition features work across a host of media, from photography and video to installations and new media technological wizardry.

Propaganda, consumerism, the dissemination of information, the relationship between reality and the archive: these are the issues that inform Snyder's work.

We recommend taking along a copy of Archive Fever while you wander round.

It's magic night at the RVT with two of the best comic/magic acts on the circuit.  Headlining will be cheeky northern chappie Pete Firman and his gruesome tricks. Expect anything from body-slicing to balloon-swallowing, fire-eating, mind-reading and lady-kissing.
 
Supporting Firman will be Barry and Stuart, stars of  Channel 4's Dirty Tricks, Monkey Magic and Crack Magic.  The double act will be premièring some new, never-before-seen tricks apparently, so be prepared....

Known for the stop on a six-pence fervour with which they assault their instruments and the animalistic sounds emanating from their vocalist, Molly Siegel, Ponytail are not only Baltimore's favourite noise pop band, they're also the world's most enigmatic.

In fact, describing Ponytail is a pretty tricky task. Despite freaking out with Glassjaw intensity at some points, there's a mighty fine pop band with an ear for melody and timing hiding in there as well. Weird.

Summer 2007 saw record flooding affecting 48,000 homes across England. One year on, more than 2,200 families are still living in caravans. This eye-opening production invites you to join them.

Look Left Look Right have teamed up with the Royal Court to stage an intimate production for audiences of just eight people in a caravan on Sloane Square. An intense 35 minutes reveals how families and friends have coped, or failed to cope with their displacement.

The first ever and sure to sell out London show for these dark revivalists of '60s psych who have been busy freaking out the people of New York with their hypnotic blend of Guided by Voices and the Velvet Underground.

With their début album 'Alight Of The Night' being one of the most anticipated releases we've heard about in ages, it's looking like Crystal Stilts could be one of the break-out underground acts of the year.

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Piers Martin and Rodaidh MacDonald return with their biggest party yet - the Valentine's Love Explosion.

The line-up is massive, headed up by Cocadisco favourite I-F, with Italo-research unit Heartbreak playing live, sultry disco sirens Fan Death plus a DJ set from the applauded synth-pop princess Little Boots.

The Horrors freakier analogue side project Spider and the Flies gets an airing, and seasoned disco frontmen Wild Geese (Dan Foat and Frank Tope) will be dishing out dancefloor delights alongside residents Rodiadh and Piers.

Lot49 kick off their East Village residency with a solid line-up, headed up by the simply excellent trio of newly installed residents Meat Katie, Kid Blue and Dylan Rhymes.

Their Christmas party back in December was storming, securing them a bi-monthly slot and giving the London-based tech-funk label a chance to showcase the sounds which regularly flick their switch.

Tonight, in honour of Valentine's Day (or in spite of...) they've recruited Belfast's Phil Kieran - a producer who's made people sit up and listen with his releases on Novamute and Cocoon, remixes of UNKLE and solo productions on his label Flying Cabbage.

So it's Valentine's Day, you can either take your missus out for Italian food where you can stare into each others eyes until you both pick the same piece of spaghetti and kiss oh so absent-mindedly.

Or you could take them to the O2 academy where Lamb of God will melt their face off. Hmm tough choice.

Real Gold's tribute to disco in all its shades is back at one of the best venues in London, the simply divine Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes.

Karaoke, bowling, dancing, table tennis, football, a selection of stellar DJs handpicked from London's burgeoning disco scene and a hot tub where you can meet people wearing hardly any clothes.

Need we say more?

Laughter In Odd Places is a monthly (ish!) club that was set up by quirky comics Terry Saunders and Tom Bell after they'd had enough of playing smelly little pub rooms full of noisy drunk people.

So far, they've had comedy gigs in a record shop, a cafe, a library, a charity shop, a book shop, a heath, a museum, a gallery and even comedy reviewer Bruce Dessau's living room! In 2008 they even held a festival in the Museum of London with four stages and big names like Stewart Lee, Richard Herring and Pappy's Fun Club taking part.

As anyone who goes to this will know, Black Lips are possibly the greatest live act to come out of anywhere in years. Banned from many venues in the US, they have a reputation for nakedness, violence and generally turning beer into chaos that is unmatched in modern music.

Foolishly the NME has decided to put them on at the O2 Academy Islington alongside caterwauling New York punk sirens The Vivian Girls. There goes the neighbourhood...

Dubbed 'the Fringe's most controversial act' by the Scotsman in 2007, Micha Wertheim is as smart as he is edgy. 

In March last year he was involved in a dispute after a handicapped man wheeled out of his show after he made a joke about the disabled.  The audience then turned on him and forced Wertheim to leave the stage.  The venue declared they would never hire him again which induced other respected Dutch comedians to support Micha and declare in which case THEY would never work for the venue again.

The Stuckists take over the Islington Arts Factory this March with an exhibition of work by five female members of their group.

Stuckist art is characterised by figurative paintings produced in a kind of faux-naive style, so expect more of the same to be on display here.

Corin Redgrave, one of British theatre's most cherished, slums it at the Jermyn playing the lead in this witty political drama set in Hollywood at the height of McCarthysim.

Gouranga are back, the house and techno protagonists who've been slipping you their mixed bag of electronic sub-genres for nigh on three years.

After a storming launch at Lightbox with chief wrong 'un Mr Tim Sheridan, they bring you one of the finest techno outfits of our times; the Swedish duo whose productions capture the elegance of classic early '90s techno; Minilogue. They will absolutely blow you away with their live show in the glittering confines of the Lightbox, while in room two, Y I deliver a stark and heavy contrast to the main room smoothness.

Everyone's favourite party-post-punkers Dananananaykryod invade the stage at Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen for another night of excessive pogoing and all round good times.

All set for the release of their joyous, heady and euphoric début album ' Hey Everyone' on April 6th, we've been reliably informed that its fizzes along like any of the band's live outings.