A brief round-up of a few bits and pieces. This blog will be updated a bit more regularly in future, but right now everytime I look at it I feel the urge to make it look less like complete shit. Hence, I spend my time on building a new website instead of writing content for it. In the meantime…

Club night Rockabaret is changing venue to fantastic Central London nightclub Sin, right by Tottenham Court Road tube. This is welcome news- last February we trekked out to their old West London venue to check them out, and whilst we were extremely impressed we felt that cheaper drinks and a better location would improve the party and fuel the punk spirit. Hopefully Sin will provide this, and Rockabaret will reflect the Dresden Dolls’ subculture as effectively as Stay Beautiful reflects the Manics’ fanbase. The re-launched Rockaberet debuts with a Hallowe’en party on Saturday 18th October, and I can’t think of anywhere better to spend it.

Speaking of Stay Beautiful, that club is also going from strength to strength, recently hosting a gig from Justin Hawkin’s new band Hot Leg. Don’t sneer, you loved the Darkness too. Everyone who wasn’t a pretentious indie snob loved the Darkness.

Speaking of the Dresden Dolls, the success of Amanda Palmer’s solo record and Brian Viglione’s side projects seems to have raised questions about the group’s very existence. Amanda Palmer elaborates at length in a recent post on her blog.

there is no doubt that the touring lifestyle is weird. but when we play shows, and hear people talking about how much they’re moved by our music, it’s worth any amount of impossible interpersonal bullshit, conflict and discomfort. it’s WHY we did it, it’s WHY i do it, it’s why we didn’t break up in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006 and why we are not breaking up in 2008.

so i repeat: the dresden dolls aren’t broken up.
we’re just taking a BADLY needed hiatus.
this is, to date, what the band has decided, and the wording we’ve agreed upon.

Oh no. Don’t you go using the h-word on us. The last band I loved who said they were going on hiatus was A Perfect Circle, and nothing’s been heard out of them for over four years now. Seriously, I will be gutted if (like the Libertines) the Dresdon Dolls split up just as I’m getting properly obsessed with them.