Live Review: Faster Pussycat / Lola Stonecracker / Driller

Bannerman's, Edinburgh

Monday October 31st 2011

80s hair metal icons were in Scotland for the first time in over 18 years on Halloween night. An excuse for a party? Absolutely.

Opening up proceedings were "local" lads Driller. I say local, as two of the band, singer/guitarist Alex and drummer KK are Brazilian, and bassist Jet (or Tom) is a cockney, but they're based in Edinburgh, and rock hard. Over their half an hour set the band played a brand of hard rock fused with metal with a unique twist. The riffs were chunky, and the songs melded the hard with the melodic beautifully. A great discovery of a band I'll be keeping a close eye on. Make sure you check out their EP "Alchemy of Love".

Next up were Italian hard rockers Lola Stonecracker. Minus a guitarist (who allegedly found himself in jail in Sweden), the Bologna boys still put on a rocking show. Playing a Guns n Roses style of sleazy hard rock, the band, ably fronted by the charasmatic Alex Fabbri fired through a cracking set, which included handing out lighters, CDs and t-shirts to eager audience members. Joined by half of Faster Pussycat for a run through The Misfits' "Attitude" they had the crowd eating out of their hands before finishing with a trash rock breakdown of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax". Impressive.

The main event of the evening was of course, the triumphant return of Taime Downe's Faster Pussycat. Putting an updated twist on the band's back catalogue, the entire room was captivated from the get go. Songs like "Bathroom Wall" and "Non-Stop to Nowhere" haven't aged a day, and had a good portion of the crowd singing along. Decked out in PV and a now trademark hat, Downe's voice sounded as good as ever, and he made sure that the entire crowd was getting involved. Flaunting the smoking laws by puffing away during the encore, he showed that even middle aged men in black lipstick can be cool. A sleaze metal cover of Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" was followed by the barnstorming "Don't Change This Song" to close out a highly impressive show.

Two excellent support acts were followed by a veteran band who can most definitely still cut it. A great way to spend Halloween night.

****

TV Review: Awkward. - "No Doubt"

Season 1 - Episode 10

MTV (UK)

As Awkward. approches the end of its first season, things are starting to move along nicely. Jenna and Tamara are friends again, and Tamara admits that she didn't really write Jenna the "carefrontation" letter after all. Ming gets some nice screen time for a change, and Matty finally takes Jenna on a proper date. The ending of the episode also sees the last two episodes of the season being set up as Jake dumps Lissa, and seems to admit to himself that he wants to be with Jenna.

"No Doubt" crams a lot into its twenty minutes, but none of it seems rushed. The scenes with jenna, Tamara and Ming are very well put together, really showing the frienship between the three girls being strong, and when Matty comes into the mix, a really heart warming moment actually occurs. And it was the second such moment of the episode from Matty, a character who is becoming increasingly hard to read. Taking Jenna to his uncle's restaurant on their date (the first girl he had ever taken there) was a lovely touch, but given what's happened with him before, it's really hard to know what's going on in his head.

Two episodes remain in the season, both of which are centered around the upcoming Winter Formal dance at the school. This should bring us some more of the biting dark comedy (which was only fleetingly present in this episode) and should wrap up the season nicely. As we're currently sitting around six weeks behind US airing here, I'm undecided on whether to watch at US pace next year or not. If the last two episodes keep up this quality, I don't think I'll be able to wait six weeks.

(Just as an aside - the season finale was shown as a two-parter on the same night in the States, we have it split in two, one this week and one next - I'll decide how complete the first episode feels and taht will determine how they are reviewed)

****

TV Review: How I Met Your Mother - "The Slutty Pumpkin Returns"

Season 7 - Episode 8

CBS (US)

This should have been amazing. It really should have been. The Slutty Pumpkin was first mentioned in season 1, and has been in pretty much every Halloween episode of the show since. Furthermore, while How I Met Your Mother never goes full on silly for Halloween like say, Community or The Office, the episodes centred around the event are usually some of the best.

Then they cast Katie Holmes as Naomi, the Slutty Pumpkin. Sometimes stunt casting works - like the couple of episodes Britney Spears appeared in a few years ago. Sometimes though, it's Katie Holmes. Who sucks the life out of every character she's ever played - I mean Batman even recast her character! Naomi is a dreadful character, and really, other than the fact that he's been chasing her for ten years, there's no reason Ted would even like her at all. Thankfully she won't be back, but even appearing in the show has made this episode worse than it could have been.

Elsewhere, Lily has developed "pregnancy brain" which leads her to make some highly uncharacteristic decisions. While the decisions she makes actually please Marshall, he knows that they'll upset her in the log run. What transpires is a warm, touching show of love from Marshall, who really has been the MVP of season 7 so far. The C-plot this week, though, is the highlight of the episode. Robin finds out (through his dad's Facebook - please can we have a return from John Lithgow soon?) that Barney is a quarter Canadian and relentlessly mocks him in revenge for years of torment herself. If Barney dresses as a Mountie at the Halloween party, Robin will stop the mocking. Cue Barney dressed as Apollo Creed, complete with a "Living in America" intro. A classic HIMYM moment. The tag scene is also a spot of genius.

Outside of Ted's plot this week, How I Met Your Mother was actually really good. However, with that being the A-plot, and taking up the majority of the episode, unfortunately, "The Slutty Pumpkin Returns" fell short of what it should have been.

*** 1/2

TV Review: 2 Broke Girls - "And the Pretty Problem"

Season 1 - Episode 7

CBS (US)

More progression! The girls aren't making any money, but they're getting somewhere. "And the Pretty Problem" sees Max and Caroline suffer rejection and mocking with their cupcakes, only to find their true calling, and a bunch of new customers.

Unusually for a sitcom, this episode focuses on one single plot throughout - save for a small thread where Max thinks Caroline needs to get laid, which seems to exist purely to make vagina jokes - the girls' cupcakes aren't pretty enough for the "upmarket" cafes and eateries around Brooklyn so they enroll in a cupcake decorating class run by two Italian-American girls. Now I'll admit that some of the jokes may have gone over my head at this point, as the only experience of the Jersey Shore-esque nonsense I have is from the spoof that South Park did, but the jist of the matter is that Max and Caroline realise that they can build a niche market in offensive cakes.

Once again, a lot of the jokes are pretty crude - Oleg's line about "once you go Ukraine" was particularly funny though - but 2 Broke Girls is staying consitently solid, and is proving to be a good watch every week.

***

TV Review: Two and a Half Men - "The Squat and Hover"

Season 9 - Episode 6

Comedy Central (UK)

The transition from Charlie Sheen to Ashton Kutcher hasn't always been smooth, in fact the opening five episodes of the season have been highly hit and miss. But Kutcher is bedding in nicely now, and his relationship with Alan, while unlikely, has become really strong.

Of course, building that relationship has meant very little screentime for Jake (who appears briefly at the start of this episode, in a scene with an again naked Kutcher) Evelyn, Judith and Herb. The show has always been stronger with these characters involved, and the sooner they get reintegrated the better.

"The Squat and the Hover" sees Alan up to his old "forgetting the wallet" tricks at the cinema snack stand, when Walden spots his now ex-wife Bridget on a date with an incredibly attractive man. He makes the decision to sell the house and move to New York, a decision that horrifies Alan, who immediately suggests that he should go see Charlie's old shrink instead. So, we get the welcome return of Jane Lynch as Dr Freeman, who is by far the funniest television shrink since Frasier finished. As the episode progresses, Walden finds a lesbian who looks exactly like Bridget and tries to get close to her by prentending he and Alan are gay. This backfires when Alan makes out with the lesbian's girlfriend, gets punched and causes the girls to leave. However, Walden assures Alan that he couldn't leave his best friend, and the episode ends on a sweet note.

This is the strongest episode of the Ashton Kutcher era so far, and with Jake and Evelyn both set to feature heavily next week, things are certainly looking up.

***

TV Review: Whitney - "The Wire"

Season 1 - Episode 5

NBC (US)

Whitney has been watchable, but highly flawed so far in its run. "The Wire" does nothing to change this trend in its fifth episode, but somehow retains a certain charm that makes it hard to stop watching.

Maybe that's down to star and creator Whitney Cummings. While she and her team of writers aren't getting everything right, she is likable in a strange sort of way. It also helps that her co stars - especially Chris D'Elia as Whitney's live-in boyfriend Alex - do their best with the weak material. "The Wire" sees Whitney trying to prove a point to Alex, through setting up a video link streaming to their friend and neighbour, police officer, Mark's apartment. Although again suffering from lazy writing, the story does have some good moments of comedy, especially whn Alex and his visiting brother get into a scrap, but unfortunately the whole episode falls a bit flat.

I keep telling myself that Whitney is going to get better - and there must be something about it, the ratings in America have seen the season get a full 24 episode order - but this is a series that really does need to improve sooner rather than later.

**

TV Review: Happy Endings - "Dave of the Dead"

Season 1 - Episode 8

E4 (UK)

"Dave of the Dead" is a strange episode of Happy Endings. Produced earlier than it was shown, it's clear that this episode was held back in the order to show stronger episodes first and get the viewers in. In no way is this a bad episode, it's just not as strong as the others in the season.

The plot is yet again split into three strands, as Dave quits his job to start a restaurant (with the most ridiculously convuluted menu in history). Brad is charged with keeping an eye on him and making sure he doesn't do anything stupid. Naturally Brad gets suckered in (and there's a genuinely nice moment when Alex returns her engagement ring to Dave) but in the end sense prevails - and Dave ends up with a fast food cart. It's a start.

Elsewhere, Penny has a new hipster boyfriend, which other than giving a funny scene when the gang are dressed like hipsters, offers very little, and Jane and Max design a series of increasingly ridiculous competitions to find out which one of them would survive a zombie apocalypse. Which is a very funny story.

It's excusable during a comedy's first season for a show to have sloppy episodes, especially when there are some funny moments. Having seen some reviews for the later part of the season, and into the second, I have no doubt that Happy Endings is going to go from strength to strength.

** 1/2