Mon Fio (pic shows creative vapours emanating from band), and The Burning Leaves (pic shows drum)

The Soho Arts Club is a funny little place. It's a bit like a front room in some ways, except a bit grubbier and boozier, but it's a very audience-friendly venue. You even have to almost walk across the stage to attend the Ladies and Gents, and thereby experience 15 seconds of fame.
The crowd last night was peculiar- Mungo Jerry chic seemed to be the order of the day.
I first went to see Mon Fio in Stoke Newington about two years ago. I met someone I knew there- Paul from a band called Daniel Takes a Train, who were around at the same time as Helen and the Horns, and who shared a sax player with us. Paul had heard their sound-check from the street and liked the music so much he'd come in for the gig. So Mon Fio, you do a good sound check!
They started with "I'm in Love with You', which is a song you can sing along to straight away, and which finishes with one of those chords that reminds you of the Beatles. I'm crap at identifying chords as anyone who has ever worked with me will testify, but I'd swear it's the beginning chord of 'Hard Day's Night'.
What a happy band they are! Their lead singer, John, sings about his failed conquests in humorous detail. He has an solemn delivery that is almost spooky when sung over the cocktail pop they play. I'm certain they belong in a parallel universe and have somehow broken through by accident. Last time I saw them I danced so much I threw up, so this time I just sat down to watch, but a little me was still dancing inside.
'Mon Fio', says John, 'We're a band... just like you'. He muses on various things for a while before realising '...we could be playing songs while I'm talking- time is tight!'. Off they go again, hurtling through 'Feeling's Mutual', in which Camberwick Green meets Supertramp. Their songs are like earnest instructions from the Mon Fio Music Book for Grown-Ups, or perhaps something Monsieur Hulot would hum on one of his holidays. The arrangements are actually really sophisticated, and it's lovely to hear a band with vibes. James is a great drummer and Karen ( I think that's what she's called) plays the best sort of bass lines, the sort I would play if I was still a bass player. I do love the band and if I was a millionaire, I'd hire them to play on one of my lawns, perhaps to greet me as I landed my helicopter in the sunshine.
I bought their miniature single. It's in the bottom of my bag and it's dark in there, but I'll find it, play it and tell you what it's like this weekend.

The Burning Leaves were utterly different to Mon Fio. My friend preferred them but I'm such a Fio-fan I couldn't forsake them, although I did really like listening to them. They are not an in-yer-face type of band so you have to listen in to them. Their songs are perfect. The singer has a lovely voice, and the guitarist is really really good- he plays his guitar like a little orchestra, augmented by a tom on the floor with a bass-drum pedal and a tambourine that he does with his feet (the tom has an amazing landscape painted on it, looked like by Poussin- maybe they summoned him up specially). They look like Goths and their songs are ethereal with one foot in the grave and another in a classical pastoral painting, like one by ole pal Poussin, perhaps.
What they did so well was to know exactly how much harmonising to do and how much not to- I was dreading them drifting into Simon-and-Garfunkel type stodge but they deftly avoided it and made an original and fresh sound. They were utterly gracious about the truly dreadful London audience who talked all the way through, although sometimes the music was just so beautiful they had to shut up and listen.