With Halloween traditionally a time for some serious gig going spectaculars, this year's a little bit of a damp squib, what with Marilyn Manson retiring from creeping folks out and concentrating on his new make up range and his Alma Mater, Alice Cooper, not yet in town, it would seem as if we're going to have to keep the Slipknot masks in the drawer for another year. There are some big shows in town......

Help: A Day In The Life Anyone else spend the weekend battling with War Child's servers, trying to download Help: A Day In The Life? Frustrating as it was at times getting on that golden free server, the end result was a mostly satisfying always interesting collection of 22 tracks, recorded and released in just over 24 hours, that will make it's physical appearance in the record racks on the 26th September. Stripped of......

As the country attempts to break the record for the greatest number of non sports fans ever to bunk off work to watch a test match, a bunch of scruffy oiks (a.k.a musicians) are attempting to break another record, that of the fastest album ever recorded. As of midday today a host of bands, wherever they are in the world, entered the studio to record a track (either a new track, reworking or a......

Right, no pithy introductions this week. Let's get straight to the sensuously seductive and dirty as a tramp's trousers Goldfrapp who take to the Brixton stage on Thursday 6th October to support the forthcoming Ooh La La. We're already rubbing our thighs in anticipation. There's also still a chance to catch the Irish Nick Drake, Damien Rice who plays The London Paladium on June 20th. But hurry, tickets're going fast. Fellow troubador Tom McRae......

Many of you fine Londonistas out there will be experiencing the joys of pay day today and what better to do with your new found readies than to purchase of yourselves some fine gig tickets. And we here at Londonist music feel compelled to asist you by pointing you in the direction of a few bands we really like, and a couple we don't. With a date at the Barbican (September 15) still to......