Lovvers at Stag and Dagger The inaugural Stag and Dagger took place last night around Shoreditch, bringing out artists, film makers, and tons of bands. Londonist took on the challenge of trying to determine just how much we could pack into a six hour space. We started our evening early at Black Rat Press to see, appropriately enough, the works of French street artist Blek le Rat (Londonist had the priveledge to see him in......

Here at Londonist we love random foreign pop. Normally it's Scandanavian but French music also has a big place in our hearts. So we're excited to see that this week shouty French popstar Yelle is in town. She's supporting Mika tonight (Tuesday) but screw that - later on this evening she's playing her own gig at Great Eastern Street's Old Blue Last. Now we must warn you but a gig at the Old Blue......

Performance art can be challenging. But we love a challenge and we love The Foundry. So we made the effort to see Astrid Bin’s “Do Your Work”. The deal is this: for 2 weeks you can watch the artist at work. Then you can buy the resulting images, in a 'big everything must go' sale on the evening of the 16th where each piece of work created is on sale for £20. The artist......

Whether you're already a veteran or you're yet to see any of the wonder that is Trapped in the Closet, we can't think of a single better way to recommend spending your Sunday than with a day filled with R Kelly and rap. Unlikely as it may sound R Kelly's musical opera has become something of a worldwide sensation and Londonist can heartily recommend it as a wide-eyed treat. DJ Patchwork Pirates are obviously......

The annual Open House weekend is just around the corner. Over 600 buildings will open doors to the non-paying public on 15-16 September. To make the most of the two days, and avoid the longest queues, it makes sense to plan ahead. You can pick up a brochure form participating libraries, or order online for £4. It’s a small price to pay for an event that requires hundreds of volunteers and puts you face......

There's a yard behindThe Old Blue Last, off Great Eastern Street, that frankly makes our eyes bleed. For anyone on the prowl for weird and wonderful street art (and it's not just us, right?), this is untouchable. Stenciler El Chivo provides the colourful backdrop, flytippers provide the furniture, and the Tate Britain should be providing a Turner Prize. Superb.......

Shoreditch may not have a tube station any more but it still has tube trains. Well... two tube carriages, to be accurate. As with anything in Shoreditch that stands still for more than two minutes, the two tube carriages we mentioned have been taken over by artistic / media types and now sit above Great Eastern Street like gritty urban guardian angels, keeping a watchful, graffiti-covered eye over the designer / media types going about......

Last night two secret gigs took place and we're feeling more than grumpy that we weren't there. For starters the Arctic Monkeys played a tiny secret gig at Shoreditch's Old Blue Last pub on Great Eastern Street. A warm up for their Canadian tour this was the first gig where new bassist Nick O'Malley performed as part of the band replacing original member Andy Nicholson who is missing from the tour due to fatigue......

Friday: Raucous angular noise makers The Victorian English Gentlemen's Club who are neither Victorian, nor English (they're Welsh), nor Gentlemen (two of the guys are girls), but apart from that the name fits, play the 333 Club (333 Old Street) with Performance. Sunday: If The Pipettes don't start returning our phone calls, we're going to have to start stalking Lucky Soul instead. Which means you may find a number of us low knuckled Londonistas......

Apparently the people at Vice magazine (you remember...we were talking about them only yesterday) have gone and bought themselves a pub. According to reports the magazine has managed to acquire The Old Blue Last on the corner of Great Eastern Street and Curtain road (and round the corner from the Vice offices obviously). So now that all the former-Seventies footballers are retiring from the pub trade, could this be the start of a new......