Everything but the Girl News

I am woken by the alarm clock. I make a cuppa for Tracey and check some overnight e-mails: a demo from a Russian deep house producer, a photo of an Icelandic songwriter I have been courting and some Viagra and mortgage advice.

Euro Tracks His board-short days behind him, onetime smooth-house DJ Andy Caldwell toughens up his sound There must be something in the water in European clubland these days that's turning otherwise straight-and-narrow DJs into twisted, devious party monsters.

Ben Watt is one half of Everything But The Girl, the pop group he co-founded with his wife, Tracey Thorn, in the 1990s.

Ben Watt easily could have ended up an '80s relic or a '90s footnote . Thanks to his ear for house, he's ended up with a DJ career, his own Buzzin' Fly record label, a rabid fan base, and back-to-back gigs at Cielo.

Ben Watt has had one of the more unusual journeys in the annals of DJ success. As one half of pop act Everything But The Girl, he had much more mainstream fame than almost anyone could achieve in club-land. But as the duo followed its muse toward electronic elements in the late 1990s, Watt found his way to the turntables.

La Roux aren't the only English synth-pop import to set the blogs ablaze this year, but they're definitely the most tuneful: On their hit-at-home debut, singer Elly Jackson and programmer Ben Langmaid sound like Temperamental -era Everything but the Girl , minus the big-city sadness.

After being engaged for the last 27 years , Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn of Everything But the Girl fame finally decided to tie the knot.

NICHOLAS BARBER There are many reasons why pop groups might re-form. But let's face it, there's really only one reason why pop groups do re-form - and that's to top up their pension funds.

At the Bookslam series in London, the poet Roger Robinson reads from his new collection, "Suckle." LONDON Bookslam, a monthly event that takes place in west Londona s trendy Notting Hill neighbourhood, is a book club with a difference.

Electric Zoo Festival: While this may sound like an animatronic wonderland of motorized animals, Electric Zoo is the new Labor Day weekend gathering of electronic musicians at the 24-acre Randall's Island Park on the East River between Manhattan and Queens.

Released by San Francisco groove merchants Ubiquity almost a decade ago, Puracane's debut Things You Should Leave Alone was an interesting if oddly timed proposition.