IT'S Independent Venue Week and The Alexandra Beer Emporium is one of Southampton’s official venues for the celebration, which supports independent music venues around the country.

The Alex is hosting four gigs over the week featuring some of the best acts in the area – whilst they also have a highly rated band from Argentina appearing.

Launching the celerbations last night were local act George & the Wildcards who were joined by acoustic hero, Joe McCorriston. Joe is steadily establishing a name for himself and has appeared with the likes of Frank Turner and recently completed a sold out tour with Gaz Brookfield.

Tonight sees Calcium, Calum Lintott, The Deadhounds and Sammy Kettell take to the stage whilst on Friday, Argentinian act, The Otherness will play an intimate show at the venue with Winchester's Blue Canary. The Otherness have been played on BBC Radio 6 Music and championed by the Louder Than War website and perform a diverse range of styles that goes from their own crafted rock’n roll, soul and pop songs, to covering the likes of Nina Simone and James Brown.

On Saturday, local singer songwriter Jimmie Chills joined by The Alaskan Pipeline. Jimmie recently held his album launch at a packed Joiners and has already been picked up by BBC Introducing.

Winchester singer Frank Turner is a champion of the event and said, “Without small, independent venues, there’d be no small, independent bands, and without them there’d be no big acts either; these places are the lifeblood of any music scene, and any music fan should care about them and support Independent Venue Week.”

Entrance to each of The Alex gigs costs £3 (or less) and tickets will be available on the door.