Kitten Painting

The way you are sends the shivers to my head. Fave Tunes April / May 2011

2011-06-24T15:03:00.007+01:00

Record Shop - Help Stamp Out Loneliness Sparkling spiralling pop anthemness

You Can Take A Heart But You Cannot Make It Beat - Hong Kong In The 60s Especially for the woozly bass

Mazes - Moon Duo HAPPY! Crunchy-drone dreaminess

Precarious Stair - Crystal Stilts It’s not really big or clever to try and be The Velvet Underground, but it is big and clever to sound like Crash being The Velvet Underground

Drone - Panda Bear Heart-twisting

Are You Watching – Hintermas Like Soft Hearted Scientists playing during the Programmes For Schools countdown clock

18 Hours Of Love – KXP Raahhh! Alvin Stardust takes steroids and gets kosmichely funky

He Gets Me High - Dum Dum Girls FuzzeeEE! And reminds me of Beat Happening / Screaming Trees song ‘Polly Pereguin’

Surfer’s Hymn – Panda Bear Makes you have kaleidoscope ears

9 Million Rainy Days – The Jesus & Mary Chain Had an urge to listen to ‘Darklands’ again after seeing this: http://sweetshops.tumblr.com/ And fell in love with this song all over.

Tender Trap / The Garden City Projects Band – 30 April 2011, Filthy McNastys

2011-05-15T12:17:00.005+01:00

My Autumn Almanac, a night put on by The Garden City Projects Band, always has excellent fliers. I am easily won over by a tasty graphic, as I am by a night promising good bands playing in a friendly pub, but somehow I keep missing My Autumn Almanac happenings – they’re rather below the radar, so I’m mighty pleased tonight’s outing at Filthy McNasty’s has come to my attention.

The barman at Filthy McNastys has been meaning to try out the new Strawberry and Lime flavour Kopparberg cider. Tonight he gets his chance when we order a bottle each and he helps himself to a wee taster, ‘You don’t mind if I try some do you?’ Unfortunately, he declares it delicious and decides he may have a new alcoholic obsession on its way. As we’re engaging in this impromptu cider tasting, Tender Trap are soundchecking in the other room. They do a song with a bassline that is exactly ‘Gimme Some Lovin’ which makes us snigger. It isn’t ‘Gimme Some Lovin’ though, later when we hear it all properly we find it’s a stampy, groovy new Tender Trap song, one of a few unleashed tonight.

The band are having to play in a slightly quieter, less fuzzed up mode, but they still make a glorious bounce off the walls shake your imaginary tambourine buzzpop noise. During ‘2 to the N’ the momentum of the song builds into a shining wall of blissful sound and my head goes ‘Wooh!’ and almost bursts like a pop bubble. Another new song is written from the point of view of the boy (or girl or transgender person as Amelia points out for equality purposes) in ‘Train From Kansas City’ - a brilliantly obvious idea for a pop song, as all the best ideas usually are.

Emily of Betty and The Werewolves has taken over from Elizabeth Allo Darlin’ on guitar, adding a gleeful smiley energy, and, along with stand up drummer Katrina, some heart-whizzing scuffed up girl group harmonies.

As ever the band are endearingly entertaining, Amelia tells us she once played in a band with Paddy, The Garden City Projects Band drummer – when they were at school. Imagine!

The Garden City Projects Band are beatnik suburbia new town modernists with hairy leanings who purvey bright folk-bossa-pop with irresistible tunes and lashings of mandolin. A sound not a million miles from The Memory Band’s lush clockwork bucolia. In their words The GCPB play ‘rural sounds for the city’, and their mix of song titles suggests this merging of styles; ‘Winter Solstice Morning’ versus ‘With Love From The Stafford Cripps Estate’ (my fave). After a set glinting with hints of a brighter world, the band close with sway-along stormer ‘Hey Myfanwy’ and we wake from floating on folky tributaries of tune to find ourselves in Central London, and not at The Eel’s Foot Inn circa 1968.

Hong Kong In The 60s / The Sunny Street – 27 April 2011, The Social

2011-05-15T12:10:00.004+01:00

Huzzah! We are at a Sonic Cathedral night and Hong Kong In The 60s are launching their debut album. This is exciting as HK60s do interesting things like collaborating on a Ghost Box Study Series seven inch with The Advisory Circle, supporting The High Llamas, and releasing intriguing e.p.s that feature the sound of hospital ward jazz cocktail parties. They also have a selection of delicately constructed mind-stroking tunes.

Unfortunately their album ‘My Fantoms’ hasn’t actually been released in time for this launch, so we can’t get our hands on it. However, we do get a free mix cd and some tasty Chinese sweets – behold the White Rabbit!

We also get to enjoy visuals courtesy of a HK60s-chosen DVD flickering in the corner of the room. It’s giallo ‘triumph’ ‘Hatchet For A Honeymoon’ in all its stylish gory glory. It’s also a highly inappropriate backdrop to the sweet-heartedly elegant sounds of The Sunny Street. Whilst they swathe us in blossom-scented dream-pop behind them a man in bridal drag wields a bloody post-murder hatchet. Incongruous!

The Sunny Street are three boys with guitars, a backing track and Delphine up front whispering sherbet vocals over Acid House Kings style bossa-indie. When they woosh and build, guitars a-twangle it’s like New Order gone all continental and Goddard-ish or The Radio Dept having a sun dappled picnic.

Hong Kong In The 60s channel vintage Chinese pop, the otherworldly tones of Broadcast, unsettling film soundtracks (hence the giallo shenanigans) and a hint of kosmiche through a selection of cranky keyboards. Mei Yau sings in a wistful tone and they flood the room with contemplative, slightly melancholic hypnagogic dust motes of sound. The best bits are when Tim and Chris throw in some harmonies allowing the songs to flourish, and when Tim adds twangly, gooey bass bumping up the driftyness into something almost funky in a ‘Long Hot Summer’ sort of way (‘You Can Take A Heart But You Cannot Make It Beat’).

We spend an enjoyable time, lulled by the sleepy electronic atmospherics, peeking into the cabinets of curiosity that are HK60s songs. By the end of the set there’s a general air of thanks for the sweets, can we have the album now please?

P.S. Yes we can have the album now please. It is out!

hongkonginthe60s.bandcamp.com/album/my-fantoms

2011-04-14T09:17:00.004+01:00

Excellent piece on the C86 cassette over at The Quietus, once agian patiently explaining that no it wasn't all jangly in them days:

thequietus.com/articles/05828-c86-and-all-that

Also, from the Comments, a memory that rings true:
"God yeah, Stump. The sound of Friday tea-times of the mid-80s, trying to see how long your Dad would let you watch The Tube until his patience snapped."
Ha ha!

Help Stamp Out Loneliness - Help Stamp Out Loneliness (WIAIWYA / Papillons Noir)

2011-04-06T09:33:00.005+01:00

Woo! A real whizz of excitement when I open up the jiffy bag and discover I’ve been sent the debut by Help Stamp Out Loneliness. Gig ubiquitous a couple of years ago, the band have been off the radar for a bit, but their songs stayed in my head the whole time, infectious tunes flashing out of my memory at random moments, sparkling bright, making me smile. It’s great to see them back, especially with this beautifully honed album.

You know the way you’re always hoping a record will hit pop highs? When you’re waiting for that point when the music flicks that switch inside you that transforms the world… and then often it never quite works? This record flicks that switch and hits those highs. Soaring, sky-high, above the clouds just laughing down at it raining kind of pop highs. It’s a brilliant Spring into Summer record - big, optimistic sounds, shining guitars, swooning synths, shivery keyboards and singer D. Lucille’s swooping Nico voice dipping and swerving, dragging your heart in its slipstream.

Soaring opener ‘Cottonopolis + Promises’ has echoes of Blondies’ ‘Dreaming’, a good touchstone for the band’s sound, not because they’re a female fronted band (duh! there are also two keyboarding women in the band, thanks) but because this is effortless, ageless pop music.

‘Record Shop’ is a ready-made classic, you can’t help but stop and let yourself get magicked away in its big pop sound, imagining the future you rushing to the dance floor with a whoop as the first chords kick in.

Help Stamp Out Loneliness are a cut above yer average guitars-bit-of-keyboards-for variety schmindie band, there’s an ambitious sheen about the songs. ‘Cellophane’ has a bumpy-funk rhythm, its serpentine tune wrapped in huskily piping fairground organ. ‘S-W-I-M’ gleams and shimmers and winks from a darkened corner where it’s flirting with The Cure. ‘Palma Violence’ menaces in the sleekest, most twinkly way and ‘My Window’ goes all wide-screen with sandpapery guitar wibbling and sighing backing vocals.

The twelve songs here whirl you along with a rush and a push of powerful pop momentum, like taking a dozen rollercoaster rides one after the other. Which isn’t to say there’s no breathing space here, the music is expansive and luxurious. It’s enthusiastic and joyful. I hope that’s how the band feel about the record because that’s what comes across and that’s how it makes me feel.

P.S. 'Record Shop' is being released as a free download to celebrate Record Shop Day on April 16th. Support your local record shop innit? Links below:

www.myspace.com/helpstampoutloneliness

www.wiaiwya.com

www.brokenheartfoundation.org.uk/papillonsnoirs

Once a time I took to melody and drank it every night. Fave Tunes January / February 2011

2011-04-05T14:12:00.003+01:00

Always On My Mind – Reading Rainbow Sugary JAMC droney indie girlpop

Until Then – Broadcast For remembering Trish to

Hotel Shampoo – Gruff Rhys The whole album is an aural swoon

Pure Radio Cosplay – And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead Hurtling pop-prog hardcore

Apples - Memory Band Wistful, rolling English country-folk

Hall Of Bright Carvings - Titus Groan I have been reading Mervyn Peake’s triology recently – how great to find an olde prog record all obsessed with Gormenghast.

Cave Dance – Jonny Glam goes kosmiche

Ghosts – The Memory Band Sunset droney harmonium-lovely folk

So High - Ringo Deathstarr American shoegaze band plunders ‘Strawberry Wine E.P.’ non-shock

1000 Years – The Coral Scousers crash land in Laurel Canyon

I Shall Leave You There - Sproatly Smith Clockwork folk drifting in the aether

Sing-along-a-Wickerman I cannot resist the opportunity to jam an ivy wreath on my head and belt out the Maypole Song (with actions). Hurrah to Night of the Long Swords for putting this on.

The Loves Retirement Party, 13 February 2011, The Lexington

2011-02-20T19:29:00.009Z

My name is Kitten Painting and I have seen The Loves 31 times. I’m not sure how this happened, but I’m glad it did. It’s been a rum old 11 years, but now it is all coming to an end. The Loves are retiring with a POP!

Simon has handpicked the bands for today’s retirement party extravaganza, and I reckon if you smooshed them all together in some kind of musical super collider you might end up with a sort of Frankingstein’s monster version of The Loves.

For starters there are The Werewandas who tout bouffanty quiffs and familiar faces (familiar in our micro world of popular song, anyway) whilst playing some toe-tappin’ rockabilly. A stompin’ly cheery beginning.

Mick Travis aka Jamie once of Tompaulin plays a solo acousto set mainly made up of old Tompaulin songs (‘Ballad Of The Boot Boys’, ‘My Life At The Movies’, ‘It’s A Girl’s World’, ‘Slender’ – wow!) in which he sings both boy and girl vocals, attacks his guitar with passion and reminds us how ace the band were. The songs give me flashbacks to a Track And Field happening at The Scala in 2001 which included Tompaulin and The Loves. It’s confusing feeling nostalgic for the recent past.

A raw blast of garage from The Vinyl Stitches gets us on our feet, shaking to their heavy blues take on the freakbeat sound. They have great hair and a bloodcurdling selection of throat-scratching howls and also a bit of a technical hitch during which the DJ plays The Cramps and Love’s ‘My Little Red Book’. You’d think it might be a bit intimidating having to kick-start a conked out set in the face of such fine garage sounds from the vaults, but The Vinyl Stitches sandblast their way through their second half with such power that you can’t even see the join.

Next: Pocketbooks, the sound of young(ish) indiepop London. They wield a fistful of new songs and take us on a cheery canter round some old faves. They’re a refreshing pop burst that’s most welcome at this point in proceedings as we are starting to go a bit mental and have taken to wearing ‘hiphop glasses’.

If you aren’t charmed by The Lovely Eggs then you have gone wrong. They’re playing fast, we’re told, ‘cos they haven’t had their teas yet, racing through a set that displays a selection of wonky wares from their fine new album ‘Cob Dominos’. There’s the ferocious sing-song of opener, ‘People Are Twats’, a fleeting medley consisting of ‘Muhammed Ali and All His Friends’ / ‘I’m A Journalist’ (“I’m a journalist up your arse!”), and the brilliant Chigley hardcore of ‘Why Don’t You Like Me’ about how girls shouldn’t be girlfriends of blokes in bands, but should be IN bands. (“I said you get on your bike and I beggared off on tour”). Holly’s between song chat is sweet and hilarious and at odds with her deranged, hair flying, corrosive guitar attacks. David grins and grins and batters the drums and adds all important counter-points to Holly’s words. The Lovely Eggs make you want to eat jelly and ice-cream, jump up and down, shout along (“Look at ‘im with ‘is sausage roll thumb!”), and then give them a great big hug.

The School treat us to a selection of Loves songs and are heckled from the sidelines by The Loves themselves. The likes of ‘That Boy Is Mine’ and ‘She’ll Break Your Heart’ are bubblegum girl-grouped to within an inch of their pop lives. Je T’aime Baby’ becomes almost kosmiche, whilst Simon and Jenna Love can’t resist the urge to rush onto the stage to sing backing vocals and indulge in a little waltz. Sweet.

Comet Gain hold it together and fly through a rambunctious set. In Kaye’s absence, Jon Slade takes up a tiny pink bass and Ben Phillipson, who seems to be filling the role of CG odd-job man at the moment, does guitar. The fabulous ‘The Fists In The Pocket’ sees an outbreak of (3) people doing idiot dancing down the front, sparking looks of bemusement/disdain on Feck’s fuzzy face. There’s the rowdy anxiety attack of ‘Working Circle Explosive’ and then a long discussion about what extra song to play as the band have finished their set with time to spare (surely a first). This discussion is so long it takes up most of the extra time, but hurrah! ‘My Defiance’ eventually gets blurted out. To end, Feck throws a bunch of his old home-made mix CDs into the crowd, a generous gesture considering he had been toying with selling them for 50p each in order to ‘get Comet Gain drunk’.

And now, the end is near. The Loves stride the stage for the final time. Simon has changed into a spiffy red ‘n’ black combo and, befitting the gravitas of the evening, a toy Kermit* clings to his shoulder.

There’s a jovial sense of occasion amongst the crowd, it’s sad that it couldn’t always be like this. ‘Sweet Sister Delia’ is dedicated to everyone’s favourite drumming, strumming, hand-stampin’ lady (and one-time Love). Simon gets all embarrassed about singing ‘Motherfuckers’ in front of his girlfriend’s mum. Sean Price is Jesus. At least that’s what ‘It’s… The End Of The World’ would have you believe as the sheet-clad Fortuna Pop-man guest-stars as our Saviour for the song. There’s a succession of tunes new and old, ‘I Want Love And Affection…’, ‘Bubblegum’, ‘WTF?’, ‘Coca Cola’, ‘Can You Feel My Heart Beat’…every one’s a winner. Guitars are turned down in order that we might hear and savour the added string section (courtesy of A Little Orchestra) on ‘December Boy’. We can’t really hear them, but it’s the thought that counts.

It’s always been the thought that counts with The Loves (in a good way), you could never accuse them of being indie-of-ambition (feather-clad dancing girls, Doug Yule guesting on the new album, the afore-mentioned Jesus, moustaches! capes!!), Simon has always chewed up and spat out a whole wide range of influences which made The Loves much more than just 60s fetishists, or swinging Carnaby Street historical re-enactors. And Simon’s love of rock ‘n’ roll has always been tempered by an all important sense of the absurd (the man’s a top onstage quipper). This is why I loved The Loves. Tunes! Fun! Drink! Chaos! More Tunes!

The band segues neatly into ‘You Give A Little Love’ from the Bugsy Malone soundtrack (a tune that maybe hasn’t been aired since the end of The Loves mk I at Pow! To The People 2004), and we sing our little hearts out. It seems like this should be the finale, but the last Loves song is ‘Little Girl Blues’, we dance our little toes off to what was The Loves first single. What goes around comes around. R.I.P. The Loves.

*I remember in the 80s when these Kermits were all the rage amongst the kids. I really wanted one, but instead I had a fake one that came from a fairground. It was the wrong colour green. And wasn’t Kermit, just a furry frog.

Trish Keenan

2011-01-17T16:22:00.008Z

Last Friday afternoon I learned the devastating news that Trish Keenan of Broadcast had passed away earlier in the day. I haven’t felt so distraught at the death of someone I don’t know personally since John Peel died. On the bus early Saturday morning, I listened to ‘The Noise Made By People’ again. As with all of Broadcast’s albums, I played it and played it when it came out, but haven’t listened to it for a while. The drifting, gently otherworldly songs matched exactly with my view of headlights smudging the twilight and London landmarks looming out of the murky grey morning. When ‘Come On Let’s Go’ came on, something about the way Trish sings the word ‘go’- her ‘Hello children everywhere’ singing voice cut with a hint of Brummie – was really upsetting, really brought home the fact that she’s gone.

I’ve been listening to Broadcast a lot the last couple of years, their last release, in conjunction with The Focus Group, ‘Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age’ was utterly perfect, from the sleeve art to the incidental found sounds to the esoteric influences of the songs, and the accompanying hauntological videos, it seemed to chime with my current interests, and Trish seemed to embody all that was intriguing about the record. I don’t have many ‘role models’, but Trish was one, a woman with a real fascination for and love of odd and obscure musics. Interviews with her and Broadcast partner James Cargill would reveal a rich seam of interesting records, films, books and artists I could then go and investigate. Even better were the Broadcast Radio Mixes the pair put together, full of weird and wonderful Library music, Radiophonic clips, spectral folk, curious electronica etc. Earphones in, I could walk around in a world haunted by Broadcast’s charity shop, crate digging finds. It was great to see a woman fully immersed in what’s usually seen as a geeky bloke’s universe. Women can be geeky about music too. And Trish managed to be geeky and look cool at the same time, her style mutating from second-hand 60s dresses to priestess of a beat coven. Last year I couldn’t resist buying a dress that was on sale in a musty ‘vintage’ shop on Holloway road. I thought of it as my ‘Broadcast dress’ because it looked like something Trish might wear.

Lately, I had been eagerly awaiting a new Broadcast album, excited to find out what path the band might take next, wondering whether they’d explore further the experimental territory they mapped out during the improvised first half of their 2010 Ether Festival performance. I’m so glad I got to see this, their last London show, it was the kind of concert that thoroughly absorbs, takes you on a journey, so that when it ends you look about blinking, feeling like you’ve woken from a lucid dream. I’m going to keep with me the image of Trish, abandoning her table of analogue synths for one song to take centre stage, singing in her pure, soothing voice, gliding backwards and forwards whilst a monster projection of her shadow veered across the back wall, the mesmerising focus of the ritual.

The Loves / Standard Fare / Evans the Death, 4 January 2011, The Lexington

2011-01-08T16:22:00.009Z

Ah the Winter Sprinter. Remember this Track and Field curated annual gathering of schmindie-minded folks? It wasn’t just the usual London gits snuffling their way into the New Year with a bit of beer quaffing and band scrutinising, but people making a right proper effort from up North and that (all hail the couple who came down from the outer reaches of the Scottish Highlands in order to see Herman Dune or some such and who looked at us in disgust when we said we couldn’t be arsed travelling as far as Kilburn). It was an ace annual lark wasn’t it? Well here we are again at (Not) The Track and Field Winter Sprinter. Fortuna Pop! have proudly taken up the first-thing-in-Jan-pop-fest baton and are waving it excitably in our Christmas-dulled faces. Yay! But also Gah! Headliners Shrag have had to cancel due to illness. But then again Hurrah! we get to see a band we ain’t seen before instead.

That band is Evans The Death who are all v. young. Look at their little fresh faces – the bastards. They play a crackling selection of popmental songs, with Katherine’s loop the loopy, sweetly gulpy voice the cherry on their wonky cake of tune. Topically, for Katherine has the sniffles, they play 'Catch Your Cold' “for anyone who’s had flu or a cold in the last month” (i.e. everyone). Then there’s ‘Morning Voice’ in which Katherine displays the opposite of a morning voice - not at all croaky and grumpy, but swoopy and catching on little hooks. Meanwhile there are two lots of guitars going clang-a-lang-a lang-a in a whizz-your-heart-up-in-a-blender jangling way, plus a lot of young person’s hair to marvel at. One guitarist has Douglas Hart’s old JAMC hair. The drummer has that sweepy hair that boys have, (a style described, brilliantly, on Achewood as ‘a sideways, microwaved Byrds wig’). The bass player is magnificently gingery of mop. They also have a song called 'A Small Child Punched Me In The Face'. Good one.

Standard Fare charge through their set at a lightning pace so singer Emma can catch her train. We feel bad about detaining them with all our selfish listening to their songs and watching them play and stuff, they were expecting to be first on the bill and out of here by now, so their haste is forgivable. In my head I sort of know I like Standard Fare, but every time I see them I’m always thrilled by just how ace their songs are. Emma’s voice, with its tiny throat-catchy crack, is just the right kind of slightly hurt-sounding. Smiley-faced guitar-strangler Danny is always a joy to behold as he cheerily coaxes out tricksy melodies and skewed chords. A race through the Long Blondish ‘Fifteen’ and they’re done. Bye, then.

This may be NOT! The Track and Field Winter Sprinter, but the T&F spirit is kept aglow by the presence of Mr Paul Wright in the DJ Overlord’s box. He plays some fine rippin’ tunes, from The Bodines ‘Therese’ to a big old chunk of Nuggets garage, so the between bands sounds make for mighty fine listening too.

It seems that the people who say this kind of thing are suddenly all going ‘Oh I think I like The Loves now’ after many years of barely concealed indifference. Well it’s too late ‘cos the band have nearly finished their ‘career’ for good. We are pleased to have been witnessing their spectacle in all its myriad forms since they started. Tonight we get The Loves in competent yet entertaining mode with Simon Love and his moustache playing ringmaster to the band’s rock ‘n’ roll circus. There are tracks from their new album mixed with old faves like ‘Xs and Os’ plus added mid-set horseplay in celebration of drummer Jonny’s birthday. Tonight, being a school night, The Loves line-up does not include singer Jenna, so the lady voice sections go to Alice who gets to sing the foot-stampingly catchy ‘That Boy Is Mine’ as well as swinging her shiny locks o’er her keyboard.

On 'It's...The End Of The World', the part of Jesus (yes) is played on the album by a real-life Velvet Undergroundman Doug Yule. Here, tonight, on Pentonville Road, the part is played by the aforementioned Paul Wright who has the good grace to stand on stage like a goon until he is required to say his lines. This messianic role is initially offered to Bob Underexposed, but he declines to creep the boards for some reason (sanity?) As ever The Loves live experience is a thoroughly enjoyable bubblegum beat happening. Sadly, chances to witness it are rapidly running out.

Comet Gain / The Loft / Veronica Falls, 5 January 2011, The Lexington

2011-01-08T16:21:00.007Z

Night two of NOT!! The Track and Field Winter Sprinter and, unlike last night, the Lex is packed early doors. There’s a noticeable contingent of hipster kidz, perhaps here for Veronica Falls, a band who have managed to endear themselves both to the oldsters - by sounding like bands did when the oldsters were youngsters - and to the youth by cleverly being young and presumably cool (who knows what’s cool with the kids apart from showing your pants/bum area?)

Veronica Falls begin by singing acapella three part harmonies that are all lovelee, folky, roses-and-morning-dew-ish before they get ripped into with a beat, beat smash colourburst of feisty popness. Those harmonies continue throughout the set, buzzing around the jangling guitars and bumpy drums, they’re one of the things that set VF apart from your usual jangle, smash, lalala indiepop thing and makes them extra special.

All of their songs are fabulous; Beachy Head, Stephen, Found Love In A Graveyard, have a nervy, rumbly vibe like Beat Happening running down a hill. Classic pop tunes of our time forming before our very eyes! There are covers, too but they don’t quite have the Veronica Falls pop-kick of their own songs, fewer layers of sound maybe? It’s still good to hear ‘What Goes On’ though, as it reminds me how this used to be my fave Velvets song and how we used to wig out to it at the Basement in Brighton (RIP). That’s the problem with VU covers, it’s always nice to hear ‘em, but never as good as hearing the originals. We get another cover, ‘Starry Eyes’ by Roky Erickson which works better as it’s further removed from the original and more um, Veronica-y with its rattley tambourine-topped drums and twinklingly strummy dual guitars.

Each time I see this band they seem to have flourished further, and as this set comes to a close, I’m already looking forward to my next Veronica Falls gig – their fabness seems to be increasing exponentially.

The Loft's Pete Astor is apparently an academic these days, and he certainly looks the part, in hip-prof glasses. Happily he and his fellow Loft men attack their back catalogue with ferocity, showing that old geezers with old songs can still be vital and relevant and not dull old liven-up-granddads searching for their glory days. Astor and Andy Strickland’s guitars crackle. It all goes a tad mid-tempo in the middle, but never mind ‘cos here comes ‘Why Does The Rain’ whee! I love this song and drift into a haze of ‘ooh it’s 1986 blimey!’ jangle-dreams. The old-faves-ometer is revved up further for set-closer ‘Up The Hill And Down The Slope’ which is fleet and firey and sets Comet Gain to dancing in the corner and waving their brollies in the air like they just don’t care. Which they don’t…

Sean Fortuna Pop has given Comet Gain weak beer in an attempt to keep them sober long enough for them to ‘headline’. I’m not sure that ruse has worked so well as they amble on and, by way of an introduction, David Feck sings a rambling stream of (un)consciousness in an amusingly feeble meandering voice…but then they’re off speeding into ‘Say Yes! To International Socialism’. Woo! Comet Gain are never less than highly entertaining even if they barely play a note, but when the songs come whooshing in like this and you’re caught up in their righteous, indignant flow there’s little that can touch them. Of course there’s plenty of dipshit arsing about in between songs, at one point Feck is tortuously tuning up until Jon Slade decides, “That’s good enough for this song”.

There have been murmurings about how Comet Gain are an odd choice of headliner, which Feck addresses by comparing the evening to an episode of ‘Come Dine With Me’. We’ve had the exciting starter of Veronica Falls – ‘scallops and er, kiwi fruit’, then the delicious roast dinner main course of The Loft and now the ‘disappointing dessert’ of Comet Gain, like ‘custard with skin on’.

But then there’s ‘The Fists In The Pocket’ making your stomach rollercoaster and your ears pop, and Ben Phillipson coming along to add vocal harmonies and the whole set sounding scratchy and angry and punk scuffed.

The audience shouts out for ‘Movies’ to be played as an encore, to Feck’s consternation as he can’t remember the chords. The band starts playing anyhoo leading to some very amusing non-remembrance of chords irritation where Feck keeps hissing at the band to stop playing and they ignore him. Eventually the right chords find their way back into Feck’s brain and out of his fingers and the song grows and warps, morphing into, amongst other things, ‘Mr Pharmacist’ until it is finally laid to rest. Feck miraculously manages to do a sort of outro to proceedings sung in the same wavering voice in which he began. Poetic symmetry.

Albums of 2010

2011-01-01T19:08:00.004Z

Teatime Favourites – Betty And The Werewolves

Everything And More – Dolly Mixture

Phosphene Dream – The Black Angels

Mind How You Go (Revised edition) – The Advisory Circle

Cursed! - The Specific Heats

Rough Trade Shops Psych Folk 10 – Various

Voice Of The Seven Thunders - Voice Of The Seven Thunders

Halcyon Digest – Deerhunter

Before Today - Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti

Innerspeaker - Tame Impla

Steeple - Wolf People

Skit I Allt - Dungen

Life! Death! Prizes! – Shrag

I Will Be - Dum Dum Girls

Shadows – Teenage Fanclub

Dream Get Together – Citay

Crazy For You – Best Coast

Celeste – The Soundcarriers

Places - Hong Kong In The 60s (download for free! at Bandcamp hongkonginthe60s.bandcamp.com)

My voice is quiet but my thoughts are loud. Fave Tunes Nov/Dec 2010

2010-12-30T19:04:00.001Z

Shake The Shackles – Crystal Stilts Excellently titled mopey garage

One By One From Dorney Reach - Wolf People Led Zep monstrousness

Bright Lit Blue Skies – Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti Sounds like the title says. Also sounds like SFA

Exploring The Landscape - Hong Kong In The 60s A 70s childhood car journey as spring turns to summer

Icy Lakes – Surf City Doesn’t sound that icy, but does sound like Echo And The Bunnymen trying to be Deerhunter

Goodbye - Best Coast Singsong bratty cuteness with good thumpy drums and the line, ‘I wish my cat could talk’

Silbury Sands – Wolf People If you don’t feel the need to headbang to this you are very wrong

Write About Love - Belle And Sebastian A v. groovy beat tune

Sophie Softly - Gruff Rhys Sugary folk-pop-sike, “She breakfasted on orange flakes and purple pop”

No Strength - The Cavalcade Summer days gentle popiness then fab fizzing fuzz bit mysteriously appears

Mirrors – Crocodiles For the very exciting Krautrocking intro

Gruff Rhys / H. Hawkline – 26 November 2010, Toynbee Studios

2010-12-20T18:19:00.018Z

We haven’t been to Toynbee Hall since the beloved Arts Café, scene of many a top pop happening, was closed. So it’s weird to find that our former groovy gig place is now merely the bar in which us Gruff Rhys ‘aficionados’ are expected to gather as we await the opening of the doors that lead into Toynbee Studios and tonight’s show. It’s even more of a surprise to find that beyond those doors there’s this really nice little theatre, with red velvet chairs and a big stage and everything. Was this hidden gem lurking back here all those times we crammed ourselves into the Arts Café defying health and safety and the fire officer?

We settle in our seats for the support band H. Hawkline, who include alongside Mr H himself, Sweet Baboo on bass. Due to not setting out for the gig until quite late they have opted not to bring a keyboard with them, so we are treated to a scuffed and garagey set. The whole caboodle is endearingly, eccentricly groovy, but the stand out song is ‘Hells Bells’ with its Jonathan Richman vocals, Velvets at their crunchy garage-iest chug, deeply fuzzy guitar AND a false ending.

Burbling away half to himself, clad in a ‘Christmas jumper’ that only he could make alluring, Gruff Rhys’ solo show essentially involves watching a loveable eccentric pottering about in his shed. Spread before him is a table full of gizmos to be employed in piecing together his fine array of songs.

Before he gets to play with his toys, we get an utterly sweet-hearted set played on acoustic guitar. This consists of tracks from first album ‘Yr Atal Genhedlaeth' and songs from the forthcoming ‘Hotel Shampoo’ and is kicked off with the introduction “This song accompanied the genocide scene in a film I was involved with.” There is plenty of this skew-whiff dead-panning throughout the evening. As anyone who’s managed to decipher his on-stage announcements with Super Furries will attest, Rhys is not just a brilliantly creative musician and a pretty face, he’s a bone-dry wit as well.

Amongst the new tracks we get; ‘the first song I’ve written with the word ‘Poland’ in it’; the short and incredibly sweet bubblegum psych-folk of ‘Sophie Softly’, and the cutely funky ‘Sensations In The Dark’. For the latter, Rhys shuffles along the stage to a dark spot to demonstrate a keyboard with keys that light-up. The lighting man misguidedly illuminates him, so Gruff sweetly asks for the lights to be turned down again, “Er, excuse me, I was trying to get into the dark”. This keyboard of wonderment, we are told, also features a rhythm track that sounds like 'Gangster's Paradise' by Coolio. For the purposes of the song, it gets sped up. The adorable, shivery single ‘Shark Ridden Waters’ becomes an entirely different beast played acoustically with just a one note drone from a er, droney box as accompaniment, eerie and wistful.

The first half of the set over, Rhys settles down at the table amongst the bird song albums, children’s percussion instruments, LED drumsticks, decks, metronome and other unidentified noise-making implements to introduce us to his ‘chat show’ entitled ‘Resist Phoney Encores’. The first guest (accompanied by his own ‘theme song’ as Rhys slaps a seven inch onto a turntable), is Sweet Baboo singing ‘Twelve Carrots of Love’ in his inimitable cracked country way.

Next guest, introduced with a spot of Krautrock as her theme tune, is Lisa Jen. She ices frosty clear vocals over “Lonesome Words”, managing to make a simple song with acoustic guitar, metronome and Rhys’ singing into something ethereally beautiful. Jen stays to add her voice to a selection of tunes from Candylion; a brief clap-along assault on 'Gyrru Gyrru Gyrru' a toe-tapping ‘Court Of King Arthur’. The latter, “A song about archaeology, even though I know nothing about it”, gets a reprise when a Scottish voice pipes up from the audience, “Can you play that one again? I was in the toilet”. Gruff obliges with ‘the best bit’ from the middle section of the song and the Scottish bloke is appeased, “Thanks!”

Rhys makes an attempt at a new song, ‘If We Were Words (We Would Rhyme)’ which he forgot to play during the first half. Jen is encouraged to beat time on a tambourine, but reveals she has never ‘played drums’ apart from when a friend taught her to play the opening to a Faith No More song (she demonstrates this with a bit of air drumming). The song doesn’t get far before Rhys falters, Jen asks, ‘Am I putting you off?’ and the song is abandoned. Happily it makes an appearance later in the encore and is well worth the wait, a lilting, bittersweet waltz.

‘Cycle Of Violence’ ends with Rhys sampling and looping his own voice, singing harmonies with himself so that the song floats on a layer of vocal drones. These are topped off with a trademark Rhys scream – also sampled into the mix but its inclusion kept mercifully brief – the guy can sing sweetly, but he sure can holler too.

The room frequently fills with laughter at Rhys’ gnomic comments, there’s obviously a lot of affection for him and his music (with a few sprinklings of lust). This is the happiest, friendliest gig I’ve been to for a long time. And I’ve been to Indietracks.

The final encore sees Rhys joined by all his guests to play Kevin Ayres’ nursery-rhyme-like 'Religious Experience (Singing a Song in the Morning)', its refrain pretty much sums up our evening, “Don’t even know what I’m singing about, but it makes me feel I feel alright.”

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart / 14 Iced Bears / The Zebras – 2 December 2010, 229 The Venue

2010-12-10T12:27:00.016Z

It’s flippin’ freezing out, but a cockle-warming bill of indiepop delights awaits us at ULU-ish place 229 The Venue, which turns out to have a neck-achingly high stage and an exciting /dusty netherworld beneath that stage which we discover upon lifting the little curtain that hides it. Also, the stage is VERY PRECIOUS and you must never, ever touch it with your grimy, ticket-paying, gig-attending fingers. This is made clear by a bouncer at the front who glares and gestures at any misguided fool who happens to rest a palm upon the stage when taking a photo, or just, you know, standing there enjoying the band.

Anyway, The Zebras are on before we can finish getting in the door, so we rush in as they’re sounding pretty fine even from the cloakroom queue. I’ve been vaguely aware of the band (they played Indietracks a couple of years ago, but we weren’t looking), but hadn’t investigated them. Tonight’s set makes me immediately purchase their e.p. ‘New Ways Of Risking Our Lives’. They make me think of The Go Betweens, not just because they’re Australian, it’s their bright shining sound; big, chiming guitars with a tiny touch of hardness, and lovely things happening when harmonies get sung. The Zebras are soaringly splendid and a rousing way to kick things off.

Next, 14 Iced Bears. I have surprised myself by feeling quite excited by this re-emergence of the Iceys. It’s not like I didn’t see them plenty of times in days of yore, but it seems they hold a special place in my heart. I loved 14 Iced Bears because their songs grew from being really quite cutesy/shambly (‘Dolphin Song’ is played) to going kind of spaced ‘n’ slightlydelic (e.g. ‘Mother Sleep’, and don’t forget they’ve been known to cover ‘Interstellar Overdrive’). They play an excellently chosen selection from across their back catalogue that pleases me and the three other people in the room who know all their songs.

Really, it’s a killer setlist, with the likes of ‘Cut’, ‘Hay Fever’, ‘Dust Remains’, the heart-breaking ‘Sure To See’, fizzing last ever single ‘Hold On’ and yes, ‘Balloon Song’ (this one gets a clutch of indie poppers bobbling about like bubbles in a milkpan). My all time fave ‘Surfacer’ gets an airing with its swooshy sun-addled swoon and the set closes with the thrilling Copey sparkle of ‘World I Love’.

Rob's vocals are still sweet-hearted and crystal-tipped, but unfortunately the sound is severely bass heavy, with nuances destroyed in the burble.The band seem on good form though, and they are original members (well, if you count late-period guitarist Tim), not just Rob Sekula and some blokes. Rob takes to the stage sensibly snow-shod in wellies – which makes the swirls of dry ice that precede the band’s arrival very amusing indeed.

I’m not sure 14 Iced Bears have made much of an impression on the youngsters who edge closer to the (very high, must NOT touch) stage in anticipation of the Pains, but you never know, maybe the kids will be inspired to investigate the oldsters’ music. After all, a gaggle of boys next to us gets quite excited when The Smiths are played – singing along with gusto. One of them is wearing a Stone Roses tee-shirt, causing us to contemplate the fact that these persons weren’t even born when our fave bands of the eighties were in their ‘pomp’. It’s like us digging the sixties, excavating the past in search of present day thrills. Mental!

Talking of present day thrills…hey, hey it’s the Pains! And they are on fine ‘n’ feisty form, playing with a lot more punch than at their slightly weary Heaven show earlier in the year (though maybe not with quite as much ‘vivacity’ as at their secret Buffalo Bar gig in the summer – hoo! that was a firecracker). We realise that this is the third year in a row that we have seen the Pains play a December show – what a fine festive tradition. The set is still pretty similar to that of two years ago – top-loaded with faves: ‘This Love Is Fucking Right’, ‘Young Adult Friction’, ‘Come Saturday’, ‘Everything With You’... We’ve seen the band play these songs quite a lot by now, God knows how many times they must have played them, so hats off to ‘em for still managing to make these oldies but goodies into zippy pop blasts of noisy joy.

We get a sprinkling of new tracks, but not as many as we’d been anticipating – especially after the tantalising array of new songage we got at that Buffalo Bar show. The set ends, as tradition/drink seems to dictate with us olden folk jumping up and down gleefully to ‘The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’. The encore bit begins with Kip’s sweet, solo take on, ‘Contender’, before a boom-tastic finale of ‘Gentle Sons’ (with the inside of my head singing ‘The Hardest Walk’ along to it) sends us off into the night mufflered up against the cold, ears happily muffled by noisy guitars.

Dungen / Wolf People / Jim Molyneux – Islington Academy, 16 November 2010

2010-12-10T12:15:00.002Z

Jim Molyneux plays to an exceedingly sparse crowd, but few though we are, we appreciate the way his fingers fly over his accordion. Molyneux plays folk songs old, new and Richard Thompson, and is joined at points by chums on violin, thumpy cajón/cuban box drum thingy and for one song, some excellent combined violin playing/clog dancing.

Prog – eww! what? Growing up in the 80s with my musical landscape dictated by the year zero-ness of punk, I avoided prog and all that crazy hippy shit for a v. long time. Psych was okay, but prog? long old rambling guitar solos, stuff about elves and giants? Jeez! Now though, I have accepted prog into my life. Dungen have probably contributed a lot to my appreciation of this long-time maligned form. And Wolf People have helped me see the light too. I am exceedingly pleased that they are playing tonight as I have been digging their fuggily storming LP 'Steeple' a fair old bit. They have lyrics about raising a glass to sulphur skies, and putting arms around the weather. They have heavy guitars with great funky bits, such as the evil truckin’, whole lotta lovin’ ‘One By One From Dorney Reach’. They sound like Yes, Focus and Black Sabbath. When they play ‘Silbury Sands’ people cannot stop themselves head-banging a bit, because it sounds immense and well rockin’. A large, be-stetsoned man air-guitars like a mental and we know what he means.

Dungen are flat-out amazing, an act of wonderment, and it’s a massive mystery why this gig isn’t packed to the gunwales. Still, the crowd is eager and fanatical, and the hour-long set speeds by.

Singer / main man Gustav Ejstes twists between sitting centre-stage at the piano, piping wiggily on a flute and jumping up to freak out mightily with a tambourine. Hair bear bunch bass player Mattias hunches over his guitar battling a few amp problems (Wolf People shuffle on discreetly with their amp as a replacement) whilst on the other side of the stage guitarist Reine creates eerie and elegant sounds. The set leans on the jazz-tinged skyscape of latest LP ‘Skit I Allt’.

Dungen sound luminous. Their songs wheel and slide, rhythms glancing and changing, underpinned by Johan Holmegard’s furious, complicated drumming. It’s a pleasure to behold a band playing so skilfully together, and not in a widdly guitar hero way - during the fast bits they skim around each other like swallows on a summer evening. This isn't difficult, chin-rubbing music, this is a band letting their creativity fly whilst keeping a tight hold on the tunes. Sometimes they’re languorous, floating through the skies, sometimes they crunch and fuzz, like on old fave ‘Panda’. The high points (and there are LOADS) are firework displays and cloud bursts. Dazzling.

December Boy -The Loves (Fortuna Pop!)

2010-11-23T11:38:00.004Z

And so as The Loves stomp ever closer to the end of their ten year tenure as Britain’s best bubblegum garage soap opera, we find them releasing a REAL HUMDINGER of a tune. I have been thoroughly enjoying ‘December Boy’ every time The Loves play it live and now here it is to cherish as a real life record (limited quantities on pink vinyl!) / ethereal sound file.

It’s a huge upbeat pop thing, a big old chimimg wall of sound on which Jenna gets to do a silky swoon of a lead vocal accompanied by Emma Pocketbooks and the erstwhile Liz Love; not to mention ‘real life violins’ and woo! an anthemic key change. Brilliantly, it contains ear-nagging snippets of about a billion other pop hits, e.g. ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’, ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’, ‘The Locomotion’, ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ (yes), as well as the obvious nod to Big Star. Luckily, it’s oh so much more than the sum of its parts, a giant wintery snog with a head full of whirling snow flakes and long lost girl group songs.

‘B side’ ‘Bubblegum’ is a todally groovee, shake yer bubble-butt, wig out baby, go-go garage, freak-out frantic, teeteringly unhinged, fuzzed and shrieking pop-sike attack lead by Simon’s slur-y, sleazy, vocal whine. Your nineteenth nervous breakdown never sounded so much fun.

www.fortunapop.com/release_details.php?cat_no=FPOP101

Give me strength to continue. Fave Tunes Sept /Oct 2010

2010-10-31T16:43:00.003Z

When We Go Courting - Shrag V. dance-inducing one note guitar clangalanging, and the line ‘Deep in the darkness of June I dissolved in your room’.

Desire Lines – Deerhunter A lush Sunshine Playroom rush

Skit I Allt – Dungen Not sure what they’re singing about, but it sounds like Dungen are having a spangly Scando time

Fountain Stairs – Deerhunter All skyscrapey

Life’s A Gift (Feel It) – Groovy Uncle Really rather more than slightlydelic

Entrance Song - The Black Angels Proper menacing biker psych

Clear Motive - The Higher State Ooh! Byrdsy / Paisley Undergroundish

Teacher – Surf City Like a whipped up candyfloss Mary Chain. Yeah!

Shark Ridden Waters – Gruff Rhys The Groovie Ghoulies on a cruise. I have to listen to this several times a day.

Untitled II – Ulaan Khol Monstrous scree of guitar in a noise landslide

Thee Eager Younger Fraternity Bop pt 2 – Comet Gain (with Crystal Stilts) Desperate, unhinged handclappin’ pop party.

Hearts Of Love – Crocodiles Nasty fuzz with lovely twinkly bits

Imagine Hearts – Ringo Deathstarr Unreconstructed tremolo action. Woobly.

In Debt - Jonny Cola & The A-Grades (Corporate Records)

2010-10-24T14:01:00.003+01:00

Jonny Cola & The A-Grades are bastards. Their idea of quirky promotional material is a letter with FINAL NOTICE typed large across the top – so at first glance your heart leaps into your mouth, argh! what? Oh ha ha, the album is called ‘In Debt’.

And your hammering heart isn’t allowed a moment’s respite ‘cos ‘In Debt’ is stuffed with sparkling, strutting glam-Brit pop. Imagine that Britpop hadn’t become a sorry, degraded thing. That the initial shine and shiver had led to euphoric epiphanies and perfectly puckered pop kisses in a starburst universe where guitars scrawled and caterwauled like alleycats. That kind of thing.

Alex’s rather fine voice - a little clipped and Bowie-ish here, glammily sneering there - is shown off to full swooning advantage on slow-burn anthemic opener, ‘Fireworks / Gunshots’, an urban torch song that bursts into beautiful bombast, guitars squiggling all over, setting the tone for this album of rocked-up grubby glam.

A double-handed attack from A-Grade guitar heroes Mauro Venegas and Jez Leather powers the songs along, guitars slashing ‘n’ sneering, hurtling between full-on widdly skree bits, skydiving shimmers and strutting, fuzzed up, headstocks-akimbo riffing.

The glorious ‘Postcode Wars’ speaks of floaty shirts, fly-away scarves and dubiously dyed hair and is a teensy bit disco. Get the louche bass in the chorus, oh yes! ‘Greenhouse’ is deliciously hips-out-of-joint funky. ‘Offline’ is a fist in your face squall of feedback and ferocity, and the darkly luxuriant ‘Hideaway 37’ shivers with strategically placed glitter.

But the elation is cast with shadows, even as the chorus of ‘Marlborough Road’ soars skyward, pulling your heart along in its vapour stream, Alex is singing, “I fell apart on Marlborough Road”. And is that a slightly barbed remark I detect in stompy, snarly, snarky single ‘The Party’s Over’? “We might as well move to Luxembourg, though not for the sake of your bank account”.

For all the pose-striking and pop heroics, ‘In Debt’ has a ferocity of intent, an underlying defiant anger. It’s an album that delivers viciously glamorous battle songs for fighting back against the gloom. A useful arsenal in these dark times.

www.jonnycolaandtheagrades.net

www.myspace.com/jonnycolaandtheagrades

Indietracks - 23 - 25 July 2010, Midland Railway Centre

2010-09-30T16:30:00.001+01:00

Oh look, my Indietracks review has been sitting half-writ on a memory stick for ages. Waste not, want not though, now the dark nights are drawing in, let’s relive the summer. Yeah. That’s what we’re doing.

Friday

Woo! We are going for all three days of Indietracks this year. Checking in at our Premier Inn (ooh! get us!) there’s time to greet The Specific Heats who have just arrived back from a fruitless laundrette search before we zoom of into the gauzy haze of a sunkissed July eve in search of pop thrills. A few hundred metres up the road from the Indietracks site, one of our car windows explodes. We stand disconsolate by a pile of shattered glass whilst insurance thingies are sorted. Then return to the Travel Inn, pop-free. Doh!

Saturday

We get in a steamtrain ride first thing, listening awhile to The Lime Chalks delicate folky songs before settling in a carriage to watch the fields trundle by in the sunshine and to suffer an allergy attack seemingly brought on by the comfy old furnishings.

Back at the festival The Hillfields are opening proceedings on the Indoor Stage with their solid fare of moody jangle – a bit Chameleons-ish in parts? Respect to Rob Hillfield for his acapella vocals on ‘Canvey Island Queen’ – quite a shivery spine moment.

Next, a discovery. The Felt Tips, who I have down as a band to investigate, turn out to be great. Twangly, spangly guitars (alright, they jangle) race by and snatch your heart, Scottish accented vocals sing entertaining stories. With rudeness! There is also touching hilarity to be found in ‘Dear Morrissey’, the story of a fading hero, sung in the style of that hero, “At a rate that’s inverse to your increasing girth, I am losing my interest in you”.

Over on the Main Stage, This Many Boyfriends are EXCITED. They have party poppers and do half-arsed jumps, but we have to wriggle away from their shamblerific funpop to ensconce ourselves on a wooden pew for double church fun. First up: The Give It Ups with their nonsense, sweetly embarrassed indie-popping.

Then it’s Betty And The Werewolves. Due to the band being so ace, loadsa people want to be in the church now, but have to make do with peering sad-eyed through the windows. As ever, B and the Ws are heartwrenchingly, skyscrapingly, joyfully marvellous. They are Happy! They are Noisy! and Fast! with oh so many Tunes, and they still manage to jump up and down despite quite severe space constrictions.

We rush out of church to get all teary over The Just Joans. Like The Felt Tips, they trade in wry Caledonian vulgarity, but have a satisfying swaying-down-the-pub maudlinism, especially on the bitter-sweet likes of ‘I Won’t Survive’ and of course set closer ‘What Do We Do Now’. We all sing along with gusto “The bands we loved are dead!” (this isn’t strictly true, as the bands we loved keep peskily reforming – see tonight’s headliners) and truly, there is nary a dry eye in the house by the end.

Oddly, we then see The Smittens doing their cover of ‘What Do We Do Now’ during their main stage set. Cleverly, the Main Stage has the effect of making everyone who plays thereon sound fantastic. And so it is with The Smittens tooth-dazzlingly upbeat pop.

We laze about on the grass to The Orchids. I only ever got round to buying their first seven inch (‘cos it was on Sarah, natch), so I am a little behind on their oeuvre (Oh and there’s that flexi with The Sea Urchins). Luckily they have the good grace to play tracks from that very disc, so I can feel nostalgic to the sounds of ‘Underneath The Window, Underneath The Sink’. Later, I start feeling cold to the sounds of Ballboy and so enjoy their set from a nice chair in a thoughtfully constructed gazebo/library by the tea stall.

Boo! Love Is All have pulled out of their Indoor Stage headliner spot. Hurrah! Tender Trap have stepped in and are thumpingly, tune-bouncingly good fun. One of Amelia’s small daughters can be spotted at the side of the stage singing along with gusto, whilst her mum leads the girl-group charge tambourine ahoy amidst the chunky stand-up drumming and fizzing guitars. We think it’s all over, but there’s an encore. And it’s Talulah Gosh’s ‘My Best Friend’. Aeeeeiiii!!! My friend, T, literally sprints from the bar to the front screaming (T is a man in his 40s) whilst I sing along at the top of my lungs. We are the ghosts of indiepop past!

Having enjoyed their fat men moshing Scala set earlier in the year, I stand at the front for The Primitives. Oh look, I just happen to be standing directly in front of Paul Court and his excellent taste in shirts and pointy boots and cord jeans and argh! What’s that moustache thing?! As a ‘bystander’ suggests, Court is wearing “the facial hair of a man called Raoul”. This ruins my enjoyment of proceedings slightly, as does the sensation that the band are maybe not that comfortable with their headlining status. Still, all the old faves are there to be sung along to gleefully. And Paul Court is still cool. If I squint a bit.

2010-09-30T16:25:00.008+01:00

Indietracks 2010: Sunday

An Indietracks wedding! This morning the drummer from Ballboy gets married in the signal box and the happy couple process through an arch of drumsticks. We leave them to their kilts ‘n’ champers and go exploring the Midland Railway hinterlands in a Famous Five type way. The sun shines, butterflies bibble, Thomas the Tank Engine (really) rolls into the station and we go for a wake-up train ride.

On our return, Be Like Pablo (from the Scottish Highlands!) are fizzing up the whizzpop. Or maybe whizzing up the fizzpop. Doing jittery power-poppin’ stuff anyway.

To the church for the ever entertaining Winston Echo and his curious songs about normal things. He is entertainingly harsh with his assembled band, bawling, “Did I say you could sit down!?!” and when Jimmy of The Bobby McGees pokes his head in he is dismissed with, “You’re not as famous as you think! FUCK OFF!’ The set ends with ‘Dracula’s Disco Party’ during which we get to make monster noises, “Grrrr, arrrgh, awoooo! Etc”

We sadly forgo The Cavalcade (seen ‘em before tho – sound divine, look like fuck all) in order to scoff a veg burger whilst it still occurs to us to eat. The scoffing is carried out to the sound of M.J. Hibbert apparently slaying the crowd from the main stage and getting ‘#Happiness’ trending on Twitter – ooh! the future!

We are next washed unto the indoor stage on a tide of vodka and ginger beer to await the mighty Specific Heats. Last year they were Discovery of The Festival. This year, they are Most Eagerly Awaited. They rip-roar through a reverbin’ set kickin’ out garage/pop songs of fun times/bad times whilst flapping their paisley capes (PAISLEY CAPES!) Over at the back Keira is all a-grin bashing on the drums. Whilst up front Mat swooshes and canters back and forth wrangling his guitar with style. There are no exploding reverb tanks and no broken down guitars and thus it is the best Specific Heats set I have ever seen.

Now it is time for The Loves all-singing all-dancing (and how!) spectacular on the main stage. A Sense Of Occasion has overcome the band so that they take to the stage to the theme tune from ‘2001 : A Space Odyssey’. They are all dressed in black and white. Simon Love sports a moustache and mighty velvet cape. He hoys footballs at the audience (A Rod Stewart / Uncle Disgusting homage?) For one time only they are rejoined by Liz Love/School. What’s more there are dancing girls ludicrously go-going their way through ‘Bubblegum’ in pink tassly minidresses. A costume-change later the dancers avant garde about to ‘Can You Feel My Heart Beat?’ The songs are as ever a nosebleed pop rush through all your favourite pop history snippets. Then Jesus (Jimmy Bobby McGee again, looking hilarious/disturbing in a ghostie sheet and heart-shaped shades) comes on and gets told off for not taking his cue properly before dancing about with the go-go girls (now in silver bikinis). Come on people, what more do you want?! The Loves are, as ever, a bubbleicious popsike explosion and very funny indeed. You’ll miss ‘em when they’re gone.

We leg it to the indoors stage and just manage to catch one and a half Blanche Hudson Weekend songs. Damn! They sound good. I had meant to leave The Loves halfway through, but just could not tear myself away from the spectacle. And I’m not even interested in breasts.

We make a feeble attempt to see The Millipedes LAST EVER show in the church, but after peering forlornly through the windows and hanging about in the queue for a bit we get distracted and disappear down a chatting-with-friends rabbit-hole for quite a (hazy) while. I am vaguely aware that The Cannanes are on the main stage playing to a bewilderingly sparse crowd. When I look up again it’s time for Standard Fare. Who play a heart-gladdening set as it drizzles on our anoraked heads. A mini dust-cloud hovers above the crowd as we stomp along. Especially to ‘Dancing’.

In the merch tent there are skirts with owls on. More importantly there are advance copies of the new Shrag album. Shrag get mightier every time they play. Here they are on the main stage being VITAL, Helen singing whilst barefoot stamping, guitars scratching and clanging, playing a blood-rush mix of songs old and new, ‘Mark E. Smith’ ‘Ghosts Before Breakfast’ ‘Tights In August’. You can tell they’re the best just from the titles.

The Pooh Sticks have ‘reformed’ for Indietracks. Cor! This has invited much indie popstrel excitement. We wait, bated breath to see what will emerge onto the Indoor Stage. It is Hue Pooh Stick and some youngish blokes making up the band. And Amelia Fletcher doing added vocals. And it’s fabulous. They are the Indie Cheap Trick (a good thing) pure bubblegum power pop, with so many songs to sing along to, ‘Young People’, ‘Cool in A Crisis’, ‘I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well’. Hue passes out a selection of placards sporting slogans ‘Cool In A Crisis’, ‘Indiepop Ain’t Noise Pollution’. Oh! They play ‘Heroes And Villains’, I’d forgotten about this song, but all the words still come spilling from my mouth. And then there’s ‘On Tape’!!!!! so I sing and stomp righteously, like we never got to do in 1987. Sugar buzz pop high!

And so to this year’s kings and queen of Indietracks, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. In ‘our’ world where, to quote Darren Hayman, ‘When we say ‘indie music’ we mean Prittstick and Kafka, we mean wool knit and horn rimmed, we mean Xerox and Fender’, the Pains are mighty colossi, poking their heads out into the land of mainstream, being all successful and that. But Indietracks is their spiritual home, we know at heart they belong with ‘us’ and we embrace them for that.

They play a set full of love, starting with Kip’s solo, acoustic rendering of ‘Contender’, fighting their way past initial equipment problems to whisk us up in a fuzzed whirl, as the sky turns pinky-blue to navy to black. ‘This Love Is Fucking Right’ we all sing, ecstatic. The set ends, as ever, with us jumping and shouting along to ‘The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart’…but then there’s lots more – a long old love-in of a set which we end up admiring from the toilet queue.

And then it’s the end of Indietracks for another year. The last furze of feedback unfurls into the dark and its time to trundle home with pop saturated hearts and whispers of next week’s special secret Pains gig sneaking into our ears.

As for me, I’ll sit and eat a buttercup sandwich. Fave Tunes July/Aug 2010

2010-09-07T16:15:00.003+01:00

Morning Haze – The Soundcarriers Sounding like, um, a morning haze, albeit in 1967.

Death Rattles – Woods Sparse but warm with rattly guitars, a big old humming bass and a spooky rooms at twilight feel.

Beachy Head – Veronica Falls Beat-tastic deathwish pop

Brianna - Speak And The Spells Moptops, white jeans, evil guitars, razor blades

Seasons Change – The Advisory Circle / Hong Kong In The 60s Early summer mornings and still evenings

End Of An Error - The Specific Heats Reverbingly perfect hybrid of indiepop and garage

2 To The N – Tender Trap Ver Trap sounding pretty tough in a damn catchy way

It Is Not Meant To Be - Tame Impala – Floaty and Dungen-like

And How! – The Specific Heats Sunny and jangly and heart-racing

Baby I’m An Existentialist – The Specific Heats Reverbin’, hand clappin’ garage twistyness

To B Without A Hitch – Bridget St. John Good old Bridg sounding like a cross between Nico and Nick Drake.

Way Out Hermit – Moonkyte Droney, hummy, sitar-spangled psych. Also: ‘Moonkyte’!

Just War- Dangermouse & Sparklehorse Stick Gruff Rhys singing on pretty much anything and I’m there

Runway, Houses, City, Clouds – Tame Impala Aaahh! Amazing psychprogjazz wonderment stretching out on a sunkissed afternoon

Tights In August - Shrag Your heart dribbles away as soon as the keyboard comes in and that’s before the song’s even got going

Tapestry Super Sonic Sunday, 4 July 2010, Shenley Park

2010-08-22T13:54:00.014+01:00

We’re all going on a summer holiday…no we’re not but there is a clapped out red double decker waiting to ‘whisk’ us away for larks ‘n’ hi-jinks in the sunshine. It’s the Tapestry Super Sonic Sunday and after only the smallest amount of confusion (circumnavigating a roundabout three times in a row), we arrive at the ludicrously bucolic Hertfordshire village of Shenley.

The festival takes place within the idyllic confines of Shenley Park Walled Garden, which has been landscaped to create a grassy amphitheatre. The ‘DJ Booth’ is a cute ironwork gazebo. In one corner the Hemel Hempstead Brass band strikes up, filling in the music-free gaps before and after the first couple of bands. They provide a suitably country fete style soundtrack as cheery punters shake out their picnic blankets and peacefully swig their first pints of the day. Ahh, the pints. Everyone’s fave Farringdon joint, The Betsey Trotwood is running the beer tent and truly it is the queen of canvas booze emporia. It’s beautifully laid out, strung with fairy lights, the straw bale bar topped with gingham cloths and ooh! a wooden dresser laden with a selection of fine single malt whiskys (I shall be returning to this later). Instead of flat foamy crap lager there are fine ales and ciders to quaff, e.g. Betsey’s Festivale (a ha ha!) and ‘Barry’s Bitter’ (after organiser and all-round hero Barry Stillwell). We opt for pints of Badgers Scrumpy and Perry in keeping with the rustic theme.

The heat is oppressive – there’s not a lot of shade amongst the herbaceous borders, so we slap on the factor fifty and watch children doing mental inhibition-free dancing to the first band, The Black List – a local band for local people – who have ventured here from er, Borehamwood. As the Tapestry clientele tends to include numerous 30-40 somethings, there are quite a lot of children here having a high old time. It’s great for them as it’s only a small garden and they can be contained by the wall.

The Hemel Hempstead Brass Band treat us to a bazillion song medley (which includes, erm ‘Jingle Bells’, cheers!) and then Oldboy rampage through some ferocious boogaloo blues. They are led by Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne and his mighty firey axe licks. It all goes a bit seventies dazed and confused (if you ignore the brass band sitting nearby) with vicious boogie - like an amphetamine ZZ Top; low slung blues a la Blue Cheer; country tinged calmer moments, and a fine bit of rockabilly to round things off (this gets an old brass band geezer nodding with approval).

Mister B the Gentleman Rhymer is a whole other kettle of fish. Clad in stripy blazer ‘n’ boater combo, he strums a banjolele and raps in a simply marvellous manner. This is ‘Chap-Hop’ apparently and it really is frightfully good. Tunes include ‘I Say, You! (The Rock Steady Crew)’ and (“what on earth has happened to”) ‘Timothy’ about an old school chum of Mister B’s who has gone rather squiffy “I used to prep with him you see”. If we guess who the song is about, we are told “you may announce it gently in a Sunday afternoon way, if you wish” (it’s Tim Westwood, obv). We are also treated to Mister B’s unique take on a selection of rousing old skool bangin’ choons e.g. ‘Out Of Space’, ‘The Magic Number’, ‘I like To Move It’ &c, &c. Bravo that fellow.

We lounge in the sun, gossip with friends, peruse the fanzine stall, wander round the garden and read about its history on a handy sign-post (it dates back to the 16th Century you know). Whilst this is going on Zun Zun Egui provide a soundtrack of stop-starty art rock with whooshing synths and thunderously funky bass and drums. Sort of Field Music with afro wibbling if you please.

We are excited to discover an unadvertised addition to the bill in the form of German comedian (yes!) Henning Wehn. His set revolves around English / German stereotypes and the relationship between the two countries. Every now and then he’ll check his watch and announce how many minutes of ‘jolliness’ we have enjoyed so far. We are encouraged to clap along to a cheery German folk song, before being informed it was a favourite of the Nazi’s and is basically saying ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’ By the end many minutes of jolliness have been accumulated and we feel most efficiently entertained.

After these laughs, it all goes a tad drear with The Trembling Bells. I like a spot of Fairport Convention-influenced folkie do-lallying, but give me Eighteenth Day Of May (R.I.P) with their tunes and psychy grooviness, over this slightly joyless snooze. I am disappointed as I’d been looking forward to investimagating this lot. Things perk up with the last song’s dirty prog-folk droneyness. Maybe the rest of the set was just an off day? Will try them again sometime.

The festival is running early!!!!! What??! When has this ever happened anywhere?

To soak up the booze there are organic burgers, Mediterranean salad boxes and an ice cream-dispensing bicycle. NUM! We eat our tea whilst Kitty Daisy And Lewis get the crowd up off their lazy Sunday afternoon arses to jive to their thumping jitterbuggin’ quiff-a-riffic sounds. There’s a good bit with spitty beatboxing, some mean harmonica playing and Lewis knocks out a spot of evil honky tonk piano. At one point, ska legend Eddie “Tan Tan” Thornton leads proceedings, trumpet ahoy - the perfect sunshine soundtrack.

Only now its gone right nippy. We sit on a bench under a hedge to hide from the chill wind and go ahhh! warmth! when the sun peeks out. Luckily, we get ourselves all hot and bothered once The Jim Jones Revue come out to play. You can’t not dance like a loon to the JJR and their rip-snorting, filthily scuzzed rock ‘n’ roll. Best band of the day, oh yeaahhh!

It’s blimmin’ freezing now – what happened to the balmy summer eves we’ve been enjoying of late? As The Magic Numbers take to the stage, I take to the Laphroaig, attempting to conjure warmth medicinally. I also try and snuggle into the crowd to leach a bit of body heat whilst the band lead us through songs old and new. Michelle appears to have become a mean rockin’ heeled boot stompin’ mutha, flinging her bass high to give those jams a right good kicking. Angela is poorly, swigging back the cough medicine (er, not in a Codeine way), her voice breaking down so much she has to abandon croaking her way through some bits.

It’s a warmly received, set, but we’re still chilled to the bone and amble off into the darkness to see if the coach has arrived yet. Eventually it shows up and we charge on alongside ale-addled fellow festivalers, back to the big smoke. The driver insists on playing the radio, even though it’s only partially tuned in so we’re mainly listening to white noise (not in a good way). Shouts of annoyance echo up and down, there’s sweariness and drunken bickering. For a while there, thanks to Barry, we were a blissed out bunch of Londoners getting mellow in the country. Sadly, it didn’t last long.

Dansette Dansette – Tender Trap (Fortuna Pop!)

2010-07-18T13:32:00.004+01:00

Ten years (nearly) and three albums in, it feels like Tender Trap are riding a creative high. Flanked by Elizabeth Morris and Katrina Dixon, Amelia Fletcher has created a modern indiepop girl group. This is not to belittle the rumbling bass and snaggly guitar contributed by long-term Tender Trap blokes Rob and John, but the ladies’ harmonies are truly a driving force on this record, bursting from the songs and layering them with a heart flipping loveliness that transforms the band’s music into something really special.

‘Dansette Dansette’ is Tender Trap’s homage to and update on the sixties girl group sound. The title track name-checks Sandy Shaw, Leslie Gore and The Supremes, the album is strewn with ‘Be My Baby’ drumbeats, sha la las, ba ba bas, big echoey guitars, all the ingredients that make up the kind of pop hit that’s sung in matching dresses and beehives with co-ordinated hand jiving. Only not, because hurrah! feminism has happened, so we can still thrill to sugar-sweet pop but not have to cringe because ‘girls’ can now write the songs and, you know, do tricky man stuff like play drums and guitars.

These are big catchy pop songs played with style and wit. Amelia’s silvery voice is sometimes sweet, sometimes rueful, sometimes annoyed (“We’re ready to get mean”). The guitars fuzz and grumble rather dirtily under the rollercoasting, trip-trap tumbling vocals, so one minute you’re going all shivery to the melodies, the next you catch a fizz of feedback and go ‘Yeah!’

The ba ba bas on the swooning ‘Suddenly’ are er, Heavenly, whilst the guitars crunch and reverberate in a JAMC kinda way. The Jesus And Mary Chain get a shout out (literally) on the wry ‘Do You Want A Boyfriend’, an entertaining gallop that manages to poke fun at indie boys AND inspect the notion of girl-pop en route.

The fabulous ‘Girls With Guns’ smashes dipping and diving three way harmonies up against knee trembling twangling Duane Eddy guitar to exhilarating effect. The urgent ‘2 To The N’, an energetic slice of catchiness pummelled along by some gleeful stand up drumming from Katrina, sees Amelia toying with some elementary maths –as is her want as an economics genius (see also previous album ‘6 Billion People’).

It’s not all hurtling one-two-three-four fuzzpop though, there’s room for the odd indiepop epic here; the gliding ‘Grand National’ and album closer ‘Capital L’ which manages to gather up all the elements that have gone before and build them into a heart-thumping, heart-cracking wonder that means you than have to go back to the beginning and play the whole record again.

www.fortunapop.com

Indietracks – Indiepop Compilation 2010

2010-07-08T15:18:00.004+01:00

Ooh! Only a couple of weeks until we are once again plunged into Indietracks’ pop art world of waving from steam train windows, doing odd crafts, swigging beer in a retired carriage, lounging on the grass, and seeing fistfuls of thrilling bands. This year the good folks at Indietracks have surpassed themselves with the line-up as this 44 track (yeah, count ‘em why don’t you?) compilation amply demonstrates.

Here you will find current fizz pop darlings in the shape of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Love Is All, Allo Darlin’ and Standard Fare; olden tymes heroes The Pooh Sticks, The Orchids (they done a special new song here!), Secret Shine and The Cannanes. Or you can rootle out new sweet-hearts: The Felt Tips’ charming chiming; Internet Forever’s thumping sparklefest; The Blanche Hudson Weekend’s Blondie/Shop Assistants kiss-up in an echo-chamber.

CD1 ends with an invigorating shoutalong with Shrag on ‘Ghosts Before Breakfast’ which gets your blood pumping ready for CD2, a killer pop comp that takes in the clattery cape-pop of Veronica Falls, This Many Boyfriends’ jumpalong jittering, reverb-fabulous twanglin’ from The Specific Heats and the heart-swooning delicacy of The Middle Ones. See, indiepop can encompass a wide range of musics, The Millipedes’ wiggy Nuggets garage; a spot of breezy ukulele and trumpet wist-pop from Jam On Bread; The Just Joans’ drolly doleful smut-folk (exclusive track hereon!); gauzy bossa nova from Cineplexx; Betty And The Werewolves’ lollipop girlie-punk; La La Love You’s warp-speed hyper-pop. Not to mention the tremendous leap from the sublime to the ridiculous that is made between White Town’s Barretty ‘I Don’t Want To Fall In Love Again’ and M.J Hibbett and The Validator’s ‘We Are The Giant Robots’. It’s comforting to think that if giant robots do arrive to enslave the human race they’ll do it whilst singing this jaunty number.

There’s no excuse for not getting this record really. It’s great for building up yr festival anticipation. Play it whilst combing your wardrobe for perfect Indietracks outfits (e.g. button badges, excellently patterned frocks, way obscure tee-shirts, little corduroy caps, any kind of vaguely mod threads), or as a Derbyshire-bound road-trip soundtrack. If for some reason (what?) you’re not going to Indietracks, listen to this comp and have yr own in-house festival (stock up on fine ales, veg curry, felt badges and er, old locomotives). Finally, you can listen along whilst reliving your pop sozzled memories, looking at everyone’s Indietracks photos on Flickr and reading their hyper-charged reminiscences on the Anorak Forum. Singing on the platform, swooning in the church, dancing like a loon in front of the main stage…this’ll get your spirits soaring once the whole shebang is (sob!) over.

www.makedoandmendrecords.co.uk

You’ve been counting all the meltdowns you’ve been having. Fave Tunes May/June 2010

2010-07-07T14:59:00.004+01:00

Harlequin – Heron Incredibly English folk rock, you can smell the overcast summer afternoons

One Last - Avi Buffalo Catchy and wistful and sunny afternoon-ish

Francis – Betty And The Werewolves Garagey in a Crystal Stilts way, sounds like strawberry ice-cream and regret.

Helicopter – Deerhunter Embraces you with soft guitars and soothes away the weariness

Radio Dept – Never Follow Suit Like hearing St Etienne’s ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ through the wall.

Teenage Fanclub – Baby Lee In my head this is called ‘Geddy Lee’. Sounds good when sitting in the front seat on top of a number 8 bus first thing on a summer Saturday.

Long Flight – Future Islands Like ‘Sugar’ by My Bloody Valentine playing over an Animal Collective demo.

Sweetest Star – Easter Sun Deliciously aching indiecountrypsychfolkpop for staring at wispy clouds to.

Song – Turid Magical sixties Swedish psychfolk eddying round your ankles

Great Sky Bear – The Reading Rainbow Bratty, scratchy, soar-away pop. Plus the album artwork’s great

Harmonium – The Soundcarriers The United States of drifting through the ether.

Camera & Tremor - The Tamborines (Beat-Mo Records)

2010-07-06T15:33:00.004+01:00

It’s very late. Or maybe really early. You find yourself on a narrow sidestreet you’ve never really paid much attention to before. Sound throbs from an open doorway and you step closer to investigate. There’s a shabby corridor painted deep red, steep steps that lead you into a dimly lit basement room. It’s loud in here. Very loud. The noise is disorientating and you put out a hand to balance yourself. Turns out you’re clutching the edge of the bar, so you order yourself a drink. It’s vodka or nothing here. A pure, clean rush. It burns satisfyingly on your lips as you flick your eyes across the crowd. Everyone’s dressed entirely in black. Some of them wear sunglasses and move languidly through the noise as if it’s physically restraining them. Some shake their heavy fringes in time to the ricochet drumbeats.

A man’s voice singing, “I trip inside your wired mind”. There’s a band onstage. Shaky Super 8 film flickers across the back wall and camouflages the players. You see an eye here, a hand there, a pointy boot, a perfect bowlcut. Three people are making that colossal sound. Guitar and keyboard growl and throb, whine and shimmer whilst the drummer hammers it all home. It’s heavy and it makes you want to move. To nod your head and stamp your feet. You move closer to the stage and let the music judder through you, sound-waves pulsing the air around your face.

Then you’re taken by surprise. A tambourine shaken HARD splits the dissonance. There’s sweetness amongst the snarl. The fuzz ‘n’ distortion crowd are here because they like a hit of POP with their raw power. A taste of honey with their bouquet of barbed wire kisses. Here are tunes that dip and glide and make you feel secretly serene. You realise that these songs are going to be indelibly inked into your mind from now on. There’ll always be a swooping melody or a keyboard line tumbling over and over to rush you along through the tumult. The noise is building again, pedals are stomped, strings are scratched, four notes on the keyboard that won’t take no for an answer. Ultra-white strobe lights shiver on and off, on and off, on and off, slicing up the room into disconnected slivers off space and time…

You wake on Sunday Morning. In your head there’s a honey bee buzz. Unfurling your clenched fingers you find you’re clutching a scrap of paper. Written in tiny letters, all lower-case, it says, ‘camera & tremor’.

www.thetamborines.com

May Has Come and Gone

2010-06-23T14:46:00.002+01:00

May was a super slap-up sonic sensation of a month as I finally got to see Deerhunter and Dungen. I love both these bands’ records SO MUCH, but have never got around to seeing them play live. It was good to be REALLY EXCITED about going to both gigs. I also saw The Brian Jonestown Massacre playing a sober, non-argumentative wiggy psych out at Shepherd's Bush Empire to a mosh-tastic crowd; Avi Buffalo making summertime shivers at Rough Trade; The Radio Dept playing at Bush Hall where they seemed to backtrack to being more jangly and less keyboard atmospherics-y and made me swoon when they played ‘1995’ even though it went a bit wrong; AND Prof. Brian Cox doing a sweary talk with equations and photos of the cosmos. Oh yes.

Deerhunter – 6 May 2010, Heaven

2010-06-23T14:44:00.003+01:00

Deerhunter play Heaven – I haven't been there since back in like, er 2001, as I have always found it rather annoying, but this time we find a relatively squish-free haven near the front, craning our necks to peer up at the exceedingly high stage. Why is it that high? It's insane! The sound is apparently set up for big beaty club nights, and as a result some of the sonic subtlety of Deerhunter's shivery guitar creepiness is lost. Indeed at one point the thump of the bass drum near splits my head in twain. I'm all for a colosally thunderous noise that erases your very being, but nuance can be cool too you know. Still, sometimes the guitars sound like stained glass and roundabouts, and make me hold my breath with happiness.

The set begins with ‘Cover Me’ / ‘Agoraphobia’, their luxuriant somnolence making my heart swoon, although apparently this pairing is a regular set opener and thus not so exciting for Deerhunter old timers. ‘Rainwater Cassette Exchange’ gets all munched up and funky punked, ‘Little Kids’ sounds like the smell of summer lawns, but its ‘Nothing Ever Happened’ that drops jaws. The song splurges into a cocooning Krautrocking big fat drone-out, Joshua Fauver’s bass circling its way round a few notes over and over and overandoverforever whilst Bradford Cox scribbles six strings across the top. At one point he rubs his guitar against one of the big hanging speakers to the left of the stage, scraping new sounds out wherever he can. The song stretches out awhile, cradling us in its rhythm. I’m impressed by Moses Archuleta’s ability to keep drumming for the duration. Seeing the band live makes me appreciate the fact that they ARE a band, not just Bradford Cox and some blokes. This is hammered home when guitarist Lockett Pundt takes the lead to sing new song ‘Fountain Stairs’.

The lighting is amazing and makes you realise how much more can be done with a decent rig, rather than the usual red and blue lights turning on and off a bit. Maybe it would be nice to see the band a bit more as they’re mostly obscured by the atmospherics, but having the music emerge from these shadowy figures partly obscured by a gauze of pale light kind of adds to the foggy mystique of it all. There is very little band/audience interaction, possibly due to the fact that Deerhunter are towering high above us. At one point Cox ventures a little way down one of the staircases leading from the stage and slings an arm around a slightly bemused bouncer. Later he asks whether we’ve all voted and suggests that better music was made by a Britain opressed by Thatcher.

The majority of the set is taken from ‘Microcastle’, with a sprinkling of tunes from across the band’s output, including the ‘Cryptograms’ monster ‘Strange Lights’ as the feedback-laden closer. We also get more new songs, ‘Revival’ and ‘Helicopter’. Exciting! Despite the curious sound and odd stage, Deerhunter are mesmerising and powerful and until now the idea that this band had much in common with My Bloody Valentine never really rang true with me. I’ve listened to their records obsessively, but now Deerhunter make all new kinds of sense.

Can't You See Me Running? - Fave Tunes March / April 2010

2010-05-04T19:54:00.006+01:00

The Burning Mountain - Voice Of The Seven Thunders Eastern tinged freak-out tribal heaviness.

Hollow Trees House Hounds - Cate Le Bon Like if a witch made a glam record

Statement - Boris Wiggy wah wah wahhhhh!

Rest Of Our Lives – Dum Dum Girls If ‘Darklands’ was recorded by girls sitting on the bedroom floor

Banjo Pier – Edward’s Hand Baroque psych for when you’re wishing The Left Banke had recorded more.

Springtime Instrumental – Atlas Sound Awww, this twinkles along making me yearn for sunshine and green leaves and blue skies.

Death’s Not Your Friend (Live) – Wooden Shjips Thundering along in a groovy motorik manner.

Color Dreams – The Deep Ridiculous garage grooviness that insists you dance

What’s In It For? – Avi Buffalo Slightly deranged euphoria. Wheee!

Peter’s Trip – Electric Flag Baroque pop oriental soundtracking

Kings Civil Calendar Control – The New Lines Blissed out music box day dreamyness

The Witch – The Rattles As someone has astutely commented on Youtube – this video is pretty much the first Black Sabbath album cover come to life. Utterly fab

The Primitives, 29 April 2010 – Scala

2010-05-01T12:47:00.009+01:00

Paul Court is still a stone cold fox! In black needle-cord jeans, wee pointy Chelsea boots and a mod-ish top, he continues to rock the 60s-tinged cool indie-boy look to perfection. Cor! How come then, all the ageing indie-blokes in the audience have gone so badly to seed? Bulging of gut and naked of scalp they lurch and wallow at the front of the audience like a hideous herd of hippopotami. They’re having a marv time, bless ‘em, so I fling myself into their midst deciding to represent the laydeez in their good-natured moshpit. Yay! The Primitives are back, and all my worries about destroying cherished pop memories dissipate as I fling myself about to the oh so familiar tunes. The set opens with a quintet of songs from the band’s bestest earlier days; ‘Everything Shining Bright’, ‘Stick With You’, ‘Dreamwalk Baby’, ‘Thru The Flowers’, ‘Way Behind Me’. It’s quite hard to be objective about songs that are so embedded in my heart, much better to just get caught up in their rush and sing along.

There’s a fizzy cover of Lee Hazlewood’s ‘Need All The Help I Can Get’ Tracy injecting the vocals with a slight note of hysteria. There are argh! two later tracks which I’ve never heard; ‘Empathise’ from the oh dear third album and ‘Summer Rain’ from the second album, about which Paul mutters something to do with codeine, I think. Not sure if he means the song ‘Codeine’ or whether it’s a good tune to listen to having imbibed codeine, or maybe it’s about taking codeine, “I don’t feel anything today”. Or maybe I totally misheard him. Hmm. We listen patiently, it’s quite nice, lilting and wistful.

The ageing indie-blokes get themselves moving during the classic singles triumvirate of ‘Stop Killing Me’ (singing along, squished in the scrum, I mean this fairly literally), ‘Really Stupid’ and ‘Crash’. I’m shoved sprawling onto the rather low stage for the billionth time (gathering impressive bruises on my legs as I go) and when I look up Tracy is smiling at me. I am blessed by her golden blondeness! Like Paul, she seems to have barely aged at all and is managing to carry off a slightly eccentric outfit (including blue tutu, sparkly fishnets and red suede platforms) with popstar aplomb. This is because she is a star, hanging off the mic stand, tripping about the stage, bashing a tambourine, dragging the eyes of the indie-blokes after her like a cute, sparkly tractor beam.

Tig is still there drumming at the back, being the drummer and that. And over on the right is a bass player who isn’t Steve (sorry bass man). This is kind of the reason we’re all here, Steve’s death last year prompted the remaining Prims to get together in his memory and test out being a band again. It seems to be working pretty well. Sweetly, they dedicate the swoonily heart-melting ‘(We've) Found A Way (To The Sun)’ to Steve. It ends in a gently fuzzy haze, as Paul turns his guitar on his amp for a spot of feedback. Perfection.

ETHER 10: Broadcast / Oliver Coates and Anna Meredith, 21 April 2010 – Queen Elizabeth Hall

2010-05-01T12:19:00.012+01:00

Oliver Coates is an Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre in London. His biog reads ‘Olly loves to play all kinds of classical music alongside new experimental forms’. It’s the latter we’re getting – and how! – tonight. He scrapes and plucks and wallops his cello, playing single bowed notes and sampling them, building up minimalist rhythms that ebb and flow but never do anything as crass as create a tune. He is joined by composer Anna Meredith, who mainly seems to sit immobile, occasionally encouraging a laptop to spew out odd sampled soundscapes. It’s a rum do. Made rummer for the last few songs by the addition of some ‘live drawing’ which can be seen projected onto the screen at the back of the stage. It’s basically someone fannying about in Paintshop Pro doing stupid scribbles, I’m not sure if it enhances the listening experience or just increases one’s suspicion that this is a big artwank joke. Especially when photos of horses get pasted onto the drawing and then squiggly laser beams are drawn coming out of their eyes. Lordy!

During the interval (it’s the kind of gig where the bit when you go to the bar between bands gets called an interval) Broadcast come on and set up. I’m disappointed to see Trish Keenan is wearing old jeans and a shapeless top – wither the groovy esoteric 60s garb? S’okay though, when they take to the stage properly, Trish has on a white a-line frock with big bell-shaped sleeves, decorated with a witchy looking black pendant, long black hair centre-parted. She looks like a member of a cult, or maybe a coven. Cool.

Broadcast are now just Trish and James Cargill (going for the hip professor look in a patterned jumper) and as the first section of tonight’s set begins, an improvised soundtrack to Julian House’s film ‘Winter Sun Wavelengths’, I think about the first time I saw them play, circa ‘The Book Lovers’, when they just seemed like a pleasant but unremarkable Stereolab-ish indie band. It’s been an odd but pleasurable journey from that gig at the Garage to tonight’s refined atmosphere at the QEH. Curiouser and curiouser in fact.

Last year’s collaboration with The Focus Group (featuring…Julian House!) ‘Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age’ was probably my favourite record of 2009, so I am eagerly anticipating a lot of experimental electronic oddness, with hopefully a hint of spooky. This is precisely what we get for ‘Winter Sun Wavelengths’, the duo face each other from behind tables full of electronic gear, twiddle knobs, glance frequently at the film playing behind them and create an unnerving aural spookscape punctuated by Trish’s unearthly keening and wailing. The film looks like it’s been excavated from the attic of a condemned haunted house – probably once used by Trish’s cult-coven. It flickers in black and white hinting at esoteric practices and pagan rituals with eye-blink images of wintery trees and icy December solar flares.

Broadcast experiment with hauntology, music concrete and Radiophonic sounds and in doing so capture that very English take on the occult described by Arthur Machen - an ancient creepiness felt deep in your bones. This they meld with a nice line in retro-futurism, from their clothes, to the analogue equipment, to the science experiment / public service film imagery of the projections.

The next section of the set is entitled ‘Songform And Story’ and includes recognisable Broadcast songs, a juddery ‘Black Cat’ is as funky as things get, electro yet spectral. For ‘The Be Colony’ Trish’s vocals are heavily reverbed, the song scratchy, eerily echoey, it’s two halves, music and voice, only just creating a cohesive whole.

‘In Here The World Begins' sees Trish take centre stage and rhythmically creep towards us and back with the visuals bathing her in dancing coloured light. Her shadowed silhouette on the backdrop grows and diminishes as she dances back and forth. It is a ritualistic performance, spellbinding and slightly sinister.

The words ‘Dream / Ritual’ appear on screen heralding the final film / section of the set and appropriately we get ‘A Seancing Song’, the lyrics intoned in Trish’s ‘Listen With Mother’ voice. The final song sees Trish playing a dulcimer strumstick thingy conjuring an insistent, hypnotic undertow, pulling us under, completing our initiation.

Girls With Guns – Tender Trap (Fortuna Pop!)

2010-04-20T17:01:00.004+01:00

“Do you know what you will get if you do say that again? A bullet to your brain.” Guitars twang fiendishly behind Amelia’s swooping voice as she leads her groovy-frock-wearing gang in acts of pesky-boy pummelling, ‘We are watching out for all the girls around this town’. This is ramalama tough (indie)girl pop. Cool comic book girl punk that zooms along propelled by menacingly rumbledethump drums. It’s always satisfying to get a serving of feminism with one’s joyful pop noise, it makes me dance extra gleefully.

The track is available from 10th May as a download from Fortuna Pop! A very tempting taster for Tender Trap’s forthcoming album which we all know is gonna be a pop classic!

P.S. I drew this picture ages ago, but it kind of works here, no?

The Rats In The Cellar E.P - The Blanche Hudson Weekend (Oddbox Records)

2010-04-20T16:06:00.009+01:00

Appearances can be deceptive. Some of The Blanche Hudson Weekend were once Manhattan Love Suicides, a band not known for their lullabys, and from the cover of this seven inch e.p. – lo-fi garage-esque, littered with pics of tough dames - you’d be forgiven for expecting a whole lotta racket. But no! Place the utterly lickable Blood! Red! Vinyl! on your turntable (you do have a turntable don’t you? if not, there’s a free download code available with the vinyl) and drift dreamily in a gentle haze where Blondie meet The Primitives in a dank basement. ‘Grip Of Fear’ and ‘Sharks’ are both downily strokeable and Darklands downbeat. Caroline’s voice is whisperingly sweet (though possibly hiding an axe behind its back), the guitars’ fuzz soothes rather than sandpapers. Unnervingly gorgeous.

Over on the flip, ‘Only Snow’ goes for Velvets heartbeats and creepy Cale sawing screechiness within the confines of an elegantly compact pop song. This is the sound of an unhinged personality hidden in the cellar. Compellingly sinister.

The Loves / The Tamborines / The Vinyl Stitches - 10 April 2010, Notting Hill Arts Club

2010-04-19T09:27:00.005+01:00

The sun is shining! The streets are full of alarmingly under-dressed people!! The pasty Winter-featured people of Britain are so desperate for it to be summer that they have decided en masse that it IS. Meanwhile, in a dark basement in West London, a crowd has gathered to pretend that it is actually 1966 and they are hanging in NYC. This is El Presidente’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable brought to you (us) by Fortuna Pop! The walls dance with projections of Warhol films as DJ Lemmy Caution plays a Velvets themed set (occasionally at the wrong speed). I am amused by the projection of the ‘Chelsea Girl’ record sleeve which happens to be shining onto a bit of wall that has a sticker in the shape of a speech bubble saying ‘Yo!’ It looks like Nico, being all smack-sultry, gaze cast moodily downwards, is greeting us in an incongruous manner. Ha ha!

The Vinyl Stitches are a Nuggets box set incarnate. They have the look; bowl-cut bass player with op-art tee-shirt, singer in pointy red Chelsea boots, v. cool drummer in beat girl black accessorised with rarver groovy pendant and belt, and they have the sound. Oh yes, they have the sound. Crunchy garage played hard and fast, swinging around nastily irresistible guitar riffs – just how I like it. Songs are short and sharp, studded with get primitive howls, kicking the corpses of The Seeds and The Shadows Of Knight, The Cramps and The Count Five.

Next on are The Tamborines who are on mighty fine form, their set a little less abrasive than the last couple of times I’ve seen them, less Stooges vicious, more sweetly Velvetsy. Not that they don’t make a lot of noise, mind.

Between bands Nat from Sonic Cathedral plays some splendid records. Later, he’ll do that thing where he keeps playing another good song whenever you go to leave, ‘Hang on, let’s just hear The Third Bardo. Ooh, now it’s The Byrds…’etc.

Simon Love announces that they were going to play a whole set of Velvet Underground songs, but they couldn’t be arsed, so we make do with opener ‘Guess I’m Falling In Love’ which blams out very pleasingly. The rest of the set is pop art with added tits, as behind the band naked bodies writhe on film. Some of The Loves are decked in ‘behold our Cale-style coolness!’ shades, whilst Alice sports an excellent dress and attacks her keyboard with gusto. Highlight of the set is ‘Bubblegum’ ‘accidentally’ segueing into ‘December Boy’. The latter is a pop epic with shades of: ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ (yikes!), ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ (cripes!), Big Star (yay!) and a John Hughes film soundtrack (blimey!). It incorporates a woo! anthem! key change and is unfeasibly catchy. It’s gonna be the next single – coming to your ears soon!

Spectrum / Hush Arbors / Voice Of The Seven Thunders, 17 March 2010, Luminaire

2010-03-22T19:30:00.001Z

Ooh, we haven’t been to a Sonic Cathedral night for ages and we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect line-up to hymn our return to the congregation. Spectrum AND Hush Arbors, mmm delicious droney, psychy goodness. And who will the billed ‘very special guests’ be? As we queue to get in, a man behind us is explaining to his mate who Spectrum are – apparently the bloke out of Spectrum used to be in Spacemen 3 and he produced the new MGMT album. It becomes apparent that these people aren’t really here for Spectrum. They’re here for the ‘very special guests’ who are obviously MGMT, innit? The internet is alive with rumours: Sonic Boom produced their new album and they’re playing Heaven tomorrow…‘tis elementary. Ah, but is it?

Once we’re in, an audience with the Bishop of Shoegaze provides us with the exciting news that the guests are Voice Of The Seven Thunders. Woohoo! I am thrilled about this, as is Kate when she arrives and I impart the good news. Not sure how many other folks feel this way though. The band take the stage to a bemused audience silence and after main man Rick mentions that he’s never heard MGMT, the silence only gets stonier. This is a shame as Voice Of the Seven Thunders* are amazing; heavy duty, exotically rumbling psych. Rick’s earlier incarnation Voice Of The Seven Woods built mesmeric psych woobles around a single guitar sampled and looped (at least whenever I saw them/him), Voice Of The Seven Thunders is a full band, able to exercise ferocious multi-instrumental glory. Confusingly, Keith Hush Arbors is on guitar fleshing out the songs so that they’re powerfully grooving. There’s also a bass player, and a drummer who pummels out tribal rhythms that hammer up through my boots and kick the sound through my system. Rick plays his finger-skipping guitar squalls though a teeny tiny amp ‘the size of a rabbit hutch’. Actually, it’s more the size of a hamster cage, but it doesn’t matter, the music is a furious wiggy wig out, and for those who care to listen a fine introduction to the gloriously all-consuming new album (yes you, incredibly rude woman who shouted ‘Get off’).

Hush Arbors are one of my favourite bands at the moment and their set tonight tells me I am quite correct in feeling this way. They play country music that has had something wrong done to it, leaving it an electricity-spewing mutant, sometimes gently weeping, sometimes fiendishly howling. They are soothing, yet disturbed. Keith’s Neil Young-ish (possibly) voice provides melancholic lament over heart-wrenching guitar melody and then over in the corner, Leon has gone all mad professor with his big box of effects pedals, scrubbing and scraping and chucking his guitar around in the name of beautiful noise.

This is already the best gig I’ve been to for aages. In fact, I think I enjoy the two supports more than the main event in the end. Spectrum are, of course, stupendous, but the set is pretty much the one I’ve heard the last three times I’ve seen them: Mary, Che, How You Satisfy Me (this is my favourite tonight – sounding super groovy), When Tomorrow Hits, Set Me Free, War Sucks, plus a spectral version of Can’s Yoo Doo Right. The hits are all here in their noddy-head inducing, Radiophonic Workshop tinkering, viciously pulsating glory, but these sounds don’t quite reach the air-bending, mind-melting heights of the band’s gig at The Dome last year. S’all relative though. This is Spectrum after all. Tonight they have a raw, garagey feel to them, less wub (to use Kate’s term), more fuzz. In fact maybe too much fuzz, as Sonic makes numerous calls for towels onstage – not because he has a major perspiration problem (though it is pretty sweaty in here), but to stuff in the back of his rickety Vox amp.

He’s joined by a seated guitarist who, spookily, is called Jason; an excellently powerful drummer and, cripes! Guto of Super Furry Animals filling in on bass, as the usual bass-player is ill. He has a little book to tell him what to play. Spectrum bass lines are pretty minimal, but important – think of the way they run deliciously up and down the scale in ‘Revolution’, a small detail that helps make the song (obviously given an airing tonight).

Throughout the set, hope reigns eternal amongst the crowd that MGMT will make an appearance any…minute…now…Even the Luminaire has sent a photographer (who has 0 clue as to who Spectrum might be) to gather prized snaps of MGMT gracing its stage. Sonic leads his band to a fulcrum of noise on an epic ‘Suicide’ and then simply announces, ‘I’m going now’, like he’s off to beddy-byes. Guto leaves a decent interval before carefully arranging his bass against its amp and legging it through a gap in the stage backdrop curtains. Things are winding down… No they’re not! Here’s Sonic again bringing Guto back onstage and rearranging the bass PROPERLY and then demonstrating to the hapless Furry how to twiddle the knobs on his effects pedal to get the desired effect. There then follows a period during which a LOT of knobs are twiddled and the song goes all minimalist…and here are MGMT!! Not really. The song ends. The set ends. We go home very happy.

* ‘Named following the rare find of an 1870s tome full of lectures on the apocalypse’ according to the Rough Trade site. Your friendly Librarian of Rock says, "The full text of Voice of the Seven Thunders ; or Lectures on the Apocalypse by J. Lemuel Martin can be found online here: www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/people/jmartin.html
Shhh!”

Pop Festering 1: London Popfest Films

2010-03-04T16:57:00.006Z

Due to my being ill/ at work / being ill at work, I didn’t really experience much of London Popfest 2010, but here are a few thoughts on the bits I did get to:

London Popfest Films, The Roxy - 26 February 2010
We nick off work for an afternoon of having a nice sit down (this is good as I feel dizzy – cheers mystery virus thing!) to watch a couple of poptastic films in the comfortingly shabby environs of the Roxy on Borough High Street. The first film is ‘The Shield Around The K’, Heather Dominic’s exhaustive, lo-fi celebration of K Records. This sort of history of the label is somewhat obliquely pieced together via various interviews (featuring such luminaries as Slim Moon, Ian MacKaye and Rose Melberg), cut with rather grainy live footage of bands playing the first International Pop Underground Festival in 1991. Plus the odd groovy Super-8 pop video for Beat Happening and Tiger Trap and the like.

By the end the general consensus amongst the audience seems to be ‘it went on a bit’, but there is plenty to be entertained by and unless you are a raving K Records freak a fair bit to learn about the label and the people involved with it. Highlights include: Sonic Boom looking exactly like a skull wearing a dishevelled Beatles wig; Jean Smith of Mecca Normal telling an anecdote and changing her mind about what happened even as the words leave her mouth; some amazing ‘freeform’ dancing by Calvin Johnson; footage of Fugazi performing; the Roxy audience sniggering whenever record store moustache man appears on screen; everyone looking pretty good and not too old until you remember that 1999, when the film was made, was like 11 years ago. Oh yes and Calvin saying that when the first Beat Happening seven inch came out someone asked him what had happened to K’s ‘cassette revolution’. Answer: ‘Didn’t you hear? We won.’

The second film seems to get more bums on seats. It’s the main reason I came as I missed out on its only other showing, at the Barbican in 2008. ‘Take Three Girls: The Dolly Mixture Story’ is introduced by director Paul Kelly who rather sweetly says, “Bye!” at the end of his intro as if he was on the phone. As he explains, the forty minute film combines extensive footage of Dolly Mixture from the early eighties with interviews and imagery he filmed in 2008. It isn’t finished yet, but it’s brilliant, perfectly juxtaposing the past (three rather naïve girls apparently just kind of doing stuff and it sort of working in a wonky way) and the present (three cool women reminiscing in a very matter of fact way without any annoying mythologizing). It would maybe be good to have a bit more of an idea of time in the film, sometimes it’s not really clear what happened when – just at some point between 1979 and 1984. Still, it’s chockfull of great bits and should be shown to school girls everywhere, as it’s utterly inspiring. Apart from at the end when the band finishes ‘cos one of them is pregnant with Captain Sensible’s child.

Good bits:
- As school girls Debsey and Rachel pretended to be in a band and wrote articles about themselves. We did that too!

- Debsey’s box full of old Butterick sewing patterns, and the band’s approach to ‘fashion’ in general.

- Preparing for their first studio session, Dolly Mixture practise getting progressively quieter as they play because they want one of their tracks to fade out. They haven’t heard of faders on mixing desks.

- Dolly Mixture go down to London for the day (in carefully chosen outfits that include coloured bowler hats – for that city gent goes pop! look) in order to obtain a record deal and are disappointed when they find you can’t just phone up a label and pop round to play them your demo there and then.

- Dolly Mixture’s Peel session never gets a repeat airing, ‘cos John Walters doesn’t like them, “The Slits crossed with The Nolans”. Boo.

- Dolly Mixture’s manager is called ‘Dubious Tony’.

- U2 supported Dolly Mixture at The Rock Garden. Captain Sensible reports that U2 were ‘crap’.

- Dolly Mixture don’t have enough money to see The Undertones play at Cambridge Corn Exchange so they stand outside in the car-park to listen. Afterwards they go in and manage to give the band their demo tape. Half an hour later they are asked to support The Undertones the next night. And then after that they get to be support on the whole Undertones tour and the band are all really kind to the Dolly Mixture girls. It is pleasing to learn that the O’Neill brothers in particular are very nice.

- Dolly Mixture the band write to Dolly Mixture the sweetie company to suggest some kind of advertising collaboration. The company declines this kind offer, but sends the band a big box of sweets! Can you imagine this happening now? A cease and desist order would be more likely.

- Debsey Wykes is my new style icon (not that I had an old one, but you know).

Towards the end of the film, drummer Hester expresses a desire to have a go at drumming again – but only in a sound-proof room where she’s knows nobody could overhear her. And she definitely would never ever play in a band again. This is a shame, ‘cos when the film’s over you can practically see the thought bubbles forming above the Roxy audience’s heads as they picture Dolly Mixture playing a reunion show to an adoring Indietracks crowd.

Pop Festering 2: London Popfest Alldayer - 100 Club, 27 February 2010

2010-03-04T16:00:00.006Z

After yesterday’s cinematic extravaganza, I listen to Dolly Mixture en route to this gig. I feel like I’m in a swinging 60s film, ‘Smashing Time’ maybe, as I skip off the no.10 bus and straight down the 100 Club stairs. I’ve been at work all day despite this weird illness making my head buzz and the floor undulate, and so like an old lady I’m very pleased to see there are seats going spare in the 100 Club. I feel too groggy to really pay much attention to the bands, but I really want to see Shrag, so I stick it out, drinking a pint of Guinness ‘cos it might fortify me (it just makes the dizziness weirder). I notice that there is a preponderance of Girls With Bobs here, even more so than usual at an indiepop gathering. My hair is looking especially bobbed ‘cos I went to Last Days of Decadence last week and wanted to look like I was out of the1920s, but I don’t know what everyone else’s excuse is.

From my biddy seat it seems that Standard Fare and Allo Darlin’ play mighty pop-full sets and I'm sorry I don't have the energy to pay proper attention. However, I am persuaded to totter to the front to peer at Dorotea who have briefly REFORMED for a one-off trip to play in the UK especially for Popfest.

People (including the ever excitable Horowitz chaps) are pretty happy about Dorotea playing and throw themselves about with glee. Hooray! I slither further back so that they can leap about without me keeling over in their midst. Dorotea are skillz, they basically just play choruses and thus their songs are v. short. Cool.
I always get a manic pop thrill when Shrag play and tonight is no different. I feel a whole lot better with their itching powder rhythms and scrabbly guitar noises crunching through me. Helen is on good form, squealing her vocals, words cribbed from a big book of scrawled lyrics. She pulls some good ‘mentally distracted’ stances does Helen, plucking at her clothes, pigeon-toed, collapsing to her knees with nary a care for laddered tights. Despite my grogginess, I think the band are the best I’ve seen them, even with this unfamiliar set. Their second album isn’t out for a while yet, but a lot of new songs get an airing (is there really one called ‘Tights in August’? if not there should be) and jokes are made about everything we’re hearing being unreleased. I’m looking forward to the new album, ‘cos these songs are immediately great, they’re more nuanced (Helen reads out a monologue throughout one – ooh get her!) than just being revved up and in your face – although there is that as well. I like Shrag’s sense of menace - the aggression in their sound is most invigorating, and by the time they’ve stomped through a captivating set (which includes a smudgy ‘Ghosts Before Breakfast’ and top pop hit ‘Rabbit Kids’) I’m glad I stuck around.

It's knowing you're alive through all the fuzz / It's never coming down from going up. Fave Tunes - January / February 2010

2010-03-03T11:20:00.005Z

1995 – The Radio Dept. Back to work after Christmas muffled in a dufflecoat against the snow. The Radio Dept’s melancholic drifts of sound are Wintery perfect.

Mind How You Go - The Advisory Circle The eerie-comforting sound of radiophonics and 1970s public information films.

Unchanging Window/Chord Simple – Broadcast The peaceful ennui of gazing at grey skies. With a soupcon of spooky.

What Am I Gonna Do? – The Dovers Dippy/sublime mixture of psych and soul. Also to be found sampled on Atlas Sound’s ‘Walkabout’

Mirror Kisses – Citay Epically swirling psych folk with hints of Wendy and Bonnie.

Wide-eyed, Legless - Laura Veirs For the squealy noises that sound like tropical birds / fireworks in a summer sky.

Coming Home To You – Tim Buckley Sounds like contentedly greeting the California dawn after a long night.

Spin That Girl Around – Euros Childs Sometimes Euros’ voice breaks your heart.

Brite Futures – Dum Dum Girls Perfect mix of tough girl indiepop and roughshod garage a la The Delmonas

Owls And Flowers - Belbury Poly Sounds like the album cover ('The Owl's Map') looks.

Low Scene – The Sea Urchins Pilled up mod pop with slightly worrying rawk vocals. See here pleaserainfall.blogspot.com

Some Velvet Morning – Starpower I just rediscovered this psychotically overblown version of Nancy ‘n’ Lee’s vision of perfection.

Man Overboard! - Soft Hearted Scientists Listening to this on the tube to work; ‘Where are all the carefree days, they seem so long ago / We were going to change the world then routine caged our bodies and our souls’ Oh the delicious sorrow.

The Darling Buds

2010-02-18T12:39:00.015Z

The Darling Buds were a kind of Primitives substitute to me – a blonde girl fronting fuzzpop blokes – but I never loved them even a fraction as much as I loved the Prims. They did have some good tunes though: the ace rumbledethump of ‘Shame On You’, the swooping ‘Hit The Ground’. There were a couple of great Peel Sessions that I taped and played to death, and our friend Mike put out a flexi with his fanzine ‘So Naïve’ that contained the swingorilliant ‘Spin’. It was a buzzy indiepop maelstrom that began and ended with the sound of er, like, a creaky merry-go-round speeding up and slowing down. Slightlydelic!

The Darling Buds’ joyfully ramshackle first single ‘If I Said’ / ‘Just To Be Seen’ came out in 1987, but by the next year I was fed up with the band. They got scooped up by Epic Records and became tainted with an aura of corporate bollocks. I couldn’t even be bothered buying the album ‘Pop Said’ it had an ugly sleeve with icky colours. I reluctantly bought a twelve inch of the single ‘Burst’ ‘cos it was on sale, but I always kind of despised it. It represented big shiny major label nastiness. Still, I seemed to enjoy the band the one time I saw them live:

'The Darling Buds / The Corn Dollies – Norwich Arts Centre, Oct 5th 1988

All squeezed into the back of the van and zoomed to Norwich Arts Centre and wow! it was packed. Most people I’ve ever seen there. Talked to N who had a funky green shirt with purple polka-dots, and we discussed groovy bands and getting a band together ourselves – me on stand-up drums! When I was telling N’s sister later she said ‘Oh N will have to do lead guitar and sing and it will probably be called N’s band.’ Ha ha!

Shine! were on first and were abysmal as ever – 100th rate Wedding Present. I bought a Darling Buds badge and then The Corn Dollies were on and the singer had a fab flopsome haircut and groovy baseball boots like our ‘Sportright’* ones. Their last song was groovy ‘cos it was mad with a squeaky violin!

Then The Darling Buds were on and we couldn’t get near the front ‘cos of all the dudes a-moshin’ and a-crashin’ (hardcore DBs followers the Skullfuck Crew mayhap?) The band were F.A.B. v.v. noisy. Andrea’s voice sounded squeaky and they put ‘Venus In Furs’ into the middle of ‘Just Say So’. Harley was v. cool and he’s got a brillo big shiny red semi-acoustic guitar. They played lots of songs and then two encores. People threw confetti and a balloon was being biffed around and it was all dead fabby wabby.'

My friend K. sent me a letter (old skool!) from Brighton telling me about The Darling Buds gig there. They were supported by The Waltones who were ‘a bit boring, but quite groovy I suppose’. The Darling Buds were ‘pretty good but too loud!! My ears were ringing so badly the next day that I couldn’t hear my lectures.’ The main news K had to announce though was ‘I’ve sat on the same loo as Andrea Bud!!’ Classy.

*Our Sportright boots were one of our greatest shopping finds. From some crappy shoe shop in a Norwich alley, they were ridiculously cheap (like £2 or something) black baseball boots with an amusing picture of an athlete embossed in the rubber circle bit over the heel. We wore them always, replacing as necessary when they wore out. No wonder my feet were so cold all the time.

Get Primitive(s)

2010-02-18T10:55:00.036Z

Against my better judgement, we’ve got tickets to see The Primitives at The Scala later this year. I resisted last year’s reformation gig at the Buffalo Bar, due to not wanting to destroy happy pop memories, but it was by all accounts a splendid showing, so this time round I’ve given in to peer pressure and we’ll be there in April. This has got me thinking about the sparkly buzzsaw wonder that was The Primitives and how much I loved them, at least for a little while.

Summer 1986 was ‘Thru The Flowers’ and ‘Really Stupid’ (session version). Fizzbombs of overloaded, overexcited, fuzzed out noisepop. They matched my ebullient mood. I’d finished my exams, it seemed to be sunny all the time and I was discovering loads of exciting new bands. The Primitives got little mentions in ‘Melody Maker’. They looked pretty cool. Tracy was a bit gothy looking – big crimped, backcombed hair, Siouxsie eyeliner, lots of dangly jewellery, but that was okay. 1986 was kind of the indiepop fashion transition period (at least in the minds of me and my chums). So you could have messy backcombed hair and dress all in black as long as you did it with the right sensibility, i.e. whilst not being a goth.

Part of the appeal of The Primitives was the way they looked. Especially guitarist Paul Court.He was the perfect indie boy! He managed to look utterly, unimpeachably cool in his moptop, skinny black jeans and Chelsea boots, like, “Yeah, I’ve just been transplanted from 1967, what the fuck are you going to do about it?” A feat often attempted by lesser mortals but rarely achieved so successfully.

The Sound of Autumn 1986 came courtesy of two Andy Kershaw sessions, one by The Avons (much beloved by me as they were a local band) and the other by The Primitives who offered up four easy to sing along with songs, each one a scuffed-up pop-perfect encapsulation of teenage-ness. The nursery rhyme dippiness of ‘Spacehead’ applied pleasingly well to my friend K, ‘What is that boy on? / He’s a strange person’. My favourite was ‘Where The Wind Blows’. Evocative of peering out the window at empty, windblown, night-time streets (we didn’t have actual streets with y’ know pavements and shit in my village, so this was a romantic notion) it always gave me the shivers, especially the bit at the end when Tracy sings, ‘I realise that you’re long since dead and gone’. Brrr! ‘Across My Shoulder’; not sure what that was all about, but it seemed to be in keeping with an oft-occurring Prims lyrical theme: ‘the boy done bad, best get rid’ - a no nonsense toughness that stopped Tracy being too girlie sweet (see also: ‘She Don’t Need You’, ‘Really Stupid’). Oh, and there was a groovy wee song called ‘Crash’.

1987 gave us the ramalama scrawl of ‘Stop Killing Me’ with more bursting bubblegum fuck right off lyrics. I flouted indiepop rules and bought the twelve inch, because the real jewel here was the second track on the b-side, ‘Laughing Up My Sleeve’. It was sung by Paul in a not quite off-key flat tone (sexy!) against a deceptively sweet tumbling guitar. Once again it had a great fuck you theme, not least the bit about 'that boy you're with's a dick’ (or ‘boy who is a dick’, or ‘boy who looks a dick’, we weren’t really sure). But the best bit was kept ‘til last when the guitar went MENTAL! Fuzzing menacingly behind the vocals, gradually increasing in volume until it detonated into a terrible feedback SCREEECH! Genius. We played it LOUD and often.

The b-sides were always brilliant, what about the Velvetsy, day-dreamingly titled, annoyingly bracketed ‘(We’ve) Found A Way (To The Sun)’, with its understated singsongyness building up to a euphoric Tracy ‘n’ Paul duetting end? Or the acid summer shimmer of ‘Everything’s Shining Bright’?

Summer 1987 and The Primitives started evolving ever so slightly. Tracy’s look developed into that of a knowingly prim starlet, complete with excellently applied winged eyeliner (Bilinda Butcher from MBV did the same sort of thing – it was very influential on my eyeliner wearing). ‘Thru The Flowers’ was re-recorded and released on a (limited ed!) three track 7”. Gone was the crunchy scuzz of the original release, this was deliciously pristine. The guitars pealing like bells somehow reminded me of the theme tune to ‘The Magic Roundabout’. It was pure pop but still trippy. The band appeared on ‘Wogan’ plugging their single:

'September 2nd 1987: ‘Happy When It Rains’ came on the radio on the way home and then later The Primitives were on ‘Wogan’! Funny, I know, but they were! They were fab, a perfect pop group. Paul Prim looked v. Johnny Marr-esque and he’s had a haircut so his hair wasn’t such a mega pudding bowl and he had v. anorexic black jean clad legs. Pete forgot to mime to a little bit. Tracy looked v. sweet shaking her head to the ‘You won’t find me, no, no.’ bits. Ace'

Drummer Pete Tweedie was sacked because of something to do with Tracy’s cats (I can vaguely recollect some interview that my friend showed me in which a pre-sacked Pete discussed his predilection for the cats – ugh) and replaced by Tig who was a better drummer, but we still preferred Pete ‘cos he had good hair. I once kept a fiver for ages that he fished out of his jeans pocket to give to me as change when he was manning Birdland’s merch stall. It was a kind of talisman to me and my friends and we were most distraught when I had to spend it on petrol (a fiver’s worth of petrol could get you places then).

By 1988 The band had signed to RCA and started moving up in the world. Paul got a quiff! ‘Crash’ got released. The song from the Andy Kershaw session that had been a raucous headlong charge with Tracy spitting the words out spitefully was a big gleaming pop monster that the whole world and its granny loved. I still loved it too, despite the big bucks video. And I loved the album ‘Lovely’ when it emerged triumphant on the back of this sudden success. The Primitives finally came and played in our neck of the woods:

'The Primitives – UEA, 5th May 1988

Very sunny day, but my bike is broken so had to take the omnibus to school. Had Biology, but K wasn’t in. Phoned her and she couldn’t decide whether to come in or not (v. laissez faire approach to education there), so I strimbled round to hers and we listened to 14 Iced Bears and saw a v. depressing programme about death.

Left about 12, went home and listened to the grooveeeeeeeee Pooh Sticks session (er, what about SCHOOL?) and did some English (oh alright then). Later, drove all four of us to the UEA. It was SOLD OUT (man). Saw N and Loz and bought a so-called ‘badge-pack’ i.e. four badges and a naff postcard for £1.50, only we split it between us. I got a cool gear black and white badge with Paul and Steve Prim on.

Stood about near the front even before Goodbye Mister McKenzie the support band were on ‘cos of large abundance of people there. GMM were quite boring really. I managed to elbow my way to the front of the stage and I was the only girlie there, the rest being pervy boys wanting to see Tracy! The stage ‘set’ was a big pop-art ‘Crash!’ backdrop and a shiny actual car or the front of a car or fake car or something. I was dead in front of Paul and I had a brill view of his pedals and fings.

They came on and did ‘Dreamwalk Baby’, then ‘I’ll Stick With You’, ‘Run Baby Run’, ‘Nothing Less’ and everything off the LP except ‘Spacehead’ Boo! Swizzed! They also did ‘Across My Shoulder’, the three session songs (Peel session from April 1988 I think), ‘Really Stupid’, ‘Everything’s Shining Bright’, ‘We Found A Way To The Sun’ and one I DON’T KNOW! Anyways, it was dead cosmic and FAB and stuff and I got mega-crushed so I had to fight my way out and execute groovy dances further back. They came back for one encore. D. went backstage and got their autographs. Huh!'

Then what? On my last ever day at school the ‘Out Of Reach’ video was on the Chart Show. The band were playing on a beach (‘cos it says about walking on the sand or something in the lyrics) and I was just about to go out to an ‘end of school forever’ beach party! Blimey!

I bought the next single ‘Way Behind Me’ ‘cos I found it cheap. Again, the b-side was the best bit, ‘All The Way Down’ sung by Paul (I think basically I loved everything that Paul did) against a Velvetsy drone with hints of squally noise underneath. Yum. I just played it again for the first time in 1000 years. It sounds dreamy! It’s also maybe a precursor to the stuff Mr Court did under the name Starpower. I only came across them once, when Mark Radcliffe played their gorgeous take on ‘Some Velvet Morning’. It crackles and hums with interference like its being beamed from a distant planet.

By 1989 I was losing interest in The Primitives. Bass player Steve Dullaghan had left, so they weren’t really the proper band any more. Tracy g-a-s-p changed from blonde to redhead and I thought she looked much better even if nobody else did (I had red hair), but it wasn’t enough to sustain my interest. I’d moved to London. I was at Art School. I was Busy. Plus the band just weren’t cool anymore. They got a good hard major label scrubbing and ended up looking shit – all sheeny and clean with crappily perfect stu stu stu studioline hair’styles’. I didn’t know or care what happened next. According to the internet they had two more albums! I don’t think I want to hear them. I want to preserve the songs I know in a velvet(s) lined box alongside the teenage memories they represent. Until April when we go to The Scala, anyway.

Katapult – Wednesday Club (Odd Box Records)

2010-01-22T13:09:00.005Z

Some words about Wednesday Club: joyful, absurd, spirit raising on a gloomy day, abundantly melodic, super eclectic. ‘Katapult’, the product of three different songwriters, is 57 varieties of pick ‘n’ mix musical fun, slipping and sliding all over the pop shop for your delectation and delight. Fifteen songs in half an hour that offer variously: a soupcon of Jonathan Richman here, a dash of The McTells there, the vague ghosts of a whole hotch-potch of alty/indiepop stuff from 1986/1996/2006/whenever floating in and out of your ears and the odd psych-y twist.

Wednesday Club are apparently three fifths of The Medusa Snare (with about nought percent of the MS sound) and sing couplets like: “You like Belle And Sebastian / Your sister is a thespian” (‘Marks And Lines’) whilst delivering a variety-pack of pop straight to the breakfast bowl of your heart.

Guitars jangle and pianos plink, drums rattle and ‘Steven’s House’ is a sweet singalong pop smash! ‘Wave At Planes’ is all lilting and wistful. The opening of ‘European Veins’ is not dissimilar to The Darling Buds’ ‘Spin’ and then it continues in a splendidly fuzzy, rattley and yes, JAMC kind of way (maybe 'cos of those Manhattan Love Suicide connections?) Woo! ‘Huevos’ starts off a bit Barretty then has a personality change and comes over all aggressive and shouty. Flip!

‘De Lomelanicon’ has the exact correct measurements of sway-along melancholy and longing and contrasts perfectly with album closer, the fuzzy, fizzy, cuckoo clockwork of ‘Citalogasm’ which will have you singing along oh so sweetly with the choir, “Fuck the world. Fuck the whole wide world”. Beautiful.

And can I just point out the song title ‘Schrodinger’s Catflap’. Nice work.

oddboxrecords.com

12 Favourite Records 2009

2009-12-31T17:04:00.000Z

Dark winters wear you down / Up again to see the dawn. Fave Tunes - November/December 2009

2009-12-30T11:34:00.001Z

I See, So I See So – Broadcast & The Focus Group Everything I want from music, spooky, disorientating, sublime.

The Road Of Golden Dust - Espers Sounds like drifting Ophelia-like along a reedy river.

For While You Slept - Hush Arbors Brooding, foreboding, exhilarating psych-folk.

What Would I Want? Sky - Animal Collective Playful and feathery - wriggle your limbs against the rigid winter cold.

Devil Made You High – Hush Arbors Like putting your head out the window of a speeding car and having the breath pulled out of you.

Young Adult Friction – The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart played live at the ICA, Upstairs At the Garage, The Scala. Always my favourite few minutes of every Pains gig.

Meet Me At Lookout Point - Devendra Banhart Ethereal sunshine daydream.

Smell Of Incense – West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band The sound of smoke.

Willy O’Winsbury – The Pentangle The Wicker Man and The Pentangle meet in a folk waltz = two of my favourite creepy folk things combined.

Down On You - Ringo Deathstarr Delicious daydream dizziness.

Pretty much everything by Deerhunter They have been my cocoon during the freeze.

Comet Gain / Veronica Falls / Schwervon! - Buffalo Bar, 11 December 2009

2009-12-12T18:49:00.006Z

A handmade felt rosette has been trampled in the doorway of The Buffalo Bar. It’s a sorry sight, but kind of fitting for this is the last EVER Twee As Fuck clubnight, the crazy kidz who ran the night for two and bit years are going on to (sun-dappled, flower-speckled) pastures new and going out with a cheery POP farewell.

Twee As Fuck put on lots of excellent bands and jolly popnights but somehow managed to get folks’ backs up. They were like the kids at school who always did everything right, the ones you couldn’t help liking but secretly wanted to push over in the mud. Tonight they’re at it again with a spankingly ace line-up.

First the wonderful Schwervon! go rip-roaring through an end-of-massive-tour-honed set, Matt on guitar and Nan on drums set up to face each other having conversations with clackity rhythms and crankily groovy sounds. They play old favourite ‘Dinner’ – yay! They show us a big old set of cutlery they were given as a ‘Christmas present’ by a Manchester curry house. It turns out we can WIN the cutlery set as it’s too heavy for the band to lug about. A dance off ensues! The dance off is mainly Kate boogie-ing about at the front of the crowd and so rightly Kate wins the cutlery. It’s always top fun when Schwervon! are in town.

Veronica Falls become mightier every time I see them. They’re spook-indie, for a start there’s the excellent gothic (not goth) bone-rattling janglepop of ‘Found Love In A Graveyard’, but there’s something slightly distanced and other-worldly about all of their songs. Not in an ethereal way, but in a feral, weird kids way. They’re the creepy loners who got their hands round the neck of indiepop and squeezed a little too hard. They sound echoey, like they’re playing in a crypt: clattery drums, dead-eyed sweet-gone-bad voices, and a double bill of guitar janglage = fearsome.

And so the task of being last band to play Twee As Fuck falls to Comet Gain who somewhat bizarrely seem to have become ‘elder statesmen’ for today’s up ‘n’ thrusting indiepop kids. As ever at a Comet Gain gig we scan the stage for missing band members. Oh, Rachel’s not here. This is a shame as Rachel seems to have carried the whole shebang along at recent gigs in a smiley, clappy, possibly slightly unhinged way. We miss her voice and her shuffley-stamp dancing.

Pulling the whole thing together is - uh-oh - left to David Feck, but shockingly he appears to be magnificently un-drunk, leading the band through a swathe of ferocious pop songs only one of which, to be fair a newie, they forget how to play.

Feck explains his sartorial choices for the night – shirt, tie, cardie, cravat-scarf - he’s been aiming for the curmudgeonly landlord look, but has accidentally dressed like the (hated) eighties. Doh! There are plans to end the set appropriately with ‘The Kids At The Club’. ‘Tis indeed a scratchy soul-pop gem, but it’s missing Rachel’s yelping and maybe doesn’t quite hit the mark. So we get given a choice for the last song and shout our little heads off for ‘My Defiance’ and then dance our little wigs off , stopping only to enjoy the extended midsong wibble waffle testifying about (amongst other things) listening to ‘Chestnut Mare’ by The Byrds. ‘It’s a song about a horse. Of course.’

N.B. Bob Underexposed decided to take the night off from photographing the gig - hence this random selection of images from my files.

The Sexual Objects / The Tamborines / Still Corners / Standard Fare - Buffalo Bar, 27 November 2009

2009-11-29T19:59:00.010Z

Bobby Gillespie is standing on the stairs (so no one can see him, hem hem), There are three Rockingbirds, a Dan Treacey and er, Pam Hogg lurking round the bar. Pourquoi? Because The Sexual Objects are playing and their singer is Davey Henderson one-time Fire Engine and thus legendary musical figure in select circles.

At school in the old days during an English lesson we once played that game where you have to think of a town, a flower, a book etc beginning with a certain letter (yes I had a rigorous edumacation). For the category ‘pop group’ I named The Fire Engines and was faced with the derision of my classmates who all thought I’d made the band up. What a bunch of squares, eh kids? I know I didn’t make them up ‘cos I’d heard them on John Peel’s show. And now I’m hearing bits of them live IN THE FLESH.

Davey Henderson, dressed in bright red shirt and spiffy rock ‘n’ roll boots (“I polished my boots, but I forgot to tune my guitar”) has a dry wit, a laconic drawl and a way with a tune. The Sexual Objects crank out jangly, croony, rollickingly ramshackle rock ‘n’ roll. On guitar and Beatles-esque backing vocals is that bloke out of Bricolage looking like the Lloyd Cole-faced cat that got the cream.

It’s a short but sweet set, with single 'Here Come The Rubber Cops' standing up proud and giving our ears a good rattling with its sheeny guitars and laid-back swing. The songs are peppered with bendy, glammy guitar sounds and plenty of gleeful sing-along ‘ooh la la las’. The snort-worthily titled ‘Midnight Boycow’ chugs and swaggers managing to suggest T. Rx, Bowie, The Rolling Stones and The Pastels all at once. Nice work.

Henderson gives a shout out to The Tamborines – huzzah! It’s true they’ve just played a magnificently eardrum-frying set; the perfect collision between ferocious fuzz and unshakeable tunes. Henrique cranks his guitar up high, hits the distortion and away they go, head to toe dressed in black, lighting reduced to tunnel vision white light flickering. It’s exhilarating, like facing into a hurricane. Set closer ‘Looking Glass House’ is particularly striking, a satisfying crash between The Stooges and NEU! with Lulu’s keyboard riff eerily twinkling against the roar. Fab.

The Tamborines are a rude awakening after the spookily lulling soundtracks of Still Corners. Still Corners are science-y in a Broadcast/Delia Derbyshire way and 60s noir soundtracky in a John Barry way. Icy blonde, cooly detached gossamer vocals and hoity tambourine shaking from singer Olivia are backed with keyboard and guitar skitterings. The music creates a compelling sense of unease, it’s remote but enthralling.

Standard Fare open this excellent evening of pop fun with gawky thrills of their own. The simple instrumentation (guitar, bass and drums rattle and swoon as appropriate) allows singer Emma’s appealing voice to shine out. There are moments that are slightly reminiscent of The Long Blondes’ pop glory - intelligent female singering with lyrics you want to listen to. ‘Dancing’, ‘15’, ‘Philadelphia’… they are bitter, they are sweet, they are damn catchy. Not really standard at all.

God Help The Girl / Pocketbooks - 100 Club, 21 November 2009

2009-11-22T13:34:00.003Z

Pocketbooks in ‘reminiscent of Belle And Sebastian’ shockah! There were nervous scenes at the 100 Club last night, as a member of top London indiepoppers Pocketbooks mentioned that the idea of playing support to God Help The Girl was making them excited yet uneasy. The fact that they would be playing their B&S-inspired groovily breezy janglepop in front of head B&S-er Stuart Murdoch was the cause of this distress, but as it turned out Murdoch was down the road scoffing a pizza during Pocketbooks set and missed the whole thing.

More fool him as Pocketbooks play a blinder, their swoonsome pop racing along making heads and hearts dip and glide. Old faves like ‘Footsteps’ ‘The Outskirts Of Town’ and ‘Fleeting Moments’ make us feel warm and fuzzy and joyful, even when Emma’s voice is being all poignant. It’s a gleeful opening to the evening and not that much like B&S really. Afterwards there are more shock revelations as a spokesperson for the band admits ‘We were good’.

In other news, God Help The Girl, the girl-group combo created by Stuart Murdoch, sound smooth and cocktail party-ish. They’re entertaining live, but maybe not something I’d sit and listen to at home (although I am listening to Amon Duul II’s ‘Yeti’ as I type so what the hell do I know?) Cleverly, Murdoch has managed to choose three extremely pretty girls to front the group, Alex Klobouk, Celia Garcia and Catherine Ireton. They can all sing, too - gorgeous harmonies leading the way on songs like opener ‘Act Of The Apostle’ (complete with co-ordinated hand movements that are rather Pipettes-esque).

They do seem a little nervous though. It turns out this is their first EVER headline gig and their second EVER gig at all. The band includes Murdoch himself who encourages us to look at the girls, ‘Is that sexist? What’s wrong with being sexy?’ Ha ha. There are also fellow Belle and Seb-blokes Stevie ‘Action’ Jackson (sporting big hair) and Bob Kildea, plus Teenage Fannie/ BMX Bandit (etc) Francis MacDonald.

The obvious musical reference is 60s girl group pop, with a soupcon of indiepop, but there are also hints of 50s doo-wop, and suggestions of a simpler, sweeter era in the squeaky clean delivery. Stuart Murdoch is apparently aiming to create big pure pop music with kitsch-en sink lyrics and he seems to have pulled it off very efficiently. We even get a new song, 'Saturday Night, the Loneliest Night of the Week'.

The set closes with Murdoch finally taking centre stage (he’s been sitting tinkering variously on guitar and keyboards throughout) to sing 'Perfection As A Hipster' during which the infamous Murdoch ‘soul boy’ dancing is unleashed. A perfect conclusion to a sugary pop evening.

The music of Vernon Elliot performed by the North Sea Radio Orchestra - 22 October 2009, Union Chapel

2009-11-10T16:51:00.008Z

Sweetie fact: Sherbet Fountains no longer come in a paper tube, they’re in a re-sealable plastic container! Is this a good thing? Are we pleased that the liquorice stick is no longer exposed to air-borne pathogens and can’t be clutched at by a million grubby hands before we use it to shovel sherbety goodness into our gobs? Is it disheartening that we can no longer peel the paper tube down keeping level with the sherbet supply within until it becomes a soggy sugary stump? These important questions were raised last night at the Union Chapel, Islington.

We are gathered in the exquisite surrounds of the Chapel for Marginalised: The music of Vernon Elliot (Oliver Postgate) performed by the North Sea Radio Orchestra. A lot of love and care has gone into tonight’s event. There are dustbin lids and Music Trees decorating the stage (in homage to The Clangers); a cardboard Ivor the Engine puffs out a constant stream of ‘smoke’; and there are sweetie vendors peddling candy striped paper bags containing such delights as the aforementioned fountain, a miniature bag of Chocolate Buttons, Sherbet Lemons, Black Jacks and some rather clammy Cola Bottles. Upstairs in the bar, folks are gathered round a table indulging in a spot of cutting and sticking, creating character masks.

Even more care has been lavished on the musical programme: a selection of musical pieces based on the original scores of Vernon Elliott, the composer who created soundtracks for Smallfilms. If you’re a child of the 60s or 70s, Oliver Postgate’s and Peter Firmin’s Smallfilms will be dear to you. The music will kick off all kinds of nostalgia trips. Jonny Trunk knows this. He also knows that Smallfilms created things of beauty (yes, ‘Bagpuss’ is a thing of beauty) that should be celebrated like any other artform. He is here tonight to introduce each segment of the programme in a sort of eccentric groovy uncle manner. It is he who gets us making the Ivor The Engine ‘shh-tch-kuff’ noise en masse (“starting slowly then speeding up”). Just before the interval, he enthusiastically introduces a three minute audio clip of Oliver Postgate testing microphone sound levels. His love of and enthusiasm for Smallfilms is endearing and infectious.

After an introductory film about the Margins project – the very deserving recipient of proceeds from tonight - the evening proper begins with the North Sea Radio Orchestra playing a fantasia medley of music from Smallfilms. This is accompanied by a charmingly ’naive’ film by Arctic Circle Cinema in which hand-drawn, paper cut-out versions of characters from the programmes are wiggled about on sticks.

For the rest of the evening we are shown clips from the actual Smallfilms animations, one of which, ‘Pingwings’, I have never heard of. The clip we are shown is brilliant and hilarious, the tiny knitted penguins (for that is what the Pingwings are) shuffling about an actual real-life farm in stop-motion. Or hanging philosophically from a washing line, pegged up by the beak. The small girl seen in the film is Josie Firmin, Peter’s daughter. And she is here tonight (now a grown-up lady) selling her pottery. Sweet.

I heard the North Sea Radio Orchestra’s Ivor The Engine Theme and Variations on ‘Freakzone’ earlier in the week and was eager to hear this truly wonderful piece of music again. It’s the most rousing of the pieces played tonight, not least because it features, gasp! a drum-kit, which rattles militaristically, there’s also an excellent sonorously squidgy cello / keyboard sound adding the tiniest tone of foreboding to the music.

‘Land Of Our Fathers’ (yes, the Welsh national anthem) completes the Ivor set and lawks! the audience is invited to sing along with the third verse to create a suitably stirring ‘chorusing in the aisles’ feel. It’s blimmin’ hard to sing – even in English.

There’s a cheer as the Noggin The Nog section is introduced. I never really got into the Nog, being a tad too young when it was being regularly shown, so it’s a pleasure to suck on a sherbet lemon, soak up the atmospheric music and admire the artwork – brooding Nordic vistas, creepy forests and of course the villainously moustachioed Nogbad the bad. Brrr!

The centre piece of the performance is the orchestra playing a live soundtrack to a complete episode of The Clangers. This of course includes some sterling Swanee Whistle work as The Clangers chatter away to one another.

And so to songs from ‘Bagpuss’. The iconic (yes indeed!) opening to every episode is played “Once upon a time, not so long ago…” I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one clamping my jaw shut so I don’t inadvertently chant along with the familiar words. The North Sea Radio Orchestra plays the twinkly theme tune and run it into the ‘We will fix it’ mices’ song. At this point people are almost head-banging (albeit gently) such is their glee. A selection of songs taken from the vaults of the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ are aired, including the ace ‘Uncle Feedle’ sung by Madeleine the doll sound-alike Sharron Fortnam (I think). It would fit perfectly on any ‘underground folk’ compilation.

And so, with Jonny Trunk encouraging us all to do big Bagpuss yawns, proceedings and brought to a gentle, joyful close.

Heralding a stage where consciousness is higher. Fave Tunes - September/October 2009

2009-11-08T13:07:00.001Z

In Love – Ringo Deathstarr Tonight the band are being ‘Automatic’-era JAMC. Good plan.

Quick Canal – Atlas Sound (with Laetitia Sadier) Euphoric Indian summer space-out.

Shithausen / Son Of Shithausen – Euros Childs Crazy titles crazy soundz.

Vivid Youth - Pastels / Tenniscoats Breezy clouds in high skies.

Once We Walked In The Sunlight - Papercuts Opiated analogue glow, like a three bar fire with cough mixture (in a wibbly calming nice way).

Agoraphobia – Deerhunter Soothes an agitated mind.

No Presents For Me – Pandamonium Laid-back garage psych from olden dayes. Plus! Backwards guitar alert!

Little Kids – Deerhunter Nursery rhymey chimey and shivery.

North Sea Radio Orchestra - Ivor The Engine Theme And Variations Basoon-erific and actually quite funky when the military drumming and terrifyingly squidgy keyboards kick in.

North Sea Radio Orchestra – Bagpuss/Uncle Feedle Gorgeous folkadelia, wasted on kids.

Festival On The River Of The Frozen Moon - The Lickets A spectral orchestra waxes and wanes.

Shake Your Bones - The Millipedes (Oddbox Records)

2009-10-25T12:51:00.002Z

‘Shake Your Bones’ sets its cards on the table from the off, opening with the galumphing, dumb-cluck garage of ‘Make Something Happen’. If you want sophisticated or experimental, you’re outta luck chum. If you want rip-snortingly gleeful frugadelic beat tunes, then step right up.

The Millipedes play monster raving groovy mondo mongo trashcan rock ‘n’ roll complete with Girls In The Garage vocals courtesy of the splendidly-named Dolly Grip (who Sheffield pop lovers may know better as Reenie). Their album is excellent beat-fuelled fun.

‘Married To The Wolfman’ is riddled with “Awhooo’ howls and creepy crawly organ. ‘Shake Your Bones’ will get you doing just that - handclappin’, twistin’ and shoutin’, quiff a quiver. ‘Hey Boy’ sounds like The Temptations' ‘Get Ready’ got speeded up and fuck-witted. ‘Ooh-Wee’ thunders along on a rumbling organ riff, sounding dense in both senses of the word. Then just to prove it’s not all fast, furious and boggle-eyed there’s ‘Never Wanted To Go’. A sweetly sultry swingin’ sway-along slow one.

Oddbox Records, living up to the name, are releasing this album as a series of seven inch E.P.s. Collect all three as a box set that comes with artwork by Oliver Allchin. A CD of all the seven inch songs comes with an additional track, a crazed bumblebee fuzz cover of The Eyes’ ‘You’re Too Much’. How could you resist? Get wrigglin’ to The Millipedes.

www.oddboxrecords.com
www.myspace.com/themillipedes

World International John Peel-Day, 10 October 2009 - Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes

2009-10-14T11:39:00.009+01:00

A girl dressed in a vaguely ‘alternative’ style is jerking about on the dance floor like a loon. Two boys are rolling on the icky carpet, enjoying a spot of fake wrestling. The soundtrack is ‘Never Stop’ by Echo And The Bunnymen. I sip my triple vodka (gifted by the barman as an apology for the extended wait to be served), gaze at the ridiculous scene before me and realise I know all the words to this song. I’m in the student union bar circa 1983. No I’m not, it just looks that way. This is World International John Peel-Day at Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes and at the moment it looks exactly like the kind of scene our beloved JP would have beheld when ferrying his ‘Roadshow’ around the nation.
The plan here is for ‘a united front of disparate London promoters and d.j.s to celebrate groundbreaking music and the man we owe our passion for music to.’ It’s a sweet act of remembrance, plus proceeds go to charity. Throughout the evening I hear loads of songs that I initially taped off Peel’s show, then went on to cherish on vinyl (yay! to Rocker playing The Groove Farm’s ‘Nancy Sinatra’). Home-taping didn’t kill music did it? Wonder if illegal downloading will?

We chance upon Kogumaza in the middle of some colossal effects-drenched drone-wibble. A girl plays sparse drumbeats, whilst two blokes (who apparently have played with Glenn Branca’s orchestra, so they should know what’s what) coax out hypnotic wails and sighs and shudders from their guitars. ‘Tis fab. In the audience, a funny little man dances non-stop crazy style. Another funny man sits mournfully peering through a be-feathered mask – the kind you’d wear to a burlesque ball. This isn’t a burlesque ball by a long shot.

Downstairs in the Karaoke room (people hire this room out to do karaoke in??!) Allo Darlin are tinkering with songs not destined for their ‘full band’ set. Even though the full band is here. Elizabeth Darling plays (Darren Hayman’s) ukulele and sings wistfully. The rest of the band add guitar bits and gentle drumbeats and it’s all very lovely indeed. Then I have a coughing fit (probably ‘cos I’m sitting on the gruesome carpet) until tears course down my cheeks and it looks like I’m unbearably moved by the beauty of it all.

Maggie8 feature a banjo, a trumpet and a man out of Hood and play jovial, exhilarating psychy pop but with ululating Indian swirls and skittering English folk elements stirred in. Another interesting find.This is great, there’s not a dud band here tonight.

Beatnik Filmstars say that John Peel is the only person who ever paid any attention to their band. There must be dozens, nay hundreds of bands that could say that. Sniff! The BFs are entertaining and personable and play a lot of songs that are apparently about death. The last time I saw them they were kind of high speed and garagey. This time they are country-tinged and melancholy (that’ll be the death songs). Until they play a rousing version of T.Rex’s ‘Deborah’, a joyful thing.

Amelia from Tender Trap says she feels sorry for the people who came here to bowl (there are plenty of ‘normal’ punters in, who’ve come here for crazy Saturday night bowling lane based kicks) and have to put up with the bands making a racket. It certainly is a funny old set-up, bowlers somewhat rudely walk across the side of the stage as bands are mid-song. Later, Golden Animals reverse the situation when Tommy plants himself across the front of a lane to crank out some scritchy guitar noise, temporarily halting a game.

Amelia is wearing another excellent dress with a pattern reminiscent of those Spacemen 3 circles. Tender Trap are shiny and poptastic, buzzing through a clutch of songs that include fab newies that are sounding better on every outing they get (e.g. single ‘Fireworks’), and oldie faves like ‘Talking Backwards’ that make us jiggle excitedly. They are fizzbombs for the ears (a lot better than chewing-gum for the eyes), Elizabeth Allo Darlin providing a sparky guitar-waving, harmony-belting foil to Amelia and her joyous vocals whilst Katrina knocks it all into place with bolshy stand-up drumming.

Downstairs, Golden Animals play a mesmerising set of sublime garage cranks and psychedelic nose-dives. Behind them, Saturday night bowlers revel and a screen shows ‘The Big Lebowski’ – it’s kind of odd, but props to the band for soldiering on, weaving mystical desert mojo in the middle of Bloomsbury.

Lasties, it’s Allo Darlin playing a proper band set. They are chirpy ‘n’ cheery and play the kind of winsomely heartachey tunes you’d expect to hear in a quirky indie flick. Elizabeth – on her third set of the night – is still full of energy, jumping up and down with her ukulele, her voice kind of like Camera Obscura’s Traceyanne. Her band, culled from various indie places, e.g. Darren Hayman’s band, seem to be enjoying themselves too, bunny-hopping through a set that warms the cockles.

Fireworks – Tender Trap (Fortuna Pop!)

2009-10-11T17:10:00.000+01:00

We once used to worship various indiepopsters only slightly older than ourselves as our true pop heroes, albeit with at least a smidgen of irony (full-on popstar adoration going to greater gods like the Reid Brothers). Now, these ageing popsters are being discovered by the kids and venerated as (kind of) legends. It’s all very sweet and kind of amusing.

Arguably the legendy-ist of the 80s indie gang is Amelia Fletcher, eternally girlish totem of all things jangly and spangly and proper punk rock. And here she is back! back!! back!!! with the latest incarnation of Tender Trap, the band now complete with extra lady band members to add more fantastic feisty girlishness to the equation.

The two tracks here are everything you’d hope for from Amelia and chums. It’s no mean feat to sound this fresh and ready for pop action when you’re a super city economics whizz and a mother of two. ‘Fireworks’ shows off the band’s new! guitarrier sound – ching, ching ching! they go over tambourine-topped stand-up drumbeats. Amelia's voice slides and glides around, whilst thanks to new member Elizabeth Darling there are lovely twinklingly harmonious ‘ba ba bas’, and perhaps a hint of 60s girl groupishness to the chorus. Woo!

The slower, jerkier beat tune ‘Grand National’ – already familiar from live shows - has an addictive chorus that does that swoopy thing to your stomach whenever it comes around, like you're on a fairground ride or have just seen someone you fancy. It is therefore the mostest.

Available as a download only from Fortuna Pop!
http://www.fortunapop.com/

I’ll always think of you whenever I smell cider. Fave Tunes July/August 2009

2009-10-08T21:12:00.007+01:00

Welcome To Lunar Industries (Three Year Stretch...) - Clint Mansell Melancholy/soothing/hypnotising theme from excellent retro futurist film 'Moon'. Written by him what was in Pop Will It Eat Itself - lunacy!

Sit And Cry - The Specific Heats Sweetly lilting, jangling lullaby

Back Thru Thyme – The Specific Heats Indiepop garage genius

Cuffern - Wyrdstone A WHOLE album of serenly spooky, weird-folk skirling and pie-eyed pastoral psych goodness.

Sumer Is A-Cumen In – Circulus Just noticed how the tune of this sounds like the ‘We Will Fix It’ mice song in Bagpuss. Maybe Oliver Postgate was a fan of ‘The Wicker Man’?

Are You Dead? - The Humms Comic-book horror garage, mmm reverb-y!

I Need Direction – Teenage Fanclub at Indietracks Aaah, dancing about on a hillock to the Fannies encoring with this = perfect festival ending

What Do We Do Now – The Just Joans Unofficial Indietracks 2009 anthem – and they weren’t even on the bill

Jesus Was A Cross Maker - Judee Sill Listening to the ‘Judee Sill’ album on an empty bus as it hurtles through a deserted City of London on a sunny Saturday morning almost makes the journey to work a transcendental experience.

International Velvet – Crash Been listening to Crash’s album from 1986 a lot again recently. It’s all great, but this song is so dustily dreamy and the first verse is obviously influenced by my favourite ever picture caption (from ‘Popism : the Warhol ‘60s’) under a picture of International Velvet herself: ‘Susan would spend hours stroking on her Fabulash’

Brocken Spectre - Annalogue (Atol Records)

2009-10-03T11:52:00.001+01:00

Oh the joy of having a free Saturday morning. Time to sort through the teetering piles of CDs on the living room floor and have a listen to neglected discs. Amongst the bargs from Fopp and the stuff from the beardy man at work, there’s stuff to review. Hmm… none of it detains me for long until I get to ‘Brocken Spectre’ by Annalogue on Atol Records (vinyl-only offshoot of Ankst). This is Ann Matthews of Ectogram (and once of Welsh legends Fflaps) doing solo stuff; spookily beautiful, soothingly creepy, avant eerie stuff. Songs unfurl and glimmer, crawl out of corners, sprout unexpected wings, circle lazily and pounce.

The songs are sparse but richly textured. There are very few actual drum-beats here, percussion is formed from drips and taps, clicks and snaps. Indeed, ‘Corn Curl’ is built on two rocks being clacked together and a Biro clicking on and off. ‘Tony Wilson’ ticks and chimes along curlicued with trills of clarinet, ‘Sudden Desert’ ebbs and wooshes, Ann’s voice woven through the swell of sound. The album drifts in and engulfs you in a shivering fog, an unexpected otherworldly trip on a Saturday morning.

http://ankst.net/
http://www.myspace.com/ANNOLOG

The Smittens / Just Joans split and Secret Charisma mini musical (WeePOP!)

2009-09-20T17:04:00.005+01:00

WeePOP! is an indiepop label with a cute ‘n’ craftsy aesthetic. Their releases are limited edition, hand-made and sweetly packaged; desirable visually as well as aurally. Look at their web site: www.weepop.net

WeePOP! artwork regularly features cartoon characters with big shiny eyes looking like they’re insanely loved up on POP! The Smittens look a lot like these cartoon characters, smiley and wide eyed. Hearing them play a cover of The Just Joans’ ‘What Do We Do Now?’ (as featured on the two bands’ split single) is kind of odd but charming. In The Just Joans’ hands (and accents) this is a poignant parochial tale, using language that’s pretty specific to being Scottish. Hearing the twinkly, very American Smittens (jaunty piano and tambourine, beautifully layered harmonies that tug at your heart as the song builds) singing about ‘Buckfast bottles and rain’ and ‘drinking down the local’ sounds cutely peculiar, and kind of like their shininess has been slightly soiled. Hurriedly setting the world back on its axis, The Smittens then play their own upbeat, smile-pop song, ‘Summer Sunshine’ full of ‘ba ba bas’, ‘making friends’ and ‘little mixtapes’. Sweeties.

On the other hand, The Just Joans stain The Smittens’ ‘Gin and Platonic’ (do you see how this works?) with a mournful, sea-shanty-ish, late night beery tears in the pub wooziness, topping it up with some neatly inserted samples of dialogue from ‘Abigail’s Party’. They carry on the Caledonian moodiness (Arab Strap with an accordion) with their own track, the rheumy-eyed, ‘I Hear You’re The Man Now, John’. It sways and staggers bitterly and ends with the words ‘what a terrible mess I’ve made of my life’. Good work all round.

I’m not really one for musicals, the only one I’ve ever properly enjoyed was that all-singing episode of ‘Buffy’. Full marks though to Brad San Martin from One Happy Island (with help from some friends) for ‘Secret Charisma’ his ‘fourteen minute lo-fi headphone opera’. Nice to see a little innovation being introduced into the world of indiepop. This three inch CD comes complete with neatly printed libretto (if you will), so you can read along as the teeny tiny disc spins and unravels an indiepop take on those archetypal American indie film themes: small towns and homecomings, rootling through old emotions, awkward awakenings, etc. Despite, or maybe because of, the lo-fi, bedroom drama group nature of the project, there’s some neat instrumentation here: slide guitar, violin and trumpet, a Wurlitzer, skiffly strumming, handclaps and cute tootling on a penny whistle.
Next up: indiepop arias.

Golden Animals / She Keeps Bees / The Silver Abduction - 21 August 2009, Wilmington Arms

2009-09-05T14:28:00.000+01:00

For the duration of The Silver Abduction's set a sense of otherworldliness settles upon the prosaic surrounds of The Wilmington Arms. The songs are melodic and charming but have an undercurrent of displacement, uneasiness.

The Silver Abduction are Allison, once of The Eighteenth Day Of May, with Andy Dragazis, one-time producer of EDOM, but these are not the psych-folk sounds of old. The Silver Abduction deal in noir-ish, movie-toned music. They provide an opportunity for Allison to act out her screen siren fantasies, which she does brilliantly. With her fifties-style nipped-in dress and blonde waves she’s an alluring stage presence, her mellifluous, pristine voice a focal point for the music. As she sings, her hands flutter by her sides, or caress the air, maybe plucking at a phantom dulcimer. It’s all very reminiscent of Julee Cruise performing in those bewitching ‘Twin Peaks’ bar scenes. At once soothing and unsettling.

The band play six songs, all quite different. There are a couple of vintage numbers providing the most torch-y moments. Other songs are harder, driven by Dragazis’ fluid, melodic guitar, but it’s always Allison’s voice that pulls you in, sweetly seductive.

She Keeps Bees and Golden Animals are whole other kettles of fish. Where The Silver Abduction have brought an air of faded glamour, these bands are a far grubbier proposition.

She Keeps Bees is the work of Jessica Larrabee aided by drummer Andy LaPlant. They take to the stage in a flurry, Jessica telling us how last night’s Leicester audience were shocked by her swearing, before hitching up her braces ("Rock 'n' Roll is awesome!") and cranking out raw, visceral blues conducted around a clatter of voice, guitar and drums.

A song is sung a capella; cracked, keening voice sailing out into the audience, spearing those rude enough to carry on chatting as if there wasn’t someone singing their heart out directly in front of their noses. It’s a short set and the audience demands satisfaction, so because they’ve said "please", She Keeps Bees belt out one more song for the crowd, ferocious and buzzing.

Golden Animals have brought their own rug with them which they drape over the monitors to add their own hippy down home touch to the stage. Glitter-dusted faces half hidden by masses of hair, they look excellent – check out the great photos on their Myspace – bell bottoms and ancient runes, tassels and paisley. They look like they sound...murky psychedelia with a fuzzrock snarl, slithering swamp blues with desert sky harmonies. And their record is called ‘Free Your Mind And Win A Pony’. Good work.

Drummer Linda looks like Joni Mitchell x Sissy Spacek and finishes each song with an incredibly elegant flourish of her long wrists. On record, her backing vocals to Tommy’s wailed, growled songs are spooky and sublime, but live they’re somewhat drowned out by the full-on crunching attack of Tommy’s VERY LOUD guitar. A couple of girls dance in a corner, pulling those jittery, arm-wavey moves you see maxi-skirted chicks doing on 1970s episodes of TOTP. It adds to the general air of freak-out happening very nicely.

Say Yes! - The Hi-Life Companion (Plastilina Records)

2009-09-05T12:09:00.003+01:00

“Just say yes…” sing The Hi-Life Companion, sounding sinister and cult-ish and tempting, “Forget the rest…”

This is a spanking good pop record and the perfect accompaniment to a sunny Saturday morning train ride, an interesting collection of songs that feels like a lot of love and care has gone into its creation. The Hi-Life Companion are no one-trick ponies, cantering from the pastoral to the urban, from swooning to crunching, soothing to (a little bit) menacing. And always with plenty of tunes. ‘Say Yes!’ is a picnic basket packed with good things. Oh so many good things. Sweeping, spangling, crammed with sounds: twangy, jangly fizzy guitars, spingly glockenspiel (maybe even more than one at once!), violins and trumpets, ha ha harmonies – a cornucopia that spills out when you lift the lid. Yes, I do really like it, thanks.

Album opener ‘The Hi-Life Theme’ (always good to have a band theme tune, eh?) shows the band’s folkier side, all strummy and wistful – an English countryside summer, high skies and fields stretching forever (I may be influenced by the view from the train window here). A bit reminiscent of The Garden City Project.

‘Times Table’ is a top tune straight off the block, harmonies and handclaps and twinkly chimes, before ooh! The band break out the brass for ‘Night Comes Down’. ‘One Man Town’ eschews the summery fun. It’s an adrenalized whirr that buzzes along on big guitars. Motorik-licious!

Other sounds you’ll hear here: sleepy-eyed slide guitar; spooky Barretty psychedelia that swishes oceanically; fuzzy, urgent ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ “Ooh, oohs”; snarly piano spanking. A song called ‘The Girl In The Gorilla Suit’.

The album ends with The Hi-Life Companion’s piece de resistance, ‘In Your Heart, A Cathedral’, filmic and expansive (eight minutes!), slowly spiralling sky-high around a central riff, carried by heart-tugging brass. A gorgeous contemplative close.

thehilifecompanion.co.uk

INDIETRACKS SNAPSHOTS

2009-09-02T21:39:00.013+01:00

The fab Tatty Devine Indietracks merch - aaahhhh! A match made in heaven.

Fave moments from Indietracks? ...ooh all of them. But also:

Sitting on the grass under sunny blue skies waving to smiling children riding past on the little train, soundtracked by Sucrette's whizzy two-songs-at-once hyper-pop;

Walking into the Indoor Stage shed as Mighty Mighty are playing 'Maisonette';

Little My with their lolloping pop, unco-ordinated percussion dances, feral headgear and added Liz Love;

The crowd's frantic dancing to the pouting cheekbone-tastic Cats On Fire who sound like Aha 'wrestling' The Smiths until they play a splendid version of White Town's 'Your Woman';

Wake The President - cute (if a tad grumpy) Scottish twins playing jangling guitars in the gloaming of the church as the sun goes down;

Patiently riding up and down the track on the steam train on Sunday morning, eating Sherbert dibdabs and wondering if The Manhattan Love Suicides are gonna show, as we've heard rumours...then being pinned to the wall of the carriage when the entire festval squeezes in to hear the Manhattan's split announcement. Then being soothed by the surprisingly touching acoustical tunes brought to us by ex-Manhattans, The Medusa Snare as the train chuffs along with us all sardined in;

Scoffing veggie hotdogs in the rain with our chums Hong Kong In The 60s;

Nick Garrie accompanied by a choir of children (and Duglas BMX) providing a sweet soundtrack for any children of the zone who like me, are missing their weekly Sunday afternoon dose of Stuart Maconie's Freakzone...

And then all these things that I thought I'd draw about instead...

Indietracks Snapshots: Tender Trap

2009-09-02T21:39:00.012+01:00

Tender Trap play 'Oh Katrina'

Indietracks Snapshots: Fortuna Pop!

2009-09-02T21:38:00.011+01:00

Sean Fortuna Pop! gives a talk in the Workshop Wigwam entitled 'How Not To Run A Record Label'.

A crowd of acolytes gathers round and listens with deep reverence. People who had ventured in hoping to heckle have to slink out again and look for kicks elsewhere.

Indietracks Snapshots: Pop Church

2009-09-02T21:37:00.006+01:00

The Church

I want to go to a festival that's just in this church. It's very cosy in there nipping vodka amidst the wood panelling, fuzzy light filtering through the arched windows. Could do with some cushions on the pews though.

Indietracks Snapshots: Alaska

2009-09-02T21:36:00.008+01:00

Everyone in the world is watching Camera Obscura on the outdoor stage.

We go into the church and find Alaska playing McCarthy's 'Red Sleeping Beauty'. It's always good to happen upon this song.

Indietracks Snapshots: The Specific Heats

2009-09-02T21:35:00.011+01:00

The Specific Heats wear paisley capes!

Their reverb tank blows up as they hit the first chord!! Then a guitar string breaks!!! They play bubblegum garage which has been specially calibrated to be the best music at the entire festival!!!! It is VERY EXCITING. Other things: silver sparkly Danelectro guitar, v. groovy shaky hair keyboard playing, all round band smiling, an Out Crowd tattoo, managing to be very energetic in a very small space, including running in tiny circles, their friends behind us saying how everything is AWESOME!

Indietracks Snapshots: The Lovely Eggs

2009-09-02T21:35:00.010+01:00

Every magical moment of The Lovely Eggs set.

Including their tribute to 'Nuts In May'; Holly's buttercup yellow dress; the tiny bicycle handlebars attached to the front of the drumkit (the bell and horn for percussion purposes); useful information on peppers, loads of thrashy, twinkly, shouty, silky songs; and especially Holly's wool-wrapped drum beater unravelling like unruly spaghetti. They are the best kind of folk art.

Indietracks Snapshots: I Wear My New Anorak...

2009-09-02T21:28:00.006+01:00

...a Fred Perry anorak, mind. It's fine tailoring is much admired by Emily out of Betty And The Werewolves.

Indietracks Snapshots: Marshmallow Kisses

2009-09-02T21:27:00.008+01:00

The Marshmallow Kisses ask the very Indietracks question, 'Do you guys like poems?'

After a little encouragement, the reply is a big Indietracks, 'Yeah!' The band then proceed to play amazing outer-space wibbling baroque fairground poetry jazzpop.

Indietracks Snapshots: Help Stamp Out Loneliness

2009-09-02T21:26:00.008+01:00

Help Stamp Out Loneliness sound huge and POP! on a rainy afternoon.

They feature not only the Sounds XP fashion correspondent's favourite frock, but also Craig Gannon playing some guitar. This makes us go, 'Blimey! It's THE Craig Gannon!'

Indietracks Snapshots: Simon Love's Feet

2009-09-02T21:25:00.006+01:00

Sunday afternoon in the gloom of the Indoor Stage shed something bright catches my eye.

Simon Love isn't wearing any socks. This makes me gasp in horror, 'Are those your feet? Why are they so white?!'

Indietracks Snapshots: BMX Bandits

2009-09-02T21:24:00.007+01:00

Duglas' Sesame Street t-shirt, purple pinstripes, flowin' locks 'n' moustache combo make him look every bit the pop maverick he is.

To celebrate I dance like a loon to 'E102' at the end of a set chocka with BMX Bandits hits.

Teenage Fanclub

2009-09-02T21:15:00.006+01:00

Under darkening rain-filled skies I fall in love with Teenage Fanclub again.

There are singalonga old songs, must-get-the-new-album new songs, and the world turns into sparkles when they play 'I Need Direction'. Sigh...

Wooden Shjips / Papercuts - 19 August 2009, The Borderline

2009-08-20T17:04:00.004+01:00

I am surprised and thrilled by Papercuts. Apart from the nice illustration on their album cover catching my eye in magazines, the band have passed me by so far. I’d been vaguely expecting something kind of abrasive and shouty involving lots of leaping about. This assumption was based purely on the name ‘Papercuts’. Not only does the word sum up something painful, but there also used to be that other band Papercuts feat. bloke what used to be in Symposium hurling himself about shoutily and rather invigoratingly. They did a great gig at The Pleasure Unit once where he climbed on a tiny table and pulled the black-out curtain off the window – only to be reprimanded by the bar staff. ‘Twas aces. Logically, I know that the sound of those Papercuts has nothing to do with these San Francisco-based Papercuts, but my subconscious makes the connections anyway. Stoopid old subconscious, these Papercuts are not noisy at all, they are, in fact, kind of delicate. Which a paper cut is I suppose...

Grab an easy reference to hang on…erm, Mercury Rev and their pastoral psych, Galaxie 500’s hazy glow. Eerie guitar, bass pulses, woozy organ and Jason Quever's soft vocals conjure a cocoon world into which I am soon lulled. Mallets on drums create heartbeats. Songs switch rhythm half way through, about-face and become something else, intricate, entanglements. I’m won over pretty sharpish.

Wooden Shjips are pretty damn perfect. Even with the odd equipment problem. The bass amp cuts out a couple of times, leaving a skeleton version of the music rattling at the walls, but when the bass does kick back in, it just goes to underline how glorious the noise is. The heavy, chugging, unchanging riff of rumbling notes providing a hefty backbone to the songs. Add to this the simple metronomic beats supplied centre stage by the drummer on a v. stripped down kit, plus ghostly organ punching it all along and you’ve got your basic drone ingredients. Yum. Then there is the delicious sound of phasing, slicing up and down through the songs, dragging you in, impelling you to drown in the rhythm. Over this beardy wizard man does minimal vocal bits and sprawling guitar things; squiggling and flanging and wubby wah-wahing, riding through the tunnel of sound in a big ball of reverb.

To add to the general ambience of wiggy, freak-out grooviness, the band have their own back projections flickering across the stage bathing them in disorientating blips of colour and bands of light. People nod along blissfully, some young blokes at the front in Wooden Shjips t-shirts flail crazily, inches away from the guitar, like they’re physically clutching at the sounds its making.

The songs never vary from their template, and why the hell would they? It is, of course, the BEST template for songs. Just ask Jarvis Cocker who is nod-nodding along in the crowd.

Here comes the summershine, expect the best of times. Fave Tunes May/June 2009

2009-07-31T17:46:00.011+01:00

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear The Beach Boys processing in a dignified and stately manner

Always The Same – The Legends Heavenly FUZZED pop

Ulysses and The Cats – Whitetree Drifting in the ether soothingness

Rainwater Cassette Exchange – Deerhunter Dippy, slip-sliding folk-pop trip gets a good reverbing

Young Drugs – Crocodiles Deadpan kids do electro-Spectrum lullaby

Brave The Storm - Graham Coxon Finger-pickled and fluting ‘Watch With Mother’ dusty sunshine afternoons

Twin Of Myself - Black Moth Super Rainbow Very twinkly and reminds me of Tangerine

Quicksand - Locust Plaza A lonely wind whistling through a high school that‘s been derelict since 1958

Dancing with abandon to ‘Surrender’ by Cheap Trick at Track And Field Be rude not to

My Baby Don’t Care – King With Captain Sensible, not the '80s Doc Martened shitehawks

City Trains – Music And Movement Swirling and clattering and even better than pretending to be a tree growing from a seed or currants being mixed in a bowl (1970s education, yes)

Indietracks : An Indiepop Compilation (Make Do And Mend)

2009-07-11T17:48:00.004+01:00

Indietracks! It’s nearly upon us again. Peer down the line and you can just make out a curl of steam in the distance, woohoo!

If you’re going to the festival, this album is an excellent way of getting yerself in the mood. If you’re not going, then it’s a fine primer for what’s going on over the hills and far away from the mainstream in the land of INDIEPOP: be it jangly, spangly, fuzzy, buzzy, spikey, swoonsome or any other kind of marvellous that the term can encompass.

Friends kick things off with the suitably titled ‘You’ll Never See That Summertime Again’, a perfect piece of sparkling summertime pop that is sort of The Bodines if they’d been submerged in the soaring wistfulness of The Lotus Eaters’ ‘First Picture Of You’ (a total flashback-to-childhood-summer song).

Eux Autres sidle towards Beat Happening terrirtory with their beaty drums, twanglesome guitars and flat emotion-free = emotion-full indie boy/girl vocals. There are laid-back fuzzy Pavementisms from Downdime (more flashbacks, this time to the Subpop summer of 1990). Wake The President have Scottish vocals, to which I am always rather partial, and rush along on handclaps and old-skool Post-cardy jangles that SNAP! at your desert-boot clad heels. Disasteradio use synths and robot vocoder vocals to come across like Super Furries havin’ a disko with Neu!

The Rocky Nest’s track is called ‘Lenny and Jenny Had One Too Many’ which is very annoying of it. However they make intriguingly odd and fuddled soundz like a lo-fi kitchen-sink T.Rex cranking along. And they feature an ex-Fonda 500 so that’s me sold.

More people-what-used-to-be-in-another-band action from Ray Rumours And The No-Eyed Deers, i.e. Ros what was in Electrelane. Unlike Electrelane, ‘Puddles And Rain’ is very simple, rattley and sparse, but thanks to Ros’ open, girlish voice it has a touching warmth.

Moustache Of Insanity’s (don’t say a word) ‘Living Room Pic-nic’ is like a v.v. cutesie version of Schwervon’s ‘Dinner’ with a bit of Esiotrot for afters. Zipper are indeed zippy, guitars crunching along in a Rosehips sort of way with a not-stopping-for-breath girl vocal. Alaska’s ‘She Was A Rockstar’ is utterly adorable swingin’ pop, a companion pice to ‘Talulah Gosh’ maybe?

What’s this? Why, ‘tis Teenage Fanclub, this year’s righteous headliners. Oh no, it’s ‘Cancion de Viernes’ by Cooper, it just sounds EXACTLY like the Fannies, or maybe EXACTLY like The Fannies being Big Star and The Byrds, lots of lazily jangling guitars and sunkissed harmonies. Num.

Fzzztttt! Bloop! The space-time continuum has gone all hazey! Erk! I can’t tell if it’s then or now, for behold! ‘tis Mighty Mighty with ‘Kiss For The Crowd’! Is that an old track or new ’un? Not sure, I’m not completely au fait with the band’s entire oeuvre you know. Though I did always enjoy, ‘Maisonette’, and ‘Throwaway’, and ‘Built Like A Car’ and ‘Biddy Baxter’ and the picture of Bridget Sea Urchin surfing on an ironing board, and… blimey! what time are they playing?

Imagine Broadcast circa ‘The Noise made By People’ trying to go Ye-ye but then going a bit John Barry instead. You might get ‘Alapati’ by the splendidly/sick-makingly named Marshmallow Kisses. Ver Kisses, as nobody should ever refer to them, are going to include Tim from Hong Kong In The 60s amongst their number when they play at Indietracks, and look here ARE HK60s with their sublime, spider-web in the breeze ‘Disintegration’. If you fancy being soothed for a while by sounds that stroke as gentle as a feather, settle yourself in a pew when HK60s grace the Church stage.

Someone needs to take up the mantle of fine penmanship and top pop ideals left lying around by Belle And Sebastian. Maybe Pocketbooks, or perhaps Butcher Boy, both on fine form here, will get there with their elegantly-crafted pop vignettes.

Ste McCabe’s ‘Public Debate’ is Pete Shelly singing The Ramones' ‘I Wanna Live’ and it brings a welcome buzz of distortion to things. Also, Ste says “My hatred of the Daily Mail is bordering on obsession”. Huzzah! With you there for sure.

Forty-four tracks long, this is a bumper summer special of an album. It’s got music from Sweden, Denmark, Spain, USA, UK, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, Italy, Argentina… and is an excellent way of taking a peek at the soundz going down on the international pop underground. Print out your festival schedule and start asterisking who you're going to see. All aboard!

P.S. This review was written whilst wearing a dress patterned with apple trees, sitting on a sunny beach, occasionally flicking pebbles into the sea. Afterwards I went and ate an ice-cream. True! Facts!

www.indietracks.co.uk
www.makedoandmendrecords.co.uk

Crystal Stilts / The Bats / Comet Gain – 22 May 2009, ICA

2009-06-15T19:58:00.005+01:00

Ian WatsON is DJing. He plays stuff like The Shop Assistants, Pocketbooks, The Smiths, My Bloody Valentine, and, ooh! ‘Psycho’ by The Sonics. Good. I like the ICA despite the alleged dodgy sound. Being in the auditorium is like being a mouse in a black shoe-box. Above us, spread out across a large stage replete with flashy lights and lawks! dry ice, it is The Rolling Stones! no it’s Comet Gain!! It’s kind of eye-goggling seeing them in such ‘professional’ environs. As Rachel says (waving her ‘S&M’ black leather maracas) ‘We are contemporary art’

She’s right. When they’re good Comet Gain are the best, the only pop grupe. Tonight they’re pretty good: Say Yes, Love Without Lies, Why I Try To Look So Bad. They are The Velvet Underground doing ‘What Goes On’ and Love doing ‘Seven And Seven Is’.

Kaye’s tee-shirt has fluffy, flouncy sleeves that look like angel wings. She’s a sublime pop kid. David keeps his jokes to himself, but still cackles openly at the amusements inside his head. He tells us about how Comet Gain went to America and played with Crystal Stilts who had better hair, but Comet Gain had better jokes and were better at drinking. Near the end of an ecstatic pop thrills set, Jon Slade sidles off backstage. He reappears in order to, er, jump offstage and join Helen Shrag in the audience.

The Bats play a short, sweet sunshine set before annoyingly rushing off to play another set in a pub right near our flat, whilst we’re still back in the ICA. The Bats, who I never really listened to in olden times, are fab. Like Mamas and Papas* sliced through with the darkness of good eighties no wave. Darkly shimmering guitars, cosy jangle with an icy bite. And one of their guitarists is a woman - SHOCK!

Crystal Stilts seem a tad lacklustre and complain about the sound all night – unable to hit the right peak of reverb. Frankie is playing boring old sitting down drums, wot a swizz! She does have a teeny tambourine taped to the tom though. With singer Brad not being one for cheery chats with the crowd and guitarist JB skulking by his amp, breaking strings and not really being much of a presence, organist Kyle (also to be seen larking in The Ladybug Transistor) takes over proceedings, both sonically as rockingly mournful notes ripple through the songs, and in communing with the crowd.

Ooh, he’s a card, telling us about playing in Italy where "they didn’t understand a word", and offering his admittedly excellent tee-shirt (a dog saying "Kevin") for sale at the bargainous price of £80. Feck offers the quids. The price rises to £100. Feck heckles ‘Wankers’. Kyle respondes ‘Sexy wankers’ and the whole shebang ends with in a smash hit pop blur.

* Did you see that BBC 4 ‘documentary about The Mamas and Papas? Gah! ‘twas a ridiculous whitewash that probably broke all kinds of torture laws by playing ‘California Dreamin’ over and over and OVER. There was no mention of the crazy, messed up marriages/affairs/kicking out of Michelle Phillips/drug frenzies etc.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart / Shrag / Tender Trap, 10 June 2009 - Cargo

2009-06-11T12:42:00.013+01:00

Wake up to find odd little bruises up and down my arms. Hmm, they must be from people’s pokey elbows in last night’s middle-aged mosh-pit. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart are back!!! Again. Despite tube strikes, Cargo is crammed and there is a determination amongst the regular indie-pop massive to go mentalz and have top fuzzpop fun. So we do. I’m not sure how great a show the Pains play tonight (surely they must be feeling a little jaded by now?) I’m too busy laughing hysterically and jumping up and down in a ridiculous scrum at the front. We may be knocking on (as Marianthi says, the nearer you are to the front, the older the crowd is), but hey, we can still kick it like nutjobs. We chant out the words (tuneful!), do the ‘ooh, ooh, ooh’ bits in ‘Come Saturday’, punch the air to ‘Everything With You’, and those of us with hair shake our barnets in deep appreciation of the glorious buzzing tunes. I especially enjoy ‘The Tenure Itch’ tonight and ‘Young Adult Friction’ is pretty much a religious experience. There’s even a brand spanking new song, ‘Higher Than The Stars’ jangling wistfully, Kip's voice lollopingly lilting. As the set closes with a big, fat, thumpy ‘Gentle Sons’ we all agree a fine time has been had indeed, much to the disdain of the sour faced youth, who prefer not to dance.

Earlier on, Tender Trap play a set chocka with new tunes, sounding slightly ramshackle, but sparky, and surprisingly fearsome thanks to Katrina Dixon's big boomy stand-up drumming that boots it all along (as Amelia says 'stand up drummers are it'). Amelia, shaking a tambourine throughout, is in good voice - clear and bell-like, keeping the tunes in check. She is also wearing an excellent ensemble – a dress with slightly–delic black swirls, turquoise tights and ankle boots, sort of indie-kid grows up, but not too much.

We get two ‘hits’. The lovely see-sawing ‘Oh Katrina’ and ‘Talking Backwards’. Amelia announces the next song is called ‘Suddenly’. My brain goes “Suddenleeeee, life has new meaning etc…argh! shut up!!” Amelia goes, “The title makes everyone think of Lionel Ritchie”. She’s right, it does. How awful! But the song’s good, so we’ll let her off. Oh, I'll just fill in the end of this line, or those last two words look odd. There.

Regular gigster, John M. in his rightful position at the front of the crowd is tonight sporting a Damned tee-shirt which inspires an excellent anecdote from Amelia about going to see The Damned years ago. She had to wear the same clothes to school the next day, which would have been fine, except an old man got onstage and wee-ed on her head! Not to worry though, nothing like that will happen tonight, even though they’re ending the set with their ‘punk rock’ song.

Throughout Tender Trap’s set, Helen of Shrag has been doing happy stampy dances at the front. Now she gets onstage to do more stampy dancing with Shrag, (whilst singing, obvs.) and Amelia does reciprocal dancing from the audience. Drummer Leigh-Ann has a gammy foot, so props herself up with crutches to add singing bits, whilst a stand-in friend drummer, er, drums. Shrag are great, smashing their way through an assortment of new songs and excellently crunchy renditions of ‘Long Term Monster’ and ‘Ghosts Before Breakfast’. They are urgent and exciting and vital and a bit odd. Good work all round.

Over And Over - The Legends (Labrador Records)

2009-06-10T13:25:00.002+01:00

‘Seconds Away’ sounds like The Acid House Kings being played on a badly tuned workshop radio whilst someone embarks on some serious angle-grinding. It is therefore FAB! Candy coated perfect pop embedded in ferocious spitty sparks. This is The Legends, and this isn’t just any old Swedey indie-pop to add to the (rather large) pile, ‘cos The Legends are mostly Johan Angergard. Johan’s other bands include Club 8 and pop, um, legends The Acid House Kings. He knows what he’s doing does Johan, hence this album of prism perfect, crystalline pop. Do you love elegant, can’t-see-the-joins, downy-soft, everso slightly yearning Swedish indie-pop? Yes? Me too. Do you ADORE fearsome fuzz ‘n’ feedback and dark mutterings over stand-up drumbeats? I know, isn’t it great?! This is what The Legends have got for you, an album that basically vacillates between the two. It’s not new. But it is fabulously POP!

Album opener, ‘You Won’ is deliciously doomy 80s-esque gloom pop, the sort that The Editors et al have made so annoying, The Legends manage a lightness of touch that hints at early Talk Talk - dark and urgent. ‘Monday To Saturday’ trips over the Acid House Kings’ dew-sparkling lawns as Club 8 lady Karolina Komstedt duets sweetly with Angergard over echoey finger-clicks. The pain killers and afternoon sunlight furze of ‘Heartbeats’ recalls a more numb, less devastated Radio Dept. (whatever happened to..?) ‘Dancefloor’ goes doolally bubblegum, twisting and shouting over a hissy backbeat. ‘Something Strange Will Happen’ is edgily motorik but just can’t help but ripple into a sunshine smile here and there.

This album takes my faves from the olden days and makes them over, all sparkly and fresh like newly fallen snow. Inevitably ( I was a teenage Chain-head) it’s the feedback laced pitch-perfect Reidisms that I (Douglas) hart the most here, the squealing, shredding, squalling ‘Recife’, the blood-thumping rumble of ‘Over And Over’ being Frankenstein-stitched onto some ‘Psychocandy’ offcuts. ‘Always The Same’ is wonderful - The Cardigans mashed up with The Jesus And Mary Chain. Heart-explodingly good pop covered in a thick lacquer of fuzz, the tune EXACTLY The JAMC’s ‘Inside Me’ complete with rumbly bass. Hurrah! Then, to end…My Bloody Valentine. ‘Touch’ is ‘Nothing Much To Lose’ scrubbed up all lovely for its first day at big school. Bless.

Come Saturday. 16 May 2009

2009-05-27T16:32:00.005+01:00

Wake up to a sunny day of Pains action. A quick bus ride up the road and we’re hangin’ in Rough Trade East, dissecting last night, anticipating today and inspecting ‘Black Medicine Music’ by Stag Hare which has got a strangely compelling sleeve. In a corner, Kip of the Pains is having a er, kip in an armchair. Don’t blame him, it seems to be a pretty punishing schedule the band are following.

Help Stamp Out Loneliness play a support set and their bright ‘n’ breezy tunes sound great on this bright ‘n’ breezy morn. They really are right catchy, the songs tumbling round your brain on spin-cycle. Singer D. looks resplendent in purple satin troosers and a natty velvet bow-tie. Also, I'd forgotten they did that cover of Belinda Carlisle’s ‘Rush Hour’ and am charmed all over again when it appears. You can see light-bulbs going on above peoples’ heads when the chorus kicks in.

We shuffle about and wonder which idiot has left a rucksack apparently containing a laptop lying around on the floor, alongside a copy of Simon Reynold’s ‘Rip It Up’. This is the East End you know – can’t just leave shit lying around and expect it to be there later. Or maybe it’s a bomb? Who knows? Being caring types we tuck the book away safely so it doesn’t get damaged and keep a wary eye on the laptop/bomb. At the end of the Pains set we stand about admiring Peggy’s keyboard case - the neatly stencilled band name set off with a tiny stencilled heart - and watch as she collects the laptop/bomb and book. Oh.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart play a short sharp set, looking slightly bleary, but sounding ferocious. The second guitar boots all the tunes up the arse, especially with some wailingly tremendous tremolo arm action on ‘Come Saturday’ - eeoooww, screee! The songs woosh and Pop! and in one of those time-stops moments of sonic ascension I suddenly feel overwhelmed at their fabness and the way the noise is hurtling around us so perfectly and I almost get teary. Luckily, the moment passes when Kip knocks the mic off the stand and has to wrestle it back up whilst continuing to play and sing – quite an impressive feat.

Later…
Ooh, ‘eck it’s sweaty in the Windmill. We’re all squidged in enjoying our second bout of Pains. It’s just like the olden days down the furnace-like Falcon, only without the bass player from The Fury Things fainting off the stage mid-song. The Pains are obviously hard-core – Kip remains resolutely zipped into his jacket, Peggy stays cardie-ed up. They joke about not being allowed to take off their ‘cardigans’. To do so would be contravene indiepop rules.

This is the best set yet; crashing and crunching and swooning in all the right places, the band a perfect pop gang. As an encore we get the mythical b-side of ‘103’ that our pal John has been telling us sounds kind of Orange Juice-y. In fact it sounds REALLY Orange Juice-y, jangling away, much cleaner than the normal fuzztastic Pains tunes (only one guitar here). Alex even gets the bass a bit Postcard-funky. The song’s called ‘Falling Over’. It turns out that the band’s working title for the song was ‘Orange Juice Song’. Indeed.