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Friday 6th April 2012
All Day BBQ Festival

Sparrow and the Workshop
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On Our iPod

Golden Grrrls - New Pop 7”

Chris Devotion & The Expectations - Amalgamation & Capital (album)

Trailer Trash Tracys - Ester (album)

Throwing Up - Mother Knows Best 7”

Howling Wolf - Complete Chess Masters 1951-60

The Ketamines - A Rotten Bond/1 Yr (from Oddbox Singles Club Pt 2)

Cardinal - Hymns (album)

Proper Ornaments - Taking the Gamble Out of Buying 12”

Darren Hayman - January Songs (album)

Various: Marshall Teller EP 12”

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Album Review

The Pocket Gods
Plan Nub, Behind The Fridge Nub Country Records

Article written by Ged M - Feb 20, 2010

Pocket Gods: Plan Nub, Behind The Fridge

It wasn’t looking promising: an Asda CD-R within a hand-scribbled cover and a weird title doesn’t instantly grab you. But the titles on the back certainly did: songs about Billy Childish in space, trailer parks on Mars and one called ‘I’m the Ed Wood of indiepop’. This is the work of the Pocket Gods, a band who were discovered by Peel in 2005 (they’re mentioned in Margrave of the Marshes). The directing intelligence is Mark Christopher Lee, described by Radio 6’s Tom Robinson as a “wilful maverick” and by me as a space-crazed mentalist.

The sound is an “intergalactic sonic scuzz”, to borrow a line from one of their songs. It’s a lowest-of-the-lo-fi frantic indiepop with fuzzy guitars and an eventually irritating drum machine. But it works because Lee’s songs have such a sense of 60s melody to complement the oddball humour (from Carry On films to nipple fights in car parks). And at its best, there are clear reminders of early Teenage Fanclub and a wistful Galaxie 500 feel to ‘Perfect Blue’, though the bizarre reupholstering of Shaking Stevens on ‘Alien Xmas Song’ is a real joker in the mix.

The predominant space-age themes and love of a ‘Telstar Gurl’ give away the fact that the Pocket Gods’ real hero is Joe Meek. Their warm tribute (‘Joe Meek’) admits to his dark side but highlights his pop genius: “he’s better than Spector…more evil than Hannibal Lecter, bittersweet, sweet Joe Meek”. As the prince of homemade pop, Meek used his imagination to create new worlds in the listener’s head using whatever he had around his flat. The Pocket Gods similarly take odds and ends of indiepop and assemble a weird alien landscape with loads of catchy features, for a compelling listen. He’s still mad as a box of snakes though.

Links:
http://www.lemonrock.com/pocketgods
http://www.myspace.com/nubcountryrecords
http://www.myspace.com/thepocketgods