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Pictures from some recent gigs we've hosted:

29 March 2013 - Brixton, London

Viv Albertine, VuVuVultures, Left Leg, Mickey Gloss, Big Wave, No Cars, Arthur Gunn, Simon Love (Pictures)

8 March 2013 - Lexington, London

R.Ring, Golden Grrrls, Slushy Guts and Equinox (Pictures)

On Our iPod

Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold (album)

Antony Harding - Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear (album)

Black Angels - Indigo Meadow (album)

Thee Oh Sees - Floating Coffin (album)

Still Corners - Strange Pleasures (album)

Savages - Silence Yourself (album)

Mikal Cronin - MC II (album)

Can’s Ege Bamyasi played by Stephen Malkmus and Friends(album)

Victoria and Jacob - Festival 7"

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City (album)

Sauna Youth - False Jesii Part II 7”

Lightning Bolt - Oblivion Hunter

Robyn Hitchcock - There Goes The Ice (2x 12")

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Gig Review

Indietracks: Herman Dune, Crystal Stilts, Hidden Cameras, Edwyn Collins, Jonny and more
Butterley, Derbyshire

Article written by Ged M - Aug 20, 2011

There are many things to love about Indietracks – and we’ve been attending since 2007 - like the low price of tickets, the steam trains, the festival’s human scale arrangements and that fearsome but strangely attractive security lady. Even generator problems the last few years and the fact that 60% of the toilets are always out of order by Saturday night (does the Toxic Poo Fairy visit on Saturday afternoon?) doesn’t wreck the charm. But musically it’s become increasingly unthreatening and sometimes downright reactionary. It was never the case that Dennis the Menace booked the bands but when did Walter and the Softies take over? Alongside the cupcakes and the vegan curries, there’s a huge dose of comfort listening for those who can’t be without that dated old Belle & Sebastian sound or think that a note-for-note rip off of ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ is worth three irreplaceable minutes of your life. And who had the awful taste to play Crowded House between the bands on Friday? It’s the return of indie-schmindie, the Anorak forum’s residential weekend.

Given all that, it was appropriate that Edwin Collins sort-of-headlined Saturday night and got a payout from the people who’ve lived off the Orange Juice sound since he first patented it 30 years ago. His post-stroke condition made it a heartbreaking experience to watch him in action, and his band should only be glimpsed through dark glasses given their anti-style appearance, but hearing his songs in an absolutely rammed engine shed made you realise what a great body of work he’s produced over the years (second Orange Juice album notwithstanding).

Friday’s sunset highlight is Jonny, showing everyone how to freshen up a familiar sound. Norman’s and Euros’s harmonies drip silk while their songs are utterly satisfying 60s’ inspired rock’n’roll. Drawing from their album and the free EP (‘the Continental’), and including a cover of The Blue Rondos’ Joe Meek-produced ‘Little Baby’, they conjured up the Everly Brothers and Gene Clark, as well as echoing Messrs Childs’ and Blake’s previous bands. Suburban Kids With Biblical Names could have learned from them. It’s strange that they’re headlining when their songs are best described as nostalgia-indie. The older songs have an anthemic indie-disco feel but it’s obvious when they announce their new songs why they haven’t recorded anything in five years. And on that retro note (in fact, there were lots of them) we head for our hotel…

Saturday is boiling hot but there’s little worth seeing until late afternoon. The Sock Puppets are a shambling punky girl-pop band who play like the Ramones missing a couple of chords and whose DIY approach seems genuine and therefore utterly charming. The day only gets going for us with Heroes of the Mexican Independence Movement, who endlessly flirt with comedy and chaos to produce a memorable afternoon of musical merriment and some great Velvet Underground chugathons. Only afterwards I notice that they’ve been in The Rocky Nest and Fonda 500, which explains their quirky sense of humour. We regretfully miss the History of Apple Pie to catch Dignan Porch, who benefit from the church’s great acoustics. They intersperse finely-drawn vignettes of woozy-pop from the debut album Tendrils with full blown psych-pop from the Deluded 12” but their first single, ‘Surge’, is still the most impressive two minutes of thrashing pop, along with the blissful ‘On A Ride’. It’s one of the best sets at Indietracks from one of the best live bands currently worth seeing.

Help Stamp Out Loneliness ooze confidence and earn their right to be on the main stage. Unfortunately there are a few technical difficulties but the songs from the album still sound like indiepop whose balls have dropped. The band perform powerfully but what sticks out most is the imperious D Lucille Campbell and her Nico-esque delivery, full of style and star quality. The funniest thing about Chris T-T’s set is when some railway workmen come and try to jemmy open the collection box mid-set – especially when he’s singing acapella. When they’ve sensed the mood and fucked off, he gets back to delivering possibly the only political message of the festival. It doesn’t seem to work – he’s as funny as ever, although he relies too much on trusted material about green issues and the Countryside Alliance – and it feels too much like he’s “preaching to the converted”.

The church is the best place to see Amor de Dias, the hush inspired by the surroundings allowing you to appreciate the intricate picking and distinguish the Latin and folky flavours of these songs. The huge footpaths of yellow light that stream in altarwards through the west-facing windows hold back the dusk and cast an aura around Alasdair and Lupe as they couch their poetic, pastoral tunes with delicate melodies, the sepulchral beauty of ‘Bunhill Fields’ standing out.

Hidden Cameras are pole-vaulted into prime spot by the early appearance of Edwin Collins and Joel Gibb proceeds to cruelly tease the audience about Indietracks, indiepop and England. His drolleries make you think you’re watching a gay Morrissey, although Gibb has 20 years and nearly as many stones on the rotund Mancunian misanthropist. The Cameras’ discofied folk-cum-orchestral-chamber-pop fills time but not the heart, despite their impressive playing blindfold at one point. Clever and mildly controversial, they’re good but they’re not headliners.

Apart from the unconvincing cross-dressing train-spotter, Sunday is a very slow starter. The billing for Apple Eyes (“Deerhoof, Of Montreal, Flaming Lips”) makes them sound interesting. Unfortunately it’s a blatant lie and they’re just competent 80s popsters with a very dull set. Anguish Sandwich have a terrible name and a worst sound, Winston Echo wailing tunelessly over rudimentary musical structures that, were they houses, would be immediately condemned.

The Fika tea party turns out to be a highlight of the afternoon (at last, tea not twee!) - that and Mat Patelano’s solo set on the train. The party has Swedish teas, toothsome Swedish cakes and some nice Anglo-Scando accompaniment from the likes of Moustache of Insanity and Lisa Fika. Then it’s onto a train where my cake consumption prevents me from sampling the doughnuts that Mat P and his girlfriend hand out. Their songs are similarly sweet, drawing on the surf/psych/space-pop of the Specific Heats and a cover of Mickey and Sylvia's 'Love Is Strange', and at the end of the journey he seems as reluctant to end things as his audience are.

There’s a twee-dious gap from which we’re only rescued by the mob-rule mayhem of MJ Hibbert in the merch tent, whose Red Bull cocktail of comedy, music and audience participation is a perfect spirit lifter for that teatime energy dip. Back then to the engine shed, where Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard rock out with the help of Herman Dune for a short but perfectly formed set, including covers of Sonic Youth’s ‘100%’ and an audacious ‘Running On A Dream’ (Tom Petty), before J-Lew ends with his ear-blisteringly good rap ‘Mosquito Mass Murderer’. Crystal Stilts turn up to play their seriously loud garage rock, showing up the more precious bands earlier in the weekend. Brad Hargett intones in a doomladen post-punk way while JB Townsend pulls all sorts of dark 60s-styled riffs from his Phantom guitar and Kyle Forrester adds disorientating static. The band make no concessions to the Indietracks audience and it’s so uncompromising and challenging musically that it makes my weekend.

Finally, Herman Dune close the festival. Now restored to a threesome, they’re more of a power-trio tonight; I’ve never seen the ultra-cool Cosmic Neman working up such a sweat before as he holds the rhythm while David extends songs and solos as if they’re some sort of French Credence Clearwater Revival. Songs from Strange Moosic that are three-minute pop tunes suddenly grow fangs and become feral woodland creatures in their hands. It’s a rocked up end to what has been a rock-free festival, a polite sort of fun that seems to be seeking to preserve indiepop like the Midland Railway preserves its trains. Fresh blood next time please - you only have to go to Norfolk to see what happens when communities try to keep it in the family...

Links:
http://www.indietracks.co.uk/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66279806@N08/