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Indietracks: Sunday: Los Campesinos, Ballboy, Manhattan Love Suicides, The Rosie Taylor Project, Gregory Webster and more
Midland Railway, Butterley, Derbyshire
Article written by
Ged M - Aug 13, 2008
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Travelodges aren’t known for their style but how cheap must you have to be to hold a liaison with your paramour in the Alfreton Travelodge? The entertainment of the morning is watching the spud-faced man in the t-shirt with the crass political message and his shagpiece have their post-coital breakfast and then go their separate ways in their separate vehicles. Clearly, romance isn’t yet dead in South Derbyshire.
We watch steam trains in the sun as we wait for our hungover camping mates to emerge from their canvas furnaces before diving back into the pop-whirl. The first band we watch for any duration is The Mai 68s, who play agitprop indiepop through a JAMC squall. It’s all a bit too studied for me – both the music and the politics. In the church, people are wilting faster than the flowers and A Classic Education are suffering a little from their formal choice of attire. It doesn’t stop the band, from Bologna, Italy (though the singer is Italo-Canadian) from impressing us with their aspiring-to-epic music, a mix of soaring Arcade Fire gestures, REM jangle-thrash and the driving rhythms of the Feelies. Very good but very hot.
We miss Gregory Webster’s set on the train and a look at the steaming human cargo that disembarks later suggests that, unless we were looking to lose weight fast, we probably did the right thing. But the indiepop opinion of those who missed the train forces a brilliant guerrilla gig on the platform from the Razorcuts/ Sportique man whose sad/sweet acoustic songs (accompanied on pump harmonium by Hannah Schla) are a Sunday afternoon treat. We catch another seemingly impromptu set in the tea tent with Darren Hayman backed by the Wave Pictures that promises to go on and on until the main stage nearby drowns Mr Hayman’s happy banter. The Smittens have great harmonies but I’ve already overdone my recommended daily allowance of sugar and they are Kendal Mint Cake sweet. Imagine 'Ice Cream Man' by Jonathan Richman on endless repeat and you’ll get a sense of the uber-romantic pop they offer.
The Rosie Taylor Project say that they’re influenced by Ryan Adams but that’s not easy to spot. The first song though would grace a Sufjan Stevens record – ‘The Water’s Edge’ builds slowly with trumpet twists and an orchestral heft that resolves into a perfect ending of wistful “ah-has” and twinkly guitars. On their record ‘This City Draws Maps’, they’re soft and gentle but live they have a steelier edge – the difference is like chiaroscuro and technicolour. Their romantic, soulful, folk-inflected indiepop is one of the highlights of the festival.
Curiously erotic but thoroughly brutal”. Darren of the Manhattan Love Suicides gives me the review he’d like to receive, taken from one of the cult DVDs he watches avidly. Not a bad summary; the fuzzy noise of the buzzsawing guitars is certainly brutal-sounding but the melody line carried by the vocals gives it a sweet–but-painful charge that’s erotic only if you’re a fan of Tura Santana types. “We get a long set from them today, 20 minutes, including the Ramonesy new song ‘Jonny Boy’. If Glasvegas were any good, which they aren’t, they still wouldn’t be fit to stand up to the Manhattans in their prime. If you’ve not seen them yet, you really have to catch them.
I’m disappointed to catch only the last two songs of the set by energetic indiepoppers from Finland, Dirty Fingernails, as their Greetings from Finsbury Park album was an unexpected delight this year but there was enough in their toytown instruments and garish display to make me want to see them again. We see the Brownies whose post-punk is fine but what really impresses is the “engine room” of drummer and bassist which drives this band on. The Retro-Spankies are fancy-dressed to the nines but their Bearsuit-inspired hyperactivity, heavy on the “la la las” and falsetto voices, could do with a few more tunes.
Gordon McIntyre is a primary school teacher. That sounds dull and introverted but, believe me, give a primary school teacher an audience and they become boundlessly energetic, scarily creative and borderline certifiable. Ballboy might be just three guys and a girl on stage but you always get a show! McIntyre has a wonderfully sardonic approach, a dark wit that pulls humour from all situations (as the title of his tale of a bank robbery gone wrong might suggest: ‘I Don’t Have Time To Stand Here With You Fighting About the Size of My Dick') and a poet’s way with our language.
Ballboy are the quintessential indie festival band, and they stitch with a melodic thread various songs of sad romance, tales of frustrated hope and ballads of disenchantment, all beautifully moving because they’re such universal themes. He might be Morrissey, if La Moz had the bile removed and the ability to laugh at himself restored. 'Songs for Kylie' from the new record has a fragile beauty but ‘I Lost You, But I Found Country Music’, their hymn to the healing power of music, is a crowd favourite. Ballboy convince Indietracks that the meek really are going to inherit the earth.
Los Campesinos have a song called the ‘International Tweexcore Underground’ with just the right references to Amelia Fletcher and the like but they’re not a band you’d necessarily call 'indie'. They’re popular though, filling the hall for the closing slot, but I notice a number of people – like us – sneaking out before the end of the set. Their songs cram in too many ideas, time changes and Tourettes noises, while singer Gareth spends too much time adopting poses. They're in a blur of constant motion because if they slow down you’ll spot their flaws. 'You and Me Dancing' is their best song and their cover of a Pavement tune shows exactly what they could be if they chilled out, enjoyed the space and took their eye off the stopwatch but generally they’re try-too-harders.
We then scoot off from Indietracks towards Gotham, slightly dehydrated, a little sooty – some of us drunk - but elated from the trains we’d ridden and the great bands we’d seen - Shrag, Not Comet Gain, the Manhattan Love Suicides, the Rosie Taylor Project, Ballboy – as well as the bands we’d missed because of time clashes. It would be nice to have the option of something other than burger and chips but otherwise Indietracks 2008 was unmissable. We’ll be behind the 2-10-0 loco to Butterley Station in 2009 too.
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