A layer of chips

Azure Blue - Rule of Thirds (Matinee Recordings)

2012-01-30T17:55:00.001Z

There's a terrible, terrible tendency amongst some pop fans to think that anything that comes out of Scandinavia is immediately to be pounced on and rubbed up against without any kind of rational thinking. It kind of annoys me slightly. Nationality and imaginary borders mean nothing in life, and therefore in pop music.

Let me say this: 'Rule of Thirds' is brilliant. It's the kind of electropop album that most often strive to make, but very often fail by trying to be too clever. Tobias Isaksson, who seems to be something of Real Pop Hero in his native Sweden, doesn't have to try too hard. Each of these songs seems to float by in a kind of cosy dreamlike state, never really asking you to think too hard, but always managing to catch your attention.

Azure Blue are the musical equivalent of Coronation Street, you might say: comfortable; assured; definitely pleasing; and certain to appeal to 65 year olds from Wigan. That last point might need some work, but you get my drift.

It's about ten years since I discovered Matinee Records (or Recordings, if you will). Back then they were putting stuff out by The Windmills and Airport Girl and it was great. Right now they're putting stuff out like Azure Blue and it's still as great. That there is the definition of not only a great group of bands, but a wonderful record label. Long may it continue.

Tigercats: in the vanguard of the new pop army

2012-01-23T11:11:00.001Z

There are way too many good records coming out all at once at the moment. I'm getting old and struggling to keep up with the pace. I've hit the pop wall. So, when I'll get around to writing about the new MJ Hibbett & the Validators and Azure Blue albums I don't really know, but I will.

For now, I've been listening to the new set of songs from Tigercats for about the past week. The rough versions of the songs (which don't sound too rough to these ears, but then I know NOTHING of the recording process) are from an album out in March (I think) called 'Isle of Dogs' that will be released (again, I think) on Fika Records.

This album reminds me of a lot of things. It reminds me of being young and hearing Suede for the first time on the Evening Session and missing my bus into Grimsby because I didn't want to leave the radio.

It also reminds me of moving in to a crap flat on Mansfield Road in Nottingham with paper thin walls (BUT WE WERE HAPPY) and playing 'Breaking God's Heart' by Hefner over and over again whilst drinking cheap wine and gin.

One song reminds me of Northside, but - hey - that's okay.

Perhaps my favourute track on Isle of Dogs is 'Banned at the Troxy' - the heady tale of a night out that sounds like something ace off the first James album. It's simple and ambitious and a little bit sexy all at the same time, and it makes me want to go out and get drunk with people I hardly know.

See, if I was 16 right now I'd think this album was sent to save my life. 'Isle of Dogs', along with the new Allo Darlin', Shrag and Evans the Death records - that's quite a quartet to impress your slightly less cool mates with. Converting them is the easy part.

What Tigercats has come up with is a manifesto for what it means to be alive, to be in London and to be living life. Like Suede did twenty (gulp) years ago, and like Hefner did a little bit later. Those other three bands I mentioned earlier are doing it to, and however old you are you should cherish these times, because they're golden days for pop.

Tigercats - Banned At The Troxy from Niklas Vestberg on Vimeo.

Shrag+Tunabunny+Horowitz poster

2012-01-22T21:17:00.000Z

Here's a poster for our upcoming Shrag/Tunabunny/Horowitz gig, courtesy of my fellow promoter, Andy Hart.

Don't forget to buy your tickets for this!

This has been an advertisement.

Fuck the Jubilee: a call to arms

2012-01-18T18:12:00.001Z

The recent talk of this year's grotesque Jubilee parade, with all its yacht-shaped gifts, made my mind wander back ten years to anothert state-run display of Windsor worship. Back then I was heavily involved in the Socialist Alliance, a very wobbly, often tense, eternally doomed lash-up between the biggest extra-parliamentary left groups in the UK (bar a few of the more wacky ones, and Scargill's Socialist Labour Party).

We stood a candidate in the 2001 General Election and got a pretty respectable 3.7 per cent. On the back of this, the next year I organised a week of anti-Jubilee activity in Nottingham, culminating in a gig at the Rose of England in the city.

Three bands played, including Chris TT and humblebee's old band The Regulars. I charged a quid on the door and over 100 people turned up.

As I wrote in the Weekly Worker at the time:

"... the gig was predominantly attended by those of a non-political persuasion. This proved an excellent opportunity to expose a layer of young people to the Socialist Alliance's politics, and even when Chris TT, during his set, said that he opposed militantism, he was met with a hail of abuse from just about everyone in the room! All in all, a great success, and it is agreed that we will organise further, similar events later in the year to raise the profile of the SA amongst students and younger people in the city."

Ah, the optimism of youth! The Socialist Alliance was all but dead by the end of the year.

I was thinking about doing another gig this year. If anyone wants to get involved in any way (bands, other promoters, yacht onwers - anyone who wants to help out really) can you drop me a line and we'll try and get something sorted.

Tunabunny - a plague on your UK tour

2012-01-15T08:54:00.000Z

I've managed to get a sneak preview of the Tunabunny side of their new split single with Shrag, which is out coming out in time for their tour of the UK in late Feb/early March, and, as ever the band has surprised me.

'Locusts' builds on Tunabunny's new found pop sensibilities, but adds a touch of new wave menace to it. Think Gang of Four mixed with early, better, Throwing Muses and you'd be about there.

To say I'm excited about seeing Tunabunny in March is an understatement. Sure, they aren't you typical indiepop band, but then I don't dress in aprons and rosettes all the time, you know. Some of my best friends wear North Face fleeces.

I really wish I could share 'Locusst' with you - suppose you'll just have to wait and buy the split single at the gigs. Especially, erm, at the Nottingham one

.

Allo Darlin' - Capricornia (Slumberland/Fortuna Pop!)

2012-01-09T20:25:00.000Z

If the last Pocketbooks record had reminded you a little bit of Kirsty MacColl, then the new Allo Darlin' single, 'Capricornia' brings back long afternoons listening MacColl's ace 'Kite' album, whilst trying to plot a way out of not coming out of my bedroom for the entire summer.

'Capricornia' offers up the same kind of hazy melancholy, and is frankly beautiful. I suspect there are plenty of people waiting for Allo Darlin' to trip up after their faultless rise and rise, but this isn't the single that'll let them down. And if this is a signpost the forthcoming album, 'Europe', then Allo Darlin' will be ready to take on the world. And they will.

'Capricornia' is released on February 13th on Fortuna Pop! and Slumberland, with 'Europe' out some time in May on the same labels.

Allo Darlin' - Capricornia by Slumberland Records

Pop music will save you before capitalism ever will

2012-01-03T19:15:00.001Z

Happy new set of disappointing and ever-more-maddening days.

First day back at work for me today, and I did nothing. I tried to make it all better by treating myself and my significant other to an Italian meal at lunch that we can barely afford, and it sort of worked for about 40 minutes, until the crushing realisation of a million deadlines and "critical" fucking "paths" stretched into the year like a turd that won't flush.

But, lo! What is that in yon distance? No, it's not London Popfest (which of course you must all go to); it's something just a week after that, in Nottingham, and it begins with Sh and ends in rag. It also begins with Tuna and ends in bunny. And finally, it begins with... you get the picture - Horowitz are also playing.

That's right, you downtrodden proles. You might be losing your job, your hair, your teeth and most of your mind through the deadening thud of late capitalism smashing a hammer into your face every morning, but at least you can rely on good old pop music to give you a momentary high every now and then.

And so, it is with great pleasure that Andy from a fog of ideas and myself (hello) are putting on the mighty Shrag, the terrifyingly good Tunabunny (from that USA) and the Midlands very own pop tarts Horowitz at The Chameleon on Friday 2nd March 2012.

If you simply must, then you can buy a ticket for this night of many dreams here. There'll be a pay on the door option if you want to play fast and loose with us, but we expect this little fella to be a busy one, so don't come running to us when you're stuck downstairs, unable to get in, listening to Nick the owner hone his stand-up routine. What do you mean you won't be able to tell the difference?

To get your juices running clear, here's a little taster of all three bands.

Horowitz - I Need a Blanket

Tunabunny - (Song for My) Solar Sister

Shrag - Rabbit Kids

YOU MISS THIS AND YOU'RE DEAD.

Indiepop lookalikes #2

2011-12-30T17:18:00.000Z

This suddenly occured to me this morning.

Marc Elston (Bulldozer Crash, Liberty Ship)

Mr Bloom from Mr Bloom's Nursery (second left)

2011: Everything's going to be okay

2011-12-28T10:30:00.002Z

The last twelve months have been everything I really shouldn't want from life as I approach forty; chaotic, dramatic, upsetting and sometimes really, really horrible. However, the end of the year saw things settling down a lot more, and, as I stopped being such a stupid bastard, I could begin to realise that the last 12 months have thrown up some of the best music of my life.

I'm picking ten albums here that have meant the most to me this year. They'll have had to have been released in 2011, but that's the only rule. Some, like the mighty self-titled Help Stamp Out Loneliness album I can barely listen to past track three because it evokes such self-loathing; whereas others like the Let's Whisper record bring back happier memories. Both, though, it has to be said, are amazing albums.

Here's my top ten of 2011, in chronological order.

1. Slow Down Tallahassee - Curly Cuh (Thee SPC)
A massive, big, fuck-off farewell of an album which saw me through some dark nights in January and February, and is home to 'Knees as Sweet as These' - possible the most affecting song I've heard this year. In January I said: "Some of the best days and nights of the last few years have been watching or listening to Slow Down Tallahassee. Sheffield is a poorer place without them, but with 'Curly Cuh' they've left a mighty, mighty epitaph."

2. The Andersen Tapes - As I Write 'Today' Ten Times (Fraction Discs)
A record almost too perfect thar you daren't listen to it. Back in January, I gushed: "At times this album can seem almost glossy, but you'd be fool to think so, 'cos at its heart is a beautiful mixture of all that's wonderful in indiepop today. You can hear Liechtenstein in there, parts of Crayon Fields, the odd nod towards Pocketbooks, and then you think "Oh! Maybe those bands took their inspiration from Amanda Aldervall". Only then you realise how important it is to have her back."

3. Comet Gain - Howl of the Lonely Crowd (Fortuna Pop!)
Their best album? Probably, and when Comet Gain's back catalogue includes 'Realistes', you'll understand how much this album means. In March I said: "Comet Gain offer us hope after all. These are songs about belief and hope as much as they are about the daily drudge. And that’s why this album is so special, really."

4. Let's Whisper -The Shorterst Days (WeePop!)
Just when you need a hefty dose of cheer, along come Let's Whisper with perhaps the most inventive record of 2011. "It’s easy to write off Let’s Whisper as a side-project of a band perhaps more feted by Those in the Know, but that would be to undervalue an album like this. It’s only March, but I’d bet by the end of the year I’ll come back to this and realise it has more depth, joy, happiness, and big pop moments than 99 per cent of the rest of albums released this year". In retrospect, I reckon that's right.

5. Help Stamp Out Loneliness - Help Stamp Out Loneliness (WIAIWYA/Papillon Noirs)
I think I've played this record more than any other since it landed through my door in April. It's the sound of a band sprinting at full velocity - a mesmering set of songs that I was lucky to see live four or five times over the summer and into the Autumn. I said in April: "When you get to your late thirties there aren’t many records that make you want to get up off your knees, stick some clothes on, and go out and find out what the city holds at night – but this one does."

6. Moustache of Insanity - Album of Death (Fika/Pull Yourself Together)
All good, clean, harmless fun from the indiepop superduo. As I sweated like a pig in July, I opined: "There, beneath the daft name and keraayyzee samples on this album, lies a beating pop heart - a pop heart we all need."

7. Prince Edward Island - This Day is a Good Enough Day (Crocfingers Records)
I've not really any idea how I first heard this, but I'm glad I did. Musically, it's all over the shop, but post-Indietracks it was all I was listening to. It inspired to be plumb the depths of satire, saying: "To say this album is ambitious would be like saying David Cameron is merely an annoying, shit-faced twat."

8. Pocketbooks - Carousel (Odd Box)
It seems daft to call such a fresh, vital band "veterans", but it seems Pocketbooks have been with us forever now, and thank heavens for that. This, their second album sounds almost like a soundtrack to a musical, and is the perfect accompaniment to late December nights, I've found recently. In September, I was going on about: "When Pocketbooks played some of these songs to open Indietracks it was a bit of emotional experience for some of us. That they manage to carry that feeling onto record is testament to how special they are, and this album is. Proof, if it were needed, that pop remains supreme."

9. Bart & Friends - Stories With the Endings Changed (Lost and Lonesome)
An album that seemed like a long, lost friend. Clocking in at somewhere around the twenty minute mark didn;t matter - Bart Cummings had done it again. I got all dreamy in September, saying: "Again the songs are short, but its hard to be this tender for longer than a couple of minutes without exploding with love. That's what I love most about it; the fact that Cummings packs so much feeling into a couple of minutes that you simply couldn't go on loving these songs for longer."

10. Standard Fare - Out of Sight, Out of Town (Thee SPC/Melodic)
If I'm really forced to choose, then this is my favourite album of the year, and a more whole set of songs you'd be hard pushed to hear. The memory of their perfect, joyous, sweaty performance at the Nottingham all-dayer in October will live with me forever. "I think they call that 'timeless,'" I said in October.

That's that, then. See you in the New Year.

Standard Fare interview

2011-12-17T11:06:00.002Z

In another year of wonderful albums, Standard Fare's 'Out of Sight, Out of Town' nipped in at the end and stole the show. More confident than the raw naivety of the band's debut 'The Noyelle Beat', 'Out of Sight Out of Town' is my album of the year, and it should be yours.

I emailed Dan and Emma some questions, and by golly they answered them.

Tell me about how long the new album took to record? Was it longer than 'The Noyelle Beat'?

Emma: We recorded the new album in ten days in the studio but we did that over about 8 months. Some songs like 'Suitcase' and 'Call Me Up' we'd written while touring the first album and others such as 'Older Women' and 'Bad Temper' we wrote the week before the last couple of days in the studio.

Dan: We’d gigged a couple of the songs before we did the recording but most of them were still taking shape so it was pretty helpful having a bit more time. We recorded about 16 songs and picked out the 12 we liked the most, that did involve some bargaining of songs though; I see your ‘Older Women’ and raise you a ‘Suitcase’!

Did you find it easier to write the second set of songs than the first?

Emma: I don't really find writing songs hard or easy. I had a bit of fun writing ‘Crystal Palatial’ as it's more of a story song and I got to make stuff up a tiny bit. I wrote the lyrics to ‘Half Sister’ on a train, then when we were in the studio I started playing some chords and sang a melody for it while Dan was recording some of his guitar bits in the other room.

Dan: Yeah, it felt like a different way of writing, it felt a bit more creative having the main body of the songs ready but then figuring different things out whilst we were recording them. Like with ‘Half Sister’ I recorded the guitars when Emma and Andy went for lunch, and I played completely different parts to what I’d planned; I was quite relieved they liked them considering we’d aimed for it to be a disco song.

What - to you - is the main difference between the two albums?

Emma: This one's a bit more varied, a bit more loud, a bit more quiet, a bit more fast, a bit more slow. It was nice to put some violin and trumpet on there. The subjects are a bit more varied as well I have less of a bone to grind with this one. There were other things I wanted to sing about.

What's 'Crystal Palatial' all about? I love that song, but is it a true story?

Emma: Ha! It's a true story in the sense that it's based on getting together with someone and the events happened I just used some artistic license and set it 150 years ago at the world’s first Crystal Palace built for the Great Exhibition. I have been informed it's all horrifically inaccurate; it was a shilling day not a penny day and apparently it would have been difficult to buy a latte in Victorian London too. We played ‘Crystal Palatial’ in Leicester recently and the girl on the merch desk had clearly been trying to work out what I was singing for the chorus she'd written down something to do with fellatio!

Is 'Darth Vader' the next single? Why? What's it all about?

Emma: We chose it as the lead single but only in the sense it was the first track you could download and I wanted it to have a chance at being played on the radio. We thought it was a bit of a different sound for us and I'd had some fun making a video for it. It's a plea but also a bit of a dressing down for someone to stop feeling needy when there's really no need. Funnily enough it's been the one song that people think was written about themselves. Maybe most people aren't as needy as they think they are?!!

When you played our all-dayer in October you couldn't play some of the songs from the album. Is this always going to be the case?

Emma: That all dayer was ace by the way. A fantastic event.

Dan: Yeah that was an incredible gig, everyone was so overwhelmingly up for it! We just figured that some songs need a few listens before you can get into them, so rather than quieten things down we tried to make it flow better by playing just a couple of new ones mixed with some of the ones we thought people might know.

Emma: We're hoping to play a bunch off the new album at all future gigs, although we might not be able to always have the violin and trumpet bits live! And we will take requests, especially from you Sam!

Everyone says to me you should be huge. Would you all do the band full time if you could? Is that a really stupid question?

Emma: Right well that's nice of them! Difficult question. I know I would, but I can’t speak for Dan and Andy, and thankfully we've not had to cross that bridge and I doubt we will have to.

Dan: Haha, yeah and I can give them the hundred reasons why we’re not! I’d play all day if I could, but I don’t think we’re under any illusions.

What about the next set of songs? Got some ideas already?

Emma: I think Dan and I will always write songs. I've been thinking more about family since I wrote Half Sister and Suitcase and have a couple of other songs in that vein which I’m working on at the moment.

Dan: We had a day recording at Greenmount Studios in Leeds about a month ago, and we wrote a new song for that which came out quite nice, it sounded a bit grunge, so we are still writing things.

If your band ended tomorrow, what would be your most treasured memory of being in Standard Fare?

Emma: Oh wow so many! I think the times we've really managed to enjoy the moment together, like playing Latitude Festival or Athens Popfest or Indietracks or any of the real buzzing full gigs that were unexpected. Nottingham Pop Fest was a recent highlight. The feeling when we had a new song in the practice room and played it ten times in a row because it felt so good which has happened a load. Turning up at Maida Vale studios was exciting. Dan and I meeting in London to be interviewed by Steve Lamacq and then a few months later ending up in a taxi with him randomly. I really should write them all down or I'll forget half the things we did.

Dan: Ooh yeeh, there’s too many! One that comes to mind for me was when we played at a pop festival in France about three years ago and it was huge deal to us as it was our first trip away, we got to play on this massive stage. We were really buzzing after the gig and I remember us all drinking way too much and dancing like crazy!

By way of a catch-up

2011-12-13T21:13:00.002Z

A hectic work schedule combined with moving house has meant very little action around these parts. How have you, like, coped?

There's lot to catch up on, but let me start at the beginning with the excellent Kids, a five piece from San Diego who I wrote about a while back. The band have released a split EP with their pals Sledding With Tigers, and it's a right refreshing slab of messy pop.

Veering somewhere between Architecture in Helsinki's best moments and - wait for it - Scarce, Kids are a shot in the arm during such troubled times and the three new songs here seem a real step forward from the stuff I heard earlier in the year.

You can listen to the whole thing here, and then buy it, natch.

Meanwhile, everyone's (well, okay, a lot of people's) favourite pop picks Allo Darlin' have announced that their new album, 'Europe' will be out in May, and if we're all still alive by then, then there's no doubt it'll give the band the step up they deserve. There's a single out too on February 12th called 'Capricornia'. Both are out on good old Fortuna Pop!

Here's a video of 'Tallulah', which you'll have no doubt heard if you've not been living under a rock and not seen Allo Darlin' over the last year or so.

Allo Darlin' - Tallulah from Will Botting on Vimeo.

I'll back sometime soon with some amazing gig news for March.

O come all ye faithful (to see five ace bands)

2011-11-20T07:44:00.000Z

My good comrade Andy Hart of a fog of ideas has done a most festive flyer for our upcoming Christmas gig (details on the right there).

If the John Lewis advert featuring a slightly misguided Smiths cover doesn't whet your appetite for eating your body weight in meat and chocolate, whilst drinking stuff that would never normally pass your beautiful lips for the rest of the year, then we hope this flyer will.

Oh, and see you at the gig, natch.

Matinee goes Swedish

2011-11-19T15:18:00.000Z

Matinee Records have dipped their toes in the ever fertile Swedish pop pool again, and are set to release the new Azure Blue album, 'Rule of Thirds'.

Azure Blue, as I'm sure you're aware, is the solo project from Tomas Isaksson, ex- of Labrador bands Laurel Music and Irene.

Matinee have been good enough to release one song from the album, called 'Catcher in the Rye' - a kind of melancholic synthpop whisper, which brings to mind a downbeat Fosca, and that's no bad thing, now is it.

I'm presuming these two tracks are going to be singles, as there are videos for them, but who knows? Whatever, they're both pretty ace.

Azure Blue - The Catcher in the Rye from Jonas Börjesson on Vimeo.

Azure Blue - Little Confusions from Jonas Börjesson on Vimeo.

You can buy the album, which is out on January, on the ever-ace Matinee website. Treat yourself to an early Christmas present.

Kissing Orca Team on the face

2011-11-14T18:15:00.002Z

Just when I thought I could relax and spend the rest of the year listening to old records again, along comes Orca Team's 'Kissing Cousins' ep to keep me on my toes.

Don't even listen to anyone who mentions The bloody B*ach Boys in the same sentence as Orca Team - for they are talking massive amounts of nonsense. Oraca Team make dark surf pop, and 'Kissing Cousins' is a 21st Century death disc masterpiece.

Orca Team have clearly been brought up on a deeply healthy diet of John Waters films and obscure '60s surf bands. The singer sounds like a young Ian McCullloch in parts, and all of these things thrown together over eight bursts of woozy pop perfection makes for one of the records of this year, last year - of any year.

I'm still too wrapped up in this record to offer an kind of reasoned critique of why it's completely essential, suffice to say that it just is.

Also, if this isn't the coolest thing you've ever seen, then you have kitten piss for blood.

This is a band that clearly likes its shorts, and I'm totally cool with that.

Colour Me Wednesday

2011-11-08T19:38:00.000Z

Colour Me Wednesday are from Uxbridge, and if I've heard a better new band this year then I've been lying to myself.

Colour Me Wednesday are (probably) frighteningly young, but then that means they make the sort of cocksure pop music that makes me shiver a bit.

I know next to zero about this band, other than to thank the anorak forum for making me aware of them. I want them to come and play in Nottingham pretty much every night of the week for the rest of the year.

Everything about this song - from the title right down to the toy drums is perfect. I demand you play it around 20-25 times in a row.

If, by some miracle, the band read this - then please get in touch sharpish. I'm deeply EXCITED.

It's that time of next year again...

2011-11-04T17:41:00.001Z

Traditions are sometimes a wonderful thing to stick to, and so at the arse end of February I like to meet up with my mate Rob in some overpriced pub in London, get drunk and head to the Saturday and Sunday of London Popfest.

There have been five bands announced so far, and I love all of them. Allo Darlin' will headline the Saturday all-dayer at the 100 Club - a legendary venue (legendary for its extortionate beer prices), whilst the amazing Tunabunny and spunky Tigercats are also playing. One Happy Island are coming over too, whilst pop terrorists Shrag will headline the Friday show.

The whole thing runs from Thursday through to Sunday, and you can buy tickets here. For now, here's the latest video from Tunabunny. I've spent the past week listening to the band's new album, and told HHBTM Records chief Mike Turner that it's a real "grower". Apparently that means something rude in America. Trust them!

Tomorrow's news today: Indietracks 2012

2011-10-28T20:28:00.002+01:00

My word, those lads and lasses who arrange Indietracks are on the ball. Spurred on by wild, salacious internet rumours that this year's event would be the last, they've only gone an announced next year's Olympic-busting dates. The world's best music festival will be held from 6-8 July in 2012.

A missive from Indietracks HQ read like this:

"We have decided to hold the festival earlier than usual this year. Usually the festival takes place on the last weekend of July, but we became aware that clashing with the Olympics that weekend might have meant higher travel and accommodation prices for bands and festival-goers.

"Tickets are due to be on sale shortly, and will be available from the Midland Railway website.

"Any bands wishing to apply to play at the festival should e-mail with a short biography and a web link to their music by November 30, 2011."

You know what to do, pop-makers.

Those times were good times - Fortuna Pop! is 15

2011-10-25T19:55:00.000+01:00

You might have Sean Price down as a miserablist with a penchant for outlandish leather jackets, and you'd probably be right. But, remember, his OWN BLOODY BAND were responsible for this...

... and his label, Fortuna Pop! has been putting out hit after hit after hit for the last 15 years. This label, along with Matinee was responsible for getting me back into indiepop at the beginning the last century, and for that I salute it, Sean and all the bands who have given us such precious records over the past decade and a half.

Not one to ever hide his light under any kind of bushel (and why should he?), Sean and his tiny dwarf helpers have put together a kind of Glastonbury for sensible people. But in the fucking week, when I can't make it. The twats!

For those that can - here's the details. You'd be a fool, or an overworked wage slave not to be there.

In the meantime, wet your pants whilst listening to some of F-Pop!'s finest current cuts.

It's Christmas

2011-10-24T20:14:00.000+01:00

The very beautiful (and I mean that in every sense) Haiku Salut have been added to the bill of our Christmas gig on 10 December at The Chameleon in Nottingham. There are some details over there on the right, and there's the possibility of a very special guest which we're dead excited about.

In the meantime, immerse yourself in this.

Standard Fare - Out of Sight, Out of Town (Thee SPC/Melodic)

2011-10-18T17:30:00.003+01:00

Ah, there were times back in the dim and distant past when you’d wear the vinyl through on your favourite albums, when you’d sit in your room with a pile of books whilst the other kids played outside, or smoked in the bus shelter, or went into town because they were brave and – apparently – knew how to have fun. And when the snowballs hit your bedroom window and you heard the catcalls and you knew you would NEVER go out again, you reached for the volume button, pulled the covers up a little higher and lost yourself in the music filling the air.

The songs that saved your life, and all that crap.

Perhaps the two things that make me wish I was 14 again this year have been the Help Stamp Out Loneliness and Pocketbooks albums. This is the third, and – I think – it tops the lot.

Standard Fare’s second album (let’s not shit about with the word ‘sophomore’, please) rips through your mind after half a listen. It’s what they call nowadays “viral”. It’s a masterpiece of three people coming together in the most perfect way and if they better this, then I’ll be surprised and wildly happy at the same time. Mind you, I thought they’d never top ‘The Noyelle Beat’, but they have. They have by some considerable distance.

What they’ve given us all here is a collection of songs that, whilst deeply personal to the band, resonate deeply. One listen and empathy, amongst other emotions happy and sad, will pour out of you.

It begins quietly with the deftly understated ‘Look for Lust’ before ’05 11 07’ grips your hand and chucks you into a train and straight into the middle of some kind of spontaneous romance. Time, then, for the dark skiffle of ‘Suitcase’ – a single so criminally ignored earlier this year (by me too). ‘Suitcase’ is remarkable for myriad reasons: the guitar performance of Danny How; the bounciest of all bass lines by Emma Kupa; the supposed-meaning of the lyrics; and how Standard Fare get around those lyrics by coming up with such a tune. It’s breathtaking.

‘Dead Future’ evokes the spirit of The Housemartins at their perkiest, whislt ‘Darth Vader’, right at the centre of album is Standard Fare’s most perfect moment so far. It’s only three and half minutes long, but it feels epic – a sort of gentle torch song which is either about a parent/child or adult/adult relationship, I can’t quite work out which, but I’m not really sure it matters that much – it’s just a beautiful song.

Enter How again with his guitar and the rattle and rush of ‘Bad Temper’ a complete and surely a future live favourite. Somehow, that’s topped by the hilarious ‘Older Women’ – a sort of ‘Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others’ for the 21st Century, it’s the best display of the sometimes sly humour running through ‘Out of Sight, Out of Town’.

Just when you thought you’d heard it all comes ‘Half Sister’, and it’s a reggae (that’s right) song about rediscovering a long lost sibling. A terribly serious subject, of course, but Kupa manages to keep smiling by asking a series of questions to the mystery subject of the song, such as ‘Do you like Steve Earle?’ It’s a remarkable song in many ways – not least the fact that Kupa is singing about this kind of thing “in public”, but also because it just throws you. It’s this light reggae song about discovering you have a sister. Where the fuck did that come from?

Closing is the wonderful Duane Eddy rush of ‘Crystal Palatial’ – a typical (and I mean that in a good way) Standard Fare paean to lost love, in which Kupa’s yearning is almost too much for her already fragile voice. There’s yearning here, and she means it. The rest of us better leave the room.

In many ways this is Danny How’s album, in the fact that the guitar playing on it is wizardly. Then you listen to Andy Beswick’s hammered out, second-perfect drums and you think he holds it all together. Then you go to Emma Kupa and you hear those elastic bass strings and THAT voice, and you think Standard Fare are all about her.

None of these things are true, though, because they’re just so very much a band - a gang, if you will.

Standard Fare, for just over half an hour, on ‘Out of Sight, Out of Town’ make the music that would’ve saved you from the tuff kids outside back then, just like this music will save you from the all that crap out there now. I think they call that “timeless”.

'Out of Sight, Out of Town' is out on 12 December.

Imaginary Friend

2011-10-16T11:59:00.000+01:00

Those bemoaning the lack of action from pop geniuses Pinkie, Lovejoy or Harper Lee can take solace in the fact that the gentle, shypop mantle has been passed from the south coast to the north west. Enter Imaginary Friend, who make the sort of introverted, awkward, melancholic music as those bands mentioned up there, and they make it very well indeed.

So, if you haven't locked yourself away for a weeked recently you know have the chance by nipping over to Imaginary Friend's soundcloud page. Prepare to wallow in the majesty of it all.

If you think I'm fibbing, then have a listen to this.
Summer Junction by ImaginaryFriend.

Men approaching middle age don't cry

2011-10-09T13:34:00.001+01:00

Sometimes it does you good to look back at things and wonder how you got here. In fact sometimes, it's pretty much essential.

I've been listening to my first love a lot of late. The Cure were the first band I really, really fell for when I was about 11 years old. I'd made the leap from Shakin' Stevens to Elton John to Simple Minds and onto the Cure in about 18 months. Shakey just wasn't cutting it any more, and, to be honest, how he could he follow tracks such as 'This 'ole house' (the first seven inch single I ever bought), 'Green door' (the third) and 'Lipstick, power and paint' (I wasn't that fucking desperate).

I cannot explain Elton John to this day, and even at that age, I remember being heavily disappointed with the 'Ice on Fire' cassette I received for Christmas.

Simple Minds I thought were Way Out There and weird and groovy - we all knew and know they weren't, aren't and never will be.

It was 'Lovecats', of course, that snared me. Who couldn't be seduced by that perfect pop single? I listen to it nowadays and it sounds like something from another age (which, I suppose, at 27 years old, it sort of is), but it still comes across as one of the most exotic things you'll ever hear. So, when 'The Head on the Door' came out I bought it with some pocket money, and played it to death.

You might think this sounds silly, but I still think 'The Head on the Door' is one of the most perfect pop records you'll ever hear. Sure, it sounds terribly '80s in parts (the brass on 'A night like this' is particularly telling), but me and few others started asking for 'Inbetween days' and 'Close to me' to be played at school discos, and we thought we were the bees knees, even though were all had mullets and were wearing those terrible flecked trousers that are probably dead cool now.

For the next five years The Cure, along with The Smiths (and for a horribly short time, The Housemartins) were my favourite band. I gulped back their entire back catalogue, straining to pretend that I immediately fell in love with 'Pornography' and 'Faith' and 'A Japanese Dream'; and never really listening much to the last side of 'Kiss me, kiss me kiss me'.

What's perhaps worse is that I started dressing like Robert Smith. Or perhaps a fourth division version of him. The hair was pretty good, but the rest of it left a lot to be desired. There was a distinct lack of decent goth shops in Grimsby in the late 1980s, and so I had to make do with a black and white paisley shirt from Burton, some black jeans from BHS and a pair of massive trainers out of Freemans catalogue.

I read 'Ten imaginary years' like it was my own personal bible, over and over again, and spent the summer of 1989 pretending I could draw and copying every Cure single cover out onto square bits of paper. Whilst the sun burned down outside, I listened to 'Seventeen seconds' on loop and pretended to be aloof and interesting by not speaking to anyone for two months.

By the time of 'Disintegration'I was still clinging onto The Cure, but having my head turned by Ride's first three eps, which seemed more "now" and vital than a band that had been going for over a decade (and when you're 16 that seems an awful long time, doesn't it?), but I still took the day off work experience to go and see The Cure at the NEC in Birmingham, where we had the worst possible seats, and I bought the worst possible bootleg t-shirt.

Shoegaze beckoned and I dropped The Cure. I didn't buy another album, apart from the patchy 'Mixed up' double LP that came out in 1990. Sure, we all boogied on down to 'Friday I'm in love' in Gullivers every Tuesday night, but now bands liked The Family Cat, Lush, Kitchens of Distinction and Slowdive meant more to me than The Cure.

That I still listen to The Cure more than these other bands, though, must mean something. I just don't really know what. A case of not ever really falling out with your first love? Well, I never really loved Shakin' Stevens, I guess...

I just wonder if 11 year olds these days feel the same way about Bombay Bicycle Club. I hope so.

For your records, this is my favourite Cure song. It's overblow and pompous, romantic and dramatic. I was probably all of these things once. I'm only some of them now.

The heat of the moment

2011-10-05T19:25:00.001+01:00

It's sort of difficult to put into words how ace last Saturday's indiepop all-dayer was. It was a lot of things: very hot; nicely busy; less for some notable people who weren't there through no fault of their own; and at the time really quite stressful. But, in the middle of a fucker of a week at work, I sure wish it was 11am on Saturday 1 October again right now.

Reviewing your own gigs is the work of megalomaniac, perhaps ("and so you're perfectly qualified to do it, Sam!" I hear you cry), so I won't, but many, many thanks to all the bands who came, took part, played their pop-filled hearts out and, y'know what - actually hung around to watch their peers. I love that.

There were plenty of ups and downs, like the Great Merch Stand Beer Spillage of 2011, but everyone got through that like there was a war on - and their often was with the woman from Clinton Cards downstairs, bless her. But I'd like to think we all not only got through the ebbs of flows of the day, but we actually, y'know, enjoyed ourselves, and got really too sweaty.

If I'm desperately pushed then my extra special moments came during the following acts: The Whatevers, Help Stamp Out Loneliness, Milky Wimpshake, and the amazing scenes (as the young say) during a set by Standard Fare that rose above any superlative I've ever heard. Just you wait until you hear their new album.

Thanks to comrades Ian, Josey and Alex for their support and work on the day. Let's do it all again next year. Oh, in fact let's do it all again on 10 December when, hopefully, we're all getting together again at The Chameleon for Just Handshakes (We're British), Moustache of Insanity and August Actually., plus the enigmatic One to Be Confirmed.

In the meantime, here's a video, courtesy of Martyn Clayton, of Let's Whisper. If there's a better way to kick off an all-dayer you can take it with you and piss off.

Humousexual - Meaning to these maps (Everard Records)

2011-09-25T12:01:00.000+01:00

I had always assumed Humousexual to be way too cool for me. The people that usually name-dropped them were the same people who regularly snapped up micro-pressings of impossibly obscure bands who everyone else but me seemed to know about. And so, I'm mildly ashamed to say, I ignored them. How daft and stubborn is that?

That was until I saw them at this year's London Popfest, where they were probably the best band of the weekend for me. I then bumped into Victor at Indietracks, and he was the most charming, shy, unassuming person ever. And so I decided to warm to Humousexual immediately

And so it's a good job that 'Meaning to these maps' is such an ace record - their first in seven years. It's five songs are full of urgency and fun and politics

and pop and make a dreary Sunday seem slightly more bearable. There's scratchy guitars and defiant lyrics and a underlying sense that Humousexual, despite this outward display of being oh-so-humble, are really QUITE DANGEROUS INDEED.

Don't be scared. Buy this ep on seven inch white vinyl from Everard Records

Nottingham indiepop alldayer: a preview of sorts

2011-09-17T13:15:00.001+01:00

Around about now in exactly two weeks I'll be panicking my arse off, already three quarters of the way through my fourth pint of the day, and wondering why on earth any of the bands playing the Nottingham indiepop all-dayer haven't turned up yet, and why the soundman is spending more time in his mysterious smoking alley than he is setting the first band up. This, of course, is the curse of the small-time promoter. I don't pretend to be doing the world a favour, and I probably wouldn't have it any of other way. I'm sure Ian will be a rock on the day, anyway.

Panic over.

I thought, by way of a half-arsed preview, that I'd get together a few video clips of the bands playing, so you can see what you're missing out on when you decide to stay at home and watch X Factor/wash your hair/paint the cat. So, in no particular order...

A Fine Day For Sailing - Ballad of the Bedsit

Ste McCabe - I've Got a Big Car

Standard Fare - Love Doesn't Just Stop

The Blanche Hudson Weekend - Let Me Go

Ace Bushy Striptease - HM9 (Waterfall)

Milky Wimpshake - Pearshaped

Help Stamp Out Loneliness - Biergarten (this one features my bald spot. Yeah!)

The Whatevers - You and Your Twisted Romance

Pale Man Made - B-Line

Let's Whisper - Dylan's Song

Pocketbooks - Carousel (Odd Box)

2011-09-15T16:42:00.001+01:00

Clarity is what's needed at the moment. Something to blow the uncertainty away for once and all. A kind flush through of everything. Luckily, Pocketbooks' second, superb album, 'Carousel' is here to provide all of that and more.

'Flight Paths', this scrumptious band's debut album, is only two years old, but it seems longer than that. In between we've had sporadic live performances outside of the capital, and half the year most of the band are up to their necks in organising Indietracks. You can forgive them the two year wait. Life, and indiepop festivals, do seem to get in the way a bit.

'Carousel' is markedly different to its predecessor. If 'Flight Paths' was snotty, charmingly naive and marked the band's arrival, then 'Carousel' is their autumn album. It's all about introspection and staring out of windows and feeling a little bit lost with life.

Outsiders (those people who are considered that by others, not people who call themselves "outsiders" - they're fucking idiots) will love this album. Throughout there's a desire to break free of life's little obstacles and celebrate a little. Listen to 'The sky at night' for an ace example of this.

And this is a common theme. Love and life is lost - or couldn't attained. And if it has, there's a sense of restlessness. I think that's something a lot of us can relate to in one way or another. 'Sound of the carnival' is particularly knowing.

But, hey, let's not get too deep, chumps. What, essentially, you've got in 'Carousel' is a gem of a pop album. With Andy Hudson's twinkling keyboard and Emma Hall's amazing, crystal clear voice to the fore. And this time everything's backed up by some perky strings. I'm not gonna use the word 'mature', but it's pleasing to see a band can move on without losing any of their pop sensibilities. Chancers like Belle and Sebastian should take note.

If you want to force me to pick a favourite, then it'd have to be 'The Beaujolais Lanes' - a truly affecting mixture of words and music that deserves a much wider audience than it'll get. It's the sort of song you can imagine filling up a huge TV studio, whilst Ant & Dec look on. Y'know the sort of thing. It's a yes from me, anyway.

When Pocketbooks played some of these songs to open Indietracks it was a bit of emotional experience for some of us. That they manage to carry that feeling onto record is testament to how special they are, and this album is. Proof, if it were needed, that pop remains supreme.

Sigh on life

2011-09-13T18:32:00.000+01:00

It's now less than three weeks until the Nottingham indiepop all-dayer, and if work wasn't getting in the way (recurring theme, there), then I'd be filled with that sense of nervousness and excitement that always comes before these dream-fuelled events we put on sometimes. As it is, I can barely see past the next hour at the moment.

Someone was asking me the other day who, apart from those already in the line-up, I'd like to add to the bill. I let out a long sigh and said these lot of lovely buggers.

Cor, how I miss The Deirdres. This seems like such a long time ago now. I repeat: sigh.

Everyone loves a happy ending

2011-09-09T13:41:00.000+01:00

In preparation for their forthcoming UK tour at the beginning of October, Let's Whisper have put together a little video for 'All Happy Endings'. It's as cute as a button, of course. Look out for them playing a small room near you soon.

Bart & Friends - Stories with the Endings Changed (Lost and Lonesome)

2011-09-07T20:43:00.000+01:00

Having finally settled down after another sporadic bout of John Fenty-hating, work has taken over about 18 hours of my day once again. I've been working on my own for nearly six weeks now, and it's beginning to take its toll. I've got the worst spot I've ever had in my life on my bloody chin, and I actually had a dream about a venture capitalist the other night.

So, it's at times like this that you need a record to take you into its arms and give you a great big hug. Luckily, I've had Bart and Friends' 'Stories with the endings changed' to do just that for the past month.

This record is lots of things. On the surface it's a straightforward pop album of sweet nothings. But, to me, it's been like a best friend for the last few weeks. Like last year's 'Make you blush' it's intimate and homely and instantly recognisable - even when you're listening to these songs for the first time.

They music here meanders - but in a perfect way. Pam Berry is gone from this album, and in comes Mark Monnone and a cast of thousands (well, seven) to create an at times, almost country-ish sound. Monnone's hand is all over this record, and his influence can be found on just about every song, but especially 'When I've Got No Choice', 'There's no place I'd rather be', and 'Tomorrow will be better than today'. But look to the credits and it's all Bart Cummings' own work. More of an indirect influence then.

Again the songs are short, but its hard to be this tender for longer than a couple of minutes without exploding with love. That's what I love most about it; the fact that Cummings packs so much feeling into a couple of minutes that you simply couldn't go on loving these songs for longer.

And then you skip to track one and start all over again, of course. Thank you for being a friend.

Going... going... John

2011-08-28T14:35:00.001+01:00

After yesterday's latest Grimsby Town defeat (2-1 at home to Darlington, since you ask - a team we've not beaten at home in the league for 30 years), joint manager Rob Scott confronted a couple of the many moaning, myopic morons that rock up at Blundell Park once a fortnight.

Here are the "shocking" scenes from in front of the Pontoon stand.

Fair play to Scott, but after watching that you could just sense that Our Dear Leader, chairman John Fenty, a local Tory councillor, would want his say. His inbuilt reactionary nature has been the downfall of my once wonderful club, and this was a prime opportunity.

The internet isn't big enough to list the times that Fenty has contradicted himself ove the last decade, however, some of this takes the cake.

Football is a confidence games, says Herr Fenty, as he blames the boo boys (and girls) in the stands at Blundell Park. Correct, I suppose, but why then did he start slagging three of our players off to the local press as recently as May?

Maybe it's because for Fenty the truth is only the truth until he wakes up again the next day, his knee jerks, and he sacks the next manager. It's a fair bet that Rob Scott and Paul Hurst will be out the door before Christmas, with Fenty taking another roll of the dice on an ever-decreasing list of managers who want to come and work for him.

Fenty often defends himself by saying he's the biggest fan the club has. Here's a thought: just because you're a Grimsby Town fan, doesn't mean you're not a inept, ridiculous, fucking idiot. I'd rather see the club go part time than this man keep my club afloat with his horrible Tory money.

Fenty, as much as the moaning idiots who boo their own team, you're the problem too. And that's "what is wrong with Grimsby".

Up the Mariners.

Nottingham indiepop all-dayer stage times

2011-08-25T19:31:00.001+01:00

Hey, chumps. This looks like it's going to be quite busy (famous last, facebook-influenced words), and those that know the Chameleon know that, if you want to actually be able to touch The Whatevers legs whilst they're playing, then you'll have to be there from the beginning. So, could we ask that you turn up as soon as you can to secure your place down the front to see up Thom from A Fine Day For Sailing's skirt? Ta.

Here's some stage times. As ever, they remain dead rough.

1.30pm - Let's Whisper
2.15pm - The Whatevers
3.00pm - A Fine Day for Sailing
3.45pm - Pale Man Made
4.30pm - Ste McCabe
5.15pm - Ace Bushy Striptease

(break for an hour)

7.00pm - The Blanche Hudson Weekend
8.00pm - Help Stamp Out Loneliness
8.45pm - Standard Fare
9.45pm - Milky Wimpshake

11.00pm - Ian Horowitz DJ set
12.30pm - Dan Pop-O-Matic DJ set

2pm - Close

My dressing gown is my choice of apparel for this season

2011-08-23T20:44:00.001+01:00

I've been aware of Evans the Death's 'I'm So Unclean' for about a year now, but it doesn't get tiring. It's a song with the energy of a three year old, with the sound of one of those early, amazing Ride eps, with the drums shooting you in the heart like an arrow. It is, dear reader, VITAL. And so are Evans the Death, because they're easily the most exciting young band to come out of the UK in years. And they're so, so young - it sort of makes you sick.

If I was 18 right now I'd think this band were sent to to save my life. Now I'm older I'll keep that kind of thing quiet, if you don't mind.

'I'm So Unclean' is released on seven inch on Fortuna Pop! (yeah, him again) on 6 September, thank God. Buy it like your life depends on it.

Fifteen years of fun

2011-08-21T10:56:00.000+01:00

I don't really remember when Fortuna Pop! started changing the way I thought about buying records. Maybe it was Aiport Girl's 'The Foolishness We Create Through Love...' seven inch that made me follow the pop travails of the fake-miserablist Sean Price's ace label - maybe it wasn't. The last decade and a bit has been a bit of blur.

This year Fortuna Pop! celebrates 15 (fifteen) years of putting out consistently ace music. Sure, there's been the odd duff release, but for every Finlay there have been bands like Milky Wimpshake, Would Be Goods, Allo Darlin' and latterly, Evans the Death who have been able to take advantage of Price's seemingly bottomless pockets.

To celebrate such magical trousers, Fortuna Pop! is putting on a three day pop extravaganza from 1-3 November at Scala and the Lexington. Crystal Stilts, Allo Darlin', The Primitives, Comet Gain, Darren Hayman & The Secondary Modern, Bearsuit,Shrag, The Ladybug Transistor, Tender Trap and Evans The Death are all playing, and that's a pretty foxy line-up.

If I wasn't forced to work like a twat that week I'd be there. I presume you have no such worries. More details here

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Prince Edward Island - 'This Day is a Good Enough Day' (Crocfingers Records)

2011-08-16T17:27:00.000+01:00

I've waited quite a while for a record to come along to rival Boo Radleys' 'Giant Steps', but Prince Edward Island's 'This Day is a Good Enough Day' might just be the one.

To say this album is ambitious would be like saying David Cameron is merely an annoying, shit-faced twat. I meant to say it would be to understate the fact. PEI have written an album which takes in myriad influences; from aforementioned Boo Radleys through Fonda 500, New Order, Belle and Sebastian and, they tell me, even a bit of Arab Strap.

Their own particular brand of futuristic folkpop music can be gentle and delicate, such as on 'I Nearly Don't Love You, but Not Quite', or joyous like on 'You Look Like I Need a Drink', or downright visceral (see the amazing 'The Keith Disaster Fund'). In between there are songs that sound like 'Our House is a Very, Very Nice House', songs about mothers-in-law, songs that bring to mind Envelopes' short-lived bright, buring candle.

Strictly, this isn't an indiepop album, but who cares? It's pop music to me, because it makes me sit up, take notice and it demands to be listened to over and over and over again.

I'm not going to mention the strong Scottish brogue on each song, because to reduce everything to nationalities isn't what pop music is about. No. It's about wanting to get up, go out and see your friends. This album is as good a soundtrack to that as any you're likely to find.

Prince Edward Island - The Keith Disaster Fund by Soundandvisionpr

Covered in a World of Fox

2011-08-13T10:28:00.000+01:00

I'm becoming increasingly impressed with World of Fox, and was a bit miffed to miss out on their performance of Indietracks, but there was no way I was going to mortgage my life by queueing for the church what with all the heat.

Anyway, World of Fox have a free download single available on the WYAIWYA website, and it's a beautiful cover version of the already stunning 'Flowers' by Galaxie 500, backed with their version of 'Pristine Christine' by The Sea Urchins.

You need to know that both are excellent. Suspicious fans of the original versions won't be disappointed.

Kids are (more than) alright

2011-08-04T17:13:00.000+01:00

Pull yourselves together, slack-jawed tweescum - Indietracks is over, and whilst it might've been The Greatest Thing to Ever Happen to you, there are other treats out there too.

Take, for example, San Diego's Kids whose 'Summer Frights' album has lifted me out of a post-Indietracks, ongoing work benny at times this week. At times this records reminds me Architecture in Helsinki's 'In Case We Die' (a record that became the soundtrack of a pretty amazing summer of 2005 for me), and at others they remind of that just-about-to-keel-over pop fragility of The Deirdres. But with more guitar solos.

'Hidden Hills' is straightforward sunny pop, whilst 'Blind Eel' and the title track manage to be both tricksy and simple at the same time, and the singer sounds a little Eux Autres. In fact, quite a lot like Eux Autres.

'Melt' is perfect garage pop, with a cute little organ in the background, and then 'Further' carries on that theme with scratchy guitars and an energy you last had when you were about eight years old.

'Summer Frights' ends with a pretty faithful rendition of The Ronettes' 'Be My Baby', which is very sweet.

You can buy and download 'Summer Frights' here. Consider yourselves perked up.

Indietracks 2011: punks, Pocketbooks, and parents

2011-08-01T17:18:00.001+01:00

Half way through Pocketbooks' 'Cross the Line' and the sun is just low enough in the sky that it makes everything seem a million times more pretty than it actually is. I look around and, bopping along to this amazing song, are some of my best friends. What's more, up there on stage singing one half of this song, is someone I've known for over 20 years. How did we all end up here? And why? I don't even want to try and fathom it.

This year's Indietracks was the best yet, and I'm not going to try and fathom that either. Perhaps it had something to do with there not really being the slew of reformed bands there (although there was a few), or perhaps the lack of Wedding Present fans made it seem altogether more genteel, more mannered, and more... well, more like the first couple of Indietracks really. A sense of nostalgia just five years on! Whatever next?

Friday evening was spent wondering how Pocketbooks could get any more thrilling after opening the festival. If they were great in Nottingham the night before, then they were on another planet on the big outdoor stage. Their sound has gone from being decidedly lo-fi, to something that filled the field with joy at Indietracks this year.

Oh, yeah - look over there; it's a couple of American punks - mohicans, safety pins, the lot - frugging wildly to Pocketbooks. Were there tears? There might have been, but I wasn't the only one.

I spent most of Friday night laying in my tent listening to the fucking moronic blether coming from the tent next door, interspersed with bursts of 'The Best of REM', or whatever it was. People who stay awake all night yelping at each other on campsites deserve nothing but contempt, really. The height of rudeness.

Anyway, safe in the knowledge that they'd feel like shit the next day (not much makes me glow more than that), we made our way to festival site on Saturday afternoon to experience something akin to pop heaven.

It's pretty much impossible to see everything you want to see at Indietracks, but when you've got a few hours that involve Help Stamp Out Loneliness (whose impeccable set was accompanied - beautifully - by a hot air balloon floating low across the field), Math and Physics Club, Graeme Elston on a sweaty train, The Fireworks, and then, so gorgeously, and so urgently, Milky Wimpshake then it rarely matters who you miss. You can't win them all, but you feel pretty special when you can watch Milky Wimpshake completely tear up the cavernous shed stand. Like they were born to play huge venues.

You look around again, and there are you friends smiling, dancing, and then smiling and dancing back at you.

After that, Saturday was pretty much a haze of being at the bar, sitting down after getting way too hot, and try hard to like Edwyn Collins's set. I did try, honest.

Sunday brought with it our little boy, and a completely different side of Indietracks emerges. Mingled between the third-day festival veterans are families with small kids running around like maniacs. But, it seems, everyone is happy to have the kids there. There's no tutting or rolled eyes or anything that seems too much trouble for people.

I spot Friday night's villains out of the corner of my eye and feel like emptying a shitty nappy on them, mind. The mood soon passes.

We watch Model Village and my little boy starts dancing to them with Pete Green from The Sweet Nothings' little boy. It's a pretty magical moment. He doesn't get his moves from me.

It's time to go, really. This is a weekend that will live with me forever, just like all the other Indietracks ones. I can't put my finger on what makes Indietrack so special, and I don't really want to, else I might spoil it all. It's just there, once a year, like some kind of second Christmas - only you don't have to take your in-laws if you really don't want to. It's special, anyway.

Thanks to all those who helped organise it. And if you don't do it again next year, I'll offer out your spare rooms to those people I camped next to on Friday night. Think on.

Look what you could've won

2011-07-27T19:19:00.000+01:00

If you miss tomorrow's gig in Nottingham, then you'll be missing this. And how could you?

Just saying, like.

The night before the weekend after

2011-07-21T16:42:00.001+01:00

Remember that feeling that never exists now? The one on Christmas Eve where you used to lie in bed wondering whether you'd get that new bike, or whether your Mum and Dad would buy you the shittest Alba stereo going (guess what happened to me?) - that sort of feeling that, even if you have kids, you'll never have again?

Well, the nearest you're (and I'm talking about me, natch) going to get to that feeling as you sit in your armchair of despair, flicking through old records that you bought over 25 years ago and feeling that life is passing you by as you wade through day after endless day at your pointless job, comes in the shape of the night before Indietracks starts.

This year, for me, this once-a-year night of anticipation is doubly special because I have four of most favourite indiepop turns playing on my doorstep. Not literally, you understand, they'd never fit on, what with the milk bottles and discarded needles, but only a short bus ride into town. All the info you need is here, and below in a delightful flyer, courtesy of Andy Hart.

Whether this show will be busy or not (it bloody better be) is nearly immaterial. Because we know we can dance along to four ace bands, chat to friends old and new, have a couple of drinks, go to sleep, and the wake up and make our way to Indietracks. Fuck work - life doesn't get much better than that.

Pocketbooks - Promises, Promises

2011-07-19T19:43:00.000+01:00

There are certain things that always remind me of summer. These are: Test matches; ice cream vans; fish and chips at the seaside; a couple of months when the depressing travails of following Grimsby Town can be forgotten; drunken weddings; inadequate barbecues; walking out of the pub at 10am, really drunk, and it still being light; and fucking, fucking Glastonbury.

And then there's Pocketbooks - the ultimate summertime band, whose new single 'Promises, Promises' is now available as a free download. I've only heard this song about five times now, and it already reminds me of some of my favourite summer memories; of one of those still-romantic weekends in London with friends down in London; of getting pissed in the park and playing football with my friends; and of watching my little boy take his first steps into the sea. This is the stuff of life, alright.

On 'Promises, Promises', Emma Hall gives perhaps her strongest performance yet; half Harriet Wheeler, half Kirsty McColl, whilst in the background the rest of 'em play the sort of joyous wurlitzer pop that has been the hallmark of their glorious three or so years together.

Nights seeing Pocketbooks playing their hearts out are always summer nights - the best kind of summer nights, and 'Promises, Promises' is the latest of their greatest hits. If it's raining outside, stick this on and then pre-order their second classic album, 'Carousel' from Oddbox Records. Alright?

Moustache of Insanity - Album of Death (Pull Yourself Together/Fika)

2011-07-07T17:06:00.000+01:00

There, beneath the daft name and keraayyzee samples on this album, lies a beating pop heart - a pop heart we all need.

And you might have had a shit day at work, but you'd need the heart of Rupert Murdoch for 'We Need More Awesome' not to make you smile, which lies at the very point where Jonathan Richmann meets Bis. Similarly, who hasn't compiled one of those fantasy dinner parties in their head? MOI have, and they've written a cracking pop tune about it.

BREAKING NEWS: MOI won't ever get their chance to be photographed on holiday by the News of the World, but I'd like to see them in a bikini after hearing modern classics such as 'Superiority Complex' or 'Dancing with Emma'.

Go and see this band immediately at the following flea pits (Indietracks isn't a flea pit, OBVIOUSLY):

9th July 2011 – The Wilmington Arms, London
22nd July 2011 – The Labour Club, Northampton
23rd July 2011 – Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh
25th July 2011 – The Old Blue Last, London
26th July 2011 – The Castle, Manchester
27th July 2011 – Buffalo Lounge, Cardiff
28th July 2011 – Horse & Groom, Brighton
29th-31st July 2011 – Indietracks Festival, Ripley, Derbyshire
19th August 2011 – The Red House, Sheffield
20th August 2011 – Album launch party at The Dogstar, London

And then check out their back catalogue before it appears on Ebay for a grillion pounds:

Album of Death (2011) – CD, LP, download on PYT Records/Fika Recordings
Moustache Dammit! (2011) – Limited edition cassette on Fika Recordings
Postcards To Strangers (2010) – CD-R, self-released 5-track EP
Moustache of Insanity (2009) – Limited edition mini-CDR on WeePOP! Records
Knock Knock! Who’s There (2008) – CD-R, self-released 7-track EP

'Album of Death' is released on Monday 22nd August. Buy the bugger. Until then, download 'Lynn Lowry

'.

Tunabunny - (Song For My) Solar Sister (HHBTM)

2011-07-03T06:54:00.000+01:00

It seemed to me that maybe Tunabunny's debut album was just too dense, too awkward for some pop fans. Maybe the band have been listening to that, or maybe their trajectory towards a poppier sound is all too natural, but the band's new single '(Song For My) Solar Sister' is easily the most "accessible" thing I've heard from them.

To me, this new single (out on Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records) reminds me - a lot - of getting into early-ish Throwing Muses stuff whilst still at school. That slightly folks-y vocal against a lazily perfect pop backdrop. It's pretty much the finished product, really.

'(Song For My) Solar Sister' is taken from Tunabunny's forthcoming second album called 'Minima Moralia', also out on HHBTM in August. The sooner they save up some pennies and come and play in the UK, the better.

Lee majors

2011-06-27T16:55:00.000+01:00

There was a time about ten or eleven or twelve (who's counting?) years ago when I'd find it hard to go a day without listening to Spearmint's 'A Week Away' album. That record has taken on almost legendary status in indiepop circles, and with some justification, really. Who didn't jump around the room before heading out to town to 'We're Going Out'? You? Really? Loser.

Shirley Lee, the singer off of Spearmint has tottered around since then, often with the band, putting out deightfully understated masterpieces that have failed to sell more than, ooh, 47 copies each. Some people are idiots. Now, he's released a an album called 'Winter, Autumn, Summer, Spring' on Missing Page Records, and I'd wager my last tenner that it's ace, if Maidenhead is anything to go by.

Off the same album, and as a tribute to some old DJ or other, is 'An Old Cricketer (For John Peel)', which is similarly ace.

And, for old time's sake, one of the finest singles ever released - live, from ages ago now...

Happy Sundays

2011-06-26T06:23:00.000+01:00

Ah, Sunday. A time for guiltily buying the News of the World to see whether or not Ashley Cole has slept with you yet; eating half a chicken at a disappointing pub; and getting thoroughly depressed at the thought of work tomorrow.

Sunday really isn't what it used to be. Sundays used to be endless, with long days spent pissing around on your cheap BMX - not worrying about your the homework you hasn't done because you knew that you'd be able to copy it off Hannah Rutter if you got into school early enough.

Nowadays, though, the thought of Monday mornings are enough to have me on my knees within seconds. I expect you're the same, and so, in a completing disarming display of public duty, here are two new Modern Moving Image Videos to help you relax. I love them both.

Amor de Días - Wild Winter Trees from Merge Records on Vimeo.

swansea recreation centre - celeste! from dankp on Vimeo.

Evans the Death gig poster

2011-06-25T13:56:00.000+01:00

Here is a lovely poster that Andy Hart at a fog of ideas did for the Evans the Death show in Nottingham in a couple of weeks. Smart, isn't it?

Here's the facebook page for the show, anyway.

Dinosaur planet

2011-06-25T09:09:00.000+01:00

Not that we should expect anything else from the leader of the labour Party at almost any time in it's shameful history, but if Ed Milliband's latest lurch to the right is has ruined your weekend, then I might have something to perk you up.

if, like me, you find the Wallace and Gromit-faced leader of the opposition a complete intellectual void who will pander to the right wing press's scare stories on immigration and housing benefit "scroungers", as well as urging public sector workers not to strike, then perhaps Dinosaurs Are Still Alive will restore your faith in humanity with their scratchy, urgent take on pop music.

It makes me feel pepped up enough to wish the Labour Party and its reformist milieu was extinct.

Stilts walk on

2011-06-19T09:08:00.000+01:00

I still get all tingly when I listen to that last Crystal Stilts album (or is is the one before last? I'm quite tired...), but that time I tried to go and see them in Nottingham put me right off the band.

Still, it's hard not to love the new single, out on download tomorrow (Monday 20 June). Slightly more poppy than their previous stuff, 'Shake the Shackles' still sparks that sense of existential doom that appeals to the long-gone teenager in me. So to speak.

Crystal Stilts - Shake the Shackles from Army Of Kids on Vimeo.

The Dalesman

2011-06-18T14:59:00.000+01:00

It's always a pleasure interviewing Pete Dale off of Milky Wimpshake, and so here's a link of a little email chat I had with him about the band's upcoming Indietracks appearance.

Last minute gig fandango

2011-06-14T18:11:00.001+01:00

I'll admit I'd had a few drinks after I'd listened to that new Evans the Death single, and so it seemed a good idea to book a random, last-minute gig for them and a couple of other bands in Nottingham.

So, Evans the Death will be playing with August Actually and one more at The Chameleon in Nottingham on Tuesday 5th July. Doors at at 8pm, and it's only four quid to get in. Bargain, that.

If you or your band fancies taking up that other slot, then send me one of those email things and offer me your services. So to speak.

Oh, Evans the Death

2011-06-08T17:31:00.001+01:00

How delightful that a band who showed so much early promise have delivered. Noisy, raucous pop fun, and weighing in at just over two minutes, the debut Evans the Death single is a joy. This reminds me of the first time I heard Pixies or Tunabunny or Horowitz or any of those bands that seems to make such sweet sounds by physically abusing their instruments. Cuddle this one quickly.

'Threads' is born on the 4th July on the ever-brilliant Fortuna Pop!

Doolally

2011-06-07T16:41:00.000+01:00

There are many, many bands out there who are raved about without must justification, sometimes for the fact they’re from London, or perhaps because they have a load of mates “in the industry”. Then there are those bands who are so deeply unfashionable, have a terrible name, and don’t go out of their way to be seen at all the places to be seen at. Hello, Spaghetti Anywhere.

The Spaghetti’s (as no-one is calling them) new ep ‘Doolally’ is a piece of mild-mannered, quiet genius, and it’s mostly about getting off your head, and the consequences. So, you have ‘Super special’, which is basically a slowed-down version of the band’s ace ‘Nice to be Nice’ track from a while back, telling the maudlin, tragi-comic tale of an alcoholic. Imagine a gentler version of 8-Ace from Viz. That may well flummox some overseas readers - soz.

‘Drugs’ is a variation on the theme, about a character who tends to take LSD, take his clothes off, and go for a walk outside.

Meanwhile, ‘Hulk’ is all about thinking you can take anyone on in a fight after a few pints. Come on, we’ve all been there. We’ve all turned into a bit of reckoner now and again after a good night out - Spaghetti Western are only saying what we’re all thinking.

I’d love for this band to be universally loved, but they won’t be, because of reasons I mentioned earlier. But they’re up there for me, whilst writing about those people down there. There’s a sort of wonderful symmetry about that.

The music will save us, again and again

2011-05-31T19:25:00.000+01:00

Not fancying, or being able to afford, Primavera didn't mean I missed much I wanted to see, but I'd have killed to have seen Comet Gain over there. 'Howl of the Lonely Crowd' has managed to worm its way back onto heavy rotation at work, and 'Thee Ecstatic Library' - one of the finest loveletters to pop music I've heard - is one my favourite tracks.

Still, at least we can enjoy it third hand via the powers of the young peoples' youtube. Thanks to Helen from Shrag for catching this two minutes nine seconds' worth of brilliance.

I live with my mum in a chalet bungalow and I've read half of Ecce homo

2011-05-31T16:45:00.000+01:00

Scumbag Philosopher's 'God is Dead So I Listen to Radiohead' seems to have been around for ages, and in a move designed to make Horowitz seem even more prolific than they actually, secretly are, Words on Music finally have a release date for the single.

Synchronise watches, please, for 6th June when you can buy this ace single from the label.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty obvious that Scumbag Philsopher are heavily influenced by the Fall, but then there's nothing wrong with that at all. And - get this - the two bands are touring together. Expect mass fallings out and many punches thrown on the following dates:

Wed 1st June - KOKO, London (with The Fall)
Fri 3rd June - MOHO Live, Manchester (with The Fall)
Sat 11th June - Glade Festival
Sat 2nd July - Manchester Roadhouse

Apparently, some of the band even like Radiohead. Democratic centralism in action, right there. Sepp Blatter should take a leaf out of Scumbag Philosopher's book. Or maybe he is. You decide.

More? You want more?

2011-05-26T16:50:00.000+01:00

The internet means that any news more than two hours old is tomorrow's chip wrapping (hmm, that needs more work...), so I suppose everyone knows now that Crystal Stilts and Herman Dune have been added as the last headliners at Indietracks. I've just not been near a computer, y'see.

Anyway, the main headliners for this year’s Indietracks festival are:

Friday 29 July:           Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, Jonny
Saturday 30 July:       Edwyn Collins, The Hidden Cameras
Sunday 31 July:          Herman Dune, Jeffrey Lewis, Crystal Stilts

I've been looking forward to seeing Crystal Stilts ever since I turned up, and then walked away from (too many hispters in a very small room), a show they played in Nottingham a couple of years back, and their new album is supposed to be a thing of great majesty. So, ta once more to Team Indietracks for asking them along. And if you don't think this year's line up is the best thing ever, then there's something wrong between your ears. And probably your legs, too.

Preston pop

2011-05-23T16:11:00.000+01:00

You wouldn't normally associate Preston, Lancashire, with the world of indiepop gigs, but hold on right there, comrades, because the mysterious Rico is set to change that. He's putting on some ace shows up there this summer, including:

28th June. 9pm Darren Hayman/Mick Travis

16th July. 8pm. The Monochrome Set and Factory Star

24rh July. The Middle Ones and Best Friends Forever

7th August. The Loft and a screening of The Upside Down Creation Records documentary.

All the gigs are at The Continental Pub in Preston. Gig-starved Prestonians (is that right?) can start rejoicing now.

More people should do this kind of thing in unglamorous locations. Not that I'm saying Preston doesn't have its glamour, you understand

Sparkles in motion

2011-05-16T17:10:00.000+01:00

Le Man Avec Lunettes I might have written about before (I forget), but I'm writing about them now because their new ep "Sparkles" has just brightened a pretty awful Monday up.

Imagine being lowered into the most comfortable bed in the world, with the sun pouring through an open window, and a dozen kitten butlers attending to your every need. Well, that's the sort of feeling I get when I hear Le Man Avec Lunettes. Nostalgia is a dirty, cruel bastard, but it's that feeling of childhood security you get when you're listening to '4 Notes (are filling you with kindness)'. Your Mum and Dad are downstairs, you're not going to be made redundant from your worthless job at the end of the month, there are no bills to pay, and Le Man Avec Lunettes are playing on your stereo. It's a pretty gorgeous thought for a few minutes at a time.

You can listen to Le Man Avec Lunettes do their own version of Air playing a Galaxie 500 song here. Me, I'm, off to lay on the grass and stare at the clouds for a while.

'Sparkles' is out now, but I'm not entirely sure where or how you can get it. I'm sure you can find out...

The north will rise again

2011-05-11T13:41:00.000+01:00

Like most of the people in the tiny room at The Chameleon on Saturday night, I’m still recovering slowly from the complete majesty of Help Stamp Out Loneliness’s set. Their album is still on constant repeat around these parts...

Still, I did take a break to listen to the new set of songs from The Whatevers, which is as pleasing as usual. Funny, ramshackle, world-weary and romantic - these songs have been through the mill all right.

It’s particularly pleasing to see The Whatevers getting a bit of attention. They’re playing an Which Way is Up show on 20 May at The Wilmington, and you really should go and see them, if only to catch the sublime pop thrill that is ‘Violence For Northern Independence’. After that they’re playing on the train at Indietracks, and, of course at the Nottingham indiepop all-dayer on 1 October. Now, go and have a listen.

Lastly, before I naff off on holiday for a few days, those Indietracks types have run a little interview with me and that Andy from a fog of ideas. If you really must, you can read it here.

The strange case of Dorset pop

2011-05-06T16:28:00.001+01:00

Remember a few years back when all those corporate indie bands were trying to sound like Joy Division? They were pretty much all shite, weren't they? Well, Bos Angles (one for the terrible bands name file, there) might be five years late, but they've at least they've written one great song, which is more than can be said of Interpol.

Sure, 'Beach Slalom' might completely rip off 'Digital', but what the heck? It's a great song.

Why aren't there more bands from Bournemouth?, he asks in a moment of genuine curiousity. Answers on a deckchair.

Towards the three-day week

2011-05-02T13:41:00.000+01:00

These are the longest weekends; days spent in the sun trying not to spend too much money on bottles of wine which end up in the park bins. And of nights spent sat in beer gardens, or in the backrooms of tiny venues watching mediocre bands try and win your favour with some carefully-placed soul-baring.

And then these are the weekends when you find yourself stood, open-mouthed, at the majesty of bands like Haiku Salut, who are playing two maybe twenty people in the bar of The Chameleon in Nottingham on a Sunday afternoon. There are those of us in the audience for who this is personal. Gemma, Sophie and Louise used to be in The Deirdres - and band a handful of us here loved perhaps a little too much for a year or so. But then perhaps we didn't love them enough, come to think of it.

Haiku Salut playing instrumentals. Wait! Come back! There's something magical at work here. There's a hint of Ukranian folk music courtesy of that accordian, and then there's some duelling glockenspiels, some brushed drums, and a song where all three of these clever Haiku Salut types play the keyboard at the same time. Don't ask me for the names of these tiny masterpieces, because - frankly - it doesn't matter. For half an hour most of us in this room forget about being sunburned and hungover and let simple, beautiful pop music make us feel better again.

The longest weekends are often the best weekends, it turns out.

A sponger and a rusty spanner

2011-04-28T16:27:00.001+01:00

Those refusing to bow down the ridiculous hype and hysteria surrounding the marriage of William Windsor to Kate Middleton tomorrow would do well to look at the following two documents: firstly, an excellent article on why the very idea of a Royal Family with its inherent privilege and general fairytale nonsense, gives lie to the commonly-held idea that we actually live in a democracy.

Secondly, CAMRA in Nottingham has, wonderfully, produced a list of pubs that won’t be displaying any of the garish pageantry surrounding this pompous procession.

Lastly, if you want to see that nothing much changes, then have a read of an interview I did with a deeply confused Billy Bragg back in 2001, around the time of Elizabeth Windsor’s golden jubilee. Makes you wonder why some lefties in music think he’s some kind of king of enlightenment, really.

For a living, breathing, democratic republic eh, comrades? See you on the other side.

Dream pop

2011-04-23T14:43:00.000+01:00

If this is the last ever Indietracks in July, then no-one could complain about it going out with The Best Festival Line-up ever.

If, like me, you've spent the last month listening to the Help Stamp Out Loneliness album on repeat, then you'll be delighted that they're playing. Add in Milky Wimpshake, Amor de Dias, The Whatevers, Horowitz, Frankie Machine, Haiku Salut, Peru, Graeme Elston, Moustache of Insanity and Mat Patalano from Specific Heats and it promises to be an even more special weekend than usual.

There are just two weeks left to pick up tickets at cheaper early bird prices.

Weekend tickets are currently available at discount price of £60, and day tickets are available for £32.50. This price is available until Friday 6 May. After this date, weekend tickets will be £65 and day tickets £35. Tickets for children aged 5-14 are £6 for a day ticket and £10 for the weekend. Under-5s get in free.

Tickets are available by calling the railway direct on 01773 747 674 or by clicking here.

Math and Physics Club vs Very Truly Yours

2011-04-17T06:38:00.002+01:00

To celebrate the fact that Math and Physics Club and Very Truly Yours are playing a show or me in Nottingham, and then the VERY NEXT DAY it's the start of Indietracks, I thought I'd do a short interview with Charles and Lisle from the bands. There's some sad news hidden in here. Don't say I didn't warn you...

So are you guys fans of each other's bands?

Lisle: Yes, actually! I remember being sold on the group after hearing "Weekends Away" on the Matinée website, way back when the very first EP came out. Shortly there after I think I put that very song on a mix-tape for Kristine, which got her started.

Charles: Definitely! I remember coming across an article about their trip from Chicago to the NYC Popfest a couple years ago and feeling an instant kinship with them.

Have you ever played together before?

Lisle: No, but we're excited. We've had a lot of fortunate opportunities in Very Truly Yours to play with some bands that we've long admired...and certainly this is among those. I'm not sure how we got to be so lucky as to be a part of this lovely indie-pop scene, but we're delighted to be here. It's quite surreal.

Charles: I always figured we’d look them up if we ever played in Chicago. Who knew we’d end up in the UK together first?

Do you feel some kind of affinity being from such a huge country, and yet being bound by a similar kind of pop music?

Lisle: We've had really great times in the past playing and hanging out with other US-based pop bands from around the country like Afternoon Naps, One Happy Island, and The Tartans. The similar music we make seems to be informed by similar interests (music and otherwise), so there's always lots to talk about. So Charles: do you...like....stuff? *crickets*

Charles: Yeah, it always feels refreshing to play with other bands that get where you’re coming from. For such a large country, I think there are remarkably few bands here that we really identify with musically. We gotta stick together!

How did you both hear that you were playing Indietracks? What was the process?

Lisle: Kristine actually set everything up for us by using some manner of magic. She was the one that told me we were selected. She was quite giddy at the time and couldn't stop laughing! I know we went through the official "submission process" so that might have been an ingredient in the magic.

Charles: We’ve actually been working up to this trip for a couple years now. We can see the end in sight for the band, and playing in the UK has always been on our list of goals. Last year we had a chance meeting with Stuart Mackay, one of the festival organizers, at the San Francisco Popfest and he asked if we’ve thought of coming to the UK. I was like, “Yeah, in fact, we’re hoping to come over next summer and see if we can get on at Indietracks.” Mind you, I had no idea who he was at the time, so it was one of those rare moments of perfect timing. Of course keeping it quiet for so long nearly killed me.

Is this your first time playing in the UK?

Lisle: As Very Truly Yours, yes this is our first time out of the USA. Although, technically, I lived in Harrow for a semester back in 2003, and once did a solo Fireflies show at my school's on-campus bar where there was an "acoustic night" of some frequency. I had struck up a friendship with Emma-Lee Moss (aka Emmy the Great) after seeing her play there in a Moldy Peaches-esque duo and she was kind enough to get me in touch with the organizers. Now she's quite famous it seems!

That diversion aside, the band has actually been quite impressed with how organised and simple everything has been as far as getting shows lined up. Booking in the US is much more difficult, time consuming and guilt-laden. Charles here really pointed us in all the right directions, so thanks for that!

Charles: Happy to help! I have to agree with Lisle. It took me about a week to line up a run of shows in the UK. That would never happen in the US. There’s such a great network of promoters to work with over there. This will be our first, and likely only, trip to the UK, so let us know if you have requests!

What are you looking forward to most?

Lisle: Probably the camaraderie: seeing old friends and meeting new ones. *high five!* It's quite rare for such a scattered group to all be together in one spot..and this particular spot looks like it's going to be quite a picture-esque one. On a personal note, I'm going to be bringing back whatever the legal limit is of Haribo Star Mix. Kids: it's the single greatest way you can rot your teeth.

Charles: Some of my favorite moments with the band have been traveling together on the rare occasions we leave Seattle. I’m really looking forward to hanging out with my bandmates and seeing the countryside. I’ve never been to the UK. I’ll be nervous about playing the actual shows, but I love getting to see and meet the other bands, and talk with fans. Most of all, I’m looking forward to parking myself on the lawn at Indietracks and soaking it all in for a few days. It will be a rare treat. Oh, and our guitar player James is going to introduce me to proper fish and chips!

And who would headline the three days of your dream Indietracks?

Lisle: I'll be somewhat realistic: Field Mice/Trembling Blue Stars, Legends/Acid House Kings/Club 8, and maybe some kind of J-Pop showcase culminating with Shonen Knife? Kristine also has been gunning for an Aislers Set reunion for several years now, so it'd be nice to see that happen.

Charles: Oooh, Aislers Set, yes! I’d also love to see Jens Lekman and Teenage Fanclub. I’m actually still holding out hope for a late Acid House Kings announcement for this year.

What British stereotype are you going to lie about to your friends when you get back?

Lisle: "I keep adding superfluous u's to all of my words now, and I've stopped using "z" altogether!"

Charles: I’m looking forward to introducing all my friends to cool British slang like “what-ho” and “spiffing.”

Amor de Días

2011-04-13T17:26:00.000+01:00

As I'm sure you know by now, Amor de Días is the new band of Lupe from Pipas an Alisdair MacLean from The Clientele. 'Street of the Love of Days', their debut album, will be released in the UK on 17 May on Porcini Records and as a digital download.

However, if you can't wait that long, here's a sneak preview of one of the tracks from that album - Bunhill Fields. It's typically gorgeous.

Indietracks TT race

2011-04-10T10:52:00.000+01:00

The next load of bands fo Indietracks have been announced. For the list-writers amongst you, they are: Edwyn Collins, Suburban Kids with Biblical Names, Jonny, Butcher Boy, Withered Hand, Pocketbooks, Ringo Deathstarr, Chris T-T, A Little Orchestra, Dignan Porch, The Bumblebees and Papa Topo.

The one that catches my eye in that little lot is Christ TT, whose '253' album I had a hige crush on around a decade ago. He seems to have been around forever, never really fitting into any scene, but I rememeber being taken with that album to a huge degree, then sort of dumping him for no reason at all. Ah, the folly of the late twenty-something.

TT even played a gig I put on; an anti-Jubilee gig with The Regulars in 2000, and another one with The Lollies and The Fairy Traders around the same time. All of that seems a lifetime ago now, and it'll be interesting to hear how he's moved on. I suppose I could always buy one of his new records, but that requires effort.

Tickets for Indietracks are available by calling 01773 747 674 or by clicking here.

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

2011-04-08T18:31:00.001+01:00

There are bands that have been around for a while and you never really get into. There are bands that you love immediately. And then there are bands that seem to have been around for ages, but you’ve never really be bothered to give them a chance, because you’re too lazy. Help Stamp Out Loneliness fall into the latter category, and they have made a fool of me.

This, their debut album, is right up there with the upcoming Comet Gain one for me. When you get to your late thirties there aren’t many records that make you want to get up off your knees, stick some clothes on, and go out and find out what the city holds at night – but this one day. It’s a sultry little tease all right; sometimes innocent, charming, sexy, dangerous, lush and dark. But always, at is very heart, lies a perfect pop song.

When I was growing up I always wanted to live in Manchester, for the usual reasons, really, but HSOL make me want to get back up there immediately with songs like ‘Cottonopolis + Promise’, a loveletter to their adopted hometown. It sounds like Nico singing a Camera Obscura song, and it’s the best opening track I’ve heard on an album for years.

If you’ve seen HSOL then you’ll know that Dianne Lucille is a quite brilliantly terrifying front for the band. They might want twinkle and tinkle their pop hearts out behind her, but Lucille puts HSOL just the right side of dangerous. She looks like she’d cover you in glitter then kick your head in. Then sing something glorious like ‘Record Shop’ to you. I’m a sucker for this kind of thing.

And that sort of thing runs through this record like a gold thread. ‘The Ghost With the Hammer in His Hand’ starts off with a slash of summery synths, but Lucille’s plaintive vocal gives a darker edge that turns what would already be a pleasant song into something approaching pop violence. It’s thrilling, really.

HSOL save the best ‘til last, though. ‘Split Infinitives’ is seven minutes of bliss, starting with dinky keyboard riffs until a big bastard guitar comes in to lift you off your feet. From then on it’s like you’re flying with this amazing pop song pouring into your ears. And this time Lucile’s vocals make an impassioned stab at optimism. It’s the perfect way to end a perfect album, really.

If you’re lucky, HSOL will be playing you very soon. In the meantime you can catch them at The Chameleon in Nottingham on 7^th May, and at the Oddbox weekender at the Victoria, Dalston in London on 8^th May. Don’t miss out, please.

Loneliness stamped out

2011-04-03T10:31:00.000+01:00

There are certain songs that define a time in certain time in your life. I can think of hundreds of examples from my thirty-seven years on earth, but I won't bore you with all that. Instead I will be tiresome about just how much 'Record Shop' by Help Stamp Out Loneliness means to me at the moment.

Funnily enough, WIAIWYA have just released this song as a free download single. And you should do thatv downloading thing immediately. 'Record Shop' has been the song of my life just lately; forever on repeat on ye olde em pee free player, as I walk hither and thither through dark mornings and even darker days, towards a few darks nights. I'm being dramatic for effect.

It's a romper stomper of a song; blustering pop with a sad twinge, and, just when I've felt listening to some stuff that hasn't seemingly been recorded in a shed with a dusty dog twiddling the knobs (so to speak), then 'Record Shop' sounds lush, warming, and like it could probably be your best friend in the entire world for a few weeks. Which it has. It's these sort of things you never really forget, isn't it?

Comet Gain - Howl of the Lonely Crowd (Fortuna Pop!)

2011-03-30T18:49:00.000+01:00

Reports of the death of Comet Gain have been greatly exaggerated. That’s the first thing that hits you when you listen in awe to the first three minutes of opening track ‘Clang of the Concrete Swans’ – a tribute to the lost, disenfranchised, downright downtrodden. Like the best Comet gain songs, it’s a rallying cry for those on the edge of society, and finishes with Feck imploring: “Let their howling hearts be heard.” It’s five minutes of pop majesty that brought tears to these eyes on my way to work this morning. My defiance is my number one, though…

And just when you think it doesn’t get any better than that (and you’d be forgiven for that), there’s the indiepop northern soul of ‘An Arcade From the Warm Rain That Falls’, another tale of the futility of modern life. But again, Comet Gain offer us hope after all. These are songs about belief and hope as much as they are about the daily drudge. And that’s why this album is so special, really.

If you want tearjerkers, then ‘Howl of the Lonely Crowd’ has ‘em. ‘She Has Daydreams’ reminds me of my dear, departed Tompaulin; or the spoken word beauty of ‘A Memorial of Nobody I Know’; or perhaps The Saddest Song Ever in ‘In a Lonely Place’, with it’s story of short-lived love affair and the almost too beautiful “I was born when she kissed me/I died when she left me” lyric.

And there’s the footstompers – there’s always the footstompers. Try the metallic rush of ‘Yoona Baines’, or the frankly funky ‘Herbert Huncke, prt 2’. Or maybe you want to pure pop of ‘Thee Estatic Library’, which sounds a little bit like The Fall at their poppermost. But with better singing.

Their live shows over the last few years might have been sketchy (at best), but when Comet Gain can hide themselves in a studio and come up with something like this – an album easily as good as their ‘Realistes’ masterpiece, then you can pretty much forgive them for anything.

The music will save us.

First Indietracks bands announced

2011-03-22T18:59:00.000Z

A press release from Indietracks Towers reaches me. I shan't add anything else, but these headliners and other bands make me wish it was July already...

International indiepop favourites Jeffrey Lewis and The Hidden Cameras will be among the headliners of this year’s Indietracks Festival, held on July 29-31 in the grounds of a picturesque 1950s steam railway in Derbyshire.

Weekend tickets are now available at an early bird discount price of £60, and day tickets are available for £32.50. This price is available until Friday May 6. After this date, weekend tickets will be £65 and day tickets £35. Tickets for children aged 5-14 are £6 for a day ticket and £10 for the weekend. Under-5s get in free.

Since his official debut album was released by Rough Trade in 2001, New Yorker Jeffrey Lewis has become one of the front-runners of the anti-folk movement, performing across the world with a diverse range of artists including Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Devendra Banhart, Thurston Moore and Beth Orton. He has been described as “the best lyricist working in the US today” by Jarvis Cocker, and as “the Big Apple’s best-kept secret” by the NME. He is also an accomplished comic book artist, with his own comic book series “Fuff”, and has lectured across the world on Alan Moore’s cult graphic novel The Watchmen.

The Hidden Cameras, hailing from Toronto, have released seven albums, including three albums and an EP on Rough Trade, and are the brainchild of singer/songwriter/guitarist Joel Gibb. Their live performances are often elaborate, high-energy shows, featuring go-go dancers in balaclavas and choirs, and their most recent album, Origin:Orphan, saw them described by the BBC as “a serious and sophisticated musical force to be reckoned with” and “a mind-blowingly good gigging proposition”.

The festival has also announced seven further artists from across the globe: Math and Physics Club (US), The Wendy Darlings (France), The Sweet Nothings (UK), Next Time Passions (Greece), Very Truly Yours (US), The Garlands (Sweden) and Zipper (Spain). Further headliners and day bands will be announced shortly.

Over 40 indiepop bands will be playing at the festival across four stages: the outdoor stage; the indoor stage, the church and on the steam trains themselves. The festival will also host a range of art and craft workshops and a selection of discos after the bands finish.

This is the fifth annual Indietracks festival, which takes place at the Midland Railway in Ripley, in the heart of the Derbyshire countryside. The site houses a whole range of lovingly restored steam diesels and locomotives. Festival goers are allowed to have unlimited rides on the steam railway over the weekend and full access to other railway attractions including a farm and museum.

Previous headliners at Indietracks have included The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Teenage Fanclub, Camera Obscura, Los Campesinos, The Wedding Present, Au Revoir Simone and Art Brut.

Early bird tickets are available until Friday May 6 by calling the Midland Railway direct on 01773 747 674 or by visiting www.instantticketseller.com/midlandrailwaycentre

So now you know what to do, don't you? Oh, and excuse me whilst I mess myself about being able to see Next Time Passions.

Milky Wimpshake, The Chameleon, Nottingham - 19/03/11

2011-03-21T18:11:00.001Z

Outside, and Nottingham’s Old Market Square is the usual mixture of drunken bodies, arguing couples and stag nights intent on drinking their way through as many foul-tasting bottles of cheap lager as they can lay their wages on.

Inside, Milky Wimpshake have just left the stage after giving a performance that only they can give; a masterclass in pop thrills and mayhem that makes everything outside the venue look as futile and downright dull as it actually is.

It looks so easy when Wimpshake do it, and you wonder why every band can’t do this. Vocals, guitar, bass, drums: it’s simple, but it makes the sort of mind-blowing sense that other, lesser bands can’t seem to fathom. Why try so hard when all you need are songs about, love, relationships, politics and sex?

Tonight, Milky Wimpshake fizz through all of these topics and more. They play a heart-warming mixture of old and new, including an explosive version of ‘Dialling Tone’, which has even the woman at the front in the blue jump suit on her feet and pounding the floor with her feet. This is pure pop music in front of an audience who can’t get enough. It’s not that busy in here by any means, but the 30 or so people seem like a thousand when Milky Wimpshake create the kind of atmosphere that only they can.

Afterwards, Pete Dale is having a fag outside in the alleyway, as the hordes of Saturday night revellers veer past, just yards from us. We’ve just had a better time than they’ll have if they continue to drink Bacardi Breezers until the next morning. He’s as humble as ever, despite just playing the best show I’ve seen for months and months. Someone compliments him on his jumper. He shrugs and says his wife bought it for him. Inside that jumper beats a pop heart so pure that we all pretty much want to smother him in kisses. Next time.

Got any Stooges?

2011-03-16T05:53:00.000Z

The summer stretches out before us like a fox that’s been run over by a Land Rover, and there are a thousand (well, a few) pop events on the horizon that are simply unmissable.

When I were a lad, you waited patiently all summer to go and spend four days in a field on the outskirts of Reading for your kicks, nowadays it’s all very different. There is a popfest in just about every major European capital, as well as those dotted around the US, and in the UK provinces there are all-dayers and the like, as well as the mighty Indietracks.

You might notice up there on the right is the date of this year’s Nottingham indiepop all-dayer. We decided that last year’s two-day stress-fest, despite everyone seemingly enjoying it, was just too much for our crumbling minds and bodies, so this year we’re fitting the best pop music into about ten hours on Saturday 1 October.

Time flies, and this will be the fourth all-dayer/weekender we’ve done. The first one was in 2008 at the tiny Lee Rosy’s tea shop in Nottingham. Since then we’ve done two at Bunkers Hill, but a double booking at the venue last year led to Very Stressful Scenes half way through the Saturday’s afternoon when we had to shift the whole PA downstairs.

But, onwards. This year we’re at the loveably knackered Chameleon, right in the very middle of Nottingham. There are some more names to add to that list up there, but they’ll become apparent over the next month or so.

Before that, and on 28July, I’m putting on a special Indietracks warm-up show in Nottingham. I’ve got two-thirds of the bill sorted, but I shan’t reveal any names because both of them are playing the festival that weekend, and I don’t want to spoil anything. Suffice to say, I’m wetting my pants about this one.

But first, it’s Milky Wimpshake on Saturday night. So much pop right now, and so much fun ahead. I love this time of year.

The Louche FC

2011-03-12T07:19:00.000Z

I very often these days ignore emails from press officers telling me how fantastic a new band on their roster is. Mainly because they're usually not, but some Elbow-wannabes, and we don't really need that in our lives, do we?

However, I'm glad I followed up an email about Manchester's The Louche FC. Not only do they have a great name, but they make some very pretty pop music indeed. There are two tracks available to listen to on the Sways Records bandcamp page.

'Back Bedroom Casualty' is strident, confident and a little bit cocky, and reminds me a little bit of the first time I heard Evans the Death. But it's 'Only in a Dream' that pinches the prize. A sort of doo-wop shoegaze mini-epic with soaring guitars that bring to mind Swervedriver before they went completely shite, 'Only in a Dream' would really be the first song at your forthcoming wedding if it didn't have death disc connotations.

if The Louche FC play outside of Manchester and nearer to Nottingham any time soon, I'll very proably go and stand at the front and fall in love. As it is, I'm thinking of making the trip up there to see them on 31 March in Fallowfield.

Let's Whisper - The Shortest Days (WeePop!)

2011-03-10T18:33:00.000Z

Having never really completely fallen for The Smittens on record (and I feel guilty for that, believe me), the new Let’s Whisper album, ‘The Shortest Days’ makes me wonder if I shouldn’t go back and listen to them all again. 'Cos, y’see, Colin Clary and Dana Kaplan have made the best album of the year so far here.

The pair have been around for ages of course, and have been making music under the Let’s Whisper monicker for the best part of a decade, but what they’ve seemingly done here is wrap up all the best indiepop sounds of the last few years and put their own decidedly cute twist on it.

And so ‘Evy and Sarah’ – along with a few others – has hints of Allo Darlin’ more introspective stuff, ‘Heart on my Mirror’ is the same kind of gentle scattergun pop as Pipas excel in, whilst ‘Meet Me on the Dancefloor’ makes me think of Andersen Tapes’ or Pocketbooks’ more sassy moments.

But as we fast approach Spring in the UK, and when we should all be looking forward to sun-filled days outside of pubs, inside sweaty gigs, and generally feeling glad that the winter months are behind us, then ‘The Shortest Days’ drags us back to reality, like all the best records do. Even it’s name reminds us of the bittersweet, as do songs like the deceptively affecting ‘2 Hours’ and ‘Leave this Town’, which reads like the most heartbreaking break-up letter ever.

It’s easy to write off Let’s Whisper as a side-project of a band perhaps more feted by Those in the Know, but that would be to undervalue an album like this. It’s only March, but I’d bet by the end of the year I’ll come back to this and realise it has more depth, joy, happiness, and big pop moments than 99 per cent of the rest of albums released this year. It’s a must, quite simply.

Order 'The Shortest Days' here.

Spaghetti everywhere

2011-02-21T16:53:00.000Z

I hope everyone is preparing themselves for London Popfest this week. Me, I’ll be overseeing the Sourpatch gig on Thursday night with comrade Andy, then heading down to the big city for Saturday and Sunday. Should be fun on a grand scale.

Not so much fun for my friend Rob who is currently awaiting an emergency evacuation flight from Tripoli so he can be at Popfest. Good luck, Rob.

Amongst the turmoil all over northern Africa and the Middle East, the pop continues from Spaghetti Anywhere whose free ‘Arrochar’ ep is now available for download.

Fans of the early Wake stuff might want to sit up and take notice for a few seconds, because ‘Nice to be Nice’ really, really sounds like them. A gliding pop gem that inhabits the space between your ears for more than a few hours after you’ve first heard it.

‘Kevin Currie’, meanwhile, takes a more folk-y slant, and is the sort of nursery rhyme pop that seems right up my street on a Monday lunchtime at work.

So, amid the chaos there is calm. See you on Thursday in Nottingham, and in London at the weekend.

All out of Loves

2011-02-16T18:38:00.000Z

The Loves, perhaps the grumpiest band in indiepop, are no more. They played their last gig at the weekend on a stellar bill that included Comet Gain, The Lovely Eggs and Pocketbooks among others, before retiring with their go-go dancers to an office job near you.

Not that they'll give a shit, but I had a very love/hate relationship with The Loves over the past decade. Well, hate is obviously too strong a word, but for everyone great song they'd write, there's be another seemingly written-in-their-sleep one. Shame, then, that they've decided to call it a day when they'd hit something approaching consistency, Brian.

To mark their passing, the band have released a free ep, that you can download from the Fortuna Pop! website for nowt. It's got one original, and last, Loves song on their, and covers by The Velvet Underground, Elton fucking John, Os Mutantes, Daniel Johnston and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. The original, 'It's... the End of the World' is a hilarious cod-Gospel epic and 'The Loves... Love You Too' is worth downloading just for that.

The Loves, then. More members than The Fall. More tunes than most. And more fun than most pop music over the last ten years. See you later, comrades..

I am in love with I Am In Love

2011-02-13T10:50:00.000Z

Life has taken me towards something of a synthpop obsession over the last couple of weeks, for one reason and another, and the latest auteurs of this genre are Leicester's I Am In Love, who sound like my childhood.

Always simmering in the background are the sounds of mid-'80s pop, with The Associates, Japan and even Bronski Beat obvious influences. Not since Echoboy in the early part of the last decade have a band managed to take that sound and make is sound so modern. This is pop music with a dramatic, epic edge, that suits me down to the ground at the moment.

You can listen to a couple of I Am In Love's minor masterpieces at their Soundcloud page, here.

You're alright, mate

2011-02-09T21:57:00.000Z

Hey, have a look at the new Eux Autres video. You know you really should go and see them.

Date for the Diaries

2011-02-06T14:07:00.000Z

Two posts in a day - it's like January 2009 all over again...

Just to say, that if you're missing Red Shoe Diaries and you haven't heard their new song just yet, then you should listen to 'The Love That You Read About' on bandcamp. It's dreamy.

Then go and see them at The Lexington tomorrow night with Allo Darlin'.

As you were.

The cassingle revival

2011-02-06T12:53:00.000Z

Some bands manage to knock out a couple of great singles - an album at best - and then disappear, or struggle to come up with anything anywhere near as good. Horowitz, on the other hand, are dripping in pop tunes.

Nottingham's best band have a new cassette only release on Fika Records, the cassette-only imprint run by Tom Ashton. It shouldn't really matter what you think of cassettes or whether anywhere still sells cassette decks these days, because the three songs on 'The Knitwear Generation' are joyous.

The title track is the best song I've ever heard about cardigans, but can we just skip onto 'Summer Promised Me Too Much', please? Because it's probably the best, most affecting song Horowitz have ever written. Lying somewhere between the heartbreak of Brighter and the sonic beauty of early Ride or Pale Saints, it's the sort of song that you'll play ten times in a row without realising it. And just when you think it's dying away, it takes off spectacularly again, before leaving you hanging onto a shimmering chord. I'm just about to play it again.

Oh, yeah, and 'Play Me Your Song' is pretty good, too. A straight down the line pop romp, with some Pavement-y bits thrown in for good measure.

If you can handle the cassette format, then Fika is a label to watch. There's also releases from Moustache of Insanity, Lisa Bouvier and Lost Summer Kitten coming your way. Find out more here.

There's a riot goin' on

2011-02-02T18:36:00.002Z

You might want to question the BBC's unflinching inability to question the official line being pushed out of Egypt at the moment, and not think for a second that Mubarak's goons in the army might just be the plain clothed "supporters" who are killing hundreds of protestors in Cairo right now as I type this. I couldn't possibly comment.

But whilst the Western governments carefully try and manipulate proceedings in Egypt, there's an altogether more serene riot occuring in Denmark.

Champagne Riot might be a pretty terrible name for a band, but when they write an ep as dreamy as ‘Moonstruck’ you can almost forgive them anything.

What you get here are four drops of synthpop beauty. The title track soars and sweeps and has a chorus doesn’t so much take glide off and erupt vertically.

‘Heart Stab’ takes the title for the song that’s mostly likely to be in your head for the next six weeks, depriving you of sleep and making you want to wail along like, oh - I dunno, a pretentious teenager.

‘Goldrush’ is almost choral. It’s quite something, listening to something this powerful and wondering how it can come from just two people.

Last up is ‘A Friend of a Friend’ - four minutes of delicious melancholy wrapped around a simple keyboard part that doesn’t just tug at your heart, it rips it out and plays football with it.

The music here is massive, yet the lyrics deal with a kind of world-weariness it’s hard to find elsewhere. And I like a bit of that now and again, don’t you?

You can order ‘Moonstruck’ from the Matinee Records website now. And, frankly, you’d be a bit daft not to. Whilst you're waiting for it to arrive through the letterbox, the ep is streaming on the Champagne Riot website.

Stars of stage and screen

2011-01-28T17:18:00.000Z

For some, the passing of The Lucksmiths was akin to others losing The Smiths. For me, it was like losing The Deirdres. You could understand it, you were sorry, but you still had a catalogue of songs that would keep you warm on the coldest of days.

And now, you can have the DVD. Matinee Records and Lost and Alone are releasing 'Unfamiliar Stars', which documents The Lucksmiths' August 2009 farewell show at Melbourne's Corner Hotel. Having only been lucky (ho, ho, ho) enough to see The Lucksmiths once, this release is a godsend. I suppose its costs a fortune to put them together, but more indiepop bands should releases DVDs. I'd buy them.

For now, you can enjoy The Lucksmiths as many times as you want. You can experience that feeling of wanting to hug Tali White as he stands up drumming, and you can remember what a special band they were.

Here's a teaser from the DVD:

You can buy 'Unfamiliar Stars' from the Matinee Records and Lost and Lonesome websites.

Standard Fare on One Happy Island

2011-01-23T10:24:00.000Z

New Standard Fare tracks are usually devoured pretty quickly 'round these parts, so it's nice to see that the band have a split single with One Happy Island out on Thee SPC next week.

Standard Fare cover One Happy Island's 'Kudzu Girlfriend', turning it into a great power pop song. But it's the new song here that thrills me the most. 'You Can Wait' is part rockabilly, part almost-ska. It deals, like so many great Standard Fare songs, in the minutiae of relationships telling the tale of the stifling boredom of domesticity, whilst harbouring a wish to travel around the world. We've all been there, right?

On the flip of this EP, One Happy Island come along and strip 'Night With a Friend' right back and turn into a slightly spooky lullaby, whilst their own new song 'China Fair' which twists and turns all over the place and has certain echoes of Pocketbook's wonderful 'Falling Leaves' from a couple of years back.

You can pre-order the single from Thee SPC now.

The first great single of 2011 award...

2011-01-18T18:28:00.001Z

... goes to Lovely Eggs, with 'Dont' Look at Me (I Don't Like It)', which manages to combine old ladies in hairdressers, a really nice dress, the most wonderfully disgusting glasses ever, and John Shuttleworth with a sausage roll on his thumb.

If you're after genuine pop thrills, it doesn't get much better than this.

Slow Down Tallahassee - Curly Cuh (Thee SPC)

2011-01-16T20:03:00.000Z

Back when I was out of work for three years, I'd have given anything for the job I have now. Back then, surviving on £35 a week dole money became a day-to-day challenge just to clothe and feed myself. Now, I can just about manage both of those things, but some weeks you wonder what day it is, never mind when it will all get easier.

Luckily, I've had Slow Down Tallahasee to keep me company this week, else I might have completely cracked up. The band's posthumous second album, 'Curly Cuh' is just the sort of delicious dark pop that I needed this week.

If 'The Beautiful Light' was snotty, knowing pop at its best, then 'Curly Cuh' is its world-weary, cleverer, more downcast older sister. That's not to say it's all doom and gloom, but there's a certain sense of an ending throughout the tracks.

When 'Curly Cuh' is at its most sparce it draws heavily from pioneers such Young Marble Giants, but its perhaps the likes of the alluringly maudlin 'Knees As Sweet As These' - a sort of 21st Century re-working of The Waltones' 'She Looks Right Through Me'. The songs sits at the heart of the album, and hits the spot on so many levels that it's hard not to replay it straight away, just so you can exclaim again: "Shit! That's right!"

Death, in one form or another, is revisited throughout the album. On 'Saturday' in particular there's a sense of finality, and so it comes as no surprise, upon listening to the record that this is the band's last album.

Some of the best days and nights of the last few years have been watching or listening to Slow Down Tallahassee. Sheffield is a poorer place without them, but with 'Curly Cuh' they've left a mighty, mighty epitaph.

'Curly Cuh' is available now to pre-order on CD in a gatefold digipack with immediate digital download from Thee SPC.

Slow Down Tallahassee are dead...

2011-01-12T18:37:00.000Z

... long live Slow Down Tallahassee. 'Cos whilst Sheffield's finest architects of surprisingly dark pop music are now more, there's a new, second album out soon on Thee SPC that serves as a fitting tribute to one of indiepop's most underrated bands of the last three or four years.

Indietracks might be a (relatively) big sprawling beast these days, but back in 2007, Slow Down Tallahassee were one of the first bands to play the festival, on that platform at Swanwick on a lovely, sunny day.

I'll review 'Curly Cuh' later in the week when life isn't getting in the way, but first impressions are that it's up there with debut album 'The Beautiful Light'.

Nicola from the band says: “Lyrically this is our death album; we couldn't have gone anywhere else after ‘Saturday’, so it makes a kind of artistic sense to us that it is released posthumously.”

Which is fair enough, isn't it? In the meantime, good luck Nicola, Richard and Claire and thank you.

The Whatevers - Fun Size Drugs ep

2011-01-09T10:20:00.000Z

The follow-up to last August's wonderful 'Rhapsody in Blue Jeans', the new Whatevers ep is (thankfully) no more accomplished. Full of rattley guitars, ropey singing and shoouty bits in the right places, most of the songs here sound a little like late '90s heroes Uresei Yatsura and, at times, early Hefner.

There's a re-working of boy/girl love/hatefest 'You and Your Twisted Romance' which has a bit more oomph than before, whilst 'Stuart Murdoch' takes a swipe at the pomposity of some of the supposed indiepop glitterati. Best track here, mind, is 'All the Dirty Kids and Dead Rock Stars' with its world-weary lyrics and wondefully lolloping guitar line. It's the sort of song that makes you stare out of the window and think about Really Deep Stuff.

Final track 'It Could've Been the Start of Something Beautiful' is intriguing. A love song looking back at a decade of a relationship it just about soundtracks every awkward, confusing, exciting, disappointing and wonderfully nosensical nature of sharing your life with someone. Tucked away at the back of this ep, it deserves more attention.

You can listen and then buy the ep here. The Whatevers are playing an Oddbox Records night at The Wilmington Arms in London on 20 May, if we all live that long.

The Andersen Tapes - As I Write 'Today' Ten Times (Fraction Discs)

2011-01-06T16:41:00.000Z

The word "legend" is bandied about too easily indiepop circles. No-one who bounces around this micro-scene is a legend or is going to be one, unless Sean Price suddenly develops immortal powers and takes over the universe.

However, amongst those coming close to legendary status is Amanda Aldervall, once of lost heroes Free Loan Investments. Those in possession of the 'Ever Been to Mexico' ep that the band put out will probably tell you that there are days when no other record will do.

Fast forward a decade or so, and Aldervall has released 'As I Write 'Today' Ten Times' under her new monicker of The Andersen Tapes. You all need to know that it's a great big gentle rush of brilliance.

Here you'll find that the Free Loan Investments sound isn't completely dead (see 'Cross Country'), it just got mixed up with the beautiful Pipas-like harmonies of 'All You Need to Know'.

At times this album can seem almost glossy, but you'd be fool to think so, 'cos at its heart is a beautiful mixture of all that's wonderful in indiepop today. You can hear Liechtenstein in there, parts of Crayon Fields, the odd nod towards Pocketbooks, and then you think "Oh! Maybe those bands took their inspiration from Aldervall". Only then you realise how important it is to have her back.

Where other acts strive and strive to achieve pop greatness, Aldervall seems to have it at her fingertips at all times. Maybe I'm as guilty of hyperbole as those who throw the "legend" status around all over the shop, but these songs are so effortlessly cool and loveable and full of the best pop spirit you could ever wish for.

By the time you get to the tear-y 'You're So Lonely When You're Old' you're itching to press the repeat button and experience the joy all over again.

No doubt, 2011 is going to be a painful year for the majority of people. If everyone worried about their job, home, how they're going to pay their bills or feed their kids could listen to 'As I Write 'Today' Ten Times' just once, it might not change their material situation, but I'd wager it'd make them feel just one degree more strong. And we need more of that.

Download 'Visual Expectations' here. And then buy the album from Fraction Discs here.

The clash

2011-01-04T17:44:00.000Z

I'll stop banging on about Sourpatch when someone records a better album than 'Crushin', but in the meantime, here's another flyer and a facebook event page for the gig we're putting on in February.

Alas, in order for Sourpatch to make their money on this tour, this clashes with the first day of the wonderful London Popfest, but if anyone travelling from the north fancies a stopover before a weekend of pop debauchery, then we'll see you in Nottingham on Thursday 24 February, alright?

Fox-y music

2011-01-02T18:15:00.001Z

I've just got back from a long trip to Bournemouth to see the in-l*ws. Never do that on New Year's Eve, comrades.

Anyway, on the way down there and back I re-read Simon Goddard's wonderful 'Songs That Saved Your Life' - a song-by-song look at each Smiths track ever recorded. If you haven't read it, you don't have to be a fan of The Smiths really. As Goddard himself says: you don't have to agree that The Smiths were the greatest band ever, you just have to understand why he thinks they were.

Nice, then, to come back to an email from John Jervis about the end of the World of Fox '80s covers project, which looks ace and I had no idea about. Fox have recorded a strpped down versions of The Smiths' 'Jeane' and rare Morrissey classic 'I Know Very Well How I Got My Name'. I used to have a version of the latter taped from a John Peel Morrissey session, where the song goes wrong and you can hear Vini Reilly and Morrissey in hysterics. You had to be there, really.

I recommend you download these songs (they're free) and then revisit the rest of the World of Fox covers from last year. The version of The Cure's 'Six Different Way's' is particularly pretty.

Euphoria 2010

2010-12-30T12:14:00.002Z

Milky Wimpshake in full flight. Nottingham, 25 September 2010

In the absence of lists, there's one stand out moment from this year of pop for me, and that was on the Saturday night of the Nottingham weekender. That's right - I'm celebrating a gig I was partly responsible for putting on. The indiepop scene is a dot.

Downstairs that night four of my favourite bands played one after the other in a packed pub that was full of smiling faces and beating hearts. It was like we'd won for a couple of hours, you see. There in that little pub was a group of like-minded souls there to listen to Horowitz, Betty and the Werewolves, Milky Wimpshake and Allo Darlin'.

There have been times in the past when things at gigs have just clicked and the outside world of work and bills and government attacks on us all seem a million miles away; The Deirdres after Indietracks 2008, for example, or Prolapse back in 1994 at the Narrowboat (and I will stop going on about that one day). But that night in September was perhaps better than both of those occasions, because the anticipation was so high, and those bands didn't let us down. Not even the Mariners conceding a late equaliser to Altrincham could spoil things.

Sandy (whose photo that is up there) called the atmosphere "euphoric". I couldn't possibly comment, but somehow that gig shone a ray of sunshine into an exhausting, dispiriting year that was only made bearable by some fine, fine music and the thrilling fightback of some sections of the student population in the UK, and abroad.

So, thanks to Allo Darlin', The Felt Tips, Standard Fare, Sarandon, The Cannanes, Evans the Death, Matinee Records, The Sweet Nothings, Marianthi and her dedication to the Midland Mainline ticket office and all at Atomic Beat and Spiral Scratch, Northern Portrait, MJ Hibbett and his Validators, Sourpatch, February Records, Eardrums Music, Summer Library, The Indietracks crew, Tender Trap, Fortuna Pop!, Math and Physics Club, Bart and Friends, Scumbag Philosopher, Apple Orchard, Andy at a fog of ideas, Alan Connell, Baffin Island, Transmittens, The Awesomelines, Boy Genius, Electric Pop Group, Milky Wimpshake, Sourpatch, Withered Hand, Shrag, and loads of others I've almost certainly missed. And good bye Keith Alexander.

Oh look - a list.

See you next year.

Reissue, repackage

2010-12-28T14:50:00.000Z

The song 'Dear Morrissey' on the Felt Tips 'Living and Growing' album earlier this year sort of sums up how I feel about the man himself these days, but, of course, The Smiths remain a very different proposition.

I always cringe slightly when people say a band or a song changed their lives, because they don't really, but The Smiths certainly affected the way I look at things when I was a teenager - and that's carried on throughout my life. I can't really say that about any other band (although maybe The Housemartins come close).

So, I was a bit excited when the usually mental Morrissey Solo forums chucked out a gem of a link where you can download some previously unreleased Smiths stuff that spanned the entirety of the band's time together. For some people this will hardly register, of course, but for me listening to these 'new' songs gives me the sort of weird mixture of excitement and wonder that I felt when I was first listening to The Smiths aged 13.

Tracks like the rough version of 'Death of a Disco Dancer' manage to pack as much wonderment into five odd minutes as most bands do into their lifetimes. Listening to the John Porter version of 'Sheila Take a Bow' - something I'd only read about in books up to now - is like discovering that Father Christmas is real after all, whilst discovering that 'Frankly Mr Shankly''s forgotten brass parts made it an even more cute slap around the face brings only the biggest smile.

Excuse the hyperbole, but, for me, this is all pretty wonderful stuff. It very nearly brings back that feeling of going out and buying a Smiths album and taking it home and putting it on your turntable for the first time. And in a year which I think has been packed with brilliant albums, singles and live performances, finding these new old songs seems like we're maybe a little bit vindicated for carrying on playing in bands, putting out records and going to gigs. Not that we need it, of course...

Festive fayre

2010-12-23T16:37:00.000Z

A layer of chips will now sign off for a few days (please don't cry) whilst it eats itself stupid and drinks too many bottles of Bath Ales (why am I talking in the third person?). But before I go, here are two Christmas songs you won't hear on the radio over the next few days because the world is UNFAIR and DIRTY.

First up is Vom Vorton's version of the Fountains of Wayne's 'I Want an Alien For Christmas'. I once fell asleep during the Fountains of Wayne at Reading Festival. 1997, I believe, but Vom (Tom) makes it all better by being Vom (Tom).

Secondly, there is Oxo Foxo's deeply gorgeous 'It Never Snows at Christmas'. This is one for those in the audience who will be enduring a turkey ready meal for one on Saturday. Our hearts are with you, comrades.

Happy Christmas.

Bubblegum Lemonade - Sophomore Release (Matinee Records)

2010-12-22T16:58:00.000Z

I can't say I really like the lumping together of any kind of 'Scottish sound', but it's hard not to spot the Caledonian influences on Bubblegum Lemonade's second, wonderful album.

There goes some Aztec Camera on 'You Only Think Twice', and there's a slew of 'Darklands'-era JAMC on stuff like 'Girlfriend Ghost', 'Maybe Someday', 'She's Got a Gun' and 'We Could Send Emails'. Add in a touch of Byrdsian jangle and you've got a potion that's pretty hard to resist.

Laz McCluskey, for it is he, is nothing if not prolific. The beauty of this album is not that it's a JAMC-revivalist's wet dream, no; it's that it's at the same time steadfastly consistent without sounding like twelve slightly different versions of the same song. 'Sophomore Release' gives you a dozen pop gems without breaking sweat, and it's a huge hit with my 15-month old who goes crackers dancing every time 'Caroline's Radio' comes in. He's got taste

Not a Scottish record, then but very much a record from Scotland. I'm sure Roddy, Jim and William will be happy to have Bubblegum Lemonade as peers on this evidence.

You can buy 'Sophomore Release' from Matinee Records here.

A Christmas message from Lorna

2010-12-21T17:42:00.000Z

Lorna have been rattling around Nottingham for so long now, that it’s very easy to forget they exist. Well, when I say “rattling”, I mean in the quietest, most polite sense possible, y’see, because they hardly play locally at all and they’re forced to put their records out on an American label.

The reliable Words on Music has has again stepped in to release Lorna’s new ep, ‘The Ghosts of Winter, which is available electronically only until February next year. It’s a beautiful thing, and those that rattle on about Low’s Christmas songs need to check out Lorna immediately, because they’re way, way better.

Sure, the songs are so quiet they’re barely there, but there’s a real beauty at work here - a subtle pop nuance thrown in here and there which makes for something approaching the beguiling.

There’s plenty of lo-fi bands around at the moment who try and sound like Lorna. And yet Lorna aren’t lo-fi at all. They might not bleed from the fingers through every song, but that doesn’t mean they don’t give their all to produce something that makes Christmas a whole lot more beautiful.

The EP, priced at just £4 will be sent out digitally to your email address, and can be purchased via Paypal from here.

Never (ever, ever) enough

2010-12-17T05:42:00.000Z

I’m not really one for end of year lists. It’s all a bit clinical to me, and different records can mean more to me than others at different times of my life. However, if you’re putting a gun to my cat and forcing me to pick my favourite record of the last year, then it has to be Sourpatch’s - ‘Crushin’’.

What’s so good about this album? What isn’t, more like. From sugar sweet ‘intro’ with the kids setting the scene, the album just rips my heart in two every time. It’s not got tired after so many months. Every time a tune so perfect finishes you think the next one can’t possibly top it, and yet it does it best to. It’s an emotional onslaught - a kind of shock and awe on your pop senses and nerves. It’s also, as I’ve found out this last month, perfect music to listen to on the early morning bus.

My only regret about ‘Crushin’ is that I didn’t get hold of it earlier. I wasted a good six weeks of 2010 without this album, and I feel very ashamed about that.
Right in the middle of the album is also probably my favourite song of the year. It’s called ‘Water Without Land’, and it features the lyrics: "Our days are numbered, our days are already gone/And when you remember me, remember me fondly/When you remember bme, remember the good things." And that just kills me every time.

Yesterday I had to take the longest train the world to Northampton. A cold, windy, raining Wednesday afternoon, and a change at Tamworth station - a collection of buildings that could be ripped straight out of a Joy Division video. In my headphones were Sourpatch, somehow carrying me forward on the slowest London Midland train in the world.

Stepping out of Northampton's lo-rise, endlessly upsetting train station, and things don't get much better. A huge double carriageway splits the the town in two and the cars speeding down in threaten to drown out the music. Yet Sourpatch win through - they always seem to.

Alone in a cell-like room in a grotty Travelodge on a Wednesday night in a London commuter town. A shit kebab shop across the road offers up the only thing that I'm going to eat tonight. The last song on 'Crushin' - 'I Want You Either Way' seems like the perfect gallows humour.

This is one of the many reasons why I think 'Crushin' is my favourite record of 2010. I'm not even totally sure it was released this year and not last, but who cares? As a soundtrack to a year when people's lives have been thrown into further confusion by a government who want to ram home the UK class divide that still - ridiculously - exists in 2010, then sometimes 'Crushin' has been the only thing that makes any sense at all.

Quiet is the new loud (perhaps)

2010-12-13T15:44:00.000Z

And so back down to earth with Alison Eales' fantastic little ep on EardrumsPop, which, you think, was written to soothe a fevered brow, such is its influence on my mood.

Using nowt more technological than a guitar, a keyboard and a folks-y voice, Eales's 'Land and Sea' might not shout from the rooftops about how great it is, but the magic is there in the songs, whether it's in the wistful 'Land and Sea', or 'Vigils', which could either be a Tindersticks song, or something from '... Arab Strap'-era Belle and Sebastian.

Best is last, as it should be. 'Overblown Gestures' is modern folkpop at its peak, a sort of sea shanty that makes you want to hold hands with the person next to you, whoever that might be.

Sat here in the suburbs, waiting for a fridge to be delivered, these songs make perfect sense. But they'd also make sense sat in front of a bullying computer at work, or waiting for a train, or driving home for the night. They just make perfect sense. Okay?

You can download 'Land and Sea from the EardrumsPop website, or listen to it here.

Stop the press. Please.

2010-12-12T17:42:00.002Z

The full weight of the state is now committed to airbrushing over the Coalition government's violent attacks on students from poorer backgrounds, by playing out a ridiculous farce about Charles Windsor's car being surrounded by a group intent on overthrowing what makes Britain so virtuous. That being two wildly over-privileged idiots driving around London in a Rolls-Royce Phantom VI, apparently.

Friday's mainstream newspapers screamed about "terror" and "thugs" and "anarchists". According to the Daily Mail, Parker-Bowles had "terror in her eyes". Good. For a few seconds she experienced the day-to-day feeling of those at the mercy of the government's vicious programme against the working class in the UK. A taste of her class's medicine was working its way down her throat, until she coughed it up again, relying on the might of the security services to take her and her ridiculous husband to their vital date at the Royal Variety Performance to watch Cheryl Cole lip-synch her way through her next insipid piece of drivel.

Everyone from David Cameron down to the ever-spineless NUS and Labour Party leadership was on hand to decry those who faced up to Windsor and Parker-Bowles, as well as the violent tactics of the police against those determined to show that they won't just accept the status quo and what Nick Clegg calls "reality".

Until the fairytale nonsense of the Royal Family and all its vile wealth, power and influence is dismantled, then people - especially during a time of austerity and attacks - will become angry. Rightly so, and more power to them. But let's not get sidetracked into thinking this "outrage" is anything more than a story vastly over-promoted by the capitalist press and media in order to drown out the core issues surrounding the increase in student fees and the wider anger at the government's assault on the working class in the UK (and abroad, whilst we're at it).

Still, I'd rather be poked by a wooden stick than Charles Windsor, wouldn't you?

Various - The Matinee Holiday Soiree (Matinee Records)

2010-12-10T18:56:00.000Z

One of the few reasons to look forward to Christmas is the regular festive Matinee ep or album. This year's offering is called the Matinee Holiday Soiree, and when you've got the combined talents of Northern Portrait, Math and Physics Club, Strawberry Whiplash, Bubblegum Lemonage and Champagne Riot then the end result is going to be pretty special.

Northern Portrait kick off things with 'Leave the Trees Alone', a paean to the humble fir which we gaudily dress each year. It's so Christmassy that you feel like breaking open the sherry.

Strawberry Whiplash's 'Santa Needs a Holiday' continues the pretty obvious theme, and sounds a little like 'Twisterella'-era Ride. And there's very little wrong with that. Take a break, Santa!

This is the first time I've heard Champagne Riot, and whilst 'Xmas Safari' isn't as instant as the two tracks before it, the refrain of "the same routine" hits the spot perfectly.

Bubblegum Lemonade are on a roll right now, and 'White Noise Christmas' is a lovely piece of dronepop - the sort of thing you want on your headphones to drown out the Queen's Speech at 3pm on Christmas Day. Or is it 2pm? Whatever...

Math and Physics Club bring a touch of decorum to proceedings with 'It Must Be Christmas', a reflective piece which namechecks all the right things, but comes off sounding deliciously cynical. Christmas again already, eh? Math and Physics seem to be longing for summer.

So, when your around your folks house on 25th, and your Mum tipsily suggests putting on that bloody Cliff Richard* album for the 15th year in a row, pour her another glass, sit her down and out The Matinee Holiday Soiree on the stereo instead. She'll thank you for it.

Download Strawberry Whiplash's 'Santa Needs a Holiday' here. And then go and buy the ep here.

*Of course you could also tell her about that Cliff Richard cover that Northern Portrait did, but that's properly best forgotten...

Goats on Boxes! This Thursday!

2010-12-06T16:34:00.001Z

Wake up, sleepyheads. This Thursday Goats on Boxes are putting on a live show that will be so much fun, you'll want to cancel Christmas. See that poster there for details, and I'll see you on that table I always stand on at the back. Catch me if I fall.

There's more info on facebook, here.

The holiday season starts here

2010-12-05T10:03:00.000Z

As someone who has felt some sense of duty to try and see both sets of parents over Christmas each year, MJ Hibbett & the Validators' new Christmas song rings oh so true.

The festive period has long become ore a boring chore than a chance to relax and enjoy a few days off w*rk, but this year I'll be marking 29 December down in my diary as the day when I don't to give hastily bought gifts to people who don't really want them, drink another can of shit lager, and eat my own bodyweight in pastry. From now on 29 December is ours.

'The 29th Day of December is available to download from here, or as part of the Christmas album 'MJ Hibbett & The Validators' Christmas Selection Box' from here.

Right, I'm off to put the Christmas tree up. The fun never ends...

The Momeraths

2010-12-05T08:47:00.002Z

It seems kind of apt that at a time when Pocketbooks are recording their second album, along comes a band who sound like they've been listening to 'Flight Paths' on repeat for the last 18 months. Well, there are worse ways to spend your time...

The Momeraths release the 'Your Winter Blues' ep through their bandcamp page on 20 December with the sound of early Pocketbooks performances echoing in the background. The girl/boy vocals, the handclaps, the guitar shapes, the perky bass - all that's missing are some keys.

This isn't a criticism, you understand; Pocketbooks released perhaps my favourite album of last year, and there's every chance that 'Your Winter Blues' could stick around the playlist for some time to come. The songs here, and on the band's other two releases 'Millipede Stomps' and 'A Single Cup of Tea', portray a refreshing sense of pop naivety - and I like that.

At times there are also hints of Free Loan Investments, particularly on 'The Boyfriend Song', which, despite being decidely upbeat tells the tale of love betrayed and could the snotty little sister of FLI's 'Kick His Balls Out'. Spunky stuff.