Pictures of starving children don't sell train tickets

If, like me, you were a bit gutted that the lovely cat from the petting zoo wasnt't at Indietracks this year, well, that's because the petting zoo wasn't there either? And why? Because Midland Railway is suffering from the internal contradictions of global capitalism too, you see, and it had to close the zoo.

Money is tight for the volunteers at the Railway, and they'd really like to get the new building at Swanick sorted out and finished. You can help. I realise I sound a bit like Terry fucking Wogan on Children in Need night, but they've set up a website where you can donate a few quid to help them get this done.

Before you do this, have a think about all those other bloody awful festivals in the UK that are manned by patronising, arrogant, abusive stewards, and then double your donation. Because the staff at Indietracks and Midland Railway in general are worth it.

The Whatevers for free

There's a sort of ragtag innocence about The Whatevers that makes me want to play their songs over and over again. The kind of unknowing pop genius that we saw with The Deirdres, and we see now with the likes of Standard Fare. The special mix of boy/girl vocals, that, if put together as perfectly as they are here, make a song completely irresistable.

All those things are here in two amazing songs that are available free on the Drums-related Holiday Records. 'Rhapsody in Blue Jeans' might sound harmless enough, but has the pure bite of all the best songs, as well as a pretty hilarious guitar solo half way through. It's the tale of youth, of falling in love, of naming names and that whole rites of passage thing that you think you aren're going through at the time, but, actually, y'know, you PROBABLY DID. Mix tapes, forming a band, boys trying make-up on, boyfriends wanting to duff you up. It was all there back then, and it's all here in one song.

There's a sort of line with the second song on the single, 'You and Your Twisted Romance', which seems to be about having to deal with a friend who has a (probably over-dramatic) problem relationship. It sort of rams advice down your throat, so listen carefully, desperados.

Download 'Rhapsody in Blue Jeans' here.

Viking Dress

I had quite a lot to drink yesterday afternoon and evening, so it's nice to be able to listen to something that doesn't make me think my head's about to explode. Not that I listen to Dr and the Crippens too much these days, you understand...

The new Viking Dress ep, 'Summarize' is such a record. Equal parts Felt, St Etienne and Cocteau Twins, but a definite langurous French air, these six songs are perfect for a hungover Sunday afternoon laid on your back staring at the ceiling.

'Lalie's Game' in particular is gorgeously affecting. A simple guitar phrase, with some shoegazey atmospherics and a kind of Jane Birkin backing vocal; these are things that I like, and this song has them over and over.

'Sophisticated pop' is an over-used phrase, and it doesn't and shouldn't mean Neil bloody Hannon. But if we're going to use it, then Viking Dress fit perfectly, and the 'Summarize' ep is most definitely in the vanguard of suave.

Should you too have a crippling hangover, you can order this record from the band's myspace page. And even if you don't, waste three or four minutes at work tomorrow and order it then.

Summer Library

Quite why there aren't more bands influenced by Brighter and Harper Lee is beyond my tiny mind, but at least Patrick Kelly, aka Summer Library, is going some small (yet beautiful) way to putting that right.

Summer Library have two completely gorgeous tracks available for nowt on their bandcamp page. You should put down that paint brush and go off and listen to them immediately, if you ask me.

Apart from those Keris Howard bands, Patrick says he takes his inspiration from Field Mice, Galaxie 500, the Pastels, and Rocketship. Do you need much more of a recommendation? Go listen.

There's always something there to remind me

Whilst I was unpacking my records over the weekend, I took time to actually have a look at them properly. Record sleeves bring back such vivid memories, don’t they? Twelve inch snapshots of a moment in your life.

Anyway, perched at the front of the pile was The Housemartins’ ‘London 0 Hull 4’, a raw, exciting, twitching masterpiece, and (although I’m sure some of the more dull purists out there will argue that The Housemartins weren’t an indiepop band) the first indiepop record I owned.

My first meeting with The Housemartins came through my friend Jonny Dennis. I was 12, and he had an older brother who was into all the cool music that, during my years of listening to Elton John, I thought was complete gash. Jonny used to play me his brothers Smiths records when we were at primary school, and I used to think they were terrible. What an idiot I was when I was at ten.

I’d made the somewhat obtuse shift from Elton John to The Cure by the time Jonny started trying to brainwash me with The Housemartins. I’d seen adverts in Smash Hits for ‘Flag Day’ and ‘Sheep’ but I didn’t really pay much attention to them – like most of the population - until ‘Happy Hour’ came out. I remember this vividly: I was sat, as shy as anything, at a disco that our secondary school had put on to celebrate the fact we’d survived the first year. The DJ (who was an actual real-life vicar, and whose DJ sideline was called The Church Mice – twee or what?) put ‘Happy Hour’ on, and Jonny came hurtling up to me, dragging me up to do that weird dance the band do in the video. Of course, I didn’t, because that was way too gauche for me to do back then, but I secretly loved that song to bits.

Christmas 1986 saw me receive ‘London 0 Hull 4’ as a present. I’d asked my step dad if he’d by it for me for weeks, but he refused saying that they were gay and communists. True story. As if that made them sound any less exotic. I think my step dad worried quite a lot back then, because I was heavily into the Pet Shop Boys, Bronksi Beat and later Communards. Poor bloke must have been pulling his Daily Mail hair out.

I digress…

I can still remember the feeling of ripping off the wrapping paper that Christmas, and just gazing at that sepia and green cover. With Paul Heaton doing that dance. And ‘Take Marx, Take Jesus, Take Hope’ emblazoned on the inner sleeve. I’d never been so fucking thrilled.

Twenty-five years on (gulp!), and that album has lost none of its lustre. It remains a record you can go back to again and again to – as it says – take hope from. And although I think that ‘The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death’ is a better album, buying it didn’t fill me as much with joy as receiving ‘London 0 Hull 4’ did.

The mid-'80s were a weird time to be living where I did. Each night we’d see images of the heroic striking miners on the local news. Thatcherism was at its height, the Labour Party and the TUC limp and lifeless, and then along came The Housemartins. Now, I’m not pretending to have been a member of the Young Communist League in 1986, but that band taught me pretty much everything I needed to know about what was wrong with capitalism, and led me down the righteous path to socialism. Looking at the lyrics printed on the inner sleeve now, and they seem so resoundingly right in 2010, too.

I’m pretty sure there isn’t another record in my collection that has had such an effect of the rest of my life as ‘London 0 Hull 4’, anyway. That’s what I’m blethering on about. I wouldn’t feel like this at all these days (perhaps…) but I remember being slightly, properly traumatised when The Smiths and The Housemartins decided to call it a day within six months of each other. I dedicated the wall above my bed to Housemartins cuttings the day I read that in NME. Some honour, I can tell you.

The Beautiful South were shite, mind.

There's always this season

It's at times like this, less than two weeks before the new season starts, that you need comrades in the same situation as you. Step forward, then William Jones of suave pop fighting crew, Friends.

William, you see, is from Mansfield. Now living in London, he's started a blog about: "travelling on London Underground, music (especially music from my past that I've rediscovered), customer service nightmares, and (football-haters look away now) the pains of supporting a lower-league team. Plus more random pieces about things that drive me mad and make me happy. A mixed bag, really, like me. You don't have to live in London (or Mansfield) to enjoy it, I hope."

Ah, the pains of being tied to a shit football team at heart. Ahem. With Grimsby's date with destiny against Crawley approaching like a turd rolling down a hill, I can empathise. And William's blog has started off well (not that I'm in a position to criticise anyone's writing.

Some people I know are suffering the old post-Indietracks double dip depression. What I prescribe to others stuck in this funk is a listen to the beautiful 'Tights in August' by Shrag. If this is a teaser for the album, then I can't wait.

Oh! The Sweet Nothings

I'll be brutally honest here, and say that, despite comrade Pete Green being one of my longest standing friends, I really didn't the like the whole Corporate Juggernaut name. It was a bit too cabaret for me, and I'm not into forced fun. Great band, like. Just a bad name.

So, it is with great delight (for me, at least) that Pete told me a few weeks back that the name of the band was changing to The Sweet Nothings. Which is much better, eh?

I was chatting to Pete about football, music, the fucking Tory government, and LIFE IN GENERAL at Indietracks last weekend, and he was telling me that hid lean fighters were ready to go and record their debut album. It's just finding the time to do it, when everyone can fit it in between the daily drudge of work and the like. Well, isn't it always?

The band now have a keyboarderer (hurrah!) and are looking for a drummer after Rob finally found that Grimsby wasn't for him (we could've told him that yonks ago), and is moving to more far flung climbs like Weston-super-Mare, or something. So, if you know anyone who like trains, real ale, footy and left wing indiepop hymns, maybe you shoud give the band a shout.