Little My - The Windmill

There was debate earlier this month with my attractive young ladyfriend, about whether they are Little My or Little My pronounced Moo as in the Finnish or Russian pronunciation of y as ooh.

Tonight only on chap in an animal costume, but the rest of them wear animal ears. They verbally confirm the My pronunciation. My ladyfriend will be disappointed.

More strings, treble and reverb than I remember from last time.

They're on form tonight, with twenty-sic people on stage, seventeen of them guitarists, no drummer, and still the violin was audible. Vocals could have done with being a touch louder and the toy megaphone, that I couldn't hear at all. Maybe it was where I was standing.

They're jolly good fun, mind. I rank this as one of the top five shows of their's that I've seen.

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Little My - Indietracks

Little My playing rather unexpectedly in the Twist and Spout tent. I was at the back eating carrot cake, the icing had gone a bit funny in the heat I think, rather than fluffy and creamy, the sugar seemed to have melted so it looked my like a lumpy glaze, but the cakey carrot goodness was still there.

For a few moments I couldn't see the cute Little My bass player girl, then noticed she was sat at the front playing glokenspiel. No animal costumes this time. There was about twelve people on stage, with a fine selection of acoustic instruments and VL Tone culled from other bands, Brontosaurus Chorus, The Just Joans, et al.

Its a rather jolly racket they're making, with the usual guitar turned down and the vocals louder in the tent, I though it was a little improvement on when they played the Twee As Fuck alldayer the other week.

Ooh, hang on, most of Silence the Sea are in Little My too, now I understand the collective thing. Thats neat.

Other photies
WeePop
acb
Liz Love

Twee as Fuck All-dayer

I arrived a wee bit early and at the door they give me a fanzine to read and a cupcake. A warm fuzzy feeling spreads out in my tummy. The cupcake has white gooey sugar icing on top and the word "twee" painstakingly written in blue flowing script.

The weather is fine outside, but before long the first band are onstage.


The Mai 68s

Guitar solos like a rusty stanley knife blade, like on the ground near the bins outside a factory, in the rain. Thunderous guitar and bass, with standy up drumer and slightly bewildered looking singing girl in a stripey top, wearing beret and drinking glasses of red wine.

Ithink I saw them play at The Betsy Trotwood a few months ago. They suit the raised stage that this venue offers and they seem to improved their game. The recorded version of Froth on the Daydream doesn't do justice to its sheer power when played live, it'll make you take a step and a half backwards and wish you'd got wine instead of a Jack Daniels and coke.

Even for the first band of the Twee As Fuck alldayer, the place is filling up and there's friendly banter between the stage and the folk at the front.

Neat set-closing song with members leaving the stage incrementally so all that's left is the guitar chap on his knees, tweaking the dials on his effects pedals to turn up the squelch on the thunder.

The Margarets, they're very young, no drummer, just a portable CD player, the ipod broke, I can empathise. The first number was an instrumental, from where I was stood it sounded a bit New Orderish, especially in the bass end of the scale.


The Margarets

There was a bit of the Swedish jangle pop about them.

CD player cocked up their last song so they had to abandon it halfway through which would have ended the set on a sour note if it wasn't for Camila (from Weepop and Your Heart Still Breaks) demanding they finish the song again without any backing. It caught them off guard a wee bit, but ended up sounding kind of sweet.

There's this art exhibition upstairs Pavla's Twee as Fuck Polaroids and Nicola Probert art exhibition. It pretty neat.

There's also a new smoking bit roof garden thing which overlooks the alley next to The MacBeth. A bit too crowded and cool for me though. I stay downstairs, leaning on the bar trying to stave off narcolepsy.


Mono Taxi

Mono Taxi are just a two piece, drums and guitar, with both folk doing vocals. For the early songs I was thinking they were cast in the White Stripes mould, you know, a little blues, a little garage. But it got more bombastic in the middle, stadium drum mincing.

Lots of healthy feedback and distorted guitar. yay


Little My

18 instruments / microphones
13 camera people

Its the mighty Little My collective again. The bass bunny still looks like Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks, I was discussing t with a chap off of the internet, who pointed out that Laura Palmer never had rabbit ears, and neither did her identical cousin Maddy.

They took forever to get set up and even then, for a seven piece with literally hundreds of instruments, there wasn't as much noise from the stage as you'd expect. Two glocks, stylophone, melodica, egg shakersand all the best of twee paraphernalia, but what you heard was mostly guitar.

Ah well.

It would be interesting to see them play on their home turf in Cardiff with however many extra members as they muster back there.

I saw Esiotrot practising in an alley round the corner during my inbetween band wandering and they sounded prety neat, trombone, ukelele, guitar. It was nice.


Esiotrot

However, on stage, they are atrocious.

They are out of tune, badly mixed, drifting in and out of lucidity. I don't know what to say. Maybe I just don't get them. What I do get is this must be one of their worse performances.

I'm scribbling this in the gallery upstairs and I can see the street outside, I can see Laura Palmer from Little My, she is very cute. A chap called Alexander wanders over and suggests I draw a picture of Esiotrot, and goes on to explain that he's in a band called To Arms Etc. I had a listen on MySpace when I was typing this up, they sound very good, they have a gig on the 31st of July.

Oh thank fuck, I think Esiotrot played a three song set.


The Bobby McGees


Skip Theatre


Hatcham Social


Theoretical Girl


Comet Gain

Acts
The Mai 68s
The Margarets
Mono Taxi
Little My
Esiotrot

Photies
Mine
Dansette's
CraigBoney's

Wee Pop: The Darlings, The Mexican Kids At Home, Little My, The Just Joans - The Enterprise

Moments later on the other side of town, I wander into The Enterprise in Camden. the street outside was packed, but inside its kinda quiet, three barmaids leap to my service. Upstairs the venue is packed.

On stage are two people, The Darlings, a singing ukelele girl and a hairy egg-shaker chap. They sounded a little like Hello Saferide. I only caught the last three songs of their set, which is a shame cos amongst their recorded output, they have the best cover of AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long, which I've probably missed. I'd been listening it on iTunes all weekend.

Its sweet but generic music.

Next up are a really hairy five piece, The Mexican Kids At Home. They had one of those sitting on a wooden box percussion chaps, its been months since I saw one of them. There was a twee gentleman too, playing melodica, harmonica, keyboards and occasionally "doo doo doo" backing vocals. Topped off with boy and girl harmonies they were ace.

Rather looking forward to seeing them at Indietracks, sunshining, crowd of hundreds.

Its odd, its a really comfortable crowd compared to earlier today. Lost Music, Wee Pop, Pocketbooks, Just Joans, Bobby McGees, them French kids, Bowlie folk from last night. My nerves have calmed and I feel serene.

Its been an unsettled couple of days on the internet, my naked bike ride photies getting hundreds of views on Flickr, my art website rocketing up the Technorati authority rankings, then my origami video on BoingBoing. I've reached the top or at least the upper reaches, there's no more I can do. It does nothing for my tangible self-esteem.

Next on stage, the penultimate band of the night, Little My. Tonight they are a seven-piece, and they wear animal costumes. The bunny on bass is particularly cute. They sound a little like Bearsuit, but without the mania. Some of the songs are pretty neat and would be good listening on the coach home.

I think though, they sound too much like they're used to playing with loads of folk on stage.

One extra thing in their favour, they're bitter about not playing Indietracks and bitterness fucken rocks.

Then finally, one of the most eagerly awaited bands of the indiepop scene, The Just Joans. The buzz of anticipation in the crowd is palpable. I'm biased mind, I've seen them from the start, Adam J Smith passing me their demo cassette, the first gig, a sell out show in a tea room in Glasgow, bursting into London last year. I've seen them get better and better, more confident, more comfortable in their skin.

They're a six piece now, Fraser on bass, Doug on keyboards, Chris on lead guitar and sometimes accordian, Rowan on percussion, sharing vocal duties with Katie, and centre stage, David Pope.

A fine set, with new songs and old ones, polished so they sparkle. The songs are getting better than the old ones.

They have a new EP out on Wee Pop, new songs, "What Do I Do Now" will stick in your head for months, how do we pencil them in for T in the Park '09, joined on stage by Louise Wener. And their even newer song, "You're not gonna pull" is going to set the indie dancefloors on fire.

They name-checked me, they name-checked me. Thanking Thor and Camila from WeePop for their breakfast, and Trev Lost Music for putting on the gig, and then me. My eyes welled up, I was gonna start greeting.

Its been one of those weeks, its been one of those weekends, its been one of those days. But the Just Joans, they made everything okay.

Bands
The Darlings
The Mexican Kids At Home
Little My
The Just Joans