Twee As Fuck: The Bobby McGees - The Victoria

I've never noticed the apostrophe in McGee's before, it could just be a typo I guess.

There was a hella debate on the Anorak forum recently about the nature of 'twee', and how lazy journalists (mostly from The Guardian) brand the whole of the indiepop/DIY scene as twee, and how it really pisses off some of the non-twee folk. Today is the Twee As Fuck 2nd birthday Alldayer, and whilst many acts that play at the Twee As Fuck clubnight are far from the twee end of the spectrum, the Bobby McGees are the very epitome of twee.

They wear facepaints and throw sweeties and paper aeroplanes into the crowd, they have scottish accents and blow bubbles, they have songs with audience participation, songs about being scared your girlfriend is going to dump you or that you're not going to find a girlfriend. They play glokenspiels and ukuleles, they host a series on youtube teaching how to play the ukulele. There are none more twee than this mob.

Its a bit sickly sweet for some. According to Songkick I've seen the Bobby McGees play live fifty seven times, but sometimes I can't look in the direction of the stage lest I wee myself and try to enroll back at primary school.

Christ, Jimmy has glitter in his beard.

They played a new song, which was very nice and soulful, it'd be nice if there was more of that sort of thing and less hamming up of the twee. Actually the one that come next using the closure of Woolies as a metaphor for the loss of innocence, that was beautiful and just a little majestic. The majesty of twee.

The Bobby McGees - Indietracks

Church stage is HOT

probably because
of Bobby McGees

Anastacia

Jesters costume, balloons, sweets, party poppers, swearing, kids dancing.

"They were amazing", the place was packed with folk from other bands, Jimmy McGee is like a god to them, a baldy hairy god.

If there were a fight between the Just Joans and The Smittens, money's on The Smittens to win, but if it were The Smittens against The Bobby McGees, Jimmy could have them all with one hand behind his back. Just speculating, mind.

Regular readers of this blog will know I've seen them a couple of times. They are quiet a show, an act, a performance. The songs are sweet, and tick all the right boxes, for twee and angst, surreal, day dreaming and audience participation. Jimmy had us all making butterflies with our hand "C'mon, its no Hoxton" and spelling out L-O-V-E. And it was the best I've seen them play, with the audience in the palm of their hands.

Other photies
Favourite Dress
BMX Rejects
Miss E Kawasaki
Sunshine Pop
Hayley Hawley
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

The Pete Green Corporate Juggernaut, The Kabeedies, The Bobby McGees - The Buffalo Bar

Pete Green is a fine chap, commonly found playing solo acoustic sets of happy Midlands-based happy sparkly songs, but always low down on the bill. Figuring this was due to his playing solo, he sold his soul, recruited a band and changed his name to The Pete Green Corporate Juggernaut.

Tonight, somewhat ironically, they are first on the bill. I missed a couple of songs, stumbling in late cos a road was closed and I had to park miles away.

Same songs, with a meatier backing. More like you'd expect a Pete Green band to sound like than a band playing Pete Green songs. Does that make sense? Imagine a band, any band, now imagine them playing Pete Green songs, The Pete Green Corporate Juggernaut doesn't sound like that, they sound like Pete Green as a band.

I'm unconvinced until "Everything is going to be sparkly" which works really well as the band are used to punctuate the song rather than play it. 'More of that sort of thing', I thought, until their last song, which sounded almost exactly like early Sultans of Ping FC playing Pete Green song. Now with that sort of direction the 'Corporate Juggernaut could end up headlining.

Free CDs on the door, from The Gresham Flyers and tonight's second band, the Kabeedies. I wasn't too impressed with them last time, a chronically short set at The Social, but Thom Gresham Flyer swears by them so maybe I'll see their magic tonight.

Crikey!

I get a better of them this time, wee bouncing spinning girl on vocals, sandwiched between her axe-wielding brothers, righty with a half length guitar strap and lefty with a three quarter length bass strap, and rather surprisingly, Orlando Bloom, the actor, on drums.

A fun-filled yelping set, with the sort of smart haircuts the Glasgow art school crowd would love. The Kabeedies would make a fine support act for Franz Ferdinand four years ago. As it is, they're going to have a hard time re-igniting the angular, unison yelps and stabby guitar fires of old. They ought to tell more people about Orlando in drums. He's very good, faster than you'd expect.


Not so pleased with the Bobby McGees, the over reliance of their songs which are introduced with the lines "You know when your girlfriend...", this makes me feel uncomfortable.

This is why I don't write reviews for The List or Time Out. From that what do you think the Bobby McGee's sound like? See, it tells you next to nothing about the band, and just shows too much of me.

For most of their set I was pondering if I were to write a six song set to play in a shadowy corner of Indietracks, whilst there'd be a great song in "moaning that after I appeared on The Culture Show, loads of old chums got in touch to say hey, and it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling, the girl who I still dream of never got in touch, so it was hardly worth it at all", the rest of the songs would be similarly ex-girlfriend based, so I'd better abandon the idea and just learn a load of friends cover versions.

Antifolk Winter Festival - 12 Bar

12 Bar, Suzy Almond doing bluesy folksy music on her own with a big acoustic guitar in a drafty but crowded backroom that reminds me of some crumbling barn in Toledo.

At least 50% of the women here have the same hairstyle as an ex-girlfriend I had called Jax.



Its the Antifolk Winter Festival, dunno how this one sneaked under the anorak indiepop radar, but half the bands here are Indietracks favourites, and I've just had to text AJ Smith when I found out that The Television Personalities are headlining.

The band times are pinned to the wals all over the place. I've missed a day's worth of bands yesterday and one band today already.



Next on stage is Stuart James, so subtle the folk in the crowd hardly notice when he starts. What he's playing is awesome, just him and his guitar, but its almost spoken word, quickfire, mumbles, hardly pausing for breath, guitar hardly strummed.

I was listening to Nislopi the other night, this chap has the same accent. I think the subject matter is more Just Joansy, but more intense, dense, tightly packed. Maybe if The Streets weren't hip-hop.

He wears blue t-shit and brown jeans, that's what I wore last time I played a gig in London.













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