The Just Joans - Come Out 2Nite - Indietracks 2012

Here's a video of The Just Joans opening their set at Indietracks 2012 with a cover of Kenickie's classic Come Out 2Nite

 

Its a pity I didn't video right from the start of the set where Dave Just Joans stepped to the mic "Hello T in The Park, we are The Stone Roses". That was awesome, as was David's Sleeper T-shirt.

Darren Hayman - I Started a Joke - Indietracks 2012

Here's a video I recorded at Indietracks 2012 of Darren Hayman & The Secondary Modern playing a cover of The Bee Gees' I Started a Joke

 

Indietracks was awesome, the best its ever been. It was a last minute decision for me to go, like I wasn't going to go cos I don't want to just religiously go every year, but it was the Thursday night before, and I had another look at the lineup and thought, "Aw man, I love all these guys."

Indietracks 2011 in video

It is the weekend after the Indietracks music festival in Derbyshire and I have finished editing my videos. I've made three videos, one is 14 minutes, one is 5 minutes and one is 3 minutes. Please watch whichever one you feel is most appropriate to your time.







More about Indietracks here
Their blog here
The Indietracks flickr photopool here

For those with an interest in the history of my videos of Indietracks, here are some of the videos I made in 2008 and 2009
Indietracks 2009 in 7 minutes
Indietracks 2009 in 3 minutes
Indietracks 2009 in 1.5 minutes

Indietracks 2008 in 7 minutes
Indietracks 2008 in 3 minutes
Indietracks 2008 in 1.5 minutes

Betty and The Werewolves - Buffalo Bar

Well, that was odd.

First time at the buffalo bar in months. This time on my own. I stand at the end of the bar to watch Betty and the Werewolves set, clutching a £3.20 bottle of Tiger, feeling awkward. I've seen them play before a couple of times, and the Werewolves tracks on my ipod always sound good when they come up on shuffle.

The place is busy tonight. John the mohawk guy from every gig ever is at the front taking photies. The longhair photographer from every other gig is stood to his right. At the back of the room I catch a glimpse of Ria the Blogger. My beer runs out and I feel awkward.

The acoustics at that end of the bar are never good, but the view of the stage is great. I wish I'd stood further back.

Between bands I head outside to wander the streets of Highbury and Islington for a while, to escape my feeling of awkwardness inside.

I've been to plenty of gigs on my own before, easily hundreds, maybe 50% of my total. Did it feel this uncomfortable before?

Am I just getting old? I used to find myself in the middle of the moshpit at huge gigs at the Apollo and the Barrowlands. I broke my foot, got a black eye and a huge lump on my shin after Idlewild shows in the nineties.

I dunno why, but the last moshpit memory I have is two rows from the front during Suede at the Barrowlands, maybe six years ago. The memory of being jammed up again fellow man, at one with the throbbing of the crowd, that's the last I remember.

Back to the Buffalo, waving my stamped hand to sister Delia on the door, and then taking up a position behind tall people at the back to watch 14 Iced Bears and The Wolfhounds.

Dan from Pocketbooks is a yard or so to my right, sideburns all magnificent. Ian How Does It Feel mans the merchandise table behind me. Sean from Fortuna Pop arrives at my elbow, I migrate left, forfeiting my view of the stage.

I used to be a lot more comfortable feeling awkward at gigs, I used to rudely embrace it, cuntly so. Justifying it with my notebook, blurry photies and blog.

Time passes and I'm still writing this, now at the Lexington, two days later. I went to Currys, Staples and Maplin, earlier and was thoroughly underwealmed. Years ago I'd browse such shopped, brimming with ideas and creativity, with this printer I could make books, with this set up a record label, with this camera I could have a whole new career. But now I just think "meh", no point, tried that, failure or moderate success. Why try again.

I have become more cynic.

Do Betty and Teh Werewolves gaze at the icebears and Wolfhounds thinking the same thing? "That's what I wanna be in twenty years time"?

Gronk and the Body Doubles - Fox and Duck

The missus and I were taking a pleasant drive in country, well, the banks of the mighty Thames down through Richmond. Its nice round there, big houses with high walls, winding roads, fields with cows. More like Cheshire than London.

Anyhoo, we stopped off at a pub called Duck and fox, it reminded me of the place I was a glass collect at in Manchester, 1995. Tonight we found there was a band playing, Gronk and The Body Doubles. A six-piece, three guitars, drums, bass and a trumpeter.

The bass player wore a cowboy hat, so I was wary. Some might say three guitars is two too many, but here it sounded okay.

Gronk, the lead singer, stood centre-stage, looked tiny, this was cos of his over-sized guitar and taller bandmates.

The songs are bluesy rock, at times a halfway house between Bruce Springsteen and Supergrass. There are nice friendly harmonies and some rather neat lead guitar noodles from at least two of the guitarists. The guitar especially gives them that FM Rick Rubin sound.

The audience seemed quite into them too, judging by the ages it was a friends and family sort of show, but folk were dancing and I was a little confused how people continued dancing even when they wandered outside for a smoke. That doesn't happen at the gigs I usually go to.

Not much on Songkick, just one of Gronk's gigs at The BarFly in Camden. From their website, they've played other gigs, but they're hardly the most prolific, or scenesterish, are they even part of a 'scene'?

Extra cheese points for using the line "Gonna take it down a little bit " before a slower number.

Ooh, trumpet takes it up to a whole nother level. I do like guitar bands with trumpets. More of that sort of thing.

Anyhoo, so Gronk is there centre stage, doing some fine blues, mincing a bit like he's practising in front of the mirror in his bedroom, but strangely he's relaxed as he's in front of a the crowd. Its a breath of fresh air, he's completely unaffected on stage, hardly up himself at all. I'll chalk that up as being another difference to the usual gigs I go to.

They ought to gig more.

Keith TOTP - The Lamb

See, Keith TOTP on guitar is backed up by three indiepop guitarists and a really cool geeky girl playing a saw, to stop their sound drowning out his vocals he is positioned in front of them.

This one time I had Mouse Eat Mouse doing an acoustic session in my flat in Glasgow, their sax player was mighty loud so we had him playing away in the kitchen and the vocals chap was stood by my front door. You gotta work it out with unamplified stuff.

A song about about masturbation. The amassed ranks of guitars (four of them) blur together a wee bit, but the saw is over-arching warbling from the right.

The usual venue for Totally Acoustic has been refurbished a little, the walls plastered with pre-war photography and portraiture, more tables, the place seems quite full. I'm by the door, and more people are trying to cram in behind me.

Dominik Diamond is here, despite having emigrated to Canada in 2007.

The vast majority of Keith TOTP's songs are negative "We hate your band" and "Fuck the Manic Street Preachers", entertaining stuff nontheless.

The Bombadier tastes a bit funny this evening.

Superman Revenge Squad - The Lamb

Was briefly trying to remember if and where I'd seen Superman Revenge Squad. I recalled slagging them off cos of over-pimping from God Is In The TV, but it turns out I'd only seen them before at a previous MJ Hibbett's Totally Acoustic night.

Can I write about this any differently than last time. Probably not I don't recall last time too well, so this review may be identical. Although tonight he has a cello player which on the one hand adds more depth to the songs, but on the other hand, from where I'm sat at the back by the door, the vocals are overwhealmed a wee bit, but I could still make out the words, maybe if the chap sat in front of the cello player, or on his knee, no, that wouldn't work.

I like his song about seeing an old man flicking through a porno magazine in the newagent, probably looking for someone who looks like his dead wife. It reassures my search of RedTube for anyone who looks like girls I knew a decade ago.


But, I hear you cry, what does it sound like? Weel, its acoustic guitar with breathy fast spoken/sung vocals. Not much in the way of fancy guitar noodles, but nimble chords. Songs played in the bedsit style, introvert and imaginative, well, songs about thoughts, day dreams and something someone once said or saw. Like The Streets minus the hip-hop.

Ah ha, a song inspired by a half remembered Oink comic strip, Mark Riley would be so proud.