Ballboy - Roxy Bar and Screen

Bit of a nightmare getting to the venue today, one day the London underground will be running okay, at some point in the mythical future, not today though.

Luckily cos of the Wimbledon final everything's running late.

Tonight there's a screening of a Ballboy documentary / gig footage, “Trying Not To F**k It Up”. I was trying to figure out if I was with my attractive young ladyfriend at the time. A quick snatch at Songkick shows that the gig was a few months before I met her, alas.

I've seen Ballboy quite a few times, Songkick reckons four times, but I swear there was a show at The Arches in Glasgow, well, it was his laptop-based spin-off project Money Can't Buy Music. I'm disappointed that the internet has no record of that show. I always figured that in the mythical future, everything in living memory would be recorded somewhere, somehow. Every gig somewhere out there on a list, in a database. But no, its exactly the same as if the show didn't happen and I'd just imagined it.

There used to be this club night at The Arches, The Funk Room. Flatmate Alan used to take me along to see acts like The Soul Destroyers and The Dap Kings, but again, those shows are lost in the mists of time, no record of them accessible via google. Almost like it never happened.

So, aye, this film of a gig tonight, I was there then.

Its my first time at the Roxy Bar and Screen, the front half of the place is like any other bar in the world, but there behind curtains at the back is a dark and wide seating area with a big screen on the far wall and people from London's Indiepop gigs sat round the fringes.

There's a bit of a self-referential vibe going on, about half the audience here tonight, were at the show last year. There's Andy, there's Ian, there's Crystalball, and crikey, there's me. Result! Was there then!

Hmm, the sounds good on the recording, I thought it was a bit bass heavy at the start, but further in it sounds okay. Lots of lingering shots of the band, a couple of slightly shakey shots from the stage.

I think when I'm marauding round Indietracks later this month with my camera this year I'm going to try and get more portraits of folk in the crowd. From a 'was there then' perspective that's really important.

Actually, I don't think that is me in the crowd, whoever it is is in almost every shot of the stage, its quite unnerving, he keeps looking down. He's got my hair, but the nose looks different. I could have sworn I was stood at the back and to the side.

The film's a bit long. Feels longer than the show was, there are at least twelve songs there and I'm sure a couple missing that were played live that night, there was that one about Godzilla and the one about dumper truck racing, I think it was called Dumper Truck Racing. But it accurately mapped the gig, only missing out on how blisteringly warm it was that night last summer.

The lights come back on, Gordon takes to the stage, on a small chair set up next to a lamp stand, with acoustic guitar.

The vocals are a bit woolly in real life compared to the film, maybe its cos this place isn't set up so well as a music venue. Gentler than the film too, as is the nature of stripped down acoustic guitar numbers.

His hangover song has something of the Tom Snowball about it, here listen to this and tell me what you think, I wonder if they've ever heard each.

Ooh, someone videoed bits of the evening, via StringBeanJen:-

Ballboy, The Smittens, Pocketbooks - The Luminaire

Its warm, warm, warm and the word on the net is that the show is sold out except for a few tickets on the door, so come early. I came an hour early, and that's how I got in. Also returned Andy Pocketbooks's capo that had been left on a train platform in the Midlands on Sunday night.

Inside, its almost like Indietracks is still going on, the same faces in the crowd, the same bands on stage, the same feelings of excitement. How long can this feeling last?

Pocketbooks are up first. My companion says they sound like a young version of Belle and Sebastian, but more upbeat.

The new songs that I wasn't sure about last week, they haven't grown on me yet. Like, their earlier stuff is packed with hooks and melody, sometimes even motifs from motown, but I think the new songs, are a little more about the tune and the texture. I'm going to have to hear them recorded so my interpretation isn't jaundiced by standing in the part of the room where the sound is pants.

My companion who hadn't heard them before thought they were nice, and liked the sound of Andy's voice.

The folk at the front of the crowd were dancing like it was still Saturday afternoon.

The Smittens on next, crikey, its like the sixth time I've seen some of them play in the past week, if I were still in the boy scouts I could get The Smitten merit badge.

We retire to seats at the back to watch them on the screens.

I think I prefered seeing them play in a club rather than at a festival, it feels more comfortable, not so much more intimate, cos you can't beat acoustic sets on train platforms, even with a stick.

They start off with an acappella number before bursting in with all instruments ablazing.

The between-song banter and introductions are the icing on the cheesecake.
"Can I have more vocals in my monitor?"
"Can I have more AC in my monitor?"
"Ooh, I can I have more sleep in mine?"
And whole shared experience of most people in the room, or at least the more vocal one, having been at Indietracks. Heck, Colin was even talking about how he'd checked Anorak and needed to point out that it was Elizabeth from Allo Darlin' who suggested playing on the platform.

I think my companion liked the Smittens the best and the song they did that was like from the Grease soundtrack.

Ooh, ooh, if I ever get together a rockabilly covers band, possibly called The Southside Wolfknuckles, we gotta do a garage cover of Gumdrops, F-C-G-Am innit?

Between bands, there's this flyer for other bands playing The Luminaire, the girls asks me if I could recommend any of them, but none of the names look familar. Except Alastair Roberts, he sat behind me in Russian class in Glasgow. How is it that the world works like that?

For the final act of the night, the sweat is dripping off the walls, it like The Woodside Social Club all over again when Ballboy hit the stage.

Ballboy's been kicking about for years, playing much the same songs too. They're great songs, "I've got pictures of you in your underwear" and "Donald in the Bushes with a Bag of Glue" and he's still coming up with the goods "Godzilla Vs The Island of Manhattan with you and I somewhere inbetween". But when I think about songs like Avante Guard, and Gordon MacIntyre's introduction to it, I can't help but think of the long running comic strip in the Khaki Shorts comic, about a chap called Gordon MacIntyre and the tribulations of his relationship with a girl who works in a record shop in Edinburgh.

The crowd are loving them tonight. The music wraps round you and carries you a small boat on a turbulant sea, the vocals a stready reassuring rudder.

The banter about how they smile at each other on stage now, so folk don't think they're just Scottish miserabilists. Its a lesson they've learnt from the days of touring with The Smittens. I can't help but feel that its a little bit like selling out. They are Scottish miserabilists, upholding a fine tradition of that type, by smiling, they're betraying themselves, pandering to the needs of the audience rather than wearing their own feelings as a badge.

Maybe we all do eventually.