Twee As Fuck: The Days - The Victoria

Four skinny lads, I'm wondering if they are the nominal headline act, the final band of the night after Comet Gain cancelled.


Do Comet Gain always cancel? I lost faith in them a long time ago.

On stage, The Days, from Gothenburg. Breezy and jangly, with just a smidgen of quirky.

Some very gentle hooks in the melody, those wee descending guitar lines, and last night in the city vocals.


Some people at the front really getting into it. But its too relaxed for me, if I could find a seat it the music would lull me to sleep.

Its been a long day, there are lots of big scary drunk people here, staggering and bumping.

I've been listening to lots of early-era Franz Ferdinand recently. This mob on stage, their vocals sound like the more quiet and less arty bits of the Franz.

Twee As Fuck: Tender Trap - The Victoria

Fast, exciting, yelpy music, as usual, from Tender Trap. I don't really know what to say. They sure look like they're enjoying themselves on stage, if a little hot and sweaty.

Nice backing vocal 'ba ba baa's, which today I shall describe as yummy.

Setlists dissolving into pulp beneath their feet, the previous band spilt beer on stage, and mopping can only do so much.

They were still undecided which new song to play, the one that half the band know or the one that the other half of the band know. It turns out okay anyhoo.

Twee As Fuck: Slow Club - The Victoria

Slow Club are a two-piece, bloke on guitar and girl standing playing drums. Both singing harmonies, a bit country really, there's a twang in the girl's vocals.

Crikey, the young Jane Fonda is in the audience, that's somewhat unexpected. And there's a chap who looks like Skif45 off of Songkick, which is less unexpected.


Occasional harmony whistling solos, and bumbled songs restarted halfway through, but done nice.

The girl's got a mighty fringe.

Ooh, in the absence of a lead for an additional guitar, the duo wander into the midst of the crowd to play an un-mic'ed acoustic number. A dozen cameras are thrust into the air trying to snatch a shot. Nice harmonies, they silence the yakking at the back of the audience a little, but it soon rises again.

The band grow on me mightily through the set, its the contrast between the twang in the vocals and the between song banter that really makes it. Luv it.

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.

Twee As Fuck: Veronica Falls - The Victoria

Traffic was hell, I arrive late at the Twee As Fuck alldayer and manage to catch the last song from Veronica Falls.

Its swelteringly hot in here, not quite Wood Side Social sweat dripping off walls yet, there's plenty of time for that later. The band are a lot heavier than I remember from the other week, thunderous you might say. Patrick's standing up behind his drums when he's not singing, the others rocketing along.

Outside its overcast, raining a little bit, all warm and humid as though a storm's about to break, and on the corner stage in The Victoria this evening, its like the storm has broken.


All raw and youthful energy blasting off the stage.

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

Twee As Fuck: Ipso Facto, Liechtenstein, The Winter Club - Buffalo Bar

I fucken hate queues. I hate them so much.

You know queues at cash machines, thats a load of people who really want to spend money, but have been stopped from doing so. Some would say we're heading for a recession here in the 21st century, banks could boost the economy in seconds by making their machines give out money quick. Fuck fraud. The government hand out our personal details at every opportunity and banks already charge us through the nose, so fuck so that. When we want to spend money, don't make up wait for it.

Queuing up outside the Buffalo Bar for Twee As Fuck presents Ipso Facto, Liechtenstein, The Winter Club. Its cold and the queues not moving, its kind of stationary. It only moves very slowly, not because they are letting people in slowly, but because guestlist folk are escorted to another queue or people give up and fuck off to some other gig. Every so often the queue moves backward as folk push in, spotting their friends nearer the front. "Its not what you know, its who you know".

Listen to this

*jingle jangle*

that is the sound of my pockets full of cash, I want to pay the girl on the door to let me in, I want to buy a few drinks, I want to watch some bands, maybe I want to buy some merchandise.

But I can't because I'm stood outside in the cold in a queue that isn't moving.

Imagine, hypothetically, in some crazy fucked up world, that I didn't go to gigs out of a rabid obsession with seeing as many bands as possible and then spewing my own vitriol and agenda online, but as some kind of social event, and rather than just seeing people at gigs socially, I'd seek to swell the size of the scene by bringing along my own, still hypothetical, friends.

"Aw man, you'd love this band" Sayeth me to hypothetical friend
"Ach, but we'd have to stand around for hours" quoth said hypothetical friend
"No no no, look at this graph..."

"... which clearly shows people expect bands to start half an hour after the Facebook quoted doors time, but actually the bands start an hour after the Facebook quoted doors time. (months of research went into this graph)"
"Wow Chris, you've convinced us. We ought to invite you out to the pub and parties and stuff more often, and I'm going to put a good word in about you to that girl you're scared of talking to."

Quick scene change to queuing up outside the fucking Buffalo Bar in the cold for ages. Hypothetical friends would turn to me and say something like "Chris, I'm going to stamp on your throat for this" and they'd be completely justified.

Twenty minutes outside in the queue without it actually moving, almost an hour after the doors time, and I give up and head home, musing briefly about the bands I've missed...

Liechtenstein, I saw them once before, at the Albany, thought they sounded like a girl-fronted Specials, kind of cute too. No idea about the other bands, The Winter Club and Ipso Facto, maybe I never will.

So apart from my cold getting a wee bit worse, the best thing about tonight's gig was that when I got home, I had thirty quid in my pocket! Fucken aye!!

Bands
Twee As Fuck
Ipso Facto
Liechtenstein
The Winter Club

Other photies
here

Twee as Fuck: The Margarets, St. Christopher, Hatcham Social - Buffalo

I thought I'd arrived at the last Twee as Fuck of the year stylishly late, but alas, I'm early enough to catch one of the free CDs on the door. I guess there's thirty people here by 10pm. I glimpse Thorsten and Camilla sat at the other side of the room, their latest eagerly awaited podcast is a corker, I wonder if they'll do an xmas one. I keep my distance to avoid cornering them ad wonder when the bands start.

I spy another bloke here on his own, at the opposite end of the bar, we glance at each other suspiciously, I think he's jealous, he left his notebook at home. He reminds me of Robbie from IoMoPS, I wonder if he got round to doing his Christmas song for this year. May I suggest "Wednesday Girl at Xmas" or "Little Miss Maybe's first Xmas" as possible song titles.

Realise the fallacy in wanting to avoid being creepy, but at the same time, standing on my own, next to the toilets, scribbling. Wish bands would hurry up, get on stage so I can fuck off home.

Four skinny lads take to the stage, no drummer, they are from Sweden, they are The Margarets. My ex-wife many months ago coined the phrase for them 'Swedish kids with handbags'.



They sound like two parts early Stone Roses and one part Acid House Kings. Easy G, C, Am, D type songs with noodles and phaser effects. Stephen Pastel would be proud of the vocals, Best use of iPod for drums, crowd noise and St. Etienne/Just Joans found movie dialog clips.

Ooh, I just remembered, at work today, a colleague was playing some Polish funk rock, and one of the songs sounded remarkably like The Just Joans's 'I Hear your the man now John'.

Stood nearby the bar here is a tall hairy chap who looks like Big Duncan from Dananananaykrod, but he smells different, he runs a label called Wax.

Ooh, Elaine the promoter comes over to say hi. I get all nervous but try to come across as a pro-muso journo, fail badly. Scribble note 'must come up with more sensible bloggery muso journo things to say in similar situations'.

I spot PopKid from Spiral Scratch and elsewhere this tall scrawny ginger girl who I;d swear I was in a drama society with at university a decade ago. The place is filling up and I feel about one chessboard row less self-conscious.

A short girl tugs on my arm and asks of I have a cigarette and suddenly I'm in Bolton, November 1995. Time travel fucking terrifies me. I'm in the Academy Bar, I can't see my girlfriend, but if I could would she recognise me? The jacket and the sideburns are thesame, besides she'd be about 14 years too young. Time travel fucking sucks.



Twelve years and one month later St. Christopher take to the stage, a two-piece tonight. The chummy Yorkshire accented between and mid-song banter in stark contrast to the shoegazery noise. They're missing their drummer tonight, relying on a drum machine.

Whilst its kind of easy to get lost in the music, the 14 song set is dragging. Its only at the last song I find they're an old Sarah Records band. Revering C86 folk probably care deeply, but I want to see the headline act.

The two people in the crowd who still give a crap shout for an encore, luckily they don't oblige.

The Buffalo Bar is full, folk chatting amongst themselves, scant regard for the music, smiling, engrossed in conversations. Time has passed, its half midnight, do bands usually go on this late, I try to remember.


Hatcham Social on last, a three-piece with a standy up drummer, matching hairstyles and torn jeans. They play in an inwardly facing triangular formation. Strange, difficult to describe songs, clunky guitars. Folk in the crowd and behind the DJ desk were dancing and singing along. It seems jolly good fun, but the words are low and the ba ba ba choruses are like another language.

Bands
The Margarets
St. Christopher
Hatcham Social

Twee as Fuck: The Bridal Shop, My Sad Captains, Connan and the Mockasins - Buffalo

"He's taking his cardigan off, he means business"







Bands
The Bridal Shop
My Sad Captains
Connan and the Mockasins

Twee As Fuck: The Felt Tips, The Just Joans, Stars of Aviation - The MacBeth

Last Night From Glasgow,

Finally The Just Joans have come back to London. Early doors I hand over the CD's I've been making up for them all week and point out Thorsten Sideboard to Dave the lead singer, I'd introduce them, but other than backlinks and awkward eye contact I don't know the guy.

I'm in the chippy next door to the venue and I spy Row Plimp and Katie the backing singers. Cracking chop suey.

So people turn up, huge swaths of the London internet indie royalty, hungry for the album but I've suddenly lost Dave.

First band on are The Felt Tips who shared minibus duties with the Joanses. I'd heard them on the NQRS podcast and they're really nice but tonight they're plsaying as a three piece, acoustic, electric and bass guitars, no drums, they're on top form. Songs about relationships, not so much wholesome as my uncley advice.

We're stood right at the front, with photofolk and it sounds beautiful, gentle even. Between songs the crowd are restless. Their banter big ups the Joanses, which kinda puts them unde pressue.

The Just Joans grasp it well, the last time I saw them as documented here, they were a smaller rawer act, but now they've blossomed into a great big sexy gritty fruit. Whereby if they were a movie, Ken Loach would direct,

They have this magical ability to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. They hit the pressure point to turn my legs to jelly every time. I look around and wonder. Do you feel the same thing, do you remember the times. Oh god, I'm sorry, why did it turn out this way.

Its always been a really personal thing to me, the Just Joanses, some car journey many months ago just me at midnight playing the tape Adam gave me for the first time, somewhere on southside of Glasgow, I don't remember who. How many other people here feel the same. On the door they're actually selling copies of the Just Joans cassette tape.

The song Bellshill Station is about yer boyfriend moving away from glasfgow to London, and I've always become a pool of mush before I find out how it ends. I broke up with my Glasgow last week. Its still raw.

At the back of the room I catch a glimpse of "Helen", not her real name, its Holly, she was the girl in Glasgow's best mate, who's now just moved to London, we're all fans of the Just Joans and it good to see her. I'm surrounded by friends and relics tonight. If I wasn't made of jagged stone I'd be in tears.

But Helen's here and we're sharing memories. The Just Joan's are the perfect soundtrack as I glance around.

Katie and Row's vocals catch the room off guard, people staring at the stage enraptured, different memories, but the same emotions.

Helen's quite drunk, or seems quite drunk and the Stars of Aviation take to the stage. I've been talking them up to Helen with their singalong songs and talking in Frenchy goodness and so many instruments on stage and all the goodness. But time passes and we've had three of four drinks and the Helen is getting strangely affectionate which is so inappropriate and I'm just wanting to hide in a familiar corner and scribble about bands, invisible and epic.

Time passes and I stagger to the door to chat to Uma Thurman about album sales and where the Joanses are staying tonight, Helen wanders off and a few minutes later a girl wanders over and asks me,

"Were you here with a girl in a red dress?"

"Yeah"

"erm, she's kind of fallen over"

So I wander back in and find a small crowd of people around Helen, feeding her water and keeping her from slumpuing onto the floor.

The guy holding her head looking at me and after a few seconds asked if I was on Bowlie.

My teeth gnash and grind, I snarl a little. There's mixed bag of feeling for that internet messageboard and despite this site, the phenominal success of my nuddy art site, the record label, the video webcasts of yesteryear, the third place and Glasgow, tonight feelings run fresh and raw. How much more successful could the Just Joanses be if I could have brought them to London last year, if the fans who follow them now caught them a year earlier, and the shot in the foot was Bowlie and me being banned from there...

"yes"

Ben, recognising me from the Bowlie Alldayer 2004, as mentioned recently elsewhere.

Ben is a hero not just an alias. Whilst I am a suspect for spiking Helen's drink in their heids, he's got her student card and is tracking down an address hwe can get her to in safe hands.

I'm texting and calling the girl in Glasgow slightly too slowly. I find black hack taxis but none who'll take her in her drunken and spewing state. Ben and his friends are nursing Helen, holding her heid out of her pool of vomit. I'm making a mess of trying to get her to drink water, they find a way to a minicab place.

They keep her company in a taxi safely home. I'm staggering the streets about 3 hours away from where I stay, wondering what happened to the night that started so well, why night's like this always turn out badly and who I ought to be apologising to.