Another Form of Relief

Great British Hopes are the main reason we do this in the first place.

It never ceases to amaze me how a band can suddenly just pop up out of nowhere.  Standard Fare have apparently been about since 2006.  The first I heard of them was a few months ago when their Christmas song Tinsel Politics started doing the rounds.  It seems that I wasn’t alone in that either.  The first music blog mention of them I can find is from July 2009.  Seeing as music blogs are the only gauge of how noticed a band are, I can only assume that they were playing gigs to three people for the three years in between.

This year though, Standard Fare seem to be blowing up.  Everywhere I look, there they are.  London Popfest?  Check.  SXSW?  Check.  Indietracks?  Do you even need to ask?  Their suddenly ride in these particular circles actually reminds me of the great Los Campesinos! explosion of 2006.  Hell, both bands even have recognisable songs with “dancing” in the title.  Can’t argue with reasoning like that.

Of course, none of this would be happening in the first place if the talent wasn’t there to back it up.  Standard Fare provide a nice throwback to the days when jangly guitars and half-bored female vocalists were all the rage.  Clever indie pop for those who likes things just a little on the harder side of twee.

Website / Myspace / Twitter

Japandroids are a little louder than the kind of stuff I tend to skew towards these days.  Occasionally though it’s just nice to have something that rocks the fuck out.  Which is something these guys seem to have no problem doing.  It’s hard, it’s fast, doesn’t make a great deal of sense and also manages to evoke the spirit of Death From Above 1979.  Which isn’t a bad set of traits to have at all.  Myspace.

MP3 Japandroids – Art Czars

Now this is just lovely.  North Carolina band Israel Darling are the first band in a while to make me sit up and listen purely on the opening lines to their song.  After that it seems to go from one excellent lyric to another.  The band thankfully have the good sense to let the words be the centre here.  Never drowned out and surrounded by excess instrumentation, everything has room to breathe.  Myspace.

I’m not quite sure what to make of Lawrence Arabia on the basis on this song.  I like about half the song and find the rest of it to be quite grating.  The verses work for me, but the high pitched repetition of the words “apple pie” over and over kind of puts me off of it.  The fact I do keep coming back to it despite this suggest there is definitely things here that I like, so maybe I’d get on with other songs more.  Video.  Myspace.

MP3 Lawrence Arabia – Apple Pie Bed

The Pavement reunion tour is now well and truly on it’s way around the world.  The band is just now wrapping up it’s dates in Australasia, and will next be onto Japan before heading on to Europe and the US.  Reports from these early dates seem good, with some pretty spectacular setlists being played each night.

To coincide with this, the lovely people at Filthy Little Angels have put together a Pavement cover album entitled (what else?) Show Me A Word That Rhymes With Pavement.  Collecting 17 artists, including Horowitz, Cats and Cats and Cats, Benjamin Shaw, Billy Ruffian and a whole bunch of other hip and happening types.  The compilation covers both obvious and more obscures ends of the Pavement back catalogue.  As is inevitable with things like this, some work better than others, but it certainly hits a lot more than it misses.

MP3 Cats and Cats and Cats – Cut Your Hair

MP3 The International Karate Plus – Box Elder

The entire 17 track Show Me A Word That Rhymes With Pavement album is available now as a free download from Filthy Little Angels.

I was sent some songs by Screaming Maldini sometime last year and if I’m honest, I didn’t like them very much.  When they were announced as the latest signings of the mighty Alcopop!, it seemed prudent to give them another try.  Now either they have changed for the better or they just went over my head first time round, as they seem to be pretty damn good now.  This is pop music that rejects the basic concepts of pop.  It’s awkward, jumpy music, but after a couple of plays, it’s also a ton of fun.  Their debut EP, which is really quite lovely, is out now.  Myspace.

MP3 Screaming Maldini – The Extraordinary

Boca Chica are from Pittsburgh and make the kind of lush, half-rock, half-folk kind of music that seemed to be everywhere a few years back.  They do it incredibly well though, knowing that restraint is often key to these things.  The vocals are allowed room to become the centrepiece of the song, with the rest of the instrumentation popping in at just the right moments.  Perfectly gentle for those long hot days.  Myspace.

Now this is just weird.  A while back I wrote about a singer-songwriter from Austin called Elaine Greer.  She made these lovely little acoustic folk songs.  Now here she is in a rock band that’s halfway between the 80s and We Are Scientists (who incidentally they have played with).  It’s decent stuff.  I prefer the solo songs myself, but the juxtaposition is certainly interesting.  Myspace.

Now that London Popfest is out of the way, it’s time to turn our attention to this year’s Indietracks festival, which will take place 23-25 July at the lovely Midland Railway Centre in Derbyshire.  Last year we covered the event quite extensively, and this year will be no different.  Previews of the bands in the run up to the event, followed by reports and a shit ton of photos of the weekend itself.  I’m not exaggerating when I call Indietracks the highlight of my musical year.  Where else can you get a non-stop indiepop while surrounded by (and sometimes on!) steam trains?

Rather excitingly, the first band announcements are now out, giving us our first 24 bands that will be playing the festival:

• Allo Darlin’
• Ballboy
• Be Like Pablo
• Betty and The Werewolves
• Boy Genius
• The Cannanes
• Cineplexx
• Fanfarlo
• The Felt Tips
• Foxes!
• The Give It Ups
• The Just Joans
• The Loves
• MJ Hibbett & the Validators
• Onward Chariots
• Sarandon
• Shrag
• The Smittens
• Standard Fare
• Stars of Aviation
• The Sunny Street
• This Many Boyfriends
• White Town
• Winston Echo

Highlights for myself amongst that lot include Allo Darlin’, Ballboy and Standard Fare, but there’s a lot there already that I’m looking forward to.  A number that I’m not familiar with that I look forward to getting acquainted with too.  No word on any headliners just yet, but announcements seem to be coming thick and fast now, so hopefully we’ll have more soon.

Update: Of course, mere hours after I post this, 8 new additions have revealed: Internet Forever, Pale Sunday, Burning Hearts, The Hillfields, La La Love You, Stars in Coma, Springfactory, Urbantramper.

Indietracks Website / Blog / Twitter

It was two and a half years ago that I first discovered Roadside Poppies, when they were release 001 on the Weepop! label. I really liked that release, particularly the title track from it, Cycling and Crying. Since that time though, I haven’t heard a great deal about the band at all. If I’m honest, I’d actually forgotten all about them.

This past weekend though I stumbled across their Bandcamp page, which had a new three song EP, Live at Chateau Blanc, available on it for free download. That said, this isn’t a full-band release though, as helpfully explained on the page itself:

How do you do a live EP in France with half the band in Denmark and the keyboard player in Cambridge? Easy- play all the instruments yourself and make it sound as Danish as possible

The funny thing is that it doesn’t seem to make much difference to the sound, so read what you will into the creation of indiepop from that. It hardly matters though, as I’ve Just Been Told That a Woman Fancies Me may be my favourite indiepop of the year so far. It’s literally what it sounds like, a joyous celebration of the fact that a woman seems to like him, despite the fact he knows absolutely nothing about her. Why let pesky details like that get in the way? That we end up with lines like “I can’t wait to tell my girlfriend” makes it all the more perfect.

All three songs from Live at Chateau Blanc can be downloaded for free from Bandcamp.

So much music, so little time. Which you means you get three songs at once. Lucky you.

Cop on the Edge are a band I could very easily hate depending on my mood when I discovered them. Their music is loud, rough, and if I’m honest, occasionally annoying. Summer Games II though is a pretty catchy little song. I’m not sure if I could stick a whole album of this, but as a short, sharp shock to a system that has spent a weekend listening to bands in cardigans, it kind of works.

Bad Veins don’t do anything spectacularly original on Gold and Warm. It’s almost straight up indie rock, with solid melodies, just the right amount of distortion and the odd musical flourish when it can get away with it. It’s all done incredibly well though that it doesn’t really matter if there’s not much new here. Bad Veins are a band precisely of the time and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them become rather popular.

I’ve been aware of Thao Nguyen for quite a while now, but it’s only really now that everything is clicking for me. With her awkwardly named three-piece band, Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, she now seems to be finding her sound in slightly off-kilter folk rock songs. The band’s new album has just been released, and I’m very much looking forward to hearing it all.

This past weekend was my first experience of London Popfest, an annual event that aims to bridge the gap between Indietracks’ for indiepop kids. Taking place over four days in deepest London, the world’s finest indiepop bands descend on tiny venues to “indiepop ’til we drop“. For various reasons I only made it to the Friday and Saturday days of the weekend, but the weekend still managed to be the highlight of the year so far.

Friday // Buffalo Bar

What a tiny, tiny venue. Little more than a square room with a stage on one wall and a bar on another, it’s amazing just how packed the place quickly became. I’ve been into some cramped venues before, but the torturous “trek to the toilet” that I endured here may have been the worst. Still, any negative feeling there was quickly countered by the music itself. The Sunny Street provided some decent melancholy pop to start. I wish I could say more about it but the sound was a bit crappy where I standing. Moving to a new spot for Horowitz massively turned me around on them. I’d been familiar with them for years but they’ve never done much for me. Their set was tight and punchy though, and I’ll definitely be exploring their album(s?) some more. Up next, The Garlands brought some Swedish flavour to the festival, including somehow even getting away with a Wham! cover. Headliners The Just Joans opened with their excellent Hey Boy…You’re Oh So Sensitive!, which was useful as it’s the only song theirs I really like and allowed me to duck out a bit before the end before the heat and volume in the Buffalo Bar finally destroyed my head completely.

Saturday // 100 Club

I hate going to the 100 Club. Not because I have anything against the venue itself. Indeed, it’s actually a nicely laid out venue, everything being sideways with a stage in the middle meaning everyone gets a decent view. My problem with the 100 Club is it’s location. Being right in the centre of Oxford Street, there is literally nowhere to park anywhere near it (short of paying something ludicrous per hour in an underground horror movie set), particularly for an all-dayer. It’s fine for Londoners and their public transport and all, trying to get back to Kent at god knows when from central London without a car is an absolute bastard. That aside though, I did enjoy the fact that from Oxford Street itself, the most recognisable shopping street in the country for locals and tourists alike, you could hear indiepop blasting out of the doors for much of Saturday. Probably didn’t win any new fans, but the thought of random Japanese tourists being assaulted by the sounds of Allo, Darlin’ as they walked past amused me no end.

Walked into the place during Plouf!, had a quick drink and walked back out again in search of Forbidden Planet round the corner instead. Nothing against Plouf! in particular, but they just aren’t really my cup of tea. Arrived back somewhere toward the end of Red Shoe Diaries who seemed pretty good and made me regret disappearing for so long. Oh well.

After that began the perfect triple bill of Soda Fountain Rag, Standard Fare and Allo, Darlin’. Soda Fountain Rag was perhaps the most surprising of the three. I loved (and posted about) her brilliant Don’t Kill The Clowns back in 2008, but when I listened to some more songs, they didn’t seem to match up. Live though, it’s a different matter altogether, the end result being one of the most consistent sets of the weekend. Standard Fare seem to be on a meteoric indiepop rise at the moment. Seemingly coming out of nowhere over the past year, they managed to absolutely own their set, and seeing them headline such an event by next is by no means out of the question. Allo, Darlin’ are one of my favourite bands from the past year, and seeing them live was joyful. I’m convinced that they can’t make a song that isn’t catchy as hell, and rousing renditions of the superb Henry Rollins Don’t Dance and The Polaroid Song did nothing to argue with that view. Newer songs like Dreaming and Kiss Your Lips fit just as well, the latter even managing to sample Weezer’s El Scorcho, something that will instantly endear it to popkids the world over.

Not much was going to compete with that combination so it was time for a nice walk up and down Oxford Street after that, leading to an indulging in Burger King and trying to work out where the hell the light shining on Centre Point was coming from. Never did figure that one out. Wandered back into the 100 Club to see most of Shrag’s set, which was a pleasant surprise. I’ve never been much of a fan of their recorded output, but their live set was pretty damn fun. Following them were the wonderful Ballboy, taking their rightful place as headliners. Opening with the mighty Avant Garde Music, they ran through
a mixture of old classics and newer material. Sadly I missed the last bit of their set due to requiring a tube back to the car parked across the city. From the half I did see though, they were certainly one of the most professional bands of the festival. And I’m not just saying that because Gordon McIntyre told me to.

Please find below a lovely gallery of photos that are in black and white to look arty, and certainly not because I suck at taking decent pictures in low light.

MP3 Airport Girl – The Foolishness That We Create Through Love Is The Closest We Come To Greatness
With London Popfest coming up in just a few days, it seemed prudent to familiarise myself with some of the bands on the bill that I didn’t recognise. One of these was Rob Price, who is also the front man of Airport Girl, one of those bands that has been around for years yet I’ve never noticed. Thankfully that has been rectified now though, with the wonderfully awkwardly titled The Foolishness That We Create Through Love Is The Closest We Come To Greatness. It’s not just the title that’s long either. It’s a rare indiepop song that manages to run over six minutes and never outstay it’s welcome.
Myspace / Fortuna Pop!

MP3 Operator Please – Logic
I really enjoyed Operator Please’s single Get What You Want a few years ago. It was a fun, punchy little number that got straight to the pop. Logic doesn’t seem to work quite as well. There’s nothing really wrong with it, it’s just a little too plodding for my tastes. A lot of other people seem to be liking it though, so maybe it’s just me.
Myspace

MP3 Pale Sunday – Shooting Star
If I was asked to tell you what country Pale Sunday came from, I’d probably get it wrong. I’d likely lean toward the US, the UK, or for an outside bet, somewhere like Sweden. Somewhere like Brazil wouldn’t even cross my mind. I’ve never really considered South America as somewhere indiepop would come out of, but Pale Sunday are seemingly doing their best to change that. Jangly guitars and harmonies are the order of the day here. If you’re familiar with other bands from the Matinée stable (Northern Portrait, Cats on Fire etc.), you know exactly what you’re getting here.
Myspace / Matinée Recordings

Just a quick post to address exactly what’s going on with this place. If you visit with any regularity you’ll have noticed that posts have dried up recently. This is down to a couple of reasons. One that I can’t do much about and one that I can.

First off, for the past 18 months, my father has been pretty ill, resulting in him being constantly in and out of hospital. This most recent incident began in November of last year and is still ongoing. This makes it pretty difficult for me to arrange much beyond working, visiting hospitals and sleeping. This has cut quite significantly into the time I have to not only write here, lessened my ability to get to gigs and also finding and listening to new music in the first place.

The second is rather more mundane in that I’d become somewhat bored with the process in general. Pretty much the whole thing fell into a routine formula of pick a song, write a little about it and post with no variation in that format. There was a time when that seemed like the most efficient way to post, but the end result is lazy, both in content and writing.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been kicking around various ideas to get us going again here. A few new features, and most importantly, not dragging out three paragraphs about a song I kind of like that can be achieved in one. Hopefully this’ll be more pleasant to read, and better for me to write. How much time I’m going to get to write though I have no idea. So no bullshit about posting everyday or anything similar. Posts when I’ve got time to post, and something worth posting about.

Let’s see where we end up.