Next time, I think I'm gonna take a train - Kiss Me, I've Quit Smoking does Indietracks 2008!

INDIETRACKS FESTIVAL, 26th-27th July 2008, Midlands Railway Butterley (Part One - Saturday!)


This weekend saw the return of the happiest, most polka-dotted and pudding-bowled festival in the entire world - Indietracks. Located in rural Derbyshire, the festival played host to a hundred indiepop bands from across the globe, with punters going to and from the site in an antique steam-train. The site itself was hardly built for masses of people, but the organisers managed to adapt the facilities extremely impressively; that said, the acoustics of the locomotive shed - used as the location of the main stage (and merchandise area) - left a lot to be desired, much to the detriment of the majority of the bands playing.

On a somewhat unprofessional note (given that I'm attempting to review the thing), the first day of Indietracks, for me at least, was effectively a write-off; I didn't actually arrive on-site until about 4pm, and the majority of the first couple of hours was spent attempting to scope the place out (eg: locate burger vans, toilets. Commit to memory.). I did, however, manage to catch a glimpse of a couple of acts who I'd not previously encountered; The Parallelograms ticked all the C86 boxes - stand-up drummer and all - and played a great set, complete with Hello Kitty guitar. Definitely worth looking out for. Meanwhile, a rather lovely Australian singer-songwriter named Darren Hanlon graced the outdoor stage; his hose charming songs about literally bumping shoulders with the stars had echoes of Spearmint and the Lucksmiths.



Compared with most of the festival-goers, who flocked to the main stage in droves to see indiepop godfathers Comet Gain, my main attraction of the day were The Lodger (above - photo courtesy of Underexposed); always a great live band, the Leeds trio (as ever bolstered by an additional guitarist) really outdid themselves playing on the makeshift outdoor stage - the back of a truck! The whole set was a highlight from start to finish; tracks like "My Finest Hour" and the almost unbearably bitter "Many Thanks for Your Honest Opinion" shone as bright as the blistering Derby sun, while last single "The Good Old Days" deserved to be one of the festival's biggest anthems. The closing cover of Orange Juice's "I Can't Help Myself" was an unexpected nod to the festival's roots, and had even the most cynical popkid at least tapping their feet.

Headlining the main stage that night were the undisputed kings of the genre, The Wedding Present - a band in whom my interests have never really peaked above curious. The set was solid; the classics mixed seamlessly together with new material from their current LP El Rey, with tracks like "Santa Ana Winds" and "Model, Actress, Whatever..." wowing the crowd. Unfortunately, as the all-too-frequently spotted t-shirts proclaimed "The Wedding Present: All the Songs Sound the Same"; it was hard to tell if it was the songs themselves, or the less than stellar sound in the loco shed, but every song ended up sounding like "Brassneck" - and even when they played it, it was somewhat hard to discern. A shame, that. The night finished with an indiepop disco, courtesy of the Helen Love Bubblegum Killers, who played some hits (your standard Pulp, Belle and Sebastian etc fare), some misses (maybe I just wasn't in the mood to dance to "Yummy Yummy Yummy I've Got Love In My Tummy"...), and some unexpected treats - anyone who saw me dancing to McCarthy's "We Are All Bourgeois Now" can attest to the joy I felt during that five minutes. A fantastic end to the first day's festivities, though the best was very much yet to come...

I'm gonna leave this town, gonna leave it like I found it...

Blake Babies "Out There" [taken from the album Sunburn - Hollywood Records, 1990]



Sometimes, a pop song just hits you in the right place at the right time. I'd never heard anything by Juliana Hatfield, save from a glimpse of a video on an episode of Beavis & Butthead, outside of her enchanting work as Evan Dando's foil (and muse) in the Lemonheads. It took a chance encounter in the Union Bookshop at my university for her songs to fall into my lap; the music playing in the shop, while I was idly waiting for my housemate to finish browsing the drama section, sounded like sunshine - shimmering shards of jangling guitars, a girlish coo, and the distant hum of Evan Dando in the background. I later found out it was by Ms. Hatfield's group from her days prior to being a Lemonhead - albeit songs from their comeback album, God Bless the Blake Babies (2001).

Consequently, I rooted around the internet for anything I could find, and came up with an album entitled Sunburn - often cited as their best. After two songs I was smitten, and I found myself stuck on 'Out There', a track which sounds like waking up to the first day of summer; the Peter Buck-esque guitars chime like the sun pouring in through the curtains, while Hatfield purrs and growls her way out of the speakers, leaving the listener (or at least, me) instantly enchanted. Like a less heartbroken cousin of Lisa Loeb's "Stay (I Missed You)", the song has early 90s written all over it in the best possible way; it's painful to admit, but they just don't write 'em like this anymore...

I think I was overcome by a spontaneous emotion...

Weezer "Miss Sweeney" [taken from the deluxe edition of Weezer (aka: the Red album) - Geffen, 2008]



It's no secret that I think Weezer are one of the best bands in the entire world; yes, their output since 1996 has been patchy, but each album has had its charms. 2001's Weezer (aka: the Green album) was allegedly an attempt to write ten perfect pop songs, none longer than three and a half minutes, all following the same structure. Maladroit, which landed the following year, was less considered, but did feature 'Keep Fishin'', the freshest sounding Weez single since the nineties. The only real dud in their catalogue was the clunky Make Believe, which replaced Rivers Cuomo's idiosyncratic observations and witticisms with catch-all platitudes which, when coupled with Rick Rubin's bland, shiny production, fell flat on its arse.

The band's newest album, another self-titled effort, ranks comfortably with their best; throwing any rules out the window (aside from the catty singles 'Pork & Beans' and 'Troublemaker', written on demand to keep the label happy), there are power-pop sonatas ('Dreamin''), multi-part epics ('The Greatest Man That Ever Lived', as I very briefly blogged about for Young Turks here) and even tracks by other members of the band, the highlight being drummer Pat Wilson's piledriving 'Automatic'.

Miss Sweeney' crops up on the deluxe edition of the album, which contains four extra songs, all of which have some of the most interesting lyrics in the Weezer canon. The song starts off as a minor-key "rap" (in the style of R. Kelly's era-defining Trapped in the Closet), before diving headlong into a classic, crunchy and, above all, cuntstruck Weezer chorus. A paean to unrequited office romance - the boss slipping the secretary declarations of love in between memos - it happens to be the best of any of the tracks released for Weezer. Lord knows why this was left off the album - apparently at the insistence of every member of the band aside from guitarist Brian Bell (who always was the coolest member of the band...).

The abundance of extra tracks scattered across various formats of the record will no doubt have Weezer obsessives creating their own ideal ten-song running orders, but 'Miss Sweeney' is almost certainly one that fans will unite over.

I was your other, that's what you said...

The Lodger "A Year Since Last Summer" [taken from the album Life is Sweet - Bad Sneakers Records, 2008]



Everyone knows the best pop songs are the short ones; Life Is Sweet, the wonderful second album by Leeds indiepop heroes The Lodger, is an understated 35 minute flurry of handclaps and heartbreak. One of its highlights, 'A Year Since Last Summer', rushes by in a brief two minutes - still, that seems to be all it needs. Its lyrics are similarly brief, but perfectly express the melancholy of a love gone wrong ("The photograph is fading now, a year since last summer..."), belied by the short, sharp and irrepressibly jangly guitar attack that surrounds it, which barely allows you time to catch your breath between verses. While there are catchier tracks on the album - namely 'The Good Old Days', a pretty strong contender for single of the summer, if not the year - there are few as addictive.

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As ever, I apologise profusely for not updating this thing in ages; exam season somewhat put the kibosh on my urge to write anything whatsoever. Thankfully, that's all over now, and with a long hot summer ahead, expect plenty more gems in store.

I've got a taste for human blood - I'm gonna tear your bones apart...

Ten City Nation - Exhibition Time Again
Ten City Nation - Everyone's a Tourist [both taken from the 2008 album Ten City Nation - download it for absolutely free right here!]



Formed from the ashes of undeservedly forgotten agitpopstars Miss Black America, Ten City Nation have just released their blinding debut album for free on their website. Seven years on from the first album this lot ever put out as MBA (the underrated God Bless Miss Black America), they sound hungrier, more passionate and...just damn louder than ever before. Ten City Nation is truly a thing of beauty - tracks like 'Positive Sickness' show that singer Seymour Patrick's rage is alive and well, while 'The Air is on Fire' rocks out with a dusty atmosphere that makes it sound like a recording of a gunfight in some distant desert. That's a good thing, by the way.

'Exhibition Time Again' kicks the album off with speaker-blowing intensity, as hundering Queens of the Stone Age style drums jostle with detuned riffs played by sandpaper-raw guitars not heard since the last Shellac record. Meanwhile, 'Everyone's a Tourist' centres around a spiralling riff which tumbles into the most unashamedly anthemic chorus on the entire album, perfectly capturing the energy and vitriol that fuel their live shows. Both tracks should, in some parallel universe, but absolutely massive hits, but that would probably ruin it for anyone who hears them.

It's teen rock for grown-ups - there's shades of early Idlewild (or should that be iDLEWiLD?), Fugazi, mclusky, and even traces of Blur (try the beautifully discordant opening riff of 'Skeletons') - and, by all rights, deserves to change at least one lonely bedroom-bound teenager's life for the better. It's loud, melodic, passionate and everything that most bands these days aren't; Ten City Nation (both the band and the album) demands to be heard, and you'd be a fool to ignore it...and for the price you're paying for it, there's no excuse. As a wise man once said, "What happened to your urge to destroy?"

Your list of top ten songs to self-destroy to is a decoy, too...

Fosca "Confused and Proud" [taken from the 2008 album The Painted Side of the Rocket on But Is It Art? Records - order the album here!]



Sorry I've been just as lax with updating this thing as ever. Still, to make up for it here's a review of a rather splended new album by Fosca, which you should all check out. Like...right now.

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There's a school of literary criticism which claims that a work of art is best interpreted without taking into account any biographical or canonical information whatsoever about its creator. This school of criticism has obviously never encountered Dickon Edwards. A self-confesed "dysfunctional dandy", his resumé since 1995 includes a brief stint in indiepop legends Spearmint, Romo pioneers Orlando (whose album Passive Soul remains an essential, if slightly embarrassing, addition to any Britpop fan's collection...if you can seek it out), as well as the official title of The First Blogger On The Internet Ever. Impressive stuff. His latest album with current band Fosca – their third in eight years – sees the band moving in far more openly pop territory than ever before, while Edwards continues to prove himself as someone for whom "being himself" is less a state of mind than a career path.

The album kicks off with the misanthropic Howard Devoto-isms of 'I’ve Agreed To Something I Shouldn’t Have', previously released on How Does It Feel To Be Loved's superlative The Kids at the Club compilation, and immediately shows off Fosca's unique brand of hyper-literate fop pop. 'It Only Matters to Those to Whom it Matters' ups the cutesy ante somewhat, with a singsong melody, barbed lyrics – "You always carry a book – not as something to read, but somewhere else to look..." – and the inevitable handclaps, that make it one of the catchiest cuts on the record. Still, that’s nothing compared with 'We See the World as Our Stunt Doubles', one of the best things Edwards has ever written; it sounds like Mansun rewriting a Bond theme – all sinister strings, chiming guitars and ringing glockenspiel – and ends with one of the greatest lines Morrissey never put his name to ("Why bother, why bother when life is elsewhere?").

The Painted Side of the Rocket is rife with extremely quotable bon mots, the best of which come from 'Kim', a curious tale of an obsessive pop fan who goes in search of his heroes, only to be confronted by "a churlish chap...who fronted some band in the mid 1990s" (a dig at Edwards' former Orlando cohort Tim Chipping, perhaps? - EDIT: apparently not.) and a journalist who claims to be a virgin "if alcoholic sex doesn’t count". It's the most relaxed cut on the album, and certainly one of the most lyrically interesting things in the already-erudite Fosca oeuvre.

The album's highlight comes with the dreamy 'Confused And Proud', a reworked version of a track originally released eight years ago as the b-side to the band's first single; an open letter to those unsure of their sexual identity ("If we held a protest demonstration," Edwards croons, "we’d all march off in different directions"), it sounds like Pet Shop Boys rewriting Pavement’s "Here"; Indeed, that song's opening lines – "I was dressed for success/But success, it never comes/And I'm the only one who laughs..." – seem as good a summary of Edwards' career as any. Far more ethereal than the original, its constant state of sonic flux perfectly suits the uncertainty of its subject matter, while its lyrics remain some of the most affecting and heartfelt that Edwards ever penned. The track is a masterpiece of bedroom balladry, the likes of which have been unheard since The Field Mice, and five of the finest minutes of music you’re likely to hear all year.

A couple of tracks seem to take the Fosca template somewhat by numbers , while Rachel Stevenson's sole lead vocal on the album, on the Kate Dornan-penned 'Evening Dress at 3pm' provides a little bit of light relief (especially following 'Confused...'), much like Hilarie Sidney's tracks with The Apples in Stereo. Still, by the end of 'Come Down From the Cross (Someone Else Needs the Wood)' – what a title! – you're left with few urges greater than to press play again and reemerse yourself into the psyche of one of England's greatest eccentrics, who just happens to have written one of the best pop albums of 2008. No need to be confused anymore, Dickon. Just proud. (8.5/10)

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So yes, if you know what's good for you, order this album quick march!

I used to be down with the faithful, man - now I'm hanging with the doubting Thomases...

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds "Accidents Will Happen" [b-side from Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! single]


Yet another Nick Cave-related post, I'm afraid. Thanks to the uni paper, I've recently acquired a copy of the man and his Seeds' new album Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! I'm terrified witless by all the blurb on the back of the sleeve of the promo (words to the effect of "You must not lend a copy of this album to anyone, you must not play this album to anyone named Frances, you must not play this album on Guy Fawkes' night or listen to it while wearing a beefeater's hat, and YOU DEFINITELY MUST NOT PUT IT ONTO THE INTERNET"), so rather than make Mute Records hate me, I'm going to upload the b-side to Mr Cave's latest single for your listening pleasure instead. It could well be another showcase for his limited guitar skills, and the whole track's a pretty light-hearted affair, bordering on the countryish. Still, it would have found a rather loving home on the album, but who am I to argue with a 'tache like that?

Anyway, to tide you all over until the album itself drops (March 5th, UK-dwellers), here's my review of the LP, written (as I said previously) for the Leeds Student paper with a pretty compact limit of 500 words...

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NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" (Mute)

In 1989, the NME gathered three great elder statesmen of what was then called indie – The Fall's Mark E Smith, Shane MacGowan and Nick Cave – for a drink or twenty. Nearly as many years on, Smith continues to be "always different, always the same", while MacGowan is tragically wheeled out every Christmas like a ramshackle pantomime horse on its last legs. Only Nick Cave has, since then, written almost all of his best work, continuing to at least try to forge out a new path with each album with absolutely no regard to relevance to the world around him. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is his fourteenth album with the ever-faithful Bad Seeds behind him, and his first since last year's brutal Grinderman project, and finds him sounding far more bloodthirsty than his fifty years should allow.

The title track shows The Horrors exactly how it's done, welding a Nuggets-style organ riff to shards of visceral guitar noise, while Cave waxes lyrical about what would happen if Lazarus was reborn in New York City in the 70s. As you do. Conversely, tracks like "Hold On To Yourself" and the droning "Night of the Lotus Eaters" see the band at their atmospheric best, evoking the deserts of their native Australia for the first time in years. Meanwhile, "Lie Down Here (and Be My Girl)" and "Albert Goes West" show off the kind of noisy pop that Cave has perfected over his thirty(!) years in the game.

"We Call Upon the Author" is a self-mocking ode to those who look to literature for the answers to life, the universe and everything. Clearly the epitome of the album's quest for "the haemorrhaging of words and ideas", Cave words are practically epileptic here, referencing writers left, right and centre ("Bukowski was a jerk! Berryman was best!"), and even stopping the song dead in its tracks to welcome some guy named Doug to the festivities. No, really. Meanwhile, if The Bad Seeds sounded hungry anywhere else on the album, they sound fucking ravenous here; inexplicable noises appear at every turn, while the tongue in cheek backing vocals only add to the gruesome fun. Potential career highlight, much?

"More News From Nowhere" brings the album to a serene close, drifting through a beautiful chord progression, with more disembodied backing vocals from the Bad Seeds. while seemingly surveying Cave's entire career through a series of spooky characters, from the ghosts of Deanna and the Cyclops to a thinly-veiled reference to one-time beau PJ Harvey. In the album's press release, Nick Cave states that "I want to make as many records as I possibly can", but it does seem like "More News..." could have been an ideal place to stop. Still, as a whole, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is far from perfect (taxi for "Moonland"), and comes across more like a signpost towards yet another phase of his ever-evolving career; if that does indeed turn out to be the case, bring on album number fifteen. Keep digging, Nick. Keep digging.

7/10

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Hope you enjoyed that, and look out for more frequent posts over the coming months. Honest, guv.

Johnny Cash died today, and you say "It's not like Elvis though, is it?"...

The Wave Pictures "Now You Are Pregnant"


I first heard about The Wave Pictures when I saw Darren Hayman play upstairs at a pub in Leeds late last year. Unlike the majority of those who hear them for the first time, I wasn't overly taken, and went downstairs to get a drink and some fresh air. If I'd stayed, I would have been subjected to the kind of jangly indiepop that I hold so dear, with a lyrical flair that tends to have me swooning by the PA system after the first witty couplet. Bully for me then, really.

Still, I couldn't shake the feeling like I needed to seek them out further, and picked up their debut Moshi Moshi 7" (their previous releases - and there are many - were mostly self-released affairs) on my last day back home in London. "We Dress Up Like Snowmen", billed as the main feature, most likely because it's a faster one, was a nice enough Modern Lovers-esque chugger, with some wonderfully nasal vocals and the odd funny line here and there ("I went to the movies...FOR THREE YEARS"). It was alright; passable stuff, but it didn't really encourage me to flip the vinyl over the examine the delights on the other side...

I'm glad I did though - "Now You Are Pregnant" is one of the most heartbreaking songs I missed out on last year. A countrified waltz-time ballad, it comes over like one of the best songs Hefner never wrote, with some exquisite wordplay thrown in for good measure ("Stacks and stacks of slacks and black platform shoes" in particular just rolls off the tongue), sung by a nasal, tone deaf Morrissey (and I mean that in the best possible way). There's a great deal of girl-based angst to be found here, but it falls on just the right side of the emo divide, and the whole thing ends with an extremely satisfying singalong that will irritate Johnny Cash fans the world over. In short, it's just plain gorgeous; a lush pop gem not to be missed.

The bell tower is ringing, and the moon, it is high...

Shane MacGowan - Lucy
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Lucy


Not content with coming up with instant classics of his own, Nick Cave, as proven by his superlative 1986 album Kicking Against The Pricks, is a master interpreter of songs. Shane MacGowan is similarly an extremely talented singer when it comes to other peoples' songs (witness "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" from the Rum, Sodomy & The Lash album), as well as his own. Get the two together for a single, and you've got one of the more interesting releases in either man's catalogue.

Rather than the a-side, the pair's fantastically kitsch cover of What A Wonderful World or Cave's competent rendition of the Pogues' classic "Rainy Night In Soho", my highlight has to be Shane's solo contribution, seemingly tucked away as an afterthought - a cover of "Lucy", another forgotten gem in the Nick Cave repertoire. MacGowan, a man who Amy Winehouse aspires to drink like, infuses any song he sings with a broken-hearted, whiskey-soaked charm that few singers can match. True, he doesn't hit all the notes (this cover in particular, from 1990, was recorded at the start of an extreme decline in his health and general well-being) but it's more the emotion he brings to the song than the technical acumen with which he sings it that impresses. Propped up (most likely in more ways than one) by the Bad Seeds, this may well be one of the last great performances MacGowan ever committed to wax.

By contrast, the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' version shows Cave in full crooner mode - much in the same way he sings "Rainy Night In Soho". "Lucy" was the final track on The Good Son, Cave's first album written and recorded entirely clean from heroin, which led to a glimpse at the more reflective side of Nick Cave that we know today. Not as widely regarded as established classics like "The Ship Song", the original version is more striking for its etherial bluesy outro, noticeably absent from MacGowan's cover (most likely because it was taken from a live recording, and unable to be reproduced quite so effectively). In that context, neither version could be called the definitive cut, but it's still interesting to compare the differences in performances between (as it were) the Songwriter and the Drunk.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Lucy can be found on The Good Son (Mute Records, 1990).
Shane MacGowan - Lucy can be found on Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' B-Sides And Rarities (2006)

All you ever wanna do is drink and watch TV...

The Weakerthans - Plea From A Cat Named Virtute


First off, apologies for not being as prolific with this blog as I would have hoped - returning to uni, and having to cope with revision and exams seems, at this point in time, slightly more important than telling people what to listen to. However, this is a track I've been meaning to thrust in peoples' general direction for some time, so best to get this done now, and then service will resume as normal sometime in the next week or so, hopefully.

To be honest, my knowledge of The Weakerthans is somewhat limited, other than the fact that they're Canadian, signed to Burning Heart (a subsidiary of Epitaph, the legendary punk label), and their lyricist, one John K Samson, is a genius. The band's 2003 album Reconstruction Site is a loose song cycle about a dying hospital patient, with some off-topic interludes inserted along the way. 'Plea from a Cat Named Virtute' is one such interlude; it's sung from the perspective of a cat belonging to a manic depressive. When I first heard the track, I was astounded by just how spot on it is - the track has Virtute looking at the way his owner leads his life. While the cat doesn't fully understand his owner's motives for his actions, he still gives him advice on how to get out of the rut he's in, including "opening up the house" and "inviting the tabby two doors down". Because quite frankly, we all know that even if cats could help out their owners, they'd still put priority on getting their leg over too.

Other than that, there's little else to say about the song, other than that there's a sequel to it on the band's latest album, last year's Reunion Tour, which sees Virtute explaining why he buggered off. It features the word "loamy", and quite frankly, that's reason enough to seek it out. If you're a fan of The Hold Steady or any other literate indie rock, with emphasis on the ROCK, The Weakerthans are definitely a band worth seeking out.