A Day Out At Indietracks

I've long wanted to visit Indietracks Festival, a small and family-friendly affair specialising in Indiepop music which takes place every summer in the Derbyshire Dales. For the music, yes, but more so for the lure of the setting: at the Midlands Railway Centre, on a site filled with vintage trains. So when fellow Midlands blogger Laura, of Make Do & Mend, got in touch with me to ask if I'd like to be her plus one, I jumped at the chance.

Arriving at Butterley Station, a beautifully restored building just outside the village, we jumped on a steam train and grabbed our seats for the short journey to the festival site.

After torrential rain the previous day, we were lucky to be met by blue skies, dry ground and lots of friendly people. Indietracks is such a relaxed and chilled out festival, with everything within an easy 5 minute walk of the entrance and a crowd that skews slightly older: 30-somethings rather than cavorting teens, in the main, with lots of families.

As you'd expect from a festival focusing largely on music from DIY scenes - indiepop, noisepop, punk - the merch tent was a delight, filled with vinyl, charmingly hand-lettered t-shirts and tote bags, and a smattering of zines. The food offering was good, too, and with a number of bars across the site (including one in a static train carriage) you wouldn't go thirsty.

We ended up missing not one but two performances on the steam train, as the carriage was too crowded, but did manage to squeeze in to see London-based punk band Flemmings on the Church Stage (which, as the name suggests, is in an actual church). Colleen Green was a big draw on the Main Stage, and we chowed down on tasty pizza as we watched. My pick of the day, though, were grrrl band Feature: seeing three powerful, cool women rock out on stage is what festivals are all about.

We left to drive home before headliners Wave Pictures and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, which I was sad about but - a real sign of age here - my bed beckoned. But my taste of Indietracks has left me wanting more: I'll definitely be back next year.

(Yes, I took a photograph of the loo sign because INDOOR TOILETS! At a festival!)

Music Monday: Lucy Rose

You know how sometimes, you can hear a record and feel quite "meh" about it, and then you see the band play live and they make you fall in love with them?  That is totally what happened to me with Lucy Rose.  I'd heard her singles Lines and Bikes quite a bit on Radio 1 and 6 Music and found them pleasant but forgettable, but I thought she might still be worth a watch at Summer Sundae last month.  How right I was!  

She and her band all seemed so into the music they were playing, and between them they turned sweet folky indie pop into big tunes that rocked.  I love it when a band or artist sounds completely different live than they do on record, and this is definitely the case with Lucy Rose (although seeing her play live has made me really appreciate the loveliness of her recorded music, too).  She is touring the UK this autumn (and playing Leicester!  Anyone wanna come with me?) and I would heartily recommend going to see her. 

Last week of freedom

I may be entering the last week of my summer holidays (sob!) but it promises to be an action-packed one.  I am very much looking forward to...

... going to Summer Sundae festival tomorow.  Not the best line-up this year (although I cannot wait to see Micachu & The Shapes again), but it's always nice to have a festival up the road;
... popping into the Handmade in Leicestershire fair at Belgrave Hall before Summer Sundae;
... cycling in Derbyshire on Sunday with my brother;
... cocktails with the girls on a 'school' night;
... seeing my niece and giving her the lovely handmade doll I bought her in South Africa;
... visiting Salford Zine Library at it's new home;
... watching the Manchester Pride parade next weekend;
... the Plus Size Clothes swap in Leeds next Sunday.
... seeing Grizzly Bear in Nottingham.

Music Monday: Basement Jaxx

I'm having great fun compiling a very long and varied playlist for Friday's party.  There are a lot of people coming from work, and I'm somewhat worried that my rather niche music tastes will confuse them!  So far, the playlist goes roughly like this:

First hour = my favourite obscure indie songs, cos I'll be the only one there to hear them;

Second hour = Northern Soul, dance and hip hop, to get the party started;

Third hour = indie dancefloor hits: Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys and The Libertines all feature heavily;

Fourth hour = 90s classics: Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Bluetones and the like, because by then everyone will be drunk and nostalgic.

In that second hour, I've had to stop myself including every Basement Jaxx song ever recorded.  I love them!  From their first album in 1999 (I think?) to their recent records, I adore everything they've released.  You just can't listen to Basement Jaxx and feel unhappy; at a very wet V Festival a few years back, they got a field full of cold and miserable people dancing away and grinning like loons, so they are guaranteed to add to the party atmosphere on Friday.  BUT I have a dilemma: which track to include?  My choices are the three videos below: Jump 'n' Shout, Romeo, or Cish Cash.  Which one would make your playlist?

Looking forward, not down

I'm finding things tough at the moment.  Rather than feeling excited about moving to the States, I'm just feeling stressed.  The seemingly endless amount of forms I have to fill in to get my visa... the long list of jobs I need to get done, both at school and at home, before I leave... the worry that things might not work out and it could all fall through... the worry that it will all work out and I'll actually have to get on the plane come July!  I know it's churlish to complain, when I worked so hard to get to this point, but I'm definitely in need of happy thoughts and things to look forward to.  And luckily, there is plenty to be cheerful about, with my weekend set to get off to a good start this evening as I'm off to Birmingham to see Alabama Shakes. 

I'm also looking forward to... 
spending tomorrow afternoon at The Lansdowne, an awesome pub in Leicester which has become a home-from-home recently, for a clothes swap, lunch with mates, and much daytime drinking (the best kind);

upcoming visits... from my dad & brother on Sunday, and my mum next weekend;

seeing the peerless Karima Francis on Wednesday;

a BBQ with friends (if this rain ever stops, anyway);

spending the first weekend of June at Field Day festival in Hackney.  Beirut, Metronomy, Jeffrey Lewis, Blood Orange... oh my.

Music Monday: Dev Hynes

Not just one band and one video this week, instead three bands with one man linking them all: the mighty Devonte Hynes.  "Who he?" I hear you ask.  First appearing on the UK music scene as one of thrash/electronica/indie band Test Icicles, Dev then went on to a solo project influenced by folk and country under the Lightspeed Champion moniker, and more recently has been recording and performing electronica as Blood Orange.  He is also rather beautiful and in possession of a good line of hats. 

SO hard to choose just one Lightspeed Champion track.  His first album, Falling Off The Lavender Bridge, is one of my favourite of the last decade and packed with lovely songs.  Midnight Surprise is incredible, with a great steel guitar intro and twisted lyrics like, "wake up and smell the semen," but at almost 10 minutes long like I felt it might not be the ideal introduction to Dev.  In the end I went for Dry Lips, which is one of those songs that grabs me by the guts and twists.  In a good way.  For a miserable track about heartbreak ("tell her/I give up/He's won/And I have lost all") I find it really uplifting, and it will forever remind me of the moment it came onto my iPod as I was walking across the Millenium bridge in London one windy summer's day and gave me one of those perfect, movie moments where you feel like you have a soundtrack to your life.

Circle Square Triangle by Test Icicles: best friend to all indie disco DJs for the way it mixes perfectly with The Rapture's House Of Jealous Lovers, and a massive tune to boot.  Makes me want to leap around the dancefloor like I'm 18 instead of well into my 30s.

And finally Blood Orange, his newest project, and a video for Forget It that looks like it cost about 32p to make.  I love his vocals, not to mention the pretty guitar arpeggios just after he sings "I am not your saviour".   I am SO excited about seeing Blood Orange at Field Day festival in June.

Music Monday: Micachu

Bizarre, 1 minute long bursts of sound abound on Micachu's debut album Jewellery.  I saw her perform with her band, The Shapes, at Summer Sundae festival a few years ago and was agog at the sheer brilliance of her songs, which are played on strange homemade instruments, empty bottles, and modified guitars.  This song, Golden Phone, is one of the longer and more accessibly 'traditional' songs on the album, which is well worth a listen if you like experimental tunes with a strong pop sensibility.

Music Monday

Jeffrey Lewis is proof positive that, if at first you don't succeed (in this case, succeed to like a band), then try again.  When I saw him play with his band, The Junkyard, at Summer Sundae festival in 2008 I was underwhelmed to say the least.  I didn't enjoy the music, nor understand the relevance of his illustrations (which were projected onto a screen behind the stage).  When it came to the end of his set and a song called Creeping Brain, accompanied by a full-on animated film about, well, a creeping brain, I'd had enough of what I felt was self-indulgent, Brooklyn hipster shit.

Fast forward a year, and I'm sitting in the film tent at Latitude having dragged myself out of bed early to catch a special performance by Lightspeed Champion.  The audience waits, and waits... and finally an annoucement comes on that they (he?) are not going to make it and replacing them (him?) is none other than Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard.  Well, it was raining outside and I was somewhat hungover, so despite hating them at Summer Sundae I stayed put.  And was I ever glad I did.  Something in their performance just clicked for me.  It might have been their cover of Nirvana's Sifting illustrated with cartoons that this time I found delightfully whimsical and amusing instead of contrived and confusing.  It might have been the more accessible songs from his then-new album, Em Are I, such as Roll Bus Roll and Slogans, which have since become favourites of mine.  Or it might have been his, and brother Jack's (the bassist in The Junkyard), engaging banter with the audience.  Whatever it was, I was converted and have since seen him live a couple more times. 

So today, in honour of the silly little dance I did when I discovered that not only is Jeff touring the UK later in the year but coming to Leicester too (no-one comes to Leicester!), Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard are my Music Monday choice.  I've gone for the video for To Be Objectified, a rather lovely little acoustic song from the last album that has the most fantastic video, drawn and directed by Jeffrey Lewis himself.  He is truly a man of many talents, and I kick myself for not seeing it sooner.

Karima Francis @ The Glee Club, Birmingham 30th September 2011

In July 2007 I was at the Latitude festival in Suffolk and happened upon a singer called Karima Francis at the In The Woods stage which, as the name suggests, is a small stage in a clearing in the middle of the woods.  The entire tent was silent, focused on this incredible-looking musician playing acoustic guitar and singing with a voice the size of which belied her tiny frame.  I only saw her final song, but it was nevertheless the highlight of my entire festival.  Fast forward 18 months and Francis released her debut album, The Author, appeared on Jools Holland, and promptly disappeared off the face of the earth due to mysterious "health issues".

Well, two years later and Karima Francis has "come back from the dead", in her words, been back in the studio recording a new album (with PJ Harvey producer Flood, no less) and just embarked on a tour of the UK.  Tonight she begins with a couple of new tracks, including the lovely Remedy (which is to be the title track of the next album) and quickly demonstrates that a couple of years away from music have done nothing to dull her passion nor alter her remarkable voice.

And what a voice it is: on The Author she effortlessly moves across almost two scales within the space of one word and there is a richness to her singing that gives texture and depth to songs which might otherwise be mere 'radio friendly unit shifters'.  Yet for all the strength of Francis' voice, there's a fragility about her that makes you want to give her a cuddle.  Her query, "Are you not bored yet?" raises chuckles the first time, but becomes rather plaintive when asked again.  Happily the rest of her between-song chat is more confident (and extremely funny: a rumination on Blackpool rock littered with innuendo being a highlight) although at times she seems overwhelmed by the enthusiastic audience response, which borders on the adoring.

Each song is simple, performed on acoustic guitar, and her lyrics deal with love and, more often, the loss of love.  Nothing terribly earth-shattering there, but the frankness of her words and the vulnerability in her voice makes the songs sound terribly intimate.  They take the listener into the heart of the relationship and even into the bed, as in gig closer Stay, when she sings "asleep on my chest you lay," with such longing that it rises above cliche to become something far more moving and special.

Check out her Facebook page for upcoming gigs and to take a listen.

Festival fever

Picture via http://www.weheartit.com/

I love festivals. I come alive in the summer and feel most like myself when wearing wellies and supping cider in a damp field. And this time of year is usually an exciting one for the festival fan, as line-ups are announced and tickets go on sale.

But this year I am spending my summer travelling across the USA and have had to give up my usual round of festivals (Latitude and Summer Sundae, with Leeds thrown in for good measure some years), which makes the announcements a painful process as I keep my fingers crossed that no-one I really love is playing.

So far, I'm only really upset about Suede headlining Latitude. As a good 90s indie chick I was passionate about Suede at one time. I don't listen to them all that much nowdays (although Heroine coming up on shuffle on my iPod the other day got me bouncing around the house and singing along) but the combination of them and Latitude's fantastic main stage will be amazing.

My usual festival buddies are also on their travels this summer: Ruth to China, Abby to South America and Richard to the States with me. I know we don't deserve any sympathy, but I am going to miss my usual summer pastime immensely.