One Happy Island

I'd forgotten how much I like listening to One Happy Island. A Purpose of the Surface is a fantastically rambunctious album from start to end, but at the same time comes peppered with heartfelt and moving moments which give real life to the songs. Even after repeated listening I'm still surprised by the unexpected nature of parts of the album when they come on. The styles and tone are so varied that listening to the album all the way through several times really pays dividends. I'll have to try not to leave such a long time between listens in the future!

Allo Darlin', Perfection, Fortuna

Martha and Tender Trap have been on quite serious rotation over the last week or so, largely as a result of my having purchased both cds on Thursday at the previously mentioned Allo Darlin' gig. Which was spectacularly good and a huge amount of fun. Martha should be allowed to support everyone just so that all gigs can get off to an incredible start. Awesome pop punk (for want of a better term) without any of the generic flat spots which seem to plague so many otherwise interesting bands.

Tigercats still appear to be getting better and better every time I see them which is quite a feat when one considers how good they already are! Anyone who hasn't heard of them should have and everyone who has should see them live.

I'm still perpetually amazed by how perfect Allo Darlin' are. It is entirely impossible to not be drawn in to the world of their songs while watching them live. Even with slight amp issues (which I didn't really notice) the set was as flawless as always but also, somehow, completely different to the other times I've seen them. The band live seems to be so organic that a different crowd, venue and no doubt imperceptible changes between the individuals makes for an ever-changing feeling, and a good excuse for me to keep on seeing them! I just hope there'll be another London date announced before the end of the year...

Tender Trap clearly weren't playing at the gig (I believe they're playing on the 28th in London) but I did buy the album and have to say that so far it's pretty fantastic. 

It also has to be said that Fortuna Pop is a truly astounding label. Arguably the most consistently high quality releases around at the moment. I'd be surprised to be disappointed by anything bearing their mark.

Next Year

I suddenly realise that I'm at something of a loss as to what to do with myself now that Indietracks and End Of The Road have taken place and I've got to wait almost another year for them to come around again. And that apparent sense of loss doesn't even take into account the almost impossibly long wait before it's time to start thinking about earlybird tickets for the Oddbox Weekender, London Popfest and maybe even a day or two in Hyde Park. There quite certainly is, to me at least (obviously and perhaps unnecessarily I presume given that I am writing this) an essence which makes full camping type festivals, multi-day non camping sort of festivals, weekenders, alldayers a little extraordinary and almost always special. The opportunity to be entirely immersed in something that means so much to me might well have a baring on my feelings here. Just being somewhere (I suspect almost anywhere, I'm not sure that it matters although travelling a little can add something) with other people who clearly mostly feel the same way, and music playing constantly for whole days or longer has the ability to make me nothing but happy, and by extent makes me prone to sitting in a field / park / beer garden / terrace / campsite daydreaming about why life shouldn't be more like that particular pure moment much more often.
It would appear that the main reason for the specialness of these particular events to me is that they don't take place all that often. I would imagine that maybe after a much more regular year round bout of sort of festivalling some of the ignorable minor difficulties would begin to become exaggerated to such a point that they would ultimately detract from the otherwise perfection.
Not strictly sleeping for days at a time, expecting to see ten or so bands a day, watching films and attending workshops while also attempting to carry out full time jobs at the same time probably wouldn't work out tremendously successfully for most people after all!! Also, much more than three days would inevitably evolve any music event in to an entirely tiresome commune of some description which would in turn run the risk of ruining the music that I loved forever...
So for now it seems that I'll have to make do with really looking forward to individual gigs instead, which as it happens do seem to be back in full flow now that autumn is rapidly approaching. Allo Darlin', Tigercats & Martha later tonight immediately springs to mind partly due to the proximity, but mostly as a result of waiting for it to arrive since I bought my ticket what seems like a long long time ago. The same goes for the Lovely Eggs & Shrag together at the beginning of October which is certain to be a memorable night.
No doubt I'll stumble across plenty of new bands before next summer too, so will be getting excited about sort of mini festival season even more by the time it comes back. Then I'll be in my dream world all over again...at least some of the time.

End Of The Road

I spent last weekend having a thoroughly fantastic time at End Of The Road festival. From the moment I arrived on the Friday morning and beginning setting up my little tent in bright sunshine it was immediately obvious that a fairly special time was going to be had. The tent only deserves a mention at this juncture due to it appearing somewhat dwarfed by my immediate neighbours for the weekend. Sensible people, and particularly couples, appear to go for tents which one could nearly or actually stand up in and which have incorporated porches separate from the sleeping area. clearly this allows space to move around and store things. Mine, in contrast, is just about big enough to fit me, the contents of a rucksack emptied rather haphazardly (often while attempting to establish whether or not I remembered to pack a phone charger) as well as a surprising amount of wildlife (but that's really a different story!). However, the plus side of having used said little tent twice at festivals this year is that I now imagine that I must be some sort of authority on taking skinnyish jeans on and off in confined spaces without causing injury... No doubt I'll be in the same position next year!

Once inside the 'arena' proper a multitude of options made it possible for just about anyone to be kept entertained and amused at all times of day and night. The music was my main focus but even that wasn't just a case of having stages with bands on at set times. While a schedule of bands very much existed across four quite different stages, it quickly became apparent that many of the bands would also play unlisted after hours sets well in to the night for those who found themselves in the right place at the right time, or who had done a little detective work, or who had seen a band earlier who happened to comment that they might play again. The fact that waiting for a band, or even to see who would come and do a soundcheck in these situations regularly involved sitting on the floor with some sort of beverage in hand made the whole thing even more perfect as far as I'm concerned, as did wondering through woodland lit up with faery lights in the early hours while considering whether to head for a forest disco and instead stumbling upon an acoustic band with fifteen people sitting around watching. 

In common with a huge majority of indie gigs / events that I've been to everyone was spectacularly easy going and friendly which created an absolutely ideal atmosphere throughout. 

Even with seeing almost as many bands as possible I did also manage to watch a couple of films in the awesome cinema setup, peruse some very interesting and different shops and eat a lot of pretty great food. 

Frankly the lineup across the Friday, Saturday and Sunday was nothing short of spectacular, with plenty of bands that I have been very keen to see, others which I knew although not that well and plenty of opportunity to check out stuff which I hadn't heard of at all. I must say that the excellently put together programme was a very handy thing to pick up as it contained extensive information on everything available throughout the festival as well as a short description of every band and artist playing. Extremely handy when attempting to decide between two bands on at the same time!

So many great memories; The ramblingly entertaining chat and really strong songs of Roy Harper, Patti Smith just being Patti Smith, the startling jazz funk odyssey that is Step Kids (who would guess that the new track was going to be 11 minutes long!!), noisy French post punk at 1pm from Savages, the awesome French pop of Concrete Knives, the entirely beautiful sound and slightly disturbing travel stories of Mountain Man, Dirty Beaches being even better than I had hoped even if the power did give up half way through their set, Porcelain Raft's dreamy electro pop, Outfit playing unexpectedly funky semi electronic pop while looking extremely sharp and serious!!

My immediate overall highlight however was Jeffrey Lewis & the Junkyard, who played two entirely different and utterly spectacular sets covering everything that I could possibly have wanted, including a short lecture on the history of punk, a musical comic book, and a set of songs that are even better live than recorded (which is quite something as they are very good recorded). If possible I actually like the music even more now than I did before the weekend.

Special mention also needs to go to Horse thief who I had never heard of before and who are now one of my favourite bands of the year. A really powerful americana type band who have a spectacular sound and clearly enjoy what they are doing.

I'm sure that I'll remember more which I meant to mention, but that can feature in a slightly less rambling post in the future.

For now, everyone listen to more indie anything...