It was only a matter of time before Amelia’s Magazine and Truck Festival became the firmest of friends. With circles overlapping so far and wide, we might as well be kith and kin, our relationship was cemented and documented by Amelia at the Climate Camp gathering in Glastonbury (understand that Truck is kind of a generic description – the creators of Truck – the brothers Joe and Robin Bennett also play in the utterly fab Danny and The Champions Of The World) in a memorable performance where Joe played part of the gig on his back. ‘Cause that’s how he rolls.

Photographs by Sabrina Morrison

Pulled Apart By Horses perform. Photograph by Caitlin Mogridge

Truck is known for being somewhat of an anomaly; it’s a thoroughly strange hybrid of a bucolic Oxfordshire village fete, complete with a rotary club flipping burgers, a vicar serving ale and – no village fete is complete without this quintessentially English phenomena – cross dressers behind the bar, all of which serve as the surroundings to a musical line-up that is so hip, cutting edge and au courant that it makes SXSW look tame. The place was teeming with journo’s from every major publication, all of whom professed a long standing love for Truck. I had pitched up with a little crew of fellow Amelia’s Magazine colleagues and friends of mine from the band Amber States. By the time we arrived at 1pm on Saturday afternoon, the weather was glorious, the sun beating down on the 5,000 revelers who had already assumed the position of the day; lying flat on their backs (clearly taking a cue from the founder Joe). We quickly discovered that the festival was pleasingly manageable in size. Taking up no more that roughly three fields, the onus was on being able to bounce (I mean amble) from one stage to the next with the minimum of fuss.

Is Tropical in session. Photograph by Sabrina Morrison

So we quickly settled into a routine. Fuel up with a drink, and go find some music. From an extremely horizontal position I watched ex- Beta Band singer Steve Mason do a rousing Beta Band-esque set, followed by Stornoway who actually got me standing up (high praise). Although at some point I realised that that the hottest spot at Truck was by far and away The Barn, which receives the accolade from me as being The Hottest Music Venue In The World Which Also Smells Of Manure. It seemed that the rest of the festival agreed with me, and due to it’s cult like status, and the fact that the bands playing inside were off the charts, there was a constant queue to get into this converted cowshed. But I would stand in line all over again just to see this man play again.

Darwin Deez auditions for So You Think You Can Dance. Photographs by Sabrina Morrison

Mr Darwin Deez, New York hipster, sporter of the finest curls in the contemporary music scene, and creator of mid-song dance routines that even have their own narrative. My favourite bit was the dance that finished Radar Detector where his band mates engaged in what can only be described as a homage to West Side Story and the unfortunate Darwin was pushed to the floor (don’t worry, it was all part of the routine) but heroically sprang back to complete the rest of the dance/mime show. Why don’t more bands do this?

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Mew headlining, photograph by Sabrina Morrison

The evening was given over to watch Mew headlining. I had high hopes about this Danish group because the previous week I had been fortunate to have a long chat with Sune from The Raveonettes and he was in raptures over them. Truthfully, they were technically very impressive, but I wasn’t hooked. I think I was spoilt by watching smaller bands whilst scraping hay off of my converse in the cow shed, so this stadium-esque performance left me a little cold. Actually, I think I may have just simply been cold – it was 11pm by this point and the temperature had dropped. I wandered off to find my friends playing table football in the techno tent and concluded this very pleasant evening by not scoring a goal. Story of my life!

I got to meet the strange Truck monster; he was a bit monosyllabic but gave good hugs.

The next day was given over to more of the same thing. Naturally some lazing around had to be done. (We are not lazing in this picture, we are trying to figure out how to play the game where you lift someone up using two fingers, we didn’t succeed.)

Amber States do a collective i-phone check to find out how it’s done. Test study remains rooted to the ground.

Blood Red Shoes perform. Great live set, but inbetween song banter needs be improved; “We love sharks!” yells Laura-Mary. Photo by Caitlin Mogridge

Los Campesinos! Photograph by Caitlin Mogridge

Teenage Fanclub close Truck 13. Photograph by Caitlin Mogridge

Everyone found a band that we had previously not heard off but now had to IMMEDIATELY rush off and buy their tracks. A friend of mine was delighted by A Silent Film, which reminded her a little of The National. I really enjoyed the synth pop of Miaoux Miaoux, Sabrina discovered the joys of Egyptian Hip Hop, another mate stuck to the front of the stage while Blood Red Shoes performed and we all had a bit of a rousing moment to Los Campesinos! and Teenage Fanclub. Personally, Sunday afternoon was all about Danny and the Champions of The World. I’m not just saying that because of the aforementioned connections but simply because they put on a blinding performance. Plus you never know who you are going to get when Danny plays; later he performed a set in the little acoustic tent to a full house of little kids and was joined by the lovely Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou. Everyone clapped along to the songs – one toddler in the front helpfully kept time with the aide of his drum sticks and to me, this summed up Truck entirely; the ethos is collective, without pretension, kid friendly and all about the music, even when the music consists of two acoustic guitars, no mics and a two year old with drum sticks. Thanks again to Truck, for reminding us that this is what life is about.

Danny and Trevor Moss perform
Photograph by Rishi Mullett-Sadones

With thanks to Sabrina Morrison, Caitlin Mogridge and Rishi Mullett-Sadones for the photos.

Wichita, the record label that has brought us Bloc Party, The Cribs, Los Campesinos! and Simian Mobile Disco (to name but a few) continued its 10th Anniversary celebrations at the Relentless™ Garage in sunny Highbury. As a special birthday treat, early arrivals received a gift bag full of delightful Wichita goodies, including a Simian Mobile Disco vinyl LP and the new album from Peter, Bjorn and John. The resultant hubbub and excited rustling of bags did little to detract from a nice opening set from Meg Baird, whose delicate fingerpicking and lush, hushed vocals set the tone for a great evening of folk.

Next on stage was the more vivacious Peggy Sue, who didn’t hesitate to show a dazzled crowd why their debut album Fossils and Other Phantoms was so critically acclaimed. Opening the set with the captivating, percussive ‘Watchman’, Rosa and Katy really were a surprise and a delight – consider me a convert. Their luxurious, soulful vocal harmonies were only outdone by their impressive instrumental dexterity, alternating effortlessly between guitar, percussion, ukulele and accordion. With Olly’s marching drums ably complemented by the violin and cello of Becca and Emma, the highlight of the set came in the form of a particularly stunning rendition of ‘Yo Mama’, its chirruping, Gallic accordion and bluesy lead riff laying a spirited backdrop to Katy and Rosa’s spectacular voices. As the girls finished their all-too-brief set with a modest thanks to Wichita and the crowd, the sheer volume of rapturous applause (particularly in such an intimate venue) was a real testament to the performance. You can’t help but get the impression these two have only good things on the horizon.

Illustration by Jill Patterson

Last up were headliners (and perennial Amelia’s Mag favourites First Aid Kit, each taking to the stage in stunning gold dresses – Klara’s marbled with purple paisley, Johanna’s with a magnificent Persian pattern flecked with deep reds and autumnal browns. As someone who had heard little of their music beyond their fantastic cover of Fleet Foxes’ ‘Tiger Mountain Peasant Song’ (Youtube it) and recent single ‘I Met Up With the King’, I was pleasantly surprised by their laid-back, distinctly acoustic folk-pop; mature, intricate lyrics and the sibling’s vocal harmonies – the combination of which results in a sound reminiscent of Tegan and Sara’s ‘So Jealous’ crossed with the aforementioned Foxes’ eponymous first album.

Despite coming off a little awkward at first, Johanna and Clara soon settled into a relaxed, warm-hearted banter with the crowd between songs as they made their way through debut album ‘The Big Black and The Blue’. It was settling in to be a perfectly pleasant – if unremarkable – set until, four or five songs in, Kara brazenly unplugged her guitar and the sisters emerged from behind the microphones and belted out a beautiful rendition of ‘Ghost Town’ to the muted room. The stripped down version of an already great song perfectly played to the intimate setting.

The spectacle didn’t stop there. Perhaps buoyed by the song’s thunderous reception, the girls then proceeded to hilariously produce four tickets to this weekend’s Latitude festival, before plucking four volunteering fans from the crowd for a heart-warming demonstration of the brave souls’ lyrical knowledge, with a pair of tickets going to the two winners. It certainly brought the evening to life, as the crowd – now buzzing with excitable chatter – cheered on their favourite contestant. And although you had to feel bad for the unlucky guy and gal who left the stage empty handed, it was impossible not to be charmed.

Closing off the set with the lovely lilting melodies of ‘I Met Up With The King’ was a perfect end to the evening (and no, I wasn’t biased by it being the only song I knew all the lyrics to). Emerging from the Garage and shuffling sleepy-eyed towards the Tube with a bag full of music treats, I couldn’t help but feel contented: beautiful music, memorable chatter and an irrepressible charm to the whole occasion – it perfectly summed up Wichita as a label. And the celebrations aren’t over; the likes of Los Campesinos! (a truly great live act), The Cribs and Johnny Foreigner are still to come later this week. On the basis of last night, it will be well worth a look.

Another year, another bank holiday at the start of the summer, and another edition of the Dot-to-Dot Festival, a sprawling mess of bands and audience occupying venues and bars in cities up and down the land. This year sees it spread from birthplace Nottingham and second city Bristol to Manchester, taking in three regional centres that, it could be argued, have long lacked massive centrally-located indie festivals to call their own and to ground their musical calendars.

Thanks to a snail-paced jam on the M1 we missed the first band of the day (Frontiers, in Rock City’s main hall) – instead, the day began for us in Rescue Rooms with the lads of The Cheek, who sadly failed to sparkle in the mood of the glorious sun twinkling down outside. Their name may bring to mind something skinny and sharp from the late 70s but the lead singer’s suit certainly didn’t. It looked like he’d borrowed it from his dad. Their poppy punk sound came across like a sort of watered-down Suede, which held my interest for all of ten minutes before I headed out for a wander.

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Trent SU, the second-largest of the venues at the festival, had what seemed to be the most appealing consistency in acts, even if it meant foregoing Blood Red Shoes and Wild Beasts (both bands having appeared at previous editions of the festival, however, and both bands were, inevitably, awesome – also, it illustrates just how frequently Dot-to-Dot manages to pick out the next big bands mere months before they break).

Small Black were gracing the stage as we arrived – hailing from Long Island, they’re something of a blog darling in corners of the web and I can completely see why. Their music is a very carefully crafted pop that bears a resemblance to geographical cousins like Beach Fossils and Memory Tapes, bands that specialise in a kind of laid-back, fuzzy sort of sound. It’s instantly unlike anything specific that you’ll have heard before, but equally, instantly recognisable. The four lads manage to balance melancholy, longing, joy and ecstasy in a way last seen regularly in the films of John Hughes.

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Upstairs in the bar, Islet were going through their usual routine of tearing up the stage. I’ve been an ardent fan of theirs since their lead singer screamed in my face back in March when they supported Los Campesinos! at the Koko in Camden – their bizarre mélange music, all drum circles and hollering and ambient noise and funk grooves and… oh, why bother with a description when I can offer a demonstration:

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Back downstairs, and Washed Out (or, rather, New York resident Ernest Green) has taken to the stage with his tripped-out ambient house and his friends (and geographic neighbours) in Small Black join him, adding extra layers to his sound. The clash with Blood Red Shoes appeared to have left the audience numbers a touch low, but nobody there regretted their decision – there’s something of the madchester in Washed Out’s sound, like a chilled-out evening at the Haçienda (or at least how that would seem in my mind). A case could also be made for saying it sounds like Chicago house played on a tape player with low battery. The results, regardless, are wonderful.

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The second of my 50-50 choices then arrived, as Liars won out over Wild Beasts – but can you blame me? The American art-punk band has doggedly refused to stick to any kind of consistent style, with their latest release, Sisterworld, yet another masterful addition to their discography. Lead singer Angus Andrews cuts a demented figure on stage, strutting and preening like a preaching Mick Jagger – his voice, the drawl of a doorstep drunk at 4am, smitten with violence, joyfully spitting the lyrics to ‘Scissor’ like some kind of mental declaration of war. Proper, proper good.

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It is then, unfortunately, something of a timetabling error to follow this violent display with Beach House, a delicate washed-out band that would have sat much more comfortably next to, well, Washed Out. The audience, still somewhat full of bloodlust, is quickly bored and begins to dissipate, which is a terrible shame considering just how brilliant Victoria Legrand and Alex Scully’s sultry Kate-Bush-meets-a-shoegaze dreamscapes are.

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I’ve written at length about how much I love Los Campesinos!, so for some of you it will be no surprise that I’m going to say that their set headlining at Trent SU was something of a triumph. I’m not being biased here, though, in all honesty – this really was a magnificent performance. The crowd, who all day had looked a little bit sun-frazzled and unable to conjure up much more than the occasional whoop (even during Liars there were visible signs of struggle during the rounds of applause), suddenly sparked into life. Jumping! Singing along! Gareth couldn’t have looked happier, and his usually awful singing was merely average. A definite peak for the day.

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Had to take a quick break here, because at this point it had been something like 8 hours of standing up with neither break nor sustenance – I grabbed some a sandwich in the still-open Lee Rosy’s Tea Room, a wonderful establishment that’s at the heart of Nottingham’s alternative music and arts scene. Somewhat a shame, then, that this year it isn’t hosting the acoustic acts – Primavera Sound, held on the same weekend, appears to have snapped up many of the bands and artists who usually make it here, leaving us with a smaller-than-usual Dot-to-Dot. It is inescapable, too, to note that the festival is far from sold out. Usually leaving a venue for another is something of a risk – in previous years it has been impossible to see the headliners on any stage without waiting through several hours’ worth of bands beforehand. The breathing space is a welcome change, but the lack of people inevitably means that the festival feels less like a party.

Yuck took to the stage of the Bodega after midnight, looking every bit like they’d been enjoying the £3 pints of 7% cider in the bar downstairs for the past few hours. Already something of a convert to their cause, having seen them several times around London over the past few months, I’d been waxing lyrical to friends all day about their brand of borrowed-from-the-90s slacker rock. Their stage banter was a little dry, and their response to a call from an audience member for their closest thing to a hit, ‘Georgia’, was met with a deliberate omission of the song from the setlist, meaning that this was not exactly their most friendly appearance, but nevertheless it proved a decent gig.

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Dot-to-Dot ends with Stealth putting on the last of the shows as the night turns slowly into early morning, and after fighting my way inside for the end of Casiokids’ brittle dance set I realised that my day (and my feet) were done. Another excellent bank holiday weekend festival – despite the smaller crowds and slightly smaller lineup, it’s still proving itself one of the most important festivals in the regions that host it, and it also provides an excellent way of kick-starting the festival season.

Turning our attention to the smaller independent festivals, we are thrilled to be featuring Truck, an event with an impeccable reputation and massive good will behind it. There are so many things that we like about Truck, we could practically list its attributes alphabetically. But for those who are scratching their heads in befuddlement, and wondering who and what this curiously monikered event is, the most important fact to learn about Truck is that it has the ethos and sensibility of a village fete and combines this with a cutting edge musical policy to create a unique and highly personalised festival that is head and shoulders above many of its contemporaries.

Truck has a much deserved reputation of having an eagle eye for upcoming talent. In recent years, bands such as Foals, Young Knives, Fuck Buttons, Get Cape… Wild Beasts and Fanfarlo have all graced the stages (which are used as cowsheds for the rest of the year – it’s on the site of a working farm), at a time when they were still fresh faced to the music scene. Headlining this year are bands that can easily be described, as NME did, as “awesome”. The roster includes Teenage Fanclub, Mew, Mercury Rev Clearlight Ensemble, Los Campesinos!, Chapel Club, Good Shoes and Summer Camp (a full, and yet to be completed line-up is featured on Trucks website).

Situated deep in the Oxfordshire countryside, Truck is proud to be one of the UK’s longest standing independent small festivals. The more you discover about Truck, the more you realise that it is fiercely independent in all aspects. From the get go (it was formed in 1998), Truck has rejected corporate sponsorship; instead allowing its food and ale stalls – all locally produced of course – to be run by locals rather than brands (and in the case if the ice cream stall, run by the local vicar). Truck lives by a strong charitable ethos; rather than sitting on their profits, they funnel money made at the festival back into local and national causes. Last year for example, £50,000 was raised for charity. The people behind Truck are quite possibly the busiest of bees in Oxford; as well as community projects in the city, they also run Wood, described as “Trucks folkier/younger, cleaner, greener and mysteriously beardier brother”. While Truck may be less hirsute, it certainly has the travellers bug, and recently came to New York State in the shape of Truck America, held in the mountainous Catskills region. Those who would like to attend a closer to home Truck can do so buy booking tickets through their ticket providers, Gigantic and Brown Paper Tickets, one of the first fair trade ticketing agencies in the UK which operates in a not-just-for-profit fashion. For the first time this year, there will be Friday night festivities (the music starts on Saturday at 12pm and finishes Sunday at 10pm), so campers are now welcome to pitch up from Friday, 4pm onwards. This perfectly sized, magic brew of a festival has all the key ingredients for a glorious weekend, and time is running out to get your tickets before it sells out, so hurry up and book yourself a spot!

Festival Details:
Truck Festival July 23 -25th
Ticket Prices
Adult (18+) Weekend -  £80
Friday – £15 adv/£20 on the day
Teen (13-17) Weekend – £60
Friday – £15 adv/£20 on the day
Minor (0-12) Weekend – Free
Friday – Free
Age Restrictions
Children age 14 and under must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Weekend tickets include access to the festival from 9am Saturday, and include 2 nights camping (saturday & sunday).

Now in its sixth year, the annual Dot-to-Dot Festival has evolved from a small one-day festival similar to London’s Camden Crawl into a sprawling beast that takes over three British cities at the end of every May. Headlined this year by the Mystery Jets and Ellie Goulding, it’s become something of a rite of passage for many bands trying to break the UK’s music scene – charting the rise up and fall down the lineups from year to year is as good a barometer as any for assessing the success of recent indie bands, and many a time I’ve seen a group go from playing an empty venue at the festival only to come back to the same venue a month later for the same band’s first headlining tour and, on the back of hype, the place will be bulging. In many ways it’s similar to festivals like Brighton’s Great Escape, which showcase new bands as much as put on ones that have existing fanbases.

The festival is the pet project of DHP, the long-established gig promoter from Nottingham. As well as promoting tours they found themselves, in the early years of the last decade, in the position of owning all of the city’s main live music venues (meaning, in order of size from smallest to biggest, the Bodega, Rescue Rooms, Stealth, and the venerable Rock City). Using their monopoly they established the first Dot-to-Dot in 2005, with the event, staged across all their venues plus the large Students’ Union of Nottingham Trent University, proving a massive success with headliners like Ladytron and Radio 4. The size and prestige of the festival rapidly expanded – the next year saw headlining sets from British Sea Power and Buck 65 (notably, 2008’s headliner Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. was present at the very bottom of the lineup), and an increase in capacity.

After DHP purchased Bristol’s Thekla venue they expanded the festival to the city in 2007, with the entire festival taking place on one day and then shifting over to the other city on the next. 2008 had the festival spread out over the whole weekend, with the lineups swapping between the cities over the weekend. Whilst widely seen as a huge success by attendees (it’s got something of a legendary reputation amongst people lucky enough to have been there, that year), the sheer size and ambition of the thing meant that DHP had to drop the idea for 2009, returning to two cities with one day each. This year’s innovation, however, sees the festival spread out to three cities with one day each, with Manchester joining the fun. Will it cause organisational meltdown? Born Ruffians‘ 2009 set was cut short by their getting stuck on the motorway on the way back from Bristol, and I know they weren’t the only ones, but knowing that not every band is guaranteed to show up somehow makes the thing more interesting, not less.

Last year’s lineup was heavily focused on the burgeoning no-wave revival (shitgaze, if you will), with bands like Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts gathering most of the crowds. This year’ selection avoids any such thematic bunching – Los Campesinos! take their place on the posters alongside Beach House, whilst there’s also a rare chance to catch the legendary Liars live.

Top tips for smaller bands to look out for, though: O.Children (whom we interviewed not long ago), Yuck (whom I saw live and thought were AWESOME), Team Ghost (like M83, but more so), Washed Out, and Goldheart Assembly. It’s never failed to be fun day in the sun (or rain), and chances are you’ll be returning to the same venues later in the year to see some of the same bands play to much larger audiences once everyone else catches up.

Sparky Deathcap is a twenty-something musician and artist from Cheshire, whose wry tales of love and loss are in turns hilarious and heartwrenching. You may have caught him recently supporting the likes of Los Campesinos! and Hot Club de Paris.

On songs like “Berlin Syndrome”, guitars and handclaps loop and whirl around lyrics like, “Since then you just make cameos when I’m asleep/you’re the William Shatner of this elite genre of women that I have loved and lost,” creating a lo-fi landscape one that is simultaneously bleak and full of warmth. At times the songs are reminiscent of early Smog, when Bill Callahan wrote songs like he had a sense of humour and sometimes felt a bit awkward. As well as the recent Tear Jerky EP (available here) he maintains a brilliant cartoon blog at his website.

It’s a busy year for Sparky, off on a European tour as we speak, but I managed to send a few emails back and forth about comic books, rock operas and the Wonder Years.

So, you’re on tour with Los Campesinos! right now, how’s that going?

It has been really fun, it’s an absolute privilege to tour with my friends Los Campesinos! and the supports, Islet and Swanton Bombs, are two outrageously good bands. It was my birthday the other day coinciding with our Aberdeen date and the crowd sang happy birthday to me which was a really touching moment.

Sparky Deathcap presumably isn’t your real name – is it a sort of onstage personal that allows you to unleash your inner diva, like Beyonce Knowles’ Sasha Fierce?

I originally chose it something like 5 years ago when I started doing the one man and a guitar thing live because I felt like it would be easier to play if I could invent a persona. Now, however, there isn’t really a great separation between Sparky Deathcap and me, except for when I remember some of the crap, depressing gigs I used to do and I think about younger Sparky as this sort of beleaguered little brother or something and how excited he’d be by the exciting things I’m getting to do at the moment. Crikey, my mind is like Fellini directing The Wonder Years. Edited by Lassie.

When you play live you have drawings projected behind you, do you think you might ever make a whole comic book, is that something you’d be interested in?

Oh I have grand, grand plans for comic books. I’m working on a little comics booklet for my album and an illustrated valentines rock opera for next year. I’m also trying to resurrect my weekly comic strip for my new blog. The trouble is that comics are incredibly labour intensive. Chris Ware pointed out once that unlike writing a novel, comics don’t allow any sort of natural flow to occur as every page has to be planned out as a whole and so the panels within in it are predestined. I’d love to create a big Clowesian comic book one day, but for now I have to concentrate upon producing small, gimmicky things to “build my profile”… urggggghhhh, the modern world… adulthood…

You mentioned your rock opera there, what does that involve?

That was something I wrote for a ukulele festival in Manchester last year on Valentine’s Day. I was wrongly under the impression that we had to perform the whole thing on ukulele and didn’t really have any ukulele songs so I set about writing a sort of musical/rock opera about an organ transplant van driver finding love whilst snowbound in a rural town. I drew some illustrations for my old overhead projector as well. I hope to turn it into a special edition record and book for next year’s Valentine’s Day.

Musically, who would you call your biggest influences? You get compared to Jeffrey Lewis a lot, right? But that seems like a pretty easy comparison for anyone who sings and draws…

I have an awful lot of respect, naturally, for Jeffrey Lewis, and he has obviously influenced some aspects of my live show, even if it is in trying to steer away from his territory as much as I possibly can. I suppose the bands I have revered the most over the years are The Beach Boys, Pavement, Smog, Silver Jews, Magnetic Fields and Why?, but increasingly I’m becoming very interested in Steve Reich and Bill Evans. In terms of my artwork I’m very heavily influenced by Archer Prewitt, Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, Adrian Tomine and Marcel Dzama. Archer Prewitt is another artist/musician; he plays in the The Sea And Cake and under his own name whilst also drawing the incomparable Sof’ Boy comics.

So, after this tour, what’s next for Sparky Deathcap?

Next up: more touring with Los Camp. I’m trying to perfect my world-weary, “oh, touring is such a drag,” but in truth it’s the most fun I’ve ever had. We have European and US tours to come which will be really amazing. In between I’m working hard on writing and recording my album, which is really very exciting.

From outside, the Koko in Camden looks a bit like one of those Swiss clocks – the ones where a girl in lederhosen comes out on a rail every hour to strike the chime. The bare white front façade is broken only by the large ‘KOKO’ illumination and the two doors at either edge of the building which allow the audience access to the smoking balcony, and there’s a fair few of them pacing backwards and forwards. Imagining them as clockwork Bavarians is the kind of thing I find amusing. It passes the time, waiting in the coffee place across the road for the rain to ease and the doors to open.

Los Campesinos! are a band that I’ve had to convince myself that I actually loved, because for a while I was in denial. As far as my last.fm statistics go they’ve been my favourite band of the last 18 months, and I even found myself buying a ticket for their latest tour as soon as physically able and not really being sure why. It always felt like some kind of weirdly innocuous indulgence that support groups put out literature for – y’know, you swear it’s not a big deal, you could walk away at any second, it doesn’t control your life, etc. etc., only to wake up one morning and realise that you’re deeply addicted and in trouble. It’s frightening to realise you’ve had a new favourite band for so long and not even realised.

Illustration courtesy of Zoë Barker

Once inside the venue, I buy a drink and text my erstwhile companion, struck down with food poisoning. “I’m probably the oldest person here – where are the adults?“ I ask (and I’m only 22) – there’s a distinct whiff of Lynx in the air (at a guess: Africa). LC! are a bit of a joke to some people thanks to lead singer Gareth’s scribbled-journal lyrics, and frankly they’re right – they can be acutely embarrassing. I try to justify my love (my addiction, you could say) to my friends by being clever – they’re tongue-in-cheek, I say! The literal meaning is totally ironic, but the intent is still sincere! It never works. My first instinct, looking around the venue, is that these skinny, shy kids find Gareth endearing and sincere without any ironic pretension, which would be sweet and naïve if so. Or it could be seen as pathetic – sample lyric: “As if I walked into the room/to see my ex-girlfriend/who by the way I’m still in love with/sucking the face of some pretty boy/with my favourite band’s most popular song in the background/is it wrong that I can’t decide which bothers me most?” – but then ‘pathetic’ sounds so much like ‘pathos’ and I’m sure that their must be some kind of link or derivation at play there, because then there’s my excuse. The band excels at drawing out an emotional response in its audience.

As I’m trying to figure this out (I’m on my own, remember, so those kinds of thoughts are all I have to amuse myself – another excuse) the first bunch of musicians stroll on stage – it’s barely past eight, which leaves me thinking that I’ll probably be home and in slippers before eleven. But as for the band: the lead singer reminds me of Sinbad, and he starts wooping.

“Woop! … Woop! … Woop!” etc. – he’s jumped over the crowd barriers at this point, and is walking through the still-thin crowd, clearly sizing people up. Every now and again somebody will recoil, which I assume is because they assume that he’ll either a) want them to join in (poor, timid children), or b) eat their ears, because he’s mental. I think it’s hilarious. The rhythmic wooping is augmented by the rest of the band joining in with their instruments, using Sinbad as a metronome. They’re a four-piece – Sinbad, fringe girl, moustache guy, and Sweater (his sensible sky-blue knitwear is his most defining feature, I suppose) – and they blew me away. Rotating between instruments, chanting and howling, they managed to bridge the divide between the danceable electro-wash that I so admire in Holy Fuck or Gang Gang Dance and the careful racket of no-wave. One tune sounded like Arcade Fire’s ‘Wake Up’ shoved backwards through a plane turbine, i.e. sort of inverted by chopping it up into small pieces and reassembled with the bass brought forward and the optimistic chants turned into these awful, angry shouts… I was a total convert. Only by cornering Sinbad in the lobby afterwards did I manage to get their name – Islet. The internet tells me they’re from Cardiff, and they don’t like the internet, they have no recordings available for streaming or purchase (except this BBC live session), they have no website, they are entirely offline. The only way to experience Islet is as a live band, so go. See them live. They kick ass.

The break between the supports is short, and next on are somewhat-hyped London duo Swanton Bombs. To be fair to them, everything I’ve heard about their album has been positive (including a review on this very site), so I’m going to chalk their disappointing live presence up as unexpected. Every song reminded me of that nasty period in the early 00s when blues-rock groups were two-a-penny, where every song could be plotted on a chart with one axis labelled “Killing Floor“, and “Hey Joe” on the other. In short – it was dull, every song sounded the same, and Blood Red Shoes do this kind of thing with much more aplomb. I drifted out towards the back of the room and then upstairs, where I could fully appreciate how atrocious the Koko’s sound quality is for anyone not on the ground near the front – it’s an embarrassment for London, really, considering how much slack the place has had to take up now that the scuffed and glorious Astoria’s gone.

The audience of kids, mostly bored by what’s happened so far (Islet’s tribal antics went down like a civil servant in Downing Street), persists in ignoring whatever’s happening on stage. They’re very clearly only here for LC!, and it’s something of a relief that they come to life when the main act eventually makes an appearance – making me reassess my earlier assumption, that they were here out of a pathetic sincerity, as completely wrong. Namely: I was being pretentious and snobbish, and these kids just like how enjoyable a band LC! are – the lyrics are just plain funny, the music just plain fun, and whilst people like me with too much time on their hands (I blame my friend standing me up and leaving me to my own interior monologue) might debate the extent to which the band take this influence, or that level of twee irony, or said indebtedness to blah blah, this is bullshit. So I forgot about all that, and started jumping about with the rest of the mosh pit.

Illustration courtesy of Zoë Barker

Gareth’s certainly a livelier presence than I expected (seeing as he can come across as a bit wet sometimes). Tonight he bounds around like an over-stimulated puppy, and keeps thanking everybody – his friends, their manager, the audience (I count seven separate breaks between songs where he thanks the fans), the venue, the tour promoter. It’s sweet. The set opens with the steamrolling “I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know,” which is a bastard of a song, frankly. Their latest album is filled with these, how to say, crunchy numbers, loud and a bit ridiculous, and each one sounds like an anthem tonight – the crowd on ground alongside me is just a heaving sweaty coagulation of fists and smiles, right through the more recent tracks (“There Are Listed Building”, “A Heat Rash in the Shape of The Show Me State; Or, Letters from Me to Charlotte” (it is assumed that if you cannot abide this kind of ludicrous titling of songs then LC! are not a band for you)) to the classics of a couple of years ago (“My Year in Lists,” “This Is How You Spell ‘HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics’”).

One of the best things about seeing these guys live, though, was that their first album suddenly made a lot more sense. Their sound in the flesh isn’t hugely similar to their last two releases (‘We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed’ and this year’s ‘Romance Is Boring’), which were relatively crisp and clean to the ear – live, they sound like the horrible mistake that was the David Newfeld-produced debut ‘Hold On Now, Youngster’, where the levels were all over the place and the whole thing was a sorry soppy mess of a release that would stick to a wall if it was thrown at one and would congeal into just a bloody mass of nothing at the bottom. It was poorly produced, is what I’m saying. But hearing them tonight I suddenly realise that Newfeld had captured them as they actually sound, essentially that exact kind of mop bucket softness, without edges, without any definition to grab onto. They aren’t half as exciting on there as they are here because, well, that’s the nature of live music, but I have greater respect for the Broken Social Scene producer now I can understand his Sisyphean intentions.

The highlight for most people comes towards the end, when the band crack out the song that they will presumably still be ending their sets with in middle-age – “You! Me! Dancing!” – which I detest. It’s a horrible song. I don’t know why it grates when I enjoy everything else that they do so much, but there it is. However, in the interest of balance I’ll say that this once it was awesome because, well, it was. I’d never danced to it alongside a few hundred other people before and the sensation was not, shall we say, unpleasant. When the band left the stage it was the end of their largest headline show to date – despite their quirks, their oddities, their introspection and their glee, I fully expect them to be playing even larger venues within a very short time indeed. They are the biggest and best niche group around. To hell with thought – it’s my gut that wants to see them again as soon as possible.

Monday 20th October

No Age, Los Campesinos and Times New Viking – Shred Yr Face at Electric Ballroom, London
Mystery Jets – Cockpit, Leeds
Horse Feathers – The Fly, London
Kaiser Chiefs and Esser – The Forum, London
Tilly And The Wall – Brook, Southampton
The Stranglers – Guildhall, Portsmouth
Jeremy Warmsley and Jay Jay Pistolet – Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen
Bombay Bicycle Club and Flashguns – Barfly, London

Tuesday 21st October

Sky Larkin – Pure Groove Records, London
Johnny Flynn – Bar Academy, Oxford
Buraka Som Sistema, Bass Clef and Soundspecies – Cargo, London
Esser – Central Station & Yales, Wrexham
Port O’Brien and Orphans And Vandals – ICA, London
Hatcham Social and Silhouette – White Heat at Madame Jo Jo’s, London

Wednesday 22nd October

Stricken City, Exlovers, La Shark and Dallas – Oh, Inverted World at Madame Jo Jo’s, London
M83 – The Scala, London
The Last Shadow Puppets – Carling Academy, Glasgow
Burt Bacharach and the BBC Concert Orchestra – BBC Electric Proms at The Roundhouse, London
XX Teens and Wild Beasts – BBC Electric Proms at Freedom Studio at The Roundhouse, London

Thursday 23rd October

Ed Harcourt, Jeremy Warmsley, Munch Munch and Three Trapped Tigers – Buffalo Bar, London
Hot Chip – Guildhall, Portsmouth
Friends of the Bride, Alexander Muertos and Joe Rybicki – The Lock Tavern, London
Primal Scream – Academy, Bristol
Mystery Jets – Astoria, London
The Streets w/ The Heritage Orchestra and Santogold – The Roundhouse, London

Friday 24th October

James Murphy and Pat Mahoney’s Special Disco Version, The Juan Maclean, Yacht, Planningtorock and Prinzhorn Dance School – Matter, London
Autokratz and Joe And Will Ask? – Koko, London
Lets Wrestle and 4 Or 5 Magicians – White Light at The Lexington, London
Blood Red Shoes and Rolo Tomassi – Astoria 2, London
Mogwai, Fuck Buttons and Errors – Hammersmith Apollo, London
Graffiti Island, An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump and Conmungos – Old Blue Last, London
Errors – Pure Groove Records, London

Saturday 25th October

Vessels, Cats In Paris and Cats And Cats And Cats - The Windmill, London
Cypress Hill, Iglu And Hartley, Sway, thecocknbullkid and The Ghost Frequency – Battersea Power Station, London
Coldcut – The BBC Radiophonic Workshop at Freedom Studio, The roundhouse, London
Tilly And The Wall and Slow Club – ULU, London

Sunday 26th October

Cornershop and Lowker – BBC Electric Proms at Barfly, London
Pete and The Pirates, Chew Lips and more – Proud Galleries, London
Paul Hawkins and Thee Awkward Silences, Li’l Lost Lou, Wolfpack Of One and more – The Good Ship, London
The Last Shadow Puppets and Ipso Facto – Hammersmith Apollo, London

Tuesday 14th October

The Aliens and Sisters Of Transistors – Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen, London
Beggars – 100 Club, London
Shred Yr Face - No Age, Los Campesinos and Times New Viking – The Portland Arms, Cambridge
The Chap, Barringtone, Nattcu – White Heat at Madame Jo Jo’s, London
José Gonzalez, Horse Feathers and Wildbirds and Peacedrums – ULU, London
Cut Off Your Hands, Divisions Of Laura Lee, Sounds Like Violence and When Gravity Falls – Monto Water Rats, London
The Streets – 53 Degrees, Preston
Maps and Atlases and This Town Needs Guns – Barden’s Boudoir, London
Jeremy Warmsley – Night and Day Cafe, London
Esser – ICA, London
Dirty Pretty Things – The Roundhouse, London

Wednesday 15th October

Indian Jewelry and Gentle Friendly – The Luminaire, London
Blood Red Shoes – Cockpit, Leeds
Holy Fuck – Bodega Social Club, Nottingham
Styrofoam, Sportsday Megaphone and Artha and Martha – Club Fandango at 229, London
Hot Club De Paris – The Other Rooms, Newcastle
Screaming Tea Party and Collapsing Cities – The Barfly, London

Thursday 16th October

Towers of London and The Pack A.D – ULU, London
Dead Kids, Math Class and Pre – Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen, London
of Montreal, Eugene McGuinness and Wave Machines – Koko, London
The Rivers, The Situationists and Toy! Toy! – The Fly, London
Foals, Holy Fuck and Dananananaykroyd – Brixton Academy, London

Friday 17th October

Hot Chip, Kate Nash, Tilly and The Wall, Florence and The Machine, James Yuill and Slow Club – Matter, London
Johnny Flynn – Nice N Sleazy’s, Glasgow
The Pipettes
Golden Silvers – Bronze Club, London

Saturday 18th October

Selfish Cunt and SCUM – The Enterprise, London
Roots Manuva – Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
The Correspondants, Disappears and Man Like Me – Sassoon Gallery, London
Maths Class, Messengers and The Reunionists – Artful at New Cross Inn, London
Chas & Dave – Broadway Theatre, London

Sunday 19th October

Blood Red Shoes – Cafe Drummond, Aberdeen
James Yorkston – Joiners, Southampton
No Age, Los Campesinos and Times New Viking – Rough Trade East, London