Indietracks 2010:
Friday & Saturday.

The Midlands Railway Centre at Swanwick, which hosts the Indietracks festival each year, is perhaps the most quintessentially midlands place on the face of the earth. Though a beautiful and remote spot by most people’s definition, it’s not really ‘beautiful’ in the sense of the more rugged and intimidating terrain that dominates more coastal areas of our land. A supremely quiet and orderly piece of countryside, it speaks of a benevolent idyll where the trains and canals run side by side, where the farmers grow their crops in neat, symmetrical rows and the cows only shit at night when nobody’s looking.

It’s a deeply comforting, reality-defying kind of beauty that people in this part of the world seem to fight hard to maintain against the imposition of chaos – a sort of Victorian biscuit tin beauty made real through sheer determination, if you like. And with the idea of ‘Victorian biscuit tin beauty’ very much falling in line with the original, correct (pre-musical; pejorative) usage of the term ‘twee’, the essential connection between the location and the nature of the festival it is hosting becomes inescapable.

I’ve not met or spoken to the founders/organisers of Indietracks, so am unable to qualify my assumptions, but it seems the brainwave that originally brought together a midlands heritage railway and the reserved, nostalgic sound of jangly ‘80s-vintage British indie presupposes certain values. Modesty; decorum; gentle good humour; tweed trousers; a nice pint of ale to sip contentedly after a hard day’s cycling; that sort of thing.

As such, I can’t help but wonder how the event’s founders feel as the festival has grown, the music has become more varied and the provision of food, accommodation, entertainment and amplification has expanded dramatically (apparently the first event four years ago attracted 150 attendees, now it’s somewhere in the region of several thousand)… all leading to a perilously un-twee situation wherein surly reprobates like me find themselves in attendance, demanding the opportunity to guzzle whiskey and leap about like baboons through the early hours. What would Morrissey say?

Seriously though, I hope no one minds. I hope there’s no lovable middle-aged fellow with authentic ‘60s patches on his jacket elbows, looking on with his head in his hands as bands start plugging in distortion pedals and his beloved railway is reduced to a zone of moderate racket and borderline impoliteness. If he is out there somewhere, he can rest easy in the knowledge that he’s still helped create what is surely the most friendly and enjoyable festival experience in the British Isles, and still run with a more genuine sense of camaraderie and respect for DIY ethics than any event I’ve ever attended.

Looking at the composition of the attendees is kinda interesting, I think. Leaving aside the fact that I seem to know about a third of ‘em, by sight if not by name, there does seem to be a noticeable disjuncture between the classicist indie-poppers crudely stereotyped above (sorry guys, I love ya really), and others whom you might call, well…. I’ve never considered the term before, but sort of hardcore indie kids, y’know? The ‘90s-raised lifers who’ve kept the faith in the badges, the big glasses, the messy hair, the reverence for Kenickie…. my people, in short, whether I like it or not. They’re a good bunch. It’s a lovely feeling, realising you’ll be able to turn around at pretty much any point this weekend and engage the person behind you in conversation about, I dunno, Urusei Yatsura or something. Odd that it’s the former contingent who seem to be making most of the fanzines these days, but there ya go.

ANYWAY, enough offensive generalising about other people’s cultural backgrounds, let’s get down to business.

Lackadaisical travel planning means that most of myself and most of my companions end up missing the bands on Friday night, but that’s ok, there are only three of them. (Veronica Falls are great, but I’ve seen ‘em loads of times; Allo Darling can go suck a fuck for more reasons than I can bother listing here; Eddie Argos’s Everyone Was In TheFrench Resistence..NOW thing worked a lot better as a funny press release than a record.)



So, SATURDAY;

I didn’t actually manage to catch Glasgow’s The Felt Tips, but having seen them at the warm up gig they played with us on the Thursday, I’d like to throw ‘em a mention, and I’m confident that they were indeed pretty good. Happily generic indie-poppy type stuff really, but their classically twangy lead guitar lines, strong songs and big, melodic bass give things a pleasantly Teenage Fanclub-ish feel, if you’ll excuse the regional stereotyping. Nice stuff, and you’ll remember what I said about the virtues of being nice earlier this month.

There is a definite disparity at Indietracks between the two main stages (which are quite big festival stages), and the church, which is inexcusably tiny, with a maximum capacity of about a hundred and one-in/one-out operating thereafter. It does have the obvious advantage of being a wonderfully creepy/picturesque (delete as applicable) railwayman’s chapel, allowing for a pub gig intimacy and fantastic straight-from-the-amps sound that slays the other stages, but still… the lack of any medium-sized venue is somewhat to the festival’s detriment when more popular bands scheduled to play in there have more punters queuing outside than enjoying the performance.

Nonetheless, I make it in there just in time to catch Foxes!, from Brighton I think, a band I’ve been hearing good things about for a long while, and… well everyone else I spoke to thought they were great, but I was a bit disappointed to be honest. Their sound was a bit thin for my tastes, and their songs seemed fussy and over-complicated, with the hard work of rendering them accurately serving to strip the performance of the kind of ramshackle joy one would assume to be the point of starting a band called Foxes! who record goofy song cycles about sailors.

Oh, but how I wish any of that could be said of the next band on, some bunch of chancers called The Give It Ups, who with their foul attitude of entitlement and pauper’s disregard for musical syntax can only be assumed to have got on the bill through bribery, blackmail or begging. Honestly, this one guy hammers away on a bass through half the songs like he thought it was a tennis racket, they repeatedly use the f-word before a mixed audience, and their lyrics variously invoke mythical beasts and promote larceny, slothfulness and envy. That they were allowed to sully the air of a House of God with their impudent assaults on conventional harmonics and good sense speaks of a loathsome miscalculation on the part of the schedulers, and one that I trust will not be repeated in future.



By the time Betty & The Werewolves come on, the queue outside the church looks to have reached Soviet Union bread-line proportions, and we only get to witness proceedings by hiding to the side of the, er, altar and bothering the photographers. And lord, what can I possibly say about The Bettys by this point? I’ve seen their set so many times it should be a matter of routine, but every time it just seems to get better – faster, more joyous, more rocking, more varied, more exuberant - and in these happy circumstances they’re on absolutely top form, with choice album cuts like “Purple Eyes” and “Heathcliff” sounding just as incomparably great as their super-hit singles. They’re simply a brilliant, brilliant band, and it’s a privilege to be able to exist in the same time and place as them.



Over on the big, unavoidably echoy shed/hanger stage meanwhile (be sure to stand centre stage at the front if you value the sound of properly differentiated instruments), New York’s Boy Genius precede to blow me away for the second time in a week. Looking like one of the bands from Scott Pilgrim come to life, Boy Genius demonstrate perfect timing in breaking out the absolute perfect end credits music for that comic’s recently published final volume with their sickeningly anthemic “Ramona Saves The Day”, and their mixture of starry-eyed jangle-pop exuberance, late-period Husker Du tuneage and full-on Crazy Horse guitar heroics again proves about a thousand times more exhilarating than a New York indie-pop group called ‘Boy Genius’ might reasonably be expected to be.



Brad from One Happy Island proves to be the most kick-ass bass player I’ve seen in recently memory, while the lead guitarist’s Cave Weddings-esque twangy riffs are a total joy, the drummer really kicks it too, and… well shit, they’re just one of those infuriating bands where EVERYONE’S really great. I dunno if their stuff would quite do it for me in cleaner, recorded form, but here, with a third guitarist guesting from OG indiepoppers Miracle Legion, Boy Genius speed over over the line from ‘pretty good’ to ‘KIN AWESOME, ending their set with a veritable guitarpocalypse that must have some onlookers worrying over precisely how much rocking constitutes too much at an indie-pop festival.

Fun and accessible and genuinely pretty great, I’d be tempted to single out Boy Genius as likely recipients of Pains OBPAH style hugeness by this time next year, were it not for the fact that few punters I spoke to afterwards seemed quite as enthused by them as me – oh well, who cares, I mean it’s not like I’ve ever been much of an arbiter of public taste.

I think I headed back to the campsite at this point in proceedings for a shower and a bite to eat, and to be honest, the rest of Saturday is a bit of a blur – I don’t think I managed to see any more bands for more than a minute or two. I remember stating my disinclination to bother watching The Primitives, only to exclaim “oh my god, I never knew they did THIS FUCKING TUNE!” when they launched into their big hit – y’know, that great “shut, shut your mouth” number from every indie disco ever? Clearly that’s a way good song. I always thought it was some one hit wonder band from the ‘90s who did it. I think maybe I was confusing The Primitives with The Barracudas or something? Who knows – too late to rectify my mistake now.

Speaking of indie discos, much of the fun I had at Indietracks consisted of leaping around to the various post-bands DJ sets. With friendly faces always within sight, a steady supply of alcohol, cool summers evenings, an endlessly happy atmosphere and a variety of reliable sorts spinning fun tunes, the festival makes for a pretty perfect atmosphere for late night dancing and later night campsite shenanigans, and it would be wrong of me not to at least mention the highlights.

I very much enjoyed the way the weird acoustics in the big shed managed to make familiar tunes sound like a storm of noise as soon as the DJs took over and tried to push things up to club night volume. I don’t remember what they played so much, but the preponderance of random, reverberating racket with a bass line certainly got me going.

Following that, Ian from How Does It Feel’s ‘60s soul special over in one of the marquee tents was absolutely bloody magnificent. I’ve always thought Ian is a fine DJ with a great ear for throwing together totally unexpected combinations of killer tunes, and let off the hook here without needing to play the bloody Smiths or something every ten minutes, his set is an absolute blast, drawn primarily from the seemingly endless well of guaranteed party-starting obscurist soul cuts, mixed with the plenty of straight up classics, plus occasional diversions into girl group, rock n’ roll and ye ye…. every tune I didn’t recognise was of course totally killer, but it was a such a joy when something like “Give Him a Great Big Kiss” or Otis Redding’s “Shout Bama-Lama” hoved into view. Just the absolute BEST time, as far as myself and my poorly synchronised feet are concerned. I think I made it through all two hours near continuously, switching between groups of friends as circumstances demanded. Fun.



Back at the campsite, an unpromisingly named crew called “Feeling Gloomy” wisely decide that trying to score cool points off a dwindling gang of early hours drunkards looking for any reason not to return to their uncomfortable tents is probably a bad idea, and give us what seems like hours of collective memory singalong goofery to Weezer and Fleetwood Mac and god only know what else. Somewhat brilliantly, as the night drags on the sound system begins to fail, fizzing in and out of hearing as if the moss and mud of the forest has started to infiltrate the speakers, leading to a situation where uncertain revellers are forced to try and make their own way through a barely audible mid-section of “Born To Run” before the sound crackles back in a bit for the chorus. Things get pretty weird after that, with the volume coming and going, the numbers thinning, the speed of dancing slowing to a zombie-like crawl and the music deteriorating…. I think I bail at about 3:30 when I can’t take it anymore.

The two guys in the burger van outside are still up, waiting for business, grinning gap-toothedly into the moonlight as the darkness of the woods closes in. Not to seem unkind, but judging by the look in their eyes, I don’t think I’d trust them to provide me with a snickers bar. Never mind, I've got some biscuits back at the shack. Man, what an awesome festival.

Sunday review coming as soon as I’ve written it.

Labels: Betty And The Werewolves, Boy Genius, festivals, Foxes, Indietracks, live reviews, The Felt Tips, Veronica Falls