INDIETRACKS SNAPSHOTS

The fab Tatty Devine Indietracks merch - aaahhhh! A match made in heaven.

Fave moments from Indietracks? ...ooh all of them. But also:

Sitting on the grass under sunny blue skies waving to smiling children riding past on the little train, soundtracked by Sucrette's whizzy two-songs-at-once hyper-pop;

Walking into the Indoor Stage shed as Mighty Mighty are playing 'Maisonette';

Little My with their lolloping pop, unco-ordinated percussion dances, feral headgear and added Liz Love;

The crowd's frantic dancing to the pouting cheekbone-tastic Cats On Fire who sound like Aha 'wrestling' The Smiths until they play a splendid version of White Town's 'Your Woman';

Wake The President - cute (if a tad grumpy) Scottish twins playing jangling guitars in the gloaming of the church as the sun goes down;

Patiently riding up and down the track on the steam train on Sunday morning, eating Sherbert dibdabs and wondering if The Manhattan Love Suicides are gonna show, as we've heard rumours...then being pinned to the wall of the carriage when the entire festval squeezes in to hear the Manhattan's split announcement. Then being soothed by the surprisingly touching acoustical tunes brought to us by ex-Manhattans, The Medusa Snare as the train chuffs along with us all sardined in;

Scoffing veggie hotdogs in the rain with our chums Hong Kong In The 60s;

Nick Garrie accompanied by a choir of children (and Duglas BMX) providing a sweet soundtrack for any children of the zone who like me, are missing their weekly Sunday afternoon dose of Stuart Maconie's Freakzone...

And then all these things that I thought I'd draw about instead...

Indietracks Snapshots: Tender Trap

Tender Trap play 'Oh Katrina'

Indietracks Snapshots: Fortuna Pop!

Sean Fortuna Pop! gives a talk in the Workshop Wigwam entitled 'How Not To Run A Record Label'.

A crowd of acolytes gathers round and listens with deep reverence. People who had ventured in hoping to heckle have to slink out again and look for kicks elsewhere.

Indietracks Snapshots: Pop Church

The Church

I want to go to a festival that's just in this church. It's very cosy in there nipping vodka amidst the wood panelling, fuzzy light filtering through the arched windows. Could do with some cushions on the pews though.

Indietracks Snapshots: Alaska

Everyone in the world is watching Camera Obscura on the outdoor stage.

We go into the church and find Alaska playing McCarthy's 'Red Sleeping Beauty'. It's always good to happen upon this song.

Indietracks Snapshots: The Specific Heats

The Specific Heats wear paisley capes!

Their reverb tank blows up as they hit the first chord!! Then a guitar string breaks!!! They play bubblegum garage which has been specially calibrated to be the best music at the entire festival!!!! It is VERY EXCITING. Other things: silver sparkly Danelectro guitar, v. groovy shaky hair keyboard playing, all round band smiling, an Out Crowd tattoo, managing to be very energetic in a very small space, including running in tiny circles, their friends behind us saying how everything is AWESOME!

Indietracks Snapshots: The Lovely Eggs

Every magical moment of The Lovely Eggs set.

Including their tribute to 'Nuts In May'; Holly's buttercup yellow dress; the tiny bicycle handlebars attached to the front of the drumkit (the bell and horn for percussion purposes); useful information on peppers, loads of thrashy, twinkly, shouty, silky songs; and especially Holly's wool-wrapped drum beater unravelling like unruly spaghetti. They are the best kind of folk art.

Indietracks Snapshots: I Wear My New Anorak...

...a Fred Perry anorak, mind. It's fine tailoring is much admired by Emily out of Betty And The Werewolves.

Indietracks Snapshots: Marshmallow Kisses

The Marshmallow Kisses ask the very Indietracks question, 'Do you guys like poems?'

After a little encouragement, the reply is a big Indietracks, 'Yeah!' The band then proceed to play amazing outer-space wibbling baroque fairground poetry jazzpop.

Indietracks Snapshots: Help Stamp Out Loneliness

Help Stamp Out Loneliness sound huge and POP! on a rainy afternoon.

They feature not only the Sounds XP fashion correspondent's favourite frock, but also Craig Gannon playing some guitar. This makes us go, 'Blimey! It's THE Craig Gannon!'

Indietracks Snapshots: Simon Love's Feet

Sunday afternoon in the gloom of the Indoor Stage shed something bright catches my eye.

Simon Love isn't wearing any socks. This makes me gasp in horror, 'Are those your feet? Why are they so white?!'

Indietracks Snapshots: BMX Bandits

Duglas' Sesame Street t-shirt, purple pinstripes, flowin' locks 'n' moustache combo make him look every bit the pop maverick he is.

To celebrate I dance like a loon to 'E102' at the end of a set chocka with BMX Bandits hits.

Teenage Fanclub

Under darkening rain-filled skies I fall in love with Teenage Fanclub again.

There are singalonga old songs, must-get-the-new-album new songs, and the world turns into sparkles when they play 'I Need Direction'. Sigh...

Tape Art: Let Me Come Over

Here I have managed to make Buffalo Tom who were in no way at all twee, seem simperingly cute by adding speech bubbles to my rendering of the original (back) sleeve artwork. This is because I loved the Tom and not because I wished to denigrate their manly guitar playing. I think this might be my fave album of theirs (although there is ‘Birdbrain’…hmmm…). It has the lovely, lovely ‘Mineral’ which features the opening couplet ‘All spangled up, glittering on / there’s a monster in the kitchen, his light's turned on’ along with whirring, fizzing guitars that gradually build into fireworks in a summer sky and hurtling down the road at dusk, hair and eyes streaming in the wind. Ahhh, I just played it again and remembered how I ended up with a minor case of whiplash after going to see Buffalo Tom at The Underworld in 1991, such was my unrestrained joy and unfettered head-banging.

Tape Art: Daydreamin' In the Summershine

In 1988 Daydreamin' In The Summershine (nice title, cheers), was a mixtape of swoony indie jangle-pop – designed for listening to whilst lying in the grass on a summers day, obviously. Note the ancient art of wax-resist being put to good use for the Crayola-ed Flowers cover design.

The tracklisting went like this:
Sunflower – The Springfields
Moths – 14 Iced Bears
Everglades – The Sea Urchins
The Old Stone Bridge – Emily
Are We Gonna Be Alright – The Springfields
Dreamabout – The Poppyheads
Dust Remains – 14 Iced Bears
Black Star Carnival – Primal Scream
Strawberry Wine – My Bloody Valentine
The Clown – The Springfields
I’m In Love With A Girl Who Doesn’t Know I Exist – Another Sunny Day
Secret Goldfish – Baby Lemonade
Some Candy Talking - The Jesus And Mary Chain
Ocean Blue - The Primitives
Pictures You Weave - The Poppyheads
Cut - 14 Iced Bears
Turning Stone - The Soup Dragons

Listening to late eighties jangle pop led me down the spangled garden path to late sixties West Coast USA. First the jangle became more psychedelic and then the psychedelia got tinged with country. By 1992, I’d decided my Daydreamin' soundtrack needed to be updated, or maybe that should be backdated, as I taped over the jangle pop, eradicating it in favour of sunny Laurel Canyon vibes. Only Primal Scream (albeit E-ed up and unrecognisable from their previous selves) and the eternal Sea Urchins survived the regime change. Note the light dusting of proto-grunge Yank guitar stuff in there too – a sign of the times:

Gunga Din – The Byrds
Higher Than The Sun - Primal Scream
Half The Time – The Lemonheads
A Morning Odyssey – The Sea Urchins
100 Years from Now – The Byrds
Desiree – The Left Banke
Sweet Thing – The Stairs
Mineral – Buffalo Tom
Sail On Sailor – The Beach Boys
Return Of The Grievous Angel
She Comes In Colors – Love
I Am A Child – Buffalo Springfield
Cinnamon Girl – Neil Young
Hot Burrito 1# - The Flying Burrito Brothers
Jonathan Jonathan – The Rockingbirds
Happy – The Rolling Stones
Bubblegum Factory – Redd Kross

Tape Art: The Left Banke

I first heard The Left Banke when Sean Soup Dragon was playing his fave tracks on the Janice Long show ca. 1987. He included ‘I’ve Got Something On My Mind’ and noted that he loved The Left Banke’s harpsichord sound and if anyone had a spare harpsichord they wanted rid of he’d gladly take it. I was smitten and played the track (taped off the radio, obv.) often. I didn’t get to hear more Left Banke until a few year’s later on a non-descript drizzly Wednesday night, hanging out in a squat in St John’s Wood, no money, nothing much going on. My friend stuck on this tape copied from the Bam Caruso-released Left Banke LP ‘And Suddenly It’s…’ and the whole world sparkled and spiralled with baroque-psych beauty. I had to have a copy immediately, and this tape got a hammering. A year or so later I found my own copy of the Bam Caruso LP. I win!

Tape Art: Love

When I first went away to university, I played this Love tape first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I have never ever got sick of ‘Forever Changes’, and the day I do, will be the day something’s gone very wrong indeed. This tape (which also featured ‘Da Capo’ minus the very long and rambling blues-thing ‘Revelation’ which I edited out of the mix) buoyed me up for a ‘hectic’ day at art school and soothed me to sleep at night as I lay in my room trying not to think about the fact that the landlady’s cats had wee-ed all over my copy of Loop’s ‘Arc Light’. The furry gits.

Tape Art: Their Satanic Majesties Request

Clearly, drawing in the facial features of Mick ‘n’ Keef et al would have rendered this splendid facsimile of The Rolling Stones ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’ laughable, so as a comment on the dead-eyed seam of pseudo-psych oblivion the band were mining on this record I’ve cleverly left their mugs blank. Nice.

Hurray For Tapes!

Before I owned actual real life records, I had a motley collection of C-60s and C-90s to keep me entertained as I did kidstuff in my bedroom. These contained top 40 tunes taped off Radio One on a Sunday Night. I just taped the whole lot, it didn’t matter if I knew or even liked the songs I just had to own the music. I remember one cassette in particular that had Godley and Crème’s ‘Under Your Thumb’ on it with added sarcastic ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ added ‘live’ by me as the song recorded. As Godley (or possibly Crème) intoned "I noticed something very strange indeed", I leant towards the mic and sniggered "Coo!!". I like to think it added a personal touch to the song.

Next, I owned real life records but no record player, so I had to record them onto tapes using my parents’ hi-fi. Tapes were really tedious, you spent aeons Rewinding and F.F.ing back and forth trying to find your favourite song amongst the miles of magnetic tape. The miles of magnetic tape that would decide for no good reason to unspool whilst playing and create a terrifying birds nest inside your tape player that you didn’t discover until the songs started going all woozy. Then you had to unpick the whole lot from around the innards of the player and carefully wind it back inside the cassette using a pencil. Argh!

But tapes were kind of cute, too - nice little packages you could keep in your pocket. Or if you were hard you could secretly keep fags in the cassette cases. Plus, you could stick bits of Sellotape over the hole things on the top of commercially recorded cassettes and aha ha! tape over them with better stuff. In this way my copy of Kajagoogoo’s ‘White Feathers’ album (cripes!) became an ace Sea Urchins compilation. Best of all, you could design your own covers for them, the spines of which looked fab lined up on the shelf, all colourful-like with carefully Letrasetted titles.

I’ve been having a clear-out and some of my tapes really have to be binned. I never listen to them anymore, despite my tape deck being the largest, most expensive piece of equipment in my ‘sound system’. So I thought I’d record a few of them for posterity here. Cassette tapes I salute you.