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scratchy records head of A&R, dastardly likes to get out and see the odd gig or two when she can..

Katy Carr + Lewis Floyd Henry +

Nigel of Bermondsey +

Liars +

Roots Manuva +

Patrick Wolf

The Big Chill,

Eastnor Castle

Saturday and Sunday 7^th & 8^th August 2010

A rainbow has come out behind the crowd in front of the main stage. People turn round to capture the arching prismatic fanfare on cameras and phones. In front of the sound desk a balding 40 something in the crowd is flailing wildly to the Jolly Boys rendition of Iggy’s ‘The Passenger’.. he looks like the happiest man on earth. It’s a festival moment and still the brightest colour that anyone can see is the Jolly Boys’ singers’ pink silk tie.

An hour or two later Patrick Wolf is dancing in front of us in a black and white spotted jump suit. I remember him turning up to do a few songs at the Crow Club in shoreditch a few years back in shorts and a pair of wellies so clearly this is a man who can wear just about anything. Interestingly, the most memorable performance I saw him give was at the ICA in 2003 and I’ve absolutely no idea what he was wearing then.. hmm

Roots Manuva meanwhile is in jodphurs. He lollops along the stage with a breezy charm and a smile, dedicating ‘highest grade’ to all the students. With a decade defining album like ‘Run come save me’ under your belt you might be expecting to be headlining a bill like this but Rodney and his orchestra of musicians and singers seem just happy to be here and he doesn’t even flinch when the bloke at the side of the stage won’t let him have the encore we’re all shouting for.

No idea what Liars were wearing but somewhere singer Angus Andrew’s arms are still flailing in time with the lazer shards bursting out of the back of the stage.. and if New York’s Crystal Stilts haven’t got a gig tonight then there’s a good chance Jim Morrison’s ghost might well be here checking out the ceremony unfolding before us. A few fields away MIA’s headline slot / extended iplayer ad, you decide, comes to an end as the assorted target demographic, sorry, ‘the kids’ invade the stage.. while out here on the perimeter we’re static, mesmerised, ‘immaculate !’ shouts jim as some musicians prove there’s life yet in some good old shamanistic pyschedelia.

Sunday kicks off with tales of south east London villains and undertakers courtesy of Nigel of Bermondsey on the backstage stage. Nigel’s ‘London Dreamtime’ album is a lush almost mid-70s supertramp or wingsian (wingsian ?) mini masterpiece and songs like ‘Across the way’ and ‘One eye grey’ help to ease the sleepy late risers into the day.

Wandering between fields you might well encounter a man looking a bit like Jimi Hendrix playing electric guitar and drums at the same time. His name is Lewis Floyd Henry and his New Orleans bluesman busker act is far more entertaining than many of the acts on the ‘proper’ stages. Next year no doubt he’ll be one of them.

Finally, by way of a very tasty lamb kebab stall we’re at the weekend’s final destination as Katy Carr charms the assorted festival stragglers lying on the straw in the Global Local stage with a heady mix of Kate Bush, PJ Harvey and even Edith Piaf. The 1940s loom large over much of katy’s material in particular ‘Kommander’s Car’, her dramatic recount of a daring escape from Auschwitz by a 21 year-old Polish scout.. in the camp kommandant’s own car no less. It’s a joyous sound and at one point several small children in the audience begin to dance instinctively. It is, as they say, a festival moment.

Yo La Tengo

The Roundhouse,

Chalk Farm

Sunday 8^th November 2009

Looking round the audience at The Roundhouse tonight there’s plenty of couples out to see Hoboken, New Jersey’s finest. Not that there’s anything surprising in that – other than the fact that Yo La Tengo’s reputation as ‘the quintessential critic’s band’ might mean you’d expect to see more ageing / baldy possessors of the Y-chromosome in the house. Maybe it’s because essentially Yo La Tengo play lover’s rock, whether it’s hypnotic jazz-infused Hendrixian guitar manglings or barely whispered lullabies this is music born out of L O V E.

Long time partners guitarist Ira Kaplan and drummer Georgia Hubley are probably the reason for all this but bass player James McNew is quick to point out that he’s no goosberry and his rendition of the Beatlesesque ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ is an early set highlight. Likewise the appearance for a couple of new songs of a (not quite loud enough) string section suggests that this is a band who are, twenty five years on still trying new things in the bedroom !

Tonight however, it’s the mistakes that really hold the magic. During the first chorus of ‘Tears are in your eyes’ Ira is, like us, lost in the moment and starts to sing the chorus again by accident then slowly retreats from the mic, his eyes ceiling bound as he realises. Later on it’s Georgia’s turn as she forgets the words during a sublime encore version of George Harrison’s ‘Behind that locked door’. Searching her brain she pauses for a second - as she does the audience start to cheer, holding the moment while she remembers the lyrics and then climbs back into the song.

It feels like a family affair tonight. After all, it is sunday.. the perfect day to go and hang out with some relatives.

Teenage Jesus and The Jerks + An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump

Corsica Studios, Elephant & Castle

Sunday 5^th April 2009

Ok I admit it. I saw a poster for Teenage Jesus and The Jerks on the old Woolworths in Bermondsey and thought they were a new band. Or newish. Ahem. My friend Mike ‘sweaty eyeballs’ set me right though and gave me a Time Out cutting that got me up to speed on the history of this late ‘70s New York outfit and their iconic lead-singer Lydia Lunch.

Luckily we get to Corsica Studios in time for the support act.. 3 girls are standing in a row on the front of the stage. I think that I’m about to be sacrificed as part of an ancient Mayan festival and before the high priest rips out my heart and eats it in front of me I see these three ladies out the corner of my eye beating out an ominous deathly mantra. Back in Elephant & Castle ‘An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump’ (sounds like a grammar mistake but no..) have swapped instruments yet again and are about to unleash another rumbling ode. I like them. So does mike - particularly the guitarist, no, drummer er, hold on bass player. You get the idea.

Then it’s Lydia, or the gothmother as she calls herself, with various members of Gallon Drunk as her backing band and coming on like Mae West with some hired gunslingers. She sings songs about ex-lovers stranded in their underwear while she berates them for not coming up with the rent and makes Courtney look like Britney. The Time Out article had said something about her proudly declaring she’d never bothered to learn a single guitar chord. Fair enough. She can however make pretty scary noises with a bottleneck and has obviously spent time honing the art of percussive punk rock. This becomes clear when she stops one of her robert pollard-sized bursts of vitriol in the middle (i.e after about 20 seconds) and asks the drummer to do it again. They re-start, lock in tight and you realise that there’s method behind the mayhem.

After the show she heads back up the stairs at the end of the long saloon. At the top she looks back over her shoulder momentarily and informs the crowd with some carefully selected words that there won’t be any encore. We don’t doubt it.

Crystal Stilts + Wet Dog

Buffalo Bar, Cardiff.

Tuesday 17^th February 2009

It’s 3 tracks into London three-piece Wet Dog’s set and the keyboard perched precariously high just behind bass player Billy’s pulsating right leg is doing one of those dances you see when suspension bridges get a nasty draught and start breaking up in mid air.. thankfully drummer Sarah has spotted the impending end of friendship with the headliners and disaster is adverted. It does however emphasise the furious automata at work in the engine room of this band - if you walked round the back of the stage you’d probably see a huge key unwinding slowly. Out front singer Becca navigates the electric shocks from the mic and shouts out classics like ‘Train Track’ and ‘Jane Bowles’ but it’s new song ‘Women’s Final’ that explains why Mark Ronson has been championing them back home in New York.

Talking of which, here’s NYC’s own Crystal Stilts. I remember seeing Oliver Stone’s Doors film back in the 90s and being aware for the first time that there’d been some kind of tension or jealousy between the west coast and east coast during the late sixties - not a Biggie Tupac style murderfest but maybe a condescending glance or two through the dope haze. Anyway, Crystal Stilts have good news for us tonight.. Jim Morrison and Lou Reed have made up in a motel somewhere deep in the midwest. Woo hoo ! Terms of the peace treaty as follows - guitar to echo and shimmer at all times; bass must be played with plectrum and locked in Joy Division style with metronomic upright lady drummer; front man Brad to give impression of having been born with microphone stand in his hand. That and the look of a man who might read some Keats before he goes to bed.

The new romantic is back !

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