Truck 03 Continued

TRUCK, 2003: SUNDAY

Start your day the broken machinery way! nervous_testpilot is one man and a lot of wiring, making fine noises in the venetian-aphex-pusher-ziq jittercut style, and finishing with a gabba mix of Morrissey and Queen.

Anyone who thinks that electronic music is easy should see this man's fingers fly around the machines, like Ruben Gonzalez as court stenographer. Wonderful and sometimes slightly frightening sounds.

Lo-fi? God, Lesbo Pig make Vic 20 look like Pink Floyd! They're three girls, a guitar and some toy percussion, none of which are played with any noticeable ability. Add some half remembered, flat vocals about fauxmosexuality and labial discomfort and there you have it.

Very endearing, in an infant nativity sort of way, but, ultimately, a load of old nonsense.

Live hip-hop troupe Captive State give the tent soundperson some trouble: they're far too big for the stage, and have more equipment than you can imagine. They also have trouble with distorting bass, which turns summery jazz-hop into a ribb-shattering womb of J. Saul Kane dirt.

No matter, though, because the music is superbly executed, with a fantastically punching horn section and great MCing. Plus, it's their first gig, which can only bode well.

More horns from Misty's Big Adventure. In fact the whole band are tight, but almost indescribable. Imagine some parlour song pianio, dissonant backing vocals and random keyboard sounds underneath silly, childlike soungs about biscuit tins and the like. Imagine Rod, Jane & Freddy infused with the spirit of The Mothers Of Invention round at Viv Stanshall's house. Oh yes, and imagine a man in a big suit made of gloves who does approximately nothing.

Perhaps it wouldn't work in a dank club, but in the glorious sunshine, who's to complain?

I don't think Vera Cruise would work anywhere, for me at least. There's nothing wrong with them, and they're tight and well-rehearsed but the slightly grunge-laced rock songs don't find anything new to say.

A man next to me in the crowd says, "They sound like loads of bands whom I can't even be bothered to remember," which probably sums it up. Foursquare harmless rock with plenty of pedal stamping. Ho hum.

If Captive State gave the soundman a hard job, Thomas Truax steals the prize, playing homemade instruments built from scrap with occasional guitar and keyboard. These go through a giant fx/delay pedal, to build queasy, lurching soundscapes, atop which Thomas recites some odd vignettes about a fictional place called Wowtown.

I'm not even going to begin to describe the hornicator, part instrument, part sculpture, part headgear, but suffice to say this is the most unpredicatble set seen all weekend.

Musical ineptitude? The Zoltan-Kodaly School For Girls make Lesbo Pig look like Pink Floyd...which must make Vic 20 look like...oh, never mind.

Four women in school uniform play pop songs on the recorder. Badly. They are later joined by someone playing headmaster for a seeedy "Je T'aime, Moi Non Plus". A lot of people enjoyed this hilarious set. Then again, alot of people enjoy anything that features four women in school uniform...

Not sure about Meanwhile, Back In Communist Russia on the main stage. Full marks for their audacity, playing if anything more delicately and quietly than usual, but I still would rather have seen them in a dark, damp place.

You probably know the score: woman recites bleak poetic fragments whilst the band chug through the chords, throwing in odd noises occasionally. It seemed harder to build an atmosphere in the evening sun, as MBICR have a fundamentally claustrophobic sound, and some of the keyboards sounded light and airy, trather than menacing, but a good gig all the same.

However, my dear, smoking is bad for you; and affected smoking is very lazy stagecraft.