Truck 2011 Saturday Pt 2

The Rockingbirds, over on the Clash Stage, prove you don’t need to have a spurious movement and ugly stage sets to be exciting, they simply bash out vintage rock with country flourishes with self-effacing charm and leave everyone happy. See, sometimes that’s all you need, kids: some good music.

Anyone missing the surprising absence of Luke Smith from the lineup this year could have done worse than dropping in on wry pianist Matt Winkworth. Like Smith he has a relaxed sense of humour and a deft way with the ivories, but there is a glitzy, cabaret heart at the centre of Winkworth’s music, every tune leaving a waft of greasepaint and mildewed curtain velvet. Standout is “Elixir Of Youth”, a song about wanting to die that is made impossibly tragic by the jaunty old Joanna underneath it.

Wild Swim open their set with a proto-drum ‘n’ bass rhythm topped with a light operatic tenor. It could be the lost theme for Italia 90. Later they sound like Spandau Ballet might have, if they’d discovered a copy of Amnesiac in a time portal. All of which sounds slightly demeaning, but we are impressed with this young band, who may have grasped more than they can quite deal with as yet, but who look as though they have the potential to develop along exciting lines.

We choose to listen to Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou from outside the Clash tent. We’re quite partial to their winsome folk music, but can’t stand the sight of them gazing longingly into each other’s eyes, like a mixture between A Mighty Wind’s Mitch & Mickey and an 80’s Love Is... cartoon. Something tells us that if this act breaks up, it won’t be because of “artistic differences”...

We return to the Blessing Force hootenanny to hear a keyboard line that sounds like a medieval recorder part, putting us immediately in mind of Danish genius/madman Goodiepal. It turns out that this is the pinnacle of Jonquil’s set, but it’s all still good, taking ersatz 80 pop soul and creating new shapes form it in a way that must make Solid Gold Dragons weep with envy.

The fugu fish is apparently delicious, but in all but the most skilled hands it is a deadly poison. Sounds like the bagpipes and the djembe to us. We only hear small amount of The Geees’ pedestrian world-fusion jamming, but it’s a hideously painful experience.

There are only two ways to experience Thomas Truax’ home made instruments. Either watch him after a full 90 minute soundcheck in a high-end venue, where the subtleties of his Tom Waits songwriting can win out, or see him after no soundcheck, in a sweaty flurry of feedback and confusion that seems to capture part of his wired triple espresso New York charm. Today we have unexpected noises, guitar coming in at random levels, and songs lost in an Eno-ish dub. Wonderful.

You know that horrible Innocent Smoothies type trend, where packaging for allegedly healthy foods says “Look at me, I’m 100% natural, aren’t I lovely?”, so that now products can be as smug and enraging as their consumers? Well, Fixers should carry a label stating “this band is made entirely artificial components, and is bloody great”. Their set is mixture of fake Beach Boys keyboards, Ronettes vocals and Meatloaf tom flams, all tied to together with a catering sized delivery of delay. The effect is some of the most euphoric music we’ve ever witnessed, a whirlwind of sugary melody and psychedelic treatments, all of which is as inauthentic as Jack Goldstein’s California-Eynsham accent. Outstanding - and we’ve not even mentioned Jack’s vast tentacular beard, making him look like a Captain Birdseye from the Cthulhu mythos, or the endearingly over-excited exclamations between songs. A set for the annals, and vindication for a band some see as trendy Animal Collective copyists.

Slightly more refined local heroes, next, in the shape of Young Knives. And it’s a warm welcome back, as the set is far more enticing than last time we saw them live. They may not have got the wired maniacal electricity of their early sets, but they’ve moved through the safe, foursquare indie sound that typified gigs at the height of their fame. In fact, we swiftly remember all the things that we loved about them – although the sight of a middle aged mother, carrying her weeping toddler away from the stage, whilst singing along to “The Decision” says a lot about how time can cruelly catch up with you in this game. The House Of Lords, however, seems to be trying to cheat time, with a horrendous grebo haircut: is he living his life backwards, from chartered surveyor to petulant teenager? Any Carter USM covers likely on the next album?

Having missed Kris Drever earlier, it was pleasant to see him accompany Kildare singer, Heidi Talbot. Like delta blues, early minimalism and acid house, you don’t have to do much with Irish folk song to make us feel warm and fuzzy, but Heidi has a gorgeous papery whisper of a voice, that sounds as though it’s offering each song to you as personal indulgence, and when we open our eyes, thirty minutes has gone blissfully by.

The Long Insiders have turned the cabaret tent into a 50s burlesque show for the evening, which we mostly steer clear of, primarily because we don’t think we have the critical vocabulary to adequately review boobies, but we do catch some of the hosts’ opening set. Very good they are too, knocking out a fizzy rockabilly with stridently melodic female vocals...but you do suspect they go home every night and stick pins into an Imelda May voodoo doll.