Truck Festival 2013 Saturday

On Saturday, the Virgins stage becomes the Veterans stage, hosting old Truck regulars.  We wonder whether the presence of this and the Saloon was some clause in the contract when Y Not took over the Truck name, to give the Bennetts something to do, but it’s quite good fun, even if it does mean that at times on Saturday there’s polite Americana on two stages within feet of each other, which is rather beyond the call of duty.  Thankfully, The Holy Orders aren’t guilty of that, instead thrashing out some scrunchy rock with small grunge inflections, that just screams “Tuning is for losers!”.

Bob Dylan.  Nick Drake. Stevie Wonder.  It’s a favourite Nightshift game to list acts who are great, but who only inspire rubbish artists. In a similar vein, when we see that the programme likens Candice Gordon to Patti Smith and Nick Cave we know that she will actually be a decent, but ultimately generic lightly theatrical rock chick.  There are shades of Little Fish about this band, and some cleaned up Cramps rockabilly, but if they ever come up with anything that sounds remotely like “Tupelo” or “Free Money” we must have been buying coffee at the time.

We’re all for kids who can’t play making pop music, to a certain extent that’s what it’s for, but even we can’t get on with Bentcousin, a pair of twins jigging clumsily about, singing flatly about sibling rivalry and double Chemistry and Panini sticker albums (possibly) over some floppy pop. Plus they eviscerate “Boys Keep Swinging” and dance laughingly on its defiled cadaver.  One of them is wearing a Wham! T-shirt and the make-your-own-fun vibe is so cloying it really is uncannily like watching an 80s episode of Why Don’t You?  So, naturally, we go off and do something less boring instead.

Nairobi offer oddball pop of a more palatable nature.  As we enter the Jamalot tent, the band is laying down some refined white funk and someone is doing a strange yodelling vocal over the top.  It’s like Hall & Oates fronted by Emo Philips, which is obviously great.  Later they do some African jive, and throw in a few synth lines that sound like chase scenes from Knight Rider, and it’s all bloody good fun, and approximately four thousand times better than last time we saw them.

We’re told Interlocutor are an 11-piece band, so we go and see them just to repay their effort carrying all the gear across the field.  But, what’s this?  Tenor sax, yes, but baritone?  And a trombone?  Oh, man, this is going to kick jazz-ska-swing botty, let’s get a beer in, and go mental to the first number which...sounds like “Dancing In The Moonlight” at half speed coming down the phone whilst we’re on hold to British Gas.  Oh.  And the next track is a drab elevator waltz that sounds like Ian Brodie having a crack at being a crooner, but with the theory that Hasselhoff was a better role model than Sinatra.  And a cold. 

We drop in on The Heavy Dexters just to burn this image from our mind, and get some proper sax action, as we know their skirling soprano playing is the cherry on their acid jazz cake.  Admittedly, the JTQ styled funk workouts fit the afternoon better than the open-ended muso jazz ballads, but there’s definitely a place at Truck for a locally-grown live dance act to wear out some shoe leather.  Some ropy jazz-sex faces on display from the keyboard player might be too much for those with weak stomachs, though.

Kimberly Anne is today’s Ady Suleiman, except she’s actually better.  Whilst she plays guitar a percussionist adds flourishes on a small stand-up drum kit (side on, we’re happy to report), and her outstanding muscular, low voice draws a line between the rich sincerity of Tracey Chapman and the sweet urban froth of TLC.  This set of young, slick pop sounds as though it was built to move the heart and the feet, and not shift mobile phones, which is sadly rare nowadays.  She must be good, because we’ve got this far into the review and not mentioned her amazing hair, which looks like a drunken guardsman’s wonky busby.

In a throwback to our Candice Gordon experience , the programme likens Pylo to Radiohead and Pink Floyd, but we are unsurprised to find that they sound more like Keane and U2.  They at least have the decency to sound like the very best bits of Keane and U2.  Passable.

Toy have been recommended to us by a big Meatloaf fan, which would normally be enough to send us striding in the opposite direction, but this Meatloaf fan also really likes Beefheart, so we thought we’d give them a try.  Very good choice.  Toy’s post-Velvets pop is a little like The Primitives, but with taut motorik drums driving everything relentlessly onwards, and some nifty McCartney guitar parts to hold the tunes together.  We’re not sure if it’s bubblegum kraut or amphetamine shoegaze, but it’s pretty damn intoxicating, and there always seems to be another plateau of guitar noise for the songs to leap up to: if you’ve ever listened to the first Psychedelic Furs LP and thought, “this could really do with fat layers of Korg in place of the goth”, you’re in luck.  They have horrible ratty bogan haircuts though, perhaps they could give Kimberly Anne’s mum a ring.

The Ramshackle Union Band are playing some pretty good country stuff in the Saloon, according to what we catch through the window.  Still, there won’t be a shortage of country in there for the rest of they day, so let’s not tarry.  Back in the Veterans tent, we realise that Katy Rose is actually KTB – we think we did know this, somewhere deep down – and that The Cavalry Parade is actually Joe Bennett on a lap steel, which we didn’t know but is still not causing any reels of shock, let’s be honest.  Katy has a very good voice  as we well know, and, if the material can be a touch refined for our tastes, “Bluebird” is still a lovely song.

Catching sight of a frisbee arcing across the sky as we leave the tent, we investigate the campsite to find out just how many people go to music festivals to play catch and sit on folding chairs a long longb way from any music.  Do they not know that you can do that in the park from free?  Still, better than the Barn on Saturday, which has been filled with sand and now has a tiki beach bar and a prominent volleyball set, so that people can ignore the musicians right in front of their faces.  Seems odd to us, and it looks as though Axes feel the same, judging by comments.  The band is good enough to get attention, throwing tricksy elements together with just enough gleeful abandon to stop them turning into annoying clever dick neo-proggers (the fact that they have track titles like “Jon Bon Jela” and “Fleetwood Math” probably puts paid to that danger).  They’re sort of Islet junior, and they’re fine by us, although the music tends to be all breaks and endings, corners and offcuts on offer when a prime fillet would be tasty once in a while.

We can’t really believe that Big Scary Monster and Alopop! have bothered to lug all this sand into the Barn, but then again we don’t quite see the attraction of CDs in the shape of Megatron or compilation download codes hidden inside taxidermied squirrels, or whatever else it is they come up with.  We do, however, like the idea of small acts playing in front of the stage between the main bands, such as Thrill Collins, a busking trio who knock out some energetic, slightly ironic medleys.  Nothing revolutionary, but as a little sorbet between courses, we think they’re pretty great.

Inside Truck

And here's Sunday from Truck. Nothing more to add, I feel wierd today & I'm going to lie down.

Truck, Hill Farm, Steventon, 2010 Sunday

The Holy Orders are almost beyond criticism, because they came all the way from Leeds and they’re playing at 10.30 in the morning in a Barn that has a forceful smell of bovine faeces that even the Bisto kids couldn’t convincingly pretend to like, when they’d probably like to be lolling on the grass like most of the Truckers. Luckily they aren’t half bad, melding Mudhoney’s rock slur with something altogether less acceptable that’s more like Wyld Stallyns. It’s all rough hewn and unrefined, but undoubtedly enjoyable, especially “Paper, Scissors, Stone”, which is a budget At The Drive-In blast.

Some people have complained that there aren’t enough slots for local musicians at Truck, which is odd, because it’s never claimed to be primarily a local festival. It’s like criticising Kind Hearts & Coronets for not having enough car chases. As it is we enjoy stumbling across the odd smattering of Oxfordshire acts, and Sunday continues with a hat trick of strong scenesters. Minor Coles impress with some spicy indie, and are followed by an excellent offering from Phantom Theory, who play a drum and guitar set that hasn’t got an ounce of fat on it, and who marry spotless arrangements with full tilt rocking to cut directly to even the most leaden Sunday morning brains, and who live in a world made entirely of RIFF. Like Truck alumni Winnebago Deal shaved and spruced for a job interview, Phantom Theory have clearly spent long hard hours honing their music, but waste no time in cracking it out onstage. Mosh and go.

But even they are eclipsed in the Beathive where The Keyboard Choir are making music hand built by robots. It’s a simple proposition: a bunch of synths, music that is pitched roughly between Klaus Schulze and Luke Slater, and a fifth column of dancers dressed in woefully poor android costumes. Not only is it musically one of the best things we see all weekend, but Seb Reynolds alternately doing a gangly newborn foal dance and trying to fix broken machinery is officially funnier than anything in the cabaret tent, ever.

After a quick trip to the Butt’s ale stall (great beer, no queues, Truck 7 prices – why go anywhere else?), we drop in on The Horizontal Instrument. There’s a fair amount of electronic music on today, and some people would say that it isn’t proper music. Well this is. And it’s properly awful. What we see is like Motley Crue with all the fun excised and surgically replaced by disco. Yes, that unpleasant. We only lasted two songs, so maybe it got better; maybe the end credits of Eldorado were a psychedelic funk explosion, but you can forgive us for never having found out. Sucked like an Electrolux.

We cock half an ear to Dead Jerichos as we pass, who seem to be today’s Shaodow, retaining local fans and winning over newcomers in equal measure, but the temperature in the Market Stage is about 4000 degrees, so we walk on by to the Beat Hive again. There’s also some “proper music paranoia” about Miaoux Miaoux. There he is plucking a guitar, playing Korg and programming in drum machine beats live. It’s decent electro, but it would be better if we didn’t have to watch each track being painstakingly put together. All very commendable, but it’s a bit like watching a glass blowing demonstration when all you want is a pint.

Sometimes we wonder at the logic of which acts play the main stage, as it’s so much bigger than any of the others, but with a band like Flowers Of Hell there must never have been any question. Their music is vast in scale, torrents of miserablist strings tumbling over humming guitars to form a whirlpool where Mogwai meets Morricone. They even do a Plastic People Of The Universe cover, which has got to be worth points. Every little helps.

At points all of Islet play drums, and yet theirs is not an aggressive sound – it’s more Stomp than Shit & Shine, and the music is built more on a cheeky bounce than a pummelling thud. With slinky basslines and plenty of barely controlled yelping the set comes off like Stump quirking out at Notting Hill Carnival, and is almost obscenely enjoyable. Highlights are a ritualistic dub number, in which the band chants and clatters over chubby Jah Wobble bass, and the almost poppy moments when they become a special needs Foals. Plenty of acts try to marry experimental showboating with a cohesive rock sound, but most fail; this is the real thing.

In the wake of Fuck Buttons there’s a new breed of leftfield musicians who aren’t afraid of offering tribute to simple, hedonistic musical pleasures. Take Masks, who may have the Vivian Girls t-shirt and Explosions In The Sky guitar hazes, but who also aren’t wary of throwing a huge 808 bass drum pulse behind one of their spidery numbers. In truth, the show is slightly hesitant, and the two guitar lineup can’t quite make enough noise to complement the backing tracks: they play a piece that’s supposed to sound like Godspeed, but it’s more like an old walk-on tape for Saxon. Near the end of the set things come together, and suddenly they make a sombre yet insistent post-goth groove that could soundtrack some hip torture dungeon. This isn’t just music, this is S & M music.

Dog Is Dead exist at the other end of the spectrum, completely unashamed about their away day pop with its sunny sax breaks and bleached funk guitars that put them equidistant between Pigbag and Vampire Weekend. We hate to admit it, but we rather like this uptight, grinning mess of Haircut 100 and Steely Dan, and find ourselves singing the line, “this is a zoo, could you not feed the animals?” all afternoon. Pop music: it’s not just there for the nasty things in life.

Artic. Monkeys

This is the Truck that nearly didn't happen, the orginal summer date being rained off, and a rescheduled event happening in chilly September. I think I prefer the idea of an autumnal festival - more time to sup soup and be wistful, and fewer oafs swigging cider and doing something gauche like enjoying themselves.

TRUCK 2007, Hill Farm, Steventon

With the reliably infectious sounds of The Drugsquad wafting over the queue, we find our way into the rescheduled Truck, and straight to The Market Stage for Gog, who display their atonal cabaret schtick with lots of volume and a pink wig. They’re like forgotten local oddballs Dog, but not as good…until we see the programme and discover that they are Dog. But not as good. That’s a bit sad, really.

Actress Hands: Thumbs down; pull your fingers out; read the manual. Oh, somebody stop us! Suffice to say that Actress Hands are a dull punky indie band with rubbish guitar solos.

Enemies of lispers the world over, Restlesslist are an unusual bunch. Their first number is a limp, tinny post-rock bounce, a sort of 65 Minutes Of Static, but then they suddenly throw in some big band samples, drag on a trumpet player, and it all sounds rather wonderfully like the incidental music to Batman. Things taper off again, but that’s probably because all the machines break, along with some of the guitar strings.

Coley Park aren’t that bad, they’ve got some decent light rock and a slight country twang, but they make little impact on the consciousness. If Buffy The Vampire Slayer were set in Swindon, these guys would be playing The Bronze.

Jim Protector are a sort of Scandinavian iLiKETRAiNS: well, we dare say they run on time and don’t smell of piss in Northern Europe. Anyway, they’re a diverting act, with a nicely understated drummer.

Country rock is really the lingua franca of Truck, and Babel have a fair crack at it. There’s some enticingly slurred fiddle, but they really take off when they get that floor to the floor hoedown groove going. Hey, look, we’re literally tapping our feet! Now we’re really in the festival vibe!

Do we really want to hear sensitive post-grunge, fronted by a man whose voice cracks every other syllable? We don’t, which is why we shan’t be seeking The Holy Orders out again. We preferred it when the Barn was full of metal bands - even if they were rubbish they were at least unignorable.

We promised ourselves we wouldn’t spend all Truck watching our favourite local bands, and yet somehow here we are before the mighty Stornoway once again. Maybe the main stage sucks a little intimacy from their winsome folk pop, but eco-jazz shuffle "The Good Fish Guide" still sounds gloriously like The Proclaimers played by The Grumbleweeds, via The Divine Comedy, and we leave with a broad smile.

When A Scholar And A Physician rap, it makes Morris Minor & The Majors look like Public Enemy. There are millions of them, and the whole experience is akin to a techno revue performed by the cast of Why Don’t You? Which means it’s mostly dumb, but you’d have to be a pretty miserable soul to actively dislike it.

We’re going to start a support group for people like us who loved Piney Gir’s debut electro album, and have become deeply disillusioned with her myriad novelty projects ever since. Can this cod C&W Roadshow malarkey and get back to the keyboards, woman!

It seems only right that we go and see some properly apocalyptic, hellfire preacher country after that. With the biggest beard at Truck, and the loudest acoustic guitar in the hemisphere, Josh T Pearson smashes out his Bible-black dirges with arresting intensity. The cavernous sound is strangely like Merle Haggard having a crack at dronecore, and as such is the best act so far.

Back at The Market Stage, which incidentally has the best sound and atmosphere of the festival, we find Sam Isaac plying his acoustic pop trade. A touch of ‘cello, and a tiny tinge of Kitchenware Records makes it a sufficiently enjoyable spectacle to detain us for a few tunes.