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.

Truck 2010 Sunday Pt 2

One thing we noticed at Truck is how many photographers there are nowadays. Impressed audience members come up to ask what lens a snapper is using, when once they would have been checking amp manufacturers or DJ set lists. Luckily, Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou have framed the pictures for them, by standing in the very centre of the main stage and singing into one microphone, which cleverly gives the impression that we’re all in some poky, cosy folk club. We only really love a couple of their songs, but you simply only see a duo whose voices complement each other like this once in blue moon: he is querulous and melancholy, whilst her voice is lucid and liquid, and when they harmonise it sounds like one astonishing folk organism. Joe Bennett turns up once again to play some rather nifty trumpet, proving their music is even better to share.

Nedry usher in the return of the epic reverb pedal, offering us icy clicks and cuts glitch ambience surrounding girl-lost-in-fog vocal mantras. The songs are something like the forlorn ghosts of Donna Summer tracks in some laptop purgatory, except the one that sounds like a dubstep Stina Nordenstam. Another wonderful Truck discovery a long way from the main action.

Unfortunately, lightning doesn’t strike twice and our next off-piste venture brings us to Summer Camp, who play something like late period OMD, which would be passable, if it weren’t for their horribly plastic wedding singer vocalist, who ruins any small chance their songs have of winning us over. The crass lyrics mostly boil down to “Ooh ooh, nice things are nice”. If you think it would be good if all towns were like Milton Keynes, this is the band for you; if you’re fully functioning adult, steer well clear.

No adults in Egyptian Hip Hop, they’re a band who are very young to have received the plaudits they have, but we shan’t let that affect our judgement. And it turns out they’re...alright. There are plenty of ideas in their songs, and they can chug through a slack riff like Dinosaur Jr before flipping out some cheesy Huey Lewis keyboards and throwing in some hi-life inflected jerky guitars that remind us of – oh, you know – FUCKING EVERYBODY! They sound more like a promising band than a good one, but that’s no crime; also, they’re less than half our age and we think they look bloody ridiculous, so they must be doing something right. Misleading name, however; someone should book them with Non-Stop Tango and try to start a riot.

We’re much more excited by the sounds of young Britain when we visit Unicorn Kid, and his hyper-active Nintendo toybox rave, in a style we christen “Arpeggi8”. “Where Is Your Child” and “Tricky Disco” would have come out a few years before he was born, which intriguingly means that he saw them the same way we saw The White Album. And, let’s be honest, they’re better. His music is also better than most on offer this weekend, and whilst it has its florescent charms, the material is strong because a lot of care has clearly gone into the construction, there are lots of interesting ideas in his Wonky Kong palette. Despite being one of the oldest people watching, we love it as much as the teenagers; although when there’s a stage invasion of day-glo youths, we do feel as though we’ve stumbled into the Byker Grove wrap party. Gigs are rarely this much fun.

We get our final Bennett-spotter points with Common Prayer, as they’re both present and correct, as is a French horn which would be brilliant if it were only audible. This is neo-country Truck mulch to a great extent, but the singer does have a lovely unhurried voice, so we end up in favour, even if we can’t sincerely say, “we’re loving it”.

Watching Blood Red Shoes we remember why we like Little Fish. Their guitar and drums business is all very well, and they have some decent rock tunes, but we can’t really get a grip on any of it. They do, however, have far superior stage banter to Little Juju, whose nervous ramblings can get pretty tiresome. There’s exactly nothing wrong with this set, but after two days of music we want something memorable nearly as much as we want a nice sit down.

We are a smidgen disappointed when we realise nervous_testpilot is going to play a straight trance set with none of the madness of previous Trucks (although we’re sure he sampled the Crystal Maze theme at one point), but then we decide that hearing truly exquisitely crafted music is enough, and begin to appreciate the subtly melancholic melodies hidden amongst the snare rushes and thumping vorsprung durch techno. It may be the end of the weekend, but the crowd are still eager to dance, one of whom has discovered some discarded fragments of the Keyboard Choir’s costumes, which brings The Beathive’s day nicely full circle. The set turns out to be an understated triumph, and Testpilot’s loving ridicule of the dancing crowd is fun to watch.

We finish our festival away from headliners Teenage Fanclub, with The Epstein, stars of many a bygone Truck. They play a beautiful set, the jewel in the crown being a glistening “Leave Your Light On”, and we realise that whilst Truck may have got bigger, louder and – let’s not skim over it – more expensive, it still feels very much like it used to a decade ago. As ever there have been surprises, charming atmospheres and far too much rubbish country, and we relish the fact that Truck can hold on to this frail ability to welcome everyone, yet not blandly smooth itself out to try to please them all. The programme’s editorial might be written as an embarrassing cross between Mr Motivator and Jack Kerouac – “this movement that says no homogenous same-old phoney crap but new real expression” – but there is something in it, and Truck realises that being professional is great, but treating people like profit units isn’t. There’s still a natural, unforced wonder about Truck, and no glib corporate slogan is ever likely to encapsulate that feeling.

Like It Or Lamp It

Hello again, and a special welcome to anyone who has found themselves here by clicking my link after getting embroiled in the somewhat inexplicable furore following my latest Riverside Fesitval review on Oxfordbands. Get involved and post messages here, why don't you? Love, hatred or stuff about arboreal nursery, I'm pretty easy.

This is a review I did with a reviewer named Sarah Morton. We wandered into a gig together and decided to write a review. She wrote most of it, I probably did 20%. I'll leave you to guess which parts were mine.

TREVOR MOSS & HANNAH-LOU/ THE LANTERN PLAYERS/ DUSTY/ THE SELENITES, The Lantern Society, Wytham Village Hall, 19/2/10

There's something perverse about a London folk club putting on a tour of countryside village halls, and it seems that if there were to be a natural exchange of folk music between rural and urban environments it probably wouldn't be passed in that direction. At tonight's show in the delightful bunting-decked Wytham Village Hall (seating 60 at a push) there is a slight feel of the Londoners coming down from the mountain and it's a more elaborate performance than seems appropriate for such a low-key environment where perhaps a more relaxed session would be the ideal. Though when The Lantern Players are playing they guest on-stage for each other's sets, all of which almost adds up to a strange display of formal informality, particularly when one musician's backstage practicing is audible from the stage. Nevertheless, it's a relaxed evening in a delightful environment and adds up to a show well worth making the effort out of town for.

The Lantern Players - Pepe Belmonte, Benjamin Folke Thomas and Jack Day - seem to be the in-house regulars of the Lantern Society, and each play a solo set which concludes with a sing-and-play-along from all three. Since the closing songs are the best in each set it would probably have made for a better gig if the three had played together from the outset, taking it in turns to play their solos and backing each other up, instead of spreading it all out to a six-band bill. Of the three Pepe Belmonte is probably the strongest, playing and singing blues in a Bert Jansch style with unobtrusive harmonica complementing a gentle voice. Jack Day has a striking blues-gospel sound with a put-on gravelly voice like a grizzled prospector which nevertheless doesn't feel out of place with the rolling freight-train blues style, and which lends him a Cat Stevens air in his slower songs. Benjamin Folke Thomas's reach slightly exceeds his grasp, with his aggressive guitar finger-picking not offsetting particularly well his muffled Swedish accented baritone, which is better suited to the slower, delicate songs where it has a weary sophistication redolent of Kris Kristofferson.

Of the two local supports the first, Half Moon regulars Alice Little and Danny Chapman as The Selenites, are by far the better act. Tonight they are a viola and concertina duo, and they give a strong performance of traditional folk tunes and songs in a reserved chamber style. The music is good, but the formality of the performance and the precision of the playing tends to make things a bit dry, and Little’s reticent voice, which makes her seem like a shy Edwardian spinster forced to do a turn at harvest festival, can suck some of the presence from thoughtful arrangements. It's admirable, but occasionally somewhat lifeless.

It would be kind to say as little about the second local support act - Goldrush's Robin Bennett as Dusty - as possible, as it was a truly awful performance of sub-Dylan clumsy guitar strumming, adenoidal busking and woefully clunky songwriting. The blues-style harmonica is often evocative of the freight train's whistle, but in Dusty's mouth it reminds us more of having got on the stopping train from Paddington by some horrible mistake; “42 Days” is a lamentable political ballad, but it makes us feel as if our train has been delayed by that long outside Reading. His last piece was apparently written for a “computer game about the environment”, but it would be more suited to Advanced Waiting Room Simulator or Catatonic The Hedgehog, such is its leaden dirge. Grand theft evening.

As can often be the case with bands who book their own supports, the top billing are head and shoulders above the rest. At the start of their set it's difficult to tell which of Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou is singing which parts as their voices blend beautifully in the high alto register, with Moss's voice standing out with a clear reedy tone which complements Hannah-Lou's softer timbre. It's clear they've been singing together for a long time, and the guitar playing from both of them is restrained and almost transparent to foreground the voices. For folk promoters it's perhaps surprising that they aren't playing traditional songs, but they are playing songs written to traditional themes, and the whole feels very English, evidenced by the facts that “Deptford Market” is about timeless London locales, and that Moss looks like an extra from Oliver! They’re clearly the standout act, though with tired ears it's not inspiring us enough to want to take their music home. The night was good honest entertainment, but it was a pleasant quiet night out rather than a musical epiphany…which is perhaps what acoustic nights in Wytham Village Hall ought to be.