The Great Escape Festival 2010

It’s easy to get lazy at festivals, regardless of how many bands are playing that you’ve been waiting years to see, somehow you still manage to spend the whole weekend sitting in a broken tent, drinking warm cider and cooking bad food to an awful standard. The Great Escape is a bit different. For a start it’s in a city, Brighton, so you’d have a job hammering your guy ropes in anywhere. On top of that if you’re lazy at Great Escape you will miss literally everything.

Now in its fifth year, the festival is pulling in some big acts. Groove Armada, Chase and Status, and Broken Social Scene were some of the headliners but with 30 venues hosting gigs, there was plenty more to choose from over the three days. For the weekend, every venue had bands playing all night and day; even places that weren’t venues had a go. One of these makeshift venues is the Queens Hotel, which gives gigs more of a wedding-disco vibe than most of the bands would have liked. Despite this, Detroit Social Club’s Kasabian-esque indie still could have filled a quarry with the amount of reverb they layered over it. There could be a danger of the songs losing substance with this much echo but they still manage to hold themselves together with some beefy riffs every now and then.

The mid-afternoon ‘headline’ act were even less appropriate to the setting. The Chapman Family follow a quiet start to their set with a chaotic, frantic explosion of noisy post-punk. However after an angsty half hour, they finish the set with ‘Kids’, which could quite easily find it’s way into the charts if they hadn’t drenched it in delicious, filthy distortion. It makes it a better song and is a slightly more appropriate accompaniment to vocalist, Kingsley asphyxiating himself with the microphone cable.

As well as some odd buildings turning themselves into venues, a few impromptu street gigs crop up over the weekend. The spontaneity of this kind of thing is spoilt a bit though when Relentless decide to sponsor it and build a specific stage for these so-called ‘street gigs’ on the pier. It’s not even a street. Outside Concorde 2, the Red Stripe (more sponsorship) acoustic caravan is a nicer idea and if you can handle the trek down to it there’s a chance of catching something a bit different.

Aside from the walking (which my laziness may have exaggerated) the only issue with having so many separate venues is actually getting into them. The queues for some gigs did get a bit ridiculous, so much so that you end up not even bothering in some cases. Most venues have two separate queues, one for normal ticket holders and another for ‘priority’, but seeing as they were usually both a similar length, that didn’t make too much sense either. Great Escape is the kind of festival where it really is better to go to the smaller venues and find some new bands. Although not completely unknown, Young Legionnaire proved to be one of my highlights for Saturday. Comprised of Bloc Party bassist, Gordon Moakes, La Roux and I Was A Cub Scout drummer William Bowerman and former Youcodenameis:milo vocalist Paul Mullen, they delivered a powerful, heavy show to a venue that deserved to be packed. Somewhere between At The Drive In and Death From Above 1979, it was certainly a change from what Moakes has been doing with Bloc Party recently, but more than welcome during their hiatus.

My choice of headliner was Canada’s Born Ruffians and after some more bizarre queue issues, they showed exactly why their debut album was so good and that their second LP (out May 31st) is well worth a listen too. Retard Canard and Sole Brother stood out from the new tracks showcased and closing on Foxes Mate For Life ended the night nicely. Obviously in a city like Brighton there’s plenty more to do till the early hours, after the bands have finished. I ended up spending two hours strolling the streets in search of a house I’d never been to be before, but hey, that’s just how I roll. There were plenty of much better, less moronic things to do than that and although you can spend a lot of time walking around and queuing up, with the sheer amount of bands playing at Great Escape, it’s definitely worth going just for the few you do see.

The Ivor Novellos

The Ivor Novello awards have been rewarding ‘excellence in British music writing’ for the last fifty-five years, and with that legacy comes a certain amount of prestige. Receiving an Ivor is often seen as a far more respectable achievement than getting a Brit or an NME award and it’s partly down to the presentation. The Brit Awards look more like a kids birthday party, this year with Peter Kay hired as the clown and Liam Gallagher playing the grumpy dad. The NME’s try to be a bit edgier but, despite Jarvis Cocker’s input, still turn into a school disco, with everyone trying to be more alternative than everyone else. The Ivor’s eliminate any of these problems by simply not allowing any cameras in, and initially seem to be a truly alternative awards ceremony, reward good, real music. However, a quick glance at this year’s results suggests otherwise.

With a panel appointed to decide the winners you would think that there would be little commercial influence, but with PRS as sponsors, commercial success completely dominates one of the awards. The PRS for Music Most Performed Work Award -presumably based on whose song has been whored out the most- went to Lily Allen for ‘The Fear’. Fair enough, if that’s the song that got played the most, I guess it deserves the award. The issue comes when you see that Lily Allen also won the award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically, with the same song, and the award for Songwriter of the Year (with Greg Kustin). Now, surely one award is enough? Surely an awards event with a panel should be able to spread the awards around a little more evenly? Surely that’s exactly what the panel is for? If the public were voting for the awards and it turned out that the whole country loved Lily Allen more than anyone else, then that’s that, she…deserves the award, but a panel of judges has the ability to stop that. Apparently they chose not to.

After you’ve digested the information that twenty percent of the whole ceremony was essentially dedicated to Lily Allen, it’s hard to take the rest of it seriously. The news that Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs took the award for Best Original Film Score sort of flies straight over your head. At this point the whole prestige and status of the event fades away. Winning one Ivor Novello this year simply means that you’re nearly as good as Lily Allen, because she got three of them. That’s not going to persuade me to go out and buy the soundtrack to Ice Age. There were some brighter moments; Johnny Marr deservedly received the Ivors Inspiration Award and Bat For Lashes and Imogen Heap were given the awards for Best Contemporary Song and International Achievement respectively. Even Paolo Nutini getting the Best Album Award comes across as a good thing. At least he’s actually on the writing credits for it. Contrastingly, Girls Aloud’s ‘The Promise’ was nominated, despite it being credited to a list of seven other people, which didn’t include any of the band’s actual line-up.

An event like The Ivors is an opportunity for people who supposedly know what they’re talking about, to really reward artists for their songwriting ability, regardless of commercial success. With the influence it holds, BASCA (the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors) could have taken the chance to highlight some new talent, by picking something that’s been going on under the radar, and granting it the respect it deserves. Instead they chose to give out a few awards to artists that everyone’s already heard of, and allow one person, who is clearly not the ‘future of music’ to completely overshadow the whole thing, it just seems a little bit lazy. What was previously a well-respected institution now just seems to be another meaningless awards ceremony that no one with any sense will give a shit about. Sorry Ivor.

Some words with Barry from The Futureheads

‘Creativity is a relationship between you and what you create, and relationships can sometimes stagnate. You know, sometimes you need to start having sex in the kitchen.’ They may not have gone for it as the title of their fourth album, but all that ‘sex in the kitchen’ has led them to a musical…climax. ‘I feel with The Chaos we’ve made what we would consider to be our perfect album.’ It’s not just the record he’s proud of either, ‘Some of these gigs have been some of the best we’ve ever done, the collective feeling in the room has been nothing short of ecstasy. You see when you play the new tunes if they perk people up or they’re kind of like whatever. All the new tunes have been going down like a …ton of bricks.’ That’s presumably a positive thing, as opposed to the sinking feeling they might have experienced when they were dropped by (or left) their previous label, 679 Recordings, back in 2006.

Whether they left of their own accord or were subtly ushered out of the door, it’s definitely working out better for the band, ‘Whatever happened in the past has allowed us to really be where we’re meant to be now, and that’s here, playing smallish venues, but selling them out.’ They’ve done exactly that at the Wedgewood Rooms tonight and once the crowd settle in a bit, some of that ‘ecstasy’ is definitely shared around. A lot of the new material gets showcased, but they’re not stupid, plenty of their self-titled debut album gets played and it’s these songs that really spark a reaction with the crowd. While their sound may not have changed drastically over the years, they’ve definitely matured. ‘I’ve been getting into some pretty mad books’ says Barry, ‘I’m more influenced by literature these days. I used to spend all my money on records but now I spend it all on books.’

Now on their own label Nul Records, they’re free to produce whatever they want and have the fans be the judges of it, however, in a completely unselfish way, the plan on keeping Nul for themselves. ‘The great thing about doing it is that it’s really liberating to have your own label and if we were to sign another band we’d be robbing them of that experience by being their bosses and we don’t want to get involved in that dynamic at all. You need to hold onto your creative integrity.’ Part of that integrity comes down to the way in which their music makes it’s way to the public and having already made their opinions on the subject of illegal downloading known, Barry summarised the situation quite nicely. ‘The Internet is like this collective mumbo jumbo ocean, it’s very wild and free, and I would hate to see greedy music business people and greedy politicians hindering our ability to use it.’ That’ll do nicely.

So having hit a self-confessed peak after four albums, it could be a challenge finding a path to follow. ‘There’s no real need for us to be going into the studio any time soon and whacking out another bang bang bang Futureheads album.’ To break the ‘bang bang bang’ trend, there’ll be an entirely acapella album on the way, and if that’s not ambitious enough then Barry’s got plenty more ideas. ‘I’ve just started writing a punk-rock vampire musical which I want to be our fifth album.’ If The Chaos was sex in the kitchen then I’d love to know where he got the inspiration for that.

Some words with Dev Hynes - Lightspeed Champion

Ever since his days in half band, half elaborate joke Test Icicles Dev Hynes’ ambition has been growing faster than the ominous patch of mould on my bathroom ceiling and showing no signs of slowing down. While the results of this growth with Lightspeed Champion -or in any other musical situation the twenty-four year old finds himself in- are a lot more pleasant than that of the mould, is there a chance he might have exhausted himself at an early age? ‘I think right now I’ve written everything I’ve wanted to reach to, it’s whether I record it all or not.’ Officially, we’ve only heard three full length albums from him but there’s clearly a lot more going on behind the scenes.

‘I make a lot of stuff, but people only see what Domino release. It’s not like I stop listening to or making certain types of music. I haven’t toured like this in a couple of years but I’ve made and played music live in that time and it’s ranged from R&B to metal.’ The majority of us may not haven’t heard any metal or R&B but those wise enough to have got a copy of new album, ‘Life is Sweet, Nice To Meet You’ have been treated to a very different style of album. At fifty minutes long, complete with two intermissions and an etude, it been compared by many to musicals and stage shows, however this may not have been Hynes’ intention. ‘I would never make this album into a musical. I would write one but if I did I’ve always thought that I’d take a couple of years out and just concentrate on that. Maybe in my 30’s…’

On top of having explored every genre possible, he’s had a crack at most instruments as well. ‘I actually started with cello, then piano, then drums…then guitar. I write quite a lot of cello pieces when I’m bored.’ –like most bored men in their mid-twenties. There are still some that he hasn’t quite mastered, ‘I can’t play brass instruments at all. I’m pretty bad at woodwind. I can write better for woodwind than I can for brass but it’s still so difficult.’ We can probably let him off for that, he still manages to produce songs that any full band would be proud of by himself. ‘There’s a song on the album called There’s Nothing Underwater, and that’s all me apart from the oboe arrangement…well I wrote it but it’s played by a girl called Sally.’

This might all sound a bit pretentious or self-centred, but it’s really not, it seems like he just feels the need to get things out of his system so he can move onto the next project. ‘I always want other people to play the songs [on record] but it’s usually a time issue or if people aren’t around. I’m quite impatient. I want to get it done.’ He’s certainly efficient with his music, ‘a couple of months ago I recorded another album for Blood Orange’ -yet another new side project ‘and I’ve actually already written the next Lightspeed record, but I’m not gonna record it for a long time.’ It’s debatable how long a ‘long time’ is in Dev Hynes world, having once written and recorded an album within five hours, but he’ll definitely be keeping himself busy till the next record. He’s already written songs for Diana Vickers number one album and for plenty of others who he seemed slightly reluctant to mention. So what is there left to do? ‘I’d love to work with Janet Jackson, so much.’ With the way Hynes works, even that doesn’t seem too farfetched, I doubt she’d be able to keep up with him.

Little Comets

"A lot of bands don’t pay attention to details. We pay attention to too many details. We have problems.” Self-diagnosed problems aside, it’s the details that make this Newcastle four-piece so special. Whether they’re sellotaping up pianos in the studio for their first album, or working out exactly how David Bowie would reveal their dream festival, the little things are critically important to Little Comets.

Eagerly hunched onto a single armchair, upstairs in Southampton’s Joiners, they’re certainly friendlier than a lot of bands. The prospect of being interviewed by a stranger actually seems to be exciting to them, where others would find it daunting, or probably just a bit dull. The personal touch shows through in their relationship with their fans as well, “We’re really trying to make as much of the music available as possible. If someone sends us an email, we’ll send one back saying ‘Do you want some free songs?’” It’s a refreshing attitude to have at a time when music is becoming more commercial than ever, and such a small number of people at major labels dominate the industry. Money and commercial acclaim are obviously not the things that Little Comets strive for. Having only released two singles so far, the release of their debut album has been delayed for a number of reasons.

Despite reaching a height many bands aspire to, by getting signed to a major label last year, they won’t be releasing the album on Columbia. “It was a total nightmare” says drummer Mark on working with the big label, “It’s like waking up in the mornings to brush your teeth and them saying ‘What toothpaste are you going to use?’” continues bassist Matt. “As much as they didn’t work with us, we didn’t fit that model, and looking back, it’s a model we’d never fit.” The decision to go it alone definitely makes sense for a band like this. “We like to be in control. It’s our thing.”

Wasted time spent conforming to a major label’s model is time that could have been spent elsewhere, on more important, musical aspects of the band. “We don’t record in a studio now so we’re not really hemmed in by anytime constraints. We spend hours experimenting with the tiniest things like the room, or selloptaping a piano up so it’ll only resonate in one chord, and then playing things through it. Really stupid things.” While some may see this kind of attention to detail unnecessary, it gives the band personality and it’s clear that they spend a lot of time perfecting their music. A string of percussion instruments hung across the top of the stage is visible at every gig, as well a beaten up tambourine and a cymbal with what looks like a biscuit tin duct taped to it. With so much going on, their gigs could easily be a complete shambles. In actual fact, their performances are tighter than the bassist’s Adidas sports shirt –which is dangerously close to skin-tight.

The fact that they’re Geordies prompts some rather unimaginative, geographical comparisons with Maximo Park and The Futureheads, and for the slightly more inventive, ‘A northern Vampire Weekend’. In reality they take influence from a much broader range of sources. As well as citing Debussy and Einstein on their Myspace, their dream festival would have an interesting line-up. “Paul Simon would close it” fantasises frontman Rob, “Bowie would open it, at ten at night, and at the end of his set the stage would rise up in the air and reveal the rest of the festival.” It doesn’t stop there either. “I’d like to have Rage Against The Machine playing in a tent…no, a pit, with a destruction derby going on around the outside. At the end of the festival, all of the bands would leave on a precession of elephants, led by Bowie holding…fireballs.”

Back in the real world, they’ve been making a name for them selves by showing off their cheery, limb-loosening guitar pop in an array of unlikely, uninformed venues, including trams, lecture halls and Mark’s and Spencer’s. They’ve got ambitions for more as well; a Sunday church service, the back of a van on the Tyne Bridge and perhaps the most ambitious, a play on the London Underground’s Circle Line. “Or a festival where different bands get on and off at each stop…with Bowie.”

The album is due for release this September and with a following as loyal and enthusiastic as theirs, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t do well. However if it doesn’t all go to plan, they’ve got a contingency arrangement. “We were saying it would be so good if we all had kids and they met up, happened to be musicians, formed a band, and got massive! We haven’t got kids…well” Until any littler Comets come along, these ones should do just fine.

Alphashite - DJ

I’m not sure if I was missing something a couple of years ago, but the disgusting sensation that was Alphabeat never quite hit me. To me they just looked like Steps trying to reinvent themselves and gain some actual credibility, without realising they were fighting a lost cause. Somehow they saw some chart success with a top ten album and single, but then so did Steps. That by no means makes them any good.

‘DJ’ is a three-minute long, cheery plea for ‘Something I can dance to’, a bit like The Scissor Sisters, but without that little self-mocking element that makes them ok. They could enter this into the Eurovision Song Contest but it’d probably be beaten by some Scandinavian heavy rock gimmick, and rightly so. They’ve thrown in some lack-lustre scratching to appeal to morons that might find that cool. It’s like Cottoneye Joe slowed down to a point where it loses any novelty value or the kind of band that would be an integral part of a kids TV show, if all the sense in the world disappeared. I could compare Alphabeat to other shit things for days, but the truth is, not many things are as shit as Alphabeat.

Good Shoes - Wedgewood Rooms, 24th April

It must be hard for bands to pick a set-list when they’ve just released their second album. However for Good Shoes I’d imagine it would be quite easy.

Their first album was brilliant. It wasn’t particularly clever or groundbreaking but that didn’t matter in the slightest. It just danced right up to your face, jigged around a bit and then ran off to do the same to someone else, and that was fine. You didn’t really have to think about it much, but it was still a good album. At a point where so many bands were making mediocre, simple, uninteresting indie, Good Shoes turned up with something that wasn’t that much more complicated, but somehow stood out.

While it must have been tricky trying to figure out what direction to go in after a debut like theirs, ‘No Hope No Future’ is quite a heavy come-down (the title itself isn’t particularly optimistic). All the urgent, excitement of their earlier tracks has been replaced by an impotent, unnecessary grumpiness. When you slow Good Shoes down, their lack of individuality as a band comes to light and they just blend back into the hazy, colourless pool of average guitar bands, leaving yet more filler for the innovative few to swim through. As you might expect, this puts their live show in jeopardy.

The only songs that stand out from the first half of their set are ‘Ice Age’ (the only old track) and ‘The Way My Heart Beats’ which, to be fair to them, is up to the standard of their debut. Despite only being released this year, live, it sounds like you’ve heard it hundreds of times before. Now that either makes it hugely unoriginal, or something close to a perfect pop song. Luckily for them I think it might be the latter. Aside from these two, the crowd stays fairly motionless for the first twenty minutes, clearly disenchanted by the new material. However, when the old songs start turning up, the crowd sees a new lease of life. Albeit like recently woken coma patients making their first movements in twelve years after ‘No Hope No Future’, but nonetheless, the old songs still have the power to animate an audience. Final track, ‘Under Control’ keeps the energy alive and lies in the same category as ‘The Way My Heart Beats’. Pointing towards an interesting new direction for the band.

We might just have to wait till the next album to hear the complete product though.

Kele - Tenderoni

With the way Bloc Party’s music has been going recently, there was clearly some directional disparity within the band. The differences were starting to show through in the music too. ‘Intimacy’ wasn’t anything particularly special and ‘One More Chance’ was just odd. Both flirted with dancey, electro elements like an awkward teenage boy trying to chat up a girl who’s a little bit too cool for him. It’s not that Bloc Party aren’t cool, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to change their sound (quite the opposite). It’s just that so far, all of their attempts at change have sounded a bit half-hearted. So it sort of makes sense that they opted for one of those ‘it’s all going down the pan’ hiatuses.

It looks as though it could be a sensible interlude for the band though as it’s prompted some interesting side projects. I guess at the moment it’s just the sense of mystery that makes bassist, Gordon Moakes’ ‘Young Legionnaire’ interesting. So far they haven’t let any recorded material slip and they’ve only played a couple of London gigs. However with La Roux’s drummer (formerly of I Was A Cub Scout), the singer from The Automatic (formerly of Yourcodenameis:milo) and more gigs lined up -including one at Great Escape Festival in May- it’ll be nice to see what comes out of that mix. Guitarist, Russell Lissack has collaborated with Milena Mepris to form Pin Me Down, which has unfortunately just provided us with a worse version of Bloc Party, with a female vocalist (and she gets a bit irritating after a couple of songs). With no news of any projects from drummer Matt Tong, a substanstial amount of weight has been left on Kele Okereke, as the frontman of the band.

With the release of his first single Tenderoni (out 14^th June), from his debut solo album The Boxer (21^st June), it becomes quite clear where the musical differences lie. Tenderoni sounds like the finished product of the new sounds the vocalist was trying to inject in Bloc Party’s music. From a musical point of view alone, it looks as though Lissack was resisiting any radical change and was happy to carry on doing the same. Kele obviously had very different intentions. This first glimpse at his solo material shows a very different style emerging. With flattened, looped drums, a synth line that’s a little bit too similar to ‘Wearing My Rolex’ and not a guitar in sight, it’s certainly nothing like Bloc Party. However it fulfils the intention of the hiatus by letting new sounds emerge and allowing individual ideas to be explored without constraints. Maybe after a bit of time to play around with these new ideas alone, the full band could return and have a go at finally producing an album that gets close to the quality and excitement of Silent Alarm. Just Maybe.

This is what it sounds like;

Tenderoni by keleokereke