Indietracks 2009, day 3
I'm back in London now, having returned this morning from Indie Tracks.
Sunday's weather was, alas, nowhere near as nice as Saturday's. starting ominously grey and proceeding to rain. I slept in a bit, and then went to the site, catching the start of The School's set, but then bailing to see The Marshmallow Kisses. The School are, of course, the doo-wop-influenced pop group from Cardiff, and their new material sounds good (if you don't mind that sort of thing, of course). The Marshmallow Kisses are a Chinese/Japanese duo who do bossa-nova-tinged pop songs; they had Tim from Hong Kong In The 60s playing guitar, Brad from One Happy Island playing trumpet, and someone else on violin, and were quite nice in an understated way. After that, whilst having lunch with Tim, MeiYau and Chris (of HK60s), we heard 1960s folkie Nick Garrie making his return on the outdoor stage; he sounded a bit like Nick Drake.
I then saw US indiepop combo The Smittens play in the train shed, and then Hong Kong In The 60s play a nicely understated set in the church. After that, I saw a set from a solo electropop artist from New Zealand, who goes by the name of Disasteradio, who was quite animated and surprisingly entertaining for a guy with a table of synths. Apparently he's one of the Camp A Low Hum people. I also saw a bit of European electropop duo Stereo Total playing outdoors; by then, it had started raining, and people were standing around in their raincoats under umbrellas. The festival was closed by Art Brut playing in the train shed (which I missed, though I heard enough from outside, in the stationary buffet car that served as a bar outside), followed by Teenage Fanclub on the outdoor stage, and then two discos until midnight. I ended up catching the train after the last one to Butterley station (after it did a test run), and then sharing a taxi to Ripley with three girls who were going to Mansfield.
There was also a mix CD swap box; one put one's CD in a box, took a ticket, and then claimed another one later. I made a mix CD and put it in the box, and ended up fishing out a rather promising-looking one (it includes All-Girl Summer Fun Band, Mirah, and AIH's Scissors, Paper, Rock).
Some statistics: I bought two 8Gb memory cards before Indie Tracks, one for my camera and one for my audio recorder. The former, I managed to fill up almost completely (mostly by using the video-taking mode of my camera); the latter I recorded a good 4 hours or so of audio on; mostly recordings of sets, though I managed to also get some of the amazing vintage lounge/bossa grooves the Elefant Records guy queued up to play between sets, in the hope that I might get them identified at some point. (It is rather convenient that my audio recorder fits neatly in a top jacket pocket with only the microphones protruding; it's half of a quite serviceable gargoyle rig.) I also used about 200Mb of the 1Gb of credit I bought with the 3G wireless card I picked up in preparation. I imagine the rest will go pretty quickly when I'm on the continent next month.
Anyway, this was the best Indie Tracks so far. Assuming that I'm still in the UK or Europe in a year's time, I'll be sure to be at the next one.
Btw, photos are here.
Sunday's weather was, alas, nowhere near as nice as Saturday's. starting ominously grey and proceeding to rain. I slept in a bit, and then went to the site, catching the start of The School's set, but then bailing to see The Marshmallow Kisses. The School are, of course, the doo-wop-influenced pop group from Cardiff, and their new material sounds good (if you don't mind that sort of thing, of course). The Marshmallow Kisses are a Chinese/Japanese duo who do bossa-nova-tinged pop songs; they had Tim from Hong Kong In The 60s playing guitar, Brad from One Happy Island playing trumpet, and someone else on violin, and were quite nice in an understated way. After that, whilst having lunch with Tim, MeiYau and Chris (of HK60s), we heard 1960s folkie Nick Garrie making his return on the outdoor stage; he sounded a bit like Nick Drake.
I then saw US indiepop combo The Smittens play in the train shed, and then Hong Kong In The 60s play a nicely understated set in the church. After that, I saw a set from a solo electropop artist from New Zealand, who goes by the name of Disasteradio, who was quite animated and surprisingly entertaining for a guy with a table of synths. Apparently he's one of the Camp A Low Hum people. I also saw a bit of European electropop duo Stereo Total playing outdoors; by then, it had started raining, and people were standing around in their raincoats under umbrellas. The festival was closed by Art Brut playing in the train shed (which I missed, though I heard enough from outside, in the stationary buffet car that served as a bar outside), followed by Teenage Fanclub on the outdoor stage, and then two discos until midnight. I ended up catching the train after the last one to Butterley station (after it did a test run), and then sharing a taxi to Ripley with three girls who were going to Mansfield.
There was also a mix CD swap box; one put one's CD in a box, took a ticket, and then claimed another one later. I made a mix CD and put it in the box, and ended up fishing out a rather promising-looking one (it includes All-Girl Summer Fun Band, Mirah, and AIH's Scissors, Paper, Rock).
Some statistics: I bought two 8Gb memory cards before Indie Tracks, one for my camera and one for my audio recorder. The former, I managed to fill up almost completely (mostly by using the video-taking mode of my camera); the latter I recorded a good 4 hours or so of audio on; mostly recordings of sets, though I managed to also get some of the amazing vintage lounge/bossa grooves the Elefant Records guy queued up to play between sets, in the hope that I might get them identified at some point. (It is rather convenient that my audio recorder fits neatly in a top jacket pocket with only the microphones protruding; it's half of a quite serviceable gargoyle rig.) I also used about 200Mb of the 1Gb of credit I bought with the 3G wireless card I picked up in preparation. I imagine the rest will go pretty quickly when I'm on the continent next month.
Anyway, this was the best Indie Tracks so far. Assuming that I'm still in the UK or Europe in a year's time, I'll be sure to be at the next one.
Btw, photos are here.