Get your rocks off, get your rocks off, honey
I am not sure where my time has been going of late. One place it absolutely hasn't been going is on me reading or updating LJ. As mentioned a few times, I use this place as my online memory and means of resolving future arguments about what we did at festivals, which means I have some catching up to do.
This year, ChrisC and I ventured up to Camden for Camden Rocks - the successor to the multi-venue Camden Crawl. Yes, Camden Rocks was at the beginning of June. Yes, I am very behind with my writing up, do be quiet.
Mutant Monster, The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, Brand New Friend, (Albany), (Bang Bang Romeo), Projector, Sick Love, (Pet Needs), Rascalton, Desperate Journalist, Frank Turner
I've never been to Camden Rocks before, but picked
satyrica's brains and was assured that it wasn't the queuefest that the Crawl was always alleged to be. We trundled up to Camden, and ChrisC and I immediately split up - him to head up to Young Garbo somewhere, and me to head down into the Underworld for Mutant Monster.
Mutant Monster are ridiculously chirpy Japanese pop-punk-metal, who were cartoony with delightful co-ordinated stagewear and at least one handbrake keychange so ridiculous that it made both Satyrica and I spontaneously burst out laughing. Good fun and a great start. I stayed in the Underworld for The Men, always top value, then followed Satyrica's recommendation to Brand New Friend. They seemed terribly young, but were full of energy and tunes, and definitely constituted New Find Of Saturday.
Although Camden packs in a fair number of venues in quite a small space, there's still some distance between them. Throw in boiling sunshine and the usual shopping crowds, and actually physically getting between venues can be quite a challenge. In an attempt to avoid main streets we took a lightly creative route, and ended up a bit stuck in the Camden Lock region, fighting our way past various bands just as they finished. Including Bang Bang Romeo, who I didn't mind missing so much because saw them very recently (oh, wait... I didn't write up Hanwell Hootie's bands either, did I? Rats. You should check out Bang Bang Romeo if you like the sort of pop that might be invited to support Pink.) It's also important to note we caught the very end of Pet Needs, whom I'll be mentioning later.
Projector were melting to death in the Monarch, playing a sort of spare, spacious guitar rock that I really enjoyed. Then we piled into the back room of the record shop next door for a mildly unofficially set from Sick Love, who'd been a serious clash earlier. Rock and Roll Rescue is a musical instrument, hifi and CD charity shop (see posters in the next-door Dublin Castle advising you to pop in if you've got a gig and have forgotten any crucial piece of kit...). Their back room is tiny, and absolutely nowhere near big enough to cram in a five piece band, including full drum kit and mic stands, plus an audience of fifteen or so. But they did it anyway, and the sound probably wasn't great (though it was better after a woman in the audience leaned across past the singer and started twiddling knobs), and people were constantly falling over the shop's stock, but the sheer ridiculousness of it and the band's enthusiasm more than made up for all that.
We caught up with the polished, shiny, slightly despair-laden pop of Desperate Journalist, who seem to have acquired an extra guitarist - easily one of the most professional small-time bands in London. Then we piled out of the Barfly and hoofed down to the Electric Ballroom to join the queue (first queue of the day!) for Frank Turner.
His solo show was pretty full, though not rammed, and we spotted the three black-clad chaps from Pet Needs right in front of us. Mr Turner played an awesome solo show - it's his local stamping ground, and he was on top form. At the end, he encouraged everyone to support live music in general and come back to Camden for day two in particular, and bigged up a couple of bands he'd especially enjoyed during the day... including Pet Needs. Who were still right in front of us, bouncing up and down like delighted, disbelieving loons. "That's us!" they said deliriously. "We know," we said. We saw you earlier.
Then Frank Turner went off stage, and came back with various guests, including Andrew O'Neill and the guy who books the bands for Camden Rocks, to blast through a set of punk standards. He was wearing a t-shirt which read "Punk's Not Dead It's Just For Sale". Which is, in fact, a Pet Needs t-shirt and the guys in front of us practically went through the roof. I don't remember when I last saw three people look so utterly, utterly delighted.
And we drifted off gently into the night, and headed home.
Rews, Eliza & the Bear, Shvpes, A, Janus Stark, Toffees, St Agnes, The Last Internationale, Ash, The Wonderstuff
We trotted back on Sunday (well, Mr Turner asked nicely...) and headed into the bit of Camden market near Cyberdog to join a queue for Dr Marten's Bootroom. We walked along the queue... yes, people in wristbands, people who looked like us, oh, hello again Satyrica and his mate Paul, yup, more people who look like they... wait, what? Teenage girls with cutesy rucksacks and cartoon t-shirts?
There was a very marked demographic-change mid-queue, and we joined the end in a state of mild confusion until a chap in a high-viz jacket came and sorted us all out. The queue for Rews playing in the Bootroom had collided with the queue for the BTS pop-up shop (coinciding with said Korean superstars' Wembley shows) and would everyone please file themselves into the correct line. Given the weirdly stratospheric nature of BTS, the queue seemed surprisingly short... until we discovered that this was only the end of a giant queue management system, most of which was outside the market altogether.
Anyway. Rews rocked, but were highly confusing. As far as I can tell, Rews used to be two women, one on guitar and one on drums, both singing. But now the drummer is a guy, and the bassist is a different woman, so really there is only one original member... Anyway, I still quite like them, but felt mildly cheated. Yes, I did make a Fake Rews joke.
Eliza & the Bear were funking it up way more than expected in the Electric Ballroom, although they had a slightly weird line in onstage banter and a strange habit of wandering off into other riffs between songs, including a significant chunk of Smells Like Teen Spirit which suddenly petered out just after it got going. Shvpes were filed in my head as electropop, which is absolutely not what they are (was I confusing them with Chvrches? who knows.) So although angry rappy metal is not something I'd necessarily have picked off the list, I did enjoy them and they certainly packed a lot of energy into the Barfly's stuffy box room.
A were staggeringly underwhelming (I don't remember them from the 90s, and I'm OK with that). Toffees, however, were more bouncy than a bouncy thing and were definitely New Find of Sunday. They had that guitar-with-a-bit-of-dance-vibe thing going on that so few bands do well, and despite Belushi's being a very unprepossessing venue, had me dancing from start to finish.
We hoofed it straight back to the Barfly for St Agnes, who are still the most apocalyptic approach to blues rock to be found in London, and appeared throughout in suitably demonic red lighting. "We better finish before the stage gets too broken," said the guitarist, as the singer flung herself around knocking over mic stands, keyboards, and mildly disintegrating the drum kit.
I bravely headed off into terra incognita by myself: Fest is a venue we hadn't visited, and it is perniciously in the market rather than on a proper road with proper numbers. I heroically found it with only some massive signposts and a banner to help me, and watched a good set from The Last Internationale who really know how to work a crowd.
And then it was coasting back to the 90s with Ash and The Wonderstuff. You know what you're getting there, and they're both good value. The Wonderstuff in particular know what the people want, and have long since ditched any idea of trying to do anything other than rattle through their considerable back catalogue.
All in all, Camden Crawl was a really good mix of old and new, familiar and novel, reliable and strange, big and small. Would recommend to a friend :-)
[Originally posted at https://venta.dreamwidth.org/539412.html]
This year, ChrisC and I ventured up to Camden for Camden Rocks - the successor to the multi-venue Camden Crawl. Yes, Camden Rocks was at the beginning of June. Yes, I am very behind with my writing up, do be quiet.
Mutant Monster, The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, Brand New Friend, (Albany), (Bang Bang Romeo), Projector, Sick Love, (Pet Needs), Rascalton, Desperate Journalist, Frank Turner
I've never been to Camden Rocks before, but picked
satyrica's brains and was assured that it wasn't the queuefest that the Crawl was always alleged to be. We trundled up to Camden, and ChrisC and I immediately split up - him to head up to Young Garbo somewhere, and me to head down into the Underworld for Mutant Monster.
Mutant Monster are ridiculously chirpy Japanese pop-punk-metal, who were cartoony with delightful co-ordinated stagewear and at least one handbrake keychange so ridiculous that it made both Satyrica and I spontaneously burst out laughing. Good fun and a great start. I stayed in the Underworld for The Men, always top value, then followed Satyrica's recommendation to Brand New Friend. They seemed terribly young, but were full of energy and tunes, and definitely constituted New Find Of Saturday.
Although Camden packs in a fair number of venues in quite a small space, there's still some distance between them. Throw in boiling sunshine and the usual shopping crowds, and actually physically getting between venues can be quite a challenge. In an attempt to avoid main streets we took a lightly creative route, and ended up a bit stuck in the Camden Lock region, fighting our way past various bands just as they finished. Including Bang Bang Romeo, who I didn't mind missing so much because saw them very recently (oh, wait... I didn't write up Hanwell Hootie's bands either, did I? Rats. You should check out Bang Bang Romeo if you like the sort of pop that might be invited to support Pink.) It's also important to note we caught the very end of Pet Needs, whom I'll be mentioning later.
Projector were melting to death in the Monarch, playing a sort of spare, spacious guitar rock that I really enjoyed. Then we piled into the back room of the record shop next door for a mildly unofficially set from Sick Love, who'd been a serious clash earlier. Rock and Roll Rescue is a musical instrument, hifi and CD charity shop (see posters in the next-door Dublin Castle advising you to pop in if you've got a gig and have forgotten any crucial piece of kit...). Their back room is tiny, and absolutely nowhere near big enough to cram in a five piece band, including full drum kit and mic stands, plus an audience of fifteen or so. But they did it anyway, and the sound probably wasn't great (though it was better after a woman in the audience leaned across past the singer and started twiddling knobs), and people were constantly falling over the shop's stock, but the sheer ridiculousness of it and the band's enthusiasm more than made up for all that.
We caught up with the polished, shiny, slightly despair-laden pop of Desperate Journalist, who seem to have acquired an extra guitarist - easily one of the most professional small-time bands in London. Then we piled out of the Barfly and hoofed down to the Electric Ballroom to join the queue (first queue of the day!) for Frank Turner.
His solo show was pretty full, though not rammed, and we spotted the three black-clad chaps from Pet Needs right in front of us. Mr Turner played an awesome solo show - it's his local stamping ground, and he was on top form. At the end, he encouraged everyone to support live music in general and come back to Camden for day two in particular, and bigged up a couple of bands he'd especially enjoyed during the day... including Pet Needs. Who were still right in front of us, bouncing up and down like delighted, disbelieving loons. "That's us!" they said deliriously. "We know," we said. We saw you earlier.
Then Frank Turner went off stage, and came back with various guests, including Andrew O'Neill and the guy who books the bands for Camden Rocks, to blast through a set of punk standards. He was wearing a t-shirt which read "Punk's Not Dead It's Just For Sale". Which is, in fact, a Pet Needs t-shirt and the guys in front of us practically went through the roof. I don't remember when I last saw three people look so utterly, utterly delighted.
And we drifted off gently into the night, and headed home.
Rews, Eliza & the Bear, Shvpes, A, Janus Stark, Toffees, St Agnes, The Last Internationale, Ash, The Wonderstuff
We trotted back on Sunday (well, Mr Turner asked nicely...) and headed into the bit of Camden market near Cyberdog to join a queue for Dr Marten's Bootroom. We walked along the queue... yes, people in wristbands, people who looked like us, oh, hello again Satyrica and his mate Paul, yup, more people who look like they... wait, what? Teenage girls with cutesy rucksacks and cartoon t-shirts?
There was a very marked demographic-change mid-queue, and we joined the end in a state of mild confusion until a chap in a high-viz jacket came and sorted us all out. The queue for Rews playing in the Bootroom had collided with the queue for the BTS pop-up shop (coinciding with said Korean superstars' Wembley shows) and would everyone please file themselves into the correct line. Given the weirdly stratospheric nature of BTS, the queue seemed surprisingly short... until we discovered that this was only the end of a giant queue management system, most of which was outside the market altogether.
Anyway. Rews rocked, but were highly confusing. As far as I can tell, Rews used to be two women, one on guitar and one on drums, both singing. But now the drummer is a guy, and the bassist is a different woman, so really there is only one original member... Anyway, I still quite like them, but felt mildly cheated. Yes, I did make a Fake Rews joke.
Eliza & the Bear were funking it up way more than expected in the Electric Ballroom, although they had a slightly weird line in onstage banter and a strange habit of wandering off into other riffs between songs, including a significant chunk of Smells Like Teen Spirit which suddenly petered out just after it got going. Shvpes were filed in my head as electropop, which is absolutely not what they are (was I confusing them with Chvrches? who knows.) So although angry rappy metal is not something I'd necessarily have picked off the list, I did enjoy them and they certainly packed a lot of energy into the Barfly's stuffy box room.
A were staggeringly underwhelming (I don't remember them from the 90s, and I'm OK with that). Toffees, however, were more bouncy than a bouncy thing and were definitely New Find of Sunday. They had that guitar-with-a-bit-of-dance-vibe thing going on that so few bands do well, and despite Belushi's being a very unprepossessing venue, had me dancing from start to finish.
We hoofed it straight back to the Barfly for St Agnes, who are still the most apocalyptic approach to blues rock to be found in London, and appeared throughout in suitably demonic red lighting. "We better finish before the stage gets too broken," said the guitarist, as the singer flung herself around knocking over mic stands, keyboards, and mildly disintegrating the drum kit.
I bravely headed off into terra incognita by myself: Fest is a venue we hadn't visited, and it is perniciously in the market rather than on a proper road with proper numbers. I heroically found it with only some massive signposts and a banner to help me, and watched a good set from The Last Internationale who really know how to work a crowd.
And then it was coasting back to the 90s with Ash and The Wonderstuff. You know what you're getting there, and they're both good value. The Wonderstuff in particular know what the people want, and have long since ditched any idea of trying to do anything other than rattle through their considerable back catalogue.
All in all, Camden Crawl was a really good mix of old and new, familiar and novel, reliable and strange, big and small. Would recommend to a friend :-)
[Originally posted at https://venta.dreamwidth.org/539412.html]