Indietracks in seven minutes!

Phew! Does you feel as tired as we do? How can just two days of jangly indiepop and sunshine frolicing leave you feeling so exhausted? If anyone knows the answer do let us know, 'cos frankly we're baffled!

Anyway, in between catching up on naps, we've been hunting down the best photos and videos from the weekend and this short film, made by Chris Gilmour from Last Night from Glasgow Indie EyeSpy, is frankly ACE. It tells the story of Indietracks 2008 in seven minutes - see how many bands you can spot and give yourself a prize of some sleep and/or a healthy snack! (You'll need those vitamins after the weekend burger-fest!. You'll probably have to click through to YouTube to hear it with sound....

Thanks everyone - see you next year!

Photo: Lostmusic

Hello everyone! Wasn't it FANTASTIC?

Phew! We'd been in such a high state of over-excitement for so long we just couldn't see how it was going to live up to all our expectations......but it did, and much, much more besides! From MJ Hibbett's hilarious My Exciting Life in Rock in the tea tent on Friday, to Los Campesinos' storming performance on Sunday evening, the whole weekend was just a perfect concoction of wonderful new music, glorious weather, steam train fun, friendly faces, enthusiastic dancing, impromptu singalongs and fruity real ale!

Congratulations to Stuart for organising such a perfect festival, and thanks to all the bands, volunteers, railway staff and everyone else who's helped with the organisation and helped spread the word. And most importantly, thanks to everyone for coming along and helping make Indietracks one of the most friendly and welcoming festivals around.

No doubt you're itching to upload your photos, videos and reviews from the festival, so here's a few things which might be handy:

Anorak forum: there's a special area where you can discuss your favourite highlights from the festival:Anorak Indietracks discussions

Indietracks Flickr group: share your photos with other Indietracks festival-goers here: www.flickr.com/groups/indietracks

Videos: if you made any videos, it would be wonderful if you could send them, or your YouTube link, to:indietracksonline@gmail.com

Reviews: no doubt many of you will be writing for your own fanzines, but for those who would like to write for a piece for our blog, e-mail us at :indietrackspress@gmail.com

We'll be posting up reviews, photos and videos over the next few days, but in the meantime here are a few of our favourite photos posted up so far........

Ballboy on the outdoor stage. Photo: Emmlpop

The crowd at the Church stage dancing along to Darren Hayman. Photo: Smith of Smiths

Over-excited KateGoes fans go POP! Photo: Sweeping the Nation

Greetings from Indietracks!

Hello there pop kids! By the time you read this, we'll be on our first train journey of the weekend, travelling up to Nottingham clutching our dancing shoes, train whistles and festival survival kits! If you're anything like us and you've left everything to the last-minute, here's a few final pieces of info to help you on your way:

Quick guide: If you're looking for information on accommodation, tickets, transport, food and Friday night's MJ Hibbett show, there's a handy last minute guide on the official Indietracks website.

Weather: According to the BBC 5-day forecast, it should be pretty fine, so don't forget to pack your suntan lotion and sunglasses as well as maybe an umbrella, just in case. With its indoor and outdoor stages, and of course the train rides, the festival is perfect for all weathers!

Merchandise stall: If you have any CDs, t-shirts, mugs or anything for any of the bands playing at the festival, please pop over and say 'hi' at the merchandise stand, by the main stage, and they'll be happy to help. Please sticker the stuff with the price though, so the volunteers know how much to sell it for!

Anorak forum: if you have any last-minute questions, want to share a lift or need emergency fashion advice for the festival, the Anorak forum is a good place to start.

Warm-up gigs: You've a choice of three warm-up gigs on Thursday 24th:
- Leeds: Rosie Taylor Project @ Holy Trinity Church
- Nottingham: Airport Girl + The Zebras + Pocketbooks + Fists @ Junktion 7
- London: Even As We Speak + Mexican Kids At Home + Hong Kong in the 60s + The Give It Ups @ Jamm in Brixton

And a couple on Friday 25th:
- Indietracks: MJ Hibbett's "My Exciting Life In Rock" + Penny Broadhurst + HDIF DJs @ Midland Railway Butterley
- Leicester: Punk TV + Mai 68s @ The Charlotte, Leicester

Tickets: there's still weekend and day tickets available - you can buy them on the door, through We Got Tickets or by calling the railway direct on 01773 747674 (9am-5pm, 7 days a week).

We'll be back after the festival with all the gossip, reviews, photos, videos etc. We'd love to hear from you, so please send your fave youtube links, embarassing pictures and everything else to indietrackspress@gmail.com

See you in the disco carriage!

Indietracks interview #29: Ballboy

Ballboy’s love affair with independent music began in 1999 with the release of their first EP ‘Silver Suits for Astronauts’ on SL Records. Since then, four further albums have followed - ‘Club Anthems 2001’ (An EP compilation,) ‘A Guide for the Daylight Hours,’ ‘The Sash My Father Wore and Other Stories’ and ‘The Royal Theatre.’ A fifth album is now in the pipeline. They have toured the UK umpteen times as well as the USA and Sweden. John Peel was a huge fan and they recorded four Peel sessions, including a live Christmas broadcast from John’s house, the ultimate honour.

Hello Ballboy! Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourselves....

Gordon: We are 3 boys and a girl from Edinburgh, Scotland. We make music, but not the kind you have to write down with squiggles on fancy paper (apart from Pete the Cello Genius).
Alexa: Two girls if you count Veronica the melodica.

Tell us about an unusual place you've played a gig in the past

Gordon: Nothing springs to mind from the last year, but the most unusual one ever was either by the side of a primary school swimming pool or on a makeshift stage on a front lawn in Sweden.
Alexa: Birmingham ;-)

Do you have any exciting plans for the rest of the year?

Gordon: We have a new album "I worked on the ships" out in August and I have a play with music that I have cowritten opening in November.
Alexa: I need to get 2 more rabies boosters

Do any band members have any particular skills, hobbies or claims to fame you wish to share?

Gordon: I can juggle, Nick can cure headaches, Gary can make whole new worlds out of PVC glue and old hair, and Alexa has rabies.
Nick: I can also cure hiccups.
Alexa: I would like to point out that I don't have rabies in case they don't let me in at the English border. But I can make puffin noises.

What's going to be on your compilation tapes as you travel down to Indietracks?

Gordon: iPod on shuffle so it could be anything really, but the new Wave Pictures album will be on there at some point.
Alexa: Roxette - which may mean I get kicked out of the van before Newcastle.

Do you have any surprises planned for the Indietracks festival?

Gordon: Any surprises will probably be a surprise to us too.
Alexa: for health and safety shouldn't we mention that Nick is planning on jumping off a crane onto a car bonnet?

What attracted you to play the Indietracks festival?

Gordon: Independent music....in the countryside...in the summer...with trains!
Alexa: Two words - steam train

Who are you most looking forward to seeing at the Indietracks festival, and why?

Gordon: The Wave Pictures because they are the best new band (ie new to me) that I've heard in the last few years.
Alexa: The Smittens

Thanks everyone! We'll look forward to catching you on the main stage on Saturday....

Indietracks interview #28: The Candy Twins

Hello everyone! Hope you've been enjoying our regular updates! We're off to Nottingham tomorrow for festival fun and a preview gig with Airport Girl, Pocketbooks and The Zebras, but, in the meantime, here's an interview with late Indietracks bill addition The Candy Twins....The Candy Twins - hmm ... there seem to be more than two of you and you don't look very similar!

Why don’t you tell us a bit more about yourselves?

Yes, we started as a duo - the Ear Candy Twins. But we're not twins, or related, and we couldn't keep time to the backing tracks so decided to become a band, and cut our 'ear' off. But I guess The Candy Twins works ok for indiepop which is what we seem to have been labelled as. We're from the London area and we mostly gig round there though we did tour Germany earlier this year. Our bassist Mat Durrance is possibly the best known of our number - Wedding Present fans may know him from his acoustic covers of Weddoes songs on YouTube. Mat met David our lead singer and songwriter after being lured along to a Candy Twins gig by others who said we sounded a bit like the Wedding Present, who David - to his shame - had at that point never heard of. Since then he's become a Take Fountain addict.

How do you feel about music at the moment and the new crop of indiepop bands?

We're pretty much virgins in the indiepop world. We played a warm up gig at Gramaphone in London recently where St Christopher were headlining - that was fun. But we're looking forward to catching up with more bands at the festival. Indietracks is held at a steam railway.

Tell us about an unusual place you've played a gig in the past.

Our gig in Leipzig on our German tour was bizarre. It was basically an apartment above a cafe - Noch Besser Leben - in one of the city's suburbs. It was like playing in someone's back room. It WAS someone's back room. The organiser was very apologetic before we went off to our accommodation to tune up because only two people had turned up. We came back in a few minutes later to start and the room - a big room - was packed out. For the sound check they just wanted it quieter and quieter so as not to annoy the neighbours. It started off as our worst gig on the tour. David broke a string (as usual), didn't have a spare guitar and it was all going belly up. But at the end the crowd asked us back to do an acoustic set, requesting songs, and giving us a great reception. That was sweet and such a turn-round!

Gosh – that all sounds really exciting! Do you have any exciting plans for the rest of the year?

We're completing our second album (again it's likely to be a self-release) bit by bit. Sad-Glad Songs is its working title. It will include our download single A Younger Crowd which The Sun (no less!) gave a 4/5 rating to in their hot tracks of the week when it came out. And then all the German venues we played earlier this year invited us back so we hope to repeat that tour either later this year or next. It would be nice to do some more British out of London gigs too.

Do any band members have any particular skills, hobbies or claims to fame you wish to share?

As previously mentioned, Mat our bassist is a Wedding Present addict. He'll be at their set on Saturday night. He's probably lost count of the number of Weddoes gigs he's been to. David is a big (fair weather) Hull City fan so looking forward to their debut premier league season in August. Mat once appeared on Master Chef. David once wee-ed in Hannah Hawkswell's barn. It was a two-storey barn. He didn't realise Hannah was underneath milking the cows and therefore got a surprise golden shower. And our tribute song 'Edwyn Collins Is Back' is a big YouTube hit - Edwyn loved it and put us on his guest list for his first comeback gig, but we were too shy to go and say hello afterwards. We've tried to blag a support slot with him but failed so far.

What's going to be on your compilation tapes as you travel down to Indietracks?

El Rey I guess for Mat! The rest of the band are borrowing a Scout minibus that doesn't have a music system.

And what attracted you to playing Indietracks?

We got a lovely review on the Indie-MP3 blog run by Lost Music and spotted the banner on their site and decided that was where we wanted to be, and we are thoroughly looking forward to it.

As ever, we have a free MP3 to give away, click on the link below to hear it!

Free MP3 Download: Start to Believe

The Bubblegumkillers guide to festivals...

What? It’s Wednesday already? That means Indietracks is in three days time… We’re so not ready…

We hope this last-minute panic-attack of an article might be of some help to all Indietracks goers. Welcome to the BubblegumKillers DJ Team guide to festivals (well, this one) and that…

PETE GREEN IS WRONG! (about one little thing)

Now, while we absolutely, genuinely, completely and utterly adore the “everything is going to be sparkly” song-smith, it must be pointed out that myspace really doesn’t suck. It’s how we first heard the brilliant TOWN BIKE, and many of the other bands on the bill. Why not have a flick around the myspace pages of all the artists you’ve not heard of. You might discover the genius of a band with a slightly rubbish name, that you weren’t gonna bother with, all because a so-called friend of yours said they were crap, and they’re the first band on. We missed so many great bands at festivals in the dark pre-internet days that we really regret now (Kenickie in ’96 being the worst example), so check them out before you kick yourself in years to come…

HITS PLEASE!

We’ll forgive The Wedding Present if they don’t play all the hits, what with them having had 12 Top 40 singles in one year, lest we forget. But as for the rest of you, please play all the singles, ‘cos that’s what festivals are about, huge bombastic greatest hits sets. Blow us away with your 7” pop lasers please!

THINGS TO BRING!

A notebook; for writing down all the bands you see. Then divide the cost of the ticket by the number of bands you’ve watched and you’ll see how much value for money IndieTracks is for you. Challenge your friends!

A cigarette lighter; sellotaped securely to a length of string, affixed to the belt-loop on you corduroy flares. No more of those “scrabbling-around-and-emptying-all-your-pockets-and-getting-all-stressed-cos-you’re-sure-you-had-it-earlier-but-did-you-lend-it-to-that-bloke-with-the-hat-during-Pocketbooks?” moments guaranteed! Even if you don’t smoke, you will have a valuable tool to make new friends.

A Musical Instrument; especially if you can play one. This is even more important if you’re in one of the bands playing. Please note, that the bongos, or variations thereof, are not musical instruments. Kazoos, however, most definitely are.

THINGS NOT TO BRING!

An MP3 digital music walkman thing. Why would you? The Parallelograms are on RIGHT NOW!

Too much money. You’ll only spend it all on doughnuts and pin badges on the first night and end up scrounging off your mates for the rest of the weekend.

A set of bongos. Not a musical instrument.

REQUESTS PLEASE!

We’re DJing on the S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y… NITE! and we’re not bringing our combined record collections with us. And not any vinyl at all. So if there’s a song you want us to play, please send your request to bubblegumkillers AT googlemail.com – then we can find it and make it go on a CD if it’s on a record. Or send us MP3’s (completely legally like…).

Normal Terms & Conditions apply.

Helen Love’s BubbleumKillers Attack Squad DJ Team Formation reserve the right not to play any songs that a: aren’t pop enough, b: we don’t have, and c: aren’t by the Ramones.
See you there (for giggles and that watch us run between Town Bike, Silence At Sea and Slow Down Tallahasee, while still bleary eyed from the magical Penny Braodhurst and the ace MJ Hibbett the night before). And do say hello. We’re quite nice…

www.helenlove.com

www.myspace.com/helenlove

www.myspace.com/bubblegumkillers

Indietracks interview #27: Roadside Poppies

We're just about to fly back from Stockholm, but there's still time to post another pre-prepared interview for your enjoyment. There's lots to squeeze in over the next few days before the festival begins, so keep popping back!

Roadside Poppies play slapdash jangly pop songs. They started as a one-man project by Matloob but blossomed into something far greater. Currently a six piece, split between the UK and Denmark, they play songs about “summer, flowers, cycling, falling in and out of love and murderous neighbours- the usual indiepop fare!”

Their first official CD release was the now sold out ‘Cycling and Crying’ EP on WeePOP! Records, the first release on the label. They also recorded an entire album in 28 days as past of the RPM challenge and this is available for free download from their website.
After a smattering of gig across the UK, they headed off to Denmark and Sweden in September 2007 on their first European tour.

Hi Matloob, we’re big fans of t’Poppies over the Indietracks blog, but for the uninitiated - tell us a little bit about yourselves!

Roadside Poppies started as a bedroom recording project in Cambridge but became a band once Martin and Duncan joined. After seeing bands like the Suburban Kids with Biblical Names and Sambassadeur sounding great with mp3 backing tracks, we decided to ditch the idea of a drummer in favour of being able to travel to gigs by bike or public transport. We've played a few gigs in Oxford, Cambridge and London and also in Denmark and Sweden. I ended up moving to Copenhagen this year so we're now an Anglo-Danish band. Indietracks will be the first gig we'll be doing with members from both countries so it should be jangly, poppy fun.

You mentioned Suburban Kids with Biblical Names and Sambassadeur - how do you feel about music at the moment and the new crop of indiepop bands?

There is some great music around at the moment, it's good to see the British scene catching up with Swedish and American bands. There are a couple of great indiepop bands in Copenhagen and I can heartily recommend all popkids check out Ampel, De Agtige and Northern Portrait.

You’re about to play at a steam railway - tell us about an unusual place where you've played a gig in the past.

Well, if it counts, we did an extended pop jam at Jarn Torget (Iron Square) in Gothenburg to try and work off a hangover before playing a gig at a nearby bar. It was great fun playing to a mixture of amused teenagers, bemused passers-by and sarcastic drunks. Oh, and we've got a plan to play a tree gig in Copenhagen in August. We've checked out a tree in Norrerbro that we think we can climb and play in.

Now that is surprising! Do you have any surprises planned for the Indietracks festival?

We'll be fielding our new full line-up of British and Danish musicians and playing some completely new super-poppy songs. We'll also have a very limited number of exclusive and completely unique CDs for sale. The band has members representing all three sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics, and there will sweets for anyone who can identify all the band scientists (and their discipline) on stage.

Hee, sounds like fun! Who are you most looking forward to seeing at the Indietracks festival, and why?

I'm particularly looking forward to seeing Pocketbooks, the songs just keep getting catchier and more moving as time goes on. We're on the church stage just before they play so we'll be running from straight from the church stage clutching our instruments to catch their set.

Free MP3 Download: Roadside Poppies - Erosion

Indietracks interview #26: The Smittens

Less than a week to go, and we're still on holiday in Sweden. Today we strolled around Stockholm's beautiful Gamla Stan district, visited the Skansen heritage site and tried to go to a trendy bar with a table tennis table and French boules. Which was shut. We haven't forgotten about you though, so here's an interview we prepared earlier...

The Smittens are a DIY pop explosion!! Half of the Smittens couldn’t play their instruments when they first formed their band in 2002 but they didn’t let that worry them. They grew from their name, which existed before the musicians did, and a desire to fill the twee void in their home town of Burlington, Vermont, New England, USA.

The Smittens bring a warm fuzzi-wuzziness to the stage and like to emphasise the importance of all being friends. The sentence “Being nice is a political act” has featured in the notes of their first two albums. They are made up of The Dashing Smitten, The Charming Smitten, The Lady Smitten, The Littlest Smitten and The Greek One.

Their first album ‘Gentlefication Now!’ was released in 2004 on Dangerfive Records. Its follow up, ‘A Little Revolution!’ followed 18 months later on Dangerfive/North of January. The next album should be released in 2008. They have shared the stage at previous shows with the likes of Kimya Dawson, The Mountain Goats, Stars, Boyracer, The Besties and Bunnygrunt. Today, we're joined by Colin!

Hello Colin, great name for a band – the names seem to be getting better and better! Tell us how you feel about music at the moment and the new crop of indiepop bands.

It’s an incredibly exciting time to be making indiepop music! There are so many fantastic new bands and labels popping up everywhere and our entire community seems to be rallying together – especially in the UK! That’s why we’re coming over – and we’re thrilled that folks have been so nice already with helping us to line up shows and share gear and stuff like that – the pre-arrival hospitality has already made us feel more than welcome! After reading up on many of the new bands (and older ones, too) and seeing flyers for past shows online, it will be so fun to see so many of them live! Indietracks should be extra fab because we’ll have the opportunity to hang out and meet new folks over the course of two days – a nice lil’ holiday in the middle of our tour!

Tell us about an unusual place you’ve played a gig in the past.

Well, this year we played at a Junior Iron Chef competition! It was a local eccentric event, in a huge indoor space with us playing in the corner and pausing between songs for the MC to make announcements about the goings-on. We even got to goof around with Champ – the mascot for our local minor league baseball team the Vermont Lake Monsters! It was pretty surreal! Hee – indiepop and sport combined – that sounds like so much fun!

Do you have any exciting plans for the rest of the year?

Well, our new album, The Coolest Thing About Love, is coming out here on July 29 so, after our UK tour (which may be the most exciting thing we’ve ever done!), we are heading down to Athens, Georgia for the Happy Happy Birthday To Me/Athens Popfest 2008. Happy Happy Birthday To Me is releasing the album and we’ll be celebrating the release with a Saturday show at the famous 40 Watt club during the festival there. After that, we are doing a hometown album celebration in Burlington and then in the fall we are planning to head out to the west coast for some dates. If we are lucky we will be able to coordinate some shows with Tullycraft and some of our other long-distance penpals – we’ve never done any shows on the West Coast before and we are going to make it happen this year on the heels of the new album release! It’s definitely gonna be a pretty busy year for us all-around.

Phew! With all this activity going on, have you had time to plan any surprises for the festival?

Well, we’ve been getting together and working on our festival set, and I think there will be a few surprises in there – it depends on what constitutes a surprise, but we are hopefully going to play some new material and we have a couple tricky tricks up our sleeves, too! David proposed one awesome surprise that we are going to try and pull off and Max and Dana have a couple other ideas as well, so at this point almost anything could happen! In general, though, our goal is to come out and play well and enjoy the other bands and people there – it’s like we’re heading into indiepop shangri-la or something! I bet we spend some late-night time singing and playing and taking turns trading songs with other folks there. If anyone wants us to play or sing anything - well, if it doesn’t happen during our set, well, we’ll sing it round a campfire! Full festival immersion – I think that’s our plan, but it’s not really a surprise, I guess.

The Smittens have very kindly donated Half My Heart Beats, a lovely tracks from their new album – click on the link below to hear it!

FREE MP3: The Smittens - Half My Heart Beats

Next up: Matloob from the Roadside Poppies chats about Anglo-Danish relations, playing gigs in trees and his love for new Copenhagen indiepop! Unfortunately there’s no mentions of plans to hide in booze in bushes!

Darren vs Dave: The Indietracks Interview!

Hi kids, we're currently on location (and stuffed full of Plopp bars) in Sweden after enjoying the wonderful Rip It Up festival in Saffle, where new Indietracks addition Darren Hanlon put in a particularly fine performance for a friendly crowd of Swedish indiepoppers. We love this little festival and, with less than week to go now, we couldn`t be any more in the mood for Indietracks. We`re know you`re excited too, and so this week we`ll be cramming in more last minute fun than you can shake a llama`s tail at! Coming up, we`ve got interviews with The Smittens, Silverdrop and Roadside Poppies as well as Helen Love's guide to festivals, crucial information about merchandise and last-minute weather predictions - who says we don't treat you well?

But, in the meantime, we thought you might like to check out this rather fab interview on Drowned in Sound, where indiepop legends Darren Hayman and Dave Gedge met for a head-to-head interview. Part love-in, part Spanish inquisition, these two sure know how to chat! Here`s hoping for a duet come Indietracks time!

Indietracks interview #25: A Classic Education

Well, today we're off to Sweden for the Rip It Up festival - just to check out the indiepop festival competition, like! It sounds amazing, although we can't help but notice that they won't have any steam trains there. Anyway, sadly we won't be able to update this blog until we get back after the weekend. But don't panic, we're leaving you with a lovely interview and song from A Classic Education. And if that's not enough, please feel free to skip back and read some classic posts from the Indietracks Festival blog archive (who could forget the accommodation quiz or picture bingo?), and maybe download all the free MP3s while you still can!

But before you trawl through the blog archives, please let us introduce A Classic Education, all the way from Italy. Jonathan, Paul and Luca recorded the band's first songs over four nights around Christmas 2006 in the middle of the mountains in northern Italy. They recorded mostly at night, with the wind blowing and dogs howling in the distance, using a myriad of instruments to adding layers over layers, ending up with the dense orchestral sound you can hear today.

The band recently released a one-sided 12" - First EP - with five of their early recordings and they've played shows with Arcade Fire and Lightspeed Champion among others. You can find them playing on the Church Stage on Sunday afternoon at Indietracks.

A Classic Education sounds like a very posh name! Why don’t you tell us a bit more about yourselves?

Well, we've been around for a short time, we are based in Bologna in Italy, but all six members live scattered across the country, and one member is Canadian. I guess we have a nice mix of people. It's crazy in terms of the way we organise our practices! It seems like we are always planning nice weekends together to play and have some good, proper meals.

How do you feel about music at the moment and the new crop of indiepop bands?

I feel like it's a really nice time to be playing music. There is a bunch of real exciting bands playing the festival. We’re really keen on seeing The Wave Pictures, Liechtenstein, Pocketbooks and Darren Hayman, as well as Comet Gain and The Wedding Present - that will just about make our day! In general though I think it's been a good two years for releases, not only in the indiepop "world".

Indietracks is held at a steam railway. Tell us about an unusual place you've played a gig in the past.

Well, we have just played this self-organised festival in the Italian countryside, which was in an old converted farm house. The crazy thing is the people that run it are hugely into design and house furnishing, so it was like playing in the old countryside with a neat Berlin twist to it. Last year we brought Fanfarlo on tour in Italy and we did play one really, really strange place way up north called Bus Del Colvera. I think they couldn't quite grasp why on earth we would be playing there but the show turned out really well. While Fanfarlo were playing, the local mayor jumped on the stage and danced away on a few songs. I also forgot to mention it's a grappa drinking area! So there you go...

Gosh – that all sounds really exciting! Do you have any exciting plans for the rest of the year?

Well, it's basically playing and playing. We're self releasing a 12" that puts together all our first things. We just also recorded a few new things with Jeremy Warmsley and hope to have those out on a 7" after the summer.

Do any band members have any particular skills, hobbies or claims to fame you wish to share?

One of us does not have a name. He is only called the "Maestro". Giulia is an ace photographer. The rest of us are avid film, book and record collectors!

What's going to be on your compilation tapes as you travel down to Indietracks?

I know we are going to be fighting about this one...I would say there will definitely be some old Motown and soul going on, and some of us are in quite a Phil Spector mood lately. Maybe some Dylan, a little Minutemen, definitely some Jesus & Mary Chain, Felt, and if our pal Enzo is coming along I'm sure there will be a ton of Swedish pop.

You seem to like surprises – do you have any planned for the Indietracks festival?

I think we would like to play some surprise acoustic sets!

And what attracted you to playing Indietracks?

Just the fact of being simply able to play with so many good bands. When we heard about the "church" stage it seemed so appropriate!

Thank you! Wow, we really can’t wait to see you guys now – we’ll have make sure they’re stocking grappa in the loco shed bar!

Free MP3 Download: A Classic Education - Stay, Son

Next up: Messing about with baseball mascots, indiepop penpals and plans for “full festival immersion” – it can only be The Smittens!

And don't forget: The Indietracks warm-up gigs continue with The Smittens, The Parallelograms and The Seven Inches in Sheffield on Monday (21 July). You can read more on this Anorak forum thread.