Indietracks bands seek to storm the charts

A couple of our Indietracks 2010 bands - Shrag and Foxes! - are involved in an audatious attempt to get lots of new music into the UK top 40 this week.

The campaign, Storm The Charts, is encouraging people to download tracks from a list of 40 songs from independent bands and musicians, as selected by either a public vote or a panel involving Huw Stephens, Emily Eavis, Tracy Morter and Louise Kattenhorn among others. Shrag (pictured above) and Foxes! saw off competition from nearly 600 acts to make it onto the shortlist.

The campaign has over 30,000 members on Facebook, so it's possible we could see an Indietracks band or two in the charts this week. Of course, this year's Indietracks is no stranger to chart success - in White Town, we've a UK number one artist playing, and The Primitives also had a string of chart hits, including a top five single.

If you like the idea, you can find out more on the Storm The Charts website. To count towards this week's top 40, we think you need to purchase any songs by this Saturday 3 July. The charts will be announced on Sunday 4 July, which coincidentally is US independence day, and the bands are, of course, all independent. Nice!

Here's videos and Amazon MP3 links for our two Indietracks chart candidates! The tracks are also available on iTunes, but we think they're cheaper (49p) on Amazon.

Foxes! - Who Killed Rob? (Amazon MP3 link)



Shrag - Rabbit Kids (Amazon MP3 link)

Times and stages announced!

(Teenage Fanclub on the outdoor stage in 2009. Photo: bellefox rendezvous)

The festival is now just over three weeks away, and today we’re announcing the times and stages for all the bands and DJs!

Lots of you have been asking what time your favourite bands are playing and on which stages. We’ve now posted all the entire schedule on the Indietracks website, so you can start to plan out your weekends!

The details are available at: www.indietracks.co.uk/schedule.html

And of course, having plotted out your weekend in fine detail, please don’t forget to pick up a ticket! Weekend tickets are £60 and day tickets for Saturday and Sunday are £32.50. Tickets are available from www.indietracks.co.uk/tickets.html

Hope to see you in a few weeks!

xxx

Indietracks interview #20: Urbantramper

For today's interview, we're joined by Urbantramper, a five piece ‘future folk’ band from New Zealand. They'll be playing Indietracks on the Saturday afternoon, and you can expect beautiful boy/girl harmonies, well-structured pop songs, psychedelic jams, soulful ballads and driving beats!

Currently based in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, Urbantramper have been performing and recording for eight years. They are: Lake (vocals, acoustic guitar, melodica, harmonica), Eli (vocals, tambourine, glockenspiel), Tristan (bass, backing vocals), Ben (drums/percussion) and Maz (trombone, backing vocals, percussion).

The band have released four albums, and the release of their fourth album, ‘Rise & Ride Toward’ was celebrated with a sold out tour of New Zealand last November. The band have also recently released a new EP, ‘The Workers Album’, which is available on a ‘pay what you want’ basis. Their appearance at the Indietracks festival is part of their summer 2010 tour of Europe.

Hi, tell us a little bit about yourselves

We're a 'future folk' band from New Zealand. We play, write, perform and record music... We try and capture emotions/experiences, that are felt or perceived, and present them in a digestible, aesthetically pleasing format. Our goal is to stimulate feeling in our listeners; be it that of concurrence with the emotion we attempt to convey, or of reaching a place hitherto not explored. To play, write, perform and record with ardour and respect for our subject, ourselves, our listeners and the artform itself; we acknowledge our responsibility to all...

What music are you enjoying at the moment?

The Mountain Goats, Phoenix Foundation (NZ), Seth Frightening (NZ), The Creaky Drawers (NZ), Jeffrey Lewis.

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

We're touring Europe, then going to live in France.

What attracted you to play the Indietracks festival?

A fellow Wellington musician 'Disasteradio' recently played at Indietracks.

Thanks guys. We’ll leave you with the band’s most recent video, Ode To The Public Servant.

Workshop interview #2: Recycle Yo' Face!

Hello everyone! Despite us losing that little game of football, we're all very happy about the el scorchio weather over at Indietracks Towers, even if some of us are nursing sunburn - ow! More importantly, we are super chuffed because today is the official release of the Indietracks compilation CD. It's a fantastic record, full of top-notch songs from all of our indiepop faves, including some exclusively written for Indietracks. If you haven't ordered your copy yet, pop over to Make Do and Mend Records and order one now. The CD costs just £7 and is sure to sell out super-fast...

Today we're interviewing Recycle Yo' Face, otherwise known as Bex and Erin. Their children's workshop, held on Saturday at 2pm, involves making your own mask using recycled materials - sounds like fun to us!

Hello Recycle Yo' Face! Tell us a little bit about yourselves....
We're Bex and Erin, applied drama facilitators with an eco conscience, so combining our two passions! We hail from London and California. We love our indie pop too...and we love an indie barndance!

Can you give us a quick description of your workshop?

Children aged 4-11 create original masks out of reused materials and use their masks and their bodies to explore new characters using drama!

Sounds exciting! Apart from mask-making, what are you looking forward to the most at Indietracks?

Trains and music and buddies and masks!

And do you have any camping tips?

Don't forget your headlamp!

Thanks guys! Don't forget - you can see details of all of the Indietracks workshops on our website.

Indietracks interview #19: The Primitives

Today we're interviewing our Saturday night headliners The Primitives! And it's exactly a month until they'll take to our outdoor stage! However, before we get to the interview, here's a few quick Indietracks announcements:

• we're really pleased to say that Red Shoe Diaries and Cowtown have been added to the line-up!
• we can also reveal that Pic'n'mixx will be hosting the campsite disco on the Saturday night. Pic'n'mixx are also running a compilation CD swap during the festival in which you are all extremely welcome to participate. More details here.
• we're sorry to say that Printed Circuit are no longer able to play at the festival.

Okay, you're all cosily familiar with The Primitives, we're sure. The band emerged from the independent scene of the mid-80s, alongside The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream and My Bloody Valentine. With the distinctive singing and blonde bombshell looks of singer Tracy Tracy, they combine 60s melodies, the buzzsaw guitars of the Ramones and the pop sensibilities of Orange Juice. The band became household names across the world for their hit single ‘Crash’, which made the top five in the UK charts.

The band reunited at the end of 2009 and have played some ace UK shows recently, and we can’t wait to see them at the festival! We're joined today by Paul from the band.

Hi Paul, The Primitives returned last year for some live shows, followed by a tour this year. Are you enjoying being back?

It was strange going on tour again...took about a week to reacquaint ourselves with it all, but after that we could have just kept on going. We didn’t think there’d be that many people interested in coming to see us when a tour was first mentioned, but we were proved wrong. Overall it was a blast, and as we weren’t promoting anything in particular we got to cherry pick from seven years of tunes, so it was great to be able to play some of the early faves.

Is this a fleeting comeback or a permanent reunion?

We haven’t completely closed the lid on it. We’ll do the odd thing here and there if it suits. There are a couple of ideas in the pipeline... so for now it’s a kind of semi permanent, part time arrangement.

We understand you’ve been in the studio working on a covers project of lesser-known female-fronted songs. Is that correct, and if so, how’s it going and when can we expect to hear it?

We recorded a couple of tracks last year... haven’t decided what to do with them yet. There are a couple of new songs too, which have a similar vibe to the covers - fuzzed up, psychedelicized, 60s girl group type tunes, so I guess we should think about some more recording soon and maybe see about releasing something. A series of 7 inch singles was one idea. Perhaps a Primitives singles club with different bands on the b-sides.

Video: The Primitives - Need All The Help I Can Get (cover cover of a Lee Hazlewood song, originally sung by Suzi Jane Hokom).

You’re often listed alongside a string of mid-eighties indie bands such as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, The Wedding Present. How much connection do you think you share with these bands and how much was this apparent at the time?

We rubbed shoulders to varying degrees with each of those bands. The Mary Chain were already pretty massive by the time we started to get recognition... they used to come and see us in small pubs, which was nice of them. The other bands were at a pretty similar level and all went on to bigger things and I suppose we all had an influence on stuff that came after... especially Shoegaze and Britpop.

Were you prepared to have an international hit single with Crash (watch the video), and what’s the craziest thing (weird TV appearances, promo gigs, crazy fans) that happened as a result?

Not really. It was a bit like winning the pools. I was still living in this rented slum and we had limos turning up to take us to the airport. I remember us getting the train down to London from Coventry with our guitars to do Top Of The Pops for the first time...felt like we were in a Beatles film. We did a TV show in Holland where they wanted us to mime to Crash in a kind of Temptations style...no instruments, just the four of us standing in a line, moving in unison. It was very cheesy, but we gave it a go anyway. We were pretty awful...can’t imagine it ever got used.

How do you think independent pop music has changed since the mid-80s? Do things like fine-sharing and social networking make things easier or harder for new bands?

Well a couple of years ago, if you had a guitar and a pair of tight trousers from Topman you were indie, but recently it seems to have been reclaimed by bands with a bit more of a grasp of what the whole thing was originally about. There’s also a renewed interest in 80s indie bands and all sorts of other stuff, that I guess people find out about on the internet. For the musically curious the net is like having a thousand John Peels sat on your lab...which is a good thing, but I think the nothingness of mp3s and the fact that they can be shared or nicked so easily has devalued music...it’s great to be able to hear so much stuff, but there’s no real commitment involved. I use Spotify and all the rest of it, but nothing will replace the ceremony of putting on a vinyl record. The bottom line is there’s no emotional attachment to an mp3.

Indietracks takes place on a 1950s railway with steam trains lovingly-restored by enthusiasts. Do any of the band have any trainspotter-style hobbies or unusual interests that they would care to share?

I bought a Lomo camera about 10 years ago and have now got about five shoe boxes full of not very good photos. Tracy collects small hats.

Brilliant, we're hoping to see more photos of people in hats at Indietracks this year!

Thanks Paul - see you in a month!

Indietracks podcast #2 with Camera Obscura

Today it's exactly a month until the festival starts! Choo-choo! Hopefully you've already booked your tickets, and can now settle down and have a listen to the second in a series of Indietracks 2009 podcasts.

The podcasts have been put together by Josh Morris of Radio Cardiff, who may have accosted you with his microphone at some point last year and, by all accounts had an, ahem, interesting Sunday night (you'll have to listen to the podcast to find out what he was getting up to!) This second podcast features exclusive interviews with Camera Obscura, Stereo Total and Pocketbooks, and really, really makes us get all nostalgic and misty-eyed about last year. Aw.

You can stream it right to your house-bound computer or freewheeling portable internet device from this Soundcloud link or you can download it forever for future consumption from this Mediafire link.

Josh is going to be out and about with his microphone again at this year's Indietracks, so if you're interested in being interviewed, or have any ideas for his podcast, just drop him a line on josh.owen.morris@gmail.com

Indietracks interview #18: Betty and the Werewolves

Today we're taking a break from firing questions at your favourite indiepop stars, and have handed over the mircophone to Paul Richards from the London club night Scared To Dance. The interview below is an extract from Paul's full interview with Betty and the Werewolves, which you can find in the brand new Scared To Dance summer fanzine! The fanzine also has interviews with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Allo Darlin’, Darren Hayman, Standard Fare and an exclusive free EP by The Understudies.

The best way to pick up the fanzine is to head over to the next Scared To Dance night, which takes place this Saturday 26 June at the King's Cross Social Club in London. They'll be playing an ace mix of indiepop and the guest DJs are Emma and Ian from Pocketbooks. You'll also be able to pick up the fanzine at Indietracks. If you'd like to find out more about Scared To Dance, there's a website , a Facebook group  and a Twitter page. Over to you Paul...

Hello Betty and the Werewolves! Tell us about your forthcoming debut album 'Teatime Favourites'.

Hello! Well, we wanted the album to sound a bit like a tea party with a mad aunt who serves teacups of gin in her loveliest china set whilst surrounded by cats, books and cakes.

Will the album feature your two past singles 'Euston Station' and 'David Cassidy' or will it be all new material?

Yes, the two singles will be on it, and our new 7" “Paper Thin”, then eleven other songs - some that we've played at gigs a lot already, and some which are completely new, so new that we've only learnt to play them properly since recording the album...!

You seem to be following in a long line of female dominated groups like The Shop Assistants and Talulah Gosh. Were they influences?

Yes, definitely, as well as bands like Delta 5, Dolly Mixture, Marine Girls. We're influenced a lot by stories and poetry too - Emily Brontë, Keats and T.S. Eliot appear in our songs, and some of our favourite writers pop up in the video for “Paper Thin” as well.

You've got a new single "Paper Thin" out in June on Damaged Goods. There's been a real lack of indie pop videos recently but thankfully you've made one. How much fun did you have shooting it?

A ridiculous amount of fun. Our friend Charlie Phillips made the video and got a group of our friends to dress up like authors. We filmed most of it outside - in the cemetery and the park - but then it got too cold (it was January) and so we smuggled werewolves and authors into Stoke Newington Library for the rest of the filming. We had to pretend that we were there just to borrow books! It was very daring!

Speaking of being on camera, you appeared in the film 1-2-3-4. How did that come about?

The director Giles Borg was looking for a band for one particular scene and got in touch with us through Damaged Goods. We knew that Giles had made some Talulah Gosh videos in the past and so got very excited about it all, and had our fringes trimmed especially.

What does the rest of 2010 have in store for you?

So “Paper Thin” is out in June and our album Teatime Favourites is out in July. As well as Indietracks, we have some fun gigs coming up in London, Cambridge and Nottingham. We'll also be doing a live session for Marc Riley on 6 Music on 5th July.

Great! We'll leave you with the video for Paper Thin.

Indietracks 2010 - indiepop compilation CD

To celebrate this year’s Indietracks Festival, Make Do And Mend Records are releasing a double CD featuring lots and lots of the bands playing at this year's festival.

The compilation will be released on 28 June, but you can pre-order it from today at: http://www.makedoandmendrecords.co.uk/

The CD features 44 fantastic tracks, ranging from punk pop assaults to the summery sound of ukuleles. It includes a host of this year's most exciting indiepop bands such as Veronica Falls, Allo Darlin’, Betty & The Werewolves and Standard Fare. They’re joined on the compilation by three of our headliners, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, The Pooh Sticks, and Love Is All.

The CD also includes tracks written or mixed exclusively for Indietracks by White Town, Ballboy, The Just Joans, and The Orchids.

The full tracklisting is:

CD1

01 The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Higher Than The Stars
02 Yokoko - Sally Doesn’t Care
03 Paisley And Charlie - Stone Lions
04 Onward Chariots - War Hero
05 Ballboy - There Is More To Life Than Sleeping And Eating
06 The Felt Tips - Silver Spoon
07 Internet Forever - Pages Of Books
08 Allo, Darlin’ - Kiss Your Lips
09 Boy Genius - Ramona Saves The Day
10 The Give It Ups - Alison Awesome
11 Stars In Coma - Peacebloom
12 Secret Shine - It’s Killing Me
13 Sarandon - Searching For The Now
14 Betty And The Werewolves - Good As Gold
15 The Callas - The Wrong Song
16 Be Like Pablo - Without The Pain
17 White Town - I Don’t Want To Fall In Love Again
18 MJ Hibbett And The Validators - We Are The Giant Robots
19 Cineplexx - Para Mi
20 The Sunny Street - Into A Poem
21 The Orchids - She’s My Girl (Indietracks Mix)
22 Shrag - Ghosts Before Breakfast

CD2

01 La La Love You - Sólo Tú
02 This Many Boyfriends - That's What Diaries Are For
03 Love Is All - Kungen
04 Veronica Falls - Found Love In A Graveyard
05 Standard Fare - Dancing
06 The Smittens - Summer Sunshine
07 The Specific Heats - End Of An Error
08 The Blanche Hudson Weekend - Grip Of Fear
09 The Middle Ones - Young Explorers
10 Foxes! - Alex Badamchi
11 Mexican Kids At Home - Animal Shells
12 Urbantramper - My Grand Plan
13 The Hillfields - Canvey Island Queen
14 The Cannanes - Foundering
15 The Loves - I Lost My Doll To Rock & Roll
16 The Millipedes - Hey Boy
17 The Pooh Sticks - Roll Over Easy
18 The Just Joans - Stuart’s Got A Dirty Book
19 Stars Of Aviation - Herman Düne Slept On My Floor
20 Jam On Bread - It's Always Sunny Inside
21 Linda Guilala - Nadie se Dara Cuenta
22 Pale Sunday - Shooting Star

Indietracks interview #17: The Felt Tips

Today we're joined by Andrew and Neil from Indietracks veterans The Felt Tips. According to the band, they formed in summer 2006 when two kites became entangled with each other on Largs Beach just outside Glasgow. We can't wait to welcome them back to Indietracks this year!

Hello! Tell us a little bit about yourselves...

Andrew: We've been playing as The Felt Tips for 4 years now. In late 2005 I had given up hope of forming a band in Glasgow and had become a bit of a hermit, recording songs in my bedroom and putting them online for everybody and nobody to hear. Then one day some Spanish guy (Miguel) phoned me after finding an old advert I had left in a music shop. He had recently moved from Spain partly because Glasgow was one of his favourite cities for music. I said I wasn't interested in starting a band any more.

I'm now very grateful that he persevered and managed to convince me to meet up to play some music together. Turns out that we clicked and soon we were planning forming a band. I got my childhood swee... I mean friend (!) Neil to play bass for us, and then drummers came and went until we found Kev two years ago. Now we all get along terrifically and (touch wood) we seem to have mastered the art of endlessly arguing without falling out with each other.

We were actually the first ever band to play Indietracks. It was in the church and we didn't have a drummer so the gig had an 'unplugged' feel about it, especially since the congregation were listening so attentively. In a way, getting to play Indietracks launched our international indiepop career. Being on the bill brought us to the attention of Cloudberry Records and La Merienda (a brilliant Spanish indiepop radio programme), two of our greatest supporters over the years. After a slight blip when we had no regular drummer for a year we are about to release our debut album. We absolutely love the record ourselves and can't wait to share it. Hopefully it will be out very soon. Anyway, we are genuinely dead excited about returning to play Indietracks. If you live near Cardiff or London you may also want to catch us at the Indietracks warm up shows in those cities.

Tell us something unusual about yourselves..

Neil: Kev has the same name as an infamous local Glasgow gangster which can cause a bit if confusion (especially when he was shot dead a few months ago). Miguel often plays with Sebastian of Cineplexx (although we think they should form a B&S covers band called Miguel and Sebastian). Neil has a fine collection of retro NHS glasses (one of which is believed to have been owned by Morrissey). Andrew has a tongue that is so long and mobile he can swallow it and pick his nose with it, and even play some guitar solos with it!

Hmm, sounds interesting! Ahem. So...what's going to be on your compilation tapes as you travel down to Indietracks?

Andrew: It'll probably be some jangly guitar bands from the past won't it? Maybe one of the band will surprise the others and bring along the newest Kelis record.

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

Andrew: All the bands we have never listened to before.

Thanks Andrew and Neil! Look forward to seeing you in about, ooh....eight weeks time!

Workshop interview #1: Stop Motion Commotion!

Hello everyone! Apparently there's some little football match or other going on tonight, but today we're pretty excited to be kicking off (sorry) the first of our mini-interviews with the Indietracks workshoppers.The workshops were a storming success last year, and we already can't wait to get see what all the talented crafters and music-y experts have got in store for us this year!

First up today are plasticine animators Stop Motion Commotion, who are Gareth Howell and Jeanie Finlay, two artists and filmmakers from Nottingham.  Jeanie makes films about Goths, record shops and reluctant Elvis impersonators, and Gareth makes cartoons about Christmas, monsters and ghosts.

Hello Gareth and Jeanie - please can you give us a little description of your workshop?

We plan to bring indietracks to life with plasticine! Stop Motion Commotion is a family friendly animation workshop, where people will be able to create their own mini festival goers and bands and animate them dancing, riding the trains and generally having a lovely time! Using plasticine, card, felt-tips and whatever we can lay our hands on, the workshop will provide a fun experience for grown-ups and kids alike. At the end of the session, we'll have a grand screening of our mini-epic, and make it available to download from the Indietracks website. You don't need any experience to join in, just come along! If you have any toys you'd like to animate, bring them along too!

What are you looking forward to the most at Indietracks?

We're most looking forward to spending the whole weekend there! Last year was our first visit and we only came for the day, so it'll be great to have more time to hang out, and to go to the after-hours disco!

Do you have any camping tips?

You can never have enough socks.

Wise words indeed, Gareth and Jeanie. We already can't wait to see what the plasticine Indietracks epic is going to look like. See you there!