There were a number of disco things at Indietracks, run by various indiepop clubs around England. They all played 'Babies' by Pulp at least once. The best of the discos was probably the one run by How Does It Feel To Be Loved?, a London club night. This featured loads of sixties girl groups, Tamla Motown, garage rock, and that kind of thing – with indiepop noticeable by its absence. The Sunday night disco by Crimes Against Pop in the campsite was also good crack, with 'You Can Go Your Own Way' by Fleetwood Mac proving a surprisingly strong floor filler, though they were battling dreadful sound problems.
One of the other discos organised a CD-R potluck swap thing, where people made mix CDs and left them in, taking a random one from someone else in recompense. I tried to do a train themed compilation, but could not think of enough locomotive related songs in time and so had to pad out the disc with tunes by twee favourites like Cluster, Scooter, and Jobriath. It did seem rather like the other disc makers just made compilations of indiepop music, which seemed like a bit of a failure of imagination – you would think that Indietracks attendees have basically heard enough indiepop and could do with forced exposure to the wider world of music. Or maybe not; although someone did take my disc, I have had no communication from the listener, suggesting that it has generated a response of "Not Twee – Bag of Wee."
One final thing to note is how drøg free Indietracks is. For all that the young people seemed happy to knock back the hearty ales, illegal substances seem to resolutely off the agenda. I think I only got one whiff of doobage all weekend. What does this say about today's young people?
And that's that. Will I be back for Indietracks 2011? I am not sure. I find this a somewhat difficult festival to relax into, my ambivalence at the whole conservative nature of indiepop making me feel like a bit of an interloper. I kept fearing that when talking to people I would let slip that Los Campesinos are rubbish and would end up being chased from the festival by an irate mob of hairslide-brandishing indie kids. For all that, I did get to hang out with some fun people, and had surprisingly many conversations about popular band Prolapse. And the food is great at Indietracks too... two great veg food stalls in particularly (one possibly run by the Hara Krishnas), and a coffee stall (run by pirate carnies) that did the most amazing coffee. So you never know.
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Thanks for the stories from a place where most people would fear to tread. But if I loathe Indie rock how come I like Los Campesinos?
ReplyDeleteSome people draw a big distinction between indie pop and indie rock.
ReplyDeleteI like Los Camp in theory, but exposure to their music makes me not like them in practice. However, they may be better on record than live.