Playlouder - Music is the Network

FAQs

1. Where is the festival?_Hainault.
2. When the hell is that?_Zone 4.
3. Christ!_That’s not really a question…

Thesvenhunter:
While waiting for my predictably late companions outside of Hainault tube station a 14 year old female asked me for a cigarette. I declined her on ethical grounds and she told me to “go fuck yourself”. Charming. For the next ten minutes an old man stood directly in front of me staring down a small nondescript road with a vacant expression on his poorly-shaven face. I went to get a Rubicon. Things looked sour.

Jamie.Janakov:
You got off lightly. On the bus to the festival a kid slapped me in the head, threw an empty Cherry Coke can into my face and called me a “fuckin’ grunger”. I wouldn’t have minded, but being dressed head-to-toe in black amongst plenty of what the Americans call ‘plaid’ shirts I really felt it was a case of mistaken identity. Needless to say I didn’t respond. The little cartoon man on the TFL advert wearing the ‘I won’t lose my temper’ T-shirt inspired me. Also, I was too terrified to move.

Emily.Dover:
Well I had a lovely journey. Plenty of sleep on the comfortable Central Line chairs, which are angled so that you can put your feet up without getting your souls on the seats – brilliant! Also, one of the kids at the bus stop asked me if I fancied a shag, which was very considerate of him, although I wasn’t really in the mood.

Thesvenhunter:
No trouble getting in: staff polite and helpful, even if my name was inexplicably listed as ‘Dan’. 

Jamie.Janakov:
Bottle of cider confiscated, predictably. Still – the joke was on them, because I’d already downed most of it, and was entering their festival in a pre-drunken state, thus planning to spend less money on their branded goods. Take that, Carlsberg!

Emily.Dover:
First band on the main stage (a.k.a. The Artrocker stage) are a bit of a mess, but a fairly-deliberate one. The singer has very long black hair and that unidentifiable ‘band voice’ that sounds just like the guy who sings ‘Bishopsgate’ on the Look See Proof album.

Thesvenhunter:
They’re called Popular Workshop, according to Tim, and I’m not very excited by them. They make a joke about ‘Hainault’ sounding like ‘Anal’, and even though I’m fond of puns, I simply disagree.

Jamie.Janakov:
I am surrounded by haters who don’t know a decent rock band when they see one. “Uh-uh-uh, I don’t wanna fall in love, fuck that shit”, sings the man from Popular Workshop, and I couldn’t agree more. They express, with noticeable smugness, that their recent single “will never sell out” because it’s a download. It’s important to take enjoyment in such things. They are a post punk mess with ill-fitting clothes and I both hope and expect to see more of the same today. After I’ve drunk my weight in branded beer…

Emily.Dover:
They’re not very exciting though are they? I just found a tent full of women in neon clothes who were all on drugs!

Thesvenhunter:
In the LastFM Tent there is a lone punk who looks like the “have you got 40p I need to get back to Enfield” type, but is subverting expectations by singing melodic and EMOtional music with help from some ambient guitar and keyboard trickery. What’s he called, I wonder?

Jamie.Janakov:
I don’t wonder. Who cares? Who honestly cares? What’s the point in this man? He looks like the drugged-up courier from Spaced and he sounds like a one-man rehab sob-story turned Keane cover band. Burn him.

Emily.Dover:
He’s called Merz (not to be confused with rapper MURS) I think. Some of the ambient keyboard bits are really quite nice but he is suffering from being drowned out by nearby stages. There’s not much to get one’s teeth into, lyrically, but in that respect he’ll fit in well with the post punk tight trouser set. You know what they say about words anyway.

4. Will there be lyrics sheets issued?_No, we don’t want to embarrass the singers.

Thesvenhunter:
There’s no embarrassment involved in Slow Club’s raucous his ‘n’ hers country stage show. They make a joke about them being fashionistas. It’s not really a joke though is it? The accents are the joke – whisper it: they’re not really American.

Jamie.Janakov:
He thinks he’s Conor Oberst. She thinks he’s Conor Oberst. I’ve seen Conor Oberst. He’s not Conor Oberst.

Emily.Dover:
Apart form missing the point entirely, you’re both liars and hypocrites. I saw you dancing. Slow Club make a terrific melodic racket that is likely to be enjoyed by anyone whose head is not shoved up their own back passage. They have an EP out on Moshi Moshi this week, check it out!

Thesvenhunter:
Alright, street team, when you’ve quite finished, please deign to share with us your views on whoeverthehellthisis in the Experimental Circle tent.

Emily.Dover:
He sounds like Guy McKnight. Or possibly Ian Curtis. They are very post punk, aren’t they? I quite like them. Although I don’t know if I’d call them experimental.

Jamie.Janakov:
The experiment is how tight his trousers can be before they cut off the circulation to his legs and he falls over.

Thesvenhunter:
And the result? 

Jamie.Janakov:
Very.

5. What is the limit on tightness of trousers?_Your imagination is the only limit.

Thesvenhunter:
The singer doesn’t look very interested in being in a band, spending non-singing time scowling and swaying a bit, perhaps wondering why he can’t see the crowd. (He’s wearing sunglasses indoors, on a rainy day.)

Jamie.Janakov:
Nothing wrong with sunglasses. Nothing right with this band though. Very little to work with here. Can’t even here the backing vocals. They’ll be huge.

Emily.Dover:
Not if we don’t find out their name.

Jamie.Janakov:
Well, I’m not spending valuable booze money on a two quid program. Think of the trees.

Thesvenhunter:
Enjoy Destroy are the ROCK band on the Guitar Hero Stage at a quarter to five, and… they are okay.

Jamie.Janakov:
No they’re not! Death to false metal! This sucks! I’m not actually saying that though, because their fans could easily beat me up.

Emily.Dover:
They are very large aren’t they?

Jamie.Janakov:
I can do nothing with this music. I am out of money. This is awful. This is the worst festival ever.

Emily.Dover:
That’s fine, you’re drunk enough already. Can we go to the New Bands tent now?

Jamie.Janakov:
No. We need money. Do you have money?

Emily.Dover:
Not for you, no.

Thesvenhunter:
There’s probably a cash point over there. We’ll check out the New Bands tent. You can catch us up.

Emily.Dover:
For those of you at home who can not see, Jamie just made a very rude gesture and wandered off towards the main stage.

6. Is there a cash point at the festival?_No, it’s a festival, not a bank.

7. How do you make a post punk band stand out?_Get a singer who regularly takes it upon herself to bounce off the walls like a mentalist and occasionally attacks randomly-selected members of the audience.

Thesvenhunter:
Not randomly as such: her excuse for setting upon a girl dressed entirely in pink was, “you’re just so pretty!” It was definitely an attack though; she saw the girl enter the tent and made a bee-line for her, possibly flattening here, it was pretty difficult to see.

Emily.Dover:
This is KASMs, they are a hotly-tipped young bunch of scenesters who have all the ingredients of a band I’d want to ignore, but make themselves impossible to ignore, thanks in no small part to the antics of the aforementioned female who fronts the band.

Thesvenhunter:
In a combat situation, she couldn’t be relied upon – she’s far too much of a loose cannon; she keeps flinging herself across the stage, rolling around at the feet of the audience, biting people’s ankles, then climbing on the drumkit, and all of this while singing/shrieking in a pretty powerful voice for her small personage.

Emily.Dover:
There is a band too. It’s easy to forget, but the guitar and drums are both clearly played by professionals, and while I’m sure the bassist buggers up a couple of times, most the time she’s playing with enough style to outshine the more competent members of the band. Still, it’s obvious who the star of this show is, and after folks like Mr. Tight Trousers and sunglasses from earlier (what do you mean ‘which one?’) it’s a refreshing experience to witness a genuine performer – somebody who should be in a band and somebody who puts some effort in.

Thesvenhunter:
Still, if she carries on like this she’ll be dead by twenty five. Jamie would have liked her.

Emily.Dover:
Yes, probably for the best that he missed it. Let’s go find him.

8. Why does this band sound exactly like McLusky?_Because it’s Future of The Left.

Thesvenhunter:
Yes, I made that exact mistake at Dour. Pretty embarrassing. Lucky nobody was there to see it.

Emily.Dover:
Yeah, sorry about that. Bad leg. Anyway. Future of the Left – very good, if a bit ‘extreme’ for my tastes. Certainly well above the average standard of loud and messy bands. They do sound a lot like McLuksy though – should that be a problem?

Thesvenhunter:
No, McLusky were ace. Also, it’s mainly his voice, isn’t it? Oh crap. I just realised I made another embarrassing mistake. He’s not singing ‘Marc Bolan was right…’ It’s Mark Foley or something. Fuck. I hope I didn’t quote that in the Dour review.

Emily.Dover:
Don’t ask me, I didn’t read it. It was too long.

Thesvenhunter:
You’re fired.

Emily.Dover:
You don’t pay me anyway! Still no Jamie, let’s have a wander…

Thesvenhunter:
You’re worried he’s copping off with one of Ipso Facto aren’t you?

Emily.Dover:
Worried for them, perhaps.

9. Is there a pop punk tent at the festival?_If there is, Jamie Janakov will find it.

Jamie.Janakov:
You, my friends, are imbeciles.

Thesvenhunter:
Thanks, Jamie. Can you please explain why?

Jamie.Janakov:
Because I have just seen the band of the festival, and you guys missed them!

Emily.Dover:
The guys who were just on? No we didn’t! We were standing over there the whole time. We only missed the first couple of songs. They sound like Look See Proof. I like them.

Jamie Janakov:
Do you want to shoe-horn in any more Look See Proof references?

Thesvenhunter:
This is Ja Ja Wunderbar we’re talking about, by the way. A bunch of very young kids who look sort of like Weezer and make good quirky college rock/pop punk stuff.

Jamie.Janakov:
The soundcheck took about a million years so I nearly left. Glad I didn’t though. ‘Ecuador’ was amazing, and that song about the bicycle was awesome too. Finally, finally, after years of searching I have found a decent English pop punk band. I’m so happy I could cry.

Emily.Dover:
What about Look See Proof?

Jamie.Janakov:
They’re not pop punk enough. They have too many chords.

Emil.Dover:
Right. Okay. It's not just that I heard them first?

Thesvenhunter:
So, we’re all agreed then – Ja Ja Wunderbar are great. Good, now we can get on with our lives.

Jamie.Janakov:
Band of the festival. Easy.

Emily.Dover:
I don’t know. You missed a pretty good set in the New Bands tent earlier…

Jamie.Janakov:
No I didn’t.

10. Is that the dick head who tried to start a fight with me at the Mystery Jets concert last year?_If it is, his girlfriend’s lost weight. Good on her.

Thesvenhunter:
Unfortunately, the really rather good post-punk purists in the New Bands tent at about 8pm have declined to introduce themselves. There are only three of them and they’re all as near to the real deal as you can get this side of the end of the century. (Apart from the actual Gang of Four, obviously. More on that later.)

Jamie.Janakov:
These guys have style. If I was in a band, it would probably be like this. Only better, obviously.

Emily.Dover:
If you were in a band it would be like Avenged Sevenfold, more like.

Jamie.Janakov:
Fuck you! I hated Avenged Sevenfold before you were born.

Emily.Dover:
Funny. I seem to remember you burning me ‘City of Evil’.

Jamie.Janakov:
No I didn’t! It was shit!

Emily.Dover:
Yes you did, and yes it was.

Jamie.Janakov:
They used to be good you know.

Emily.Dover:
Right.

11. What do you get if you cross Feeder with Kula Shaker and tell them to impersonate Nirvana for a decade while everyone looks the other way?_My vitriol.

Jamie.Janakov:
Like my joke? Anyway... this sucks. I’m off to watch more Gang of Four tribute bands.

Thesvenhunter:
I dunno. I’m going to stick around. They were pretty good when I saw them supporting the Manics in… about 2001… I think. God, I’m so old.

Emily.Dover:
I really liked the EP last year.

Thesvenhunter:
I didn't. Right, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Som Wardner & Co. can rock harder than anything I’ve seen on the Guitar Hero stage all day. And the evident pocket of My Vitriol fans who have clearly come to Offset for this alone is both touching and reassuring in this climate of disposable art. On the other hand, amongst all these new songs, I can’t help just willing them to play ‘Always Your Way’, which they do, and ‘Cemented Shoes’, which they don’t.

Emily.Dover:
History has been unkind to My Vitriol and today’s set, along with Jamie’s crap music journalism cliché 'joke', both prove it. Finelines was a great album, and what’s more they’ve always been a brilliant live band: far more interesting and technically gifted than people give them credit for. Unfortunately it’s very easy to take the piss out of people who take their music in any way seriously. Which is utterly pointless. Today’s set was a triumph for My Vitriol – despite the pounding rain their crowd packed out the area in front of the stage, even singing along to some of the better known songs. Also, a cracking cover of Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’ and a stirring rendition of the aforementioned classic single made them a definite highlight on a day of non-too-shabby bands, including plenty of hotly-tipped new acts. Come on My Vitriol – it’s been almost a decade. Is there a new album or isn’t there?

12. What’s the difference between a Gang of Four rip-off band and Gang of Four?_Well? I’m waiting?

Thesvenhunter:
Perhaps I’d be in a better mood to receive the allegedly-almighty Gang of Four if:
a) I hadn’t been seeing bands under their influence for a good few years already on an irritatingly-regular basis.
b) I wasn’t soaked through and feeling pretty ambivalent to the Sunday night post-My Vitriol.
c) I hadn’t heard that they were Marxists. I hate Marxists. They’re a waste of resources.

Jamie.Janakov:
I thought they were another Gang of Four cover band! Then they started playing ‘At Home He’s a Tourist’. Then I couldn’t stop laughing and this guy next to me got pissed off so I had to move to the other side of the stage.

Emily.Dover:
They’re doing a lot of weird ducking and diving. They’ve got a hell of a stage presence. I think they know how important they are. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Thesvenhunter:
They say nothing to me about my life. Apart from how many derivative post punk bands are in it.

Emily.Dover:
You can’t blame them for that!

Thesvenhunter:
Yes I can. They are responsible for Bloc Party, Radio 4, Franz Ferdinand. This is more like the Nuremburg trials than the Nuremburg rallies, as far as I’m concerned. They don’t impress me much. What can I say?  I like my musicians to be more song-based. You know? XTC, Talking Heads – now those guys are worth celebrating.

Jamie.Janakov:
I think I’d have more fun being sick, so I’ll go and do that instead.

Emily.Dover:
So it’s left to me alone to champion this as a momentous occasion in the history of British music, I suppose?

Thesvenhunter:
If you like. I don’t care. Gang of Four don’t need my blessing – the last 5 years speaks for itself. Their influence is felt everywhere. Like God. Or AIDS...

Emily.Dover:
Don’t be a twat. You like it.

Thesvenhunter:
I honestly don’t. I remember when I was about eleven I saw a video of a bunch of bands from this era on various TV programs – one of my dad’s home recording compilations – and Gang of Four were just there hitting a plank of wood on a metal bar for about four minutes, and I didn’t think it was strange, or weird, or challenging, I just thought ‘let’s fast-forward to Slow Children or the Thompson Twins.’

Emily.Dover:
You surprise me. You honestly do.

Thesvenhunter:
I quite like Liars though.

Emily.Dover:
Erm! Whithout whom…

Thesvenhunter:
Look, just because I like Liars, doesn’t mean I have to like Gang of Four.

Emily.Dover:
I bet you’re one of these idiots who claims not to like The Beatles aren’t you?

Thesvenhunter:
I hate the Beatles.

Emily.Dover:
That explains a lot.

Thesvenhunter:
Whatever. Let’s find your boyfriend and clean the sick off him.

Emily.Dover:
Great…

13. Aren’t city festivals a load of rubbish?_Actually, Offset Festival 2008 was pretty freakin’ good. A shitload of bands on a shitload of stages, a wide-choice of foodstuffs and a quite unexpected relaxed and friendly atmosphere (give or take the odd can of coke in the face – but that was on the bus.) The line-up is much more adventurous than the average NME-fodder. And the main sponsors are all clearly involved in the music industry and know a thing or two about it. Yesterday’s line-up was probably even better than today’s, including (amongst others) personal favourites Chrome hoof and The Strange Death of Liberal England. Perhaps the best thing is to be able to miss a band as big as, say, The Maccabees and to see something equally good, (or even better), that you’ve never even heard of in a smaller tent around the corner. Smashing Stuff! Good show...

Finally, we’re sorry Jamie was sick up the side of the LastFM tent. It was nothing personal. He’s been grounded for two weeks.