Swn was so much of a “blast” it’s taken me till Wednesday to gather the right words together…. Ho hum.
So Saturday, stumbled out of bed at 2.30, which means I kind of missed the start of the first band at the Loose all-dayer in Howard Gardens. Ho, hum, ho… If this was a tented festival some idiot shouting Timmy or Bollocks would have woken me up already. After grabbing what can best be described as a Greggs, I eventually turned up in Spillers for the in store…. Gindrinker… can I say he was good? is that allowed? Yes he was good. New stuff for the national museum was particularly sharp. Hope they record it soon. Got from there to Tommy’s in time for Connan Mockasin. Wow, autoharp. He sounds mysterious like a shoe-gaze mystery. He has a band but the weird noises that come from his special wooden string machine dazzel my hungover brain as I sip the first cider of the day, like from the deepest middle earth or a mistuned television. It doesn’t half carry you off to foreign lands, like Iceland or Barry Island. Maybe not Barry.
Loose is twee, unashamedly twee. Aidan Smith is 19th century twee. On the second cider now, this is just a half… He looks a bit like Archie the Inventor from Balamory. Maybe he really owns a castle that overlooks a city of mentally ill scottish people. I get it, it’s like what Belle and Seb would probably have sounded like if a) they were 19th century barbers or b) sang around pub pianos during the wars. Its quite sweet but I don’t know if the novelty value would wear off. Then The Boy Least Likely To. Liz Loose goes into full twee mode and chucks balloons into the crowd. Love it! Boy Least Likely To are good pop fun, and I’m getting quite into the frivolity by bombarding the people at the back with Liz’s said balloons. Not half a bit like Oh Brother Where Art Thou but sort of circa the M25. But almost as early as they start we leave for… no good reason it seems. Dammit.
Right, dinner. Err, Burger King. Oh dear. Swn needs a food tent, or at least some kind of discount in the Rummer. Enough of poisoning myself. Straight from there to see Zail in Kazbar. Zail are from Wales but I haven’t seen them in ages. It’s a chap with a guitar and a drummer, a bit like Right Hand Left Hand, with pedals as well. It’s quite angry and sinister, a bit middle eastern rhythm wise at times and almost like a two man Mogwai, but metal-y. They are closely followed by Truckers of Husk. They really need to get some strings sorted cus I hear half of Salad Ballad in my head which ‘aint there live. Apparently whenever they tried in the past it was always out of tune. Still good though, math-rock is surprisingly danceable considering its said to be the music of pretentious git-bastards. Yes that’s a double barrlled swear word. No beer here ‘cus there’s no chance of reaching the bar – Kazbar is rammed to squeezing.
Right so… from there to… Ectogram. They sucked! I don’t understand this band at all. Maybe I’m a bit tired from swn-leg (noun, effect of running between venues 20 minutes walking distance apart while hungover/drunk/hungry) but all I can hear are nails, nails nails hurting me in my ears and WHY WONT THAT DAMN SINGER STOP SHOUTING AND WAILING AND urgh this is like having my brains eaten by a leopard who keeps complaining about how they taste afterwards. I want to go upstairs and, wow I haven’t really had that much to drink. That will change. Cats in Paris! Speed Twee! Cheerful indie pop dashed with a heavy dose of keyboards at 300 jangles a minute. Stoned bass player made I laff, as did another moustached drummer. It was a bit like someone had taken a recording of a Loose night at Clwb and accidentally played it too fast. One of my top bands of the festival and would definitely see them again. Wonder over Dempsey’s afterwards to see if we can get in to Thomas Truax and lo! we can’t cus its one in and one out and people are looking a bit sheepish, so we avoid…
So to Tafod Tafod Tafod. I don’t know much about bleeping really. Not serious bleeping; indie bleeping I can form a basic opinion about but the club house beats style I’m a bit lost with really. This comes from being born in the wrong generation (MOTHER, FATHER, I blame your responsible parenting for my missing out on 90s dance trends). Tafod is a really hot venue, and I mean that in the boiling sense of hot. I am sweaty as hell and I’ve only just come downstairs. It doesn’t seem to bother anyone though. I have to be told who people are on when like a lame non-dance person – I assume people absorb these things via osmosis. When I am told that Legowelt is on I realise that I have been dancing like a lunatic at the front and making hand puppets with the projector like an arsehole. I assume this means that I was having a good time. Yes, I was having a good time. I would like some more good time.
Sunday arrives….. And I really don’t feel too good. So bad that I only manage two bands, gulp, before needing to go home and sleep like a six year old child after too much cheap lemonade. Oh dear. Tubelord in Barfly was the first and I just didn’t get them at all. It didn’t help that I was hit by the rhythm guitarist when he jumped into the crowd. They sounded a bit like Hundred Reasons to me, maybe the sound was bad. Maybe my head was bad. I liked Hundred Reasons when I was four, not now I am a mature gentleman. That guitar weilding swine sounds a bit emo on the vocals as well, and I JUST DONT LIKE HIS BLONDE HAIR.
I sit down like grand-dad and read the paper at the back of barfly…. And then Dananananakroyd came along and blew me head off son. Again it’s not quite my thing but these Scots have so much energy on stage its impossible not to like them. Six people jumping at the same time… Once the crowd gets going they run through us like knives… dividing us for a wall of cuddles, or bringing half the band into the crowd. If there’s a word that describes this band, it’s interactive. If there’s a word that describes me, it’s old. I can’t quite mosh, legs hurt. I kind of made it a bit to see Right Hand Left Hand but I couldn’t handle my brains. So I left. Like a coward.
And that was it. That was my Swn. Oh when will it return for I love thee?
