Welly...

...that was this blog's word of the weekend at the End of the Road Festival earlier this month. Though not de rigeur, a solid pair of gumboots were absolument nécessaire as 10,000 feet churned up the saturated arena ground. And several acts packed a unexpected wallop.
Slightly disappointingly, this time round much of the music at the 3rd EotR came to resemble the mud underfoot - or plasticine after the rainbow of colours have all been squidged together. A 'dull brown' core programme consisting of two broad types:

:: earnest, troubled indie-Americana from the likes of Jason Molina and Marks Kozelek and Eitzel (who really should form a supergroup and call their album 'Life's shit and then you die')

:: and a younger legion of folksy pop troupes fronted by pale guys in plaid shirts and hesitant beards, usually with The Girl on accordian and/or fiddle (Woodpigeon, The Acorn, Bowerbirds, Seabear, etc whose nearly-but-not-quite songbooks tended to blur into one another)

No, for this blog it was those acts with a bit of the aforementioned welly, hitherto largely unsuspected, who stood out. Acts like Shearwater, for instance. reallyrather must confess to not having paid much attention to their output since mostly liking '02's Everybody makes mistakes. (In the words of the great philosopher Homer, 'Doh!'.) But the buzz around Rook pulled me front of stage in The Local tent late on Saturday. Good move. The Austin/Denton Tx. five-piece delivered a set of escalating mightiness, dirty riffage and fundamental heft anchoring elegant, concise compositions with Meiburg's exotic vocal contrasting starkly with the camp caveman presence of Thor behind the drum kit. Rivetting.
[shearwater]

Also shifting up a weight division, perky janglemeisters Pete & the Pirates. The decanting of folks from the Big Top over to Bon Iver on the main stage would surely have been far swifter had the chipper Reading mob and their forest of Fenders' set not been so hard to resist. Wall-to-wall lusty pop tuneage. Yes, they're pretty straightforward and not exactly musically adventurous but it feels like they're stealthily building up a head of steam to rival the likes of British Sea Power as UK indie guitar pop tyros...
[pete & the pirates]

And then there's Hawley. OK, so this set's hardly a thing of edgy spontaneity but it has been honed right down to some kind of perfect. In this time and place there was an ineffable rightness about the whole thing - Richard Hawley seemed to feel it, the packed lawn in front of the Garden Stage felt it. As much as anyone, Hawley was trying to impress his four kids watching from the side of the stage. They weren't giving much away (it was just Dad posing in his shades, after all) but things like the zinging solo on a gorgeous vintage gee-tar during Here in my arms pushed this blog's ace-ometer to eleven. Kwalidee with a capital K...
[richard hawley]

... random EotR notes ... the Shop Assistant Least Likely To - Jof doing a shift behind the Rough Trade counter on Saturday afternoon ... Clare & the Reasons turning Somewhere over the rainbow into a single-word ode to Barak Obama's candidacy at the end of their Bimble Inn set then to be greeted by a picture-perfect specimen in the sky as the crowd spilled from the tent ... discovering from the (excellent) programme that Jonathan from Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin and Pete from P & the Pirates are actual cousins (this blog having unwittingly compared SSLYBY's Pershing to P&tP's Little death back in April) ... Boris' turn was zesty shot at the thankless task of opening the whole shebang before half the crowd had pitched up - the campsite could be opened the day before, surely? ...

Tickets for EotR 2009 on sale now, £90...

Loveliness & pop, that's what was there wasn't really quite enough of for this blog this time round. The increasingly close involvement of Plan B magazine isn't necessarily a bad thing (the 84-page programme was a model) but the preponderance of worthiness and outthere indie-cred rather crowded out unadulterated - yes, it's that word again - loveliness. It's quite simple really:

...and more about that anon...

Wye o Wye...

It's long since been irrelevant in terms of aquisition but the business of which non-UK albums get picked up for an 'official' release over here remains a vaguely mystifying, random-seeming process. Out of nowhere recently, for instance, have come a couple of old-ish records which someone somewhere has been energized to re-release: the slightly over-rated Snow tires by Unbunny [reviewed by this blog back in July04] and the slightly under-rated last from Rivulets, You are my home [see rr Feb07]. How? Why? They might get a second wind if it puts them under the noses of press journalists [see the Sunday Times recent 4/5 review for Rivulets] but that can't be guaranteed. The Postmarks peachy pop debut made this blog's top 10 for '07 and came out here in June; no-one noticed.
Maybe a licensing deal doesn't cost very much, but then why isn't everyone doing it instead of just, er, blogging about it? And what would be on reallyrather's roster? Well, Amazon still has matt pond PA's Several arrows later [this blog's best for '06] down as an import which is a chuffin' scandal, so that for sure. Rather less of an outrage but apparently also still an import, The Go Find's Stars on the wall from last year. (But at least Boomkat are having a sale so steal it here.)
Stuff on Kranky seems to be put out & distributed over here tho' you'd never know judged by the way Benoit Pioulard's Precis was totally ignored in the prints; re-launch definitely required. And then there's Gentleman Reg's Darby & Joan, another underexposed pop cracker ... and Shelley Short's lo-fi debut ... and Bunky's bonkers Born to be a motorcycle ... and...whoops, is that the bank manager on the phone?...

At least Jet black, Gentleman Reg's belated follow-up to Darby & Joan [see rr Nov04] would seem to stand a better chance of European exposure since it's been picked up by Arts & Crafts (Broken Social Scene, Feist, The Dears etc): 'One of the most exciting aspects of [the] new deal is getting the chance to release his music outside of Canada — an opportunity that's evaded him up till now. Arts & Crafts plans to release Jet Black in Europe and the States as well as our home and native land, where it’s slated to hit store shelves Oct. 14.' [Toronto Eye feature]
[Gentleman Reg]

Duo Wye Oak's debut If children came out in April in the US and being on Merge should give a fighting chance of getting heard when it's released here in October. And it is worth hearing. 'Like taking a master class in indie rock,' reckons Allmusic; this blog knows what they mean but is more than happy to do the revision.
There's a great moment in the opening Please concrete where the attractively bobbing girl-on-a-bike-in-the-sunshine vibe abruptly hits a wall of thrilling electric noise. And just when you think/hope its going to happen again it..doesn't, which is also great. Instead, bounding forth like a young dog let off the leash in the park, comes Warning which calls to mind - quelle surprise! - Superchunk.
Family glue sounds like Lovers' Carolyn Berk having a Stevie Nicks moment. (Actually, make that the Lovers we've known thus far - sounds like there are big changes afoot on upcoming release I am the west; hear here.) Fans of The Trolleyvox will enjoy Orchard fair's dynamic guitar-driven pop which could've been even better if the mix wasn't so condensed and the components given a bit of space as on the prettily pattering Keeping company. And picks of the bunch are the swirling, shimmering I don't feel young and closer Obituary, like a one-man-band-does-jangly shoegaze...

...and reallyrather hopes to in attendance Nov 4 at The Borderline when Jenn & Andy open for the distinctly over-rated Dr Dog (not v special at all at The Windmill a couple of years back). Note that date: if its going to, at least the Obama bubble won't have burst 'til after the show's over...
[wye oak]

And so to the End of The Road...