Oragnisers of the Underage Club in London have announced the Underage Festival to take place on August 10th in Victoria Park in London. The line up that has been announced so far is absolutely stunning, with Foals, The Young Knives and Patrick Wolf all set to perform. The festival will take place over three stages sponsored by Radio 1, Myspace and Artrocker magazine. French indie remixers The Teenagers are also on the bill along with Canda’s “8-bit terror duo” Crystal Castles. Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 9am here.
Full Line Up:
Crystal Castles
Cajun Dance Party
Foals
Kitty
Daisy and Lewis
Johnny Flynn
Metros
Mystery Jets
Patrick Wolf
I was a Cub Scout
Pull Tiger Tail
The Rumble Strips
The Teenagers
The Young Knives
To My Boy
Vincent Vincent and the Villians
Xerox Teens
ITNT: Your only influence on myspace is Talking Heads, is there a mutual
love for them in the band? How much have they influenced your sound?
FOF: Yes it is deffinatly a very mutual love. Aside from David Byrne having one of the best voices in music they are so inspiring in the way they can tap into so many sounds and styles. They are a true fusion band in that there songs have parts of electro in them, parts of brazilian music and still maintain a very poppy edge. Rythmically they were very inovative especially on the album Remain In Light where they use all kinds of strange polyrythmic patterns and we try and look at things like that. We love to bring elements of all genre’s into our music which I think seperates us from a lot of bands out there. We would NOT classify ourselves as indie and i think people that do just aren’t listening carefully. Parts of our music sounds closer to Iron Maiden than it does to The Strokes or something.
ITNT: Have you been offered any deals in terms of signing to a label?
Would you rather an indie label than a major one?
FOF: At the moment we would be happy from anyone or anything to be honest. Seems there is no room for bands like us. Part of me wants to recreate ourselves with a new name somthing like “I Eat Bares Not Porridge” and pretend we are 15 yeas old and from Stokholm. Then we would probably get signed without anyone listening to our music. We will see what happens in the next month but we have been working so hard for no rewards as of yet. I
ITNT: Are any of the lyrics in your songs autobiographical? Three’s A Crowd maybe?
FOF: Certainly not Three’s A Crowd. But yes most of the others somehow relate to something i have been through. I am Charles by the way and write the lyrics and play bass and do backing vocals. Its nice having somone else sing my lyrics because then I dont feel so self indulgent and “tortured”. I would start to bore people if I talked about what the lyrics are all about. They are very farfeched stories about made up characters but at the same time…partially true stories about people we know…
ITNT: You have played a lot of Way Out West nights and underage shows. Do
you prefer playing to younger audiences? If so, why?
FOF: Young audiences are like cocaine or somthing. It gives you a kick because their inhibitions are still very low and they dont really care whats going on musically as long as they can have a good dance and punch to it. Thats fine but a band is not going to be able to play to young audiences forever…kids grow up…go to school and stuff. So I would say our ideal audience would be a room of 45 year old ex musicians who nod there heads and smirk at our musical charm. Dont get me wrong though Way Out West was a wonderful and charitable way of giving somthing very special for young kids to do. I wish it had been around when i was young.
ITNT: Up to now you have only released Routemaster and Three’s A Crowd
on 7” through Young And Lost Club. What can we expect for the near
future?
FOF: Depends. If we get a record deal then an amazing album. If not then nothing apart from a few demos we give away for free when we have to quit.
ITNT: In nearly all of your songs you use vocal harmonies: do you find
this a useful trait to have in terms of experimenting with songs?
FOF: We just love the sound of voices singing like that when its done well, (we dont always do it too well). We find, because live we can only really play three instruments, that it helps thicken the texture of the songs. It also sounds very 80s which we like.
ITNT: What music have you been listening to recently?
FOF: UUUUUUUM.I suppose i can only tell you what I personally have been listening to. The new Arcade Fire album, Buena Vista Social Club, Talk Talk, Megadeth.
So in this week’s NME, their radar feature was on London’s Cajun Dance Party. Another band form the Way Out West scene along with the likes of Late of The Pier and Fear of Flying.
To be honest I was incredibly surprised by the hugely positive reaction the NME awarded them with. The radar feature ended with “Cajun Dance Party are something special” well sorry to burst their NME imposed bubble they aren’t.
Debut single The Next Untouchable features a guitar string-bending riff in a tale of relationship problems. It’s a decent song, just not something to make you stop and think “fuck me, that’s good.” The song in general is somewhat hollow, the drumming lacks flare and the bass is easily forgettable and doesn’t do much to accompany the guitar, however the keyboards do add a small twinkle of majesty to the song.
Danny Blumberg’s vocals may hold up on The Next Untouchable but in other Cajun Dance Party tracks the vocals are frail and vulnerable. On songs like The Firework his voice is strained and fragile and doesn’t make for nice listening. Maybe it’s down the tracks being demos, but there is only so much that production can do.
In the aforementioned article in NME, part of the strap-line reads “Loved by Thom Yorke” now I know I’m just being sceptical here, but are they really? The only mention of Thom Yorke’s in the article is that he advised them to sign to XL and said “don’t sign to a major” is that a love for their music or just some kind advice from a veteran of the business to a fledgling band? I assume the latter was the case, but of course the NME had blow things out of proportion, surprised?
In the article the band also describe ambitions, “I’ve written songs with sax solos” enthused Robbie the guitarist. “I don’t see many bands willing to try the stuff we’re doing” Danny goes on to say, which threw out the idea of him not being arrogant as he early tried to profess. Well let’s see, bands with French horns and sax solos, em…. Arcade Fire, Love Is All, Xerox Teens to name but a few.
Basically, Cajun Dance Party are nothing special, they may go onto become great, in fact I hope they do, but right now I can’t see that happening. Oh, and to Vicky the keyboard player, your dress is pretty but is it all you ever wear?
Juggling a band and schoolwork? Near impossible, but Poppy & The Jezebels manage just fine.
ITNT: As a young band still at school, is it hard to balance promoting the
band and playing gigs with school? What takes priority?
weekends, evenings and holidays and so far are seeming to get by. The band
is obviously top on the list.
ITNT: Do you ever have problems finding gigs because of your age or problems
with people at the venue? I know that Be Your Own Pet when
they first played had to wait outside the venue until it was their turn to
play, has anything like that ever happened to you?
their loss! The onon thing I can think of that we’ve had is huge bright
blue inky crosses on both hands at a venue in london so we definetely
couldn’t drink.
ITNT: How did the formation of the band come about? Did the idea come about
one boring maths lesson? Do you all share a love for certain
acts and bands?
wanted to start a band in year 8, so they found me to be the drummer. For
a while we had a boy on guitar and no real singer, until we found Mollie.
Now its just us 4 girls. We all like different music and clothes, but in a
lot of ways we’re really similar, like our mutual love of 60’s designers.
ITNT: Was the band initially just an escape from school or did you want to get
signed from the start?
chance with it. Since then we’re really serious about doing it properly.
An escape from school is an excellent bonus.
ITNT: Do you prefer playing to crowds your own age, are they more receptive
and open to the music than the over 18’s?
more of an audience, but over 18’s can be just as good. We like playing to
all age audiences.
ITNT: What other material will be released soon? After the limited 7” P&J: We’ve got a 6 track mini album coming out early June on CD, limited vinyl
and download. We’re all really excited about it.
ITNT: What are your favourite bands/albums at the moment?
Klaxons, Madonna and Blondie as we speak and I love the new ‘The Slits”
tracks, The Rolling Stones and The Velvet Underground.
Oxford based quintet Foals have recently found themselves in the limelight: a Radar feature in NME, a SXSW session at the hugely popular US online radio station WOXY.com. All of this before the release of their debut single: Hummer.
Hummer opens with an almost mechanical sounding drum beat before the jerky, staccato guitars kick in along with singer Yannis’ yelps of “Quiet Heartbeat!” Before building up to the chants of “Ay Common!”
B-side Astronauts And All opens with a simple two note keyboard before the rest of the band crash in for a frantic intro. The jerky guitar drives the song forward accompanied by Yannis’ chants of “Make it Happen”.
Battles
New York based math rockers Battles are readying their first proper album Mirrored (Released May 14th on Warp) after two EP’s EP-C and B EP, the two were combined and released on Warp Records in February of 2006.
Lead single Atlas provides a hypnotic combination of effects and instruments paired with digitized vocals from singer Tyondai Braxton.
