It was an awesome day in London Fields, and a couple of houses around there too. Coffee and croissants galore to keep the crew going – and it was shot on a mixture of the RED cam (awesome!) and a Canon 5D. The ‘chorus’ were genuinely lovely throughout, and the directors (Bee and Livi from Punchdrunk) were brilliant.

Just last month we (rockfeedback) also recorded a session with Johnny Flynn not so long ago. One of the videos (the title track, ‘Been Listening’) is doing the rounds on the net at the moment:

Let me know what you think!

I thought it’d be good to drop a couple of links in here so you could see what I’ve been up to. Obvious bias towards the two bands from the lineup I’ve booked so far! The sessions are every Thursday between 6 and 7pm, just by the Eurostar terminal, inside the station itself. This Thursday sees another IKTOMS acts coming down, in 6 Day Riot – if you happen to be passing by it’s worth dropping in on a free show in one of the odder spaces in London!

Matthew and the Atlas

Ed Sheeran

For more on Ed Sheeran or Matthew and the Atlas click on the links on their names just there… both great acts. Ed and I sat down before the session, and figured out that of the OVER ONE THOUSAND GIGS that he’s done since 15, I’ve put on a full 2% of them, including his first ever show. Sweet.

We spend most of our time, before the act arrives, perfecting minute details. We’re contstantly reshuffling the lights, taping down mic leads, testing room mics, blacking out signs, identifying sources of hums… and then the artist arrives, and the same starts again but down to the tiniest of adjustments on camera positions and light intensity.

After that the session is over before you realise. They play three or four songs, and then we sit them down for what is normally a deep and meaningful (we hope!) conversation about their music, what music is, why it is, where it’s going, yadda yadda…

Anyhow, I’m off to collect the lights, but in the meantime here’s something equally special, made for Nina by somebody else (a very talented someone else) – I love how you never see anybody but Nina actually providing their addition to the song….

Will try to get the Nina session up here once done…

Kev x

What’s been confusing me is the reaction to those voices. People seem to be fine with women either having softly-softly vocals, throaty whispers, delicate breaking high notes etc… or to be ‘out-there’ and zany with the vocal potential (see Bjork, Bat For Lashes etc). The idea of a straight-up powerful female voice seems to be linked, for a majority of listeners, with some kind of 80s power-rock, or with OTT country music. That, or it’s just unsettling.

The closest to having awe-inspiring vocal organs, used in a relatively straightforward, non-quirky, non-delicate way that I can think of (until these last two gigs, that is) has been Florence and the Machine, in recent years. She’s obviously courting the quirky as an act, but not so much on the vocals front – there it’s just straight up ‘lungs’.

I guss I don’t want to delve too deeply into gender-politics on this one (I’ve not even touched on Beth Ditto, Karen O etc), and I’m not even sure I’ve got a point beyond this:

Lissie and Music Go Music have both been incredible gigs.

Music Go Music takes the prize for sheer incredulity of vocal prowess, but the common theme for myself between the two of them was the simplicity of the approach – “I’ve got an awesome voice, would you like to hear it?”. Held in check when it should be, unleashed with a piercing clarity at just the right moments. No warbles. No rasp. No breaking or whispering.

I really liked it, but found myself defending both bands after the shows. Accusations of cheesiness. Dismissals of it all being ‘too much’ or ‘all about the vocals’.

Maybe so – but they were both *sodding awesome* vocalists. Well worth checking out – even if just to tell me I’m wrong.

ps – Lissie is a true-to-life hippie, and sings country songs – don’t go there if that’s going to offend you

pps – Music Go Music, on a similar note, sound like Florence and the Machine being redone by Abba covering Fleetwood Mac by way of Journey, plus some. Again, no apologies if that’s not your basket – but I wouldn’t have assumed it was mine.

ppps – postscriptums and “band name bears other band name’s bastard child” journo tags are both great fun!

If any of those verbose and praiseful descriptions I wrote interested you, then check out a couple of songs from each of the bands here:

http://bit.ly/2010spotify

The only ones mysteriously missing are Surfer Blood. Their album isn’t available in the UK yet, perhaps that’s why…

(1) Beach House
We had the chance to film Beach House at their recent Bush Hall show, and I was completely blown away. Their new LP, ‘Teen Dream’ is a sure-fire contender for album of 2010, and you shouldn’t be without it. In the meantime you can get a few songs of them live in session for free over at Daytrotter (who do awesome sessions – check out their completely free back catalogue). They’re the sweetest people, and they make incredibly focused, completely overwhelming music.

(2) Field Music – The new Field Music album (oddly titled ‘Field Music (measure)’ parentheses and all) landed on my desk about 3 weeks ago, and there’s never more than 2 days between plays at the moment. It’s a glorious and OTT prog record, it sounds like Yes and ELP having an intellectual debate with Steely Dan and Tortoise. It’s the other surefire album of the year. How awesome is it that there are two already?

(3) Music Go Music – speaking of OTT, these guys are genuinely preposterous. Fronting the band is Gala Bell, who’d fit somewhere between Florence and the Machine and Blondie. Which is a horrifically trite thing to say, but sometimes it helps. The band make balls-to-the-wall pop music in the vein of Abba and some kind of late 70s hair-metal band. There were times in their last show, at ULU, where my only possible response to what was being presented to the audience was bemused and uncontainable laughter. And times where I was literally leaving my jaw hanging open. A completely astonishing and fairly unbelievable band. You shouldn’t go see them if you’re not a fan of ‘pop’ music. But then, you shouldn’t go see anything, if you’re that silly.

(4) Laura Gibson – Laura’s just amazing. She did a session with rockfeedbacl that we’ve nearly cut – I’ll probably put it up here once we’ve done it. She writes beauttiful songs with a heart of yearning optimism, unclouded by conceit: her lyrics run liltingly under the fingerpicking with a kind of childish honesty, tempered against a wisdom-aged depth of perception. All of which makes me want to write hugely pretentious sentences about her music.

(5) Surfer Blood – Dan Monsell, our Head of Live at rockfeedback, books some awesome bands. And the best ones for my tastes fall into two categories – sometimes he goes folk (the Peggy Sue boat show was perfect for me!), and sometimes he catches trendy and quirky bands from the ‘States just before they break. Surfer Blood are in the latter camp – uplifting melodies, a sprinkling of Vampire Weekend, maybe a little Pavement, but basically a core of great songs sung by a great new band.

(6) Johnny Flynn – I’m lucky enough, so far as Johnny Flynn goes, to share an office with his management at Transgressive, and so have heard a good few of the songs on the next LP. It’s going to be absolutely astonishing. ‘Nuff said.

(7) Caitlin Rose – From Nashville, Caitlin feels like one of the ones who grew up on the other side of the tracks in that divided city. Her latest EP, Dead Flowers, holds the promise of somebody who’ll be able to bring country music through to a different audience. ‘Answer In One Of These Bottles’ is just brilliant – a bold voice and slightly careless sense of humour…

(8)  Lawrence Arabia – Lawrence (or James really, isn’t it odd when singers become the name of their bands?) was playing support at the Beach House gig I mentioned at the top there. I’d heard his album ‘Chant Darling’ already, but wasn’t prepared for quite how beautifully it all came across live. There’s a similar mastery of dynamics to fellow kiwi Liam Finn, but the songwriting is taken in a different direction. I’m going to add ‘Chant Darling’ to the albums of 2010 too. I’m going to have trouble figuring it out by the end of the year…

And that’s all for now! Let me know what you think of them if they’re new to you… and if not, let me know if you agree!

The complete win-over was being wowed by their barndance hoedown of a launch paty (they hired out a barn in Hertfordshire, and coached us all out from Kings Cross to the middle of the countryside for a night of cider, festival burgers and hay-raising stomping). Along with the line dancing, the revelry and general gorgeousness of being out in the middle of the countryside in such a great setting, we also got treated to collaborations with Laura Marling, King Charles and even Chris Pollard, who we only previously knew as being the loveliest tour manager on the planet.

It started, other than listening in to the growing hype around the band, with their their set at the iTunes Festival (earlier this year at the Roundhouse in Camden), and their opening set for the incredible End of the Road festival in between (more on End of the Road soon!).

Somewhere in between all of those gigs it became a good idea to do one of our rockfeedback sessions with the guys too. Where I’ve not successfuly edited it out, you can sometims see my face asking the interview questions between the songs… Check it out below

And if you’ve not already – buy the album! It’s a rare folk gem, and well worth doing that whole physical format thing for. Who cares about internet streaming anyway?

Then, over the same weekend in September 2008, we ran the festival again, this time with the noticeably strong hand of a good team of people behind it. It was ambitious – two floors again – but this time across TWO DAYS. Both days were great, but we felt the pressure of it all, and ended up making a bit of a loss. That year we put on over 100 acts.

All of which brings us to this year, on Sunday 27th September: the latest iteration of the festival. I couldn’t be more excited. We’re sticking with the age old mantra “if it works, definitely change it round, utterly and completely”. We’ve got quite a few changes in store, and two in particular that change the way the whole festival will work. I thought it might be interesting to talk about them – quite a few people have asked me about the festival and how it all works, and I think it demonstrates what made (and makes) IKTOMS so different to everything else that went (and goes) on in the London acoustic scene…

(1) FREE ENTRY – this year we’ve opted for free entry. In honesty, the only reason we ever charged money was (a) so that we could pay the bands, and (b) so that we could do cool things like make t-shirts and CDs, if we made a profit. We’ll miss the IKTOMS CDs and t-shirts, but I think it’s misleading to always charge money. Let’s say we charge 100 people £10 each for the day. Even if we have no costs at all, that means there’s £1000 to split between 50 bands. That’s £20 per band. That’s about £5 per person. And that depends on making 100 people think it’s a good idea to part with £10 for a load of bands they’ve never even probably heard of.

Compare this with a free entry festival. Everybody that shows up is, in a sense, £10 better off than they would have been if we’d charged. We don’t have to pay a door person for the day. And rather than playing to 100 people, the acts could well be playing to 200 music loving members of the audience. Not only are the band playing to a packed out audience, but their chances of selling a CD are doubled, and the atmosphere of the whole event becomes more carnival, more celebratory.

(2) VENUE AND LENGTH – The Cross Kings served us well for two years, but this year we’ve opted for a change in the venue, to the Vortex Jazz Club. It’s for a few reasons, but the main amongst them is that we wanted a venue with a touch of prestige, that idea of getting the great acts we know and love from our little scene into a wider limelight, simply by moving up the venue tree. Also the Vortex has a jazz piano – I can’t wait to see some of the bands playing on that! We’re also sticking to a day this time, to keep the crowd more concentrated, and keep our energies up. It’s hard to get people in London out to a venue twice in two days.

This isn’t to say I’m a staunch advocate of the model in any and all situations. I ran UNPLUGGED as a pay-for-entry night once a week, every week for 2 years, and it was a better event for it: the acts got paid, and the door fee gave a kind of exclusivity to the nights. They were gigs with *quality* acts, it seemed to say.

This time round, though, what we really wanted was a celebration, a coming-together, a creative free-for-all (puns intended). The feedback we’ve had from all our ventures (UNPLUGGED, Wired, the IKTOMS Tour of 2008, the IKTOMS CD and the festivals) has been that it’s great to have a confluence of a good number of the many talented acts that make up our ‘scene’, somewhere both curated and yet ‘open’, that felt as if it had some significance and an actual relationship to the peopl involved.

Some of this is also a backlash to the nights that have sullied the reputations of honest ‘door tax’ nights. Every upstart London musician has played the night where they’re told to bring 20 people all paying £5, and receive 50p per person if they bring more than 25. It’s good to show what you can do for free. If musicians make the choice and can control the ‘free’ ways in which fans can interact with them, then they’re ten steps closer to profiting from rather than being exploited by things like online music piracy. Perhaps we need a musician- or fan- approved status for nights, granting them a ‘fair-trade’ seal of approval (this is something I’ve discussed doing with Siobhan from the Green Note Open Mic a few times – please make a go of it if you can think of a good way to make it happen!).

So it’s a festival with a few weighty decisions at its core. But they all belie one simple thing: we want this festival to be amazing, great fun, and free. Click on through to check out the lineup and location and suchlike, and come and support some great music. You can use the imaginary £10 you save to buy a couple of CDs that might just make you a convert to the next big thing, or a fan of a deserving and talented unknown musician in our midst.

So it’s been two weeks since my first big shoot since starting – the big test – SXSW 2009, Austin, Texas. Tom Hannan has documented our complete trip in massive detail, check it out if you have the time, it’s comprehensive review of the week’s entertainment, and comprehensively entertaining. Below are my highlights from the festival…

My role in all of this, producer, entailed an awful lot of work before the event, and quite a lot less once there. I set up filming and interviews with 36 bands over the 4 days – we made all but two of the appointments, somehow. What struck me most about SXSW was how an entire city is transformed for a week, whilst all of the western media industry (film and media are represented in their own festivals, as well as music) descend upon it, and how literally EVERY band or musician with an intent to make or break something that year will be there. To which end I saw some of the best music of my life, and all of it was utterly current and up-to-the-minute.

Perhaps my two favourite acts of the festival best show the diversity there. We were filming the 4AD showcase on our second day in the gorgeous Central Presbytarian Church. All of the acts were wonderful, but the diminutive Anni Rossi was the one to carry my musical heart away. Comparisons to Regina Spektor will inevitably come in their droves, but it’s to be remembered that sounding like somebody else is occasionally the disadvantage of making great music. Starting the set standing on a suitcase, only heightened (teehee) her petite charm, but the image is quickly overshadowed by the voice: encompassing, growling, soaring, brutally honest, and utterly compelling. Hacking, slapping and battering at the viola in her hands, whilst stamping on the mic’d up suitcase – Anni literally blew us all away. Watch this space for the video we shot of her set…

… And on the complete other end of the spectrum, I also witnessed the most vitriolic and terrifying anarchy of punk in the shape of Gallows, in a tiny space somewhere off 6th Street. It was the most exciting, and most terrifying, gig I’ve ever been to. They told us afterwards (and they’re actually really lovely guys) that they can’t play gigs this size in the UK any more, because of audience violence problems. I can see why. The footage below is from a little handheld camera I got given just before the gig started by our director that happens to take HD 16×9 video – in I dutifully went to the centre of the crowd. I emerged half an hour later utterly bruised and exhilerated, having held the lead singer aloft with one hand whilst filming with the other, watched him smash the bar lights into the ceiling, climb the doorframes, perform half of the set from the bar, and the other half in a widening circle in the middle of the audience. Truly unforgettable.

Other greats from the festival were the acoustic sessions we held, with loads of artists, all over the place. We filmed A Hawk and a Hacksaw, on the front porch of our amazing hotel, The Austin Folk House. They were absolutely brilliant – and very good-looking too – a envy-making husband and wife musical partnership. We’d feel bitter if they weren’t utterly lovely people too!

...on the porch of the Austin Folk House

We went record shopping with Graham Coxon at Waterloo Records, and then went on to film a session with him in a hat shop…  Tom Hannan’s dream-come-true, and an entrancing performance by Graham. Working in the offices next to Transgressive Records, we got a sneak peak of Graham’s next album, The Spinning Top – and it’s absolutely awesome. It’s really Davey Graham and John Martyn influenced – absolutely a departure from his previous solo work. When listening, I can’t help but wonder – ‘did Graham decide to make an album just for me?’ – which is the way every amazing album should make you feel. Here’s a youtube link for one of the songs we recorded in the hatshop:

We also spent a lot of time with Daniel Johnston and his manager, Tom Gimbel. They were both incredibly accomodating, and we met up with multiple times across the festival… for two exclusive, acoustic songs in the State Capitol Park, at an unannounced special performance, and for his festival-closing set at Emo’s, where he played with a Grammy nominated latin band, performing a cover of ‘Live and Let Die’ in amongst a set of his own material.

It was an incredible experience to spend so much time with Daniel – he seems kinder and much mellower than the ubiquitous documentary show him – which is probably thanks to continued hard work and diligence from his manager and his brother. And much rather than exploiting him, as some have suggested, I felt very strongly that these people are working to give Daniel the one thing he craves in life – the opportunity to be creative, and to make music. When we spoke to him, Daniel told us the one thing he wanted was to “make music until I die”, and “to make lots of money”.  We’re working the material we shot into something really special, so I won’y give any away now, but his songs are some of the most moving I’ve heard, and SXSW turned me into a diehard fan.

Daniel Johnston being interviewed by rockfeedback's Toby L

The Dirty Projectors played at the French Legation Museum on the last day – and reinvented music in front of our eyes. Really. I have very little else to say about it – it was awe-inspiring. And again – they were incredibly lovely people. What’s going on with all these lovely musicians – I thought they were meant to be awkward, egotistic souls? That’s not a complaint, though – please don’t change…

And finally, I got to interview and watch the live set of a long time hero – Buck 65. The live set was an odd one – I’ve never seen him perform the same way twice. This time round he’d lost a little of the Tom Waits glitter and tweed jacket, and moved into a tracksuit – presumably to better fit with the hiphop stage he was playing? The set functioned as something of a best-of, with the the most popular tracks from his back catalogue, including a rare outing of ‘The Centaur’. He’s been releasing a massive amount of material in recent years, including a number of free-to-download EPs and singles. One such is hard to find now, but I’ve uploaded it to soundcloud… you can download it from there (don’t worry – it was released for free over his myspace page!). It’s called Indestructable Sam, and it might just be my favourite Buck 65 track.

So, SXSW ’09 was awesome, is the long and short. The above were just a few of the musical highlghts of an amazing festival – I won’t go into the free beer / mojitos / tequilas madness that caused every day to be spent in a wonderful, drunken, eventful haze – much to professional to write about that. Honestly. But roll on next year…