Better late than never... some shots from the wonderful "Our Band Could BBQ Your Life" weekender at the Brixton Windmill

Simon's mum in the cafe of the Museum of Childhood reading "Our Band Could Be Your Life", Michael Azerrads seminal book on the American underground, through the 80s to just pre Nirvana. Each chapter is dedicated to a different band, and the weekender at the Brixton Windmill featured new bands covering at least two tracks of each of the bands in the chapters. I just re-read the book, it's very inspiring and well written, every chapter is infused with the history, drama, organisation and flavour of that band, and of course it makes you want to investigate further and join the dots. First time I read it I wasn't really familiar with The Replacements, Minutemen, Mission of Burma. That was quite a long time ago, and they've become firm faves of mine. This time I ordered/bought discs by Black Flag, Beat Happening and Husker Du, so fingers crossed...



Dan/4 or 5 Magicians/the organiser of the entire weekend as The Replacements, the highlight of the weekend for me. HOW DO YOU SAY GOODNIGHT TO AN ANSWERING MACHINE? He opened with that, it was amazing...


Winnebago Deal played about 20 Black Flag songs straight through, really astonishing:


My good friends Amy Blue tackling Butthole Surfers confrontational performance art techniques, an intense and noisy set, and certainly in spirit with the inspiration ;)
We're playing a show with them again on the 22.10. at the usual place, the Cross Kings, put it in your diary:












Blenheim Gardens in beautiful afternoon sunlight, quite a contrast to the dark coven of noise inside the venue:


Everyone to the Anderson as Big Black, a very cool, understated, minimalist set, one of my faves:


Ice Sea Dead People as Minor Threat:



The mellow scene outside the Windmill, everyone started to look a bit frazzled at that point:



The Muscle Club as Fugazi:


4 of 5 Magicians second set of the weekend, as Dino Jr, very good - though at that point I was slightly less tolerant of loud rock music, haha, so it didn't quite have the same impact as their amazing Replacements set the night before for me, but solid, only songs from You're Living All Over Me which is cool by me. Freak Scene was played over the PA straight after I think, so it wasn't missing though it wasn't played live:




A mountain of equipment lugged onto the stage by X-Certs who tried to be Husker Du, seeing them maybe wasn't strictly necessary on Sunday night, have to say. But all in all a great weekend and really good to read that book again, highly recommended:

some wonky shots from the Field Day '09

I'm not that great at photographing bands, it's quite hard, but what interested me visually was the whole scene, the crowds, the lights, especially as things got a little messy, mostly in a good way, from about 5-6 pm onwards, with the rain and the drinks and whatever taking over etc. it looked good. I love the way this one day festival that is firmly an East London fest mixes up edgy indie with mellow alt country and dubstep and electro and improv jazz and burlesque/alt.cabaret in the "Do you come Here often" tent and all sorts of other grooves, it's quite open ended and attracts an interesting crowd, both nerdy and hedonistic, and very East London, again, mostly in a good way. While the very happening dance tents (mainly Bugged Out and Bloggers Delight) and the general clubby atmosphere might make it come across as some sort of eccentric rave party with an indie festival tacked on, it was perfectly possible to immerse yourself in pretty dark and moody soundscapes all day long, from the Sian Alice Group to SCUM to The Horrors to Fennesz to The Big Pink and finally on to Mogwai who were truly magnificent, one of the better festival headline sets I've seen, best enjoyed with your eyes closed... but open your eyes now:


Wet Paint (they were really good, US alt indie influenced - I'm sure, and wouldn't be surprised if they own a few GBV records - and very energetic and fun, shame everyone was sitting down but I think they turned a few heads):

S.C.U.M. slightly overblown and murky neo-goth sounds, does that do it justice? Not sure... :


The Horrors, in the rain, I guess they didn't quite make the impact they should have, but it was entertaining enough to me, if not a little lightweight:


The Big Pink:




Four Tet, dancers with Hula Hoops that had little lights attached:



Bloggers Delight, a smallish tent that seemed to be rammed the whole time:


Mogwai, both the main course and the comedown: