ISSN 2040-5472

Sept - Oct 2010

Hello one and all!

Yet again, you are clutching our lovingly pieced

together zine in your hands, reading the words so carefully

crafted, practically inhaling the musical mojo that

proliferates the bands in these pages. Ah, music. Doesn’t it

ruddy rock?

Although sometimes subject to slurs, tarnished with

those dirty words decadence and hedonism. Everyone knows that

the devil on the left shoulder whispering to you to go to a

gig, have a few drinks, and dance the night away is the kind of

friend you really want. A hell of a lot more fun than the one

your mum would rather you hang around with, the pure angel on

the right, pulling at your conscience to do good deeds, raise

some money for charity, support good causes, and generally

score karma points.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could be naughty and nice?

Have a sore head but a warm heart.

The long term relationship between Glastonbury and

Greenpeace, the charity singles that we buy as long as we never

have to listen to them, even Live Aid, demonstrate that good

music and good deeds can be bedfellows. The fact that we love a

good tune AND we’re good people means that this year we are

putting on some gigs in support of Oxjam, the music festival

from Oxfam.

Since the first festival in 2006, more than 36,000

musicians have played to over 750,000 people at around 3,000

Oxjam events nationwide. This has raised more than £1.2 million

for Oxfam: enough to buy 10,619 emergency shelters, 48,000

goats and 705 classrooms. Not bad for a good night out.

Come and show your support on Sat 18th Sept and Fri 24th

Sept at the King’s Head in Acton. £3 for really decent live

music in West London – can’t argue with that. And I mean really

good bands. The kind that have been chosen by legendary

Italian design house Valentino’s to front their campaign

(Rubicks), been played on the BBC by Huw Stephens, Tom Robinson

and Steve Lamacq (Alphabet Backwards) and praised by the NME

(End Of Level Baddie). Bands that have rocked out at the birth

of pop music The Cavern Club (Projekt) or even broken records

by being the youngest band ever to play Glastonbury (The Theory

of 6 Degrees). Bands described as ‘too good to be true’ by UK

Music Review (The Volitains), all alongside a debut performance

from local talent (Bible John and the Reptiles).

Flick to the back page for all the details, or contact

us at itsallhappening_music@hotmail.com

Enjoy!

Dan and Cesca

The first page. In which we say:

Howdy....

What‘s in a name? Ice Black Birds. Interesting juxtaposition of white and black, dark and shade and that. The name black in a music context is always somewhat synonymous with eyeliner and metal, a dark heart and soul tormented, but ‗birds‘? Soaring ballads, or flitting sparrows running errands, or at the very least, girls. But Ice Black Birds don‘t fit into any scene – all the epithets pop, old school, blues, dance, rock‘n‘roll can be applied at some point.

S h a m e l e s s l y throwing into the mix a riff heard from that song on the radio yesterday, influences from CD found at a boot fair, the fingering of the fret that organically develops in a jam session, until the final result is rather an Eton Mess – bit mashed up, but utterly tasty. Sure, there‘s a hint of sixties blues there, but there‘s a hell of a lot of disco beats too.

St ructura l ly the songs are made up of very disparate parts – maybe a heavy funky groove, followed by aggressive dual vocal delivery, possibly climaxing with a drum thrashing, or modern i nd i e c lass ic instrumental. With such a cross hatch of different periods and genres, it would be easy to believe in complicated formula behind the songwriting.

‗It‘s not conscious‘, says lead guitarist George. ‗We don‘t go, ―Oh we‘ll pick this, and a bit of that.‖ You can probably group some of our songs together based on the period of music I‘ve been listening to. Like recently I‘ve had a bit of a Creedance Clearwater revival, so there‘s a takatakatakataka coming in. There‘s loads of elements,

and we just put them together.‘

First single ‗Ears To The Ground‘ is the most immediate song, its fast vocals, pulsating base line like a steady strong heartbeat threatening to go haywire. Just as it seems that this is going to be one Ice Black Birds song that doesn‘t cavort around genre, tempo and influences, like a musketeer riding in to a duel, a vocal harmony appears, the instruments that IBB so expertly execute relegated to the background for a few seconds o f l i ved in ruggedness.

The lyrics are very much the final piece of the gut busting musical puzzle that the band create. ‗I write about things that happen to me,‘ shrugs lead vocalist Sam. ‗Other people‘s shoes. Nonsense really. I don‘t really have a set formula for the way I write. A lot of the time we‘ll play live 3 or 4 times with different phrases. That way I can try and get a feel for what it sounds like live. Just to know what is right.‘

Critics who dismiss the band for having one foot firmly in the past and being irrelevant must be listening on broken headphones. You know how on old fashioned ones, if the left ear wasn‘t working, so you were only hearing through the right, the noises coming through bore no resemblance to the song title on the display?

To believe Ice Black Birds‘ sound died away with black and white TV, carelessly throwing around phrases like ‗They‘re not as good as Led Zepellin‘ (‗Er, who said we were trying to be Led Zep. We‘re well aware there‘s a

long way to go‘, says Ollie, drummer and vocalist), is to ignore the slices of samba that surreptitiously make an appearance in ‗Long Dark Night‘, the frantic furore and wailing in ‗Doors‘ that reminds of Late of The Pier, and the rolling wave of a riff in ‗As Birds We‘d Be Fine‘, a gorgeous love song with lustful energy simmering beneath.

I t ‘ s mo r e t h e process and tools, than the sound, that Ice Black Birds insist on drawing from the more musically swinging periods of history, and this is something lead guitarist George is keen to point out.

‗We take the original visceral kind of tribal stomp of the sixties and seventies, which was a very very buoyant and creative period, when everything sounded fresh and new, and still sounds fresh and new. Play anyone Pet Sounds and they‘ll love it, because it‘s a great thing. These are records that are timeless.

‗ S o t o m a k e something more ‗accessible‘, which is that wonderful industry word...accessible to a larger audience, is where the dance element comes in. It‘s the modern synthetic element, but without using synths. There‘s a lot of melodies and a lot of harmonies that would be normally played on a mook, or one of these crazy synths, but we do it in a more organic way, so that it sounds different, but familiar.‘

Or maybe, as bassist Harry summarizes ‗dance blues.‘

Either way, Ice

Black Birds won‘t be extinct

any time soon.

I

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From top left clockwise: Think About

Life, Villagers, Unicorn Kid, King

Charles

Villagers Currently getting a lot of night time Radio 1 airplay with current single ‗Becoming a Jackal‘, and being compared to every singer / songwriter from Neil Young to Bright Eyes, Irishman Conor J O'Brien and his Mercury Norminated band play beautiful, poetic tracks. The comparisons are certainly easy to hear with O‘Brien‘s voice very similar to Connor Oberst‘s, and sometimes he toes the line of earnestness and pretention, but he‘s certainly one to watch especially for fans of Eliot Smith, Bon Iver or the aforementioned Bright Eyes.

Unicorn Kid Chip Tunes? Happy Hardcore? Tartan trance? Hyper-pop? Whatever you want to call it Scottish teenager Oli Sabin, aka Unicorn Kid, creates some huge tunes which has led him to providing remixes for the likes of Pet Shop Boys and Gorillaz. Sounding a bit like a euphoric Crystal Castles without the screaming banshee vocals, and with Huw Stephens and Zane Lowe firmly on board, tracks such as ‗Lion Hat‘ and single ‗Dream Catcher‘ sound massive live. Listening to ‗Unicorn Kid‘ ‗is how I imagine Pacman feels when he eats one of those flashing pills and turns medieval on those ghosts. Awesome.

King Charles Vying with Darwin Deez for the ‗get your hair cut you hippy‘ award, his unique styles go further than his hirsuteness . Twisting folk, synths, touches of hip-hop and even a couple of guitar solos (woop), King Charles dishes out genre defining liaisons that have been earning him rave reviews of late. Having previously supported the likes of Noah and the Whale and Laura Marling, but seemingly having broken free from the current folk scene, he creates big songs that lose none of their subtleness live. Definitely worth checking out.

Think About Life Imagine bubble gum and disco lights tumble dried with giddy guitars and rapping chipmunks.‗Having My Baby‘ is a riot of a track made for mayhem on the dance floor. The hypnotic textures of ‗Sweet Sixteen‘ demand hands in the air, a party anthem for the masses. With a vigour and vivacity so often missing, don‘t go and see Think About Life unless you are ready to rave like never before.

Sometimes the wireless just won‘t cut it. If you want to get out and rock out, John Leonard has some suggestions of who you should live to see live...

Love Live Music?

July 23rd - 25th 2010 Steventon, Oxfordshire It‘s easy to see why The Guardian awarded Truck festival the accolade of ‗Best Example‘. This year‘s Truck Lucky (there‘s a Macbeth style reluctance to reference the fact that 2010 is the festival's 13th birthday) was testament to the success and devotion that founder and fueller Robin Bennet has devoted for this baker‘s dozen years, taking the festival from a few bands literally falling off the back of a truck, to an essential part of Oxfordshire‘s music calendar, and jewel in the boutique festival crown.

Giddy enthusiasm with self deprecation and an old soul perspective on the young soul‘s emotions is what we expect from Los Campesinos, and they did not disappoint. Songs such as ‗I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know‘, ‗We've Got Your Back (Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #2)‘ and ‗We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed‘ are as turbulent and somewhat essential as their titles suggest. Thomas Truax came out early Sunday morning to serenade us all with his self built The Hornicator, opening with a curiously oddball ballad entitled ‗Cannibals Have Kidnapped Our Nicole Kidman.‘ More a visual delight, like Tim Burton had done a supermarket sweep in the Early Learning Centre, than an aural one. We left at ‗Ode To The Elderberry Tree.‘ The impossibly cool Blood Red Shoes rocked through their sizzlingly sexy sounds, angsty and driven throughout, with newer album ‗Fire Like This‘ sustaining the firecracking mania that favourites such as ‗I Wish I Was Someone Better‘ and ‗Try Harder‘ evoked in the crowd. Quality of the banter was a little disappointing though – less of the shark facts, eh, Laura-Mary?

TRUCK STAGE

With one hit song, and one miss song, The Gullivers opened the Barn stage on Saturday morning, and if their punk-cum-broody style didn‘t provoke love in everyone of the crowd, the bed hair come hither looks of singer and keyboardist Sophie certainly did. Darwin Deez were the surprise highlight of the day, the lanky hippy and his band performing hilarious dance routines in between, and during, their captivating and buzzing alt-disco hits. Brontide entertained with their mish mash of ska, wailing monkeys and tribal calls, all tied together with a big Indiebow.

BARN STAGE

ICE CREAM

BAR M

ERC

H

Ten years is a long

time in the music industry. Ten years is an even longer time to remain successful in the music industry, but that‘s exactly what

Wichita Recordings have done. Wichita have become one of the most influential labels around, having a roster of artists including The Cribs, Bloc Party (and now Kele), Los Campesinos, First Aid Kit, Conor Oberst and Best Coast. In celebration of their tenth anniversary Wichita hosted four days of gigs at The Garage. On Monday 12th July it was Lissy Trullie, Those Dancing Days & Young Legionnaire, followed on Tuesday by First Aid Kit, Peggy Sue & Meg Baird. Wednesday was the night of the big guns, with The Cribs, Sky Larkin & Lovvers, culminating in Los Campesinos, Frankie And The Heartstrings & Johnny Foreigner on Thursday.

It‘s All Happening were lucky enough to attend the final two gigs of the week. The Cribs, performing without Johnny Marr, played their first two albums ‗The Cribs‘ and ‗New Fellas‘ back to back, for a proper hot and sweaty old-school gig. It felt like it was 2005. It felt like I was 18. It felt brilliant. The crowd were on form too, and when Gary Jarman stated in his broad

Yorkshire accent ―I‘m surprised no one has made it on to the stage yet‖, the 630 strong sell out crowd quite rightly took this as a challenge. Unsurprisingly, the security became rather busy. Lovvers had earlier ripped through an enjoyable set to open up the Wednesday night. They were closely followed by Sky Larkin who, playing several new songs from the record ‗Kaleide‘, seem to improve every time they perform.

Just 24 hours later It‘s All Happening were back at The Garage to see a lively Los Campesinos set in which they cracked out some tunes that are rarely played live anymore (‗International Tweecore Underground‘ and ‗In Medias Res), along with the usual favourites (such as ‗You! Me! Dancing!‘ and ‗Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks‘). The seven piece are a fantastic live band and this performance reinforces that further. Los Campesinos were preceded by north east boys Frankie and The Heartstrings, who have been receiving rave reviews for their passionate performances, and Johnny Foreigner who opened the night with a energetic set that included being joined on stage by Gareth Los Campesinos for ‗Criminals‘.

Wichita have been inspirational, influential and incredible. All six bands over the two nights that we attended paid tribute to the label, and stated the impact Wichita had on their careers. Thank you Wichita – here‘s to another great ten years.

Wichita is

If you only own three albums from Wichita... You will be missing out. But for now, start with these.

The Cribs: Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever One of the best live bands you will ever see, and just as raw on record.

Los Campesinos: Hold On Now, Youngster... Complex yet cerebal lyrics, knotted together with wonderfully spangly melodies. And it has You! Me! Dancing! on.

Best Coast: Crazy For You Shamelessly simple yet wonderful sunny songs of love and longing.

The Scratch DIY Oct 10th 2010, Ponyland Records ‗I relax to Spiral Scratch‘ wails the track of the same name, the fuzz bomb furore that opens ‗DIY‘, the reissued debut (from 2004) from The Scratch. Don‘t be fooled. This is not music to kick back to, unless perhaps your name is Usain Bolt, or Coyote Ugly. But for the average human being, and in this category I place myself, who doesn‘t live life at breakneck speed, ‗DIY‘ is the sound of what it is to be a rock star. ‗Logical Mind‘ saunters with the swagger of the Happy Mondays, whilst ‗Trigger‘ is a colossal hybrid of T-Rex meets The Prodigy. ‗X-Ray Eyes‘ will be familiar from the radio, its more electro tinge giving it the fashionable edge. Rotten Soul is a Buzzcocks blast of a confession, and ‗Alcohol‘s A Depressant‘ has a flavour of The Verve about it. Basically, there‘s something here for everyone who has a pulse to get excited about. Turn it up, and turn your inner rock god on.

Stages of Dan Gary/What Is Love? 7th Nov, DTR Records A cheerful little slice of indie, ‗Gary‘ opens with guitar strings gently twanging, almost in an enquiring fashion, before pattering percussion erumpently bursts in, and does not halt throughout this energetic dalliance that clatters along like a toddler with excess energy excitedly building a multi coloured lego brick tower. Although far from rewriting the rule book, this simple slice of pop rock is a fun competent debut. One question – who the f*** is Gary?

Films of Colour Actions 4th Oct, Label Fandango The lead singer of Films of Colour is called Andy Clutterbuck. With a name as utterly wonderful as that, surely the music will be like The Poddington Peas singing whilst falling down a spiral staircase having OD‘d on Lucky Charms. Debut single ‗Actions‘ is a perfect autumn track, flashes of brilliance lighting up a generic formula, like the rays of sunshine b reak ing th rough the fragments of crisping russet leaves. Steady crooning over uplifting beats make this a radio friendly single from the conscientious quartet. No wonder Chris Martin likes them.

If this issue was a

wordle...

Mixed verdicts from our group for alphabetbackwards, although bizarrely we all cited the same bits of evidence

– 1. Clearly influenced by Frank Turner 2. Songs about Polar Pears & Primark 3. Attempting to be astute 4. Gangly dancing. You be the judge. Good Shoes, were, er good, but not as good as other times, the crowd of 15 year olds determined to only be happy when Morden was played and they could thrash in the mosh pit and beat each other until their little hearts were content. Not calypso in sound, but more reminiscent of the frenetic buzz and sugar rush that comes from too many pina coladas in the sunshine, Is Tropical devilishly mingle genres, twisting bleeps with quivering cadences, and throwing heart and soul into the proceedings, until the music produced can only be described as how Skittles would sound if they were songs.Wandering into the Village Pub I was informed that La Shark were ‗good, but whacky.‘ Well, I responded ‗all the best things in life are.‘ Half an hour of flute, flips and French from La Shark confirmed this. Ramshackle psychedelica of the best kind.

VILLAGE PUB

Chad Valley’s wonderfully airy and serene dance, like Ibiza on a Sunday morning is like the b-side of the cluttered electro pop of Hugo Manuel‘s other project, the much loved in Oxford Jonquil. ‗If you see no other band this weekend, make sure you see Keyboard Choir’ we were told. If ‘d seen no other band I probably would have run as fast as my little legs would carry me, never to set foot in Oxfordshire again for fear of being tarnished by the evil musical spirit of crapness that seems to pervade. No, that‘s not fair - the local teenagers dressed in boxes of tin foil seemed to love this guitarless and lyricless bunch of blokes pressing the demo buttons on their keyboards.

BEA

TH

IVE

The Monty Python-esque Luke Smith raised a few smiles and knowing eyebrows, with his sidekick on the guitar reading scripted jokes about tours and t-shirts, and a judicious melody called ‗Facist Fun‘, al about the kind of fun you should be having. A twist on trad folk, provincial darlings Ute never fail to demonstrate why BBC Oxford are backing their chaotic and jittery whimsical pop.

MARKET STAGE BURGERS

To do list

Think of your best festival Explain why it is in 140 characters Send via Twitter to @IAH_music And be entered into the draw to win a pair of tickets to the Oxjam gigs Saturday 18th September: Rubicks / The Volitains / Projekt / The Theory of 6 Degrees Friday 24th September: End of Level Baddie / Alphabet Backwards / Bible John and the Reptiles At the King’s Head, Acton

This year sees the Young And Lost Club label celebrate its half decade. We catch up with Sara, one half of the duo that is always at least 7 steps ahead of what‘s hot and happening in the indie scene, and over the page is our review of the album released to celebrate the event—every track handpicked by the girls, it‘s a stellar synopsis of their glistening career so far.

Sara Jade and Nadia Dhalawi, aka founders, owners and luminaries of label Young & Lost Club have been best friends since they were 11. This is a shame, because after our phone call (possibly the most uncomfortable interview of my life, crouched in the bottom of my garden like a little gnome, hoping to get signal) I would like the softly spoken sweetheart Sara to be my best friend. However, I‘m not here to harp on about my new girl crush. Not when there are far more exciting topics to talk about - like the fifth birthday of Young & Lost Club....

So, think back five years – why?

We‘d been doing our zine for a while (this is their Pyrrha zine, which was the first publication to review Razorlight, and a journalistic platform for a young Master Doherty, that the girls clandestinely reproduced on school photocopiers) and seen so many amazing bands that should be signed to a label and

getting singles out there. There seemed a gap in the market for smaller bands to be making that first step, so we thought a singles club would be a good idea.

Did it feel like a natural progression from the Pyrrha zine to the club nights to the label?

Definitely, but iwe didn‘t set out for it all to happen – there was certainly no master plan. One just followed on from another. We loved being in London, being with all the bands, and when you‘re so absorbed in that it feels like the natural thing to do. We‘re just really lucky our hobby is our job.

Have you learned a lot along the way?

We had to! We literally had no idea what we were doing when we started. It‘s all been a huge learning curve, we had no clue and just felt our way along. With each project and band and single you learn something

new, and you just have to accept that you will make mistakes, but can‘t be afraid.

What advice would you give to someone looking to set up their own label?

That it‘s tough! Be prepared to work very very hard for not very much money. You‘ve got to do it because you love it. But if you‘re really into music and you really love a band you don‘t mind putting hours in.

Hard work, but presumably a lot of fun – you tend to party quite a lot?

Well....not as much as we did when first starting out. I definitely don‘t go out every single night now. But if you‘re going to be DJing until 4am, you might as well make the most of it.

Is the party animal streak a rebellion against boarding school?

To be honest none of this

Violens Acid Reign Stereogum

Whilst not doing anything

new, there is a certain

magnetism to the Violens,

perhaps due to the way they

truly can appeal to all tastes.

Not in a beige Travis kind of

way, but by their musical

curiosity which means that

whilst other bands like their

warped vocals, or some

electric beats, maybe some

garage guitar riffs and

pounding keyboard chords,

the Violens prefer to go the

full whack and give us the

whole enchilada. With a

chorus introduced by the soft

vocals of ‗I can‘t give a fuck if

its truthful‘, this is a song for

dancing and despairing. A

great opening chapter for their

upcoming debut album

‗Amoral.‘ Humanfly Darker Later EP 8th Nov, Brew

‗Darker Later‘ is the 3rd album from Leeds‘ Brew Records‘ latest signings Humanfly. A combination of lazy journalism and my habit of judging books by their covers, I don‘t want to listen to songs called ‗This is w h e r e y o u r p a r e n t s fucked‘ (especially a 5 min 20 sec one), or‘ English and proud and stupid and racist‘ or ‗Stew for the murder minded.‘ They don‘t even use capital letters! If you do, feel free to check them out yourselves.

Mojo Fury The Mann 4th Oct, Graphite

It shows how much of a legacy, and how much of a lag has been left in the music scene in Northern Ireland by the fact that one of the biggest showcases for new music, supported by Carling and Gary Lightbody is called ‗Oh Yeah‘ (named after Ash‘s finest track ever, but released way back in 1996.) Back in 2008 Mojo Fury were cited as ‗ones to watch‘, and have been supported by BBC introducing. New single ‗The Mann‘ suggests that ‗Fury‘ is indeed a suitable epithet for the band, with this noisy and angst driven song, sometimes verging on the challenging and uncomfortable , sounding like the revelation of a character with the skin ripped off. B side Run Away has more of the mojo for me, the acoustic version charmingly comforting, with an essential yet excitingly new element, rather like the weekend n e w s p a p e r . N o t h i n g revolutionary, but it‘s good to know that General Fiasco aren‘t the only new band to see in Northern Ireland.

Local Natives Wide Eyes 20th Sept, Infectious Music Speaking to XFM at the Leeds festival, Local Natives vocalist Taylor Rice warned fans not to anticipate a new album soon, due to the ‗collaborative process‘ the band prefer to take. It‘s a good job that Gorilla Manor still has plenty more to offer, such as the alluringly beautiful ‗Wide Eyes‘, a tune that crisply meanders along, reaching gospel like silvery euphoria. For anyone who hasn‘t seen their practically perfect live shows, look out for November dates in the UK.

Papier Tigre The Beginning and End of Now Collectif Effervescence

We get sent a lot of promo CDs, our inbox is bursting, and we go to a fair amount of gigs. It‘s not a bad life at all, but there‘s not time to review everything. So sometimes, on quieter evenings, we like to play lucky dip, and pull out a CD that has been collecting dust in our (heavily underlined) ‗TO REVIEW‘ pile. This time it‘s the turn of Papier Tigre. Now I wish we‘d got round to listening to their latest album The Beginning and End Of Now sooner. Like a stripped back Foals, the sound is one of confident disjointed beats, smoothed off with a Eric Pasquereau ‗s voice that whilst not always lyrical, sounds lived in (and nothing like he runs around in a Breton top and onions). Like the parts of a machine all elements click together, but always with the lopsided lilt that suggests that at any moment it may all descend in to chaos. Abstract art-rock or pared down punk pop, Papier Tigre are hard to define, but may well be one of the best th ings since sliced...baguette?

I Am Kloot Proof 6th Sept, Shepherd Moon

Some people get things easy, success given to them, like the Biebers of this world. Others throw their talents out to the public wall, only to see them constantly rebuffed. But like an insect flying into a glass pane continuously, they keep trying, and finally someone opens the window. It was back in 2005 that ‗Proof‘ was originally released, half a decade ago, after being planned for release in 2003, and the fact that it still sounds as fresh now shows that it‘s not the quality of the songs, but sometimes the fact that we‘re just not listening or looking in the right places. Nine years after forming, the band have been nominated for this year‘s Mercury Music Prize. The track has a feeling of evanescence about it, disarmingly simple melodies effortlessly creating crackling electricity that should not be possible from the simple strum of a guitar. With the sardonic lyrical delivery that has become a tickbox characteristic of all Manc guitar bands from Elbow to Oasis ‗Say, d'you wanna spin another line/ Like we had a good time/ Not that I need proof‘, the emotion is always shimmering beneath the veneer of simplicity. Meandering through loose basslines and louche harmonies, ‗Proof‘ is a wonderfully distilled and diluted reflective track, and I Am Kloot deserve to strike it lucky with their third attempt.

would have happened without boarding school – well without the zine, which only happened because we were bored at school and Nadia and I needed something to keep us entertained while we pretended to do our homework. And with that we realised that London was the place to be – it seemed exciting, with such a buzz around the scene back then. Back then – what has changed?

Well there are still a lot of bands around, but less opportunities to see them. There was a community when we first started but it‘s not like that now. Even little things, like when we used to go out every night and there would be a choice of two or three indie nights. Now we‘re lucky if there‘s that many a week, across the whole of London.

Do you think the whole do it y o u r s e l f e t h o s i s disappearing?

Not at all – myspace is DIY. I know everyone has a real downer on myspace, but it‘s such a good platform for artists to get themselves heard. They

don‘t need major backing or finances, just the internet. And there‘s loads of bands doing their own recording and artwork...I don‘t think it is at all.

What do you look for in an artist?

Whether we like them!

But what’s the process, how do you discover them?

Usually we already know the band, or get introduced to them through other bands – there‘s a small scene, or there definitely was when we first started. A lot of bands we know from their previous incarnations, like Pull Tiger Tail, or Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong, we knew him. The only exception is Good Shoes, who approached us and th ings went f rom there...but then it turns out that we had friends of friends anyway!

Are there any bands that you’ve loved but had to accept would never prove commercially viable?

Well a few of the bands on the compilation haven‘t gone on to become big successes. It would be easy to call it an

album of hit and misses, but when we were going through our releases picking out what to put on there we literally just went for our favourites.

Who would you have loved to have signed in the last five years but didn’t manage to?

There‘s so many bands Nadia and I love and have loved... we were meant to release The Horrors first single but they ended up signing their record deal (with A&M) really quickly before the release could happen.

What has changed for you guys in the last five years?

The first couple of singles were 7‖s, and then we started doing CDs after that. In the last year or so we‘ve been putting out downloads. With the Young & Lost digital club we offer free t racks every fo r tn ight , something special like a b-side or a remix, or an exclusive that the band have done just for us. Noah & The Whale did a cover of Tom Petty‘s ‗Last DJ‘, as a protest to the closure of BBC6 music. I think if you want people to buy something you have to give them to it in a special format. Or for free to make them come back.

Finally, to coin a lyric, where will you be in five years time? Walking round a zoo?

Doing what we‘re doing. P u t t i n g o u t m o r e albums...that‘s something we really want to do. And another Young & Lost Club tour. Yeah, just growing steadily and naturally, like we have been. I love it.

As a child absorbed in Enid Blyton‘s fiction, I was desperate to go to boarding school, believing it to be a place of perpetual fun, ginger beer and midnight feasts. For Nadia Dahlawi and Sara Jade, the founders of Young & Lost Club, it was where they created a place of perpetual fun, full strength beer and all night raves. To celebrate their 5th birthday, Young & Lost Club have whittled down 32 of the singles that have defined their career thus far, and defined many a music fan‘s identity transcript. One can only assume that rather than ‗I heart Bob‘, their school journals were adorned with graffiti for the coolest of bands.

Listening to the 35 tracks on the album is like pressing the random button on my mp3 player, only without the embarrassing reminders of The Bravery purchases etc. Even if you haven‘t heard of

Young and Lost Club, you will have heard, and I‘m 90% sure had a lustful moment over at least one of the bands on the roster.

What comes across is the sense of musical curiosity that Nadia and Sara have, bands ranging from the slow folk of Noah & The Whale with their whimsical ‗Five Years Time‘, to the energetic fractious Good Shoes and ‗Small Town Girl‘, and the chameleon like Bombay Bicycle Club‘s ‗Evening/Morning‘ representing their simple dense poetry that seems formed in intense unplanned f lashes of inspiration.

Not all the bands have had the kind of success that some of those showcased at Young & Lost Club‘s early club nights had (heard of The XX, Klaxons, Friendly Fires, Jamie T or Laura Marling?), or indeed, lasted. Larrikin Love may have been short

lived, but rather than funereal, ‗Six Queens‘ would feature at only the most raucous of wakes, with as much freshness as the day it was released. The shambolic and coincidental ‗Animator‘ is the contribution from ‗Pull Tiger Tail‘, a band who‘s cavorting and jaunty music made it feel ok to have gaucheries when feeling the way around the city.

Nadia and Sara clearly have an ear for something, but it‘s difficult to pin point what. A palette of instruments, genres and styles, the main thing that all the bands on the Young & Lost Club label have in abundance is the sound of being one of the steps on the uncertain adventure of life.

Happy birthday girls. But

don‘t be in a rush to blow out

the candles and tick off the

years. Being young and lost

sounds damn good.

Young & Lost Club

Compilation

The Lines

Wolverhampton. What has it ever given us? In the 18th and 19th century it was steel. Pretty useful for the British industry, granted. The first car to beat the 200 mph land speed record was also built here. Enoch Powell – birthplace of racist bigots isn‘t really something to shout about. Olympic gold medallists Denis Lewis and Tessa Sanderson. So it‘s not all bad then. One thing‘s for sure, it‘s not the first place most people look to when seeking new music. As Robert Plant recently said ‗There aren‘t really many good bands coming out of Wolverhampton, just one great band called The Lines.‘ Forming back in 2005 with life time school friends, although members have come and gone, and ‗been found in a pub‘ since then, The Lines are proud of the fact that they chose to shun trips down to London, preferring to build up a solid fan base around their home town. This hasn‘t jeopardized them - the fervour of these fans is similar to those of LiverpoolFC in the 80s, piling into coaches to go and cheer their stars, and they‘ve supported some pretty big names, including The Killers, Editors, Supergrass and The Maccabees. Debut album is due in October, and if recent single ‗Glorious Aftermath‘ is anything to go by, those Wolverhampton‘s wandering fans aren‘t wrong to be so devoted. Rataplan beats, sharp fluidity of The Verve at their peak, are combined with the swagger and confidence of Kasabian, all overlaid with the blistering energy of the vocals. There‘s nothing original in the structure – crackling riffs, swirling hands in the air moments, stop start teasers. But none of this matters; bursting with explosive energy, ‗Glorious Aftermath‘ is an unabashed anthem. Having signed to London based Amoy Roads Records earlier this year, The Lines finally made it down to the capital‘s The Lexington in July, delighting fans old and new, but not blue, and will be returning to play Camp Basement on 12th October. Make sure you‘re in the front row.