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Truck Nine – Sunday: The Organ / Manic Cough / Thomas Truax / The Piney Gir Country Roadshow / The Research / Shimura Curves / The Priscillas / Six Nation State / Timothy Victor
Steventon, Oxfordshire
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Article
written by Ged M
Aug 5, 2006.
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Sunday now, and Mr Sun has made the mud a memory. After the alcoholic exertions of the previous night, people drift into the marquee to hear Timothy Victor. Sporting a scary ‘Belmarsh crop’ and his acoustic guitar, he starts with woozy tales of regret, mixed with humour and heartbreak (namely ‘You Broke My Fucking Heart’; do he and Steven Adams share songtitles?) before getting rocky and uppity, introducing one song with the words “Thank you. This one’s called ‘Arsehole’”. Bloody fine songs, and good for blowing the sleep out of your brain too. It’s now scorching hot in the Trailer Tent and not just because of the weather. Six Nation State are our tip for the top, full of attitude and spiky power pop that flowers with little blossoms of ska, dub and sea shanties. They come from the same locker room as the Zutons, Razorlight and a less stoned Coral and are blessed with the same self-confidence to the extent they’ve just signed a three-record deal. Soon you won’t be able to avoid them.
The Priscillas always felt like a midnight rather than midday band with songs like ‘All My Friends Are Zombies’ but they’re in transition from being a girl ghoul band influenced by the Cramps and the Damned to a dirty-minded glam rock group (Wanda Jackson fronting T Rex) that takes the piss pulling exaggerated rock shapes. It’s full-on, blissfully brilliant rock’n’roll from the cider-swilling take-no-bullshit sisters. Then it’s Shimura Curves in another hot tent; all four are present this week and there’s another set of songs that are by turns funny, biting and tender, mixing up harmonies, electro beats and neat guitar effects that destroy any preconceptions you might have about “girl groups”.
The humidity turns Thomas Truax from musician to mechanic as Sister Spinster throws out wonky beats. Once he’s sorted his recalcitrant machinery he launches into his Twilight Zone tales for a crammed and transfixed tentful. Stories of murderous etymologists, runaway orphans, possessive fathers and the denizens of Wowtown – now seceded from the US – are all performed in cabaret style, with plenty of yodelling: the Velvet Underground never made it as far as Wowtown. He manages his customary walkabout during ‘Full Moon over Wowtown’ even though he’s clambering over a millipede-worth of legs. In a conventional world, Thomas is a superhero of nonconformity.
The same tent hosts The Piney Gir Country Roadshow. This is where you question some of the arrangements of Truck – they’re so popular that they could have been on the main stage. This would have allowed you to see the full glory of the linedancers who cut a rug to the yee-haw ‘I Was Born in A Thunderstorm’, with George Schla displaying her leadership talents by marshalling her sister Schlas, and the audience, in a mass display of two-left-footedness. More sure-footed are the songs, their country-infusions not overpowering the sweet pop tingle at their core.
500 punters can’t be wrong. Well they can if they’re filling the tent for the dreary emo-gunk of Jetplane Landing. Much better are the band that follows: the Research. In some of the things that he says, Russell is playing the simple country cousin for effect but there’s a sharp pop brain operating underneath the naïve facade. They’re another band that ought to be experienced live where you get a sense of electricity flowing between the people on stage as well as into the equipment. The looser, more ragged live arrangements, where Russell perches with his keyboard on his knees, suits the surfpop of ‘True Love Weighs A Tonne’ or broken hearted electro punk of ‘She’s Not Leaving’. Catchy fun and, like another Northern outfit, Fonda 500, they’re a band who leave an unsupressable goofy grin across your face by the time they finish.
The songs of Manic Cough are like fat pies, filled with all sort of spiky post-punk goodness with a delightful pop crust, and served by the scariest dinner ladies who insist that you consume all their music confections at one sitting. The slinky rhythms of ‘There U R’ slip down nicely while ‘Lips & Hips’ is one of those songs that constantly repeats on you (in the best possible sense) that you don’t tasting this once or a hundred times. Food similes aside, the band have got a great stage look; today they’re dressed as cheerleaders but look more like murderous fembots (with Karl as honorary fembot) and their dancers Accident and Emergency interpret the songs with angular energy.
“Go on, crack a smile” you want to yell at The Organ. Their glacial façade, owing as much to the 80s as their Cure and Smiths referencing songs, feel like a barrier to the warmth that dwells at their core. Katie Sketch, who has as distinctive a voice as Morrissey or Debbie Harry, shields or closes her eyes and spends as long facing the drumkit as the crowd. It’s a shame as there’s a fantastic glow to songs like ‘Memorise the City’ and the impassioned ‘Brother’ that some will be too lazy to detect. Me, I’ve loved the Organ ever since I first saw them and this set just reignited my passion for their songs.
That was game over. We hardly bothered with the main stage and there were more loose end moments today. Of course, in the scheme of things that doesn’t matter; Truck was still memorable (sometimes for the wrong reasons as a hotel owner might acknowledge), still worthy of support and the sun on day 2 was a pleasant bonus. Roll on Truck Ten!
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