October 7, 2007

I love Pop Art shindigs, they’re always sooo much fun. As well as a pretty fine array of decent bands, they have quizzes, art competitions…..ooh, pretty much anything that takes your fancy, really. I had a particularly fine time at their Pop Art Weekender at Lark in the Park, Islington, earlier this year, where they booted up Singstar on a Playstation, got the whey-faced Mr Solo (formerly known as David Devant) to lead a drawing-fest and also staged the rather brilliant Indie Win, Lose or Draw, where the comperes were more enthusiastic than the “celebrity” teams. Most of the bands were a little too rocky for me on that occasion, but the extra-curricular activities more than made up for it!

Last weekend they put on their second-ever Bowl and Sebastian all-dayer at the Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes - an event, unsurprisingly, with a Belle and Sebastian theme. (The Pop Art gang do love their puns - they had an onstage American geography competition called The State That I Am In…..genius) Every band was required to cover a B&S song, there was a B&S themed colouring-in competition (possibly the twee-est thing I have ever done in my life) and all of the prizes were sweet-based. To explain, apparently Stuart Murdoch’s favourite sweets are Minstrels, but I suspect that particular part of the “theme” had been stretched a bit too far!

Unfortunately, I arrived too late to see Bridport Dagger and Steve McLean, but made it just in time for Weepop faves Little My, resplendent in animal antlers, mouse ears and lion heads. For some reason, they were endlessly apologetic about their performance, but I thought they were fab. They were braced with the usual indiepop artillery - glockenspiels, girl-boy harmonies, melodicas and the like - but still managed to sound fresh and unaffected. They’ve released a few songs on Weepop now, so I’ll definitely be investigating further. Next up were Pocketbooks, complete with new guitarist Ian from the Spiral Scratch gang. I’ve seen Pocketbooks lots of times now, and they really do seem to get increasingly accomplished and polished with every performance. Ian picked out guitar parts on Cross the Line that I’d not heard before, and the whole band’s sound just hung together perfectly. Their cover of I Don’t Love Anyone was also the best band B&S cover of the night, apart from Ms Monica Queen herself at the end of the evening, of course. She also found time to squeeze in a set of her country-tinged post rock after the 'Books. There was only herself and another guitarist on stage, but she managed to fill the entire room with the strength of her voice alone. I’m still left wondering at how such an amazing voice came out of one tiny person; her set was the only time during the evening when the bowling-related rowdiness seemed to subside and a strange calm washed over the crowd.

The female-fronted theme continued with The School, recently signed to the muchos-respected Elefant Records. They played both of my personal faves - Shoulder and All I Wanna Do – and soon got the crowd swaying and shaking along to their 1960’s tinged lovelorn melodies. Their cover of Get Me Away From Here I’m Dying was a little hit-and-miss, but it didn’t really matter. The whole point of the evening was to encourage everyone to sing along to their favourite B&S songs, and who needs a note-perfect rendition to do that? Talking of which, the Pop Art Allstars (comprising of the usual Pop Art suspects plus a few musicians nicked from other bands) looked like they were thoroughly enjoying themselves as they rattled through all the B&S classics, roping in their mates and band members on vocals for the final set of the evening.

The highlight, though, was undoubtedly Ms Queen and Mr Solo duetting on Lazy Line Painter Jane. Once I’d recovered from seeing the good lady herself, I was left marvelling at the sheer surrealness of the situation. Poor Monica just looked completely bemused as Mr Solo proceeded to lounge around the stage swirling his cape, staring intently into her face, and then – in a magnificent piece de resistance – bring out a strange, giant David Blaine-style eye/hand paper drawing which he unceremoniously plonked in front of her, completely obscuring her from the crowd! I don’t know whether he was expecting her to jump through it with a magician’s-assistant style flourish, but he duly took the feat upon himself and excitedly burst through the drawing as the final chords rang out. Monica Queen had left the stage by this point- whether out of fear or with a fit of the giggles, I’m not sure. If anyone has a photograph of Mr Solo bursting through the drawing, please, please send it to Indie Mp3…..it will make my day!

It was a great evening, and a big "well done" to Pop Art for putting on such an enjoyable event. I look forward to seeing just how far the bad puns and B&S theme can be stretched next year!