Pull Yourself Together Zine - Issue 5

PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER April - May 2009 Esiotrot/Attack + Defend WOXY.com The Importance of Being Indie The Answering Machine Springtime

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LETTERS FROM INDEPENDENT AMERICA Last Sunday I went out for a walk at about 4 in the afternoon and realised that spring was in the process of, erm, spring-ing. Without going into all the usual guff about new starts and all that, spring is a dead exciting time. The sun is starting to stay out longer, you can walk home from a gig without fear of frostbite, have a pint in a beer garden on the way home from work, and feel that palpable sense that festival season is drawing close again. Really close if you are going to ATP vs The Fans actually.

WOOP WOOP! Since last we spoke Team PYT have seen some ace shows, including Fanfarlo, Titus Andronicus, The Answering Machine vs Casio Kids and The Miserable Rich (again!). We have also had a blast DJing, first to a packed Common in February and then at Underachievers Please Try Harder.

Many thanks to Dave Underachievers for asking us to play, and everyone who came and danced whilst we played our mammoth 6 and a half hour set! Anyway, on with the words...

3°Mike Taylor of WOXY fame offers his thoughts on Texas’ South By South West festival. Well done to anyone who managed to blag a way in.

The PYT Radio is Playing...

Casio Kids, Fanfarlo, Aztec Camera, The Pastels, Pagan Wanderer Lu, Young Marble Giants, Vivian Girls

myspace.com/pullyourselftogethermcr pullyourselftogethermcr.blogspot.com pullyourselftogethermanchester@gmail.com

4°We kick off a new feature in appreciation of all things independent. Hopefully you’ll find some things which inspire you as much as they inspired us!

6°Possibly PYT’s favourite local beat combo drop by for a natter. The Answering Machine are gearing up to finally relesase their debut album, so must have something exciting to say...

8°You know when you love a band, want to tell the world about them, then forget to? Yeah, well we are finally getting round to it.

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PYT are very happy to welcome back Mike Taylor, Programme Director at Cincinnati’s WOXY radio station, this time to shed some light on the relative mystery of The South By South West Music Festival.

Mid-March usually kicks off a 4-6 week Spring Break in the States where students, especially, head south to escape the drudgery of their studies and enjoy a respite from the wintry weather that’s gripped much of the country. Also around this time, obsessive music dorks and unsavoury industry types converge on Austin, Texas, for their version of Spring Break: the annual South By Southwest Music Festival, a literal orgy of music, where fans of all stripes can gorge themselves on the official showcases, unofficial day parties, radio sessions, secret afterparties, DJ sets, and hell, guys playing in the middle of vacant lots.

Seriously.

It’s also an event that you lot, or at the least British mainstream media, gives more attention to than do their counterparts in the USA. Yes, every freaking blogger worth their salt will be here, likely with a sponsor-supported dayparty that allows fans to circumvent the cost-prohibitive SXSW all-access badge (walk-up price $695, approx. 495 GBP) to see many hotly tipped acts free of charge. But most US media outlets will shun SXSW, its lineup of emerging and niche artists too off-the-radar to warrant coverage.

Yes, for the most part, SXSW is truly for the hardcore fan, so I’ll give it up to the BBC, NME, and the other

UK outlets that send contingents to Austin and do an impressive job of following the latest batch of British hopefuls. Each year, a select few acts go into SXSW riding a wave of buzz and another few emerge with the same. Those who tend to truly break out navigate the wave of expectations by managing to live up to the hype. Two years ago, Amy Winehouse’s Stateside assault was launched with a series of showcases at SXSW, timed to coincide with the US release of Back To Black. Last year, Duffy attempted to replicate the feat, nearly ubiquitous during the week but failing to elicit the sort of excitement that Winehouse provided, anxious attendees eager to bear witness to a possible onstage meltdown. So far in that Amy v. Aimee comparison: Winehouse has sold nearly 2 million in the US while Duffy hasn’t touched half of that.

Early possibles for catapulting out of Austin include Little Boots, The Temper Trap, The Soft Pack, and Ida Maria but an equal amount of anticipation is reserved for appearances by old hands Echo & the Bunnymen and PJ Harvey, whose infrequent US tours make them must-sees for festival goers. Who ultimately emerges, well, you may have that answer by the time you read this. Each outlet will look to crown a darling in an attempt to lay claim to being Kingmaker. You, dear reader, will likely sift through the offerings and judge for yourself since you, at the end of the day, ultimately bestow the prize: your time.

Mike’s show is broadcast between 9am and 1pm UK time. Head to WOXY.com for live streaming to surprise and delight your lugholes. GO ON, DO IT.

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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING INDIE Sorry to start on the defensive, but we probably need to stress that what we mean by indie here isn’t, y’know, indie. Not that mindless, soulless chart polyfilla we’ve heard too much of in recent years. Even back in Britpop’s heyday my mum used to complain that I’d say I liked indie when it had ceased to really mean independence.

It’s a good thing then that there are plenty of people around who want to reclaim indie for its true spirit, and take it back from The EnemyTwangCourteenersEtc. They may not be well known, but all over the UK there are DJs, promoters, record labels and bands who embrace DIY, and truly do it for the love of it. We’ve been lucky enough to meet a few of them along the way, and without the fine examples already in existence we’d probably be lacking in direction.

One man who’s really hit the nail on the head is Twisted By Design’s Gary Anderson, who has used his endless enthusiasm to help put his home town, Cardiff, on the musical map. Over to you, Gary!

Hi Gary! Who are you and what you do?

I’m generally known as Gary Twisted (despite years of trying to avoid pseudonyms) and I primarily run and DJ at an indie disco in Cardiff called Twisted by Design. It’s been running now for nearly 9 years, and was voted second in the Ultimate Indie Disco of All Time by listeners to 6Music. In addition to this I DJ a couple of nights a week at Clwb Ifor Bach and have a second Twisted night every Thursday. What kinda started out as a hobby has pretty much ended up as a full time job, which is cool.

So how did you get started with all of this?

Before ATP took over Camber Sands, there was a festival organised by Belle and Sebastian called the Bowlie Weekender. This literally changed my life by introducing me to a whole world of new music and bands. I spent pretty much every other weekend for the following two years travelling to London, seeing -4-

Finally, what, to you, is the real importance of being indie? This probably sounds patronising but I really believe that in an industry increasingly dominated by corporations and chains, independence is so important. Whenever the indie scene goes through a peak you always get the big players moving in trying to get their piece of the pie. However, major labels no longer seem to want to invest in new talent.

Indie is all about the people who love the music scene and are passionate about it, and continue to promote and support music regardless of trends. In return people should support indie labels, shops, venues and promoters.

loads of new bands and discovering the delights of London’s indie pop scene.

One night in particular was the very first Track and Field indie disco, it made me think why Cardiff didn’t have any nights like this and whether it might work there. So I found a pub with an upstairs room and decided to have a go myself.

Has it been difficult to maintain this independent approach? Sometimes you must feel like you’re putting yourself on the line a lot. Absolutely.

Twisted is completely run by myself. I have a lot of help from friends along the way but at the end of the day I am Twisted by Design. For someone who is actually quite shy and not exactly a natural extrovert it can be quite stressful and scary, but also a lot of fun.

For the full interview head to pullyourselftogethermcr.blogspot.com

There seem to be a lot of like-minded individuals in Cardiff, and it’s certainly been a positive influence on us. How much does this kind of camaraderie keep you going?

Without help and support from friends and like minded people there would be no Twisted. Cardiff is a small city and the indie scene is obviously even smaller. Without the fantastic support I get nights like mine would either die or have to become something totally different to appeal to a larger audience. I’d rather DJ to a hundred Kenickie fans than a thousand Oasis fans any day!

Twisted by Design takes place every Thursday and Saturday night at Dempsey’s, Womanby Street, Cardiff!

If you’re looking out for Indie/DIY labels, you could do a lot worse than point your ears in the direction of...

WeePOP! Records, London

How did you make the jump from club nights to releasing This Town Ain’t Big Enough? Any followup plans? Ah, the Twisted compilation CD. A few years ago Cardiff seemed to have far more than its fair share of amazing artists. It’s always been an ambition of mine to release a compilation CD of local artists and it seemed like the right time. Harri (from local band Little My) had a similar idea and together I feel we produced a seriously great CD. We were very lucky to catch Los Campesinos! just as they were on the rise and their track on the CD was, strictly speaking, their first release. As for a follow up, Twisted is ten years old next year so maybe it might be nice to do something to commemorate this.

How does it make you feel to see bands like LC! really moving into ‘stardom’?

It’s always nice when friends’ bands do well, particularly when they’re as great as Los Campesinos!

It’s also a little strange to see your mates up there on stage playing to thousands of people at festivals and see their videos on MTV2. To have a band of that quality write a song about your night is the most flattering thing ever I think. You! Me! Dancing! will always be very special to me.

It’s almost as if WeePOP! were made for PYT. With 3” CDs enveloped in specially made cases with small sketches, badges, stickers and the like thrown in, this is the best way to listen to the likes of Little My, Let’s Whisper, The Just Joans and plenty more. weepop.net for blog goodness and the allimportant shop.

Gizeh Records, Leeds Leeds based post-rock Gizeh Records throw so much support at the bands they love, which is consequentially why we love them. Hand made artwork, unique to pretty much every single CD released on the label. Everyone who runs the label is in a band on it too, so it is all collective and stuff.

Expect to hear the likes of worriedaboutsatan, Glissando and Redjetson. gizehrecords.com for purchasing opportunities.

Cherryade Records, Manchester

What advice would you give someone wanting to start their own night? All I can say is that if you are passionate about starting a night then just do it. You’ll never know until you try. But just be prepared for a lot of hard work as well as a lot of fun.

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The folk at Cherryade are an inspiration to us all: a bedroom business that specialises in some of the best and most bizarre music around. They’ve got a great reputation and no wonder, with releases from The Bobby McGees, The Deirdres and The Lovely Eggs to name just a few. cherryademusic.co.uk has all the details you need.

IN WHICH PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER INTERROGATE THE ANSWERING MACHINE

How has 2-0-0-9 been for you thus far? You seem to have been working pretty hard. Yeah, we’ve done two UK Tours, a session for Radio 6, quaffed red wine with Tim Burgess, done a Channel M TV Session, made a video and released our new single Cliffer. We’re only 3 months into the year as well aren’t we?!

You’ve just been out on tour with Casio Kids, how was that? You seem to compliment each other perfectly, despite the fact that you sound completely different. How did the dynamics of that work?The whole tour was incredible, we got on so well.

Even though they are essentially an electro band and we are an indie band we both approach music from the same place. It’s been said before so sorry to rehash the point but we are influenced by and have a strong affinity with Scandinavian music. The initial songs we wrote together took a back seat when Martin and I swapped The Shout Out Louds for the Radio Dept. So maybe we understood where they were coming from culturally before we’d even gigged together. The tour was a rotating headliner but most nights the Casio Kids would get on stage and provide some extra tamborine/ backing vocal work for us too.

How has it felt to be out touring an album which you know hasn’t reached your crowds yet? Does it give you more excitement knowing that there is so much still to come? It really does, especially considering the reaction we’ve already had this year, it feels really special. People are aware of demos and ideas that have circled round on blogs so you get pockets of the crowd knowing the words and singing along. We can’t wait to release that album though, we get the feeling that it’s going to shock quite a few people as we’ve been around for a couple of years now but sonically the album is quite a departure from anything else we’ve ever released.

It feels like the road has been long since PYT’s eyes first met The Answering Machine across a crowded room, and they’ve certainly achieved one hell of a lot along the way. Now on the verge of releasing their debut album, we had a natter with guitarist Pat as he returned from their recent UK tour.

Hello The Answering Machine! How the devil are you? We are shattered! We’ve just got back from our second UK tour of the year, this time with the Casio Kids, the first was with Ra Ra Riot. Even though we are all very tired we are stupidly happy with the way things are going.

For those kids who don’t know you, who the hell are you? The Answering Machine are an indie band, but in the true sense of the word. We formed over a love of Rough Trade, The Radio Dept, Is This It etc. We have recently been described as ‘citygaze’ - that’ll do for us!

Moving on to said album, how did you wind up working with Dave Eringa? Surely that must have been huge for you given that he produced Idlewild, a band who have obviously influenced you massively. It was a bit of an honour to be honest.

It was Idlewild that got us working with Dave. Initially we were going to head over to L.A. to record but after the Idlewild gig at the Roadhouse (drummer) Ben bumped into Roddy and he told us not to bother going to America but to give Dave a call instead and the rest is history. It was a bit like Wayne’s World, Idlewild came out of the indie mist like gurus and gave us guidance...

If Idlewild tell you to do something you do it right?

Did you ever think when you wrote songs like Oklahoma that one day you would be able to record it with a legend, and have them end up sounding so much bigger? Are you proud of how much they have evolved over time? Part of the nature of being a musican is dreaming, so we’d be lying if we said we hadn’t fantasised about working with someone like Dave, but we never thought it would actually happen.

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Here comes the science... Sonically Dave gave us a kick up the bum, we had this idea that we wanted to record live to maintain the energy and honesty of the songs, Dave loved this idea and helped us to shape up the sounds during this process. One of my last memories of recording will be when everyone had gone to bed and Dave and myself were getting a sound for my guitar on Lightbulbs. We had the guitar line going through 3 pedals, 9 amps and a synth... and it sounds mega.

Obviously a big part of the early songs sounding different now is the introduction of real drums. It seems that Ben joining the band enabled you to realise bigger ideas. Ben was the missing link. As soon as he joined the first thing we did was look at and re-write every verse, middle eighth and chorus. It has opened us up to a whole new way of working and a whole new world of experimentation. There is a track on the album called It’s Over It’s Over It’s Over (NB – Dan PYT’s favourite on the album!) we used a mix of drum machine and Ben on it, but Ben’s Flaming Lips style drum breaks on it are one of the best things we’ve ever heard him do. The outcome of that track shows exactly what we can achieve with Ben in the band.

Has your song writing changed significantly since you became a 4 piece? Or Is it a similar process?

It has changed dramatically. It used to be that Martin and I would write a song and bring it to practice. These days we mainly write through jams in the practice room. Someone will play a riff and Ben will kick in with a beat that immediately knits the idea together and we can write and arrange on top of that. You can’t jam with a drum machine as you’re tied into one pattern and changing it disrupts the flow of ideas. So yeah it’s safe to say that we write as a band now.

From a quick listen it is clear that you really value the importance of lyrics. Where do you draw your inspiration from? Lyrics are just as important as music. They help shape the identity of the band and the people who become fans. Myself and Martin write the lyrics together, but for the more widely read amongst you there are plenty of literary cheap shots to keep you entertained, specifically references to Robert Browning, Oscar Wilde, Martin Amis, Simon Armiatage, Shakespeare and Syliva Plath.

in that murky world of majors. If anything goes wrong with our musical output we only have each other to blame, we’ve got each others backs and it feels great.

The video for Cliffer is terrifying. How did you find working with both Cliffer the dummy and Frank Sidebottom, in the same room? There were a lot of egos flying around that day! It was really odd spending your weekend in the company of puppets. Frank was very funny and kept all the extras entertained. In many ways we were trying to illustrate our autonomy in that video, the idea that there are these puppets being controlled by someone else and then us doing our own thing is an idea that’s close to our hearts.

Who are you listening to at the moment? Have you picked up any good tips while you’ve been on the road? It depends who in the band you ask I guess as we all listen to different things. A band called The Megaphonic Thrift have been a tour bus fave. Other than that, Hypertext and Bon Iver. Business as usual really.

Any other business? What’s coming up in the Answering Machine diary soon? Next we are off to L.A. and New York to play a bunch of shows out there.

This will be followed by the next single in the UK and then we are shaping up for festivals and the album tour. Exciting times kids.

The Answering Machine release debut album ‘Another City Another Sorry’ in May, proceeded by the single ‘Obviously Cold’ earlier in the month. ‘Cliffer’ is out now on limited edition 7”. The band play dates in the USA, including LA’s Viper Rooms, at the start of April before heading closer to home for Glasgow’s Hinterland Festival on 30th April. theansweringmachine.co.uk

Having released your early singles with High Voltage, and now on Heist or Hit, is it important to you to be working with people who have a similar DIY ethos? Completely, we’ve had a taste of the major label side of things and it really doesn’t appeal. We felt very uncomfortable in that world. It’s important to us to have complete control over what we do from choosing the songs that go on our album, to making our own merch. We tour-manage ourselves, control our own myspace, facebook and blog; this way we make our own decisions and the label support our choices. We didn’t want to be another band that make an album that doesn’t even get released, we’ve seen it happen

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CREDIT WHERE CREDIT’S DUE This writing lark is often a business of favours. Sometimes in a wholly friendly way, sometimes in more of a sickening, keeping people on side way. Obviously we want less of the latter, but with regards to the former we at PYT would like to make a couple of apologies. We can be disorganised at the best of times, and whilst we like to believe that people find this endearing, there are some bands who have really fallen foul of our good intentions/ poor execution over the years.

Esiotrot, by Hannah

Attack + Defend, by Dan

Today I’ve realised how much I’ve short changed a particular band. I’ve promised them reviews which I never finished; they even sent me their second album, Seven Apples, in a jiffy bag which – for some unknown reason – they’d drawn a vampire on the back of (thanks Duncan, in a strange way it made my day).

So I’d just like to say, Esiotrot, that I’m sorry.

There is something heroic about seeing a band fall off the back of a stage because they are having a bit of a scuffle.

Cardiff’s Attack + Defend did just this when I first invited them to play in Manchester, and this act kind of sealed my love for them. They have had phrases such as ‘heroically rubbish’ thrown at them, and again this is actually a really positive thing.

The thing is, I really love Esiotrot. They had me at Emily Scott, and they haven’t let go since. Their first Manchester gig was shamefully poorly attended, but they still won every attendee over. I loved how genuine they were, sitting huddled around the edges of the Star and Garter in an assortment of knitwear.

They’re painfully shy, and they make music for people just like them: boys who just don’t get why girls go for the bad guys (There’ll Be A Time For Nice Guys), people who define themselves by their record collections (My Chemical Romance Saved My Life).

Attack + Defend are not a band who will ever make great inroads towards popstardom. Here are three boys who like to make scuzzy noises, have a great time, and make the few kids who kind of understand what they are trying to achieve flail their limbs around.

They come from a similar stable to Los Campesinos! and Gindrinker, in that they make a racket which has great pop sensibilities. Keyboards are bashed, guitars shredded, vocals are shouted. Not always though, there are some nice little vocal harmonies too. My best attempt at quantifying them is think of Pavement, but a little less organised. Then throw in some really warmand-danceable keyboard lines. Finish with some really great drum beats. Then put it in a NES game set in space.

When they’re on stage I fully relate to them, and hang on their every word. This happened at Indietracks last year, when they played in the little oven of a church and had the undivided attention of all of us – and that included a lot of the other bands on the bill. Sure they happen to fall very precisely in the indietweepop bracket we harp on about rather a lot, but they’re some of the best purveyors of it since Hefner and, like with Hefner, most people don’t seem to have noticed.

So my advice to you all is to sit up, take notice and get the hell involved! myspace.com/esiotrotschmesiotrot

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Oh, and they set up their own record label so that they could put out their albums. Then they signed the excellent Fredrick Stanley Star, who will probably be in this column next month...

myspace.com/attackanddefend

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THE LISTINGS State of the Art: New York 9th April - 6th September | Urbis Urbis plays hosts to the best new art coming out of New York. Political and social satire abound, with highlights including Manchester’s statue of Abraham Lincoln dressed as a Hip Hop Fan (Leon Reid IV) an autobiographical installation fusing rock ballads, video, sculpture and drawing (Matthew Lutz-Kinoy) and an animated take-off of the recent US presidential election process (Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung).

Red Deer Club presents Sons of Noel and Adrian 24th April | Klondyke Bowling Club Sons of Noel and Adrian are a dozen strong experimental folk collective featuring members of Shoreline, The Miserable Rich, The Leisure Society, Hope of the States and Lightspeed Champion. For fans of everything from Bert Jansch and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy to Arcade Fire and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

DrownedinSound presents My Latest Novel 9th April | The Deaf Institute A band PYT truly bonded over back in the day. It’s great to see that album number two is on the way, and to know that here we have the chance to sing in poor Scottish accents to our heart’s content. Support comes from PYT’s tips for ‘09 Young British Artists, so get down there early before the music hall reaches its usual full-to-bursting capacity!

PYT + It Sounded Better In My Head presents...

The Loves / Pocketbooks + Super Special Guests!

10th April | The Black Lion Come join us for a Really Good Friday as PYT team up with It Sounded Better In My Head for one of the best indiepop gigs of the year thus far. The Loves are readying their third LP, imaginatively titled ‘Three’ to be released on the excellent Fortuna Pop in April. The band recorded 4 Peel Sessions, including one incident which saw them eating heart shaped pizzas at Peel Acres... Expect pop music that sounds like a bag of pick’n’mix sweets!

Doves 26th April | Academy 1 A comeback originally expected in 2008, its long overdue nature only serving to increase the excitement. Academy 1 is relatively small for Doves and no doubt it will be a completely euphoric experience.

First tasters of new album Kingdom of Rust bode well, showcasing Doves’ classic swirling melodies alongside beats nicked from their early days as Sub Sub. Art Brut 27th April | Academy 3 Possibly the most fun you can have without doing something you’ll seriously regret. Last time Art Brut were here they inspired drinking, dancing and shouting galore, and the adulation promises to be just as extensive when they return to the Academy in support of third album, Art Brut vs Satan (my money’s on Art Brut - C’mon Eddie!)

Camera Obscura 22nd April | Club Academy By the sounds of things Camera Obscura’s latest album is quite something, not out of the ordinary for the Glaswegian swoon-poppers but another classic gem. Considering they commanded the crowd at Glasgow’s ABC last year like masterful puppeteers, the chance to see them somewhere far more intimate can only mean good things.

His Dark Materials 23rd - 26th April | The Lowry Theatre After its sell-out performance in London in 2004, Nicholas Wright’s adaptation of Philip Pulman’s His Dark Materials trilogy takes to the Salford stage at the end of April. It’s hard to predict how one of the greatest works of fantasy will come to life in front of your eyes but it will no doubt be spectacular.

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APR / MAY 09 Sounds From the Other City 3rd May | Various Venues, Chapel Street, Salford One of the best days out going, SFTOC returns to the pubs of Salford once again. PYT would suggest that you start the day by checking the running times over a pint in The Kings Arms then trying to catch Sleeping States, Mazes, Gallops!, Sweet Baboo, Young British Artists, Sir Yes Sir, Serfs, Cats in Paris, Former Bullies and Plugs. Which will be pretty much impossible...

ATP - The Fans Strike Back 8th -10th May | Butlins Holiday Centre, Minehead And strike they will. 6000 of them crashing Butlins for a weekend of the ultimate in music heaven - without the need for wellies. We can’t quite decide what’s more exciting: the bands or the waterslides. Though the fact that Devo, Young Marble Giants, Spiritualized and Beirut (amongst TONS of others) are playing will probably take up a good chunk of our time!

Futuresonic (Art, Music, Ideas, EVNTS) 14th - 17th May | Venues across Manchester Occupying the orbits of art, performance, music, design and digital culture. Now in its 14th year, Futuresonic is the UK’s leading festival for digital culture. With music from Murcof, Anti-Pop Consortium and Johann Johannsonn and art from Jonathan Cohrs this promises to be an amazing weekend.

PYT Presents...

Pagan Wanderer Lu + Moustache of Insanity 29th May | Fuel We’re putting our promotion hats back on from May (imagine what hat you will, novelty or otherwise), and we’re very proud to be hosting Bolton-via-Cardiff’s Pagan Wanderer Lu. Like Napoleon IIIrd’s nerdier cousin, PWL has the home-made, bedroom recording, all the instruments you could shake a stick at approach we just love. Add London’s Moustache of Insanity to the mix with their casio ditties, sit back and enjoy the fun!

Stop Making Sense Every Thursday | Common A brief history of time and space extrapolated through the mediums of alternative indie, cosmic/ italo, punkfunk, techno, krautrock, nu-disco, electro & post punk with Mr Seb Valentine, Benatronic & Disco Joe.

FUTURESONIC EVNTS @ COMMON 14th - 17th May | Common Edge Street Common residents and friends present some very special guests: 20 Jazz Funk Greats with Stop Making Sense; Hoya Hoya warm up party for Daedelus at Urbis; Freitags with Sam Redmore; Red Deer Club presents ‘Deaf To The Singersongwriter’; Lobo with Moonboots, Kev Maguire & Balearic Mike; Techincolour with Floating Points; and Haxan presents Meanwhile Records and DFA’s latest hot potato Capracara.

Anathallo 25th May | Night + Day Hailing from Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, Anathallo make a joyous blend of guitars, glocks, hand claps, shouts, velcro, stomp boxes and searing harmonies. Touring in support of their second album, Canopy Glow, this will be a great chance to see a band who sound a bit like Jonquil playing Broken Social Scene’s songs.

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The PYT artwork this time comes from Norma-Jean Mercer. NJ’s brilliant cut and paste then doodle on and add words style really struck a chord with us at PYT when we first saw it, so we asked for her interpretation of spring.

Cue the bunny ears and bunting related barf! Check out normajeanmercer.com for more.

A spring issue wouldn’t really be a spring issue if we didn’t have a picture of daffodils would it? Many thanks to Craig Marchington for lending us one from his recent trip around town.

Drop him a line at squiremarchington@yahoo.co.uk In the same way that PYT have been watching The Answering Machine since 2006, Kate Goodacre has also been photographing them. Obviously the addition of megaphones and floor toms made them far more fun to snap for Kate! To see more of her artwork head to flickr.com/photos/katelass Once again PYT is eternally grateful for the awesome work that Rob and Graham at Teacake Design do to make this zine look so damn good! Drop by their blog at teacakedesign.blogspot.com for more of their handiwork.