Bushstock comes to town

So June is upon us and with it the summer festival season. Time to fish out your tent and wellies, still musty with last year’s Glasto mud, and pay that prerequisite trip to Primarni to snap up your 2011 Alexa-approved festival fashion – tiny, tiny shorts, if the style blogs are to be believed. Sigh.

Don’t you sometimes wish it was all a little less effort? That one day you could roll out of bed and see a festival of bands perform just around the corner. Well, my friends, that day has come and it’s called Bushstock, a festival right here in Shepherd’s Bush on 4 June that gives those crusties in Somerset and Suffolk a run for their money.

Quite literally. One Bushstock ticket buys you day-long access to four different venues and 30 awesome acts – all for the princely sum of £27.50. That’s less than one quid per band; bargain enough given the line-up includes Mercury-nominated Guillemots, Bristol-cum-Brighton songwriter Fink and indie popsters Peggy Sue. Throw in a mystery fourth headliner and 26 other emerging artists, many of them local, and Bushstock becomes a complete steal.

“We’re hoping to put a flag in the ground for the west London music scene,” explains Kevin Jones of Communion Music, the independent record label and promoter behind the festival. “Most of the musicians we know are based round here but we feel like they’re not represented gig-wise. When I first started gigging in London there were a spate of venues, but they all started shutting at once.”

Formerly of folk band Cherbourg, now bassist for singer-songwriter Marcus Foster, Jones founded Communion in 2006 with friend and fellow musician Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons and producer Ian Grimble. What started out as a Sunday evening jam (hence the name) at the Notting Hill Arts Club soon expanded to monthly nights in seven cities across the UK, as well as Sydney and New York. Communion even guest curated at this year’s South by South West and Camden Crawl.

And now Bushstock has adopted the roaming festival model, too. Says Jones: “The original idea was to hold it under the Westway, all the way up Portobello Road to The Tabernacle. We walked the route, then did a similar reccy round Shepherds Bush and realised it had so much more to offer.” Not to mention the convenience. “Half the bands and organisers live within 200m of one of the venues.”

Ginglik on the green is the only ‘venue’ venue, says Jones. The Goldhawk is “just a cool little pub”, while the normally members-only Shepherd’s Bar has a different feel again. As for St. Stephen’s Church, “it’s such an atmospheric place, we just all fell in love with it.” The mix of performance spaces suits the similarly eclectic programme of music, from which Jones is reluctant to pick out even one highlight. “To be honest, they’re all amazing or we wouldn’t have programmed them.”

While closely associated with the west London folk scene of Mumford and co, Communion has fielded a wide range of artists and genres over its five year history, from Xample to The Holloways. “The only thing you could safely say ties it all together is some element of song-writing,” says Jones, a fact borne out by the roster of artists on the Communion label, launched in 2009 as the logical next step to live gigs.

“It was an opportunity to reach more people than at a 200-capacity venue,” says Jones of the move. “The nights help us make records and when we sell records, that money goes back into the nights. Communion is about like-minded musicians and fans. We want to create meaningful relationships with artists who feel safe that we aren’t corporate promoters or producers out to screw them.”

Jones, 32, knows from personal experience how tough the industry can be. “Getting off the ground as a musician is hard work. So it’s about giving good people a leg up. If you see potential, giving them a slot with a bigger band can be a real boost.” He pauses. “And everyone likes to have found something first! It’s a brilliant feeling.”

Who would have guessed Mumford would be selling in the millions five years after tuning up at the original Communion night? Lovett must be a hard man to come by these days. “Yes,” concedes Jones, “but we’re in regular contact whether he’s away or not. Ben will come back from America and I’ll say, ‘I’ve done this and this’ but the creative decisions are always made together and we tend to agree on everything anyway.” Even facial hair – both men sport beards befitting their folksy tastes.

As for Bushstock, Communion is hoping west London will embrace the new festival with a big squeezy bear hug. “We’ve done it here for a reason,” says Jones, quietly ambitious. “In future years, we’d love to be using Bush Hall and the Empire, too.” But for now he is happy keeping things cosy. Small is most definitely beautiful, after all. Except when it comes to those tiny, tiny shorts.

See www.bushstock.co.uk for tickets and www.communion.co.uk for details of future gigs/releases including The Flowerpot Sessions LP, out 30 May

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