A few times a year, local indie label du jour Mistletone holds a little party. Summertones 2010 was to be the latest chapter. Unfortunately, a dent was put in the plan when the top two booked acts (Brightblack Morning Light and Roland S Howard) were unable to perform. Thus was born Tiny Tones, headlined by locals Beaches and US act Kelly Stoltz.

It was the promise of new and unusual sounds that I entered the cosy surrounds of Richmond’s The Corner Hotel. I must admit I wasn’t quite prepared for Japanese wailers Vampillia. Their intricately blended operatic vocals with moody strings and low tones produced something that lies between a swampy, almost metallic sound and a prog-classical nightmare. Unsettling and luscious.

Local stalwarts Royalchord specialise in coupling melodic tunes with drum machine beats. This doesn’t produce the sterile dissonance you would expect. Instead, there emerges an interesting tension between machine and human, order and shambolic sentimentality. Acoustic instruments – glockenspiels, guitars – blend with synths and processed beats, iced with a creamy, smooth dose of sweet vocals, courtesy of core band members Tammy Haider and Eliza Hiscox. Harmonies blow across the room like a dry autumn breeze. The overall effect is soothing and mellow. And very much the sound of summer.

Kelley Stoltz is on tour from his native San Fran, and boy, does it show. His good-old fashion sun-drenched rock n roll couldn’t be from anywhere else on this wide blue marble but the musical Mecca that is LA. He’s a funny bugger too, and soon charms the audience. Musings about finding – œthe lost chord’, coupled with something of the QotSA joie de vivre, not to mention the man’s multi-instrumentalist ways soon have us thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Kelley is clearly a man born for the stage.

Supported by a veritable firmament of local indie dudes (*Mikey Young* of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Mark Nelson from The Stabs, Steph Hughes from Dick Diver and Julian Wu) the sound is cohesive and driving. You could’ve sworn these guys had played with each other for years. Kelly’s laid-back – œJazz DJ’ voice puts us at ease, and we ride home on a wave of good solid rock. Oscillating from countrified Cali-croon to Strokes-esque post-modern-punk, to what was the undeniable high-point of the night, fuzzy stomper, Are You Electric?, the set ends all too quickly.

It’s down to Beaches to wind up the night. Why why why why why? Constant distortion veils any kind of enjoyment we might have gotten out of it. One half faux-prog noise, one half self-indulgent clattering shards of grungy pop nonsense make the five-piece sound like a band trying way too hard. It’s yet another case of children of the 90s missing the mark. If it wasn’t for the constant fuzz of piercingly painful electric froth, perhaps we’d have something. Then again, perhaps not. I suspect this is a case of constant distortion covering all sins.