Another fine festival! Despite a sudden last minute hitch meaning I'm
travelling there on my own (via Reading to sell my friends tickets)
everything was great! Though it may pale besides the high quality
organisation of SONAR and sheer size of Glastonbury, what it does offer is a
chance to relax in some nice surroundings with some pretty good music on
offer.
After a long journey and a crazy-assed traffic jam around Stonehenge (I
turned back and went around the back roads - pretty successfully too) I
arrived at the site - unlike Glastonbury you just drive straight in and
you're pretty much parked a couple of minutes from wherever you want to camp
and there is plenty of space so there is no reason to trip over tents and
drunken and drugged individuals in the dark - there is so much space that we
had no problem with a bit of baseball on Sunday! The second thing you
notice is there are no fences, and denied the opportunity to blag their way
in for
nothing in a blustering display of lovable scouser wit, there are no
scousers meaning there is a nice feeling of safeness
all weekend - the police presence was one pig and a car, which didn't stick
around much.
Immediately there I bumped into Milton Keynes' premier cable radio DJ Shane
Quentin (the only DJ ever to receive a warning for using "the c word" on
air), and his cohort, Milton Keynes' finest young cut and scratch
maestro James Clarke with his hoe, the delightful young Claire (see
pictures if you doubt) - we'd spoke wax numerous times but never got round
to hooking up so this was a great opportunity to talk music! Immediately we
got a drink and wandered off to look around.
The basic site is this - outside in the field you have a big "Club tent"
where DJs play non stop; inside the grounds of Larmer Tree House you have a
small stage (really small - there would be problems if they booked Earth,
Wind and Fire) and and even smaller stage :) The main stage is built on the
side of one of the buildings, so the back of the stage is a huge recessed
mural - it looks very nice! It opens onto a big lawn where you have a
decent bar on one side! The other festivals could learn whole postgraduate
degrees in Festival Bar Studies from TBC; giving the capitalists a shot at
running the beer tent
rather than the Loony Left's Workers Beer Company means that: (1) you can
get a pint of Guinness (2) other products available are based on their
quality rather than the relationship of the manufacturer to their serfs (ie
you have Stella rather than Carlsberg) (3) girlies are happy cos they can
have Champagne cocktails (4) there is no obligation to employ ugly and/or
deformed bar staff meaning you don't feel queasy everytime you buy a drink.
The only stupid thing was having a ludicrous paper currency system called
the Neuro(dollar) which you didn't have to change much to have a fistful of
neurodollars - twenty quid translated into a ream of A4 sheets of the
annoying
things and plenty of people were left with a lot of these useless tickets at
the end of the festival!
The gardens were very pleasant apart from a statue of two strange dogs who
appeared to be preparing for a bit of doggy style antics; this may or may
not have been one of the permanent artefacts, or the numerous art
installations prepared for the evenings entertainment.
The first act we wanted to see, Spacek turned out to be cancelled, replaced
by the rather bland Alison..., but we never had to endure as, in the spirit
of the
whole weekend, the main stage was permanently one hour late! Instead we
hung out around the very small stage (a garden shed with the side removed)
waiting for Fred Deakin of Lemon Jelly, where we were treated to a rather
poor band
called Novo Navis - two dopey Frenchman and a dopey Japanese girl who in
keeping with their general demeanour gave us dopey sounds rather than dope
music. I certainly will be avoiding them in future.
Mr Deakin may also be avoided in future. His ultra rare Lemon Jelly singles
nicely fill the gap left by Air's attempt to be a pop band, or maybe Rob
Dougan's inability to produce more work of the calibre of "Clubbed to
Death"... Deakin was the first DJ on the bill which we discovered was
involved
in a peculiar and perverse pact to see who could throw together the best,
most retro, most 1980s set from scouring charity shops and junk markets with
nothing but a fiver. Also taking part were Tom Middleton, Mr Scruff and
several more people who should know better. Hence despite the inclusion of
quality products like Nightmares on Wax into his set, it also meant we had
to endure the inclusion of trite fodder like "Take Me Home Country Rose" and
Frank Sinatra crooning "I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane". His mixing talent, if
it exists, was not in evidence. James decided to have a word mid set and
was rewarded with a CD of the incredibly rare first 3 Lemon Jelly EPs! The
general consensus is the man should stick to the studio and leave DJing to
the professionals.
Following on from that we went to catch the festival's biggest star, all the
way from Norway, Geir Jenssen AKA Biosphere... Very atmospheric as you'd
expect, with very little to see, so we toured the art exhibits, most of
which were only promising to start up so we caught the end of Biosphere's
performance as it culminated in some beats!
Lastly we finished the night catching top jazz DJ Paul Murphy in action, who
proved to have an indominitable skill in moving feet; his cut up of the
vintage funk classic "Got to Get Your Own" by Reuben Wilson was particularly
stunning! Without a doubt the festival's best DJ and it would be cool to
see him at next year's SONAR!
Finally the end of the night and the general mood with Big Chill is go back
to your tents and keep it quiet rather than dancing around the blanket stall
to trance tapes until sun up!
Saturday! The weekend starts here and all that bullshit! Very little going
on so I chilled out a little at the internet hut and sent an e-mail to a
friend, drank a Guinness then hung out with Shane and James for a while,
after which I was to meet Wendy Ninja at the Media Tent - she failed to
show, but I got to see a great comedy act! It was based on the idea of some
Marxists bitching and whining about how they would put clubs on, and how
they would sort out the men from the Guardian readers. It was rather
incisive stuff, and kudos go to the girl playing the loony left lesbo
lecturer fighting the revolution with speed garage, and fat middle-aged
Indian councillor who did this skit about stopping people dancing at 3 in
the morning so revolutionary Communist dogma could be forced down their
drug-addled throats! I reckon some of the audience's questions were plants
too as no one could be that much of a "Guardian reader"!
We all met up again for Zero 7 who are another act tipped to fill the shoes
left empty by Air's attempt to go pop. It was a DJ set in the club tent,
and they didn't insult us with 80s retro pop action, but rather a fine
selection of well mixed hip hop - they did this wild mixing stunt with
Blackalicious' "Alphabet Aerobics" over a breakbeat which they kept speeding
up in unison! It sounded dope! Following on we went to see another of
Shane's favourites, Bent. I personally was more interested in going to
shout "You're Bent" and hopefully some wag in the crowd would then shout
"And so is your boyfriend!" Naturally, the main stage was running an hour
behind again, so we ended up back at the club tent to catch London
Electricity - an incredible drum and bass set which pleased the ten of us
that were there.
I popped off to get changed and get a drink and returned back to the club
tent 15 minutes later to find it seething with people! Jazzanova were
rather popular and their fine selection of jazz and beats kept everyone
happy. Lastly Mr Scruff came on to do the business, and he was certainly
aiming to take the retro award there and then, hitting us with such fodder
as "Reasons to be Cheerful" and Smiley Culture's Cockney classic "Police
Officer" which would teach Slick Rick a lesson in storytelling (and includes
the immortal line "first ting that come into me head, good ting me hide me
ganja!"), but he settled back after a while to give us "real" dance music
including his own "Get a Move On" and Faze Action's "Samba", both of which
pretty much were the anthems of the festival which near every DJ played!
Rather good and it struck me that Scruff will be the man to knock Norman
Cook's smirking face off the kids favourite DJ lists, as he strikes that
same vibe which NC was treading before he came big enough to slip in enough
bland fodder into his sets for people not to care! And of course Scruff's
"chaps" figured extensively in the projections and animations which everyone
loves! In my book Scruff is the man, though James declared that he sucked
big time!
Last day and we decided we would spend the morning in the hot sun whacking a
few balls into orbit which we did, thanks to all the space that was
available! Then we wandered up to the main site - I checked out
Audiomontage who were pretty good, actually playing "live" in the club tent,
though it wasn't obvious unless you went around the back of the DJ booth.
They were doing some nice jazzy space disco stuff which went down well to
the four people in there :) Next up was "Crippled Dick Hot Wax" AKA DJ Tits
Out - a rather rough looking middle-aged woman playing some bland music
assisted by the fact she was topless but had a painted on top; after
trailing back to the main stage hoping that the excellent Runaways had
finished - unfortunately they have the most appalling MC in the whole of
time and space and if I had a weather balloon I would gladly have attempted
to stop the flow of appalling trite banter about East London coming from her
diseased throat - we spent a little more time around the club tent - James
got into a conversation with Crippled Dick after her set and looked her in
the eye the whole time :) - I had some Guinness and sheep's milk ice cream
and went back to the main stage to see Faze Action doing jazzy stuff. I was
joined at the end of the set by everyone else who had obviously been
indulging in far too much alcohol and other more illicit substances; Claire
was particularly bad and it was a miracle she never ruined their tent with
profuse vomitting, plus Sean was so spannered that he could not keep his
eyes open. They were like junior rock fans at the Reading Festival having
their first sip from a bottle of Woodpecker cider. Rather comfortingly I
sipped my bottle of water and dropped my acid :)
DJ Food next. Whilst everyone is totally in the mood to dance these
preposterous young men decide they are going to play something smooth and
chilled out - everyone was screaming for beats. It was okay I guess, but I
went back to catch the end of the Tummy Touch Sunday Special which wasn't
too impressive, then Tom Middleton, who was to take the retro award with a
vengeance - I mean, the man opened with Shalamar and closed with U2. What
was he thinking of!?! There were plenty of good moments but I'm sure there
were moments when he was pondering whether dropping a bit of "Smethwick
Brass Band plays Brahms and Liszt" (which he'd picked up at the local
charity shop) would have been overkill!
A good end to a good weekend. We made a fire and sat under an impressive
umbrella of stars and it was a good end to a good weekend! All in all its a
highly recommended weekend away as long as the prime reason you're there
isn't to see live music :) I'm sure we'll see a few more of you next year,
though SONAR is still the place to be!
L8R!
DAVID
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