Brudenell Social Club
Leeds can be argued the best city in the UK for music. With Manchester or London, the sheer size and intensity of the scenes render them difficult to keep on top of; one must specialise, keeping specific promoters, acts, or venues in mind. The bustling musical climate of Leeds, however, is much more penetrable, and it is feasible (if exhausting and costly) to keep up a comprehensive involvement. … Continue Reading
Holy Ghost!
A revolution is taking place (always, somewhere), and DFA is one of those labels that is making its own aesthetic mark. For almost ten years the label has consequently altered and given us a feel of how they imagine the NY underground scene should sound. With danceable mixtures of punk, disco, and house at its core. Most of it done the organic way, i.e. no laptops, but actual synths and drums and a real bass and all that jazz. Watch LCD Soundsystem perform with their full band, or The Juan MacLean, or any of the other bands for that matter; it is all people playing instruments. … Continue Reading
Kanye West
Forgive me if this feels like I’m already straightening out 2010’s picture frames, pushing its chairs under its tables and hurrying you out of the door marked ‘2011’ when we’re only halfway through August. The trouble is music release schedules operate several months ahead of real time so, as someone who is informed about music releases on a daily basis whether I like it or not, I’m currently existing in a parallel universe where it’s late October/early November.
Luckily, from my position in this imagined future (all release dates are of course subject to change), this autumn looks like continuing what was already been a strong year for new records. 2010 has seen many of the previous decade’s primary acts return in some form or another, to varying degrees of success, such as The National, LCD Soundsystem, Arcade Fire, Big Boi and Broken Social Scene. At the same time, newer acts have continued to hone their sound (Wavves, Best Coast) or seemingly burst out fully formed (Wild Nothing, Male Bonding, Baths). When looking ahead, it’s always the big names that stand out then – but don’t rule out a few surprises along the way. … Continue Reading
Penguin Prison
Penguin Prison is New Yorker Chris Glover. He was first introduced to the world by influential boutique label Neon Gold who specialise in pop music. Bloggers gobble up Neon Gold’s blog posts and spit them out on their own sites perhaps partly due to laziness but mostly because the music they put out is just so good. Success stories include Marina and the Diamonds and Ellie Goulding who occupied the top spots on the BBC’s Sound of 2010 list showing how their influence had infiltrated the mainstream. … Continue Reading
The xx - xx
As Paul The Octopus isn’t returning our calls we’ll have to make do with our own physic cephalopod, Mitchell Stirling as he casts his tentacles over the elite 12 British and N. Irish records that might be receiving nods next week.
Last year I, like most people felt that Doves winning would be to similar to the Elbow win the previous year but didn’t think that would prevent them getting a nod (nor did the bookies, they were favourites). Similarly we all thought that Portishead’s Third was a lock the year before and it didn’t make it. This year we can’t even find odds before the nominations but you can pick up a vibe on a few releases. … Continue Reading
Panda Bear
As you read this, Spain will still be celebrating their World Cup victory; Paul Gasgoine will be solemnly dismantiling his fishing rod; Paul the Octopus will be eating from a solitaty feeding bowl and you will be wondering why this sentence insists on being so fucking long when I could be spending words discussing one of the most hotly anticipated releases of the year… … Continue Reading
In the last week, after going to my first ever Glastonbury festival, I have found myself questioning if I will enjoy Reading Festival in August, or any other festival in the future come to that.
Having been to festivals for the last seven years I thought I had seen it all, heard it all, done it all, but maybe more importantly knew exactly what to expect, but no festival experience could prepare me for the five nights spent in a field in a farm in Pilton. Now that I have sampled a five-star festival I am not sure that any other festival can compare.
Before Glastonbury my favourite festival had always been Reading, for a few reasons this has always been great, but for quite a few more reasons it has had its draw backs.
Let’s concentrate for the purposes of this article on the awesomeness that is Glastonbury Festival.
Firstly, has to be the line-up, it’s a festival that every artist has heard of, a friend of mine who is in a band said to me “I will know I have made it, when I get to headline the Pyramid stage”. For the 40th anniversary we were all promised a killer line-up, and Gorillaz replacing U2 was met with very mixed opinions. I was on the fence on that one, and went to see the Gorillaz on the pretence that they had planned something extra special. In my opinion, it wasn’t all that. The rest, though, was epic.
The festival kicked off with Rolf Harris, a legend. Whether, like me, you know him from childhood as the guy that taught you to draw cartoon versions of himself on the body of a kangaroo during Cartoon Club, or because your grandparents played his vinyl’s on their ancient record players, or because you are of a younger generation and know him from his Jekyll and Hyde performances on Animal Hospital. Either way, it was a great start to a festival, and in his words: “a highlight of my entertaining career”
Then you had performances from Snoop Dog at his very first Glastonbury. Making the crowd “jump around” in 30c heat is no mean feat. Secret performances from Radiohead, the regular festival circuit band Vampire Weekend, and Julian Casablancas performing Strokes material without the rest of the Strokes.
Mumford & Sons and Bombay Bicycle Club, who between them seemed to pull in the biggest John Peel tent audiences of the weekend.
Then Stevie Wonder, singing Happy Birthday with Michael Eavis on stage, to bring it all to an end. Love it or loathe it, it was a fitting and emotional end to a festival. Even if it did look like embarrassing car crash TV when I watched it back last night, you will have to take my word that it was probably a ‘had to be there’ kind of moment.
There were literally hundreds of acts across well over 40 stages. It would be natural to think Glastonbury and music go hand in hand, and stop there, however Glasto is so much more than music.
It is huge, at least ten times bigger than any other festival I have ever been to. And you could be forgiven to thinking that due to its size that it is just field after field divided by hedges and farm gates, but it isn’t. There is something to do, see or hear in almost every square inch of the vast place. Besides the stages and hundreds of food and clothes vendors, you have purpose-built nightclubs made of actual bricks and mortar with NY taxis and underground train carriages sticking out. Quiet places to think and reflect on the days events, hidden relaxation havens, and if you’re into communication during the festival even somewhere to hide from the sun and charge your phone.
There are the craft fields where you can be taught to glaze pots, make plates and spoons or carve from stone, with each themed area transporting you to what could be described as alternate universes decorated with movie set precision. Some of these places are better ventured after dark where a whole different Glastonbury comes to life.
The festival commonly resembles a Turkish mud bath, not this year though. Over the course of the weekend, Glastonbury experienced some of the highest temperatures it has ever had and without a cloud in the sky, the heat and sun were sometimes relentless. Maybe this is a sign of global warming, frankly, I don’t give a shit as I got to leave my wellies in the car, rather than carry them along with all my other crap on what seemed like a two-mile hike from the car park.
The community aspect is something completely different too, everyone is friendly, willing to help, and doesn’t care about another person’s opinion. One such environment was the Twisto group on twitter. I started following these people about two months prior to Glastonbury. Everyone has the same goals, to go and enjoy Glasto, regardless of which acts you plan to see. The buzz of excitement coming off these people leading up to the last few days before glasto was contagious.
Then there’s the camping environment. I think a festival is a lot about the people you go with, and I went with a great bunch of people, naturally friends bring friends whom you don’t know, and in turn, they become your friends. I honestly believe that 50% of my current social circle were originally friends of friends at festivals over the years.
I guess your Glasto camping experience is all down to where you decide to camp. We were in one of the new un-named fields. We arrived and unpacked the car at the hottest point of the day, so almost immediately after wristband exchange, Jms, (our “group co-ordinator)” dropped his bags, and said, “Fuck it, this will do.” Camp Fuck It was born. I must write to Emily Eavis and enquire whether this would be a field name they could pursue in future years…
Owing to one of our people, Kate, being pregnant, it was pre-decided that we would camp somewhere peaceful-ish, within easy access to toilets and medical facilities. The camp we chose fitted the bill perfectly.
At other festivals you see people frequently jumping the fence without having paid for a ticket. At modern Glasto, not one!
At other festivals you see drunk/drugged people kicking off, and frequently see the tell tale signs of someone being evicted due to their behaviour (the swarm of security guards, the revellers bundled into the back of land rovers). At Glasto, just one! And it was a relatively harmless argument to start off with, it was 9am, and he disliked another fella for stealing the numbers to his girlfriend’s postcode. Strange reason to lose your £185 ticket.
My final point about Glastonbury is the traffic to get onto site, and I think it’s my only real negative on the whole glasto experience. How can a festival that has been running for 40 years still suffer traffic chaos? 7am ‘til 2pm to travel the 20-odd miles from the M5 to the site.
Living in close proximity to Silverstone, I am aware of the changes forced upon traffic systems by huge volumes of people for one weekend per calendar year. I am incredibly surprised that more hasn’t been done about it.
Will I do Glasto again? Without a shadow of doubt!
The question at the beginning of this article was, is there life after Glasto?
The answer is still to be determined, but I go back to Reading with incredibly high expectations, knowing full well that, sadly, it probably won’t match up.
Dour festival
ALERT! ALERT! GIVEAWAY PRIZE ALERT! FREEBIES BELOW!
We are giving away five pairs of tickets to Dour, including camping! All you need to do is send your name, your guest’s name, and both of your email addresses to musosguide (at) gmail (dot) com. Easy as. You don’t even have to answer a question! These are the T&Cs from the lovely festival-running people there…
You have until Monday July 4 to enter…
And now you can read the preview… … Continue Reading
June 22, 2010
Vampires are the latest craze to strike the entertainment industry, so it’s only natural that they have now infiltrated the music business. Hunter S. Thompson famously called the music industry a “cruel and shallow money trench” for “thieves” and “pimps”, but today it’s being portrayed as a home to thirsty bloodsuckers. … Continue Reading
Summer Camp
After coming across the superbly excellent Summer Camp (Elizabeth Sankey and Jeremy Warmsley) back in December last year with an ‘introducing Summer Camp‘ feature – back when we didn’t even know their identities – and giving them a glowing live review supporting The Drums, the time has now finally come for a one-on-one with the band. It’s taken a long time! … Continue Reading
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