Camp Bestivalling 2010

EARLIES...I've never seen so many munkins... children everywhere... the place looks like a multi-coloured Slaine battleground...we took 3 little Lokis, one unborn and, yeah, Camp Bestival is the ideal family Festival... adults are incidental, are baggage handlers, workhorses... some of them are dressed like children but... this place is like a tidy Glasonbury, one without the flayed and the straggled, a Festival almost without litter, which is an odd site as evening approaches (think Green Man without the beards and with fairy costumes)...

PHILOSOPHY...Bad Science has made a definite impression on this place. there's a very systematic (i think) pro-science, pro evidentialist, anti-Glastonbury stance seamed throughout: in the acts (lots of children's science), the messages, the lack of spiritual and holistic guff... there's the trappings of the Festival circuit: flower powers, dayglo, flags (though no ones waving them, thank god - maybe those people who do wave them at festivals are using them as child surrogates...)

Ear candles? Fuck youuuuuuuuuuu

No bugger is sitting in a goddamn healing field orbing, no one is doubling up on Orgone, no one is sucking in Egyptian plasma juice...

Flags as children waves...



TRICKS: the 2 Lokis (9 and 12) are instead listening to The Fall while trying to ride clown bikes or Tinie Tempahing to the beat of juggled balls and hoops and tightropes and someone's playing The Threshold Houseboys Choir's 'So Young It Knows No Maturing' and this is the perfect soundtrack because all those little underpitched slurred voices mixing in and out of the crackles and flurries is the sound of this festival... munkins chatter that Shpongle would be proud of, that Terence Goddamn McKenna would be proud of...

CHILL: Tired? Been Still Walking? Them lil' feet need a rest? Let Icebreaker feat. BJ Cole perform Eno's Apollo for you, let the sap rise again and let the actuality of the Moon Landings be there for all to see: it happened, no conspiracies here, you see?

MYSTERY: Where's Joker though? I keep going back in (lots of 14 year old girls in headbands dubstepping it up like there's no tomorrow, smoke curls and hair tosses allover) but he's never there... I hear he turned up, I'm not convinced...

There is a guy djing in The Bollywood lounge who looks like Aaron Funk...




CLICKS: The Fall are getting good as a festival band despite continuing their resolute anti-Vibe grumbling; they are kinda kicking it, though don't tell their friends...

FUNKADELICATESSEN: Missed some of the point by being a little too adolescent for this crowd (the kids mostly gone to bed now or lapsing consciousness); funk should be everything to this place and people really want to dance but the onstage sweary antics seem out of step, leaving the same kind of - oh, come on - taste that Mark E Smith left when John Peel died and he was asked to comment.

OWN GOALS: What the hell is Gruff Rhys up to with that guy, that VCR repairman, Tony Da Gattora... I've been a Gruff-skeptic before but I loved him at Green Man a few years ago and now he's, well, he's just making a racket and stretching everyone to the point of... it's not even endurance; people simply leave... shit, mate... as shit as a Peter Murphy solo alb



um

EAT: Question - how long does it take three people to serve pasta and sauce? Answer - Longer than a homeless guy's toenails, longer than a Namlook discography, longer than a Desperate Housewives pre-credit sequence.

EATING: Yah, food excellent ... expensive but reasonably profound Tapas and Vegfare and lovely Thali... coulda done with a Burger King halfway through Saturday though; the phrase Gourmet Burger makes me weep a little... it's a burger, deal with the fact you're eating it...

JOUSTING: There should be more of that at Festivals, I think...



MISSED: lots and lots, more than I saw, as always and as always that's hardly the point; would've liked to see Marc Almond and The Human League and I'm still looking for Joker...

MATERIALS: if you have kids, go next year; it really is very do-able, very quick, very easy.... if you don't have kids it might be a VERY weird experience - check out the very small, quickly dematerialized groups of older teens looking a little spazzed out - this is no place to be hammered; too many munkins to crush, to many rolling eyed parents, too much knowledge on show here... I guess there's a few creepy virgin late teens (yeah you, with your floppiness and your fringe, with those low swinging lobes - frontal and ear) hanging around the haremic/bulimic 14 year old girls which might remember this as a Festival of dreams but I seriously doubt that a Festival veteran sans kids would understand this place...

EXEUNT: This was great and timely for us Lokis though: I honestly couldn't imagine festivalling with a pregnant wife and two kids anywhere else.

PHOTOS: they've all got the family in so this was all I had left. Sorry.

Camp Bestivalling

...that scene in Alex Garland's The Beach, when they're all half-dead from squid poisoning, the beach sliding into new sewage and it all gets a little Hearts of Darkness? That's my last memory of Lulworth Castle... Fecal fluttering, bad tidings, hallucinatory stumblings... the castle looming like it's made of bones, the ground swallowing when I couldn't, some kind of Medieval Banquet taking itself a little too literally; finding historical accuracy in Campylobacter jejuni, in Shigella, in hordes of prettily dyed exotoxins...

But that was then.

I'm going back to Lulworth Castle, this time for the clean air and puffed chests of Camp Bestival, packed full of children, and stuffed full of sun-starch... it's gonna be a big one, literally nothing can go wrong. Like Glastonbury, the music is hardly the point but still: Marc Almond, Lee Scratch Perry, George Clinton, Madness, The Fall, The Human League... with Joker and Joy Orbison and Jonny Trunk on the decks...

Asking around long-term Camp Bestivallers, it seems like Jonny Trunk might be the natural soundtrack to this place; cutting-egde circusssssssssss music, Freaks, library reels, spitting/spoken word rolls, tie-dyed electronics, sheep worrying frequency mods... "violently pretty" someone described it (I think they meant the Festival as a whole, rather than the girl he brought back who was, frankly, tarnished by her experience) and I'm still hoping to concur, or at least understand... maybe we might all join in with Bill Drummonds ultra-socialist/pirate show choir The 17; sing our bits out, playback everything...

It seems that Camp Bestival might be a feedback loop worth pursuing; it's certainly the only time I've ever felt brave enough to venture to a 3 dayer with the whole family...

And littlest Loki might get to see The Ballet and The Gruffalo and wear as much fancy dress as the heat allows...

Reading Festival '89 (Day One)

I only went to Reading once. Glastonbury was my thing. But a recent twitter torrent (well, a twitter twinkle) of nostalgia beans from various people about Reading 1990 kickstarted hardly ever dormant (i.e. formative) memories about Reading the year earlier... I found this and, well, the retroscending began....

This is why events unnerve me,
They find it all, a different story,
Notice whom for wheels are turning,
Turn again and turn towards this time

I mean, look at this bill (okay, the Sunday's a bit crap, except for The Pogues) and imagine you're a 17 year old slightly left of centre indie kid. The whole Industrial tangent aside, lots of my favourite bands came to Reading that year; the schoolyards of Yeovil were ablaze with rumours... Reading was going to be different this year, something had happened, the metallers had been defeated, we were taking over...



Obviously, all this has to be imagined through the gauze of Thunderbird (Tundy), Kestrel Super, Moroccan Black/Red Stripe(?), Autumn Gold Cider (for sophisticated afternoon drinking), Lambrusco screw cap wine - white n red = rose, badly rolled cigarettes (I smoked only for effect then, and the effect wasn't very impressive, it has to be said):

Well, I had Drill Yer Own Hole etc but, really, I was too excited about seeing Spacemen 3 to remember much about Gaye Bikers On Acid. They were probably okay. I can't remember them being much better than that. It didn't matter. It was a good background to drinking in preparation for the Spacemen.

Now, Spacemen 3 were a big deal in 1989. No, really. Their 'fucked up children' t-shirts were everywhere (I wasn't allowed to wear mine; my Mum disapproved and I sold it to a friend who didn't even come - wanker). Back home, we'd prepared for this by betting my mate's sister £2 that she couldn't mime the guitar all the way through Revolution... she forgot it changes just at the end and lost the bet. We had at least £2s of Tundy to play with, even before we'd got there.

What'd (you say you'd) find
Then come, come, come
Get the hell inside
You can close your eyes
Well you might as well commit suicide

They didn't play much from the then new album but we pushed down the front and waved floppy fringes into each others faces. Then they played Revolution and I tried to get my third eye opened, just to give it a bit of an airing...

My Bloody Valentine next. They'd just gone good. We were still a little cynical, to be fair; most of us had seen them in their jangle pop guise and, though we liked the new direction, we felt it wouldn't last...

It's not raining yet, but somebody is encased in mud and blood; more than one person looks like Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood.


That Petrol Emotion? Nah. It's gone. I spent a little time arguing with t-shirt sellers instead. I'm not sure that the Swans t-shirt I was trying to buy was altogother there, it seemed strangely insubstantial, quite literally lacking in substance, in matter... "It's just the Tundy!", I hear you yelling but, believe me, this was a point of some various principle and, at 17 years thin, I had plenty of time to start the ethical ball rolling - the t-shirt seller had enough facial hair to throw me into doubt; I still possessed a pink cassette of The Pistol's Never Trust A Hippy and I just wasn't sure that this guy's pineal gland was entirely on the level...

I didn't buy the t-shirt. Convinced myself it would disappear anyway.



Picture stolen from Reading Museum

Tackhead were on, or rather not on. People were wondering around on stage but the sound was blown almost from the off. This has a huge disappointment; I'd dragged at least a couple of friends to the middle of the crowd with the promise of bodyshaking bass, cementer mixers thrown into the mix, collapsing new buildings, wraparound sound...

In a garden in the house of love
Sitting lonely on a plastic chair
The sun is cruel when he hides away

Instead, one of the Sugarhill Gang played a frankly mental guitar solo; sort of a bass line on the top strings and and a guitar line on the bottom. I can't remember the rest of the set, except that I strained my neck trying to see what Adrian Sherwood was doing.

Then Swans, rain, Swans. Immense. Barefoot Gira. Folk-sludge as heavy as hell. Rain. More rain. "Let it come down." An Invocation. Hair and feet. A wailing Jarboe. The air thick with... horsehair? I can't quite place that thickening... it's like being in Asia...

Thread worms on a string
Keeps spiders in her pocket
Collects fly wings in a jar
Scrubs horse flies
And pinches them on a line
Ohhh...

There's no justice I can do to Swans. They were utterly intense. The sky's had to open, just to release the pressure. The Burning World album might have been regarded as a little lightweight at the time but on stage it's so... immense

The thing I remember most is that no one is talking. The field empties a little with the rain but those who stay, stay silent.

This was like bumping into Nietzsche in a Caspar David Friedrich painting and arguing about the structure of the world.

Some Of Us We Run From A Shapeless Form
And Some Men They Hide From A Howling Storm
Now I Will Wander Through The Falling Flames
And I Will Drown In The Burning Rain
Sha La La La La La La, Let It Come Down

This gig is one of reasons this blog got started, one of the reasons that I thought music was worth writing about - take a little trip back to the Dog Days of 2004.

I don't remember anything about The House of Love.

But hold on a second
I smell burning
And I see a change
Comin’ ‘round the bend
And I suggest to you
That it takes
Just five seconds

The Sugarcubes were at their most shambolic. I'd seen them before in a cramped London venue and they'd been an intense thrash of pop, this time Einar had the arse and was yelling and trumpeting through all the best Bjork bits... a little petulant, if truth be told, a band not quite at ease with sliding this far up the bill... The Sugarcubes could have been perfect pop, could have transcended things - this time they chose not to.

I down the last of the Tundy. The Sugarcubes are at least a great drinking band - like CSS are now. Maybe they weren't all that shambolic, maybe I've simply dislocated myself a little with fortified wine.

New Order sobers me up a little. In fact, a lot. I can't afford to be this sober. I'm camping with several other teenage boys. I don't want my olfactory systems to be reconnected. It's gonna break my bank to get drunk enough to sleep.

New Order are one slick unit. Everything note perfect, pristine. It could be a CD. A laser-disc. It's hard to tell whether or not they're even actually here. It could be a ruse, a rupture, a con. I've always liked the idea of New Order more than most of their music; it doesn't seem live at the best of times and this performance is... well, you can hum all the tunes, you can sing a long, you can even dance, a little but... there's something a little soulless about them on record and live this is even more apparent...

I'm gonna have to start trawling the beer tents... night is drawing in.

This is not just Christmas...

...this is a Mutoid Waste Christmas.

I'll be doing all my Christmas shopping here, whether my Gran likes it or not...

Martyrs Review Mix: Sunday's Glastonberries

Eyes closing; the drugs don't work; no verve... Racing away from everything... Somewhere, midway through the day I discover Bacon Rolls are my Spirit Food, the only thing I can now chew, own lips excepted, others lips excepted... May as well be skinned, eyes curled into the head, staring at your own neuranatomy... the NDE tunnel, flipping into a Reindeer piss-stained Shangri La taxi rank... It's relentless; hits the ground running... amphetamine fuelled at first and then gradually succumbing to a Ketamine (Special K) dissociative state before heading towards, but never quite getting to, an ecstatic, endorphin-soaked bliss...

Before that there's desert rumblings and electronics from Tinawaren and Tuung; melodies slipping between the 2 bands like a Roman priest reading entrails...

Tinariwen - Toumast

Tinariwen - Mano Dayak

...girls covered in dirt... and, yes, Eat Static playing out into familiar territory in The Glade...

Eat Static - Pharoh

Eat Static - Gulf Breeze

we're just a walk away now from Glasvegas who more or less blow it because the dialogue gets mumbled and the messages missed... there's freakery and feedback but on a Sunday night, with the light fading, words are needed...

Glasvegas - Geraldine


...Blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.... Black Eyed Peas (I'm with a girl): shift pace, a giant green, skinned head looks right at us... knees are busted open at the seams... 14 year old girls going torture porn apeshit behind me as every bassline kicks in... their arms and legs going in all directions (even the ones you can't point to)... we are pummelled...gasp..pummelled again...you'd expect Martyrs to go out with a bang but it's not that bang... there's not the eye-pop scene you might expect from such spawn...but it does end in words; Martyr - from the Latin martyr < Ancient Greek μάρτυρ (martyr), later form of μάρτυς (martys) "witness".

Fire: Saturday's Glastonberries

Erik Truffaz w/ Murcof - Leaf-like glitters, slightly spazzd beats. Dark and Hopeful, like Mexico according to Bolaño.

Dizzee Rascal - accidentally / deliberately famous. Music for dancing on one leg, waiting for the cramps to subside. A smile in sound.

La Roux - Music for beautifully bitter teenage girls and awkward guys with those 'dislocated thumbs' dancing hands...

The Klaxons - Dayglo socks for the blind. Magickal populism.

Then an evening spent lurching round the fire pits and skulls of Trash City;



and in the Drag Strip, watching transvestite versions of Alice Cooper spin through the air, blasting out Poison, watching disembodied voices lurching across a stage that looks like (and I guess is supposed to look like) the Titty Twister from Dusk Til Dawn...



then accidentally watching an onstage beatbox competition...then dancing to bizarre bluegrass covers of Radiohead, Abba and Beyonce in a fifties Diner in Shangri La... before finding ourself in a middle of a Sci-Fi film from the 80s, watching Evil Nine playing inside a steam punk surveillance tower (only this time nothing remotely Bentham; no bugger is watching anyone because they're all as wasted as a Sunshine Bus, stranded without medication) while Victorian streetlights exploded into flame...

TAZzing Media Death: Thursday's Glastonberries

...Glastonbury used to make you feel disconnected from the real (RT) world... the festival was a temporary autonomous zones, a dry flip into

Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it does not satisfy your need for indolence & spiritual beauty

an area sufficiently iridescent and grey to send people off on new tangents, happily waving goodbye to their old lives and jumping on a different bandwagon each hour - "this is the best band ever; no, this is the best band ever...and the best curry... and this guy is the coolest guy ever, with the coolest flag...".

Glastonbury was a semipermeable membrane; every ion, every molecule could travel one way - OUT. Tiny little bands accidentally caused waves. Others realigned themselves. Some bulked up and found themselves a place in the zeitgeist.

Obviously, Glastonbury is a mirror (which is why the 'Glasto' tag to was a hard thing to take; not because it had spoiled Pilton but because the world had been spoiled) but the outside influence stopped on the Wednesday night, as if the media artefacts from the past year hurled towards the Festival and then found themselves trapped, with the door shut and locked behind them, while the people inside mangled them into new shapes.

Kidnap someone & make them happy.

The real world could be let in only very selectively - I can remember a few World Cups, a European Championship, a massive Jeremy Paxman head scaring all the acid kids - and that was partly the point; better not know what's happening out there because this world of mud and songlines and brain-frying sun and fluttering flags and bangles is all there needs to be.

Things are different now, not necessarily worse but irretrievably changed.



It doesn't take long for the ripples about MJ's death to start; people's phones are flashing information at them at a pace too fast for them to take; the slowburn of Glastonbury is being assaulted by the information, a Burroughs word virus, spinning off through the fields - shops start playing Jackson records (everyone can see him in the Thriller video; a media zombie at the beginning of his zombification - an image that reminded me of Bill Hicks:

“A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fucking cross? It's like going up to Jackie Onassis wearing a rifle pendant.”

Gossip rifles past: "Samuel L Jackson is dead? Michael Barrymore is dead?" Information is streaming over the membrane, contaminating the performers - Dizzee Rascal, the Black Eyed Peas - shout outs everywhere. T-shirts and badges are being printed and by Friday the disrespectful ones (MICHAEL JACKSON WAS ALREADY DEAD, I KILLED MJ, WE KILLED MJ, MJ IS SNIFFING COKE OFF PRINCESS DI'S BARE ASS (WITH SHERGAR)) they are already being vandalised by bloodshot, shelled fans armed with Sharpie pens and recently whittled Drune daggers...

The Festival is glistening with change: ghost music is everywhere - the Thriller bass, the Billie Jean guitar, the generalised ums and ahs of Michael's electrified inarticulacy...

But still, other things push through:

Kap Bambino is the first thing I see and the crowd jump around like Skins extras - these guys are flashing like strobes, a 32 bit Crystal Castles...

Kap Bambino - Dead Lazers (Maton Remix)

Then we hear just a drifting of Billy Nasty's dubstep set before kicking off towards the odd Neverland that is Shangri La where I seem to have lost the hours between 1 and 4 AM...

Monsters Born From The Deluge

Off to Glastonbury soon, perhaps, maybe, might be...

One of those: 'meet a rain-blasted dead-eyed Gandalf in a field with a bunch of dodgy wristbands tieds to his necklace of ears' kind of things. Sort of.

Still, as the rain looks likely to hammer down, I'm drawn to memories of past Glastonbury trenchfootings and mustard gassings, and especially Reading 1989 where Swans played to a lightning-struck crowd of unbelievers - documented a little here. Truly a magical moment, one I always think about whenever i'm preparing to go to a Festival. To celebrate I played a little Swans on my i-pod at work and watched the rain adn started to work myself into a frenzy.

Life is unbelievably shite and heartbreaking at the moment for reasons some of you will know but I'm hoping that some rain-soaked transcendance might come my way.

Either that or I'll find myself with crows pecking at my eyes in a far-off field in a far-gone state.

Here's hoping.

And here's Swans, surely ripe for a revival sometime soon...

Swans - God Loves America

Swans - Stay Here

Swans - Weakling

Swans - In The Eyes Of Nature