At the weekend Eirene and I along with a collective of 10+ other people convened in Birmingham to join several thousand other people in The Q Club for the last ever Atomic Jam there. Back in the mid 90′s, Eirene and I went to one of the first Atomic Jam’s there – so last October when my friend said he was buying tickets – who was in?, I stuck my hand up. So very glad I did. An incredible night with some world class DJs in the main hall of a big old Methodist church. The night also featured two other rooms (+DJs), several bars, loads of corridors and cubby holes, stairways, landings, loads (and loads) of smashing people… and Techno.

‘Techno’ today as a genre remains very close in essence to its Detroit roots from the mid 80s, but arguably its roots go back way further that this. There’s something primeval about it; Techno is about utilising TECHNOlogy to make noises and structure them as patterns in rhythm. The first sound we heard was our mothers heart beat and it’s this that gives us our first taste of patterned rhythm. Pattered rhythm music has been part of humanity since the beginning – the worlds first musical instrument was almost definitely a percussion instrument (something that you hit, shake or rub  that makes a noise) and almost definitely, a rhythm was formed. Rhythm is something we innately understand and put into practice – for example – every time we walk.

We’ve been making music with similarities to Techno for a long time.  For instance –  here from India – the Mridangam Drum and from The Cook Islands the Log Drum. Both of these forms were formed totally without influence of each other thousands of years ago,  and along with Techno have a definable commonalities. They trigger a similar emotive response in a lot of cases and even though the pieces above are faster and with more complex time signature than most 4/4 Techno – they are predominantly a concentrate of patterns in rhythm. Some of the technology has moved on a great deal – the boxes that make the noises – from hollow logs to complex electronics as well as the things that peripheral with the noises – from sticks to Serato, but the feel and structure  has stuck with its roots; Patterned rhythmic music made by people who like to make noses for people to dance all night to – to me Techno has kept the bloodline of these origins of primitive party music, more than anything else.

The taxonomy of music gets more and more complex as time goes on – along with it, contention, as it fragments and re invents itself.  An easy split in definition is this:  music that was made on a computer and music that wasn’t. The skills of composing are often very similar – but the noise making objects differ. Old instruments – eg piano = pressing keys to make noises. New instruments – eg : computer = pressing keys to make noises.  Most computer music falls into what a broad brush describes as ‘dance music’. Techno, along with House music are the Godfathers of dance music. There’s no real definition on this – but to me, House music tends to be a bit lighter than Techno and House emulates and often incorporates more real instruments and vocals, and is more about the groove – Techno is more about the percussive rhythms and synthetic TECHNOlogically sourced noises.

In the early 90s I first fell in love with Techno at a venue called The Orbit in Morley, Leeds. Luckily for me, this legendary club – one of the finest Techno clubs in the world at the time – was just a short hop from home. Some of the DJs I’d seen there are still on the circuit – including Dave Clarke who I was lucky enough to see again at Atomic Jam at the weekend.

I like all sorts of music – but the weekend reminded me how much I ♥ Techno. Appreciating it properly is hard work takes a lot out of you – but it’s well worth it.

Limetree this year ticked pretty much all the boxes and then some.  Textbook festival fun. Having had a few pre festival jitters enhanced by last minute unknowns – within minutes of arriving, I’d discovered that some good friends had saved us an awesome plot for our van. I then discovered that I had a full compliment of fresh tickets and that a whole bunch of friends were there. After setting up camp, we headed into the arena.

The last time I went, there didn’t feel like there were quite enough people there – this years had a veritable bouillabaisse of people. Young and old, smart and bold, the ravers, the jazz heads, the beautiful people, the family guys. The Costume de rigueur, the visual uniter was mud. Everyone from at least the knee down was emblazoned with a tasteful portion of the afore mentioned. Another common accessory would be the smile. Happiness abound.

The site itself had grown – The choice of stage for a festival of its size was remarkable. In the eastern section of the site, a circus big top flanked by two large dome tents proved the main venues for dance / DJ based entertainment – a cracking sound system almost taunted DJ’s with ‘go on, lets have your best sub bass’. To be honest, I didn’t spend a huge amount of time in this area but from what I heard (we were camped just the other side), they had it XXL.

The main arena – a ‘proper’ main stage showcased some fantastic music and provided a focal point. I was blown away by Aradhana Arts on the Saturday afternoon. The sheer brilliance of Sanju Sahai – one of the best tabla players alive today – was incredible to watch at close quarters.

That was undoubtedly my musical highlight – so glad I caught that.  The arena field was satellited by stalls, stages, props and shops. One of these stages was The Bet Lynch stage – essentially a huge camp dressing up box of a stage showcasing some quirky, avant garde type affairs. We watched a duo in there called Hectic Egg – funny, beautiful, unique. They sang a song about wanting to be with mum for Christmas. Brought a lump to my throat.

The West field Next door was home to another big top and a fully fledged Jazz Club. A blacked out marquee that had a full bar at the back and around 30 tea lit, 4 chair tables. The blacked out walls were adorned with tastefully spot lit muso pics, the atmosphere – quite surreal. Kind of like when you go to a cinema during the day. At one point – around 5.30pm on Saturday afternoon, the heavens opened – quite a guilty pleasure being comfortable and warm in said venue.  Some friends of ours had been working on front row seats all afternoon and we were lucky enough to saunter in at the last minute and blag some in time to see The Scapegoat Kelly band who were sporting a fairly new line up.

I’ve always loved Scapegoat – since I saw their first ever gig at the legendary Harrogate Theatre Music Party (RIP) many moons ago. A great gig. Tight. A big Blues Bar contingency took ownership of most of the front of the venue, there was a dancing, and a singing, and a music.

Next door to the Jazz club was another big top. This had a bunch of great stuff in it, but the ones that did it for me in there would have to be Middleman. M’Good friend Allan and I caught the last bit of their set – big grin tastic. The energy was a bit like early Prodigy and the groove was akin to Rage Against The Machine. Bosh. Amazing. A band called Senser did a thing back in the 90′s where they fused crunchy guitar with hard and heavy dance noises – Middleman reminded me a bit of that.

Seeing Middleman was part of my proper party wander. After tea on the Saturday, I went deep into the no agenda festival fun zone. Eirene was fairly partied out as she’d had a look over at Leeds Festival on Friday night and was pooped. I wore full orange waterproofs – which always seems to do the trick of stopping the rain. After sticking my head into unknown stages and tents we settled down in one of the two silent disco’s. Light, upbeat funk / disco meets reggae was the DJ’s output whilst we hung out there on and off till 3am. The format of silent disco is superb – especially when it’s in a super snug big ol Papakata style double teepee. You can get into the music – in super hi fidelity stereo, or you can chat to the person next to you without the usual “Y’WHAT MATE?”

After that, I popped back into the Jazz Tent where the Governor, Shaun was pulling pints. I’d not met him before – lovely lovely chap. Had some great chattage with cast and crew who’d assembled for a late taste before heading back via some randoms party in one of the residential, set-up and ready-to-rock teepee’s (of which there were loads!). I got to see the sun rise before quietly trying to take off my big muddy boots and layer of orange plastic without waking anyone or falling over.

I wish it was still on. It would be ace if festivals could run all year and we could dip in for the odd couple of nights every now and then. I suppose on paper, ‘towns and cities’ offer some of the trappings – but it’s no where close.  If I could wave a magic wand to make any fest a perma-fest, I would do it with Limtree me thinks. The land and the crew need a well deserved rest though! Can’t wait till next year.

Photos by me | More over yonder»

Just before any big adventure, I get jittery. Especially when it’s a last minute thing. On Wednesday evening an email from www.notitlemagazine.com casually informed me that I’d won a pair of tickets for Limetree Festival, via a ‘in 30 words or less’ competition. I did my excited face.

Eirene, is convinced that the more I flap, procrastinate or object to the up-and-coming adventure, the better it is. It’s not so bad towards the back end of summer – when I’ve had several outings to prep. Charge batteries. Find that.  Do I take this one or that one? Shall I see about getting one of them? Do I need one of them? Etcetera.

The plus side to this hyper-tension is that it keeps me busy. If I stopped to think about the festival too much, the wind would change and I’d be stuck with my excited face on. An incredible collection of artists has been assembled – well done to the musical director types involved – just short of 170 confirmed acts from techno to afro, celtic to punk,  ska to funk, folk to rock and a bunch of those kinds of acts who flatly refuse to conform to a genre label.  Dare I say, something for everyone – although – one thing that all the acts do have in common is that most appear to be distinctly off the mainstream path. I like that.

I’ve not been to Limetree Farm for a couple of years. I’m done Limetree Festival before – we took FIRE up there for a night. Loved it. Loved the site.  I’d done all the Thornboroughs – a festival that used the farm prior to the Limetree festivals presence. Peter, the farmer is a top bloke. I had the pleasure of going for a walk with him around the outer grounds of his farm once – around the outside perimeters of the festival site. There’s a whole bunch of nature out there and he’s passionate about it.  There’s a badger reserve. There’s a magical overhanging tree where he’s got an ace story about seeing a wild white rabbit there once (quite a rare thing, attributed to a fair portion of folklore). The site itself has the standing stones and some incredible nooks and crannies. A lot of character – reminds me of a small Glastonbury festival site.

Anyway – I’m hoping that the pre festival up-in-the-air factors iron themselves out soon. I’m going to try blogging from the field again I think – as per this post from the 2008 festival.

I’ve been to a vast array of festivals from the biggest to the smallest and met pretty much all walks of festival life. My first festival was Reading ’94 and from then, I’ve probably done at least one festival per year – ranging from ones I’ve played hard at, ones I’ve worked hard at and ones I’ve chilled soft at. Glastonbury ’98 saw me drunk in a 40lb Save The Rhino suit backstage terrorising celebrities. DragonGate, Limetree, Thornboroughs (all), Glade & Deershed 1 saw me working in one way shape or form, ones like Phoenix and Thimbleberry  had me there in observer status. Tribal Gathering & Big Beach Boutique II had the full power, no shower, 48 hour version of me. Womad, Lindley Woodstock & Northern Didge were more of the chilled side of festivalising that I’ve grown to love. Many more festivals came and went with happy memories for lots of different reasons. How does Deershed match up?

A friend who was working the festival retold a conversation he had with a random;

Random “I’ve never been to a proper music festival before”
Friend “You still haven’t”

Whilst I think this a little harsh, he did have a point. I’ve never seen anyone sit at the front of a gig in an arm chair reading a fresh newspaper during day 3 of a festival at an electro set before. So many brand new, top of the range tents and hunter welly boots. There was non of the hedonism, non of the dark, dirty rug music, non of the clattered lost it brigade. Often when you immerge from a festival you feel a bit blown away by the cleanliness of normality and reality. If felt a bit like that side of life was camped out with us at Deershed. Music festivals are ‘typically’ a mecca for ravers, hippies, artists and hedonists wanting to ‘let go’ for a few days, and all the beautiful party people (either part time of full time) seemed to be the minority rather than the mainstream. Whilst some of this I can quite easily live without, I did miss the inspiration and excitement you get from one of these type of events. But did my kids? I’m not so sure they missed anything. Good time of the highest order. All three of them are quite festival savvy. They have been going to parties and festivals since birth – all experienced a festival in their first year. Whilst it’s often hard work, it’s been an eye opener for them and I’m sure has enriched their characters and life skills as a result. They, and all the other 10 or so kids that were part of our tribe did have a fantastic time.

I’d put Deershed into a different class. A new type of festival. A niche. A super safe fest. If we divide festivals into two main camps – kid friendly and non kid friendly, Deershed defiantly holds the crown as being the best of the best when it comes to a kid friendly example as I’ve seen. In total contrast to something like say Glade – a fantastic festival but far too messy for kids. I’m glad I didn’t take mine to Glade and felt sorry for the parents that did. Children seemed to be DSF’s real focus. Every decision seemed to be made putting the kids first. Their mantra is “ Kids are not second class citizens” and I can wholeheartedly report that they stuck to those watchwords to the letter. There was so much for kids to do, ranging from a huge ‘Sports Field’ filled with space hoppers, swing balls, cricket sets and more kids entertainment in the big top than you could shake a stick at. Top class children’s stage acts – I particularly enjoyed the Ivana Blastoff and her mission to Space show. Her beatbox friend wowed the crowed with his beatbox workshop. There were workshops inviting kids to try them, do this, make that. Eureka presented “2011: A Space Oddessy” and a bunch of folk did a marvellous graffiti demo one two cars parked in the main arena.

All in all – for a festival of it’s size – so much to see and do during the day for the bin lids. I particularly liked the mini-cinema. A tiny pink caravan converted into a bicycle powered cinema. I also enjoyed the fact that the beer was quality, locally sourced and reasonably priced.

The music

The headline act was I Am Kloot. Given all the above about it being a family festival, I’d say this was the only black mark. Quality band, don’t get me wrong – excellent production and songsmithery – just not quite right for a Saturday night closer. One of the songs was introduced as something to do with the feeling of mental instability you get mid week. Hmm.. Slow, waltz tempo numbers overlaid with gritty lyrical concepts. Something a bit more lively, happy and unifying would have done the trick in that spot better, in my humble opinion. It DID have the logistical bonus of making everyone shuffle out of the arena post gig with no bother at all though – perhaps that was it’s design. The equivalent of putting the big light on and getting the hoover out.

The GO Team! (who perhaps could have worked better as headline) rocked – although late afternoon peoples minds were on food rather than party time perhaps. I bumped into The Glendale Family (again – hung out with them last year, drank rum and played night frisby till the wee hours) did a great aftershow party in the bar on Saturday night as well as (so I’m told) a good Sunday set on the main stage.

Echasketch was my personal highlight. I had a very sedentary chilled out couple of hours immersing myself from a sofa into their sublime audio and visual output. I also loved Digitonal – a sublime stripped down minimalist approach to what it says on the tin. Only crit for these acts was that it could have been a bit louder though.

I saw a few other bits of acts along the way. All quite safe and accessible – just like the festival itself!

In summary, I ♥ Deershed. My family and the families that made up our tribe loved it. I’d defiantly recommend it to anyone with kids and I’d particularly recommend it to anyone who likes the idea of festivals but is put off by those messy ‘full-on’ type of affairs.

More photos» 

Deershed festival official site»

The fringe, as well as the International Festival itself is bristling with brilliance this year. Having been on the committee for the fringe I saw its budding ideas blossom and bloom before my very eyes. I had to back out of involvement (due to the Jaygo / hospital saga around the peak planning time) but I’m very pleased to see that it’s going great guns.  A huge cross range of things to do in and around town over the next couple of weeks.

Here’s a copy paste from an email thread I’m on the circulation of from the fringe main man, the one and only Graham Chalmers;

“The next 7 days are going to be a helluva week with the excellent Poems, Prose and Pints back in action at the Tap n Spile on Wednesday, Edwyn Collins of Orange Juice at 108 Fine Art gallery on Friday (the same night as amazing London rock band Teeth of the Sea play Katana in a 3D extravanganze thanks to Rod) and then a triple whammy next Saturday with a quintet from the Scottish Philharmonic at 108 Fine Art, Melody Maker music critic Chris Welch at Harrogate Theatre circle bar and the Across the Town: Hidden Harrogate psychogeographic ‘happening’ the same evening.
..Toyah at Harrogate Theatre on Friday and the highly sophisticated but quite sexy Claire Martin and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett at the same venue next Sunday.”

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Click here for more info – the Fringe webpage»

A screenshot of my Spotify – one of my favourite applications of all time.

When someone asks me “what is Spotify?” I answer “An application that gives you any song you want within one second.” And whilst that’s not entirely infallible - there are great swathes of music conspicuously absent, it does have over 13 millions tracks available. New released tend to hit spotify fairly quickly, back catalogues seems to grow and the choice of music is very varied. I use the premium service – this strips out the adverts, gives me unlimited play and gives me the top quality stream. I don’t really buy CD’s any more – I used to typically spend the £10 I spend a month on CD’s but now, I just have spotify and I can have as much new music per month as I like. The paid service also alows me to have spotify on my Android phone so I’ve got all my tunes, on the move. A portable WiFi HiFi (and 3g). My only gripe really is the flat ‘file’ structure – it would be so nice to be able to organise playlists into folders and attribute and use my own meta data.

They seem to be working on the social side of music quite well. You can share your music with other people as a link (eg’s below) and hook it up to your facebook – so that you can see what playlists your friends have.

A few years ago there was a service available in the UK called Pandora (sadly, no longer available, thanks to legal and money people taking their bat and ball home on that one). This used a concept called The Music Genome Project to learn about your music taste. On a simple level it worked out if you liked Band A and another person liked Band A who also liked Band B, chances are you would like Band B also. The more you played and liked or disliked, the better it got. There’s a similar concept going on with last.fm.  Using a system it calls ‘scrobbing’ , last.fm learns what you like and offers recommendations based on a mathematical matrix of what you like. You can scrob what you are listening to – in a lot of the popular music listening applications including spotify. Sharing and scrobbing, along with traditional music journalism is how I tend to source new music.

I often listen to about 4 hours of music a day. I yearn new music all the time. Much in the same way I never read a novel twice – as I feel the world has so much out there and I’ve only got so much time to cram it all in. I’ve been curating playlists – some throw together, some meticulacy gardened. Why not take take an ear look at the culmination of years of my musical listening pleasure..

Folk Hunter

Mainly acoustic, mostly made to sound so simple new to new ish folk.
Stuff like: Vandaveer, Elliot Smith, Bon Iver, Johnny Flynn, Blind Parrot, Nick Drake

BISH BASH BASS

New technology has allowed people to make some incredible new noises. Some of this has been tagged as ‘Dub Step’.
Stuff like:  Reso, JFB, Noisia, Caspa, Kid606, Chase & Status

TECHNOISES

Mainly techno , 4’4. One of my first musical genre loves.

Tranquillochill

Sleepy head / can’t sleep and need some chill choons type stuff.

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All of the above are a ‘work in progress’. Subscribe to them!

Since the start of last year I’ve been keeping a rough bookmark of things I’ve been listening to – the first track of each album. More of an ‘aide memoir’ than anything else.

2011 Q1 (some of the stuff I was listening to in the first Q of 2011)
2010 Q4 (some of the stuff I was listening too then)
2010 Q3 (some of the stuff I was listening to in the third quarter of 2010)
2010 Q2 (some of the stuff I was listening to in the second quarter of 2010)
2010 Q1 (some of the stuff I was listening to – usually the first track of an album as an aide memoir)

As a foot note, I’ve got about 30 Spotify invites should anyone I know want one. (there’s a Premium service, and a free service – but I think the invite token gives you slightly more that the standard free service). I would say – try out the pro version though. It’s worth its salt.

We’re chucking another log on it. Rehab, Boxing Day 9pm till 4am

We’re getting a few hundred FIRE branded 3D glasses made up, we’ve booked some top class DJ’s, they have been making and collecting some super-doop musics, we’ve been creating some head mashing 3D video and planning what lights, props, toys, tricks, boxes and bits to bring.

This time I’m hoping to capture it all on time-lapse – 12 hours or so from get in at 4pm ish to last orders at 4am. Quite excited about this one. I’m hoping to do two DJ sets – one early doors, chilled vibes, South American textured, heavy bass line stuff, then perhaps another set upstairs on the brand new booth later on – some right old funk and beats. Still not quite sorted the full line up upstairs, but downstairs looks like a doozie! Check out the facebook page for more intel. Hope to see you there!

3D60 sound… will it catch on?

First there was mono. A single point source of sound. Then there was stereo. You’d think this was the end game as far as sound production goes, as we’ve only got two ears, but thanks to the shape of our ears and the fact they are positioned at slightly different heights on our head we can perceive where a sound is coming from. Sound engineering made inroads into quadrophonic sound in the 70s, but such technology was damned by commercial and practical overheads. More recently, surround sound became available. First in cinemas, then in the ‘home theatre’ environment with the immensely popular 5.1 surround sound system. 5 speakers positioned around the listener to give him or her a sound scape that wasn’t just ‘from over there’, or even ‘left and right’ but from ‘in front and behind’ as well as left and right. Dolby patented a 7 speaker system and I’ve heard of 8 and 9 point systems. Is there anything out there though that can prick the ears up of the iHeadphone generation? 3D60 claims to be able to emulate all of the above, as well as up and down.

I’m not sure which I heard about first – a new album by The Orb featuring Dave Gilmore, or the new sound production technique called  3D60. I was keen to give both a go.  The TradeMarkees describe it as “a new sound production process created specially to deliver an immersive, widescreen listening experience to headphones.” The deluxe CD pack of the two track album ‘Metallic Spheres” contains one disk recorded in conventional stereo, the other in 3D60. Being a fan of both The Orb and Pink Floyd,  I couldn’t go too far wrong at £13.99 for the deluxe pack.

Putting the music to one side for a moment, the experience itself is an ocular illusion. I’ve got a pretty decent set of headphones and as recommended, I plugged in and pressed play. The owners of said technology are not very forthcoming on their website with regards to how it’s actually done, but my guess would be along the lines of using eq and delay to mimic what happens when sound hits the human ear.  My friend osymyso described it as “Ultra wide stereo” of which, I’d concur.

As for musical content of the album – the potential was utterly unique – two of the greatest musical ground breakers of their time, collaborating. These heavyweight A-list talents at first glance offered an utterly contrasting style, but perhaps their commonality is where they really made sparks. They’re both trippy sound guru extraordinaires. What started out as a quick project to make one track turned into an epic, if not seminal album.  The raw natural guitar of Gilmore brought a organic edge to the Patterson touch, who masterfully utilised his vast collection of keyboards, turntables, samplers, rack, banks and other such sound manipulators. Some would describe this as ‘two blokes, having a bit of a jam’, which in a sense is true, but if you could put any two blokes  in a room together to make some music, you would be hard pushed to find a more interesting pairing. The first movement (there are only two tracks, split into ‘movements’) seemed like a bit of a showcase of the technology. Steel guitars swooped and wooshed around the room before a classic down tempo orb beat blends into the mix slowly filling up and thinning out with samples and noises which were layered, stretched, delayed and tweaked – this time, in 3D. The who album is a great balance of vintage Gilmore goodness and the genius textural goodness that only The Orb can deliver. There’s enough going on in there to hear new bits, every time you listen to it – I’ve played it around 4 times now and it seems to be getting more interesting. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ll have two sugars in mine please.

Amps. The once ubiquitous stallwart of any electrical store now seem to be on the ‘close to extinction’ list. Nowhere in Harrogate could you walk in off the street to buy a straight home entertainment audio amp.   A week or so ago, I had the notion to set up a ‘proper’ music system that we’d had gathering dust in the cellar for ages that I’d forgotten all about. An amp and a CD deck. I’d recently acquired a set of really good quality studio monitor speakers and so what at the time I thought would be a simple ‘plug and play’ type excersize turned into an audiophile quest. Ironically, the rarity of a music free Bank Holiday weekend for me, that involved no gigs, parties, festivals or other (as is not usually the case) had a large amount of it dedicated to the introduction of a new audio set up in DragonDrop.

The first problem was that said amp from the cellar (a Sony F-242) had popped. No power. I’d committed myself by buying a few meters of high ish end new speaker cable and shuffled things into place. As the amp was written off I decided to look on eBay for a suitable, reasonably priced amp – so that I could ‘simply’ plug speakers in, a cd deck in and off we go. Over the prior weekend and week I’d researched, read up on, hunted down and eventually sourced a very nice looking marantz amp. When this arrived on Friday I was gutted to find that it also, didn’t work.

A friend and I decided to go and have a look around the typical generic electrical shops – Curry / Commet / PC World / Maplin etc. A mission I’d dipped my toe into the previous weekend, to see if I could pick up a new amp. At one point not too long ago, these type of shops showed a dazzling array of components from the ‘ separates’ market. Now, disappointingly, the beating heart of any hi fi system – the amp – cannot be bought separately from the high street.

For music, docking stations for your iPod seem to be the de rigeur with blister pack hi-fi units that seem to resemble something from a space station crossed with a fruit machine, a close second. The combination of a tv’s surround sound amp being the closest cousin to the endangered amp. The days of separate boxes doing separate, specialist jobs seem to be over. If one bit goes, the whole system is kaput. If one bit is a cheap-o short cut, the whole system suffers. Admittedly, modern audio technology has come a long way and some of the new mainstream stuff does sound pretty good – but it’s key selling feature seems to be that it is friendly, stylish and “well designed”. The ‘separates’ seem to have been pushed right out of the market.

As it happens, I put a note on facebook asking if anyone had an amp and an old friend came up trumps with a Mirantz pm-43, which I rigged up with a decent CD Deck and a superb set of Tanoy speakers – end result –  it sounds amazing. I’ve also rigged a second set of Wharfedale Diamonds on the second set of speaker outputs through in the next room (kitchen) and have also got a record player and aux (from pc / spotify) and a DAB radio feeding it.

I am now a happy badger as far as my aural pleasures go, but am just bit disheartened to see this homogenisation of home audio equipment. I don’t know if its the case that the application and inconvenience of a ‘big’ audio system isn’t practical in the modern lifestyle, or that its possible to get incredible sound via earphones combined with omnibox convenience or that pure music as a home entertainment format isn’t standing its ground any more, but I was surprised to see such a demise of mainstream audio geekism.

FIRE 50 photo set on flickr

What an innings. x 50 FIRE parties. Officially half centurions. I am the only person who has attended every minute of all of them (Allan nearly has, but he had to chip off early from one a few years ago as his better half went into labor – pathetic excuse if you ask me.)

What a party the 50th was. We were the official after party to the Harrogate Fringe festival – which itself was brilliant fun from what we saw. The set up for this FIRE, even though we were in a smaller space was way bigger than it normally was. We decided to go on the slightly smaller top floor and have it as more of a VIP party – wristbands and guestlist. It worked. Such a nice atmosphere in there. Those that were there had made an effort to get in there and as a result, it was spot on.

Only downside was that Dharma was away – playing a festival in France (again, pathetic excuse) – but we got old fave Craig Cameron in to fill the void and fill it he did. Loved his set. Len and Jimmy on the sax and trumpet were on top form as well and I had a right good bash on the congas for quite a while. All the other DJ’s were also superb – including new boy Nick Wakefield who did the tricky 4 – 6am slot.

Bottom Of The Bottle downstairs was so complimentary to our gig – and vice verca – I’m surprised we haven’t done it before! We declared the v’s bit and official draw. A second test is on the cards.

Looking forward to the next one – a new invigoration of enthusiasm has come about us – probably something to do with the milestone, something to do with the new format we tried out, something to do with it being such a top fun good times great songs ninety seven point two.

See the set of photos from the night here>>

Here was the mid punk gig raffle last Friday. Yes, you read that right. A raffle at a punk gig. Henry (featured in the hat) had the idea to have; a birthday party, 5 bands, cake, 4 DJ’s all to feature on the same night.

What a success! £524.60 for Médecins Sans Frontières was raised on the night. This is going towards Henry’s total, for when he does his next trick – runs 110 miles across The Cleveland Moors in September.

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Harrogate Fringe Festival ‘Grand Finale’. We’ve been asked to chuck another log on it for the official after party to the Harrogate Fringe Festival. There’s the ‘Crawl’ day on the 31st featuring shed loads of bands across umpteen venues in Harrogate and we’ll be wrapping up the show with double dose of  party at Rehab, downtown Harrogate.

“It’s gonna be a belter”. We’re taking on the mighty Bottom of the Bottle =- we’ll do one floor, they’ll do the other (TBD which way round..) Wrist band holders from any of the day event means FREE ENTRANCE / priority clearance (subject to capacity).

I was lucky enough to do a lot of my favourite activities over the past 5 days or so.
Thursday – went to watch the cricket at Headingley with a lovely bunch of people. ‘My’ team (Yorkshire) won one of it’s key matches of the season – they beat arch rivals Lancashire by 17 runs in a confident win. A train ride back to Harrogate, followed by a few drinks in town ensured a healthy hang over the next morning. Luckily, I’d arranged the day off so one of the first ports of call was coffee in town followed by a few missions to stock up for the festival we were headed to for the weekend.

As I’d mentioned in last years post, Lindley Woodstock is technically a private party but had the feel of a small festival – stages, fires, PA’s, people, curry van, bouncy castle etc. Very lovely it was as well. I ran the top stage – the format of top stage act > bottom stage act > top stage act (etc) meant that the music could go on seamlessly (ish) all day and night. The highlight musically for me on that stage was a psychadellic act who’s name I missed – all Gong / Hawkwind ish. really interesting. The highlight for the bottom stage for me would have to be Mick Artistic, who I’ve seen before somewhere but who was on top form at Lindley.

After a lovely Sunday in the sun we headed home to get the kids settled for school night. The next day – Monday – I went and had quite a major haircut followed by lunch at home, followed by the delights of seeing Sophie at her Baby Ballet class. Very cute. Very pink. We let Sophie have a potter about in the KidzPlay at Hammerian House – they had a TV on where I got to see the second half of Portugal thrashing North Korea. The big think of the day was Eirene and I’s 10th wedding anniversary. ‘Tin’ apparently. 10 years ago that day we had our wedding reception / party (and oh boy oh boy, what a party it was!) up at the Harrogate Arms. This was back when the club downstairs was still serviceable, so we took over that with DJ’s, set an acid jazz / funk type band upstairs and I think we had more stuff outside… all very much fun) so with those thoughts in mind we headed back up there with the kids after school for a look. Downstairs is no more, the pub has been knocked about a bit (still nice) and outside has donkeys and birds of pray! what a difference 10 years can make!

Last week we attended the launch of the Harrogate Fringe Festival. After a general intro from the Harrogate Internation Festival (proper) Director, Graham Chalmers of Gig Scene was introduced. He gushed the passion, like only he can,  about how good this thing could really be. There’s so much creativity in this town and so much creative appreciation of off mainstream stuff that – the feeling seems to be – it really could be the start of something quite special.

There’ll be the widest of sub spectrum acts ‘flown in’ , playing at a host of some old – some new Harrogate venues. A secret venue for instance and “The Harrogate Club” which I’d never heard of but someone told me it’s a lovely Victorian chamber down Victoria Avenue.

There’s a day of more home grown acts – mainly Harrogate and Leeds based bands (including an after party by us lot (FIRE) ‘v’ Bottom of the Bottle. whilst the North Yorkshire Hardcode Punk lot make some noise in Crabtrees ) This is billed as “Festival Fringe Crawl Indie Rock Day” but I much prefer the title “Harrogate Fringe Fringe”.

As it’s the first year, its a bit ‘suck it and see’ but the organisers don’t seem to have used that as an excuse in any way for falling short.   The Fringe highlight for me would probably be Robin Williamson (Incredible String Band) and local boy Karl Culley – both geniuses in their own right. A brilliant pairing who ever came up with that idea. Field Music (they don’t sound like they’re from Sunderland but they are) who this time last week I’d never heard of, who since have featured heavily on my spotify playlist – quite refreshing stuff. The Rothko v Stockhausen guy Mark Stubbs will be doing some kind of lecture by the look of things – could be interesting. As a  package, it’s not  (I’m glad to report) billable as  ’something for everyone’ as that often means ‘something quite mainstream’  - which this seems proudly not, I’m glad to report.

The thing about a good fringe festivals is, it’s not necessarily the acts you ear mark to see before hand that leave the lasting memories but the magical unexpected moments you stumble across that make them special. This fringe looks like it’s got stacks of ammo in the unexpected department.

Harrogate Fringe line up (or ‘highlights’ )

An evening with Bob Harris, Jackson-Webber & Special guest
July 14 Harrogate Theatre

Robin Williamson (ex Incredible String Band) plus Karl Culley
July 15 St Peter’s Church

Poems, Prose & Pints, Creative Writing Workshop & Guest Writer
July 17 & 21 - The Harrogate Club

Haiku Workshop
(Run by Eirene! contact us for details)  - July 17th –  Hornbeam Park

Codebreakers The Story of Enigma
July 17 Harrogate Theatre

Showstopper! The improvised Musical
July 17 Harrogate Theatre

RedHouse presents Music To My Eyes: A Rock n Roll exhibition
July 23 – 25 108 Fine Art Gallery, Crown Place

Kamaca’s Tribute to Gershwin
July 23 Harrogate Theatre

Alex Wilson Salsa Con Soul
July 23 Royal Hall

Fear of Music with David Stubbs of The Wire/Uncut magazines.
July 24 The Harrogate Club

John Otway: Making Success Out of Failure & Chris Simpson of Magna Carta reads Fields of Eden
July 25 The Harrogate Club

Alrnias: Anthropology/art music with Phil Legard.
July 25 Secret Harrogate Location

Esoteric Electronica with Primate Engineer.
July 28 The Harrogate Club

An Evening with Field Music
July 29 Harrogate Theatre

Ralph McTell
July 31 Harrogate Theatre

Festival Fringe Crawl Indie Rock Day
July 31 Monteys / Blues Bar / Rehab / Crabtrees / St Peter‘s Church

Bookings

As soon as I know about booking info, I’ll post it up here – at the moment, unless someone cares to correct me in the comments, there’s no news. Stay tuned!

Just popped home to put the boys to bed. Superb afternoon.. Can’t wait to get back there (Music Party at the Theater) This pic was Nuns Bleeding Guns on the main stage – Felix’s favorites (I love em as well ! ) Sort of The Doors meets Hawkwind.