This is what happens when a bunch of lovely people get together in a field to celebrate the 50th birthday of someone wonderful
Tracklisting
Lextron - Night Rider (VLSI) Underworld - Two Months Off (Junior Boys Own) Floating Points - Grammar (Ninja Tune) The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar (Universal) Wata Igarashi - Voyage (WIP) Alex Banks - A Way Out (Mesh) Martyn - We are you in the future (Brainfeeder) Al Wootton - Mercia (Trule) Ouxh - Agavaceae (Salt Mines) Shun - Kishibi (CPU) Shun - Digital Slave (CPU) Floating Points - Vocoder (Ninja Tune) KH - Looking at your Pager (Text Records) Holden - Renata (Daphni Remix) (Border Community) JETS - Lock Lock Key Key (Leisure System)
Last night Echaskech premiered a new audio visual set at the https://www.awamutogether.co.uk/2020 House Party - a three day stream of audio and visual entertainment to help raise money for the Awamu Charity which helps orphaned and vulnerable children in the slums of Kampala to get the education and skills that are vital to their future.
That set is now available for you to watch in your own time and leisure! The audio is from Echaskech’s performance at the Sundeck in Margate in 2019, i added the visual layer built out of the elements I’ve been constructing for the tracks over the years (featuring the visual work of Mantissa and Switzon S Wigfall III).
You can nip over to youtube and watch it again and again and again… (preferably from different IPs and using different yt accounts… Oh! No reason)
It’s lovely to be invited back in to Second Life to DJ. Back in 2008 or so clubs in Second Life really nailed down how to have a socially rewarding intimate clubbing experience with a globally distant audience - you can dress up as glam or grungy as you like, go to outlandishly designed club spaces and dance the night away, chatting both publicly and privately and it never got in the way of the music. I’m delighted to sat that the scene is still there vibrant and weird and wonderful as ever.
The set played was mostly constructed to be a 90 minute studio mix but as this gig came along just as I was ready to release it so I played it out live and added another 30 minutes to the end which really fleshed it out nicely. I did fluff a mix so I’ve actually cheated and cut in the recorded bit so, if it sound’s a bit weird around the Rob Clouth/Daniel Avery tracks - it’s that. You’ll have to trust me that it’s better this way. ;) Anyway here’s the
Tracklisting
(outro) DJ Oil - Addis (R & S) Synkro & Arovane - Aspen (Apollo) Sieren - Move On (Apollo) Ovatow - x-dub I (syncopm data) Duplex - Isolator (Ost Ton Gut) Jinje: Feet Up - Feet Down (self release) Mitch Von Arc - Skim (Planet Mooncycle) Stefan Goodchild - Something is Missing or Invalid (self release) Duplex - Molecular (ovatow reclock) (Frustrated Drunk) Mikron - Ghost Node (CPU Records) Gnork - Exoteric Massage (eXXXtended pleasure mix)(Magic Wire) Rob Clouth - Deep Field (Leisure System) Daniel Avery - Glitter (Phantasy) Donato Dozzy - 12H.5 (remix) (Spazio Disponibile) Crossing Avenue - Ortica (Spazio Disponibile) Buran - Modulus (Cut Recs) Reptant - Subcommunication (Salt Mines) GProd - Supernova (Specimen) Lone - Young Star Cluster (R & S) Valentina Mora - Hualien (Spazio Disponibile) Nathan Fake - Underberg (Cambia Instruments) Igor Dyachenkco - Disintergration (Self Release) See Mask - Flyby VBR (Ilian Tape) Lone - How can you tell? (R & S) No Moon - Mallett Fury (Craigie Knowes) Reptant - reptilian Magnetism (Salt Mines) Echaskech - The Lost Lies (VLSI unreleased)
A bit of a new venture here - I’ve never done any multicam stuff and always wanted to! Echaskech got booked to play at an outdoor gig at sundown so there wasn’t much of a visual requirement for me to fulfil so I came down and rigged some cameras and filmed the whole thing. Echaskech played an absolute blinder and this piece of improvisation was captured. Massive thanks to Solarwaves for the go pro foootage, Joshu Posthuman for the loan of the zoom cam and walkpro3D for the walking and dancing projections.
“Here it is the groove slightly transformed Just a bit of a break from the norm Just a little somethin' to break the monotony Of all that hardcore dance that has gotten to be A little bit out of control it's cool to dance But what about the groove that soothes that moves romance Give me a soft subtle mix...”
Here’s the “studio” cut of a mix I performed at Awamu’s third “Together” festival. It’s pretty much what I played but I added a longer introduction to it (which might help it last longer on SoundCloud) - the opening lines are from Grant Green’s amazing “Slick! Live at Oil Can Harry’s” lp - and there is a “bonus” track at the end that I really wanted to play but I knew time wouldn’t allow it, bcut for you, dear listener, you get to experience the genius of Raj Pannu’s “FSOJ”. The third track is a mashup of Skee Mask’s “Session Amp” and MJ Cole’s UK garage classic “Sincere” with extra beats and production courtesy of the ever patient Andy G from Echaskech.
Hope you like it! Here’s the...
Tracklisting
Louis Cole (feat. Genevieve Artadi) - When You're Ugly Don Froth - A Broad Range Widescreen Mix MJ Cole vs Skee Mask - Sincere Amp (Mach And G’s mix) LCD Soundsystem - Oh Baby Echaskech - Twich Deft - One Eye Open Jim-e stack - Moments Noticed Gnork - U Joe - mph Dolly Parton - Jolene (Todd Terje remix) Maribou State - Turnmills Club Mix LXURY (Feat. The Deptford Goth)- Square 1 (Vox DUB) Nasaya (feat. cehryl)- Orange Telefon Tel Aviv - My Week Beats Your Year Adam Port - Here is Why - Tonight (Adam Port Autobahn Edit) Loidis - A Parade Raj Pannu - FSOJ
A studio mix based on the set I played at Digital City at The Nines, Peckham on 3rd Feb 2017 to open up the main room, warming up for Wennink. Downloads are available on the Soundcloud link.
Oh and welcome to the new website - let me know if you find any issues
Tracklisting
1. 00:00 Weval - You Made it (II) 2. 06:02 Echaskech - Twich 3. 12:30 Sohn - Falling 4. 16:15 The Slow Revolt - Never Get Close 5. 19:59 Boards of Canada - Olson (Midland rmx) 6. 24:59 Midland - Tape Burn 7. 28:12 George Fitzgerald - Full Circle 8. 31:53 Lxury Goth - square one (vocal dub) 9. 37:42 Weval - I Don’t Need it 10. 41: 19 Antenna Happy, Vessels - Spark (vessels mix) 11. 47:27 The Crisis Project - Dear 12. 51:18 Rival Consoles - Night Melody 13. 55:18 Bonobo - Outlier 14. 60:07 Apparat - Arcadia 15. 64:01 Echaskech - Emperors New Clones 16. 68:56 Moderat - Fondle 17. 73:17 Jon Hopkins - Collider
Just to let you know that, under the guise of Echaskech Presents... I'll be manning the DJ controls at Bar Concrete, Hayward Gallery, South Bank Center from 8pm till late. Expect a mixture of cutting edge downtempo, electronica, deep house, tech house, techno, electro, juke, footwork, garage and dubstep... so just the usual bag of tricks. :)
Following on from the Send in the Drones mix, here's the video that inspired the last track in that mix
The BT Tower has always been a symbol of the future, of technology and progress; it's a unique and outstanding feature on the London Skyline and even as a kid I always wanted to visit the top, especially the revolving restaurant. However, due to threats of terrorism in the 80's, it got shut down and I thought that opportunity was closed to me, until (thanks to my employer, the NSPCC) Late last year I was given the chance to work on a Charity event at the BT Tower, an opportunity I jumped at.
The film is of two revolutions , one during the day and one at night. Each revolution takes about 20 minutes and so the footage has been sped up about 10 times. The initial edit was done without music and then passed to Echaskech who the constructed the soundtrack to match my edits, I then did some fine tuning and the result is what you see. The title of the piece, "626" is the height of the BT Tower in feet.
p.s. there will be a you tube version, but later and when I can be arsed, cos You tube really does look pony compared to vimeo
Ok time for a welcome change of pace and a return to the chill out room. This mix I've been planning for over a year now, but hadn't found the time to sit down and really work on the idea until just recently. Initially I wanted to make a mix of purely droney, ambient music but I kept coming across tunes that fitted too well with the flow of the mix which weren't droney at all, but the title, had to stay, so for those Ambient Drone purists, I hope you won't mind the occasional forays into recognisable melody and occasional beat. :). My original idea was to showcase ambient drones and, apart from the notable exceptions, I think that idea is still at the heart of the mix. If you disagree, well... tough. It's very important for me to thank a few people who were instrumental in making this mix happen: Ali at Inspiral Cafe who originally muttered that he didn't like ambient drones which made me want to prove him wrong; Ryan at A Strangely Isolated Place blog for the Ex Confusion track that will be coming out in ASIP's new "Places" series, along with the Echaskech "626" track which was specifically written for my BT Tower video as well as general awesomeness for all his support of awesome electronic leftfield music, without which I wouldn't have found so much of the music that I love today; to Future Sequence for their wonderfully free "SEQUENCE" compilations which you can get from their website, to Andy from Digitonal for the recommendation of the fantastic Leaves "Leaving Eleven" compilation, another great ambient freebie; to Ed McFarlane for his inspirational soundcloud mix "Bells of Adderbury Church (bellsofadderburychurch by edmacfarlane) (where I shamelessly nicked the first track from); To Echaskech for their continued patience and support, as well as the awesome 626 track; To Tom Green (Another Fine Day), for him generosity and musical genius, and finally to Jean "Moebius" Giraud (http://www.moebius.fr/), who's artwork I've used for this, who sadly died March 10, 2012. Moebius was, without a doubt, the finest and most moving comic book artist I've ever come across, and though his style and influence can been seen in most of the sci-fi blockbusters over the last 30 years or more, it's his stories that touch me the most; The Airtight Garage, Incal, Arzach just to name a few all moved in a different plane from other writers & artists, blending sci fi with a journey into surrealism, humour and spirituality. Gir, you will be missed and remembered forever and this mix is dedicated to your memory. STOE ORKEO!
Tracklisting (links to the free downloadable ones)
00:00 Mark McGuire - Alma (reprise)
01:00 Echaskech - Tundra (from Future Sequence - SEQUENCE2 )
05:27 Jonsi & Alex - Boy 1906
08:22 Future Sound of London - Max
11:06 Mara Carlyle - Pianni (From Accidental Records)
13:07 Maps & Diagrams - Domane (from Future Sequence - SEQUENCE2 )
15:41 Mountains - Blue Lanterns On East Oxford
19:17 Panda Bear - Drone
22:39 Widesky - _____ is Also Movement (from Future Sequence - SEQUENCE2 )
26:20 Ex Confusion - Before We Begin (Forthcoming release on Asip Places)
30:10 Digitonal - Polaris (From Leaves - Leaving 11)
32:54 Verülf - Iroko (From Verulf -Territorial)
35:00 Hammock - Longest Year
37:20 Vangelis - Love Theme
41:00 Umber - I Wasn't Aiming For The Ocean (Asip exclusive)
46:50 The Bird and the Bee - Spark
50:30 Parks - Song for Autumn
59:15 Biosphere - Monju-2
1:02:55 Jon Hopkins - Journey
1:05:11 Another Fine Day - Spring Song
1:07:37 Echaskech - 626 (Forthcoming release from Asip Places)
Send In The Drones by machv
It's that time of the month again. Join me for another 5 hour DJ set at the wonderful Concrete Bar, next to the Hayward Gallery, on the SBC.
Saturday 12th March, 8pm - 1am, Free Entry.
I'll be Vjing for Echaskech as part of the quite wonderous night that Digital City have line up to help us all celebrate their 7th birthday. The Venue (as always ) is secret but I'm told that it's somewhere in the Aldgate/Brick Lane/Whitechapel area. Tickets are in limited supply (especially at these prices) so don't daudle or dally. Get on it and quickly!
Hello you lovely people and welcome to the newly designed DJ Mach V website. Lots of more helpful navigation and catagorisation has been added (above) as well as lots of helpful, handy social media plug ins (over to the right) so you can easily find my facebook page and tweets; there's even a tag cloud down below, which I've been wanting for a while. The work has all been done by my lovely wife, Miko Coffey, who's awesome talents have sourced and customised a brilliant new template for my posts as well as the frankly awesome new customised logo and backdrop, as well as a new backdrop to my twitter page. We've also moved the site onto new servers, which we have more admin control over. I do hope you like it; please take some time in looking aorund, and please be vocal with your feedback in the comments below (or tweet me at @djmachv , if you prefer). We've got a few more tweaks and shuffles to do but if you have any suggestions or find anything wrong, do let me know. I'm looking to expand the blog into other areas (occasional reviews, random photos, and anything else that comes to mind) and not just a endless continuum of "here's another mix for you" blog posts, but the new layout and navigation should mean that you can find the content that you want much easier and faster than before.
In other news, for now I'm going to stop doing the weekly Back To Mine shows - they've been fun and very cathartic to do, but it's also a lot of work to keep them up on a regular basis. I'm not going to say that it's the death of the format as I'm not getting to play out all the amazing music I find, and I can see me wanting to share that with you all, but for now I need let it rest. The Club, in Second Life, will, of course, remain. If you do want a weekly hit of awesome mixes I suggest you track the awesome Marky de Sade's 52 mixes project. I know I am.
Not that this means I'm going to abandon your ears completely; I still want to keep up The Bearding Hours, combined with occasional appearances at Monday Hates You, and, now I've migrated over to Traktor Pro 2 and an S2 control surface, it means I can record more live sets for you (most, if not all, the sets I've uploaded have previously recorded by Nicecast when broadcasting from home). Oh and if you ever thought of buying Traktor, it's great. Bye Bye DVS, Bye Bye Torq. It's been great, but, when you go back and read my blog posts over the last couple of years you get a sense of how unreliable Torq actually was and how much I was in denial about it. Traktor's stability, UI and function are worlds apart. But then so's the price. And if you want to argue whether, in using a control surface I'm actually a "DJ" anymore, go ahead, fill ya boots; I'm quite happy with using it. Anyway... I digress. Here are a couple of mixes you might have missed:
The first was recorded at London's Elektrowerks, as an opening set for the awesome new electronica club night "Fields" (@ldnflds) (picture above). As a warm up set I'm really happy with it. I hope it helps keep you warm, too. ;)
Tracklisting is as follows:
Death In Vegas - Your Loft My Acid
The Walls - Into Our Midst
Specta Ciera - Glowing Colours
Alucidnation - Technically Warm
The Field - It's Up There
Tycho - Coastal Break (Hatchback's Cosmic Caviar Dub)
James Yuill - Packt Like Sardines In a Crushd Tin Box
LCD Soundsystem - 45:33 Theo Parrish Space Cadet Remix
Zed Bias - Koolade ft Toddla T, MdCL
Prince - Hot Thing Extended Mix
Claude Von Stroke - Big & Round
Maya Jane Coles - Focus Now
Banco de Gaia _ Gamelah (Dub 3)
Martin Buttrich - You Must Be This High
Ramadanman/Appleblim - Void 23 (Carl Craig remix)
Scuba - Adrenalin
Julio Bashmore - Battle of Middle You
Buraka Som Sistema - Restless (Julio Bashmore remix)
XXXY - Kerpow
Dark Sky - Neon
Todd Edwards - I hear him (Listen Remix)
Rodney P - Trouble (MJ Cole Re-Rub)
Sepalcure - Every Day of My Life (Jimmy Edgar Remix)
The second is from Bar Concrete (@barconcrete ) as part of the continuing residency of Echaskech Presents. It's quite housey (and yes I still have trouble writing that down, let alone saying it out loud), but never mind that here's the...
Tracklisting
Posthuman - Europa Sky (echaskech remix)
Crazy Penis - You started something
Herbert - Audience
Claude Von Stroke - Vocal Chords
Lee Jones - Duvel
Maya Jane Coles - Little One
James What - It Feels Wrong (Lee Curtis remix)
Martyn - Ghost People
George Fitzgerald - Don't You (SCB remix)
SCB - Klinik
Sepalcure - The One
Lando Kal - Further
Lee Jones - Moment
Max Cooper - Echoes Reality (Si Begg remix)
Hot Chip - I Feel Better (Max Cooper remix)
Jon Hopkins - Light Through The Veins (Ewan Pearson remix)
Jacques Green - Tell Me (Kingdom edit)
Radiohead - Feral (Lone remix)
Ok there's lots to tell you about this week. First off please accept my apologies for no update last weekend - I was with Echaskech at Deershed 2011 as part of Just Music's day up there, (along with lable mates Digitonal and Laki Mera) but more on that later. Last Friday morning Echaskech, along with the vocal talents of Napoleon Complex, released their new track, "Change the Station" as a free download from Soundcloud. My video for it is on the Echaskech youtube page
As well as on my Vimeo page,
both available in glorious 720p. Initially I wanted to visually represent Napoleon's desire to make his point about broadcast news. The first idea was to have Napoleon being the one holding the bill board/placard, gagged. The idea being that the act of protesting would be his message, and even as an individual it could still be done, but sadly Napoleon lives in Naples, Italy (hence the name) so we changed it to just be Dom, representing Echaskech, or the music supporting what Napoleon has to say. Dom holding up the placard with Napoleon on it is a metaphor of Echaskech's music supporting Napoleon's lyrics. Shooting took place over the easter weekend on my trusty Panasonic HDC HS300 (we got Napoleon to film himself and send us the footage) and the editing was done in Final Cut Pro, then round tripped into After Effects to comp Napoleon on to the placard by Dom and then back to mine for a final treatment in FCP. We're all very happy and proud of it.
Deershed must be one of the most child friendly festivals I've even been to. We reckoned that the children out numbered the adults 2 to 1, the average age of the audience must've been about 12 years old. On Saturday night, at 11pm, just as we were ready to go out on the tented town and party, all the entertainment stopped and by 11:20pm the arena was a ghost town... quite an eerie experience for a old festival vet like my self. However as our soundcheck was at 8.30am(!) it was probably for the best.
Though we were playing at 1pm on a blisteringly bright Sunday afternoon, I was relieved to see that Deershed had sourced a properly dark tent for us to perform in, which meant that i hadn't traipsed up with my vj rig in tow for another wasted journey, only to watch the boys play from the sidelines. Much thanks to the lovely people at Deershed and at Just Music for making it a very special day for us all. And then, if that wasn't enough, Just Music announce that one of the Echaskech tracks "The Calm" is to be included on Linn Records "Just Music exclusive" compilations. Yes, that's right: the same Linn records that orginally signed The Blue Nile. How awesome is that?
Anyway, now on to the podcasts, which there are two of, this week. first off is the one I couldn't upload last weekend due to Deershed - BTM20110720 - and secondarily the one from this week, which is BTM20110727. There you go, 3 hours of music for you. :) And here are the
Umber - A Song for Two Seasons
Biosphere - Shika-1
Future 3 - A Sound
65daysofstatic - Debutante
I'm not a Gun - Never Meant to Be
Radiohead - No Surprises
Echaskech & Napoleon Complex - Crusader
Tim Exile - Carouselle
Untold - Don't Know. Don't Care
Scuba - Tense
XXXY - Blue Flashing Lights
Jack Sparrow - Loveless
Sigha - Expansions
Pangaea - Coiled
Chechan - Siberia
Perverelist - Infinity is now
Machine Drum - Mean Mean
Adam F (footwork edit) - Circles
Omni Trio (footwork edit) - Renegade Snares
Bibio - Saint Christopher
Andy and Mach once again take control of the decks at Concrete to supply you with a sublime selection of minimal, techno, house, garage, electronica, dubstep, purple and whatever else they can slip in. It's free entry to one of the best bars on the South Bank, with supberly crafted and blended coctails that will keep you grinning.
Welcome to 2011, Music Miners! Sorry that's taken a while to get the wheels rolling back on the wagon that is Back To Mine, in Second Life, but... well... you know how it is... ;) Anyway we're back on track. I hope you all had a wonderful and restful break and are now all gee'd up for a new year. While I was off I was delighted to find out that I got a special mention in the magical A Strangely Isolated Place blog's 2010 round up under the letter V, as part of the continued sight & sonic enslaught that is Echaskech, which was a wonderful way to round off 2010. I can only once again urge you to subscribe to ASIP as it is an essential musical feast; let's put it this way: if you like these shows you'll love ASIP. On the Echaskech tip, I met up with Dom last night at Echaskech Presents... Concrete for a back to back DJ set and lots of new nebulous Echaskech tracks were given their first light of day, and I have to say the crowd feedback was most encouraging. Many exciting things are being planned and acted upon in the Echaskech sphere: keep 'em peeled and pinned back, peeps cos we've some treats in the pipeline. Thanks to all who came down and made a great night a whole load better. We had a blast. :) Oh and a BIG THANK YOU to whoever added my last blog to StumbleUpon; my web analytics were way up over the festive season and it was all thanks to you. :) Anyway, here's this weeks...
So, the voting has opened in the UK Festival Awards (run by Virtual Festivals) and we (at Echaskech HQ) are incredibly chuffed to see that our performance at Festinho (photo from miko coffey) has been nominated in the Virtual Festivals Critics' Choice Award which in their words "... is designed to celebrate those special acts who added something a little extra to their festival show. It could be comedy, nostalgia, crowd interaction or just that 'secret ingredient' - basically something that sets them apart from other performers as a real crowd pleaser." It has to be said that we're up against some stiff competition and I don't think we expect to win - the nomination is wonderful recognition enough of our efforts to make this particular performance special - but we do hope that you can find time to register and place a vote for us in this esteemed category. We'll buy you an ice cream if you do. :) Anyway back to this weeks musical melange and here's the...
Tracklisting
Gold Panda - You
Bonobo - Kiara + intro
Beak - amoral mayor earwig
Yoshinori Sunahara - Capacity
Vital Substance - Losing Faith
The Village Orchestra - Jacob/Bad Hand at Cards
Hot Chip - I feel better (Max Cooper rmx)
Max Cooper - Attention Defecit Order
Rei Harakami -300ml (Milk)
The Orb - Perpertual Dawn (Live '93 version)
Horizon Field - Passed Out in a datsun
School of Seven Bells - Crescent Gold
Tycho - Coastal Break
Booker Shade - No difference
Underworld - Scribble
Magnetic Man - I need Air (Digital Soundboy rmx)
Aphrodite vs High Contrast - Racing Spice (Mach V bootleg)
So it's been almost a month since you got a new show and it was really great to get behind the decks once again, fuelled with all the new music that I've picked up from the festivals. So what have I been up to? Well let's start where I left off...
Driving back from the Big Chill I noted that the van's brakes were beginning to grind so I got it booked into a ATS Euromaster to get them serviced - they ascertained that it was the callipers that had seized but despite having the van for a few days, they couldn't get the parts to repair it, so we decided to take it to Green Man and see if we could get it fixed between Green Man and Festinho. Most of the journey to Green Man is motorway so I doubted that it would be that problematic, though coming off the M4 towards Abergavenny/Y Fenni it became apparent that the brakes were getting worse and worse...
Still, we arrived on site at 9:30pm, which was a bit annoying as I was supposed to play records on the Radio at 9pm, but we set up in the pouring rain and bedded down for the start of Green Man.
Green Man is rapidly becoming the best source of new (albeit beardy) music for me. Twice I've looked at the line up and wrinkled my nose at it as nothing seems too familiar, but after some excellent dissection of the program (mostly by Miko, she's organised enough to read it) we came away with a plethora of many new artists - more than I've got from festivals before. On the Americana/folk tip I've learnt about Mountain Man, Mega Faun, The Tallest Man Alive and First Aid Kit, in the psyche rock genre I discovered The Besnard Lakes and on the electronic oeuvre I've picked up on Gold Panda and Bear in Heaven. I spent £80 in the Rough Trade pop up shop just getting cds of artists that I heard at the festival. :) I LOVE THIS! MORE NEW MUSIC PLZ!!! The weather was variable between pleasant British dappled sunshine to torrential down pours, but nothing stops this festival and it's punters enjoying the weekend and the artists. Saturday Night we were all thoroughly entertained by The Flaming Lips who's live show is so impressive (even more so in a field in Wales) - i wouldn't call myself a fan following it, but I would go and see them again, they really are a truly awesome live act. I did a bit of compering on Saturday afternoon on the Main Stage and I loved it. Again: MORE OF THIS, PLEASE!!
Monday rolled around and after an extended morning radio show on GM Radio (3 and a half hours, instead of 2) we packed up, arranged for the van to be seen a LDV specialist that afternoon in Frome (pronounced "Froom") which was sort of on the way between Wales and Weymouth, our destination. The journey was fraught. The brakes were getting worse and worse. We eventually got to the LDV depot and they immediately took the van on to the rack to check out the brakes. The news wasn't good. On both sides of the front axle the callipers were seized, the pads worn down to bare metal and the discs scorched and scratched like an old 78 (and probably just as fragile). The service manager ordered the parts, guaranteeing their delivery the next day at 9am and they rearranged their work schedule to fit us in as a priority job, to get us back on the road to enjoy the rest of our holiday.
In the meantime we needed to find somewhere else to stay - the LDV guys offered their car park, but I had spied a rather plush looking spa hotel between Bath and Frome on the drive down so I convinced Miko that this was the sensible option as the Travel Lodges and the like would be all booked up with company reps (and after ringing around, they were) and luckily for us the Spa Hotel had a room (£159 for two of us including breakfast and access to the spa) so we booked ourselves into the Homewood Park Hotel. We asked the LDV staff for a cab number, but they didn't seem to like that idea so one of their staff gave us a lift to the hotel instead. How nice is that?? :)
We weren't really packed for staying in such a posh palace, but after a bath and wrapping ourselves up in lush dressing gowns, swim suits and slippers we extensively hydrated ourselves in the jacuzzi (oh sorry "hydrotherapy pool") and in the heated swimming pool, and in the sauna, and in the steam room. All of these were included in the cost of the room. Awesome stuff. In the evening we decided to stay in and order room service however the quality of the food that was delivered to our very comfortable room was good good it surpassed what you'd expect from room service - placing most hotel restaurants to shame. One thing I did notice was that I still had the keys to the van, so I was all prepared to take a cab to take the keys back to the LDV place and sit in their rather sparse waiting room while they worked on the van.
In the morning, we rang the depot and told them about the keys, and they sent a parts van up to the hotel to pick them up, saving me another taxi journey. In the meantime we checked out and asked the reception to look after out luggage while we swanned about the very stately homely reception rooms waiting for the work to finish. At about midday we got a call with some bad news - one of the calliper bolts had seized and they would need to order another, but that meant we'd need to stay another night in the hotel. Oh Dear! What a calamity. :) So we booked ourselves back in to the luxury we were rapidly becoming accustomed to, this time booking ourselves into the restaurant for dinner.
Aaaanyway to cut a long story short (and yes I could go on and on about this, but I realise it's only Tuesday and we've still got two more festivals to cover!) we picked up the van on Wednesday morning, paid the bill (that was less than quoted) and set off on the road again. We'd cancelled the Weymouth Caravan park as one night wasn't really enough to justify the trip and booked ourselves in to a caravan park just outside of Woodstock in the lovely and familiar county of Oxfordshire.
We set up at Bladon Chains (pouring rain) and I set about grabbing my laptop so I could work on the video for the two Echaskech gigs at the weekend... only to find that I'd left the power supply at green man. I wasn't too happy. In fact I was in tears. The pressure of the van repair, the amount of money we'd just spent in two days (well over £1000 - the holiday was only supposed to cost us £60!) , the state of my very red bank balance were all weighing down on me, the dreadful weather and the cramped state of the van (i can't stand up in it - it's very frustrating) and to be let down by my own stupidity (even when I'd made a concerted effort to remember it, only not to) broke me and I wasn't a happy chappy. I wasn't in the best state.
Thursday was a new day with sunshine (mostly) so we packed up and drove to Milton Keynes to visit the Apple Store to pick up a new power supply (I'd tracked my old one down - it was experiencing a week in Edinburgh) and a new leisure battery from Halfords for the van as that had died on us, too. Then onto Festinho! I was already trying to ingratiate myself to somewhere (ANYWHERE!!) that could offer me a power socket so I could work on the set for Festinho but it wasn't going down to well - things were quite fraught with the production team - an appalling lack of volunteers and stewards had really piled on the pressure so the last thing they needed was little ol' me wanting to get in the way of it all. But with a huge amount of thanks to Simon, a corner of the desk was found on Friday afternoon and I set about preparing video for the evening's performance. Which went rather well. :)
Festinho is awesome - I could wax lyrical about how incredibly special, initimate, friendly, well organised, loving (and a million other superlatives) Festinho is, but seriously the only way is to experience it first hand. It's hard to find a more warm, smiling group of both punters and staff. Here's miko's photos of the weekend if you need some encouragement. :) I haven't felt this way about a festival experience since going to The Big Chill's Enchanted Garden Festivals. Yes, it's that magical. :)
Saturday afternoon I met up with Dom and Andy and we packed Dom's dad's car and drove to Silloth in Cumbria where Solfest was - we got there at about 8:30pm and bimbled about, catching a bit of The Wailers and Eat Static. I slept for about an hour and then we got about playing our set in the fantastic Dogs In Space tent, finishing at about 5am - Huge thanks to Michael Dog (yes, he of Planet Dog and MegaDog Fame) at which point we packed the car back up and drove immediately back to Festinho. We really didn't want to miss anymore of it, because Festinho was all full of friends and love and fun and good times and in agreeing to do this Solfest gig we were missing the best part of it - Saturday night! We got back at 10:30am, and I got into the swing of things and had a wonderful Sunday, managing to stay awake until the end of AGT Rave crew awesome set and then slept for 11hours. :) Home on Monday, back at work on Wednesday.
there.
that's about it - (amazingly) there's quite a lot of detail I've left out, but you'd never know. ;)
Anyway I hope you like this weeks offering, here's the
Tracklisting
Verulf - United in Two Variations
Origamibiro - Quad Time/Bloodpulse of the Hungry Fingertip
Beak - He Descended into his Memory
First Aid Kit - Ghost Town
Sam Amidon - Way Go Lilly
Moon in the Gutter - Jack Rose
Gillian Welch - Everything is Free
Sarah Jaffe - Even Born Again
Quadron - Far Cry
Bonobo (ft Andreya Triana) - Eyes Down
The XX - Night Time
The Arcade Fire - Modern Man
The Besnard Lakes - Chicago Train
Lost Idol - Wish I was there
School of Seven Bells - Dust Devil
Yoshinori Sunahara - The First Step
Lusine - Auto Pilot
Echaskech - Shatterproof
Portishead - Roads (Max Cooper rmx)
Future Sound of London - Max
