The Music Mag Teams Up With Oxjam Leicester
The Music Mag have been asked to help out with Oxjam Leicester, a charity music festival held – not surprisingly – in Leicester.
We will be featuring a lot of the artists that will be playing this years festival on our Unsigned Bands page. Some will be handpicked and placed on the homepage as well.
Their website has not gone live yet, so follow them on twitter, or check back for more updates: Oxjam Twitter
So keep checking back for further updates as we team up with Oxjam Leicester to help build up some unsigned bands.
Glastonbury 2009 – Unreviewable
For the past four days I’ve been trying to work out how best to write a review for my Glastonbury experience; by day, separate music/everything else sections, ‘hot or not’. but without writing pages of text full of “this was flippin’ ‘awesome” repeating at the end of each sentence, it’s impossible.
So I think it’s generally just going to have to be a quick roundup with a series of ‘moments’, along with a quick breakdown of who stood out musically as well. If you don’t mind sticking around for that, read on.
Here we go…
Everyone may say that Glastonbury is like no other festival out there, and although ‘they’ always seem to say that, they’d be 100% correct; the only way to really know how it goes down is to go there yourself. No amount of irritating BBC presenters (Peel will always be irreplaceable) bringing you highlights will get you nearer to the truth either, although to be fair I have made full use of the highlights since returning.
The first thing is the sheer size of the place. I’m quite amazed that we managed to get around it in whistlestop motion and see most of what was on offer, although next time I’ll be a little more relaxed about where I end up. To give you an idea of the scale of the place, it took us about 1hr30mins to walk from our car park (north-east of the area) to our camp (set in the south). Also there’s about 30+ tents/stages/teepees all showcasing a ridiculous amount of musical genres and performances so that you’ll never be more than 5 mins walk from some action.
In a nutshell, the festival consisted of:
The Healing fields full of sandpits, hammocks, lotus lounges, 24hr organic cafes, palm reading and Buddhist readings. Craft areas where you can make your own lantern, bongo drum, clay pot, pipe, hanging baskets paint murals and glass beads. Arcadia which had motorbikes buried vertically halfway in the ground as makeshift seats, a Mad Max-style distopian circus with a fire-blowing central tower plucked from some future Mega-City One, a tequila bar consisting of just a bar, barman one shot glass and the bottle of plonk, and crumpets served by strumpets. Trash City had a stage laid out as a pinball machine with tables styled as flippers. The Stone Circle providing (perhaps not surprisingly) a miniature Stonehenge, 30ft high wooden dragon sculptures and a hill providing some of the best views of the festival. An area seemingly based on Blade Runner, Shangri-La, had a stage in the middle with alien-like women in white twirling around electrical lit whips while creepy blokes dressed in full black PVC walking on stilts but on all-fours scared the shit out of me.
N.B. An abbreviated paragraph does no justice though.
Moments:
* Not wanting to go to sleep simply because of the fear of missing out on something – it truly is a 24/7 (or 24/5.5 for the cynics) affair
* Saying to my lass how Pendulum have never played Tarantula live when having seen them before, for them to then go ahead and bang it out there and then
* 7am Monday morning and sitting on a swing chair at a cafe blasting out ‘Born To Run’ by Bruce Springsteen. A seriously wide-eyed guy then asking us how much for the chair? Having said it wasn’t ours to sell, we then proceeded to watch him ask another 30 people in the cafe before giving up and leaving
* Lily Allen‘s ‘Smile’ with it’s d’n'b and slowed-down ragga portions
* 8am Monday morning and watching a naked bloke ‘high on life’ shout joyously about peace and love while rolling around in the mud while a about 20-25 people videod/took pictures as his embarrassed other half tried to calm him down. So funny, but I felt so sorry for her…
* Deadmau5 playing ‘No Sudden Moves’ by Glenn Morrison and sending me into pure bliss
* Rolf Harris, 79 (I can’t believe that!), battling with his beatboxing mate
* Walking back to the tent from The Park at about 5:30am Saturday and surveying the ‘damage’ from the first full Glasto night
* Howard Marks‘ story about when he pulled a whitey
* Wandering through a narrow Blade Runner-esq Shangri-La backstreet, turning a corner and walking through a small doorway to a small 15×15 foot room playing some of the dirtiest funky electro house I’ve ever heard
* Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. He and Deadmau5 made my summer
* Tom Middleton‘s set in The Snug, a miniscule two-teepee venue, listening to Underworld, Groove Armada, Janis Joplin remixes and afro-beats
* Falling asleep for a nice 30min nap in the baking sun up above the teepee fields with views of the sunset across the entire site
* After Prodigy on the Sunday night, encouraging an up-for-it guy to space-hop his way back to the tent. We kept him company for fifteen minutes, and I hope he made it. He deserved to triumph for the enthusiasm alone
The music:
Nick Cave (enthralling), Glasvegas (path to the top), Deadmau5 (blew my head), Lily Allen (set up the main stage), Tom Middleton (danced my booty away) and Rolf Harris (79 and still the man) all impressed.
Lady Gaga (lip-synch extraordinaire), Spinal Tap (something missing) and Prodigy (very short set) didn’t.
In summary:
Enchanting, manic, soothing, ballistic, euphoric. The one thing I had to constantly remind myself about is to not get used to the surprises. Fucking incredible.
Joy and Love x
Glastonbury 2009 Preview
A few hours time and I’ll be setting off to my first Glastonbury Festival.
I’ve been a regular festival goer for ten years now, although have previously mainly stuck to the more mainstream deals; I took a break in 2007 when a combination of being bored with V and Reading lineups (full of either decent bands who’ve been around for a while or hyped ‘next big thing’ artists) and submerging myself in electronic dance music (sic) saw my lass and make make our first pilgrimage to Ibiza instead. That in turn lead us to hit the less beaten festival path of Bestival in 2008 which turned out to be the most enjoyable five days sitting in a field with stinking toilets I’ve ever had, and that was despite the relentless rain four days straight and a gazebo that blew over after two hours of erection.
Festival tank well and truly recharged and refilled for 2009, Glastonbury had to be hit this year and in retrospect I’m glad I waited this long for my mind to truly be in the mindset to be completely open to everything that’s likely to go down…
So, the line-up.
Starting with the headliners, I consider myself a reasonable fan of Bruce Springsteen, although as soon as his mid-eighties albums hit I’ve not been able to get through an album without a dollop of Dairylea smacking me in the face – I’ve get to wipe it off to reach his later stuff. Can’t say I know a lot about Neil Young which is a shame, but I’ll certainly be there for Blur since they provided me with a musical awakening back in December ’99.
Other highlights will be some of the new acts who will hopefully have long-lasting careers ahead of them; Glasvegas and Ladyhawke have both had excellent debut albums from start to finish and hopefully I’ll catch them. Spinal Tap will simply be unmissable, as will Nick Cave and the lovely Bad Seeds. Kasabian I’ve enjoyed live before and after a storming debut album and decent follow-up, I’ve liked what I’ve heard of their third offering despite the ridiculously wanky title.
Having seen them live before, I’m anticipating a ‘festival moment’ when Madness take the stage and hit “Nightboat to Cairo”. Prodigy and Pendulum always go down well live at festivals too. Having developed a bit of an angle on Miss Lily Allen over the past few months, hopefully she’ll make me Smile.
Where it really takes off though is the frankly ridiculous 7 dance stages in its own ‘Dance Village’. There the likes of Timo Maas, Tom Real, Stanton Warriors, Stereo MCs, Don Letts, Slam, Jim Masters, Scratch Perverts, Krafty Kuts, Erol Alkan, 2manydjs, Eric Prydz, Mr Scruff and Rob da Bank all whet my whistle, but the real standouts for me are Deadmau5 (who is about to become the next big dj to crossover into the mainstream popularity circles), Freeland Live (top notch kickin’ breaks) and Tom Middleton (funky extraordinaire). Far too much of a good thing, add that to the conventional line up and there’ll be far too much to hope to see.
I dare say though that this festival, much like Bestival last year, will be a 24/7 experience where the lineup is no more than half the attraction. Unlike the Vs and Readings of this world though where once the music stops at 11:30pm the only entertainment is a 6 pack, dodgy fag and some berk playing the little-known ‘Wonderwall’ by a fire (which I’m not necessarily knocking), the highlights and madness of the festival will probably only be about to begin.
I’m looking forward to a hazy homage at the Stone Circle, a vist to Trash City, the bizarre Shangri La and apparently a visit ‘to a pub’. I’ll be sure to post pictures to try and illustrate the probable frolics.
Anyhow, the sofa is calling and I’ve some CDs to burn, and besides, who the f*** would want to continue reading this lengthy diatribe?
Joy and love x
Evolution Festival 2009 – A Bank Holiday of Sun, Bad Indie Bands and Underage Girls
Every Bank Holiday Weekend in May, Newcastle/Gateshead host the Evolution Festival, showcasing the best in local talent as well as a number of hot UK acts. With the state of British Music at the moment, the majority of them have the Arctic Monkeys debut album so engrained in their head, they may as well be covering “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” for 40 minutes or bands are so desparate to emulate Dizzee Rascal, they’ll hitch on baggy jeans, speak like Dot Cotton and rap some silly bollocks about “bluds” or street crime. It’s all very repetitive and boring.
But, this year had the aforementioned Dizzee Rascal, the excellent Ladyhawke and two excellent upcoming acts in VV Brown and Marina and the Diamonds so for the low price of £10, I got myself a ticket, comforting myself with the notion that £10 for 4 bands is something approaching good value and somehow forgetting that 15 or so average bands for a tenner is approaching slightly-less-than-good value.
SW4 Festival
Bank Holiday Saturday on the 29th August – SW4 Festival will be in full swing.
Another author on The Music Mag, going by the name of JimbobJoylove will be attending with yours truly, looking to write up a few of the bands that we may not heave heard of. We will also be looking to take some pictures and posting them on here and in full on the forums.
One band in particular I’m looking forward to is Above and Beyond. There are obviously some fantastic acts there like Eric Prydz, Sasha, Arwin Van Buuren and many many others. So if you’re in to dance music it looks to be classic.
£45 for the day and no doubt there will be a fantastic after party as well.
So if you’re looking for something slightly different to Leeds/Reading, Glastonbury, V-Festival and all the other summer gigs, why not try SW4 for a real Ibiza experience in the UK.
