Glastonberry!

Well it turned out to be quite the scorcher down in old Somerset for Glasto’s 40th birthday, which my snake-skin arm is certainly a victim…

Let’s start with the positives.

1. Water was £1.50 – we were super amazed by this as from previous experiences teeny tiny bottles of water are £2 onwards but to get a litre for this was possibly the highlight of the festival!

2. Rolf Harris – the headline acts had nothing on this man – 80 years old and can still get the crowd going. I’m going to put it out there – Rolfie was the highlight for me.

3. Burger vans were hard to find. This was absolutely amazing – instead of getting the usual festival bloatedness from eating shit there was actually a variety of tasty foods on offer! We hit the Aussie stalls for a bit of Croc and Ostrich, Japanese. Mexican, Veggie and Caribbean stalls – the possibilities were endless!

4. Shangri-La – freaks and spectacles galore! It was amazing to hang out there late of a night to see the performers – truly talented bunch.

5. Stone Circle late at night – spent many a late night sitting up in the spiritual Stone Circle surrounded by candles and lanterns being set off. Beautiful.

6. The bands themselves. Not only did I get to see the legend that is Stevie Wonder and many of my other all time favourites but I saw a lot of new music which I’m definitely going to stalk and keep up to date with. I got to tick off seeing Snoop, Slash, Blood Red Shoes, Mystery Jets, Imogen Heap, Coheed and Cambria, Lightening Seeds, MGMT, Candi Staton, Editors, Rolf Harris, Faithless, Reef, Mariachi El Bronx, Reverend & the Makers and of course Florence and the Machine (sadly Flo was somewhat of a let down).

7. I was tickled pink by the American performers who continually called Glasto ‘Glaston-berry’.

(Sick of idiots waking by and calling the RIBBON TOWER a Helter Skelter)

The Downside…

The blumin’ distance to get to BBC Introducing stage and the John Peel stage! It was a proper nightmare trying to get past the pill-heads over at the Dance stages so in the end I gave up. Shame really as there was a hell of a lot of acts I wanted to see on both the BBC Introducing and John Peel stages as well as the Dance arena. But the acts I did get to see compensated for this loss.

As much as I thoroughly enjoyed myself I do feel the whole experience was let down and ruined by the 4 hour wait in a field to get in to the wristband area. I just don’t comprehend as to why they weren’t prepared for 10,000 people would turn up on one day – how dare anyone want to make the most of their £200 ticket ey! As badly as I got burnt and felt sorry for myself (luckily when I burn it goes mahogany brown the next day) I felt truly sorry for those with small children having to stand out in the heat of the day with no shade or water for the little mites. Thankfully 3 hours into the queue someone (quite probably Jesus himself) ordered the steward monkeys to go around and hand out bottles of water before we all dropped. The length and the wait time of the queue was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before in my life – either at festivals or anywhere else for that matter! But I did try to not let this ruin the whole experience… Although if I’m honest it put me in one foul mood which was thoroughly taken out on the man later on that night when I saw him and he continued to slap my burnt shoulders.

We’ve also come to the conclusion that Southerners are hideously rude (I’m yet to be proven otherwise) and were quite possibly worse than the unbearable heat… Although I would like to be proven otherwise please! I did thoroughly enjoy the rage of others that ensued for 5 further days about the lack of shade to sit in – mainly from those who’ve never stepped foot in the countryside before – NEWSFLASH you don’t get trees in the middle of a field.

Ok so not everything was perfect 100% of the time but would that put me off going again? Hell no! Me and the baby brother are already fighting over who gets first dibs on the tent for next year! Oh and as a reminder to myself – never share a tent with the man – it hots up too much!

Oh and a quick P.S. those interested in how the flash mob turned out – she said yes!

Culture for One

This week has seen me embrace the freedom that is the limbo of being caught somewhere between student/graduate/lifetime of unemployment. This mainly consisted of blitzing the utter crap that has built up in my flat (a lot belonged to the man – apparently he can’t cope with putting things in a bin) and attending The Know How seminars put on by the lovely guys over at generator.org in association with Evolution Festival (or Weekender as it now likes to call itself).

At first I was a tad sceptical and nervous about being the sad sack that turned up to these sorts of events on their todd but after I got over this initial fear it turned out that I wasn’t the only one on their own. But I suppose that’s the name of the game – these seminars – although a place to network – aren’t necessarily an event to socialise. They’re something to educate and inform those who are trying to break into the music industry – from singer/songwriters to management and production.

Monday night kicked off with Transmission. Jonas Woost off of LastFM fame, Paul Campbell the founder of Amazing Radio and Ben Perreau from Global Radio made up the panel for this seminar which focused on and dealt with the issues and ideas surrounding regional and national broadcasting. They focused on the demise of regional broadcasting showcased the consequences for emerging artists and also highlighted and looked at platforms now available to launch an artist into the industry. The guys also discussed the new broadcast formats, with all of them being experts in this field, as well as the way in which modern music consumption has dramatically evolved since the early 1990s.

Control was the Wednesday seminar. This time the panel was made up of Jon Webster off of MMF, Alison Wenham off of A.I.M and Ross Millard off of The Futureheads fame and Director of his own Indie label. Control mainly explained the complexity and ambiguity that surrounds the legalities of Copyrights and Licencing. Thankfully Jon put it into layman’s terms and used the example of the Beatles and their song rights… Ok this sounds like it makes it more complicated but even I got it… Overall the seminar explained how artists themselves in this day and age should be able to hold onto their creativity and rights and don’t have to be controled by the major Record labels, thus the surge in Independent labels such as Warp Records, Aardvark Records and Fantastic Plastic Records. Overall we were pretty much told that absolutely anyone can set up their own Record Label as there is the likes of Association of Independent Music (A.I.M) are readily available for support and advice.

The last and final seminar No Pop No Style took place on Thursday night dans le Tyneside Cinema as every other night before it but this time we were in for a true treat. At the last-minute two of the guest speakers were unable to make it for the seminar so in stepped Jon McClure off of Reverend and the Makers fame and the Director of the Evolution Weekender himself, Jim Mawdsley. These two were joined by Steve Hill from Warp Records, Christian (I forget his surname AND band name) recently signed by Wall of Sounds Records and the lovely Lukas Wooller off of Maximo Park. In they all trooped with none of the professionalism of the previous nights, alcoholic beverages in hand and expletives flying every which way – and let rip they certainly did. At the basis of this ‘discussion’ was the changing relationships between artists and their labels and how the term ‘indie’ has lost what it originally stood for and has somewhat became a trendy term. The rep from Warp Records had the short straw trying to defend ‘labels’ as the three artists certainly held their ground when it came to their grievances. Actually it was pretty much all four of them slagging off NME, Radio 1 and the big corporations and the accountants who run them. And kudos to them. They raised fair points and it’s understandable why it’s so frustrating for artists these days - the market is pretty much monopolised by people who don’t actually give a shit about the music themselves just how much cash they can make to line their pockets. I suppose it’s like any job – it might look glamorous to everyone else but really you’ve got a lot of grafting to do to get where you want.

Overall I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my nights of ‘culture’  this week and I have to say it’s always interesting to hear about an industry from people who are such an intricate part of it and who have helped shaped the industry as we know it. For anyone who has even the smallest interest in the music industry I’d suggest you get yourself along to these talks next year (they’re free by the way). I’m going to keep my eyes peeled and sign myself up to receive the Generators newsletter so I can get involved in the rest of their seminars and programmes throughout the rest of the year too. I’m also highly excited to get down to Evo this weekend – sadly I’m acting as bar monkey this year but I’m still hoping to get to see a few acts of the amazing acts that are without fail showcased every year.