Monday 14 September 2015

Bangerz


YOLOOOOOOOOOO - that's the way we've been rolling through the optimism of August which seems to go in the blink of an eye - before you can say 'five pint of Five Points please mate' we're on the downward winter spiral, falling through September like Alice down a rabbit hole. Here are some of the highlights from the past 30 plus days...

In the middle of fucking nowhere

Walthamstow scran

Buy a whole sheep 

Bit of beige

Bank holiday chaos

Bog roll emergency. Get Corbyn on the phone - I've got NINE luxury soft

Battered sausage

Are you fucking mental? 

Late night Monday heart burn flex

At the AIM Awards revving up with Jungle and Noely G

The day after the AIM Awards - sheepish

It's Contra Pop!


Hands up who know where Ramsgate is? Anyone? Well we definitely didn't until we heard about the Contra Pop Festival, a free musical bash taking place just near the pier in this weird coastal town somewhere in deepest, darkest Essex. The line up was certainly ear provoking enough to make it worth the journey east to a town which managed to mix up the run down with the weird to suitably bizarre effect. Here are some of the things we learned in our eight hours in Ramsgate...

Golliwogs are rife

Everywhere we turned,there appeared to be a golliwog staring back at us. While the rest of the UK has smoked these out, it seems that they've all flocked to Ramsgate as they believe there's safety in numbers.

Ramsgate's grappers cough up the goods

Everywhere else we've ever been, the grappers never, never ever cough up a fluffy tour or cannon or whatever it is you're seeking. But in Ramsgate we managed to get a doughnut. A fucking doughnut!

The fish is delish

Cod and chips - fucking tasty as fam.

Bass Clef

This Bristol producer managed to blend weird ambience. brass instruments and thumping techno more reminiscent of Berghain than the seaside. The sunbathing locals seemed suitably bemused.  

Lo-Fi 

The knees up - ramshackle

Waiting for another IPA

Clubs aren't dead yet you twonk


Earlier in the summer literally every media outlet was spouting the same piece of research claiming that 'the club' is dead. It's dead they crowed, it's so dead, these naysayers did a little dance atop its supposed corpse, before taking a spade to its bonce and burying it underneath a mound of words, hyperbole, newspaper columns and half chewed up garies.

Indeed, according to reports, half of the UK nightclubs have shut in the last ten years which is a pretty shocking stat (if true and it's not a slow summer's news day). But if this just refers to the Oceana's of these Isles then that's probably a good thing. And while the media love talking about the death of things, there's never much fanfare when somewhere opens and breathes life into something. There are clubs reopening, changing and gaining new identities all the time (Phonox in Brixton, the Moth Club in Hackney are just two in London in the past few weeks). Plus festivals have never been more oversubscribed - you can't move for places to dance in the summer months. Even if things are slightly on the wane in conventional venue land it doesn't mean people are stopping moving. And if they are being more selective, this usually means those clubs who aren't in it for the right reasons fade, leaving those who fucking mean it to stay and fight. Sometime things are at their best and most warm blooded when they're struggling to stay alive. Or is this wishful thinking? Maybe, but it's interesting to chew over.

Above is a picture of a talk we went to with journo Dave Haslam and Andrew Weatherall about this very subject back in early August. They covered many of the topics above but really the biggest revelation of the evening was how bizarre looking the latter is without his facial hair. Eek.