The Andrew Weatherall Weekender... Carcassone wins...

Counts, wine, bats, knights, crusades; these are the stuff of which dreams of castles in the south of France are made. 

Carcassone is one such city, a fortress so striking the French poet Gustave Nadaud wrote a verse describing the place as one a man dreamed of seeing but couldn't physically see before he died. If the Andrew Weatherall Weekender continues to call Carcassone home, the Wikipedia entry might need some tweaking to include 'amazing, chugging rave space where you can royally lose your shit in a medieval manner'.

While the annals of history may show it it to have been attacked by warriors armed with steel, the only metal laid down over the last weekend was in the dance, a double header featuring four sets from Weathers, two as the eclectric Music Is Not For Everyone, a further pair as A Love From Outer Space and The Asphodells.

While the musical offering was always going to be second to none, the pre-match bants promised a somelier and a Michelin-starred chef, meaning one could be forgiven for thinking this rave would be well gourmet mate. But the reality was far more gnarly. Plus, no amount of words prepare you for the castle. You walk up the hill through a night of bats, wander over the bridge, through a tunnel and are suddenly surrounded by shops flogging tat and crafts, plus shitloadssssss of foodie places pushing foie gras and snails. But all set in stone to give it an authentic, historical vibe. You can even buy a plastic suit of armour and stage your own battle. But the only fight going on during our jaunt was in the guts of the fortress, between the beats and our lost minds on the dancefloor.

Some marbles were well and truly gone. Sterling Roswell, formerly of Spaceman 3 and the owner of a fine pair of silver boots, played an ace distorted set of psyche country while one old gent gurned at his feet. We thought this grey haired champ was French but he turned out, like many of the clientele, to be from the North West of England. Big up. Another girl was so spannered she tried to get one of the old fella's mates to wheel her around the dusty dancefloor like a wheel barrow. But it all added up to immense shits and giggles. We got down to Crimes of the Future playing a live John Carpenter tribute, then messrs Johnston and Weatherall took the whole place to the outer reaches of the cosmos with three blissful hours of electronic thump.

The second evening started out a slightly more muted affair with hangovers certainly on sight but the ace Parisian's Vox Pop stuck a synthesised blue touch paper under the dancefloor, inspiring the crowd to get their motorik grooves out. Then it was the turn of the Asphodells to wreck the joint, with Timothy J Fairplay and Weatherall knocking it out of the park with a set sodden with sleaze and low slung electronic swagger. We got shit faced and I ate 'magic mushrooms' (which resembled a twig) from a French man who may or may not have been Eric Cantona. Somehow we woke up in our Air Bnb without any memory of walking back. Maybe these two incidents were related? The day after we dejectedly sloped off to the airport to get Ryanair's Andrew Weatherall Express flight back with half the festival and all the DJs... Carcassone - you smashed it m8. Tres bon. See you in 2016...

We're taking this castle hostage with our cans

Carcassone at dusk

The tree

Down the front

In the heart of the rave

The castle

Fucking Squire

If you ain’t aware, the Squire of Gothos is not a dandyish fopp but a pair of South Yorkshire bass aficionados, whose self-destructive way of enjoying demselves is akin to how their music sounds. Despite being disproportionately matched in physical terms, the pair have an equally large love of getting in a tangle as well as making fast rave music with basslines big, bad and heavy enough to take yer cheeks off.



Described by one internet nerd as “meaner than Arnold Schwarzenegger on LSD“, the pair’s train of thought appears to follow the a nihilistic notion - what’s the point in doing anything by halves when you can drain a bag of strong shit and buy another three while you’re at it. Check the sound of Triple Drop, Pass Dem Poppaz and I Only Wanna Be With Bass. This is hyperactive stooped music which I could be getting too old for.



They describe demselves on their MySpace thusly… - “Free parties in graveyards. Happy hardcore on downers. Electro House’s Evil brother. Speed Garage nights with more violence. Dubstep with less nerds and harder drugs. Hitting a woman copper in the face with a cro-bar.” Lovely.

We met the Squires through throwing the Rough Disko parties in Sheffield. They turned up with their crew and got as wrecked as we did. Subsequently they became regulars at our soiree, and played a mean set to 60 or so fuck heads in November 2008. We drank our own body weight in Stella, Tich donned a Danger Mouse costume and I had to be carried home. We saw them again at Bang Face earlier in the year and the vibe had a similar sordid glow. It was amazing and resulted in me wearing a German army helmet some time around breakfast on the Sunday morning. Messy times fer sure.

The pair have upped the ante during 2009 and are looking at even bigger tings for 2010 - a US trip, more dates in Europe and a tonne of releases coming our way. If you’re looking for reference points, perhaps check the likes of Raffertie, Kanji Kinetic, A1 Bassline - all fellow bass mongers the Squires have shared bills and parties with. This interview was conducted with Al just the other week and here is the whole thing verbatim - It seemed too ridiculous to chop up too much…

Q. How did you two idiots meet?

A. “Al is from Gleadless, Tich is Chesterfield Murdah Squad. We met up at the 2005 Olympic sized bong smoking contest. Tich asked Al if he wanted to play in band that “sounded like negative approach” - We’ve made music together ever since.”

Q. When did you start putting on raves in Sheff? You seem to have come out of nowhere or out of a scene that I wasn’t aware of when I was in the city…

A. “We roll with a bunch of jungle obsessed youngers who’ve been putting on parties for a few years in mostly illegal settings. So much sketchy stuff has been seen and done, it’s untrue. The guys have a bit of crazy rep as parties normally end up proper nutty. I have personally taken a diazepam for epileptic dogs and during the same session watched a good friend take a diazepam suppository. Hold tight Dog Pillz, Plattapussy and Dubplatehoven!”

Q. Music seems to be spilling out of you two at the minute - Kid 606, Kanji Kinetic based business - what have you got on the horizon…

“It’s good to do stuff for people you respect and we’ve got some stuff coming out on various labels. I think our horizon is on some serious Kevin and Perry go Large type shit!”

Q. Anyone you’d cite as influences? Who’s wetting your musical whistle at the minute?

“Tich would probably say 2 Unlimited (no joke). I’d reckon our biggest influence is probably weed but music wise right now i’d have to say DJ Pantha, old jungle, Youngsta or any mid nineties, ignorant east coast gangsta rap. Anything on Hyperdub, Hessle Audio, Gully Gang but mostly old shit to be honest!

Q. Electronic producers get all wet over Sheffield - Warp, birthplace of ‘bleep’, Human League and all that - Do you guys hold any truck with dis vibe? Or is it something you don’t even think about?

“Of course we’ve been buzzing offa Warp for a long time now. I have a few of the old bleepy shits on record while my copy of Sweet Exorcist’s CCEP has the price sticker from the Warp shop still on it! I was talking to some guy at work the other day and we got onto music and it turned out he loves a bit of his hardcore electronic styles. He was amazed that I knew about the Cabs and Sheffield’s pedigree. It’s nice to know we have a cool musical heratige here, the type that can bring generations together. I wonder what the old heads are making of the bassline explosion haha!”

Q. Bangface, Holland and the US - the gigs are getting bigger - is it all through MySpace/Blogs that all this hype is building? And are you excited about Bang Face? I would be…

“Basically we are two scruffy, slack mash heads. Why people want to book us to play their parties I don’t know but while the going’s good, it’s on! The internet has got us where we are today with people checking MySpace and giving us love on blogs/mixes. We have never really much put effort into getting a set which is pretty mad. Bang Face is going to be really real, the lineup for next year is shit hot. We’ve been to both weekenders so far so it’s a privilege to be doing it!”

Q. I checked out the Youtube footage of the Squire - and read a few bits and bobs about the episode - one website said the Squire “is essentially a naughty child who has overstepped his bounds” - almost too true?

A. “Very true indeed, a naughty child who has raided his nan’s medicine cabinet haha!”

Check their thoughts on the Myspace or blog - find them hither and thither