Tag Archives: music

Jan 15

Changing The Record

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There came a flurry of news just before bedtime last night that high-street chain HMV was going into administration. It’s been on the cards since at least 2007 and while it’s extremely unfortunate that mismanagement of the administration led to staff finding out via the media (accompanied by scuttlebutt and faux-sadness on Twitter) I can’t say I’m surprised in the slightest.

This morning there’s a lot of punditry flying around regarding HMV’s business model, competitors, the inevitable comparisons with online vendors (and HMV’s own failed foray into online sales some years ago), the links to piracy, MP3s, iTunes, and tons more. Yet however you look at it HMV’s business model is completely and utterly flawed: the chart CDs stocked are sold cheaper in bulk to Asda so margins are nonexistent, racks are full of ‘classic’ albums you can find chucked out in Oxfam, there’s very little (if any) stock of local music, and when you want something out-of-the-ordinary you’re bang out of luck unless you want to order it in and wait a week. Just like Jessops before them, they’re box-shifters with stock even Del Boy would find hard to pass on.

It hasn’t always been so. Contrast it with the mid-90s when HMV stocked dance vinyl and had entire racks of ‘interesting stuff the staff found’ complete with a small sticker telling you what it was like – comments like ‘big farty bass and a synth line your mum will hate‘. That was brilliant – it’s how I discovered artists such as A Tribe Called Quest and labels such as FFRR, but that disappeared at the turn of the century and I found other outlets.

(Exception to the rule: the last CD I bought from HMV was This Sporting Life by Skint & Demoralised. I bought it there because I knew one of the lads worked at the Wakefield shop and if anywhere would have a copy, they would…)

I’ll admit I’m a marginal case: I like physical media. I browse CDs, I play vinyl, I buy from small shops such as Crash and Jumbo, I order from independent online stores such as HTFR or Norman Records where possible, and I pester local record labels for CDs rather than downloads. I love exploring liner notes and artwork just as much as listening to the music. The local independent record shop in Cottingham made a fortune out of me in my Uni days, and when we lived in London my wife used to curse because I’d go to Tower Records (RIP), browse the bargain bins and return at 11:30pm with two carrier bags full of stuff I quite liked the look of. Controversially nowadays I also use Amazon – most commonly at music festivals and gigs where I’ll 1-click order a load of the support act’s CDs (well, when they’re not on the merch stand anyway) – but it’s still physical media. I guess I’m in a minority now; not ‘down with the kids’.

The folks who have the bargain-bin physical media philosophy bang-on are That’s Entertainment, which is where your Music Magpie CDs end up (it tickles me that they spotted an opportunity to have a pop at HMV in Manchester). There’s one in the Ridings Centre in Wakefield where I can spend a happy (but costly) hour digging and finding CDs I didn’t even know I wanted, sometimes at five for a fiver. They participated in a small way in Record Store Day last year and it’s somewhere even my kids with their limited pocket money can buy a computer game or a bit of music. Winner.

Will I miss HMV if it does completely disappear? Nah, I can’t even think of a company who might want to pick the chain up other than for the HMV.com domain name. Perhaps it’ll leave a void which can be filled once again by the small shops it killed in the late 80s and early 90s, and although I doubt Wakefield would provide enough business to support it it’d be nice to see a JAT or EGS return to Wakefield’s streets. While browsing Twitter I came across @charlottegore who hit the nail on the head in one sentence: “HMV are a company that wasted lots of money paying rent to keep unsold CDs and DVDs on public display in prime locations.”

No flowers.

Edit: There’s another perspective from Banquet Records which is well worth a read (thanks Martin for pointing me to that).

May 14

Obvious Pseudonym Hit London

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A brief reminder to all our fans that there’s an Obvious Pseudonym gig in London this Wednesday 16th May. Yep indeedy I’ll be on stage bashing the keys and generally making merry. A few new songs will feature alongside old OP favourites.

The gig is at Underbelly which is in Hoxton Square, Shoreditch. I’ve photo’d there a couple of times before and it’s a nice little venue. We’re on at 8:30pm so plenty of time to get the train home afterwards.

You can get tickets in advance from this link but please remember to tick the box saying you’re coming for Obvious Pseudonym. See you there, honeypies?

Apr 26

Disco Mix CD: Remants Of A Written-Off Weekend

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I didn’t manage to get to the Rhubarb Bomb 5th Birthday Party – domestic woes got in the way and by the time it was anywhere near peaceful the weekend had ended and I was back at my desk in Sheffield. Thus there are no photos from Record Store Day 2012, and none from the Rhubarb Bomb party – genuine apologies and I-will-make-it-up-to-yous to the people who were relying on me taking some photos. Other photogs were there.

The proceedings also involved making a mix CD: drop yours in the box as you arrive, pick one up that someone else has made. The last mix I did got left behind and ridiculed a little (pretty much like being picked for sports at school) so this time I decided to compile some classic disco tracks not readily available in other formats. Sitting in front of the record deck hitting ‘pause’ at the right time on the CD recorder brought back memories of recording the Sunday evening chart show on Radio 1 while my mother yelled at me to do my homework. Ahh nostalgia.

Here’s the tracklist for what didn’t end up in the mix CD box:

  1. Countdown/This Is It (Original Full Length 12″ Mix) – Dan Hartman
  2. Love For The Sake Of Love – Claudja Barry
  3. Not Too Shabby (James Lewis Goes Disco Mix) – Cerrone
  4. Get On Up And Do It Again – Suzy Q
  5. Turn The Music Up – Players Association
  6. Love Magic – John Davis & The Monster Orchestra
  7. What A Difference A Day Makes – Esther Phillips
  8. Ballad Of Immoral Manufacture – Cristina
  9. In My Wildest Dream – Georgio Moroder
  10. Gotta Get Outta Here – Lucy Hawkins

But as it is, the running order is now relegated to a playlist on my iPhone and a lonely CDR to play in the car. Next time Gadget, next time…

(Oh, and if anyone has a spare copy of the RSD12 Candy Flip 10″ of ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ which I missed out on, gi’s a yell…)

Update: You should check out John’s photos from the Rhubarb Bomb 5th Birthday Party.

Apr 19

Dad Dancing

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A really very quick post to say that Obvious Pseudonym have a limited edition demo track streaming to promote the upcoming tour. It’s called Dad Dancing and it’s only available until 4pm today 19th April 2012. Click on the widget below to listen…

…or click here to go to the Soundcloud page itself.

Apr 10

Obvious Pseudonym – First Tour Dates

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We’ve been a bit quiet so far this year with the band because we’ve been writing new stuff, working on bits and bobs, and of course Real Life has been getting in the way. However, Bern’s gone and planned a tour so we have some live dates coming up:

On 3rd May we’re in Sheffield, at Mentholman (West Street Live) on, er, West Street. It’s a student venue and we’ll be on about 8:30pm. It’s a free gig (hooray for you lot!) and there’ll be a couple of other acts playing.

Then hot on the heels of that we’re heading over to Selby on 12th May for the Riverside venue, again we’ll be on around 8pm. This one’s free, and we’re supporting an 80s tribute band Idlefish.

We’ve been asked a lot to do a gig ‘dahn sarf’, and finally we’re playing in London at Underbelly in Hoxton Square, on Wednesday 16th May. This is ticketed too, we’ll have the links on the Obvious Pseudonym website soon-ish or you can buy on the door. I’ve photo’d at Underbelly before and it’s a nice venue, plus there’ll be some other bands on.

So there you go – gigging again, and not a Wakefield gig in sight. They’ll all be on the official gig guide in a bit and of course there’ll be Facebook events. Hooray!

Apr 02

Kylie’s K25 Anti-Tour, Manchester

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It was all our friend Gary’s fault in the first place: if he hadn’t popped up early last week asking if I’d seen the announcement about Kylie Minogue’s K25 ‘Anti-Tour’ I’d have spent the week in blissful ignorance, been £160 better off and had a good night’s sleep last night. Then again, I’d have been absent from one of the most amazing gigs I’ve ever attended.

Kylie’s been around for yonks – 25 years give or take a few months – and to ‘celebrate’ she wanted to do another tour. Not the big pomp-and-ceremony hundreds-of-costume-changes epic-stage-set type thing but just her and a band, doing B-sides and ‘rarities’. Three gigs were announced: two at Manchester Academy (a 2000-capacity venue) and one at Hammersmith Apollo (around 5000 capacity). The tickets sold out in less than 10 minutes – phew!

The band came onstage at 8:30pm and already off to a good start: I didn’t recognise the first song Magnetic Electric (that had to wait for Made In Heaven and Cherry Bomb) but I don’t think it bothered the crowd who were bouncing away (with the exception of the idiot in front of us with the camera, do I bloody attract them or something?). The lass worked her way admirably through the set and when she started a chunk including Drunk (a track from the much-underrated album Impossible Princess) she just blew me away.

What really impressed me was the frankness of it all and the absence of any scripted dialogue – the band chatted to each other and joshed, Kylie was in the thick of it. She announced at one point she’d decided to try another song and she couldn’t remember the lyrics so Googled them (“…and I apologise if they’re wrong, they’re always wrong when you Google them aren’t they?”) before launching into an acapella version of something else obscure. Wow. It’s always easy to forget the sheer talent when there’s a massive staged production such as the Aphrodite tour we saw at Manchester MEN Arena last year, but there was no Spinning Around, no I Should Be So Lucky, not much which bothered the charts in 25 years – just her favourite stuff hardly ever performed on stage accompanied by the occasional anecdote.

The audience joined in a lot, singing along even to the more obscure numbers and sometimes launching into songs not on the setlist. Unfazed, Kylie joined in, mumbling when she couldn’t remember words or music, yet at one point the keys player worked out what she was up to and started accompanying. She finished up after a solid hour-and-forty with Tears On My Pillow and Enjoy Yourself as gold confetti showered the audience, the only concession to glamour.

Admittedly, when I booked tickets they were an impulse purchase and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect: I’d seen a leaked rumoured setlist and recognised a few from older albums as well as a couple from really early PWL days and the odd B-side, but Googling song names revealed little. With it being ‘real’ fans it was a splendid evening and easily ranks in my top 3 gigs.

She’s on tonight again in Manchester, and then in London at Hammersmith Apollo. Good luck getting tickets – they’re like hen’s teeth, and ‘proper’ Kylie fans will eventually regret ‘not being there’. I was there, and I don’t regret it… worth every penny.

Jan 13

There’ll Be Another One Along In 5 Minutes

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The other night I was discussing an impending album release from a local band: as is invariably the case with skint unsigned acts the CDs would be duplicated by the band themselves and sold at gigs. I was offered a sample CD to take home but with the caveat “but it’ll still change”. A bit of discussion ensued and we came to the conclusion that left unchecked their album would keep on changing, evolving, and effectively no two batches produced would the same: comments from listeners such as ‘oh the drums are a bit loud’ might result in a balance change, or ‘that cowbell doesn’t fit there’ could mean an arrangement alteration. Put simply: there would never be a ‘final version’, even after the album launch gig, and it would be a perpetual ‘demo’.

Now, I am a firm believer of a release being ‘a point in time’ for an act, a snapshot if you will. When you bite the bullet and submit your track to get an ISRC (basically a barcode) you need to submit the exact track you are releasing, and when you have physical media duplicated then that’s where you draw the line: a hundred copies are etched and that’s it, no going back, no ‘tweaks’. Effectively you as a band or act are forced to draw that big black line on the mix, warts and all – that’s what separates the demo from the release.

Yet with home manufacturing it’s all too easy for a band to change things after-the-event, and it does a great disservice to the people who have been to (say) your launch party and bought a copy. Many new performers and young acts are too impatient to release their new tracks, so version-upon-version is published to Soundcloud (or whatever music-site-du-jour) spoiling the impact. As a band/act you’ll never be completely happy with something because after all your tastes evolve and your hearing changes, but that’s no reason to rewrite history.

There are some wonderful examples of ‘slightly broken’ performances out there – off the top of my head Minnie Riperton, David Bowie, The Beatles, Barry Manilow and even Scott Joplin have recorded imperfect versions which have a charm to them. Many of those would have been lost had it been easy to ‘evolve’ a track and I think we’d have been worse off for it.

As an extreme case I can cite an artiste whose second album consisted 40% of slightly reworked/reproduced versions of tracks from her first album. Her third album was 50% reworked/revised tracks from her first and second albums. Goodness knows what the fourth contained but I’ve stopped buying her albums now – I might as well wait for the seventh or eighth so I can hear some new work.

Mind, I’ve not been exempt from this in continued adventures with Obvious Pseudonym: 18 months ago we released The Six Noises EP, then a week after I’d the master copies had been dispatched I tweaked it into a ‘Special Edition’ version correcting lots of little mistakes I’d noticed since the band listening-party. Thankfully the original run of CD production was cancelled so we didn’t have to deal with physical copies, but still the iTunes version was different from the CD version in small, subtle ways (I believe the CD version is superior but you may have a different opinion). Nowadays I sit on a mix for at least a month and will go back and listen to it with fresh ears some weeks after it’s been mixed or frequently longer, eg. I noticed a slight mis-timing in the piano track on Baby Baby just the other week… 16 months after I recorded it.

In short? Don’t rush a release, give it time, but draw a line and wave goodbye to a recording once it’s flown the nest – don’t keep picking at it. Your fans will – eventually – thank you.

Edit: As @mattbluefoot points out: ‘This could be paraphrased as “don’t be George Lucas”‘. :P

Jan 10

Put The Needle On The Record

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Remember record players? Records? It’s trendy to call it ‘vinyl’ nowadays, isn’t it? My mate John’s got a house full of it, we often joke a river of black tar would flow through Walton if his house burned down.

Last Saturday my brother and I went digging in our loft at home to find all the records which had been stashed there over the years – boxes of them which I’d been given, or acquired through Freecycle, or inherited from various relatives. Tim used to collect them and upon my father’s emigration his collection ended up shoved at one end of our loft so there was quite a bit for us to go through.

When we retrieved the boxes the musty smell was overpowering – even though cased the slight damp had pervaded the sleeves of some Freecycle-sourced discs, giving the illusion of being older than they actually were… smelling of 1940, released in 1985. Cross-legged, we started sifting through, ditching Music-For-Pleasure compilations of Perry Como hits and laughing at the tastes of someone-random-from-Freecycle who’d bought a copy of The Reynolds Girls one and only hit.

It only took a few minutes before I hauled the Technics record deck and preamp downstairs so we might listen to some of them – a bizarre Sex Pistols disc called Some Product featuring cut-up interviews and the unmistakable mark of Malcolm McLaren’s odder side, followed by unidentifiable death-metal which when played at 45rpm rather than 33rpm sounded like Daffy Duck singing Rammstein. “Swing Along With Martin Dale”, recorded live at Wakefield Theatre Club (latterly the Pussycat Club and now a bowling alley on Doncaster Road). Fun.

We almost came to blows over a first edition vinyl of Joy Division’s “Substance” album (FACT250 [sic]) but I let it go; there will be other opportunities. We listened to the first couple of tracks of an early-80s Deanna Durbin compilation, swaying almost subconsciously; the imperfections in the pressing giving it analogue character.

And that’s the rub really – I never understood the beauty of vinyl until now. Tim suggested were we to own these on CD or MP3 we probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought but the hypnosis of the spinning turntable and positioning the needle made it an event, the cover providing further visual stimulus as the tracks went on, sitting together and listening.

Tim took his share of the booty and I sincerely hope him and his missus enjoy it. The following morning was taken up listening to a Transvision Vamp LP while Ben watched, fascinated. Maybe he’s understood it too.

Since then I’ve wandered into charity shops, looking for interesting records to take home. No dice yet, and sad that Headingley Oxfam charge so much for records in such poor condition. Still, there are plenty of other places to dig around in old boxes and maybe one day I’ll be able to rediscover that Tribe Called Quest 12″ I lost or even the copy of David Bellamy’s one and only novelty song “Brontosaurus Will You Wait For Me”… I’d love to know where that went to…

Sep 25

A Terrible Mix CD

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I went to the Rhubarb Bomb Issue 2.2 launch last night at Chantry Chapel in Wakefield. As well as drinking far too much Speckled Hen (it was a BYO gig) and talking drunkenly to a fisherman on the bank of the Calder, I participated in the Mix CD Exchange (I say ‘exchange’, I actually forgot to pick one up – you can blame the beer for that). Anyway, it’s meant to be anonymous and I don’t know who got mine but I can exclusively reveal that I haphazardly chucked it together 30 minutes before leaving the house, and it comprised:

  1. Modified Toy Orchestra – QWERTY
  2. Fonda 500 – I Love Stereo Stereo’s Good For Me
  3. Bis – Young Alien Types
  4. Chumbawamba – Doh!
  5. Fila Brazillia – Van Allen’s Belt
  6. John Cooper Clarke – I Don’t Want To Be Nice
  7. John Baker – Milky Way
  8. Moog Cookbook – Kelly Watch The Stars
  9. The B-52s – Juliet Of Spirits
  10. Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Rage Hard (Young Persons Guide To The 12″)
  11. Pet Shop Boys – So Hard (Dub)
  12. Bjork – There’s More To Life Than This (Toilet Version)
  13. Tim Minchin – Pope Song
  14. Genesis – I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
  15. Tom Waits – The Piano Has Been Drinking Not Me (Live in Dublin)

A bizarre mix of course. Not quite sure it works (well, I’m pretty positive it doesn’t) – my brother is much better at this sort of thing!

Aug 21

Wharfside Music Festival 2011, Wakefield

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Right, so there’s this pub which isn’t exactly on the way to anywhere (unless you’re going to the Double Two factory shop). Used to be The Jolly Sailor in Thornes, but more recently became a bit of a restaurant-pub called The Wharfside. They’d put out a shout for bands to play at a one-day free music festival: Obvious Pseudonym put ourselves forward as did The Tracks. Time passed, we heard nothing, eventually with a fortnight to go Dorian and Faye (keys and bass players in The Tracks) headed down there to see what’s going on: they discovered from landlady Vicky there was no PA and no marquee and no lighting and… well, it could be disastrous. So we got involved…

Really it was all a bit ‘Challenge Anneka’: build a decent-sounding PA using kit I’d got in the garage, get the lighting rig down there, borrow a van, and work out how to use the digital desk with a full band. Dorian and Faye did the street-team thing with posters, and we put out calls for more acts to perform. In the end though it sounded and looked ace – definite proof to myself (if nobody else) that I can do it.

So came the day: I disappeared off at 8:30am to pick up the van, diverting via St Michaels to pick up Dorian and Mac (The Tracks’ drummer) who are both young lads with muscles. We loaded the van with every bit of kit under the sun (it just fit) and headed to Wharfside to find Graham and Harry of StagePro sitting outside waiting to unload the drum riser we’d hired. A bit of huffing and puffing later, we’d got all the tables out of the way and the riser was in place. Next up: the marquee.

Now, this damn marquee wasn’t in the best of nick – it had obviously been used a lot and the plastic poles were cracking from stresses unknown (presumably in the course of its life at Diamond Studios, who’d kindly lent it to us). Mix in the complication that it was so windy getting it erected was going to be a bit of a mad job! It took six of us to get it upright at which point it became evident something was wrong as the wind was whipping it up far too much (“it’s going to end up flying across the Calder!”) and no amount of of gaffer tape was going to fix it. Fearing a Pukkelpop moment, Vicky and I passed the buck between us on whether we’d have the marquee at all. Then…
     ”‘ang on, this isn’t right…” opined John J, who’d turned up mid-erection (fnar).
     I stared, trying to work out why the guyropes were on the inside. “Er. Oh. The roof’s on upside down, it’s meant to fasten up.”
     ”Right. Let’s flip it over, might work, and if not then we do without it!”
It was a bit more stable after that!

I built up the PA using amplifiers I’ve had kicking around for ages and various other bits of stuff, all lashed together to a programmable digital remote desk FOH where I could also control the lighting rig. I had the usual bits of EQ and had a discussion with a few folks to try and get the best mix. Consensus was that it sounded excellent, and we’d easily packed enough power for the event. Maybe if anything it was a bit mid-heavy at the sides of the venue but you can’t have everything can you.

So to recap, 3pm: marquee’s up, PA is in place (7KW of stuff with an exceptionally heavy amp cab and borrowed tops from OP’s bloke Pete), lighting rig is in one piece and working, we’re surviving the onslaught of quips from volunteer Chris and there have been no disasters yet. Hooray! We soundcheck with The Tracks, who are the first full band and due to hit the stage four hours later at 7pm.

First act was up: Dorian and Tom doing an acoustic set, 20 minutes of songs to get things going. I wasn’t expecting it to be busy at all until about 6pm although the beer garden started to fill up once the music began. Sound was good, a couple of tweaks on the EQ but nothing serious. Nicky arrived and started taking photos, so it was documented – excellent! At this point Chris grabbed me and pointed at the left sub speaker which was lying on the floor having been blown out from its cabinet by the sheer air pressure involved in moving a 1KW high-end Celestion 15″ driver. Oopsie, I guess building a new cab for those is on my job list this week!

Callum Macintyre next: one mic, one guitar. He was excellent, no disasters, place is filling up nicely. I looked across to see Rob Dee (Philophobia music boss) had arrived with Mike Ainsley and Harry Rhodes ready for their slot, plenty of friends milling around and other luminaries from the Wakefield music scene. We were running to time – maybe slightly ahead of it, good. I rigged and line-checked for a duo called ReaderMeetAuthor who announced this was their first gig and they’d only formed as a band three hours ago: cue epic muddling through some covers, but it sounded OK (Mathieu’s other band The Ran Tan Waltz is a lot more polished and I recommend a listen). Nice to see Jon Pinder and John Jowett photographing lots.

Almost 6pm: level-check for The Cullens and they’re on. I see Danny Cullen in town quite a bit (especially at Open Mic Monday) but I don’t think I’ve actually concentrated on their sound before which was wonderfully polished, and by this point we’d got some folks dancing. The beer-garden was full, and looking across towards the river there were people lying on the verges in what Summer sun was shining, having a beer and enjoying the afternoon. Taxis arrived ferrying new listeners, still no disasters and still no rain despite it being forecast for around 5pm. As we were a little ahead of time, the Cullens got a couple of extra songs: sound-man’s privilege ;)

Mike Ainsley was up next, together with Tim and Harry from St Gregory Orange. They insisted on sitting down and we couldn’t find any chairs or stools so we pulled up a few unused guitar amps – very rustic. No major adjustments on the desk, maybe a little bit of EQ on Harry’s guitar. A really rather splendid set from Mike (another act I’d been remiss in not listening to previously) and that was our acoustic acts done! I spotted various OP followers in the audience including Jayne and Bez, and felt a little buzz of pride that they’d come down to the out-of-town venue to see it all.

The Tracks were on at 7:15pm and I was all-on to get the sound right so didn’t stray far from the FOH post. They’ve got lots of dynamics in each song with thrashy crashy guitars followed by quiet thoughtful passages, full drum kit mike-up and all 12 XLR channels on the sound desk which lit up like a Christmas tree. Lots of dancing, two scruffy old blokes have shinned the fence and are trying to get people to buy them beer, and some nutter in the audience has got hold of a tambourine. Tom’s face is a picture. Good reception and an encore was demanded: the band did not disappoint their fans!

All of Obvious Pseudonym were present and accounted for by now, so while The Tracks got their stuff offstage we loaded ours in and tarped it at the side. Still no rain although there were a couple of reports of it spitting a little. Nothing blew up: always the important thing. Meantime the next act (“I R Hero”) set up with a little bit of a problem in that the drummer only had one working arm and needed an extra snare mic for his kick-snare. No problems I guess, especially since they’d initially asked for a 10-mic setup on the drums – er, no chance boys…!

I R Hero launched into their rock-pop-punk set, but no sign of the snare kick on the sound-desk… I sent Dorian up to investigate but we ended up replacing the mic. It was still a bit touch-and-go with the monitor mix not being brilliant, but again the sound out front was ace. I left to find a pint of Guinness, and came back just as the drummer resigned from the band. A bloke in the crowd stepped up and drummed on their last song… the drummer wasn’t seen again.

9pm, we were running to time, nothing destroyed, no disasters, no rain; I bravely ventured an opinion that the whole thing seemed to be going OK. Vicky glared at me: don’t jinx it sunshine. We plonked Obvious Pseudonym’s stuff on stage and I set up the keys on the drum riser so I had a little stage of my own, woo! Dorian familiarised himself with the desk to do our sound. I admitted to myself I was nervous, this was the first time I’d trusted someone at the controls who wasn’t a professional sound engineer or music technician: be strong, lad!

We went on at 9:20pm, five minutes late, bouncing into Westgate Run and doing the Summer set we’d mostly done for the past four weeks on our International Tour Of Wakefield with one notable exception: Eclipsed had been replaced by the new song Dad Dancing. People danced, genuinely and ironically. It sounded good from where I was, and we got some excellent comments: one couple even came across from the flats over the Calder to see us after hearing what we were like. New fans!

We came off around 10pm and by midnight everything was back in the van. Nicky and Jayne were dispatched to find curry and I sat in the bar with a (fresh) pint of Guinness (after not getting around to drinking the last one). Still no disasters, still no rain, and we’d managed to put on our first full festival; thoughts of next year pervaded through the exhaustion as Dorian, Jim, Faye and I came down off the ceiling. Pretty damn good for amateurs and the sound was ace, I just hope the desk recording is as good: I’ll find out later. Uberthanks to the people who helped by lugging, lifting, erecting, removing and all that stuff including Chris, John, Jim, Nicky, Ben, Carl, Tom, Rob and Mac. You guys were ace and made the job so much easier; I’m exceptionally proud of what we achieved.

…now, I’m off to unload the van and collect the drum riser!