photo credit: scion_cho

Alas poor feel good movies about food I knew thee well: Chocolat, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, Ratatouille, Eating Raoul…
OK admittedly I just threw that last one in to see if you were still awake!

At first blink Cous Cous might seem destined for that same rainy, day-afternoon pick you up bracket.
A dash of le difference but with a familiar, feel good pitch ne c’est pas?
Well not really
- much!

There are several things this film set in a coastal town somewhere in the South of France seems to be about.
is it the hardship of the immigrant brushed slightly with their lure value as exotica?
A hardship complicated further by a moving sub plot about being an immigrant amongst immigrants?
Its about food too surely, obviously, plus family, fun, dancing and aging – they all take a bow here.
Much of the focus falls on one man, fundamentally decent but embittered, confused, touring by scooter the fault line between two lovable but implacable matriarchies.
Somewhere along that line also a fissure emerges and bubbles where undeveloped youth meets the unfulfilled promise of old age.
But that’s not really what about either!

This is a film about one thing and one thing only – that is; waiting.
If that fascist existentialist Martin Heidigger and our own Sam Beckett could find a piece of common ground to meet up on and shoot the breeze it must surely be the long, dark  pathos of “the wait”.
This is a film about the insufferable heaviness of simply hanging about because kids here is no unbearable lightness of being! Existence is made of heavy stuff and it weighs on us. Sitting at the bus stop, bored, you are thrown back onto yourself.

Q. How to pass the time?

A. Maybe watch a good film.

Heading home a few months ago from the IFI the audience, to your ear wigging reviewer, seemed split more or less down the middle. On the one hand we had the disappointed foodies –not a good day for the lovers of the light hearted moves of Chocolat or fried Green veggies of any variety.
On the other those with a nose for a slight whiff of the tragic in their comedy left it feeling strangely satisfied.
You can probably guess which camp this reviewer falls into
…You can’t?

OK sit back there and wait a minute…

photo credit: Mr. Wright

“…then after all the excitement, I shall experience a certain satiation of suffering”

Vladimir Nabokov – The Gift (1963)

“They say wrestling is fake huh?” observes Marisa Tomei (as the stripper Vixen) early on in this film. Sure at one level it’s as fake and cheesy as Axel Rose. But though the plays, “the spots”, the “characters” are fake and cartoon fake at that – there’s nothing fake about the poundings and the trauma ably (almost too ably for this stomach) portrayed in this film.

By now you’ve probably picked up from critical eulogies that this film portrays a shambolic descent into middle age by fading 1980s wrestling star.
Much as I might dig on my pathos is this sufficient for a full length feature film in 2009?
The entire premise hangs on the battered frame of Micky Rourke as Randy “the Ram” Robinson and yes he delivers. Its not just the physical ravages taken on his face and body but in his subtle portrayal of the man underneath the fake tan and shiny tights. His all too human character shines throughout.
Perhaps unexpectedly he also plays a man of savage humour; both knowing and unknowing, black and, amazingly, other hues too.

Marisa Tomei is outstanding.  She takes on the role of “hooker with a heart of Gold” (rightly despised since Julia Roberts winced and minced over the grimy reality of the sex industry in Pretty Woman.)  Here, at least, the temptation to make the social economy of trade in flesh either more or less then it actually is resisted. From prosaic and practical to almost lucid and translucent – she was, for me, mesmeric through out. To be further blunt and honest on a personal level the two dancing consultants listed in the end credits were far from money wasted either.

Aronofsky as writer and director cleverly plays the wrestling tournaments and deserted fan meets off against the strip club scenes. This works sound wise too as roaring grown up children pumped with eighties fm rock contrast with sullen, staring men and bump n grind style rnb. On display in both “shop fronts” is human meat in various states of presentation and preservation. The commonality is clear. The interested might want to take it further by seeing Rourke’s brief spell slapping meat behind a deli counter as almost serving to loosely stitch the two together like the badly healed scar down his chest…

Of course the pathos is played out fairly predictably right down to Brice Springsteen’s The Wrestler on the end credits. But tragedy as inevitable fall works when we care about our tragic heroes! Here thanks to subtle direction, a nicely mobile camera and two actors turning in superb performances we do and it works. The use of real wrestlers through out further rivets the point that “pieces of meat” can be human too…

photo credit: teresia

Finally we got number 6 out! I came out of nowhere, Greenmachflyii. I came out of nowhere, just to say, just to say

I’m Back AGAIN.  The Screaming Blue Messiahs and suburban super heroes are back.  Fresh from their attempts to save your planet from ultimate destruction due to the fact that it is in path of a planned hyper space bypass, the aliens took a trip down to a music festival known as the Electric Picnic.
This evening in the studio, they are joined by the ambassador from Nefacturia 7, and a mystery wise guest with a penchant for a biblical man who got bad press.

Suburban Super heroes Return

photo credit: James R Winnpeg last winter.

A train is traveling through a dull black and white city scape. A somewhat slackerish crew of passenger’s fidget, yawn and slump over the table.  Mantra- like we here the words “Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Winnipeg…” This strange train can travel through streets, houses and rooms. Quickly we realize that it’s a sort of metaphor train squeezing its way through an imaginary Winnipeg of the mind; the Winnipeg that director Guy Madden has known as home.
In other hands this somewhat contrived conceit could have turned out pretty tiresome. As the three syllables of this snow bound mid Western US city are slowly drilled into your head– the fear grows that this could well be the case.

Thankfully it isn’t. Madden artfully blending fact and fiction with a sure touch of the comically surreal –to create, in his words, a “docu-fantasia”. Boy pageants and séances mix with fake Nazi invasions. A team of veterans still play ice hockey in the crumbling remains of their stadium, a herd of horses frozen in the snow becomes a haunt for couples, taxis have official permission to use an alternative back garden transport network of snow roads.

Madden mourns the passing of this strangely sad industrial landscape but seeks escape. Strongly Resisting demolition are his still standing childhood memories. In an attempt to exorcise them a rented house is fully transported back in time with original furniture re-creating the split apartment-beauty parlour in which he was raised. The stern face of his “real” mother (played with matriarchal aplomb by 1940s actor Ann Savage) centers the cod menacing re-enactment of traumatic childhood events helped out by actors playing his siblings and his grilfriend’s dog. Shot in beautiful shades of black and white to my mind slightly reminiscent of Cory McAbee’s The American Astronaut this is a wonderfully quirky tribute to a city doubling as troubled place of mind.

photo credit: krossie

Oh yes I love a bit of Tom Waits – just muted in the background when friends come round for a glass or two of chateau neuf de P – might go and see him in July – a snip at only 116 euro…– Parking for the SUV? Hmmmm… ah yea and eh….oh I have 2 of his discs yes…whaaaaa….

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

 S1W strike with ninja sword – yuppie blood splashes in drive way…

The alternative continues after the jump..

Go see one of the best bands in the world perform the entirety of possibly one of the most ground breaking records of the 1980s in person for a measly 30 bucks or so!  I strolled through a cooling but almost Summery May evening…A figure running towards me turns out to be an acquaintance of forty something years…a long standing figure on the Dublin left…not well…forty something but looks permanently frozen at 16 some time in the 1980s…Face white as a sheet – he’s mentally not the best…

“Are ya going to public enemy”
“Hey man, sorry man, have to run, too much smoke, had an anxiety attack…”
“Ya paid in and all?”

- He keeps running

This does not portend well

Inside – PE targeted tees at 25 e – pricey but possibly their only real source of income and plenty are buying!  First up a Canadrian known as Cadence Weapon with his trusty side kick DJ Weasal. My they were fine! A sort of Baltimore beat/electro/hip house extravaganza.

They’ve just arrived from Barcelona without the balm of sleep but nothing’s gonna hold em back. Da Weapon bounces like a teenager on the last day of school – Weasel programmes slamming beats and stunning crunchy scratching’ as so often before poor old “Phresh” finds itself pawed and mashed at speed thro’ the fader. Not much of a crowd and a mega low end on the sound system.

Its only 8 pm – we’re off to a very good start.

Weasel also reveals a type of scratching I’ve never witnessed before.  Check.

Both hands at once each one sending the record the other way and no krossphdaer –a demented sweeping motion – rather cool.  The bomb squad are the Shocklee brothers plus cuz– who more or less re-wrote the entire cannon of hip hop in 1988 with a dense, nightmarish sample heavy back drop that made a Nation of Millions the innovator it truly was.

We are “pro duc cers” stresses Tee – unfortunately brother Hank sees fit to serve us nothing but Luke warm Dubstep on two CD decks (or dub bass as they call it).

Maybe he has a right  After all there are elements in that sound which could certainly trace their heritage to the Bomb squad’s innovations. Further a lot of the crowd seem intrigued with this cool new sound form the US (!sic!) – seems they haven’t been checking out traffic or Mc Grudders the past few years in between buying PE tee shirts.

Anyway over a fantastic sound system it sounds good and keeps us shuffling.

A short set of tricks from Terminator X’s replacement DJ Lord and a bit of crowd hype/technical difficulties and they are!  Well most of em.

Griff stopped at the airport due to lack of papers – we say #### Bush with enthusiasm (!)
(I notice when it comes to “#### the queen” an intense young bearded wigger just by me is shakin’ his head furiously in the negative – has he ever actually listened to a Public Enemy lyric!??)

Terminator X – retired (No not bumped off – actually retired due to old age) – But the DJ Lordy a more than adequate replacement.  But we have Chuck D and Flava Flav in great from plus the somewhat creaky S1Ws in desert storm camo with ninja swords doing some nice robotics. Plus an actual band complete with bass, drums and wailing guitar. And when they cut loose it was like twenty years never happened. And boy did they ever cut loose

– High light for your aging comrade scribbler a wailing ass version of “She watch channel Zero” almost equalled by “Night of the Living Base heads” with hundreds of aging wiggers bouncing gleefully to the beat.  In fact some like Flav look better than ever.

The show man was absolutely on point (but, thankfully, well reined in on the Jewish/Korean shopkeeper style rants!) and he some how looks younger. Flav and Chuck vib off each other like the consummate show men they are. Several tracks have never been tried live Chuck assures us.

He ##### up on one and does ten press-ups. The man is a muscular (tiny bit chubby) dynamo of political nous and good humour. Wiggers are invited to roar, wave their hands (like they just don’t care) and all the usual stuff. Chuck brings on Shocklee for triva as to where the band got their name, why the sides were switched post production and stuff.

To my intense regret I had to run bus wards before “Black Steel” – but if the Tripod is now roofless – I certainly isn’t surprised. As they say round our way – “GIG”

Suburban Super Heroes Programme 4 – Back to the Eighties…

photo credit: Mc-Q

(This review was mostly written through robbin’ lyrics from popular toons – and under the restriction of having read too much Joyce on way too short a space of time…)

Wanted for continuous wanton crimes against the English tongue
– DJ Krossphader

City Hobgoblins

March 16th in Dublin. The eve of our annual celebration of being a nation of drunken wasters by being a nation of drunken wasters. Scuttling through the city to make the pub for 7.30. Round Merion square corner of a funfair. Through Nassau street by the Dail, round the Stephens Green shopping centre – girls there – tall – just past that and coming out of some new hotel very wealthy creative or criminal types – both? – They have hours fun embracing – sneak through Montague Street thinking the Scott Walker tune and nearly fall over two quite figures in tracksuits – end of an affair?

Even Flanerys is dead tonight – 3 ladies with patent leather boots and one saying “we really clicked all night and then…” – Onwards into Anseo and there’s Watts

– Hi Paul.

British People in Hot Weather

Anseo fills up very fast. It’s a land of baaad barnets, funny ha ha mustaches and “craaaaazy” side burns. Somehow it’s a place where the weird through some strangely, soft, Midas touch in reverse action – actually becomes “dull and dutiful”. Camden town One Nine Seven One anyone?

But that’s not to diss!

Actually it’s a decent class of a pub, when un-full, with Guinness at reasonable rates and you can get lucky with the DJ. We have got lucky! He throws down King Tubby, Wire, Buzzcocks, Couple by the mighty Fall themselves and “I had too much to dream last night” A nice French fella pesters us for a gig to go to – we direct him Tripod wise – wonder did he go for it?

About nine pm and the place empties out – and us with it

– all bound for Fall town.

Spoilt Victorian Child

Beautifully timed arrival taking in the last 30 seconds of support band two – don’t like em! A long gig hiatus to follow – badly recorded versions of Fall classics – echo reverb ily. Usual crowd annoyance tricks deployed– lights up and down – half hearted cheers from the cynical Fall massive – mostly male, mostly thirty plus. They have been to the bad Fall gigs. Finally it becomes clear that we are, in fact, listening to Mr. Smith his good self reciting strange, resentful verse over a shadowy mélange of electronics and echo. Its kind of OK but only sharpens the expectations which jump at every possible shadowy movement on stage. And then there they are – a very young looking Fall Mk ?? – Including the rather gothy but fetchin’ Mrs Mark E Smith III aka Elena Poulou on keyboards. They look scared but rock pretty fecking hard – Poulou even risks a lipsticky and nervous smile. Then man himself drifts on after a very tight instrumental number – in trade mark manky leather jacket and purple shirt – looking hardly a day over 300

(its hard to believe he’s actually only 106 in real life).

He does all his trade mark live band reconstruction work.

Throwing mikes about, adjusting amps, trying to play other folks instruments, and even trying to sing into one of the sensitive drum mikes – sound man is a head of him at the controls or it might have been good bye tripod sound system…

This Nations Saving Grace

My first time ceeing the fall by DJ krossphader aged? –

Well?

Well

-Aged at any rate.

I tink The Fall are a very fun band.

They are a skiffle band.

They rcok very hard.

No there’s no getting around it – I popped me fall cherry on the right night and they were great.

(not that this will stop em being fired at/before the end of this tour – will they care? Off course not – well not the Band as such

– but imagine being in the Band and married to the fecker – where are such woman heroes constructed – how/why do they endure!?!)

It was somewhat reminiscent of my personal favourite Fall period – the 1980s with Brix. Even more amazingly our freaky friend actually let them take over vocals on several tunes and Elena has a great voice managing to sound like a more musical Mark E.

Was remarked to me by one friend that the moments when he was off duty but patrolling around giving out “ugly looks” were rather reminiscent of a grumpy Mike Baldwin supervising the knicker factory in Coronation street! They really went wild on the encore – especially the last tune – which none of the resident Fall aficionados could put a name too which just rampaged off into an extended psychedelic wig out – and off they went – with zero words of the audience or acknowledgement of the rows of pogo-ing middle aged Youths.

Proper order.

Leave the Capital

Off to Devitts for a pint and then off out home through an increasing crowd of shamrocky Italians and French with inflatable tri-colour hammers.

Paddy whackery in the alleys.

Please take it- keep it PLEASE

– Its yours!

“…they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honoured disguise and borrowed language…”

Karl Marx – The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852)

“Er …” said Arthur after a moment, “what exactly was it that was wrong with your planet then?” “Oh, it was doomed, as I said,” said the Captain, “Apparently it was going to crash into the sun or something
Douglas Adams – The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

As popular music slowly faces the reality of its own terminal decline as a business, it finds itself tottering over the edge of an abyss. It is gripped with a fevered existentialist anxiety, or maybe even, terror! No one any more is “standing in the way of control” to quote Beth Dido. God is, in fact, dead!

A fundamental question leaps out of this void. The artist is now liberated from “the man” and with close to complete access to means of production and distribution – but has to create for close to zero financial reward – who’s going to be bothered? Nietzsche claimed creators needed to be hard. Karl Marx (retired rolling stone columnist) or Lester Bangs – one of em anyways – would have it these are heavy times in which, in ways, it’s easiest just to fetch some riffs and beats from the past in order just …to go on…

One could even roll, and then, smoke; seventeen hundred giant blunts and only to observe:
“Creating in the Eternal Now is Always Heavy” (last track on the album!)

Welcome!

You have emerged from the tunnel and this is one of several growling embers of the 1970s that are rekindling to light a possible way to move forward via the past. Step up Comets on Fire, Boredoms, Omm, Sun (O) Earth and a plethora of other bands with not, in fairness, that much in common except a toe dipped into the UR Ocean of stoner hair metal.

Step forward The Heads!

The first thing that strikes you about this album is that it’s a smashing mess of bass driven, oceanic, nay titanic, fuzzy nose-diving guitar rock – and that’s also the last thing that strikes you. Then an ambulance arrives – if you’re lucky!

OK there are some slow and gigantic nods to ambient (maybe on cloud) and a few other ideas floating about in the swampy dirge. But like who the fuck asked for “other ideas”!??! Lets Sneer at “other ideas” maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.
Is this jazz fusion? NO.
Is this post rock? NO!
Post, post rock maybe? NO NO, fuckedy, NO – Give it a rest!
This is the sound of R O C K with maybe even a little from its primitive blues prehistory. This is loud, huge glorious fountains of semi melodic troglodyte noise reverberating in some lonely, smoke filled bat cave high up in the smoky mists of don’t Bogart that joint mountain. Maybe its generic – definitely it’s been done (1970-3) but they are doing it so fucking well!
And they are doing this cataclysmic end times sounds-cape on Jello Biafra’s minute alternative tentacles label for little more than a toke and a bean…

It’ll be hard to be a creator in the future.
And that’s a GOOOD thing.
Hmmmmm these end times!
Smell of diving sales in the morning – yes we are “under the stress of a headlong dive”

Hey people worked (OK badly paid and treated) in HMV, Fopp, Virgin etc…

But these will not be times of record label advances, smoozing artist and reptile men, accountants thinly and badly disguised as bands (hi Thrills), unlimited coke budget and stretch limos and groupies in the back y’all.

Nor will these will not be the days of support for all the “causes” AFTER we’ve minted it and stashed the cash off shore (big up Bono!)

These will be hard times: the end game or, at least, the beginning of an end game – or the potential start of a new game.

It’s the maggots (to refer to a very old idea of Steven Wells) that have digested the past and can regurgitate it in luminous colours, the crazy ones, the big dope smoking, peddle stroking fuckheads who just don’t and just can’t even conceive of a bottom line who might just be the only look in that popular music is now going to get at movement…

Shuffling around to the very nice gypsy sounds of Forty Thieves Orkestar and suddenly one of the five or so people dancing has collapsed. Great hardly up out of bed and I get to see some one die. She’s twitching and very pale – her boyfriend is screaming to her stay with him, the securities are running and walkie talkieing. All is well though within a minute or two she’s back up and talking and able to take a sip of water – doctors arrive in about 8 minutes (which I thought was pretty excellent given the mud etc).

Myself and Wattser wander of around Glasto central shopping area – got the free daily guide and confirmed there would be direct coaches outa there on Monday morning.

We get back to the Jazz stage for an Australian outfit called Ganga Giri. This seems to be another band relying on the trusty crowd-pleasing format of ethno cheese, rapping and drum machines. It seems sooo, sooo easy in the hands of Bondo or the likes of Buraka Som Sistema from last night. But it quickly appears that misapplied it can bomb and bomb very badly – these guys were terrible.

Towards the end I formulated the theory that they were in fact a small hard right wing group who had set up the band as a deliberate attempt to destroy the remains of aboriginal culture through generating comically awful piss take music.

The rain returns.

Sticking with the Jazz area and the next up where a frentic Japanese jazz combo calling themselves the Soil and Pimp Sessions These fellas where astonishingly talented and crowd hypers par excellence. Quickly we all found ourselves jumping around and roaring soil soil at the top of our lungs. Full marks for the complicated “brass off” between the trumpet and sax men and the crazy “bezz style” band leader in the pork pie hat.

Nothing would do me now but to catch a bit of CSS (Cansei de Ser Sexy) on the Other Stage.

These guys are tired of being sexy (I know it can be a pain like). Personally I doubt I could get tired of watching miss lurve fox changing from really over the top cat suit to even more over the top cat suit.

In the end for my money they were completely overwhelmed by the other stage, very, very bad sound and their own alcohol consumption – though it was a good natured drunkenness which had them charmingly falling around, dropping mikes and generally generating confusion.

Still and all they still managed to knock out pretty decent versions of Lets make love and music is my hot hot sex.

Off to the dance area to meet mate Simon, charming wife Caroline and Posse for some faffing. Bondo’s time had being switched so headed for the wonderful roots area for Ariwa records supreme Mad Professor The Prof and the soundman were immediately at variance as the first baseline sends the speakers shaky with distortion. The crowd in here were lovely helped out in no small measure by the ferocious skunk that the Brits love so well. I found I got quite a good buzz just wandering and sniffing the weed-saturated air. Mad prof was excellent as were a couple of younger singings to his label (a girl singing and too really young rappers)- proper deep, deep dub with modern touches. A massive standing ovation and demands for more, which seemed to take them totally by surprise.

Back in the dance lounge Erol Aiken is laying down a bombardment of that cheesy breakbeat house style which some people rather weirdly refer to as electro. A crowd of insane mongers is spilling out from all round the tent and into the mud – it’s the best crowd reaction I’ve seen so far but not really my style of stuff. After a lot of toing and foring Bondo de Role leap onto the stage.

What a fucking insane gig.

Think three cats tied up in a bag of sugar but about to be thrown into the river.

They purr mewl, bite and fight.

“Meet me after school and I’ll beat you like guerrilla”

Or how about this for an intro

“This is a romantic song, this one is for you and you and you – this is a song about sharing cock”

Over the course of 45 minutes the small audience of maybe 100 or folks witness

Outrageous cod diva posses – with winkin!

Simulated “riding” from almost every position

Repeated attempts to tear of clothes!

Live biting and licking sessions

A three person piggyback ride

A wheelie mud rubbing and throwing session

A stage invasion by

1. All of CSS
2. 2. A giant cat
3. 3. A bearded man in a wonderful gold lame dress
4. 4. All of Erol Alkan and his crew

Surely there are rules governing this much fun in a non built up area

While all of this is going on the three of them manage to keep perfect timing on all beats and rhymes over a stew of beats from Kraftwerk, Daft Punk, Europe’s Final countdown (oh yeah). Salt and Peppa, Summer Loving from Grease and various baile funk loops of their own devising. Is it rock and roll or simply shouting over thieved beats – I wouldn’t care to speculate!

There is really not much point in crapping on much further it was superb.

I got briefly diverted to the cabaret stage in the circus area which was really nice and theatrical and there witnessed Four Poofs and a Piano (very funny) and irish crazy comic Andrew Maxell (very, very, very funny) – then repaired back to the tent and kidded myself that I could sleep for a while!

For the evening back to the Jazz Stage – a few pints of Perry pear cider and a bit of John Fogarty, then a long gap as Rodrigo y Gabriela were having technical problems. Technical problems!??! How can one have fecking technical problems with two acoustic guitars! Oh no I need my “lucky” plectrum.

Any way lots of chats with random strangers – Glasto is brilliant for this and kicks lumps out of ATP or any muso style festival in this regard. Eventually they started and I was glad to have seen em live – though I half missed it as the chat was too good. I thought the Pink Floyd stuff was silly.

The rest of the night – total waste of time. Drifted back to the Glade on the half hearted belief that a cancelled Hex static gig was going to be rescheduled – not a chance. This was a slow and painful walk against thousands of punters coming down from the main stage. But the attempt to get home was the real bastard. Traffic flow was directed all over the camp – Lost Vagueness and the mucky hill with our tents was more or less out of bounds due to (yawn) “surprise” gigs by Madness and that dribbling idiot Fat Boy Slim (the billionth “surprise” gig of his career – one punter retold an incident at Glasto one year where she was just standing minding her own business and a tank drove up next to her – out pops Fat Boy Slim to pull a “surprise” gig!) – a long long treck home and a deadly fall in the mud – left me pretty much spent for the day…

Part 3 Sunday (alert alert – boring section follows!)

Sunday dawns with rain and low moral. Myself and Paul sit in the nice Lost Vagueness crepe joint and speculate about staying there all day.

It has this advantage – dryness.

Finally a plan is roughly hatched to take in a few bands in our local hood are but that treks to the likes of the Go Team or Cold Cut are not happening – Dame Shirley Bassey is out – diamante wellies or not!

We bum around the Bimble Inn in the Avolon field and the sun comes out and its quite warm and there’s mud wrestling which leaves me quite happy. Also they have Jameson, which leaves me even happier. Ah the simple pleasures!

The first band we dragged ourselves along to were a quite diverting mix of folk and electronic and, almost, rave betimes. They were called Tunng – I thought they were good – particularly liked the homemade bass thingy with the giant elastic band played by a lad they’d only just met – bespeaks confidence but seems like such instant collaborations are quite common in the “folk world”

The band I was most looking forward to were Tinariwen. OK y’all know the deal – a gun toating rebel band of fierce nomadic Tuareg desert tribesmen, no place to call there own – trained in Moammar al-Qadhafi’s camps – traded guitars for AK47s and so on. They are ferociously good – playing a low key but gradually building set. They sounded something like seven Rory Gallaghers on a blissed out mellow buzz of a Sunday afternoon- except for the scarfs and robes of course! Very blues rock driven but yet subtly African in a way couldn’t quite put yer finger on – OK maybe it was the chanting! Thoroughly enjoyable.

After a bit of a gap me favourite gypsy crooners Beirut are on. They were lucky by all accounts after a fierce taxi fuckup left them almost in the middle of nowhere. I looked the off kilter lutes and ukuleles and the lovely, lovely melancholy trumpet sounds – quite as good as their album. The lead singer is a bit mad though! Finally for the Jazz Field Amp Fiddler – I dunno it sounded OK if you just swayed around clicking your fingers and occasionally muttered “sophisticated” to yourself (give it a go – works for most jazz funk!) It was quite slick, very slick’ in fact, but, at the end of the day, not shockingly original or innovative – but he worked the small wet crowd very well…

Darkness descending and for some crazy reason myself and Paul decided to take a gander at Kila – who of course you can see any old day in Dublin! But they were (in fairness)on top form! I’ve only seen them twice before I think but it was a mesmerising set in a gradually filling Avalon stage. Oh the percussion, the harmonies – the intensity, the tunes, the “progging” out (very, very prog) – the battering with percussion (at one stage every one of them was simultaneously battering something and signing!) I especially enjoyed that gorgeous tune “Glan na scamill amach as mo chroi” (clean the cloud out from my heart! It works I tell ya!) The crusties began to filter in – it was fun. The rain resumed its tiny patters…

After this (for some strange reason) nothing would do us but to go and see a weird band combining Elizabethan courtly music, traditional medivial ballads and spacey seventies rock. They’re called Circulus. Sounds like it could be awful doesn’t it? Sounds like the “outer limits” part of pulling yer wire magazine gone mental eh?!?

No actually they were well worth the horrific attempts to slide up the muddy slope of park and the standing around in the rain – because they were actually extremely entertaining and certainly fairly tongue in cheek – me-lord.

After that wandered home via the upper parts (Stone circle, Green field etc) there by avoiding any crazed mobs from the Who and the Chemical brothers! After that it was huddling in tents listening to a seven hour down pour, packing up tents in pouring rain, standing freezing for three hours before escaping to Bristol.

From what I understand we were among the lucky ones. Glasto – hard to get into and even harder to get out off!

My next venture was a solo pilgrimage across the wastes to see the most talented member of the Wainwright family – the mighty Martha.
No I could not persuade any other person to go to this!
The sun came along with me though.
Hello sun
Fuck off Krossie!

I took a great liking for the new Park Area – programmed by Michael’s daughter Emily Eavis, in general, I have to say.
Very few folks hanging around for this one.
Bean searbach we say in Irish:
A bitter woman.
But can she weave the straw of heart break into the shadowy, spun gold of gold that will make yer heart ache?
YES she can.
Without doubt the most intense gig of the festival – almost too intense betimes
Before things get underway she insists on not using a radio mike
And the roadie snaps to – instantly inserting the old fashioned lead.
Possibly cos he knows only too fucking well “that she’s half crazy” as some other bard once put it.
Forty minutes of cussing, and singing like a beautiful, badly damaged but still flutterin’ angel and she has another roadie rescue the joint rolled and thrown just short by a kindly fella in the crowd. She (bizarrely!) sticks it into the neck of her guitar lights it and launches into a crowd pleasing rendition of ya Bloody, muthafucking asshole.
She tells us she’s getting married soon .
44% of marriages end in divorce.
They’re the lucky ones according to Bob Dylan’s brilliant radio show!
– Oh goody – so much new material…
Now a lot of folk don’t like Martha.
Hey that’s fine – music is very subjective.
However.
It moves me to actual physical wrath when I hear people say she can’t sing!
Certain things are easily verifiable and one of those is that her vocal range and depth and intonation are nothing short of astonishing.
But maybe she just jumps from one end of the scale to another a little too fast – she gets thrown purely on the number and scale of her own transitions.
Or, maybe, there is just a physical limit to the amount of pain that one human voice can carry.

After some tasty scran (don’t let anyone say different there is a lot a lot of excellent food in Glastonbury)
While I munch I listen to schlomo
He does human beat-boxing pretty well.
Not much more to say!

I find myself somewhat mysteriously wandering back to see brother Rufus on the other stage. In a lovely striped suit he delivers some beautiful arrangements and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot. I am even more pleased when he summons his sister up for a fairly ragged version of Jerusalem – but hey who hasn’t heard that number just too many times!
They make a good team though – mannered, trained, beautiful voice v crazy, raw beautiful voice and I like the way he looks out for her.

Back to the Park for its official opening ceremony and surprise (!) guest Lily Allen.
As if her vapid, semi literate, vacous whining wasn’t enough (and it surely is – I’ll give ya al-fresco ya dozy cow!)
– MIA has been cancelled to make way for her.
Jaysus – sickening disappointment.
More about “surprise” guests later
Death to surprise guests!
Meself and Paul bleed off and move down agin’ the tide as the masses rush up from the other stage.

…To find ourselves in the Glade.
Oh ho – a discovery!
While Bondo De Role have been whipping it up for the masses in Brazil – the imperialist motherland has been working on its own version of Baile Funk. These Portuguese geezers were called Buraka Som Sistema. They were utterly infectious fun with a roundy black female rapper/ranter/singer/grinner and a skinny young fella doing the most scarily acrobatic dancing ever – cartwheels head spins – you name it!
Trick of the day persuading us all to crouch in the mud and then leap up in the air in a coordinated fashion.
Mind you get a good class of punter in Glasto who take these things in their stride!

I repaired back to the tent for some sleep and then Lost Vagueness and Bjork – who did a decent stadium gig with really nice versions of some of her best stuff.
No Anthony from the Johnsons though. But there was also an astonishing green laser with a range of, jaysus, 2 million kilometres maybe.
I can see for miles and miles says a texter…
Then I went into a frenzied Jack Daniels trip which finally knocked me out at about 3 am.
Such a perfect day
and It hadn’t rained since four in the afternoon!