Welcome to our first post on this here blog.
We are Echaskech, an audio visual act comprising of Dom Hoare, Andy Gillham and Mach V. We tend to visit a lot of festivals so we thought it might be nice to share some of the events we are heading to over the summer with you, dear reader.
You'll find us playing at some, attending others as punters, maybe even stumbling across some by chance but mostly we'll be enjoying that great British tradition of summer festival partying.
First up on the Echaskech live calendar this summer is Blissfields from which we have just returned (3rd - 4th July). This small to medium sized festival has been running for a number of years on a farm in Hampshire owned by the Bliss family - a rather fortunate surname given the circumstances.
Greeting us as we draw up to the event on the Saturday is a sign that says 'GAY DOG' in a P.T. Barnum font. Is this some kind of alarmingly inappropriate circus act? Alas no, it turns out to be kennels for happy canines and has nothing to do with the festival. We couldn't help but feel mildly disappointed, as well as relieved, that we wouldn't be getting to see some hopelessly exploited bulldog in a tutu.
Once on site the fantastic weather and atmosphere more than make up for the lack of gay dogs and we commence bowling about, swigging beer and checking out bands.
The crowd appears to be a pretty decent mixture of festival tribes. There's a good smattering of families, some proper young facepainted types, babies with giant ear defenders, middle aged men with logo T-shirts, a hen party and much of the usual fancy dress. There's also a lot of vicious sunburn which prompts us to slip slop slap like the sensible folk we are.
Many of the acts are local to the area which is great for discovering new music. We see a band called The Ramblings who leap about in a bonkers fashion and thump out rocky blues to an appreciative crowd.
The Ramblings myspace
We also catch the cracking DJ Chix who belts out hip hop and big beat classics bringing smiles to many faces particularly as it's mostly played off vinyl which pleases the old skoolers amongst us. (ie. us).
DJ Chix site
Over on the main stage we see Imperial Leisure who have the crowd bouncing to their ska infused madness - lead singer Denis climbs on anything available, hypes the audience and wows the ladies.
Later that evening I bump into Denis and for some reason he grabs me and starts dancing furiously. He throws me about, I get on his shoulders, he jumps up and down, I get off and jump up and down too, we bump chests, bounce about some more and he then attempts to leap into my arms. Not expecting this I drop him on the ground. Sorry Dennis - I ruined what must have been a fantastic looking dance routine.
After Imperial Leisure we head off to play our own set, testing out the sub capabilities of the speaker system with our new tracks and manage to pull a dancing crowd as we close with our remix of Jon Hopkins' '100'.
Sadly we are not joined by our VJ Mach V as a mix up on the tech specs leaves us projector-less. His interpretative dancing more than makes up for the lack of visuals thankfully.
Free of duties we start partying properly with Subgiant helping proceedings on the main stage. We hadn't come across these guys before but their set of phat beats, live drummer and a hefty dose of scratching had us dancing approvingly. Thumbs up to Subgiant - go see them if you can!
Subgiant site
Closing on the outdoor stage were the Super Furry Animals and as the prerequisite chinese lanterns float up into the sky, we ponder why we don't have cool first names like Gruff. He asks us to look at the moon and howl, he holds up signs that say 'Applause', and 'Whoa'. And mostly we obey despite 'Whoa' being a strange word to show to people.
Our night time antics find us at the 'Bubble Bar'. It's a double decker London bus with a jacuzzi on the top deck, cocktails in the bar and a host of DJ's spinning crowd pleasers into the night. Yes. We like this bus. It's much more fun than the No. 38 to Clapton.
We also catch a bit of Beans on Toast who is so obsessed with girls, drugs and swearing that he sings gruff voiced songs about them all to a country and western backing. He draws a large crowd who are thoroughly entertained and sing-a-long to each catchy chorus. Nice one Beans.
Beans on Toast myspace
Blissfields also caters nicely for the late night party crowd with a proper old rave in the 'Hidden Hedge' which continued into the wee hours. It was dark, there were lazers, chugging beats, much dancing and Orbital's 'Chime' got a massive cheer from the glow stick waving crowd.
All in - a smashing festival which left us travelling home on Sunday bleary eyed and very happy indeed. And we didn't even have a go on the infamous tractor rides.
Next up we head to The Glade....
Massive thanks to the wonderfully sparkling 
