Mach V

Ok, so festival No.3 – Big Chill Festival at Eastnor Castle – is now out of the way, and I’m half way through the festival line up for the year. Playing at the Big Chill has always been a highlight and without their support I doubt I would’ve continued DJing for so long, or had the career that I’ve had. The majority of my friends have all come about because of The Big Chill, so the emotional ties are stronger with The Big Chill than any other organisation. No other organisation has had such a profound effect on me, and that effect will last for many years to come.

Earlier this year Chillfest, the company behind The Big Chill, went into liquidation and it was looking decidedly dodgy for their future. In stepped Festival Republic (the organisation behind, Leeds, V, Reading, Latitude, The Electric Picnic and Glastonbury to name but a few) and they bought the brand, keeping on creative director Katrina Larkin. With such a corporate company stepping in to save it from dying two things were obvious:

1) The Big Chill wouldn’t die, it would be around for a long while yet
2) It would be radically different from previous incarnations.

So it was with a curious and skeptical eye and ear that I attended this year. Sadly, my role as a Compere had vanished so I’d ingratiated myself into the Big Chill Radio crew, but I was also booked as a DJ in one of the cocktail bars – The Monkey Shoulder Treehouse (see pic. thanks to Debbie Keen). The following text is what I posted on the Big Chill Forum as part of the feedback about peoples experiences ( http://forum.bigchill.net/index.php?/topic/698769-big-chill-2010/page__v... ) :

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On the whole: Not bad. I had a good time.

So Festival number 2 is now done (in a series of 6) and what a weekend it was! This one was The Secret Garden Party in Cambridgeshire and I could not believe the transformation. I last went to SGP about 6 years ago when it was a rather rough, simple affair with 3 entertainment areas, about (rather posh) 1200 punters and an awful lot of rubbish – not my ideal weekend, it had to be said. Over the last few years friends have been increasingly speaking highly of the event, much to my skepticism so, riding on the coat tails of Echaskech (another day time gig so I happily took the role of roadie for the weekend again) I went with low expectations. At least this way, I figured I wouldn’t be disappointed. Though to be honest, I would have had some pretty princessy expectations to come away from this feeling let down. The site has expanded to accomodate at least ten times the audience I’d seen previously, and comfortably at that, The weather turned out in spectacular fashion, as did the beautiful festival people who attended the weekend. The site crams in so much entertainment, blending stalls and stages next to each other interwoven with many pieces of site specific art. It’s so difficult to describe the vibe of the place, but if you took Bestival and dragged it through the Green fields of Glastonbury you’d get close to what it’s like there. A lot of organically grown fun. The musical line up might not jump off the page on first glance, but with so much going on round the site at any one time, it was pretty easy to find something of interest. Anyway, it comes highly recommended. Big thanks to CJ, Toby, Dave and Dave, Erin, Penny, Chris, Chris, Ginny, Sarah, Vera, Saul, Alex, Liz, Chloe, Jools, Roger, Rupert, Nick, Hugo (hope I got everyone) for helping make the weekend very special and special thanks to Dom and Andy for being the best techtronica band on the planet and playing an absolute blinder on Sunday. Anyway – as mentioned on the show below – it’s Big Chill next weekend so, no show next week, but in the meantime here’s this week’s…

Tracklisting

Stornoway – Watching Birds
Radiohead – 15 Step
Animal Collective – No More Running
Underdog (save me) – Turin Brakes
Beak – How a Hot Air Ballon Works
Tunng – it’s because… we’ve got hair
The Long Lost – Amiss (Tunng rmx)
Shugo Tokumaru – Mushina
Cornelius – Watadori
The XX – Islands
LCD Soundsystem – One Touch
Hot Chip – Hand Me Down Your Love
Datassette – Humans
Jonsi – Animal Arithmatic
Dntel – In which our hero is decapitated by the evil king
Datassette – The Aviatrix
Sarah Jaffe – Under
The Village Orchestra – Love Theme from “Two Man Rumble”
Freescha – The Sun Is Still… Still
The Field – I have the moon… you have the internet

BTM20100728 by machv

Festival Season kicked off last weekend with a journey into the country to visit Blissfields, who were celebrating their 10th year of festivalling – a worthy birthday to celebrate, especially in this “current climate” which has seen so many well loved festivals die a horrible death. Blissfields have kept going by staying small and true to it’s roots and more power to it. Sadly Echaskech were booked to play during the daylight hours so not much for me to do this time, but I did make up for it by djing on The Bubblebus again, which was a lot of huge fun – thanks to Caro, Jasper and Tom for their hospitality and generosity. Anyway… Here’s this weeks

Tracklisting

Lusine – Ask You
LCD Soundsystem – Dance yourself clean
Gorillaz – Empire Ants
Little Dragon – Never Never
Murcof – Memoria
Bonobo – Eyes Down
Pantha du Prince – Lay in a shimmer
The Village Orchestra – Lo Pencil
Beaufort Scale – Dreaming in Perivale (echaskech remix)
School of Seven Bells – Windstorm
Beak – Limozeen
Drexon Field – Limoncello Liquor is wonderful
Stornoway – The End of the Movie
Apparat – Over and Over
Echaskech – Every Touch
Digitonal – Emberkreiss
The Orb – Star 6 & 7 8 9

There’s definitely something up with my track recording set up – at present I manually update the track titles in Nicecast and that gets picked up by a console log file but it’s not picking up each one and it seems to be getting worse… hmm. something more to sort out… anyway lucky for you, dear podcast listener that you get the full and proper (but probably misspellled)…

Tracklisting

Snowblink: Don’t stop till you get enough
Massive Attack: Psyche
Lost Idol: Lightwerk
Alucidnation: Technically Warm
Helios: Halving the Compass
Lusine: The Thick of It
Prince: 17 Days (Professor LaCrois remix)
Justice: New Jack
Prodigy: Wake Up Call (ft Kool Keith)
The Gossip: Spare me from the Mould
Yacht: We have everything we wanted
School of Seven Bells: White Elephant Coat
Red Snapper: Lagos Creepers
LCD Soundsystem: 45:33 (Prins Thomas diskomix)
Kraftwerk: Music Non Stop (LIve version)
Flight of the Conchords: Inner City Pressure
Telefon Tel Aviv: Introductory Nomenclature
Booka Shade: Havana Sex Dwarf