ooking forward to making my very first Supersonic Festival this year.


ust back from my second ATP festival of the year, at the new Butlins Minehead site. Nearly turned into my own personal nightmare after one of the wheels on my car decided it had its own agenda and wanted to go separate ways with me and the other three wheels.
A big thank you and recommendation to Longstones Garage, Cannington nr Bridgwater and the ever so helpful Michael, who not only got everything back together in time for my journey home on Monday but also drove me the rest of the way to the festival on Friday.
The festival itself was an interesting affair, new venue [Butlins Minehead – Think a giant motorway services, only with alcohol sold everywhere] and a few teething problems regards the stages and their capacity’s and their wish to create queues everywhere. The largest problem for me was the stages and the fact that they were spread out and the usual ‘pick and mix’ style of viewing a bit of everyone’s set wasn’t really possible. So didn’t see as many bands as usual but the set for the Gang Of Four was really enjoyable, as were The Stooges, shame Mike Watt didn’t get to do a solo set mind, and the MC5/DKT finale was a fine way to end things. Theres some pictures of the Saturday afternoon stroll to find a pub we took, that turned into a 10 mile round trip (You see a sign for ‘The Blue Anchor‘ and you figure its a pub along the coast a little – You’re so wrong) Here.
reat show from songwriter Tom Russell at Birmingham’s Ceol Castle tonight. A really nice, intimate, friendly venue, admittedly located in one of Birmingham’s less attractive areas.
Great show anyway, with fantastic accompaniment on the mandolin by Mikael Martin.
Hes back over in the UK later in the year, check his website for dates.
(more…)

ad a really interesting evening at Fasterthansound, which formed a part of the Aldeburgh Festival. Was a fantastic locale, Bentwaters Airbase – also the setting for the supposed Russian segments of the channel four reality flop, Space Cadets. It must be said as the sun was setting behind the tall trees, not sure what they’re called, if you can identify them from the photos by all means do email me, it did seem you were far from the UK.
Anyway the line up was great, enjoyed the finale of Mr. Hopkinson’s Computer allot, maybe cause it was the only time there was an audience of any size. In fact the day was only let down slightly by the low attendance, disastrous organisation of the coach from London [‘Catch the Coach at Victoria Coach Station…er, well, actually its in front of a hotel about a half miles away, not sure where it is though. Good luck.’] It could have been a longer evening, or weekend too. Hopefully they’ll have ironed these minor problems out for next years event.
Speaking of problems, its seems I’ve been loosing emails sent via the site or to my post@ address for the last two or three weeks. So if you emailed me during this time, apologies though the technical problems were else where. I’ve redirected the mail for now so please, drop me a line.
ad a great weekend at the United Sounds of ATP down in Camber Sands last weekend. Highlights for me were certainly Total Sound Group Action Committee, think that was probably a highlight for everyone in the room – fantastic live act. Celebration were also really good.
Finally Ramblin’ Jack Elliotts set on sunday was a great way, to end the weekend, fantastic performance of some great songs. I also bought a copy of the recent film about him, The Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack , from the director – his daughter, after the show. Which like Ramblin’ Jacks performance, is a really moving, entertaining and informative piece of work.
You can view a few photos from the weekend here (these photos would have been far better had I remembered to stop jigging about to the music while taking them). Sadly I missed both the Country Teasers and Holly Golighltys Set due to roadworks in Rye and a bit too much time spent sat outside the foundry in the sun the night before.
Still, highly recommended, as looks to be this.