solfest 2016
Pestis was due to pick me up in 20;.
There was shit all over the bedroom. Leads and clothes and blankets and plates and im a fucking useless messy fuck. I cant stand things being put away. It confuses me. So this is why I spread everything all over my house like some mad spoilt child. A tidy room will last no longer than a minute after I enter it. I don’t see the mess. Unless someone points it out. But I was now buried up to my waist in crap and nothing was ready. I was burning the backing tracks on to CD for tonights show, and trying to pack my crap for a weekend of gigs in the Lake District with my fave party crew in the land, Lost & Found.
I dragged my sacks of shit down the stairs, including a bag of drum breakables, kindly borrowed to me by Torrie of The Crypt Jam room in splott. We had just spent two weeks jamming in his studio. I had planned to buy a kit. But I had run out of money that I had stashed from France. We piled into the packed car. Me, Shag, Pestis and Gogo. And off we fucked to the north of england….
The TeddyBears blasted all the way up. The boys were stoned out of their boxes, or did they always go into this amount of detail? They also seemed to know every single line of every film we talked about. I cant remember fuck all. I watch game of thrones and the next day people are describing what happened and im thinking did it? I don’t rememebr shit. I seem to not posses a memory. Mates rant about fucked up adventures of times past and I literally have no recollection. Did I fry my brain with all the naughtiness I fed it in my youth? Or maybe i use different parts of the mind. Or maybe I was born without a memory. I read books manically. And ok, sometimes I hit an epiphanical breakthrough which changes the shape of my psyche, but as far as recalling anything ive read…. zero.. So I politely ignored the conversations and drifted off into my weird place. Neither here in the car nor anywhere else in particular… just kind of in a day dream of nothingness.
We pulled up on the road about 10 minutes from the festival. Pestis had been toeing it up the motorway and his driving was spot on. But now we had hit the lanes and his 3 passengers were all crying and varying shades of grey. I was ready to Ralph. We parked up and I, walking round in circles, I spotted Shags skinny legs in cheerleader socks as he hung over a gate, blowing chunks into a cows field.
Damien welcomed us to the festy and I set up my tent, borrowed from my flat mate, nextt to Shag and his long mate, Nick The photographers. My tent was covered in a pretty pattern of butterflies and heath, bright purple and pink. Within 4 mintues all the shit I had scraped off my bedroom floor was now spread around the tent. It stunk and I couldn’t find fuck all. Home!
Darkness descended and the glittery lights and muffled throb of soundsystems brought out the ravers in force.
I was struggling with the hi-hat clutch. the soundman looked on baffled as me and shag both tried to put the kit together.
“But, arent you the drummer?” he asked.
“Um, yeah, but ive never set up a kit before. I been playing 10 days”
He then set it all up as I headed backstage. Dj slipped disc had turned up in red despite us all agreeing that no colours were to be worn on stage . he was also saying he didn’t want to play the backing tracks on the CDj as requested. I didnt want them imported as mp3s, or played from the dodgy laptop drive, or connected to the system through a £1 lead. Nerves were high, Shag and The Wraith were on the verge of sickness while jabz seemed chilled in his poncho, and Flakira was, despite her debut dance at afestivalonly being a short while ago, one of the most relaxed amongst us.
I had no idea what was going to happen but was already regretting not putting in a few live shows locally before our first ever festival performance. We had tried to play Cardiffs Gwdihw a few nights previous but the idea had fallen apart moments before our stage time, due to lack of interest from, well, anyone, and logistics, lack of drum kit….. etc.
It was time to let fate do with us as she pleased. We were in the hands of the gods now
We kicked off with the The Grey Woman, an unreleased tune featuring The Wraith who paced nervously in a black hood until she sang inaudibly due to shit monitoring / festival soundchecks. Pestis took to the stage in his nighty looking like he had just escaped from the secure unit… Flakira winded her hips and Jabz and Shag rocked it hard. It seemed to be working… I was drumming on time (ISH), I planned to come out of the headphone socket of Slipped Dic’s CDJ but the booth was the other side of the tent.[image error] This was confusing as no one could see how the music was coming out of the speakers. Defo needed him on stage…
During my practice sessions, the previous fortnight, I had caught myself drifting off in my thinking and having to correct my timing. A space cadet, hmmm Crumpets. or going into stories, or negative spirals…its become a habit over my lifetime. And what I love about drumming is how you cannot leave NOW, and you learn to stay present. This is Buddhism 101….. this is the loudest meditation in the fucking world. This is THE NOW -the very place where happiness resides! Let’s get enlightened..
After having to correct myself on stage i was convinced it was the track and not me. I ran over the dancefloor through the crowd over to the dj booth to discover Slipped Disc had sneakily set up his laptop through a cheap lead and was playing the backing tracks from his laptop CD Drive!!!!!
YOURE PLAYING THROUGHT THE UFKCIN LAPTOP CD DRIVE?A?A??A
YES!!!!
THANKS. ITS JUMPING LIKE FUCK OUT HERE ON EVERY TRACK!!
NO IT AINT!
YES IT FUICKING IS, IM TRYING TO DRUM TO IT!!!!!
NO IT ISNT….
IT FUCKKING IS!!!!
I sat back on the kit and screamed YOURE FUCKING SACKED!!! and we plodded through the set. Which was in totally the wrong order due to the cd not displaying track names. So no one knew when their song was on, and I was drumming to a jumping backing track.. we just got on with it. It turned out like a bad school play with people coming on and off looking confused and not knowing what they were doing.
At the end of Paramatma the boys done the outro so out of tune and dragged it out so long that people seemed to be falling asleep in the front row. Then the extra long intro from Music Like Dirt droned on, with it being an instrumental,no one had anything to do on stage, so they all left, along with about 80% of our audience……I drummed along solo on stage. We painfully got through the rest of the set. There were two audience members left. We had cleared the entire fuckin tent. Result!
We had to remember we were doing this for ourselves. Not to try and impress others. This was always the rule. So, in having two people left we had in some way failed.
One was a man who, on studying the video footage after, appears not to move a muscle for the entire performance, just peering on looking completely baffled. Next to him is another chap in a cap, who is completely losing his shit to us. He gets it! And he’s the only fucker in the north of england that does. He danced like a maniac, whooping and flailing his limbs for the entire set!
Backstage we congratulated ourselves for getting through it and enjoyed the strange absence of any feedback from anyone in the vicinity. A telling sign that no one knew what the fuck it was. We had confused everyone. And had a great time doing it. I can only thank Damien of Lost n Found for taking a chance on us… here is a short clip of Dark Angel at our first ever gig as Clusterfuck……………………… 360 view (drag the screen around to look around the tent!)
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I joined Flakey in th eFunk tent, a goth in a funk tent! Amazing… I went off and danced to wonky house and then headed up the Cottage where I danced to drumn bass til the wee hours. Everyone was off their tits and seemed about 12, I was like a Dad age. When did this happen. Did they all think look at this dad trying to rave with us kids? The records seemed to be pitched up to the max as the tiny venue went ballistic to jungle and DnB I had a jig but then some young ones with those weird kid n play style hairdos and big selfie machines started swarming so I fucked off to my tent. As I laid down all the music on the festival site was turned off. 4am. Ahhhhhhhhhhh perfect timing I thought and then laid there til midday listening to a generator which was parked the other side of the hedge. Drove me fuckin insane. Why cant I be a deep sleeper[image error] it may have been the nerves too, because in my stress in learning how to drum over the last fortnight, since my return from france, I had completely neglected the fact I was playing Sunday night at solfest as Flapsandwich… and was aware that I had very little music with me
