Kordt Reunion.

I'm heading across to Amsterdam tomorrow to be greeted by Julian and friends - at long last I can stare at the Prozzies in the window and see the Van Gogh sequence that apparently moved my father to tears. Then to the Rhineland with the punks!

African Tapes

I just came across this beauty, Awesome Tapes From Africa - a Brooklyn based blog that has gone about sourcing a constant catalogue of African music, uploaded from tape. Whilst I was out there a few summers ago I had a hard time finding any decent stuff that wasn't either a shoddy CD rip or buried beneath Celine Dion. I guess I wasn't looking in the right places, and it's annoying that I've only got my hands on the stuff whilst sitting in my pants in Surrey with a laptop, but there you go. The latest entry happens to include some old Accra based highlife which among other things, happily reminds me of Al Hasan - the giver of drums, um bongo and dangerous motorbike rides.

Awesome Tapes Of Africa

Guilfest

The beautiful Guilfest went down once again over the weekend, though 2009 was a rather different affair in the sense that I would be up all night, supposedly not under the influence, actually getting paid. Yes - a free ticket, a wage, and a 12 hour shift ending no earlier than nine in the morning. To be perfectly honest, these shifts would not have been possible without the power talking; granary eating Jack Davis - I got him on board in the nick of time and it was a life saver, rarely would I be without a distinguished insomniac known for his stupidly loud and endless talking. We spent our nights in the company a walkie talkie, a chair or two, a pair of fluro tabards, and of course the wide eyed, red nosed Cabbio - a wanderer who we took in on many, many occasions.

Our inhumane shifts meant that a great amount of music wasn't going to be seen, but we managed to catch Brian Wilson in the rain. Absolutely brilliant, Brian Wilson, in Guildford, in the rain. He still sounds amazing, and what a staggering collection of hand movements - could there be an act more perfectly suited to our towns festival?....Our incredibly bizarre festival experience came to an end at some point during Monday afternoon, when myself, Jack and our toxic assistant almost simultaneously collapsed into a sleep deprived, cider poisoned coma at the lovely old White House, quite simply the best job ever.