Look North

Had an unexpected day today; chaos theory in action. The batteries ran out of my illicit MP3 player as I walked towards peasholm park on my afternoon rounds, diverting me to that shop on the corner in search of batteries. This set me back 5 minutes, and as the afternoon play finished on Radio 4 a red scooter sped past me and crashed square into the side of a ford fiesta. The driver looped up in the air, then landed, then stood up, then collapsed. Oh shit! He was ok though, and I got to feel vaguely important (but obviously not as important as when protecting council revenue) directing the traffic so all of 3 directions of traffic (it was at the t junction near atlantis and peasholm) didn’t wait too long. I had to hang around to give a statement and share two cigarettes with a Man from the AA which put me back further. When I finally got to scalby mills and started checking tickets there were 3 girls in a car, skinning up, with no ticket. Advised them of the score (0-0) and just as I walked away the rain intensified loads and suddenly sheets of rain were hitting me so I ran back and, for the first time in a whole day of periodically intense showers, had a friendly car to sit in for 10 minutes at the end of my shift. Then the miniture railway to Corner café, a slightly surreal conversations with a open top bus driver and his supervisor, then off on the bus back to base. But then, around the marine drive, who should we see but that weatherman off look north!! Paul someone. And the waves were BIG today, and it was nearly high tide with the occasional splash over the side, so the bus driver slowed down so we could have a look. Then as I looked through the window, seeing everything with a happy sheen, a MASSIVE wave came and drenched everything and everyone including him and his van!! And the WHOLE of the side of the bus, QUALITY!! So me and the driver were pissing ourselves and all these other people in the back-tourists- are like ‘you shouldn’t laugh you know its not very nice“

Saw lizzie last night, was really nice, and realised I needed to do some stoned pseudo-epic ranting. Make the unforgivable statement that, in conversation, I was funnier than her but she had the better points to make J, funnily enough her rebuttal was complete. Think perhaps just smoking less weed is making me feel a bit non-plussed with everything, but that will pass and am actually quite happy I know what it is. I think all my outside influences recently have been a bit negative or at least reflective (turning 20, being a wage slave, back in my childhood him (and the fact I can now say ‘childhood home’ cos I ain’t a child), nick drake, lauren), not least fucking

a)almost open civil war in Iraq now
b) Lebanon/Palestine

I think maybe at some time in the future Tony Blair will be like ‘ok, clearly Iraq is a more dangerous, unstable and unliveable now than pre-invasion (even if he says this in 10 years), and clearly it was foreseeable, and I am sorry’ and I will still want to beat him over and over and over till I run out of energy and collapse, crying, on top of him. How can Blair and Britain allow America to perpetrate these atrocities in the name of the dollar bill?

And ever half hour on the radio I had John Reid in my ear using words like ‘massacre’ and ‘indefinite critical state’ and Bush calling the potential bombers ‘muslim fascists’. I think Reid is doing like Thatcher and seizing the role of Parental Statesman facing the enemy with unerring resolution whilst Blair is on holiday and Prescott is shamefaced. Paxman once called Reid Labour’s ‘all purpose attack dog’, and it seems to fit him perfectly.

Finally, a nice email from my ’new’ auntie Yvonne had a bit of an annoyance as its finale along the lines of ‘make more of an effort to bond with your dad’. like giving a chicken miracle grow.

Ciao
Ben

sunday

Really haven’t been feeling it over the past few days. I don’t know if it is my haircut or what, but people (as in my friends) seem to have been a bit cold towards me recently. This could of course be paranoia, and I am going to try and stop with the THC for a week or two, but I dunno. I was trying to articulate some of this to Rachel the other night, and said something along the lines of ‘I understand now why some people are short with you for no real reason, because they have ‘seen it all before’ and can’t motivate themselves to get excited (or even interested) about, say, a young person who has just realised the utter overwhelming economic and social corruption of the planet, or someone who has just learned moonlight sonata on the piano. Before I used to just think they were arrogant windbags, but now I find myself feeling like them a litte’ and Rachel gave me this ’I can’t believe you just said that you southern arrogant bastard’ look. The funny thing was that comment was triggered by a random punk in rachels house who seemed (and initially acted) like the type of travelling punk who is exactly that- they have seen and experienced everything and nothing you can do will get you more than a raised eyebrow and quiet, almost tryingtobepolite acknowledgement., And then last night sam was going to come over so we could go and take part in Rachel;’s archaeology dig in her back garden and one thing led to another and we were 2 hours late and when we got there everyone was just like ‘oh, you’re here….so how you anyway sam?’. And all this time I am trying to balance the small amount of time I have off work between my clarinet and my friends, with people like suann and roger losing out cos I just don’t have any time. So all in all am feeling pretty shit. I slept a long time last night/this morning, and feel a little better now, and to be fair alcohol and weed together do always make me a bit stressed out and paranoid, but it feels more ingrained at the moment. I shouldn’t be surprised I guess, loads of my friends have stopped smoking for exactly the reasons I am describing. Maybe my body and brain could just hack it for longer. Fucking hell.

I am off to London tomorrow to get my visa, and am going to meet up with feder, bari, henry and jess with a couple of her Lebanese mates which should be nice. Will be my last trip to London before america.

WOMAD, TRAFFIKING, SOUNDWAVES, MISC

It has been a busy 10 days. Last Monday I started my new job as a……… traffic warden. Quite funny I know. I am doing carparks, 9 to 5, in a uniform with a Teepee (the machine you use to give tickets out with), my own boss, sneaking the Jazz classics into my brain all the while with a sly MP3 player. It is ok really- I just have to walk and walk and walk (my boss estimates 10 miles per day in what I consider school shoes) and give out the odd ticket. Ok money. Have already been told that I am too scruffy but what can they do, tuck my shirt in like Mrs Roberts used to? The only trouble is that by the time I get home I am knackered and can’t really do much in the evening, except for play my Clarinet, which I am now taking SERIOUSLY. SERIOUSLY (with capitals) would mean more serious than I think I could take anything except world wide revolution, but certainly serious with a capital S. At the moment I am aiming to

a) relearn the Mozart clarinet concerto that I blagged for A level. This is because next year in US I have to audition to even get LESSONS, and my prospective teacher is Mark Brandenburg, surely of the Brandenburg concerto lineage, and its not a chance I am ever going to get again (certainly not for $150 a term) and if I am serious about being a MUSICIAN (this time capitals justified) then I need to get my classical tits in gear. Apparently he doesn’t teach jazz. And if you can play classical you can play anything, right?

b) get my scales as sharp as Scottish josh’s one liners

c) learn the clarinet solo on Messiaen’s ‘quatour pour la fin du temps’ (quartet for the end of time) which is soooooooo beautiful, but am dubious to its technical significance.

Once those are done I can send off my audition tape and get on with funking it up.

But anyway, traffic warden, I must admit I have a bit of bias when it comes to fucking spotless Land Rover Discovery 3s that are 10 minutes out of time over messy skoda s with a kids seat in the back. But its cool and I execute my job with professionalism. Much better than a job selling deckchairs or ice cream, which I was planning to do at one stage.

But I was only there 3 days (enough to complete my training) before disappearing off to the World of Music and Dance otherwise known as WOMAD. It isn’t really a world of dance, cos everyone is middle aged with kids and has too much money in their pockets to shake their booty effectively (Mbira queen stella chiweshe had to positively cajoled the audience into standing up during her second set) HOWEVER, it was certainly a world of music and was I think the best festival I have been to (possibly with the exception of Glastonbury with Radiohead, sigur ros, and belle and Sebastian etc) in terms of music. I won’t bore you with lots of superlatives about bands I already like, but I will give you the name of ‘Think of One’, a Belgium afro-beat/funk/summer vibey fusion band led by a delightful 67 year old Eritrean lady. OOOh and Stella said (in that superb deep Zimbabwean female husk) ‘listen….we are all talking about forgiving each other….isn’t it about time we forgave ourselves?’ I know a few people who should listen to that lady.

It was sunny the whole time except for when FEMI KUTI (fela kuti’s son but a wicked musician in his own right and a very beautiful man) played, when the rain belted down. After my radical haircut the backs of my ears got very burned.

My cousins were also there, 17 and 15, very much into getting wasted the whole time, made me reminiscent. Met a great chap called Joe from leeds there, I was recycling with him (15 hours emptying bins and giving out bags and I got a free ticket) and we talked solidly for 3 hours about everything in one of those FAST HARD connections you make with someone. He had recently given up weed cos it was shooting him through. It seems to be making more and more sense to follow him.

And then another overpriced ticket home with GNER before sound wave. For those that don’t know, it is a one day free festival run by and for young people, that each year is a bit of a miracle (that it happens and is successful) and an event that I have been as involved as I can be in for the past…4 years. This year it was being almost entirely organised by 16 year olds and below (understand the logistics of putting on a whole festival) and, although there weren’t as many people as usual and in my opinion the music wasn’t as full of gems as it usually is, it was cool and a nice vibe. However, I was really tired after WOMAD and my playing- with Protocol (Mbira for sam’s band), Ozzy’s new band (sax) and as myself with Billy Bass and burgeoning young MC Jo was average at best. I was hoping to really engage the crowd with my Mbira, especially with Billy’s wicked beats, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Maybe I was just dehydrated, too stoned/not stoned enough and tired, but I walked away unhappy.

And now for the best snapshot of my life at the moment (which, after all, is what this blog is for, both for you and me), I have to go cos I have a million things to do, not least go to sams for a spliff and jam.

See you

1/8/06

At least five of my friends are going noticeably mad. The line between theoretical moriarty/plathy madness that we once revelled in and not being able to hold it down is blurring.

GNER can suck my willy…

…though they would probably charge me for it, cos they are CUNTS. Don’t want to bore you with the history of my slow descent into hating what is, on the face of it, only a high-speed train company but right now as I try to book my train ticket to WOMAD the cheap ones’ link says that there is a problem and the train migth be full, but the expensive tickets…. Are still available and with no technical cock up. Bastards.

But anyway, today, Saturday, I am tired, and things seem worse than they are. Been working my arse off since Wednesday serving tea and pints of Tetleys to old people at Scarborough cricket club. Quite nice actually but tiring. It was Yorkshire vs. Warwickshire and Yorkshire won it with an innings to spare, with a 18 year old spin bowler called Rashid getting 6 wickets on his debut. Not very interesting apart from the massive amounts of racism among Yorkshire supporters (where Rashid was the ‘surprising little nigger’ and even Australians are not Australians but ‘foreigners’.) and watching them being slowly but undeniably won over. I guess at headingly this was dealt with 20 years ago (after all, there must be shiploads of good Indian cricketers in Leeds) but Scarborough, as with everything, has not quite caught up yet. Soon they will all die though

Got a new job aswell! As a traffic warden. Yeah I know. Crazy stuff, but I get to be outside all day, fuck over car owners and walk around the seafront a lot. Hannah accused me of being a tool of the state but I responded that in an anarchic non-state a)there wouldn’t be as many cars and b)those that there were would understand that you need to park where you aren’t interfering with others and so there wouldn’t need to be any traffic wardens (or, if you look at it the other way, everyone would be their own traffic warden. Collective responsibility.)

But working so much (yesterday I worked 930 am till 10pm) has hindered my clarinet stuff.

I feel like I am waffling a bit in the way that people who work to hard do, so the remainder of this blog will be a post from my friend Jess, from South London, who has just got back from Lebanon (hope you don’t mind jess)…

When the israelis first invaded i was on a beach in the middle of a huge banana plantation south of Beirut near Sidon. i was fried at three in the afternoon on almaza beer etc as i saw the Palestinian refugee camps in and around Sidon burn from a distance. Black smoke coursed into the feverishly blue sky as jefferson airplane played white rabbit from my friend's car. The heat was creating those anxious waves of tension in the air, quavering and panicky. But at first it all seemed routine. My Lebanese friends were so crushingly used to bombings and suffering. Israel, Hezbollah, Syria; all carry out their dirty wars on Lebanese soil, all have their own agenda and interests to further. This is what they do. Who asked Hezbollah to drag the people of Lebanon into a bombardment that would cost over 300 of them (and counting) their lives, families and homes? The Israelis systematically slaughtered the Lebanese and Palestians during the civil war and since that time have periodically slammed the country up against the wall, just to remind it of it's place in the grand scheme of things. There are hundreds of Arab prisoners currently languishing in Israeli jails, and countless more have been butchered by the fortress state. But of course, it is impossible, UNTHINKABLE, for mainstream media coverage and intellectual opinion to concieve of Israeli state terrorism and outright aggression as anything other than "retribution", "retalitation" or "self-defence" in the face of a cruel and all but overpowering Arab attack, triggered not by political oppression and genocide, but by some inherent defect in the Arab nature. Palestinans, Lebanese and the Arab world in general are portrayed as possessing an inexplicable and inexcusable predeliction toward senseless violence against their benevolent and peace-loving neighbour, "the beautiful Israel". To me, that this view is so widely and unquestioningly held seems an example of Western propaganda at its most sophisticated.

after a couple of days, the majority of my friends and people on the course decided to go and stay at the University campus in Jbail (Byblos), about a twenty minute drive north of Beirut in the mountains. That night I stayed in Beirut with Laila and Tynan. Despite being the fourth most powerful military force on the globe (i believe), Israel rarely strike during daylight. Their preferred time for carnage and destruction (generally in the dead of night rather than in the open sun) goes hand in hand with the cowardice they display in their preferred choice of targets, cosily referred to as "soft": ie civilians, homes, schools and clinics. On Friday however, they started hitting while the sun was still in the sky, around 7pm. The bombs were louder than I'd heard before, closer and deeper. The window of Laila's room was open and through it we smelled (and even tasted I think) the nearby bombs. A rumour started circulating that one of the bombs had killed Sheikh Nasrallah. When the truth came that he was still alive there were men shouting "allahu ahkbar" (god is great) from cars in Beirut's otherwise completely deserted streets. From then on, me and Laila stayed in her room knocking back microwaved cups in instant coffee from the sample packets of Nescafe I'd had the foresight and bad taste to nick from the university lounge that morning (stolen sample packets Hannah, I assure you, promise have not actively bought any nescafe!) We kept waiting and waiting for something to happen. At 3am we started to worry. The Israelis's hadn't hit so what were they planning? Would they send in troops? It was worse to hear nothing. When a wasp gets into your bedroom at night, it is always more reassuring to be able to see it right in front of you than have it's furious, spiteful rage near you undetected. At four am the call to prayer started. We were situated in West Beirut, right in between two mosques. five times a day, the mosques would boom out the call to prayer, the two voices running together to create a sound of indescribable, quavering melancholy. They started bombing at four, during the call to prayer. I was in the kitchen making another cup of coffee. the window was jammed open and through it flowed the words of the Quran together with the sounds of the Israeli bombardment. afterwards, they put a message out over the city, by the same person who put out the call to prayer. They told Beirut in Arabic that the Israelis had come, to fight them. the word israel in arabic sounds deeply malevolent. all i can hear in my mind now is that word being sung out over my ghost city...."iz raaaaaa eeeeel....iz raaaaaa eeeeel". The flourescent hospital lights in the kitched flickered on and off. Four hours later we packed up our things and took a bus to Jbail, where we stayed till we were evacuated.
That night Laila and I both, on seperate occaissions when writing about the situation, referred to the Israeli state as "the basilisk". Quelle chance.

After that we stayed in the mountains, binge eating nutella and biscotti. Each day we would hear the media ponderings as to whether the poor, innocent Americans and British could survive the horrors of the war, armed only with their Western passports, influential governments and rich daddies. Barbaric violence against the Lebanese is not only condoned, it seems not even to be considered. Over the weekend one of my friends went back into Beirut to collect her things. While she was there she found one of the flyers the Israelis drop on the areas they are about to bomb. Roughly translated from Arabic, the flyer reads:

"It is said that those who sleep between the graves will have nightmares. Israel is a powerful nation and will do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety of its citizens."

Once the Americans and Europeans have left, the Israeli poets of death will really begin to embark on their grotesque designs for the people of Lebanon in true earnest.

It is the end of July, high summer in Beirut, but the sun hasn't shone since the Israelis invaded. From my balcony In Jbail we had a view of the whole coastline; those teetering tower blocks, the ocean stretching out into mist and haze, shimmering like heat on a mirror. at first I thought it was clouds that had stopped the sun from beating down on the glassy panorama. But clouds have definition, form, an faint but nevertheless discernable anatomy. This was murk, gloom, the soup of nothingness, a grey veil draped over the Lebanese coastline. Next to our campus was an old, deteriorating hotel. That double sided cross, sign of the Lebanese forces, was emblazoned on the door. The sign fixed atop the hotel proclaimed it be "The Comfort Zone".

> From Friday to Thursday there were constant rumours that the British and
Americans would be coming. In the end, it was the Americans who came first. Almost all the Americans at the University left suddenly, in a rush. After watching them get loaded into the busses, I went back to my room and found your note Laila. Thank you. My sentiments exactly.

On Thursday I went down to the ports with the three British girls from the programme, Ellie, Layla F. and Angela (ehup guys!). We waited for eight hours, but in the end it took too long to get everyone on the boats. The Israelis said our window of opportunity had gone, they wanted to start their air strikes again. So we went home

The next day we managed to get out. We were flown by helicopter (the spit of those ones from Apocalyse Now, sorry for the pop-cult vulgarity, but it's gotta be done) to the warship HMS Illustrious. We went round in circles in the Meditteranean for five hours, while the helicopters picked up more people from the ports. From their they 'copptered us to Cyprus, from there a flight to Manchester, train to London, tube to Victoria and then train to Brighton. And now, after a few hours drinking tea and smoking, here i sit before the computer screen.

I didn't want to go, I really didn't. It's so much more painful to watch Beirut burn from a distance than it would have been to stay there with it. I think that's everything.

Scarborough and Diminished 5ths

Have got further wrapped up in the seemingly tangible possibilities of playing Jazz music this week. It has been a combination of my visit to Hannah and Glasgow the other week when Jazz and Jazzers were everywhere, reading a Miles Davis biography and for the first time (you may be surprised) being able to practice with any sort of continuity. I am in the process of learning all my scales, before I apply them to the monster ‘Building a Jazz Vocabulary” book that I bought a couple of years ago in a fit of inspiration. When it arrived I realised I needed to know my scales before could do anything else and never got around to doing it. However, with California offering ‘History of Jazz’ aswell as ‘Beginning Jazz Improvisation’ I certainly want to know what I am talking about verbally and tonally before I get there, and now is the time.

This also solves the problem of the happiness/lyrics conundrum- basically, I can only write non-political lyrics and emotional music when I am in the grip of an emotional rollercoaster or general slump in my relationship with the world. In the last year or so my life has been fairly blissful and so I have written almost no new music. Instead everything has been about jamming and the imperative moment. That was cool though, and perhaps what I have needed, but I feel now the time has come (I am 20 now for fucks sake!!) to get SOLID and pursue a four pronged musical sword to cut through people’s conscious and capitalism:

Prong 1- Be a faultless, original and dynamic clarinet and sax player that can add a handful of magic to any band or song and jazz it up like a motherfucker.

Prong 2- Be able to perform solo (for busking, open mics and travelling to start with) with Mbira/Clarinet/Guitar or whatever and build up a set using original, (maybe some non-musical like storytelling or…one of my lecturers at SOAS used to busk with banjo and puppet, which he controlled through movement of his shoulders) high quality material. The only trouble with this is that it will probably need to involve me singing, which gets harder and harder the more I smoke and the less confidence I have in it. My range has got lower, and with the exception of the Waterboys I have not found any good tunes that fit it (help!)

Prong 3- One day, perhaps soon, perhaps not, start a band that, like Pony Club, can be something I can put all my heart into and believe in. After the Ponies I was really chuffed with what we had achieved but mentally exhausted and had enough of all the things you have to do as a DIY punk band before you even get to play the music. And making sure the band was rehearsed and tight and not go on stage without the knowledge you are purveying a high quality, danceable, tight product. But now I feel I have the appetite to do it again, and now with a much better idea of the music I want to be creating. I am starting to master some computer programmes aswell, which means the flow of music between myself and collaborators can be fast and interesting (someone can do a beat in London, pass it on to me in Santa Cruz for melodies then back to Scarborough for mastering!!! And all the while there is a discussion about the music going on). Whatever it ends up as, the first gig is going to start with no lights and a Tibetan singing bowl.

Prong 4- Maybe once all the above is completed to a reasonable level, or has failed miserably, lose all sense of reality and start experimenting with sound till I die. I want to rebuild music from the beep.

What do you think?
_______
Incidently, had a lovely week this week- the sun has been shining over Scarborough and had some ‘moments’- sat with sam on a peninsula cliff thing at between cornelian and cayton bays and realising I could be in the Caribbean (the sea was turquoise, the sand almost white and no people!); biking to staxton (and the first place me and lizzie kissed) with sam, kai and james to visit sam’s old haunts and screaming down dirt tracks; jamming with james grunwell, ex-Frequency guitar player and good guy (played some clarinet on his mogwai-esque tracks- perfect); listening to Lauren bang out her first tunes on guitar; fast jams with sam; sam’s new drum machine skills with my Mbira… ahhh, life is indeed like a box of chocolates- you never know what you’re gonna get, but it is very likely to be sweet and chocolaty.

Bad places

Got back from Glasgow last night, missing Hannah, and in a bid to bring some normality to the situation got some resin. I asked Ambrosia, its previous owner, what he was up to. “I’ve got well into reading the bible at the moment- It’s much deeper than most people think!”. And so, over Yorkshire soapbar, he explained what he has gleaned from two bibles (one Catholic, one not), an astrology book and a Tarot book. Trouble was, although he went great lengths to explain the methods, we ’have to find out the answers for ourselves’ which would have been ok, had the methods seemed at least verging on flawless. When people go existential on me I want something concise and based. Especially when the subject is delivered as THE answer. In Ambrosia’s own words, “So many people believe in the bible, but the book is so unbelievable!”

Whilst I wondered whether I was being cynical and judgemental- ‘Perhaps this discussion is just the same as all the other BIG QUESTION chats, just packaged into a form that the orator really connects with, or happens to connect with him, and is giving him the revelations (without any real answers) that many have found through other means’- lee was looking worried. It reminded him of a bad trip that he was at pains to explain to me but couldn’t quite get there. Scales- of time, space, individual vs. universal- that were warped and very much to do with the self and relationships with it. He tells me it bugs him all the time. Can you be mad if you question your madness? Infact probably I think. WHAT DO YOU THINK (there is a comments button you can click)

Noianoianoia

I want to make some big statements here but they have already been made and I don’t think this is the right place for soapbox at the moment, just like soapbar only has its moments. And they are moments.

Vivas

...

Back in scarborough
The adults aren’t enthusiastic enough to dance tonight
So Monday Club at Vivas is packed with old faces and foundation.
Old friends from primary, secondary and college
Friends of friends, enemies of friends
One bad memory ignores me
One bad memory smiles at me.
I smile back
Everyone has exaggerated the things I remember about them best
Almost like noone hides anything anymore, or have reached the nth point of where they were going.
Including the boys toilets, which are now plastered with hardcore porn.
Grimacing girls and loose vaginas.
Paul Murray must be in a sentimental mood.
Christie has too much make up on.
Ginger Lucy- her eyes glow- tells me that her message to the universe right now would be ‘I am pretty grateful now… sorry for dissing you for so long”… it takes me a while to understand.
Tanya is a self confessed party animal
Tom kisses another girl whilst looking at her
She screams in my ear
And I hear it as a whisper

£3 Kronenburg
Or £3.50 for a whole bottle of perry champagne
It can’t be that bad, right?

Later on a roof near the post office
Lee passes me a spliff and the moment and we are getting down to the bones of matters.
I tell him why I stopped hanging around with him for 3 years
By way of comparison to now.
We wonder what the best way to face the future is- sideways on?
Thank fuck both of us are not too paranoid at this moment.
We are all learning but facial expressions whilst we learn no longer come so readily.

today i am listening to: Giles Peterson's In Africa

Sunrise festival

I didn’t really think about going to hippied-out festival sunrise much before I got there. In the morning on the day I left, I busily moved out of Dinwiddy’s warm bubble of friends, music and hidden moments on staircases. The process of saying goodbye to everyone before I go to America was drawn out and sad at times but mostly ok. It seems nothing compared to the exchange students who are going back, who will never see most of us again and for whom we will stay polarised as a smiley part of their ‘year in London’. The timescales involved are still a bit alien to me though, so things blurred by in sentiment, hugs and recycling.

So after a mammoth 10 hour journey to Somerset on the bed in the back of a van we hailed a passing horse and cart (no joke) and found our camping spot and the rest of Rhythms of Resistance, the activist Samba band that I played with at Sunrise to earn my free ticket. The people around me lacked a spare place in their tents so I stayed in my Survival Bag, lying on my clothes. I enjoyed its efficiency and being able to sleep outside with all that freshness but also warmth.

The festival was not completely awe inspiring, but solidly good. Twelve ‘zones’- main stage, tipi zone, healing zone, craft zone, cool trippy zones etc- set in a massive field around a central ‘sacred fire’ with around 8000 people on the site. The trouble for the organisers was that 5000 of those 8000 were not paying (artists, crew, security, food sellers etc) and the festival was running at a big loss. Everyone stuck to the vibe though and pulled into their collective pockets to have more cups of tea and give some money back to the festie. You could tell it was a virgin festival. I wasn’t too bothered though; it saw the 6 days as a suitably relaxing time between the intensity of London and the long summer that stretches before me in Scarborough. I don’t mean to imply Scarborough is not where I want to be, just that I will go back to a different way of life and it might mash my head a bit to go straight there from London. Time in a new and different place (with lots of time to lie around in the sun and lead an ideally chilled existence) always gives perspective.

The Samba started in a very disjointed manner, and I realised I knew far fewer parts on Surdo 3 (the thinnest and highest of the large soft-beater drums) than I thought, and was the only Surdo 3 playing at times, so I sounded pretty bad and mm, wasn’t very happy with myself. However, my playing the Samba generally got better as the weekend went on.

There was loads of space for jamming all weekend at sunrise; a dedicated ‘freedome’ with two nice korg synthesisers, kit, congo drums and all the usuals, loads of open mics in happy hippie tents populated by honest players and furry tunes, djembe collectives in every field and lots of tent playing (including two speedy saxophonists in vans either side of me). Despite this, I didn’t quite feel there was ever room for my penny whistle or Mbira or if there was, the sudden propulsion to join the music that I usually get didn‘t arrive. Maybe I was tired. Anyway, on Wednesday I was hanging around in the main field waiting for my lift back to London with most things closing around me when I found a tent with a guitar player singing a song he couldn’t remember, giving up, and ending with ‘anyway, my point is that I love that woman over there’. A great way to redeem yourself to a caned crowd of a dozen. A clarinet lay on the table, looking delicious.

The upshot of all this was that I had one of the best jams ever with first another clarinet, guitar and drum, then Mbira with drum, then Mbira with Cello. The first time I have done all three in public, and the first time EVER with a Cello which went straight into the zone and stayed there till the end. That jam was easily the most exciting thing that happened at sunrise. And then I got free garlic mushrooms J.

it’s quite nice to lose yourself but when you come back you have to find yourself again. - Ben Feder