It has been a number of years since I last went to a music festival to experience the delights of multiple bands, dodgy catering and never-ending queues for toilets. My first such event was the Cropredy festival in 1987 which featured Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention and John Martyn amongst others, ran like clockwork and had record-breaking good weather – nothing I’ve been to since has measured up to that weekend, so how did Belladrum fare?

It has won awards for being the most family-friendly festival, amongst other things, and there were indeed stacks of activities for ankle-biters from puppet shows to storytelling and creative workshops. A very good selection of food stalls was on offer – from the traditional festival fare of burgers through to smoked salmon and stovies. The quality varied as much as the variety, as you’d expect, whilst the prices were uniformly high. Then there was the usual range of cash-in, boutique and generally peculiar shop stalls for those wishing to buy hats, wellies (essential), healing stones, etc. So far, so good, but most importantly… what of the music?

Friday

Nick Harper

We arrived slightly later than we had intended on the Friday, so by the time we had unloaded our gear into the tent (pre-pitched by Martin – what a star!), then found a copy of the ‘Garden Times’ (the mini-newspaper detailing running orders and events), we only managed to catch the end of Nick Harper‘s set. He played a monsterous version of his ‘Love is Music’ mutating epic, which grows more arms and legs and nods and winks every time I hear it played live. His singing was as strong as I’ve heard it, and guitar playing superb as ever – I just wished I could have heard more! The only downside was that the sound in the tent was pretty poor – almost as if the sound team underestimated the power that could come from one man with acoustic guitar – it seemed to be overdriving something in the system.

Peatbog Fairies

After a wander about we settled down to see the Peatbog Fairies over at the main stage – the only stage not covered due to the size of the arena. They have a mix of instruments from bagpipes and fiddle via horn section to standard rock guitar, bass and drums, and play a sort of high-octane ceilidh music intertwined with jazzy horn riffs and funky guitar solos – ideal for a festival audience in the Highlands, and it certainly got plenty of people up and jigging about. As a dance band they were great, but musically I found them fairly repetitive and lacking in dynamics, a fact which was not helped by a very poor mix which lost several instruments which were clearly supposed to be playing solos, and which had the bass so loud that we actually moved to the back of the arena because it was painful on the ears.

Alabama 3

The bass was still a bit on the heavy side during the Alabama 3 (or A3 in the US) set, but the mix was generally a bit better. They play a brand of country music with a strong flavour of modern dance music – I’m not familiar with the correct label, as this is a type of music that generally I try to avoid, but I’d guess house or acid or something like that. It works quite well, with three vocalists singing and rapping against each other, electronic noodlings warbling in the background and a pretty tight set of country/gospel/blues songs to carry along. An interesting and entertaining act with mock evangelical zeal and some nice cynical references to world politics.

The Magic Numbers

Having been disappointed by the poor sound of all the artists so far, I was pleasantly surprised by The Magic Numbers, for whom the mix was just right, with a strong, crisp (but not overpowering) bass and clear vocals. I wasn’t expecting great things, as none of their songs that I’ve heard before particularly appealed to me, but I really enjoyed their set which had a great variety of songs, with lots of dynamic range and fun little time signature changes backed by that clear and busy bass and smooth harmonically-interesting backing vocals. A very polished performance which shone with humour and a sense of fun.

Saturday

James

Headliners for the Saturday night were James – one of those bands which, from back in my student days when they were big news, I always considered to be over-rated. Not bad, I just couldn’t see why so many people thought they were SO good. Nothing I heard at Belladrum changed my opinion. The sound wasn’t great, the songs uninspiring, and the early ‘last number’ seemed like a push for a second encore. I don’t know if they got it – I left after the first one – as did many others, but there was no change in lighting or on-stage clearing-up activity, so I think they were expecting it. In all I was surprised to see they had as big a fanbase present as they did, but they were the least interesting of all the acts I saw on Saturday. They pulled a bunch of people out of the audience for one song (which seemed to repeat the same riff endlessly) to dance on stage, but made no attempt to interact with them once they were up there. Perhaps I’m just spoiled by Zappa’s approach to audience participation, but I thought it was a pretty empty gesture.

Kharma 45

Back at the start of the day, before the daily rag was available and we knew where to go and who to see, we stumbled upon an unadvertised band Kharma 45 – good lively rock band, with an energy I’d imagine in an early U2, and a bit of a hint of their progressive influences. A unexpectedly good start to a day of great music, despite the rainclouds starting to empty overhead.

The Dangleberries

Next up for investigation, purely on the basis of their name, were The Dangleberries – another bagpipe-rock combo in a similar vein to the Peatbogs, but this time more of a pipe and drum band with a rock group tacked on. And with an altogether different remit. If Jack Black had lived in Scotland and learned the pipes, this is probably the sort of thing he’d come up with. Sabbath’s “Paranoid” played on the bagpipes? “Roadhouse Blues” with a pipe and drum solo? Rock meets folk head-on and some sort of hybrid mutant music comes out. Not entirely successful all the time, but certainly a lot of fun. If you’re going to do a cover version, then at least try and bring something new to the song – and the Danglers certainly do that!

Paul Steel

At this point we headed over to the ‘Hothouse’ tent to see String Driven Thing, but apparently the string driving the generator had snapped earlier in the day and the whole schedule for the tent was delayed. Another happy coincidence. Paul Steel was leading his band in his upbeat, quirky style, swirling his moptop around and jumping between keyboards and guitar with timing-perfect changes in style and tempo. Maybe I’m avoiding the radio too much, but I’m amazed that I hadn’t come across them before – definitely one to watch.

Orkestra del Sol

Back to the other side of the festival arena to see Orkestre Del Sol – a wonderfully eccentric, but very well rehearsed brass ensemble playing great Eastern-European flavoured tunes with a great sense of humour and an engaging way of switching between band leaders. I could imagine this band doing great things with lots of Zappa’s earlier instrumental music – great fun to watch and heart-warming, uplifting, crazy music.

Fake Bush

Slightly disappointing was the fact that Fake Bush was just one woman and a backing tape, rather than a full band, but she was very entertaining covering Bush songs from “Wuthering Heights” to “Breathing” (the latter done very well). A very visual act, half the enjoyment lies in seeing the moves and expressions familiar from KB videos and performances. She struggled with (or avoided) a few of the more awkward notes in the range, and some of the expressions were more like Fenella Fielding than Kate Bush, but this just added a bit of comedy to the mix which wasn’t out of place. The only thing missing (minor, but an important part of the song) was the rifle sound in “Army Dreamers” which had been replaced in her backing track by a simple percussion sound – just not the same. Towards the end of the set there was a large influx of people into the tent to avoid the rain – I appreciate the need for shelter, but it was pretty damn rude to come in and talk all through the rest of the set – some of us did go to hear the music. FB carried on regardless of the pushing, shoving and noise and put on a great show. On leaving the tent it was apparent that the rain people had been trying so desperately to escape was no more than a standard Scottish shower – not some massive downpouring of biblical proportions. What a bunch of jessies.

String Driven Thing

Having only heard of String Driven Thing through their links to Van Der Graaf (Graham Smith played violin for both), I wasn’t sure what to expect from them. What we got was a great old-school rock band with elements of folk and blues – no frills, no gimmicks, just good live music, played well. I hadn’t really done much to find out more about them in the past, but certainly will now.

Misty In Roots

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the weekend for me was just how much I enjoyed Misty In Roots. Whilst I don’t think I’ve heard a Bob Marley track that I didn’t enjoy, reggae has really never done much for me and I’ve steered clear of it in the past. That’s probably got more to do with the likes of UB40 and their ilk, but at Belladrum I finally got to hear a reggae band good enough for me to ‘get it’. Sat down near the stage to get the full trouser-flapping effect of the bass (though still not as loud as the previous night’s Peatbog mix), it was a pleasure to let the laid-back rhythm carry me along. But these guys can rock too – some of the guitar solos by Kaziwayi wouldn’t have been out of place on a Pink Floyd album, the horn section added all the right touches and the vocal harmonies were stunning. The chatty rhythm of the lead vocal (Poko) seemed very spontaneous until the backing vocals came in exactly on cue to reinforce the rhythm and showed just how tight these guys are. A great performance.

So hats off to the organisers of the festival – it really was a cracker.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on stage, and never as a ‘solo’ act, so it was with some trepidation that I set off on the road to Bushey (near Watford) for the ‘Hands Off 2007′ Theremin Symposium. Various people have posted reports of the main event, which was a great success, but of most interest in these pages is the little set I did on the Sunday night for the ‘survivors’ of the whole weekend. This came after a packed weekend of workshops, demonstrations and a truly wonderful concert by a variety of thereminists from around the World, so it could easily have been a total wash-out with everybody drained. I happen to think it all went rather well.

I rehearsed a batch of new Lunacy Board songs, along with a couple of old Deserters numbers – just me playing guitar and singing, using an old Linux PC running the ‘Sooper Looper‘ software to set up sections of repeating chords to play solos (either guitar or theremin) over the top of. At some point prior to the event it occurred to me that it would make life a bit easier for me and a bit more interesting for the audience if I was to have some collaborators up on stage, so contacted a group of performers with the offer of the post of ‘Stunt Thereminist’ for The Lunacy Board Subcommittee. I received a couple of positive responses, so re-arranged my setlist to fit around their choices of song, and I was ready to go.

Nerves were absent as the performance drew near – probably just because the day had been so busy and I had barely time to think about the evening show. I got the stage more-or-less set up as soon as the main concert had finished, took half an hour to get refreshed, then returned to the stage to finish off. At which point I discovered that I had not brought a video cable for Sooper Looper. It can run quite happily without one, as I control it from a set of effects pedals, but should anything go amiss I would not be able to reset it or see what was wrong. Live and learn. The audience came into the room and chatted as I prepared for the first song.

To warm up my fingers and voice I kicked off with ‘Morning Rolls’ – a very short song with no instrumentals or frills. With that complete and with only a small fluffed chord change I invited Wilco Botermans to the stage. Previously in the weekend Wilco had demonstrated his theremin effects set-up which he controls using a specially wired glove to control parameters of a group of Moog ‘Mooger Foogers’, as well as the visually stunning ‘Croix Sonore’ – a unique instrument with similar properties to a theremin. For the purposes of his guest appearance he was using his TVox Tour theremin (the Russian-built instrument favoured by Lydia Kavina and Barbara Bucholz), and the Mooger Foogers, though without the glove controller.

We started off with ‘The Unofficial National Anthem’, followed with a very laid-back version of ‘Requiem For A Head In A Field In Butler’ – using Doug’s original bass part which we improvised along to, and finished off with ‘One Night In The Back Of A Fire Engine’ complete with audience participation (cheesy, but fun). Wilco played a mix of melodic accompaniment and weird special effects which worked well – ‘Requiem…’ seemed to really benefit from this approach as far as I can recall. The concert was recorded in full, but I’ve only had a chance to hear a few snippets back.

Wilco left the stage and I played another short song – ‘Jim Crow’, then Hypnotique came up onto the stage. We played ‘The Man In The Boat’ followed by Lee Newe’s ‘The Woman In Red’ – both fairly slow songs, to which Hypnotique added some legato cello-like theremin parts. Her solos on ‘The Woman In Red’ were particularly effective at bringing the sad nature of the song to the fore.

At some point during the previous song, the looper had stopped responding, so this stopped me doing the new multi-part song we’ve been working on, which needs several looped layers to work, so I called for another stunt thereminist and Terry Bowler came up to play on ‘The Winning Smile’ (a rare love song I wrote last year, which now also incorporates the music from ‘Goodbye Mr. V.’) and ‘The Ballad of Serenity’ (the only cover version I’ve tried, with lyrics which fit into the Lunacy Board remit). I finished off with one more guest thereminist, Captain Ants of ‘The Jaw-Line of Julianne Moore‘, playing the somewhat rockier ‘Fairytale Propaganda’.

It was good to finally get some of these songs out on stage, and great to be able to play them with a group of musicians from a range of backgrounds. I hope to get some video clips posted in the near-future from this.

This gig forms the grande finale of the theremin shindig I mentioned a while ago. I’ll be part of the ‘UK League of Thereminists’ playing a few structured improvised pieces as part of a ‘theremin orchestra’. There are a number of very good thereminists going to be attending, so well worth the money if you are in that neck of the woods this coming Sunday. Book soon, though, by clicking on the picture here.

More daunting for me will be the post-concert wind-down party, for which I’ll be providing some of the music…

This will be the first time that the Lunacy Board material has been played live, albeit in a somewhat more spartan form than usual, as it will just be me playing guitar and singing with a looper and theremin to make things more interesting. The original plan was to use the yobstick as well, but I might limit this to just one or two songs due to the way the looper works, as the rhythm can become a bit too repetitive.

I have also dusted down a couple of old Deserters’ numbers to include in the set, which will be fun, and for a few songs I will be joined by special guest stunt thereminists.

The whole event is being recorded and videotaped, so watch this space for more news early next week…

Jerry Springer – The Opera

At the start of the week we treated ourselves to a night at the opera; ‘Jerry Springer – The Opera’, to be precise. It’s had quite a bit of press about some of its content and indeed, the local holy Joes were out in force with leaflets condemning us all to hell for even setting eyes on it. But really, what a great show! It’s probably closer to rock-opera than plain opera, but the very sound of trained opera singers belting out a string of obscenities is worth the ticket price alone. Add to that the fact that the content of your average Jerry Springer-type show is EXACTLY the sort of stuff that makes for all the best operas (yes Puccini and Verdi may be more high-brow, but they’re writing about THE SAME STUFF) – adultery, murder, cross-dressing, journeys to Hell – it’s all here.

As for the content the moaning Minnies are upset about, it’s pretty tame stuff, and in fact most of what they’re shouting about isn’t even true (big surprise, there). Yes, they do a Jerry Springer show in Hell, with various biblical personalities including Jesus and God included, but it’s looking at the battle between good and evil, the grey area in-between, and acheiving some kind of balance. It’s more about the issues, values and choices that most religions claim to be about (basically be nice to each other), rather than the figureheads that organised religions end up concentrating on. And no – they don’t have Jesus wearing a nappy.

So if you’re not easily offended (by swear words – a lot of them – or the use of religious figures to tell a moral [kind of] tale) then I’d thoroughly recommend seeing this show. It is ‘fall-off-your-seat’ funny, with plenty of memorable songs – lines like “Dip me in chocolate and feed me to the lesbians”, a coherent plot and a Zappaesque sense of humour. There’s a trailer here.

Hayseed Dixie

I’m no great fan of AC/DC, nor of bluegrass music particularly, but when I was offered a ticket to see a band playing AC/DC in a bluegrass style, I just had to know more. These guys can play – guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle and bass – pretty much as well as any bluegrass band I’ve heard (not that many, admittedly), including a pretty nifty version of ‘Duelling Banjos’ from ‘Deliverance’ in their setlist.

You’ve just got to smile when they kick into ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ or ‘Highway to Hell’ whilst dressed in authentic(ish) hillbilly gear and singing with that mountain-man drawl. It’s an assault on the senses – 2 hours of high-octane (moonshine) finger-pickin’ acoustic rock, but somehow it works. It really shouldn’t, and yet it is disturbing how easily AC/DC (and other rockers like Aerosmith and Motorhead) translates into bluegrass, and the original version of ‘Ace of Spades’ sounds like a laid-back ballad compared to the speed these guys take it at.

Certainly not everybody’s cup of tea, not even mine really, but definitely an entertaining night out and a must-see for lovers of heavy rock (especially AC/DC) wanting to try something new. Have a look here for more info, including a video clip of ‘Ace of Spades’.

See y’all later, y’hear?