i'll admit when i'm wrong

it doesn't happen very often, but when it does, i will put my hands up and admit that i am wrong, or at least take a portion of the blame and try and deflect the attention to somebody else instead

which is exactly what i shall do now that copies of this week's Enfield Advertiser have dropped through letterboxes across the borough, and eager beavers that have keenly read my look ahead to this weekend's BushFest have been quick to point out to me that it says the event is on Friday....

oooops....


there is a simple explanation for this....

i cocked up, i went back and checked the preview i posted on this blog (which i have since amended) and sure enough it says that BushFest 2010 will take place on Friday 2nd October

except there isn't a Friday 2nd October this year, and certainly not this weekend


so it seems the editor at the paper didn't give a thought of checking with me what was going through my garbled brain and what the hell i was on about, no, he just put it forward to print exclaiming that the gig is this Friday, so apologies for any confusion...

specifically to Enemy Planet's guitarist, who had his mum tell him that he was in fact playing a gig on friday instead of saturday and perhaps he should call the pub to check that he hadn't got the date wrong...


anyway, partial deflection accomplished, has anyone else noticed that the headline also states that Bushfest has moved to a bigger venue, when it is infact in the same place it has always been (although we could do with a bigger venue if everyone that has confirmed attendance actually turns up)

but i think most people are smart enough to know what is going on and have seen the flyer and the facebook event

so, i shall see you all on SATURDAY! when i shall also be pulling out what is sure to be a blinding DJ set alongside the Bubblegum Stomp collective between live sets and deep into the night.

of course, at this moment in time i am panicking and thinking that i don't have enough music, or enough new music, or enough of the right music and i haven't had time to piss about with the kaoss pad so it may stay at home and miss out this DJ set unless i'm feeling really brave.

so, blog over, mp3s need burning, and i shall see you SATURDAY!!!!!!

collision course

hello, and welcome back to Hunchbakk - music and musings, the music blog, with me, your very much alive host, Hunchbakk.

which is more than can be said for my poor bicycle, which ended up underneath a car this morning

thankfully all is well, other than the bike, and the situation seems to have been resolved without too much issue

it has left me a little bit shaken by the whole thing and scenarios have played through my mind, thinking that if i hadn't pulled my bike up as far forward as i did when i stopped, it could have been my legs that ended up under the car instead of my bike, and that i was lucky that the turning i was waiting at was out of the normal traffic lanes and when i ended up sprawled out on the tarmac, that i was out of harms way from any other cars that were making their way through morning traffic

after a minor bout of swearing and anger i picked myself and my mangled bike up and resumed my normal good nature, settled things ammicably and was able to laugh about it within minutes (although this may have been how the shock makes me react)

i exchanged details, got a lift to where i was going and an offer to have my dear departed bike replaced

and athough i'm a little shook up by the incident and i'm aching slightly, it seems either apt, or possibly ironic that i haven't been able to get this song out of my head all day....

Mark Ronson and The Business Intl - The Bike Song (featuring Kyle Falconer and Spank Rock) stream only


i had actually seen Mark Ronson performing this song at the Rockcorps gig held at the Royal Albert Hall last week, with The View's Kyle Falconer and Mos Def joining him onstage, which was a great gig and good fun, and i will be knocking out an article for the paper as soon as i find the time to commit to it, so keep your eyes peeled for that one.

and i promise to bring you some downloadable music sometime soon, but this just seemed fitting, so if you're feeling it then go cop that ish!~

music blog?

Hunchbakk - music and musings


although i guess more recently it has been mostly musings, but the musings are mostly music related

but i haven't posted up an awful lot of music, not as much as i'd liked to have done, which had me wondering

is this a music blog?


i always assumed it was because i started it as a way to share my own music other than just having a standard myspace, but then i would also post up any odd curiosities that i stumbled upon that intrigued me and that i thought may have been of interest to other people, and then i would throw in posts highlighting new tracks as and when i made them

i would review the gigs i would go to, and tell you things i was excited about, and post up videos - but i didn't post too much music for fear of it becoming a little bit lost within the clutter and the clatter of all the other music blogs that are out there trying to tip you off about the next big thing, or the next thing that won't be big cos it's too cool to be big, or sharing the same bunch of remixes that do the rounds in the blogosphere

but plenty of time has past now, and i think the blog exhibits enough of it's own identity that i shouldn't be afraid of it being lumped in with other blogs or trying to run with other blogs, it is what it is and i'm gonna endeavour to bring you more music... more downloads, more streams

maybe not loads, but i think it would be nice to mix it up a little bit with everything else that already goes on over here and share some music that may have been overlooked, or lost in the midst of time, or sometimes just whatever i'm feeling, regardless of whether it is new, old or hotly tipped.



this week i thought i may have had a chance to blog on wednesday, as it turns out, i didn't, but i did have a chance to click round a few websites and take a look at number of artists and projects that hadn't been on my radar before... unfortunately i didn't have any speakers on the computer so they kinda remain undiscovered discoveries until i get the chance to investigate further


but i found myself taking a look at J-treole, having been aware of them as someone i knew occasionally plays in their live band, a london based rapper named Loudmouth Melvin and a proposed two disc cover version album of Doves songs that shall be unveiled in October

so keep an ear out for my blog, as i am promising you more music! and maybe sometime soon when my computer has been spared from the clutches of death (again) i shall have more of my own music to bring you!!

but for now i'll leave you with an inspiring track that i heard on the radio this week, which is exactly the type of thing i would love to achieve within my own projects, and has currently got me tuned in to more music by the wonderful Dam Mantle

Theatre by Dam Mantle stream only


credit where it's due:
wow! image found on Geekology
and taken from this pretty amazing set or artworks

BushFest is coming!

2 musicians, a gig organiser and a music journalist walk into a bar.

this isn't a start of a joke, this was the start of planning BushFest'10

Mark Seibert, lead singer of Edmonton metallers 9Blind has been running the annual shindig in a Bush Hill Park boozer since 2008, but this year he reached out to local gig promoters Rock For Change and yours truly, in order to widen the reach of the mini-festival and dig deeper into Enfield's rich musical tapestry.

Initially getting in touch via facebook, a few ideas and band names were knocked about and a meeting and a few jars was planned so we could really bump heads and put the wheels in motion.

Past events held at the Bush Hill Park Hotel have been full on head banging affairs that have seen the cream of the Enfield Underground scene piling into the pub's backroom for a night of supercharged testestorone and relentless riffs while veterans D.Monic held court with a succesful run as headliners.


But since the demise of D.Monic and the uprising within Enfield's musical ranks the repertoire has been expanded this year for a broader listening experience.

Laura and Mehmet from the succesful Rock For Change campaign have built a good track record of putting on gigs within the past year, and my experience and knowledge of up and coming bands within the local music scene make for a well-rounded viewpoint when trying to organise this years one day mini-fest.

so the gears were turning, and a drink and a meet-up was planned in order to thrash out all the details.

and what a meeting of minds that was as....


thankfully when Mark and Joe from 9Blind met up with Mehmet and myself for a couple of pints there weren't too many arguments when settling the bill, if anything the hardest choices were deciding who to leave off.

so you're gonna wanna know what we've got instore for you!!

drafted in to kick things off are young upstarts Twisted Hearts and Hurricane Season, two of Enfield's newest bands, joined by New Conscience and The Anonymous later on in the evening, both alumni of the Rock For Change campaign gigs.

filling out the long evening of aural entertainment are a few names you will undoubtedly recognise from my previous articles and are bands that i will unashamedly champion given any chance.

so if you haven't had the pleasure yet, Bushfest will be a perfect opportunity to acquant yourselves with Deeds of the Dying, Room 9, Enemy Planet and Kids Uncanny before our local bands become too big to play in our fair borough.

and the highly coveted headline slot will be an eagerly anticipated late set by 9Blind, sealing their position as one of Enfield's most loved acts by bringing live proceedings to a close.


the reason for previewing this years BushFest instead of regailing the aftermath is because aswell as providing an input to the nights programming, i shall also be DJing throughout the entirety with my Bubblegum Stomp collective and may very well have little memory of it afterwards.

so, to witness what i may not be able to tell you, get yourself along to this year's Bushfest on Saturday October 2nd at Bush Hill Park Hotel (next to BHP station) St Marks Road, with doors opening at 6 and DJing into the early hours, it's bound to be a messy night.

how things are...

has it really gone 1 o'clock already??

i've still got so much i wanna get done.

but this is how things are right now.

i have got my Janelle Monae review up on glasswerk.

i have rewritten a new version for the Enfield Advertiser, who have this week seen fit to publish my Battle of the Bands article.

i have been listening to some old CDs.

i have got to catch up on last week's Dexter and This Is England '86/

i have got a house i need to paint white.

i have got warning that you shall be seeing a lot more of this poster in the near future.

and i have got a preview of this year's BushFest that i need to tweak so that i can publish it on the blog tomorrow.

so i bid you all good day so that i can get on with things.

home improvements

i am becoming bored of white emulsion, but i guess, moving into a place, it is a necessity.


i probably wouldn't have made that decision, but my girlfriend did and now it is utmost importance to paint white all the stuff in the house that looked white but maybe wasn't quite white, or perhaps was white but has yellowed with the aid of nicotine (and perhaps the strange choice of colour on the walls wasn't so strange before it become smoke damaged, or perhaps the previous owners just had bad taste)



it is rather strange how it is not possible to simply move into a house and live your life, instead we must buy a house and have a 'design' or a 'theme' or a 'colour scheme', which i am not moaning about completely, but all those leaflets and paint samplers all reflect current trends and the need for feature walls and probably lots of other stuff that wasn't in vogue 10 years ago and neither will it be in 10 years time.

but once you start looking at these for some inspiration it suddenly becomes the only inspiration you can see.


and all of these 'ideal homes' become mundane and tepid once you've had a chance to visit a mates flat that is rather decadent and even has its own dungeon.  Where we have been considering doing our best to keep our rooms bright and maximise the light, his is daubed in deep reds and blacks.  it may not be what we are looking to do with our own house but it has definetely opened my girlfriend's eyes up to being a little bit bolder in our choices


now, i truly am looking forward to getting creative at any given opportunity, but i shall just have to try and remember that it is not being featured in a centre spread of a perfect homes magazine, what is more important is that it feels like my home (and more specifically, for most of the rooms at least, it feels like our home)

but before we move all our stuff in it is still quite hard to imagine it as our own and as an actual functioning home and in the meantime while we're busy with white emulsion and arguing over which of our walls will be the feature wall, we'll keep looking for inspiration, in hopefully some of the more unusual places.


(and the kitchen design up top isn't likely to happen in our house, so i'm guessing i'm safe to post it.  i do like it tho, just not right for us.)






.

shiny spandex, frightfull wigs and occasional fishnets

i've tried to hold back everytime i have the urge to write music reviews, but the Enfield Advertiser is slowly crawling itself towards being something like up to date and possibly have another 3 or 4 articles i have submitted left to print.

although this could actually take something like 8 weeks to knock out so i am presuming that a couple of the pieces may have fallen by the wayside as they become less relevant as time passes, but we'll see.

i'm desperate to open peoples eyes to some more new music and shall definetly be writing a piece on Janelle Monae who i saw at Koko on wednesday (thanks Atlantic Records, who came through in the end!!)

and this wednesday also saw the publication of the following piece, my little expose on some of Enfield's covers bands that do the rounds, proving that i will try my hardest to make sure that i have reported on any and every type of musical goings on in our borough!


Tribute acts are covering all bases
from Enfield Advertiser 08.09.10

Cover bands tend to get a lot of bad press...

That is if they get any press at all.


And this is something I began to consider when talking to my cousin's husband last christmas.


He plays drums in a glam rock tribute act, and I swear he didn't slip me any money to mention his band.

And I'll admit that I don't often have a lot of time for cover bands, it seems to be the reserve of dodgy pub gigs, I would much rather be sniffing out new talent than hearing some oldies being belted out to a room of boozed up punters.

Live music seems to have been on the rise again in Enfield, but even still, some nights it’s gonna be a covers band or nothing.

So let’s take a look at some of the best on offer.


Admittedly I am slightly biased towards Lipstick Torpedo, the aforementioned glam rockers that are rarely seen out of shiny spandex, frightfull wigs and occasional fishnets.

The music is full of 70’s flamboyance, think Marc Bolan and David Bowie and you've got a good mind what to expect the next time they take over The Red Lion.

A recent appearance at The Sporting Green saw the band rocking out in typically resplendent style, covering the aforementioned Thin White Duke, The Sweet and Rolling Stones.

Clearly pleasing the plastered crowd with a party atmosphere, Lipstick Torpedo were coaxed into giving the revelers 'one more!' twice, pulling out all the stops with a double-whammy of Motorhead’s 'Ace of Spades' and The Who's ‘My Generation’.

Another band you'll find doing the rounds are Pawn Shop Roxxx, delving into a vast array of past rock classics delivered with deserved reverence and most commonly spotted playing at The Old Bell or The Hop Poles.

And to bring things a bit more up to date you could do much worse than catching The Tide, taking in modern indie and rock but also unafraid to dip into Pink Floyds back catalogue, you're most likely to catch them if there is something worth celebrating at Bar Form.

house of mystery

there has been no time for blogging recently as i have been far toooo busy cleaning inside, outside, above and below practically every surface, cupboard, wardrobe and hiding place after finally getting the keys to my house earlier this week!

and what a revelation it was going back into a building that i haven't seen in three months, how all my memories of the house had distorted with time.

thankfully, most of the house had seemed to have grown!

the through lounge had grown wider!

the kitchen had got bigger!

both bedrooms had expanded!

and the attic room had gone from being a pokey bit of storage to quite a cool hang out pad!

i was surprised to find that some sliding wardrobe doors that i remember being white were now fully mirrored!

and the garden that had been increasing and decreasing in length since i last saw it still seems to be quite a respectable size!


i'm guessing the whole house may start to shrink as soon as we start moving anything resembling real furniture into the place, but for now we have a number of big open spaces and a whole host of design opportunities.

while we've been waiting for solicitors and estate agents to all get their arses in gear, my mind had been running wild with all the possibilities for the new place, but now we're through the front door and the blank canvases are staring me in the face i feel as if i am suffering from something like decorators block!

to get a few ideas flowing, the obligatory wander around homebase and grabbing of paint colour leaflets has been done and last night we were sat with a bunch of crown, dulux and laura ashley literature stewn across the floor infront of us in an empty front room that is only furnished with an out of place garden table and a fold-up chair that i have partially hoovered up with our second hand dyson.

i've promised not to go posting too many pictures of what is sure to be a unique attempt at interior design, as my girlfriend is concerned that people may go stealing all of our ideas (some of which are our own, some we have in fact already stolen from other websites), but so far she has told me that too many of my ideas and artwork will make it look like a comic book geeks house and i am still trying to convince my girlfriend that second hand sofas really aren't as evil as she suspects they are, and that a boat is a legitimate piece of living room furniture.