my virtual micro-festival weekend

what a truly wonderful weekend it has been, so wonderful that it even managed to distract me from the fact that I had turned almost thirty.

I received some wonderful gifts, mostly Batman related, some I had asked for and others that I hadn't, surely testament to how well people know me (or how my geeky reputation precedes me).

and of course, it isn't all about gifts, indeed, how shallow life would be if it was... I am also grateful that I got to spend the weekend with a bunch of great people that dropped round my house for what was intended to be a micro-festival in my backgarden but I couldn't be bothered to make a huge amount of effort for, so was more like a standard houseparty except there was a tent pitched, a couple of acoustic guitars knocking around and a miniature drum kit set up.

perhaps next year I shall arrange a small P.A system and a brief running order of performers (I doubt it tho) but with drinks flowing, some good music, a go on singstar, a couple of jam sessions in the front room, acoustic singalongs and a Batman cake (given as a present) I must admit I wouldn't have changed it at all.

i was surprised and relieved to wake up (quite late) on Sunday morning and still feel vaguely human, after drinking a combination of cocktails mixed by my girlfriend over lunch, Pimms punch (a present from my mum) throughout the afternoon, vodka and cokes (a Morrison's savers vodka, not the Jamie Hewlett designed bottle of Absolut that my girlfriend had bought as a present) throughout the evening and Sailor Jerry and cokes (yet another present that had been bought for me that day) into the early hours of the morning, I am thankful that I was still in control of my senses and my stomach lining.

with a slightly sore head and a dry mouth, sudden and brief downpours and the sound of music drifting into the house from my next door neighbours shed/boom-boom-room, it felt almost as if we were waking up at Glastonbury

and the festival vibe was far from over, deciding that we were up to it and that the weather may hold out (although, of course we took waterproofs) we headed out to check out the opening weekend of the London Pleasure Gardens at Poontang Dock, taking in the views of the Thames Barrier park before venturing into the new festival site, not exactly knowing what to expect...

and it was certainly unexpected, within a few minutes of arriving we had gazed upon art instillations, watched a colliery band cover Kanye West and witnessed stilt walkers twirling flags.

with no real agenda of what we wanted to see or do, we found ourselves watching eighties one hit wonders Musical Youth, joining in a hokey cokey world record attempt, and finally experiencing the surreal genius of Glastonbury legend, Woody Bop Muddy.

we even bought a Disney Christmas record from a charity stall before hopping back on the DLR and heading back homewards, where me and my girlfriend made splendidly low maintenance meals, drank hot choc, ate cake and watched half of an actually funny rom-com.

and as the weekend drew to a more than satisfactory close, I kept my eyes open long enough to take in the first chapter of 'The Court Of Owls' (thanks Mike)

the rebirth of Hunchbakk

in a way I suppose at least.

I offer my apologies for the barren month that has passed, but it was not without good reason.

life decided to intervene and in the time since me and my blog last conversed, I have witnessed marriages, a funeral, birthday celebrations and a holiday.


i am also adapting to a new way of life, a thoroughly 21st century way of life as this brief outing is brought to you courtesy of my new gizmo, one of those fancy little touch screen doo-dahs that a company named after a fruit seem extremely proud of, and not the smaller doo-dah, the bigger one, with more room for my girlfriend to squiggle on when she is playing 'draw something' on facebook.

But my gizmo was not bought for facebook (although i do tend to tweet from it somewhat) and it was not bought for angry birds and doodle jumps and cutting ropes and running temples and all that other rubbish.

my gizmo is a powerful (and wonderful) little machine that is capable of so much more than these frivolous endevours, and so I intend to put it to use getting creative musically, and have just spent a week away toying with Garage Band and a couple of other little musical gadgets, and how very apt that on Easter Sunday I chose to download Propellerhead's Rebirth and have since been playing around with an 808.

now I do hope these little musical experiments shall be worthy of listening to in the near future.....

interesting times indeed

slammin' vinyl

as youngsters' brains are being re-wired into a number of different offshoot genres as they try and find their own identity (or copy the coolest person they know's identity) it becomes increasingly difficult for your average DJ to keep everybody happy

so i'll just stick to my guns and stick to not being an average DJ and keep using the saying 'you can't please all of the people all of the time...' as my own personal mantra

a re-tooled Bubblegum Stomp tackled an 18th birthday party as all of our DJs slide further and further from ever being 18 and find ourselves faced with stupid questions and stupid songs

malia party boys couldn't understand how a DJ could still use CDs (these play mp3, mutha'ucka!?!) swamped the dancefloor when we played a track from their CD (car beats 5, mutha'ucka!!) and then stayed on the dance floor when we followed 'Riverside' with 'YMCA' (homoeroticism, mutha'ucka!!!)

but we are Bubblegum Stomp and we do what we like and we will pull out the stops to get you dancing and we will be confused if we are accused of not having any new music when at the same time you know nothing of Toddla T's existence

but we'll play the classics, we'll play the new stuff and we'll play requests (if we've got them) and we'll enjoy ourselves and we'll remain infinitely cheaper and infinitely better than your standard 'rent-a-mobile-disc-jockey'....

and we even helped sweep up afterwards