Yes I know, It's been a long long while. I feel now is a good time to update you all on my previous work. I don't really wish to speak about my current and future work, as it's all up in the air at the moment. Nothing is certain.
What I can tell you though, is that I have been busy to the point where the Weekly Changy has practically been abandoned until typing again on this post. Which is a shame to be fair as I do take enjoyment in rambling to you all.
So from finishing University, I can state the obvious and tell you that, like practically everyone else, I have been in search of work. Whilst doing that I have also been working on my major solo project, where since the last post which was posted in January, I can thankfully say that I have made a considerable amount of progress on it.
Although with that in mind, I have recently slumped in the progress of it because other work related circumstances (not my part time job work by the way!). It's still not ready to the point where I wish to announce it to you, but I can show you the progress of some of it.
So as you can see, this is only some of it. So there's a lot to go through.
Aside from my project I can confirm to you all that I have been searching for all types of opportunities, and some have come and gone. Previously about 1-2 months ago, I actually went quiet...not a lot was happening, and because of that I got this instant fear that nothing was going to happen, and so I picked up the pace in searching for opportunities.
As a result of that I received the annoying dilemma where you don't hear anything a while, and then all of the sudden everyone gets back to you wanting your services.
What also hasn't helped is that in my 'part' time job, we are severely under-staffed and so I am having to do full time hours whilst trying to fit other work around it. Recently I can tell you that I didn't have a full day off for approximately 8-9 days.
I am standing on a tightrope, juggling various jobs whilst trying dodge jumping tigers and having to jump through fire circles. Thats the best way of me describing to you what I've been like recently.
Before I stop typing and resume other work, I can also tell you that amongst all of that, I am still making music.
I haven't released any in a while, but do not worry (if you ever were). I have two complete tracks and two more that are still to be worked on.
I am sat here, pretty tired but also excited, as I am to attend Hideout festival next week and I fly out a week today. This is something else I have been preparing for. I am to go with no one better than Dave Collins, and before you ask, YES, I will be writing a review(s) of my time there, as I'm sure it will be eventful.
I can imagine the next post will be a Hideout review so until then,
This is the Moonshine project that I worked on with Kenneth Barnett in our final stage of University. This was one of the last projects I ever did for the University and it was for the 'Radio Production 3' module.
So, It's a radio thingy?
Indeed.
Moonshine is a radio western drama, a 20 minute episode which we had to produce for a final radio module. The aim was to produce a high quality radio broadcast standard drama, of 20 minutes no more, no less.
A project, in which we actually finished earlier last year, has been on my SoundCloud only on private for only a number of people to listen, and now I thought the time was right to fully release it for all to hear.
Of course I believe there are some things in it that could have been improved, and many of you may feel the same, but I wish to keep it as it is. I might later on down the line re-master it, add more sound effects and perhaps better dialog, but for now I am to leave it exactly how we finished it last year. If you can even count these as reviews of the episode here's what some well known people to me, thought of the drama:
Mother
"ACE!, That's really really good. Simon! Get over here and listen to Jim's radio thing."
Father
"mmmmm .... Really good."
Dave Collins
"Huh, that's dead good. Whens episode 2 coming out?"
So What is it about? Drinking Moonshine?
Nope!
Moonshine is based on a Native Indian man, living in the west of the United States in 1868.
Moonshine succumbs to the immediate tragic loss of his tribe and his family in a vicious ambush by a rogue confederate gang. Moonshine is the so called fortunate one to have survived the brutal attack. From waking up to realise what has happened, his only life goal from there, is to seek revenge.
I will admit, it was difficult to simulate the sound of the west, when residing in Derby. There was always the option to simply download free sound effects to make the task easier, however in my opinion, if that is all you are doing to get your sound effects then your project isn't exactly original. Albeit there are 3 sound effects used in this that were downloaded, but the 24 (approximately) other sound effects were all done by myself and Kenneth.
All of the outdoor sounds you hear, were done on the Elvaston Castle grounds (Pictured above with a very cold Kenneth). This was due to being the best suitable location to gather 'natural' forest and animal ambient like sounds. Although the swans were being annoying as they kept shrieking every time we were trying to record.
All the saloon minor sounds such as glass handling, sipping, swigging were all done in my old terrace house kitchen. The introduction harmonica audio was also done in the house.
The horse sounds were recorded at a nearby horse riding grounds. Which I remember well because it was so cold, and for some reason we seemed to be the only males on the site, which was odd. The pair of us found also found it difficult to gather horse recordings at the time because those whom were riding were in the middle of their lessons, and didn't want to help us.
Bonus Content
Believe it or not but when it came to completion of this module, this was the first time that we finished it early and had time to create more content for it. There was an extended edition made for hand-in, a 'Next-Time' audio advert created (which was added to the end of the episode) and finally an outtake compilation of Kenneth talking. This was the result of going through all the raw audio files and finding that Kenneth had been talking and messing around in some of the files, and others were simply outtakes. My favourite clip would be the outtake of Kenneth trying to swallow water. How he managed to mess up I don't know:
So you've heard of all the stories and the happenings on the
boat parties, and now this is the last post and review of
Unknown Festival 2013.
Rovinj, as a place...
There were two factors about Rovinj that really surprised me. One of them was how historically roman most parts of the city were. Aside from the partying, you had to take a look around the town, as some of the aged architecture was really easy on the eyes. Although I will admit, Rovinj were used for only 3 things: to board boat parties, to get cheap alcohol, and to eat.
Aside from those 3 factors, Dave and myself had to sacrifice 2-3 hours of our drinking and partying to go and have a good look around the main town bit of Rovinj, as the main chapel you see above, is what you would see whenever looking out when at the beach, and curiosity got the better of me.
Although it was only 2-3 hours, I was constantly having that feeling as if your missing out on something back at Unknown. I felt this every time we went to go eat at some of the restaurants and such.
When buying alcohol from places called 'Konzum' supermarkets, it was always hilarious to go to the alcohol section to find it was the only ill stocked shelf in the entire supermarket, and for a incredible reason.
When speaking to one of the Unknown crew members, who had a bottle of white wine in his hands, he stated to us that the price of this wine was 14 Kuna, which was equivalent to £1.20 roughly. That must have been the cheapest alcohol in there, however the beer was not far behind. This 'Ozjusko' beer, in a 2Ltr bottle was 15 Kuna, so about £1.40/50. Dave bought a Jonny Walker 'Red Label' for 60 Kuna, which was around £5/6.00.
Before going to Croatia, I remember someone from my work telling me that Croatia is like Italy, but cheaper. I can see where they are coming from when you look at how Rovinj looked. There was one thought that was spiralling in my head when looking around this old part of the city, and that was when seeing the locals sat outside their houses, in closed narrow streets like you see above. The thought of them living here, in such an environment really amazed me.
A lot of the sub street/alleyways looked like this, and in fact me and Dave were struggling to find out where exactly we were and how to get to the main chapel at the top.
Our derpy logic was to 'just keep going upwards' then we should find it eventually.
So as you can see the derpy logic was working as we did eventually begin seeing the tip of the chapel in distance. Me and Dave actually emerged on to this main street from another small alleyway where the scooter is in the picture. So we had obviously taken the wrong street, but we found ourselves at last.
You see a lot of tourists here in this picture, and to be honest hardly any of them were english. If they were english, they were here for Unknown festival like me and Dave. The other tourists were (from what I could hear) mainly German, and some other slavic country (if not Croatian).
If I remember correctly, whilst walking up to this and being amazed by how old and roman this place was looking, I remember our conversations up there and around the chapel were mainly roman mythology based debates.
I can also confirm that when being inside the chapel, me and Dave were the only two people from the festival, and so we stood out from the crowd a fair bit. When wearing sunglasses, you can sometimes have the capability to look at people around you without them knowing your looking, and from this I can say that I did see a few people giving me and Dave a very odd look, from head to toe.
I'm not quite sure who this is, I was thinking perhaps it is a statue of poseidon? I don't know. This is what was on top of the chapel tower.
So instead of taking pictures of some of the roman ruins that were in the chapel gardens, I took a picture of Unknown festival from the chapel.
Food
From Rovinj restaurant food, to festival food, both were very good and in particular to the Rovinj restaurant food, very well priced too.
Not only was the food good and well priced, the alcohol served seemed to have been free poured into my glass. That in the picture is a rum and coke, which honestly tasted like a triple rum and coke, which was all the better for me. Even the beer that was served to us another time, were in massive glasses:
This seafood risotto was 60 Kuna, which is basically the equivalent to around £6.
As you can see I am fan of seafood. I find that in the UK you can eat seafood, however its not really that fresh, and also its expensive. Over in Rovinj these dishes were cheaper than the festival food, which you will see very soon what they were like.
I'm sorry if by looking at all of this it makes you hungry, I am actually quite hungry now myself. So festival food was usual festival price, but it was the quality of the food which made it more than acceptable:
This was the Croatian burger, which as 50 Kuna (£5). There was simply no comparison to burgers here to other UK festivals such as Creamfields and Global Gathering. I can confirm that the bread bun was also buttered with garlic butter, bliss.
At the times of buying some of the festival foods, there was a limited supply of sauces such as mayonnaise and ketchup. However I would always get some because I was always speaking Croatian phrases to them. I even got served quicker because of simply saying 'Opprostite' to the staff to get their attention, and the use 'hvala' and 'molim' also helped. I could get on fine by speaking this small amount of Croatian to the Croats however when it came to a 'big' conversation, I struggled and I relied on the Croat to speak in English sometimes, which is what happened when waiting for a coach back to Unknown festival in Rovinj:
One Aperol and two shopkeepers please
So the standard pass time thing to do whilst waiting for the coach would be to have a drink in the nearby bar, or look in one of the near shops, and so we obviously went for a drink. The main popular drink in most of the Rovinj bars was this:
It was an Aperol and...something. Perhaps lemonade I can't remember. I managed to finish it, however even to this day, I am unsure whether I like it.
After getting this down me (not literally) we went to the nearest shop to have a quick look. As soon as we step near the place, one of the young Croat shopkeeper guys comes out to talk to us. By the sounds of it, he does not know much English, and I don't know much Croatian. So this was a very interesting conversation.
I don't remember much of the conversation, but the main highlight was when he began asking about our queen. Random as it sounds he asked us if she was a nice lady, and amid the laughter and 'Croat-to-English' banter in which we had just invented, the older shopkeeper joins the conversation, the only big part to the conversation that I remember was the young Croat saying:
"You see him (older shopkeeper)?!, He loves your queen!
Fuck the queen! yes, he fucked the queen, yes yes ha ha!"
The conversation basically ended there because our coach had arrived. We walked past him later on in the week, and funnily enough he still remembered us and all we heard from afar was:
"Ah! My friends! *points to old guy* the queen! He fucked the queen! ha ha ha! yes!"
I didn't really understand his point in saying this, but it made us laugh a lot about it because it was so strangely amusing.
Back to the festival...
During the days and nights of the festival, one of the memorable moments for me and I think a lot of other people was not just the DJ's and live acts, but it was also the people you met over there.
I've spoken previously about the times me and Dave met Oli Bishop and Ethan Mounfield at the camping reception and on the various times for a hangover breakfast. I've also spoken previously of the people that we met whilst on the boat parties, but I state now about the people we met during the main festival nights.
Since I went as a part of the Unknown online team, there were obviously others that I met whilst over there. One of the other online team members I met (after Oli & Ethan) was Stefania Di Ciacca, which right up until I was to meet her, I was thinking that she was to have a strong Italian accent, but turned out to be Scottish. I assume everybody does this, when right before you are to meet someone, you have your own imagining as to what they are going to be like.
Stefania was really nice and was one of the first unknown online team member that I met, and after that one time, I don't believe I saw her for another 3-4 days.
When heading to the forest stage on one of the beginning nights, me and Dave managed to meet a big chunk of the lovely unknown online team. In one massive greeting I managed to finally meet Tash Conway, Will Jenkinson, Eleri Griffith & Jessie Algar. As one big team we regularly met up numerous times during the festival, to rave it up to different acts such as 'The Sonic Emporium', Julio Bashmore and Cyril Hahn.
This clip was from The Sonic Emporium at the Forest Stage:
Amongst the team we had formed, there were others that we met that I cannot remember their names. There is actually a picture of a few of us on Facebook that I've been tagged in but I still cannot remember their names. Some of them are seen in the clip whilst seeing Julio Bashmore:
On one of the afternoons by the beach just doing the usual, chilling out, I decide I want to get a Unknown vest from the merch shop, and whilst Im standing waiting to get it at the counter, I suddenly hear a girl say:
"James Chang..."
A rather stunned James, suddenly whips off his sunglasses to find one of the girls from the side of the counter had said it. To be honest at that exact time, she looked familiar, but alas I didn't know who it was until she said. It turns out this girl was Lucy Nolan, a girl that was from my primary school/high school. What are the odds of meeting her at Unknown festival in Croatia?
To top it off the first stumbling questions that I want say to her is "What are you doing here?" but I stopped myself from saying such a derpy question.
Shortly after that shocking greeting I was then greeted with a text from my mother about how bad the weather was back in the UK, to which my response was a picture:
This was a picture that my mother found amusing amidst the bad weather. I must admit hearing such news was good for me.
Going back now to one of the beginning nights where I will speak of a time where me and Dave stumbled upon some hammocks. This was another time where we met other people, people that I don't remember their names once again. At this time of meeting them, Dave and myself had quite a bit to drink, and across the way from us were two girls who we started talking to. Both of them were from Bolton if I remember rightly and we ended up talking to them for about 2-3 hours on these hammocks, which eventually led us to go and try a shish for the first time:
I had never tried one, and I can tell you that this was a raspberry flavoured one, tasted nice.
We met them again when seeing Waze & Odyssey at the Unit 44 stage, and this set was really something special from the DJ pair:
Whilst enjoying this set I also came across someone I had met many times before at all sorts of festivals. This was what I now know him as 'The Dancing Misanthrope' who I always seem to see at events and festivals:
A top guy who just likes to dance, and he honestly puts my raving to shame. During my time at this stage I also managed to shake the hands of one of he Waze & Odyssey guys (this was before I did it at the boat party), which you see in this clip whilst they play a brilliant song. I must warn you that I am drunk in this clip...
I actually have only one video clip of T.E.E.D on the main stage, because my phone died, and I had to rely on my stills camera, and for some reason I have no memory of his set, at all. This is what rum can do to me sometimes.
I don't know about you, but that intro into his set sends chills, big time.
One act that I was very much looking forward to was SBTRKT, as I had only seen him once at The Warehouse Project, and I don't really remember it. This time round I remember a bit more of it, but not all of it. I did manage to capture this great bit:
Disclosure. I could not have missed these guys, and what live act they put on, I remember their performance more vividly because I was able to capture more of it, please enjoy this small catalogue of clips:
Richie Hawtin here, I actually have no video footage of his set, and I'm unsure why that is. Richie Hawtin carried on playing set way up until me and Dave were back at our tent. I actually recall lying on my air bed, and the ground was shaking from the beats of Richie Hawtin from the main stage, it was pretty crazy.
I actually didn't get a lot of sleep that night because not only was Mr Hawtin creating his own techno earthquake, there were a group of people having a party in the toilets.
Yes you heard me correctly... a party, in the toilets. What surprised me is that for one, it was in a toilet, but also how much good music they were playing. They putting on classic tracks I had completely forgotten about such as this one:
I wanted to go and join them, however even their partying in the toilets couldn't keep me awake. When my body needs sleep, it needs sleep, and there's no avoiding it unfortunately for me.
When speaking to people now about the festival, people talk of some of the after parties, which I had no idea of (obviously because I had fallen asleep). I wish I had the energy to experience them, but alas my body needed sleep. I did however manage to catch the last party of Unknown which was the night pool party:
Dave and me actually got a really good spot for raving it up, as we were dancing alongside The Dancing Misanthrope once again, which was right next to the DJ booth:
What I will miss dearly
I will miss everything about Unknown festival, but in particular I will miss the amazing pool area to chill out on in the afternoons, this was sublime...
I will leave you with this final snapshot of the beachfront, which is what I will really miss. This also signals the end (finally!) of the enormous review of Unknown Festival of 2013. Here's for next year.
