dan heaver

i say, well done.

Love this.

What a wicked way to promote your new product which is, essentially the same thing. Tough brief, but carried off with aplomb. And kudos to microsoft for going with the creative.

Everyone knows that microsoft office is updated every so often, but do you know when? This trailer for the fictional film manages to poke fun at itself and the product it's promoting. The result? Personality. People like personality. What I love the most is it tells you virtually nothing about what's new for microsoft 2010, just that it's out. That's right people, i'm not stupid. Don't feed me the fucking information like a drone. Entertain me. Then maybe, I'll make my own mind up. And I'll respect you for allowing me that privilege.

Good day. 

see the people marching on

at the 2000 trees festival. 

Another scorching weekend of music, if not of weather. I played Friday about 3 o'clock this year. Not before lending my guitar to the super nice Randall Stevens who blended a bit of afro beat (his words) with Dylan-esque (mine) crooning.

My set went off a storm. Kicked off with a cracking intro from Toss. Was a good midland presence that chipped in with some help for 'Uttoxeter', and enjoyed an ace 2 part harmony with the crowd for 'Protest Song'. Some nice words about the music afterwards too. Thanks if any of them were from you. I'm in the process of sorting out a studio for a few days to get it all down.

2000 trees is always fucking brilliant at throwing up new music to get into, and these are the guys I'm going to follow with interest:

Sailorette rocked the acoustic tent on Friday afternoon with some rockabilly-killafilly-hillashilly-skank and not a small portion of slap bass. 

charlie barnes is a guy to watch. Claiming to be playing his first PROPER festival at the trees, he'll be playing many more. He's everything good about Thom Yorke's Eraser, with a little Muse in the voice. Unsigned. For now. 

John Crampton had an improbable number of teenagers pogoing to one of the liveliest blues sets i've ever seen. Unfortunately I wasn't one of them. But I was pogoing. 

The King Blues  were standout for me on the mainstage on Saturday. Looks like they've got quite a following already, and plenty of kind words have been already flung their way. It's a kind of street politics pop thing, and the crowd loved it. I feel a bit bad calling these guys pop, but anyone who can sing 'love, I got so much love, love in my heart' and still sound cool can take anything. I tried that once. Didn't see her again. 

Jim Lockey and the Solemn Sun helped me out on saturday afternoon after an over ambitious friday. Thoughtful folk with fine lyrics and just enough of a kick to get you moving. Word has it he's started up a label out West too. I played with his pick once. Seems a fine man. 

Imperial Leisure My oh my. If the magic roundabout were a ska-hip hop-funk outfit, they might have been called Imperial Leisure. Regardless of what you think of their music (you'll think it's good by the way), seeing them live is like having your wildest night out at 11am; it's a shock to the system, but you'll love it. And want more. Oh yeah, and John Barber introduced them. A career high I think.

Dananananackroyd. Two singers. Two drumkits. From Scotland. Fond of cuddles in crowds. Ever so sllightly camp. Much fun.

Wojtek Godzisz. I don't know much about paganism, but I do know plenty about beards. Wojtek Godzisz has a great beard. Couldn't comment on the paganism, but I do know him and his band lifted the roof on the leaf lounge. It was this kind of music that got me interested in picking up a guitar - heavy but with plenty of melody. Now I'm more of a Frank Turner Mile Davis hybrid. Figuratively a kind of ray-ban-wearing-pipe-smoking-not-sure-where-this-is-going kind of thing

The Brute Chorus have great, great hair. They headlined the Leaf Lounge on Saturday night and were, I'm afraid, miles better than British Sea Power on the main stage. If Edwyn Collins was in Franz Ferdinand, would the result be this? Probably not, no. But they're stomping live.

So that was the best of what I saw, but I missed Loads. Dr Butler's Medicine Hatstand Band were all some people could talk about afterwards. Gutted to have missed them. Click on the name and go to their myspace. It's worth it. 

And go see the full line-up on the 2000trees website. You can click through and hear samples from all of the bands long play records. 

If you haven't been to 2000trees yet, you're missing the chance to see the next great bands before the A&R guys get their mits on them. And in some cases you're missing the chance to see the next great bands after the A&R guys have their mits on them. Point is, it's all about the music. Man. Apart from when it's about the  lovely people you'll meet drinking cider and dancing through the rain (Carla, Geoff Nina et al) in the glorious british countryside.

*all pics taken from myspaces, apart from the first which came from Peak's flickr pool. Peak are the nice people who provide all the sound for the event

 

you can't make elderflower champagne without breaking a few bottles

Lock up your daughters. And your sons. And any elderly relatives.

good viral?

Well someone sent it to me. And I enjoyed it. And someone told me it's for the drink he puts on his head.

But what is the drink? 

It's beautifully executed. Message boards are on fire with comments about how real it is. Some claim to have seen it go out live. Obviously that's bollocks. But then maybe it's only meant for an audience that would recognise that drink.

Then it went viral.

it's done

ten days ago, I took a bucket to a hedgerow.

Six days after, there was a mouldy mess.

So I took the same bucket to another hedgerow.

Six days after that, there was this

then after a couple of hours, there was quite a lot of this

Just need to wait a couple more weeks, and there may well be a bit of this.



And when there is, there are a couple of people I want to be sharing it with.