Took the bus, train, cab, ferry and bus down to Bestival on Saturday morning, left at 11am, was on site by 3.30. The weather was fantastic and one of the first things I saw on arrival was Lily Allen backstage, looking stunning in an open-backed  Barbarella-esque outfit with glitter across her eyes. She looked like the kind of girl the word ‘minx’ was created for. I stopped dribbling and got my wristband.

The theme this year was outer space and this is one festival that exists for fancy dress. Every, and I mean every, permutation of space character, hero or villain, minor or major was represented. From the usual Darth’s, Stormtroopers, Boba’s, Leia’s and even a Millenium Falcon to Daleks, Thunderbirds, Trekkies and Transformers. People had gone to town and there was enough silver and baking foil to make a thousand spaceships. Amongst the less obvious characters were the Yip Yip aliens from Sesame Street, the Black Oblisk and Hal from 2001, the 3-eyed aliens from Toy Story, Clangers aplenty and quite a few Flash Gordon’s (the 80’s version though*).

I was playing in the Bollywood tent, sandwiched between Ross Allen and Appleblim. When I arrived Ross has a posse of Stormtroopers getting down but the crowd were a difficult one and it was mid afternoon with the sun blazing outside. I went for a walk and immediately got pushed aside as a parade of costumed space cadets marched through the site. My favourties were a guy and his girlfriend dressed as a Scout Walker and Princess Leia respectively, some girls on amazing space bikes in the parade and a couple dressed as Roland TB-303’s made from foam – definitely the most original and creative I saw.

Back in the tent for my set I decided to throw the usual one out the window and start with some funky bits before quickly winding into some stompy 4/4 electro/techno. Then into dubstep and breaks and finally a touch of drum n bass for the last 20 minutes. After a slow start with people standing and watching it worked a treat and I was surprised to see Diplo pop his head around the booth to say hello at one point.

After a quick drink and chat with Ross it was back on the bus, ferry, cab, train and bus to London, arriving home at midnight. I’m currently in the middle of Bill Drummond’s book ’17’ which is gripping me with his mania like all his books do. I can relate to some of what he says – the main jist of the book is that music has run  it’s course – but that’s a blog for another day.

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*I have a particular affection for this version of Flash Gordon, my dad was bought up on the original and I was 10 when they did the remake so he took me to see it and I loved it. The soundtrack (on cassette) was the first album I ever bought with my own money, definitely seduced by the film connection and the great logo on the cover rather than any love of Queen. I liked some of their music but could only get into the faster guitar-driven tracks rather than the incidental, slow-paced stuff, although I’ve come to appreciate these over time.

What I also liked was that there was loads of dialogue from the film mixed into the music and the record ran in sequence with the events in the film. Freddie Mercury was sporting a Flash T-shirt on the inside cover and I wanted one so badly for years but those sort of merchandise spin-offs were the things of promo only back in those days. Years later I watched it round a mate’s house with the sound down and some terrible Mike Oldfield album as the soundtrack whilst coming down off acid. At one point some bagpipes kicked in and it ruined the whole thing, I had to get him to change the record.

…and they did. I just played my first AV set in Ireland at Twisted Pepper in Dublin and local DJ Kormac and crew organised a special DJ Food cake for me. Props to him as he played a great set and passed on a mix for a forthcoming Solid Steel show. Also thanks to Mark Cantwell of ItIsOn, who is nearing completion on his ongoing Raiding the 20th Century, film for the photos.

It’s been an exhilarating and frustrating couple of weeks recently. I’d been having mysterious computer problems, random freezes, beach balls of doom and general start up problems with my main Mac Pro machine. I just managed to finish the artwork to my EP when it really went into meltdown and I spent days trying to find the source of the problem. Finally a random forum post pointed to a faulty batch of video cards shipped with my generation of Macs. Apple – to give them credit – agreed to replace the card without question or cost and the machine was shipped off to the nearest workshop for a week.

At the same time I got the proofs back to much ooh-ing and aaah-ing (see last post) and the mythical DJ Food website is under reconstruction (this is mk 2 – mk 1 in all it’s guises is officially laid to rest). I’m pretty confident that this incarnation will be operational within a couple of months minimum although it’s got a hell of a lot of content for me to upload.

I’ve spent the past week messing about in various situations with photographer Martin LeSanto-Smith trying to get some interesting press shots out of my horrendously unphotogenic form. We’ve got some pretty nice stuff but there’s still a lot of Photoshop work to be done on some so you’re spared for the moment. Got some pretty interesting shots by pointing two MacBook Pros at each other, ichatting via the video link and generating video feedback from the inbuilt cameras. Not sure if Ninja will go for them but I think they’re the best of the bunch so they’ll end up somewhere.

Promos of the EP should be going out this week to press, I’m in the middle of artwork for The Herbaliser’s ‘Session 1 & 2’ release(s) for !K7 and about to start the King Cannibal LP art which will possibly be the weirdest thing I’ve ever done. As soon as that’s finished work resumes on the next Food EP…