What the hell is going on? #14: Rockfeedback’s World Tour Part Four
By: Thomas Hannan
Afternoon all.
Never has my physical and mental state embodied the title of this column more. As we mentioned last week, some of us, myself included, were lucky enough to fly out to Brazil for the Planeta Terra Festival in Sao Paulo held over the past weekend. We had an incredible time spent capturing live sets from the likes of Maximo Park and Primal Scream, becoming buddies with new Brazilian bands like the wonderful Macaco Bong, drinking more caipirinhas than we realised there were caipirinhas in the world, eating the most delicious steak we’ve ever been privileged to stuff in our gobs, and generally being in awe of Sao Paulo, a city with a population of 21 million people (making it about three times the size of our native London). What’s more, other than the guy who tried to mug me, they were all very friendly – especially the people from Terra, who treated us like royalty (thanks ever so much guys!).
And I’m TIRED, alright? We were in Brazil for 72 hours, with 12 hour flights either side. That’s enough to f**k a guy up. I keep just shouting things like “what’s happening?!” and giggling inanely to myself because I honestly don’t have a bloody clue how to answer that question. Drinking with our good buddy Liam Finn after his triumphant gig at the Bush Hall last night certainly didn’t help, but was a pleasure all the same (and great set, Liam!).
So this week, ‘What the hell is going on?’ is especially useful for me, as it will, I hope, help me get my head straight a little. I’ll start by detailing the goings on of Rockfeedback TV this week, as we’ve thrown ourselves in to yet another exciting project involving some cool people doing some weird stuff and making strange sounds in an odd place (what can I say, it just sounded very ‘us’). What that is is Jarvis Cocker ‘making an exhibition of himself’ at the Village Underground gallery in east London. Making an exhibition of himself entails poetry, yoga, book readings, pole dancing, burlesque classes, circus workshops, graffiti, playing a big old gig, and spending about six hours on end jamming over krautrockesque grooves with his rather talented backing band. We filmed a lot of it yesterday, and will be filming a lot more of it today, along with meeting the man himself for a chat about what on earth he thinks he’s doing. Why? Because we’re making a documentary on the bearded bastard, that’s why. You’ll see it soon.
On www.rockfeedback.tv, we continue our world tour, which started on Monday with the infectiously energetic Oi Va Voi performing their everything and the kitchen sink brand of wide eyed pop at London’s Roundhouse earlier this year. We take a slightly more serene turn today as we catch up with ex-Granddaddy fella Jason Lytle, be-hatted as ever in his trademark truckers cap (as pictured above), performing songs old and new and talking with us at that Mecca of all things brilliant, the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona. Come Friday, it’s off to Berlin (in the week of the 20 year anniversary of reunification, woo!) and Supermayer’s performance at the 2008 MELT! Festival, the coming together of KOMPAKT! Records’ Superpitcher and Michael Mayer creating as funky a piece of glitch electronica as one would imagine.
What’s more, we get back to running shows on Thursday when our current artists of the week Cymbals Eat Guitars, Two Door Cinema Club and North Atlantic Oscillation descend upon London’s Lexington for a gig we’re both delighted and disappointed to announce has actually gone and sold itself out. However, if you didn’t manage to get tickets for that one, live entertainment brought to you by Rockfeedback is never far away – we recommend snapping up some passes for Hot Club De Paris, Flashguns and Sparky Deathcap when they play our next Lexington night on the 23rd of November.
We’ll end on a special mention for a new comedy collective being set up by Rockfeedback family member Kenny Cavey, who have their launch event at London’s Queen of Hoxton venue tonight. As it’s not launched yet (and Kenny’s keeping his cards very close to his chest!), we don’t know exactly what it’ll entail, but a visit to ComComedy.com will probably sort you out – chances are it’ll be amazing, as that K.C. is one funny bastard.
Now, what hemisphere is this?
Tom.x