micromusic.net London Festival 2002
GB Camera Diary

These images were taken on Thursday 20th of June 2002

The start I turned up at Kingkas' place at 9 o'clock, as we arranged the previous day.... of course no one was awake. In order to rouse everyone I decided to hijack a bass guitar and amplifier and play Motorhead style covers of 'Blue Mondays' and 'Am I Evil'. After I'd eaten my second breakfast of the day myself, Manou, Rolemodel and Kingkas loaded the motor with all our equipment - but of course it could easily handle it ;->

Driving to 93feet East turned out to be an absolute pleasure, and we listened to the first Black Sabbath album, but I wish I had more Sabbath with me as Rolemodel wanted to hear more - next time my friend.

Manou always has something to laugh about

Hooking up with the crew Once we arrived at 93feet East the first person I recognise is Komatrohn (from the Dead Guys)...

'ere I'm from saaauf londan init geezer

...who greats me with the best, most rudest handshake I have ever had. It was even more ghetto than the handshake of Ed DMX!

The next stage was to unload the car into the club. As you can see my car is an ture Tardis, able to take all this equipment and four microsuperstarz.

here are some of the things you need for a great party

Of course Koma was not the only micromusic person already at the venue. There was Dr. Doom, Copenhagen Brains and...

"yes and we have lots of dutch ecstacy and super skunk for the after party!"
<kick>
"NO WE HAVEN'T!"

...the C-Men, who turned out to be really crazy funny guys! Next Kas and I moved the car to a legal parking spot and returned to find someone wearing an even cooler t-shirt than my England football top:

this says 'Scooter' in Russian!

of course its owner was

drx from Bodenstandig 2000

Setting up Because everyone was tripping from hunger, Lektrogirl sent the london_hq intern KingKas to fetch trendy savoury doughnuts and coke. I certainally felt much better after that, and we could start setting up. Of course headliners Bodenstandig 2000 had a bloated hi-tech setup made entirely of compressors and reverb units:

(ok the atari is actually mine - but they used it with Cubase to control 19" racks full of the latest sound modules and grooveboxes).

Once all of Bodenstandig's technicans went away I setup my own equipment with the gwemette's drummer KingKas:

There is also a guitar and KingKas' electronic drum set

I had a quick chat to Sinusjog, who was a really pleasant guy:

Sinusjog just used his laptop

Then it was time for the sound checks. Bodenstandig 2000 gave nothing much away with their check. Second up was Manou, and her check revealed some problems with cabling, which were soon solved. Next to be sound checked were my band - 'The Gwemettes'. I decided to give away some of my set by playing the song 'Shoot Out The Lights' - this was a great move, because Paul from 93feet East gave me a really great sound check, with some good advice, and also setup our mixing desk!! Cheers geezer!
Sinusjog, and Komatrohn's sound checks followed - but I wasn't able to check them out properly because I had to sort out this:

m1cr0 w@re$ The was my little baby - a shop selling selfmade items by micromusic members. I styled it on a 1980s computer fair, as you can see from the next picture:

The front of the warez stall

I was pleased with the way it looked - a real art statement worthy of the Turner Prize, but the items for sale were even better...

The actual merchandise

...with just clothes and music - the only things that are important.

Everything was ready for the gig about an hour and a half before it was due to start. I put this down to excellent organisation by Tryst, Lektro and JK - the real stars of the show! Some great food was provided - I tried everything and it was all top shit. With nothing else to do I decided to tour...

"Up on the catwalk... The three visual art crews - Copenhagen Brains, the C-Men, and my friends preromanbritain had set up in their 3 very different styles:

The CMen's clear cased Amiga 1200 would have Commodore fans drooling

But I loved their LCD monitor displays

Copenhagen Brains used a powerful laptop PC and phatt video mixer with automatic gearbox

These are the twin mac powerbooks of the mighty preromanbritain. A third powerbook ran visuals behind the stage!

This section has already got too g33ky, so I will put the next 3 images together:

93feet East's sound crew made good use of this gear

Apparantly this is a Panasonic WJMX-30 videomixer

Next I went...

...down on the floor...

the stage setup just before the gig

Where Manou was singing quietly to herself. I listened for a bit, and then looked at my watch. As the rave was about to kick off I returned to the microwarez stall to look after it for the first one and a half hours. This meant I missed Future Eater's and Pippilinas fucked up set of noise and beauty. But, as we opened up a bit later than planned I was luckily able to leave the warez stall in time to catch...

...we know you're addicted to the real hardcore!" ...the last part of Rolemodel's kicking gameboy set!! I was really impressed and so were the crowd. He did really well to get dancing so early on in the evening. My friends Ella and Rani fed me with beer, which I felt obliged to drink, and I normally /always/ play sober. But such is the bad influence of pretty girls ;-<

The crowd was still a little sparse, and even at the peak of the gig I guess the venue was only half filled.

Next up was Manou, and she held her audience spellbound with some really great tracks. She looked really great on stage too. With 15 minutes to go to my set I started to get a little nervous so, as the sound system was loud enough travel, I went to play some Atari in the games room. Who should be there but

Bern from Bodenstandig 2000

I have never seen anyone play Space Invaders and PacMan so well!! It is lucky I didn't challenge him to a game of Missile Command, because I think that even I would have been beaten. You can really tell Bern is a true arcade kid, and not a young pretender. My few moments of nervousness had passed, and I headed back stage to put on my special stage clothes:

Black socks, black shoes, black trousers, black tshirt, black shirt, black tie, silver bullet belt, white pants and a can of special brew

I lurked behind the curtain while Manou finished with her two huge micromusic hits to well deserved adulation.

Bring it on It was time for me to be surprised, I got some cheers by just saying 'Hello' in to the microphone and even my trusty guitar got some respect from the audience. With an air of anticipation I tuned my guitar and KingKas beat a few pads. When everything was ready I lauched into my first track...

...I played some covers, Tune 4 My Broken Atari(with rap), FYMW and a new song called 'Radiation Hazard' - I was particularly pleased with the response this song got actually. Music videos prepared by my friends Colin, Alex and Stu got a great reaction - so big up to them!

After I finshed the next person to be on was Komatrohn, but before he started some people accosted me with complaints about my wild rock drummer KingKas who threw some valuable equipment into the audience. Luckily I managed to chill them out - and someone cool has a great guitar to play with!

Koma played totally amazing pop tracks, and the Dead Guy's anthem "Edd the Duck". I was totally into their stuff, but I wished that more people could have danced to it. Some of his tracks will be released on an new exciting new record label, setup by Puss. Buy them!!

Headliners Bodenstandig 2000 hit the stage next with a set of great material, including an all vocal track! My favourite was 'RaggaMan' which regular readers of my page will know has cool acid effects generated just using an Atari. This track has progressed so much from last year's London festival, and also from the Munich festival. I would say it is perfection now! Other cool tracks included 'The Pixels in TeleText Land' and some other EuroDance smashes. My mate Rani, who has never heard any Bodenstandig 2000 tracks before, was totally blown away by the straight forward honesty of the performace.

Drx, myself and Poke (from the CMen) got involved in a wild gabba-style dance competition... I did well, but I think final honour will have to go to Poke - but he is Dutch, as so has gabba dancing in his blood.

The only dissapointment was that drx did not smashup his Casio organ.

For me, I thought the night had already peaked, but I did not reckon on the power of Puss. Their performance, like that of Manou, cast a spell over the audience. They looked like two school children playing gameboys. I wanted to scoop them up and put them to bed with some hot chocolate!! A couple of days later they gave me a great Puss sticker for my Gameboy.

Because of the England match the next day only true ravers stayed for Sinusjog. Luckily he played some mental music to match.

I was pretty tired after Puss, so I didn't stay to dance to Sinusjog, or DJ Cylob - but I heard everything, and they were both great. Of course the only thing to do was chill out over a game of Missile Command, and talk g33k with drx, Rolemodel and Sarah. Everyone on micromusic rulez!

Ella and KingKas are such superlovers they can even take Gameboy camera pictures and kiss at the same time!

Going home As people were leaving the equipment had to be packed up and put away. I found the taxi drivers outside the venue to be totally pushy and they even asked us if we wanted a lift was we got into my car!! Also sucking at this point were 93feet East's door team who stood and watched everyone carry heavy boxes, without lifting a finger to help and told us to hurry up.

Of course we went away with some of the wrong bits of gear, and everything did not fit into my car boot this time - so Manou and Rolemodel had to look after my Flying V (thanx).

The trip home only involved one illegal car moment, and no speeding at all. We didn't even get lost. Acen 'Trip to the Moon' and Jens 'Loops n Tings' gave us the musical accompiment. I am glad that everyone is a raver at heart.

After wishing Manou and Rolemodel sweet dreams, KingKas and I earnestly discussed ways to improve my set, before finally falling asleep.

gwem 2002
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