September 12th, 2009 by ollspin

What an awesome weekend Aeon festival 2009 was!  Although the festival has grown from last year it has still kept the magical charm and lovely chilled vibe that makes it such a beautiful event.  The dance tent was a big improvement on last year, up-scaling from a small marquee to a proper big top style festival tent, with fantastic decor and a stomping bass heavy soundsystem.

Highlights of the weekend for me were DJ sets from Ben & Lex, Elite Force, Break, Dicey, DJ Chamber and Full Melt DJs.  Was good to randomly catch the Thujones again this year whilst wandering past the live stage.  Saturday was loads of fun, starting the day with a Swedish massage, followed by finding classic Fighting Fantasy book Forest of Doom from the Book-Cycle free bookshop, then dressing up like a NASA space cadet and raving like a crazy monkey all night long.  I slept pretty much all day on Sunday and felt refreshed and invigorated all through the following week, which was a nice change from the usual festival comedown.

Watch this space for download of my set from the Jam the Channel dance tent coming in the next week or so.  Also I’ll also be sifting through some photos taken by various mates and uploading a selection of the best.

Massive respects going out to Gilly and crew for sorting the dance tent, plus of course Niki the main organiser and everyone else involved.

Roll on Aeon 2010!

August 22nd, 2009 by ollspin

Aeon Festival will be taking place over the 3 day August Bank Holiday weekend at Shobrooke Park Estate, Crediton, Devon on the 28th-30th August 2009. Now in its 4th year, Aeon has grown growing organically, initially a small event attracting 400 curious people now a full weekend festival with over 2500 people attending.

Small and intimate with neither corporate funding or sponsorship, the festival offers a huge amount over the August bank holiday weekend. A whole host of emerging exciting talents from across the South West and beyond gather for an end of summer party before the leaves start turning gold. It’s all about live music and DJs, fantastic film, poetry and comedy as well as plenty to do for children and families. There are all sorts of art workshops, forest school, new parents and toddlers chill space, healing things, buskers corner to raise money for their chosen charity, gorgeous food and market stalls as well as 4 stages, a cinema tent and a well stocked bar selling fine local beverages.

This year the lineup on the Jam The Channel dance music stage includes Elite Force, Break, Hijack, Skitz, 2 Bit Thugs, Roland The Bastard and Mike Lennon.  I’ll be playing on the Friday evening.  There is also a main stage natural amphitheatre featuring live punk/ska/indie/rock, Cabaret Voltaire funk/jazz/comedy/poetry tent, Sika Studios circus/graffiti/breakdancing workshops and much more!

Further information can be found at the official Aeon Festival website

August 27th, 2008 by ollspin

What a fantastic weekend at the lovely Aeon Festival! It would be impossible to sum up everything that happened but here’s a mini review and my thoughts on the weekend.

The festival and camping sites were really beautiful as you can see in these photos hosted by outofthevoid.co.uk.  The vibe across the entire site was happy and smiling with a good mixture of all sorts of ages, from young families with small children, 20 or 30 something ravers, ageing hippies and everything inbetween.  The smell of BBQ’s and camp fire frying bacon filled the air most mornings and evenings.  The central fire on the campsite was a busy social meeting point each night.  Toilets were really clean all weekend, with plenty of loo roll and soap.  Civilised camping at its best!

Down at the start of the main festival site there was a cafe run by Avant Rural (with vegan and vegetarian options) and local chainsaw wood sculptures.  There was also a Alice in Wonderland (fancy dress theme for the weekend) stall for kids, with plenty of crazy clothes to try on and fun things such as face painting.  Over the other side of the site a local crew setup a graffiti workshop and created some artwork over the weekend.  Other highlights included a children’s workshop tent and a cinema tent showing local artists short films, animations and documentaries.

The main attractions were a dance tent, a live stage in a natural amphitheatre and a poetry/acoustic/funk tent.  We spent most of our time either dancing to funk whilst drinking Otter ale and Rattler cider in the Cabaret Voltaire tent or raving in the Jam The Channel dance tent.  Highlights from the dance tent included some excellent dubstep and stomping breaks/house during the day on Saturday, leading onto dubwise and tearout breaks in the afternoon.  Some relentless techno followed, which isn’t really my cup of tea to be honest, but the night finished off with some well received dark drum&bass from the Exeter Rinseout crew.  Highlight on the live stage was without a doubt The Thujones on Sunday night, trip hop beats accompanied by warm bass and powerful vocals, a perfect wind down at the end of the day.

Overall it was a truly awesome weekend and in my opinion the best festival of the season!

I was playing in the Jam The Channel tent at 2.30pm on Saturday afternoon.  Big thanks to everyone who was dancing and chilling outside the tent in the sunshine listening to my set.  For those that want to know, my setlist went something like this (if my memory serves me correctly).

Stabilizer ft MC Chickaboo - Bounce (Si’s Super Ska bootleg) - Plastic Raygun
DJ Buzz - Focus 76 - Sunshine
Real Estate Agents - Super Evil Me - African Dope
Jellybass ft MC Abdominal - Transatlantic - LoHz
Old Harry Rox ft Lully - Make the Most - Ready and Waiting
Afterdark - Cosa Nostra - 3.5
Deep Vein - Summer Breeze - unsigned
Mattafix - Things Have Changed (Moody Boyz remix) - EMI
Jazzsteppa - Jakin - Hot Flush
Ben & Lex ft MC Spee - Le Chunk (VIP vocal mix) - unsigned
Gary Gecko & Pigbwoy ft Feral - Dskasting (Dogtown Clash remix) - Gecko
Angel Farringdon, Sly & Robbie, Charjan - Fool Up The People - Bermuda Triangle
Aphex Twin - Donkey Rhubarb - Warp
Peo de Pitte & Yota - Forget About You (Peo de Pitte Baltimore remix) - FlatOut

Roll on next year!

August 19th, 2008 by ollspin

Saturday 23 & Sunday 24 August 2008.  Shobrooke Park Estate, Crediton, Devon.

Aeon Festival is back for 2 days of music, art, comedy and film.  Featuring a live stage, a dance tent and a acoustic/comedy/poetry area.  It’s shaping up to be even better than last year and the weather forecast looks proper sunny!  You can hear me playing some tunes in the Jam The Channel tent on Saturday afternoon 2pm ish.  If you are interested in coming along for the party, it takes place in Devon and only costs £30 a ticket for 2 days of entertainment including camping.   Loads more info at www.aeonfestival.com