Ok, this is what I’ve been up to - music, music and more music! Going to the All Tomorrow’s Parties music festivals, buying great new music and making some changes to my listening room (i.e. loft).

First of all, All Tomorrow’s Parties. This year the festivals were held on concurrent weekends at the start of May, in Minehead, Somerset. I’d got tickets to go to both and my lovely wife was coming to the second one, which would be a first for both of us!

ATP vs the Fans Part II

The first weekend was ATP vs The Fans (Part II), so half the bands were voted for by the fans, half by ATP. The idea, for us at least, is not to see the bands we like but to try and see as many bands as possible including the ones we like.

So we saw M83, Devo, The Acorn, Grizzly Bear, Beirut, Shearwater, Future of the Left, Parts & Labor, Andrew WK, Fuck Buttons, Nico Muhly, Retribution Gospel Choir, Qui, Harvey Milk, The Jesus Lizard, Hush Arbors, School of Seven Bells, The Jesus Lizard (again), Pink Mountaintops, Lords, Marnie Stern and The Mae Shi. We didn’t see all of every one of these bands’ sets but we saw at least 15 minutes of each of them and whole sets for ones we liked.

Highlights for me were Shearwater, Parts & Labor, The Jesus Lizard, Pink Mountaintops, Marnie Stern and Lords. Lords played an absolutely storming set and were really enjoying themselves! Phew!

To see more of my photos from ATP vs The Fans Part II click here.

ATP Curated by The Breeders

The second weekend was ATP curated by The Breeders, so yes, we left on Monday morning and on Friday afternoon we were back at Butlins - it seemed like we had not even been away!

Bands we saw included Bon Iver, Blood Red Shoes, The Breeders (of course), Heartless Bastards, Deerhunter (only a little bit), Foals, Yann Tiersen, Buffalo Killers, The Whispertown 2000, Th’ Faith Healers, Shellac, Mariachi el Bronx, Holy Fuck, Dianogah, Melt Banana, Kimya Dawson, Shellac (again), Mr Lif and Styrofoam.

Highlights were The Breeders, who were obviously going to be very popular, and played the most beautiful set, really superb, Yann Tiersen, Buffalo Killers (who were superb, excellent harmonies), The Whispertown 2000 (um, gorgeous!), Shellac (really on top form both nights), Mariachi el Bronx, Dianogah and Kimya Dawson.

I walked away with quite a lot of vinyl from both weekends and took photos, going to the front as much as possible for some of the performances to get the shots I wanted. There has been a lot of great new music around so my next post will cover some of these recent finds.

To see more of my photos from ATP Curated by The Breeders, click here.

I haven’t written anything for a bit, sorry about that. Got plans for various things but other commitments have kept me from this. Plans to write more hi-fi reviews, plans to create new free Photoshop and Illustrator brushes. Also my plans to write 100 random facts about Smoking Drum appear to have dried up at about 29.

Anyway, recently I’ve been boosting my stock image folio and the images above are just a few of the images. I specifically took stock images recently on holiday in Cornwall and it seemed to work well! Out of just over 200 images, 63 were good to submit and only a handful were rejected.

Also, shooting for stock has enabled me to find some photo mojo which I’d lost for well over a year, so that is reason enough. So what if I’m not shooting arty images?

In a couple of weeks we’ll be off to both of the UK ATP festivals where I go out shooting images in the morning whilst everyone else is asleep, so maybe I’ll get some more then!

11. I always prefer quality over convenience, almost without exception. I’d rather have some massive speakers taking up half the room, vinly LPs, a big camera…

12. Following on from the last point, I truly believe simple is best when it comes to quality. Any technology which rests heavily on its features is bound to be a load of rubbish! I’d rather have something with one feature which is done really well.

13. This also explains why I so love old technology, because so much old technology is simpler and, as a result seems to work better or sound better. Valves, big transformers and vinyl are the best examples of this - they’re so much better than CDs, digital downloaded audio, modern tiny transistor amps with horrible switching power supplies which focus entirely on convenience and being as small as possible.

14. I currently work on a farm. I never thought I’d say that!

15. I like 0.9mm propelling pencils, the fatter the lead the better. I always have two books with me, a notebook and a sketchbook.

16. Speaking of writing, I love using a fountain pen. Can’t stand biros. Horrible things. I believe in writing by hand as much as possible and not using the computer.

17. When it comes to creative things, such as music, film, art, I prefer flawed things to things which are perceived as “perfect”.

18. I love the films of people like Terry Gilliam, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Krystof Kieslowski and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

19. My musical tastes are quite diverse but some of the artists I love are Amon Tobin, Built to Spill, David Byrne, Soul Coughing, Four Tet, Alias, Why?, Jaga Jassist, Squarepusher, Calexico, They Might Be Giants, David Bowie, Robyn Hitchcock, Sage Francis, Spoon, Deerhoof, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Seb Rochford, Menomena.

20. There are lots of things I used to do. I’m sure that’s the same with most people. But there aren’t many things I want to do.

Hello everyone. I’ve been slow to write anything new this year and it was suggested to me that I should write a bunch of random facts to shed some light on Smoking Drum without giving too much away! This is mainly about music and film…

1. Smoking Drum is a musical reference - it describes a particular style of drum beat which is smoking or sizzling. It has nothing to do with smoking tobacco! Sorry to disappoint any readers but I have never smoked tobacco.

2. I studied Film at West Surrey College of Art & Design, worked in the film industry for three years and almost followed a career of cinematography. I had the opportunity to become a camera assistant for a documentary film maker but it would have meant traveling the world six months of the year—something I didn’t want to do as I’d just got married.

3. I learned violin and piano as a child, and later guitar. I haven’t played for a few years but I’m really hoping to do so again, very soon.

4. Music is in my blood. I don’t know why, but it is. I’ve written this before but music gets me through all times, good and bad. I must have a deep connection with it! This is why I know that one day I will play again. Maybe I’ll be 70 by then!

5. I built my first electric guitar in secondary school in Modular Technology. It was a “flying V” type guitar made from mahogany. I have no idea why I chose that style!

6. I played in various bad bands and had a horrible Marshall transistor guitar amp (eugh). One of the bands was called Pernicious Anaemia!

7. I used to work as a Telecine operator where you transfer film to video tape. I worked mainly on rushes, where the film crew would send in the raw unprocessed film, it would be developed and then I’d whack it on the Telecine machine and “grade” it on the fly onto video tape - basically colour correcting in real time. The tapes would then have sound put on them and sent back the next day to the director ready for viewing.

8. We tried to create a little film company in the early 90’s, we shot a few shorts (on 16mm) and it was immense fun. Some of the actors even went on to bigger performances in The Bill and Casualty!

9. I have met a few well known faces I suppose…my favourite was John Peel who I met a few times as he used to come into the sound studio to record voice over for programmes like “Classic Trucks”. I made him cups of coffee!

10. I haven’t been to nearly enough gigs as I’d have liked but I have been to a few memorable ones, like Motorhead in Reading in the 80’s where there was literally a riot as the gig was closed down (police and dogs running after metalheads) and the last gig of Alice Donut. Recently I’m pleased to say I’ve been able to enjoy the ATP festivals and have seen some truly excellent bands like Built to Spill, Sonic Youth, Battles.

Not necessarily recent releases, though, as I keep discovering old stuff too, but here are some of the best things I’ve found recently:

Valgeir Sigurðsson “Ekvílibríum” (2007)

Soul Position “Things Go Better With RJ and Al” (2006)

Alias “Resurgam” (2008)

Alias “Muted” (2003)

Dan Friel “Ghost Town” (2008)

Lars Horntveth “Pooka” (2004)

Robyn Hitchcock “Luminous Groove” (boxed set of 8LPs plus digital download of all tracks) (2008)

Clark “Turning Dragon” (2008)

Why? “Alopecia” (2008)

Band of Horses “Everything All The Time” (2006)

Ladyhawk “Ladyhawk” (2006)

Efterklang “Parades” (2007)

Most are available on vinyl LP, all are available on CD. I forgot to include the Robyn Hitchcock boxed set in the photograph, sorry! It’s a lovely boxed set, all on heavyweight vinyl.