TITK and Smugglers Festival

Thursday 30th August 2018
Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury

I’d never really got on with the Marlowe Studio space before, but it was perfect for This Is The Kit, who were enjoying a break from playing festivals. Nice audience, wonderful music as always. They stayed over at mine that night, had a jovial porridge breakfast together and then headed off to Wiltshire (I think) en route to Smugglers Festival!

Friday 31st August - Sunday 2nd September 2018
Little Mongeham, near Deal, Kent

I’d been on site for a couple of days helping out, met some new people, had some evening fireside jams, made myself useful and then headed back to Canterbury for that TITK gig. I like to cycle out to Smugglers (just in from the coast, near Little Mongeham, on the outskirts of Deal), have done so every year, but this time I had to put my bike on the train to Walmer and cycle so as not to miss my slot doing ‘freestyle performance mathematics lecturing’ as Professor Appleblossom, something of a yearly tradition (12-2pm Friday-Sunday).

Another amazing Smugglers Festival. So much good stuff. I’d been offered Friday and Saturday night DJ slots in the dance tents — both prime time — then asked if I wouldn’t mind giving up the Saturday. I was fine with that, but got confused, because I was in the programme as DJing Saturday but not Friday. So I missed my set, but only because I was DJing in a much cooler location, the underground ‘Zap Trap’ club, the brainchild of Tom Holden and Juliet who’d created a whole late-night-secret-festival world involving a number of friends in moth costumes, and giant Emperor Moth animated puppet thing operated by Tom. I played glitchy, skittering electronica and free jazz/noise art for three hours while perched on a small ledge Friday and Saturday night (the most ‘mothy’ music I could muster) while an endless succession of confused and delighted party people were led through a closet door, into a beautifully decorated absinthe bar (to be served by moth bar staff) and then down into the Zap Trap to meet the Emperor (and a few random raver moths trying to sell them mothballs, etc.). On the Sunday night Tom had to leave early so we didn't do the Zap Trap thing, but the upstairs bar remained open, and Nancy (who was responsible) asked me to DJ. The mood seemed to call for mellow spiritual jazz...I have a happy memory of This Is The Kit coming in and flopping down on sofas after their set, enjoying some Pharaoh Sanders, Alice Coltrane, George Duke, etc.

Musical highlights: Arlet (new trio lineup, with Ben guesting on some guitar, and Aidan playing analogue synth alongside accordion); Jouis; The Evil Usses; Cocos Lovers; Paddy Steer; Lapis Lazuli; the 'funk ceilidh' featuring Stewy and Aidan; The Selkies (augmented by Phil Self and Stewy); Imarhan; This Is The Kit

I did get a couple of Sunday afternoon DJ slots in the bar too, between Cocos Lovers, Willie Mason and This Is the Kit (playing a lot of melancholy Americana, acid folk, etc. to a mostly empty field, as everyone had headed down the end to see Alabaster de Plume's band Soccer96). I got asked to do some compering too — introduced Paddy Steer, also Lapis Lazuli, and Cocos Lovers (with a Northern Irish Krautrock joke, of course). And I got to DJ for the Monday night crew party. Nice cycle ride home on Tuesday, stopping at the ancient yew tree in Tilmanstone churchyard as ever.