Glade 2008

As I sit here thinking about what exactly occurred just under a month ago in a field near reading, I keep returning to the same problem: how to explain what was essentially and indescribable experience in a way that can be comprehended.

I could list the Djs I saw, but that wouldn’t do justice to the experience. I could reel off the recreational ’activities’ that took place, but that, too, can only go so far. For all the sense it made, I thought that perhaps a series of random noises and smells would sum it up best.

However, I am feeling intrepid so I will try my best. It is at first worth clarifying that my memory of it is fairly hazy. I took a disposable camera but when I returned home only nine photos were of anything. The rest were blank. This pretty much says it all.

Glade is, ostensibly, a dance music festival tailored to the psy-trance audience. This description undermines the presence of Jeff Mills, who blew us all away with an astounding two hour set, Dubfire, and Vitalic. Although, Vitalic didn’t show up, which only reiterated my belief that he is an incredibly unreliable DJ. I love OK Cowboy, but having seen him play a pretty ropey set in Brighton, charging the customer £12 for an hour long set, I was bitterly disappointed by his absence. The love affair has well and truly ended.

Well, that’s all the music I can remember. This isn’t going very well. I’m not sure its possible to continue in any meaningful way. To hell with convention. I’m just going to list five or so memories of glade, in no particular order. Perhaps that is the best way to represent Glade festival in words; erratic, incomprehensible and utterly confusing.

1. The food was excellent. I had falafel and it was delicious.
2. There were only 8000 or so attendees. It was incredibly intimate.
3. Imagine that you’re in a children’s nursery rhyme. Then combine this with the sense that you, and everyone around you, are on a quest, charged by some unknown force to walk around, dance, and talk complete shit. That’s Glade.
4. By the morning, I could only describe all music as thus: it sounded like the smell of glue.

I cant continue. I’m really trying but it really isn’t working. Everything was just so surreal. Perhaps its best if I leave you with a brief story.

The setting: Sunday night, the music had finished, and myself and my friend Luke (who had married a stranger in the inflatable chapel earlier in the day) went to the only place open: Granny’s Gaff.
This was a café that sold brandy coffee, whisky tea etc etc. There were deckchairs laid out, and films being projected on a big screen. A giant chessboard on the ground next to me, everyone wearing silver foil heat sheets, like the ones they give to marathon runners.

I spent my time either in the porch of the café, convinced I was on a boat, or sitting on the deckchair, admiring the films being played.

Oh, I almost forgot. Everyone who worked at the café was dressed up like a granny, complete with wig and long dress, and spoke with a croaky and extremely high pitched voice. Hours passed. A Charlie Chaplin silent film was being played. The security arrived, and took all the projection equipment due to excessive noise levels. From a silent film. The volume increased substantially by our protests. A cry was heard. ‘You can suck my balls’. The grannies come deranged partygoers argued with the security guards, maintaining at all times their granny routine. Luke and I left soon after. We found a man playing classical music on an out of tune piano, accompanied by a man banging out a drum ‘n’ bass rhythm using an empty tin of beans and a chair. Some more time passed. A woman sidled over to the drummer and handed him his much deserved crystal meth.

I left, feeling like I had died inside. Oh the humanity.

Well worth going again next year. Maybe I wont lose my mind quite so much next time.

Words: Giles Skerry.

The Story of DRUMS OF DEATH

Papa Djim doesn’t like techno, doesn’t like Kool Keith and certainly doesn’t like people sleeping with his daughter. Papa Djim does however like tribal Drums and the overall concept of Death. It’s not particularly surprising – Chief Papa Djim is a Haitian warlord. And Haitian warlords tend to be sticklers for tradition. But all this came as particularly bad news for one Colin Bailey as the repercussions of his whiskey-fuelled night with Princess Zara on his Haitian holiday became clear: Papa Djim was not best pleased, promptly placing an ancient voodoo curse on the young Glaswegian before ripping out his beating heart and replacing it with a broken drum machine! Colin awoke in his hotel room the next day with no memory of the previous night but soon discovered mysterious scars on his chest. And the pounding inside that chest didn’t sound like a heart… It sounded like drums.

Confused, Colin returned to the UK just in time to play his first ever live show at an infamous GRECO-ROMAN party alongside GROVESNOR, BOOJI BOY HIGH and HOT CHIP in an old mill on the outskirts of Manchester, but the venue was hit by a long, mysterious power-cut the minute he went on stage. A young Mancunian barman dived into the power-socket armed with little more than an anorak, a gurn and a screwdriver and managed to restore the power by publicly electrocuting himself to death in a puff of blue smoke. Despite this noble self-sacrifice the show was an electrifying success. But something was clear: there was a strange magic in the room. Colin’s voodoo curse had been unleashed. They should never have let him go on after midnight.

Mildly aroused by his virginal notch on the bedpost of Death, but haunted by the realisation that Papa Djim’s curse had followed him home, Colin turned for salvation to the holy trinity of Acid House, Black Sabbath and Grime. The voices told him to write his first confessional material: 'Breathe' (the first gasps of the reborn), 'Cursed By Magick' (the tale of Papa Djim's enduring curse) and 'Midnight Stalker' (what happens to his soul when the sun goes down). AND THUS DRUMS OF DEATH WAS BORN. This debut E.P. tells the story with old school techno piano stabs, throbbing distorted bass and lyrics that blend voodoo magick with references to Mozart, punk rock and 80s excesses. It comes complete with a sub-bass-heavy remix of 'Breathe' from DRUMS OF DEATH'S close friend New York City producer de jour DROP THE LIME.

But despite his best efforts the curse remains intact. Colin Bailey’s fate is to endure his inner drummer demon and to roam the earth reeking acid voodoo havoc after midnight as… DRUMS OF DEATH!

Aug 15th: Old Blue Last, London Sept 5th: Bestival (w. Greco-Roman Soundsystem)
Aug 22nd: Scala, Berlin Sept 6th: Contort Yourself, Manchester
Aug 29th: Barfly, London Oct 4th: Studio B, New York
Aug 30th: Broomfields Festival, Essex
Oct 18th: Matter, London (w. Greco-Roman Soundsystem)

And thus DRUMS OF DEATH steps – nae, bursts - out of Glasgow's nascent basscore scene and into the GRECO-ROMAN wrestling ring formerly held by 8-bit upstart DAVID E. SUGAR, electro balladeer GROVESNOR and fiery Portugese Kuduro trio BURAKA SOM SISTEMA. His first Long Player ‘Generation Hexed’ is to be released on GRECO-ROMAN in the darkest depths of winter, early '09.