Green Man

Finally got round to blogging about Green Man. It’s the fourth time I’ve been and the first time I’ve played.

I was on first on the Pub Stage, narrowly pipped at the post of being able to claim I opened the festival by We Aeronauts, the massive folk ensemble featuring James from Keyboard Choir who won the competition to play the main stage.

My set went well, the usual stuff… you’ve all seen it. Got soaked during soundcheck and the omnichord wasn’t working but it managed to sort itself by the time I came on.

You can hear a live track from my set and a brief interview with me on this week’s Bethan Elfyn show (on the listen again thing).

The rest of the festival was great. Animal Collective ruled but didn’t exactly play to the festival crowd. Bon Iver was good as I hoped. Wilco and Dirty Three were a nice surprise and I also enjoyed 9Bach and Right Hand Left Hand.

I’d forgotten how good it was actually. It’s much more relaxed than some other festivals I’ve been to, a generally friendly atmosphere and stunning surroundings. Ace.

Like PWL? Amazon recommends…

I just received one of those ‘We’ve noticed people who buy [X] also buy [Y]…’ e-mails from amazon. Except it was saying that people who bought ‘Fight My Battles For Me’ also bought ‘The Future Sound of Yesterday‘ by a band called Implosion Quintet.

How exciting. This presumably means people have bought my album from amazon, which is almost as exciting as it being in HMV [NB the cheapest place to buy it is still my website].

Looking at the website ‘Implosion Quintet’ seems in fact to be one bloke in his bedroom with the following things to say:

“[the band is] a crossover that blends tango, rock, proggy retro-electronics and jazz. Basically a composite of the various elements I really love. Everything is deliberately lo-fi and unpolished out of choice because realism and good old-fashioned grit are unquestionably the way forward.”

Word.

He doesn’t perform live because “while I could laptop it up and tweak out a roomful of boink that would be about as captivating as watching me complete a tax return.”

Ahem… never heard of a monome?

Anyway, I’ve yet to listen to him but here’s his myspace.

Hmm… lengthy plug for 100% unheard band. Is this how I should use my blog?

Woodstick 2009

Last weekend my friends Harri & Nicola from Little My organised the second annual ‘Woodstick’ mini-festival. This takes place in a park in Cardiff and is a small unamplified festival. This year it was sunny, last year it rained. This year more people just happened to wander past and sit down to watch which is a nice thing to have happen.

Anyway I played, here’s a video (which I’m designating #14 of the 15 films thing):

Vimeo link

Also here’s a video of me playing in Silence at Sea:

And here’s a link to a YouTube playlist with a song from every band that day, including the Gentle Good, Picture Books in Winter, Zissou, Lucky Delucci, and an exclusive never-to-be-repeated Gindrinker song.

[If any of the bands stumble upon this post and want to let me know what the songs are called please do so.]