Spirit of The Staircase

After this morning’s latest installment of “Ian should really think about things before he opens his mouth, so as to avoid potentially embarrassing situations which he could have easily averted if he had engaged his brain”, I went to the Carrboro Music Festival, with it being the right day for it and everything.

I love this place. They close down the main street of Carrboro, set up open-air concerts, open all the music venues, plus they have a big blue train. Do not underestimate the appeal of a big blue train, especially one driven by a crazy madman who likes driving in circles and chasing people down the street.

The music itself was wide and eclectic, varying from bluegrass to avant-garde jazz, African storytellers to Russian folk, white noise to melodic pop. And the whitest band ever performing Sly and The Family Stone's "Thank You (For Letting Me Be Myself)", which was much better than you would have expected. I finally discovered where the Go! concert venue was (funnily enough, there's a big sign on the front that says GO, but I must have missed that when walking past it for an entire year); it was a lot smaller than I expected, but it gets by due to the nice floppy sofas it has in the raised section, and for placing the toilets on either side of the stage, rather than, say, at the back.

Yesterday, random people were shouting my name and waving hello from a car. Today, I bumped into Ryan from the new UNITAS floor (I met him on Friday night during a very drunken game of electric taboo), and we wandered around the festival together for a little while. He pointed out a stall where a man was making stunning drawings by just using spraypaint, and only taking about ten-fifteen minutes to boot. It was pretty amazing.

I decided to leave after they reopened the road at six. The big blue train could no longer run free along the road, and it felt as if the heart of the festival had gone (I really liked the train, ok?). Plus, I wanted to get back before it got dark. Hey ho.

Oh, and from last night: we got bhangra mix CDs to take home. The quick KLF masterclass if you want to repeat the success of Mundian To Bach Ke: 1. find a nice, uptempo bhangra beat. Preferably with vocals. 2. Locate an a cappella section in a fairly popular Western song, e.g. parts of SNAP’s “You Got The Power”. 3. Apply ProTools. Hurrah! International fame is now within your grasp (offer void where applicable).

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