local scenes used to be quite shit on the whole - a bunch of people in rock bands trying to “make it”. They would then gravitate to London.
Now that people can’t make it or move to London there is space to bed in and do weird stuff. Paul STN and I went to a great mini festival in Yeovil which was a showcase for West Country strangeness and there was a proper sense of community.
There seem to be similar things happening in the North West etc.
It is all hype and people will remember the big Wire stories about Cambridge (including our own Pete Um) and the West Country (with our own Hacker Farm and IX Tab). I don’t think that sort of exposure ends up making any difference in the long term, but that is good from my perspective. These people are going to keep doing weird stuff because they can’t do anything else.
It’s all much much healthier than people being dubstep DJs and producers.
He’s a great writer. You can get some of the amphetamine sulphate bits from Cargo in the uk.
Creepy and funny and compassionate by turns.
The Oz Oz Alice seems to have gone invite only recently but still seems to work in my rss reader.