One of the more unlikely ‘stars’ of this years Bestival Festival on the Isle Of Wight is a certain DJ Hojo Hits, a man who by his own admission has no DJ ability whatsoever. This maverick, from the south coast of the UK is planning to DJ an hour long set of songs which consist solely of those recorded by eighties synth pop star Howard Jones. Yes, that was the man with the spiked blonde hair and a mime artist called Jed. If you are young enough to not remember Jones, here he is back in the eighties.
Howard Jones - New Song
Jones had a series of worldwide hits including New Song, What Is Love, No One Is To Blame and Things Can Only Get Better. He still performs today, and later this year will be celebrating 25 years since New Song bounded into the Top 5 in the UK with a big show at the Indigo O2 in London.
So who is DJ Hojo Hits, and how did he come about ? Well this is what the man himself had to say when I caught up with him the other day. “It all came about when a group of us ran a two year internet campaign to get Howard Jones booked for the Bestival. The campaign failed, but instead Radio1 DJ and Bestival organiser Rob da Bank has allowed me to do this DJ set, after I wrote him a poem which I posted on the Bestival forum. I think Rob da Bank said yes just to get me off his back,” laughs DJ Hojo, who seems strangely familiar to me.
So what started as a bit of a joke, seems to have taken off in a strange way. DJ Hojo Hits has become a bit of a hit with regular Bestival go-ers.
“I’ve had quite a few messages on the Bestival forum from people who say they are going to come along and dance to my set. It’s all a bit bizarre. One so called fan from the U.S.A has even set up his own DJ Hojo Hits unofficial website !” The site is http://www.djhojo.com/
So if you are attending this years Bestival, get there early and search out the Hidden Disco on Friday afternoon where a man dressed in a bad 80’s pop star wig will be DJing badly with no mixing skills whatsoever, playing Howard Jones CDs in a shambolic, yet strangely sincere way. All DJ Hojo Hits asks is that you learn the words to New Song and What Is Love?
So is DJ Hojo Hits actually a fan of the real Howard Jones ?
“Absolutely. I’m a massive fan of Howard Jones and a massive fan of Bestival, so this will be a marriage made in heaven!”
And who is DJ Hojo Hits really ? The mystery isn’t hard to solve. DJ Hojo is closer than you think. Here's a video on You Tube which reveals his identity...
DJ Hojo Hits revealed (Video 2 of a series)
Catch DJ Hojo Hits and his Howard Jones CD’s at The Hidden Disco at Bestival on Friday 5th September between 2pm and 3pm. He will also be appearing with the bands Bastila and Finger Monster at Waverley Park, Isle Of Wight on the 3rd September playing a non Howard Jones set of Bestival inspired tunes.
The real Howard Jones will be playing at the London Indigo O2 for his 25th Anniversary show on 20th September and as part of the Portsmouth and Southsea Music Festival on October 12th 2008
Broken Records produce the big music. Multi layered songs that powerfully build to exuberant crescendos, with violins, trumpets, cellos and guitars; there are comparisons with Arcade Fire, Hope Of The States and The Waterboys in what they do.
Formed in Edinburgh, it will take only one listen to One Good Reason to convince you of their merit. It is the sound of a violent bar room brawl in eastern Europe with violin wielding gypsies charging through the melee, kicking everything out of their way. But not everything they produce has such aggression. Take their new single, Slow Parade which is released on 7” vinyl in August through the Club Fandango record label. It starts with a mournful falsetto before moving via tinkering piano to a gorgeous swooping blissed out ending. The word beautiful should be used reservedly, and today I reserve it for this song. Here it is recorded at the Rockness Festival in Scotland a few weeks ago.
Broken Records @ Rockness Festival 2008
Broken Records music is based on the use of traditional instruments, and it appears that their philosophy and approach is also very much of this nature, building a profile steadily this year, through playing soaring live shows that have received some glowing reviews. There is no Myspace or other social networking buzz about the band. They’ve just been getting out there and connecting with people in the way that groups used to build a fan base before the internet came along; and are all the better for it.
The Ben and Jerry’s Sundae Festival on Clapham Common, London may at first glance sound like my idea of festival hell. It is as heavily branded as you can possibly get. From the moment you walk through the gates and a man on stilts shouts “Lovely gorgeous free Ben and Jerry’s ice cream here,” you know that the motive for this festival is not just about the music. This is an exercise in advertising and marketing, that hopes to turn you into a satisfied Ben and Jerry’s customer, ready to make safe decisions on auto pilot about how you consume your ice cream in the future. Yes, these days even ice cream consumption is a lifestyle choice.
Luckily, and some may say arrogantly, I am happy to accept Ben and Jerry’s attempts to persuade me that the personal experiences they offer today for just £8.75 a ticket will affect my ice cream purchasing in the future. But I can assure you they won’t. Yes, my perceptions of the company may be altered by the raft of fair trade and charity stalls that occupy the site; but boo hiss, just by changing my perception of a companies ideology will not change my consumer habits. Yes, the quality of the product may be good, with a wide range of flavours that are available to eat in copious amounts today for free. But just because of this, please don’t expect my purchasing thoughts to change. Yes, the scorching weather and emphasis on fun exemplified by an area dedicated to Mystic Moo, the future predicting, yoga demonstrating cow will make me feel happy and potentially associate Ben and Jerry’s with good times. But still I will not be adding their ice cream to my shopping list. The reason ? Because quite simply, I don’t need ice cream in my life. At best I probably buy 3 tubs of the stuff a year. And no matter how nice it is, how ethical it is and how much zany fun it may be, I am afraid I’m a fairly useless candidate for ice cream marketing men. Just say no kids. Remember, as Neil Boorman wrote “There is but one message underlying all brands; materialism.”
So for my £8.75 ticket I will say thank you very much to Ben and Jerry. Yes, Jerry himself is here today, and gets a huge cheer when he arrives on stage to introduce a band. Then I will act in an ugly, disgusting and unhealthily nauseous way by stuffing free ice cream into my face until I’m almost sick, even though I don’t need or particularly want it, shovelling down the free pancakes, stuffing the free Frusli bars in my bag to take home afterwards ( I fill a whole bag ) and enjoy some top notch live bands. Corporate branded festivals may not be my idea of heaven, but I’ll enjoy the ride whilst it lasts. And so after failing at the free Coconut Shy, whizzing down the free helter skelter, having had my photo taken with a giant fluffy chicken, stroking a sheep in the animal zoo, watching toe wrestling and laughing at banana jousting its time for the real reason I am here. Live music.
Unfortunately it seems that a fair proportion of the crowd are less bothered about the music. At times the event resembles a massive picnic orgy, with vast numbers of the crowd sitting on their £10 a piece, cow hide pattern picnic blankets supplied by those lovely folks at Ben and Jerry’s. Yes, remember that message that underlies all brands folks; regardless of emotions and ethics they present to you, they want your money.
So, the music. Fight Like Apes are a late addition to the bill. Having incessantly listened to Lend Me Your Face in the last couple of weeks, and having blogged them just a few days ago, they are an exciting proposition to behold. MayKay is a strong and forceful front woman, a goth in silver hot pants, her hair whipping violently as she pulverises her keyboard before wrestling to the ground with fellow keyboardist, the bearded Pockets. It is often Pockets that is the real star of the band, head butting MayKay and walking to the front of the stage, straight armed and just staring at the audience like an escapee from a mental hospital.
Fight Like Apes
Slow Club are a more gentle proposition. Admitting to being very nervous, the gentle acoustic alt. country folk sound that this brother and sister duo produce sounds just right for a sunny Sunday afternoon, lounging on a picnic blanket in a park.
Next up on Clapham Common, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. 22 year old Sam Duckworth has ditched the laptop and brought in a full band, which one may think would lead to a loss of originality and charm that his early solo sets brought. However his activist folk rock works well and the additional musicians bring an extra dimension to his sound, his set featuring a large number of songs from his first album. Duckworth jokes with the crowd about how good it is to get out and play again, after spending several days grouting. Phew, the rock and roll lifestyle, hey ? Here is Sam and the boys as shot by Breaking More Waves.
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly as shot by Breaking More Waves
Just a few days ago The Lemonheads played Truck Festival and by all accounts were arrogant and appalling. Luckily today a different, happier blissed out Evan Dando takes to the stage and reminds everyone why he became a sex symbol for the slacker generation back in 1992. The band play every track from It’s A Shame About Ray in the order that they are on the album except for the cover version of Mrs Robinson, and the die heard Lemonheads fans in the audience physically swoon. Those too young to remember the band first time around look on in puzzlement.
Which leaves headliners Ash to wrap up events. With just one new song on show, this is hit heavy. Girl From Mars, A Life Less Ordinary, Burn Baby Burn and Oh Yeah are thunderous rock pop played straight and all the better for the lack of rabble rousing.
So thank you Ben and Jerry. Thank you for being close to your cows through your caring dairy sustainable diary programme that makes happy cows and happy farmers. Thank you for being the first ice cream company to buy fair trade certified ingredients. Thank you for using free range eggs in your ice cream mix. Thank you for being a company that cares about global warming. And as Abba once said, thank you for the music.
I’ll probably be back next year if the tickets are cheap and the music is good.
But I’m still not buying into your techniques of persuasion.
To call The Mummers a band is almost insulting. For The Mummers are no ordinary band. The Mummers are a huge, glorious, quirky, cinematic childlike fantasy adventure composed of cellos, flutes, french horns, violins and the enchanting saccharine voice of one Raissa Khan Panni. The observant amongst you may recognise Raissa’s voice and name from the late 90’s, when she released 3 albums as a solo artist and toured with Suede’s Brett Anderson. Now she has grouped together with Mark Horwood and Paul Sandrone, together with a vast array of classical musicians, to form the delectable Mummers.
The sound of The Mummers is a somewhere over the rainbow soundtrack to life, formed out of sessions in a ram shackle studio by sea, surrounded by pine trees, on the south coast of England. From these beginnings songs such as Wonderland have formed, the kind of lush orchestral pop that Saint Etienne always aspired too. Then there is The Secret which is perfectly left of centre, and will be met with welcoming smiles from fans of Play Dead and It’s Oh So Quiet era Bjork. The Mummers deal with swooping, bewitching orchestral pop in a way that is so beautifully executed that it is almost impossible not to fall in love.
These songs and many other lushly orchestrated compositions are likely to be found on their forthcoming mini album entitled Tales To Tell (Part One) which is released at the end of August. Gigs so far have been sparse; it can’t be easy fitting an orchestra in the back of a small van. However, if and when the band tour, make sure you grab yourself a ticket. Your ears will never forgive you otherwise.
One of the more unlikely ‘stars’ of this years Bestival Festival on the Isle Of Wight is a certain DJ Hojo Hits, a man who by his own admission has no DJ ability whatsoever. This maverick, from the south coast of the UK is planning to DJ an hour long set of songs which consist solely of those recorded by eighties synth pop star Howard Jones. Yes, that was the man with the spiked blonde hair and a mime artist called Jed. If you are young enough to not remember Jones, here he is back in the eighties.
