Borg Diaries: July 2007

Knowledge Mag

I think our third ever gig was at the Spitz and it was a Knowledge Magazine night. We were hoping for a good feature back then but we got a crummy mention as an act that warmed up nicely for the rest of the night. We played with regulars Dead Silence Syndicate (who actually helped us decide that we didn't just want to be a straight drum'n'bass band) and alongside an unheard-of beatboxing duo - Beardyman and Emancipate. Three years later, Beardyman's won the UK beatboxing championship twice (Saw him at Glade festival last weekend... wicked set) and finally we've been given the feature in K mag that we've been waiting for. That's the circle of life for you.

Quite why Stuey chose to re-christen himself as 'Sensha', we're not quite sure, but be assured, we'll be ridiculing him plenty for a while yet.

Cargo, with Natty

Bit of a quiet mid-weeker (Wednesday) but Nelly's cool kickdrum skin gets to make its debut. (Thanks Stephen!)

Remixing Sample Rate Problems

Gah it's happened again! Firstly it happened with the Mancini remix we did a while back, and now we have the pleasure of featuring on the B-side of Datarock's 7" vinyl single of 'I Used to Dance With Your Daddy'. Basically, we've been working at 48kHz sample rate (better than 44.1kHz) and we've stupidly assumed any mastering house worth their salt would spot the difference... evidently not.

So what we have kicking around on the commercial product and on iTunes is a track that's too slow and sounds degraded in quality.. if you've bought it.. chuck it through Wavelab to convert it to the correct sample rate - it'll sound much better. In the meantime we're suffering the embarrassment knowing there's people out there listening to it and thinking, 'what the hell kind of producers are these guys?'. Oddly though, the guys in charge of accepting the remix didn't pick up on it though. For all the hours and hours you spend polishing up the production on tracks, you have to wonder how bad the production has to get before it's not up to scratch.

Small Nations Festival

The onslaught of mud this summer makes no exception at this little Welsh festival, where ravers were out in full force for our primetime set. The value of photos is becoming increasingly more important.. I can't remember much other than it was a stomping gig and a guy defying gravity by falling asleep on a tiny collapsible table.

Oh yeah, I remember.. I had goat curry at the beginning of the evening and was feeling a little bit off-colour just before the gig. Adrenaline kicked in and saw me through, but was definitely worse for wear. Had a lie down whilst the others went to party and spent a while in the early hours vomiting behind the van. I really should have learned my lesson about pre-gig curries by now, but it's always so tempting. But really... goat.. what was I thinking?

Small Nations Festival

Ambient Picnic, Epsom

Above: What happens when you get the MC to set up the equipment..

Another festival just up the road from us. So chuffed to be asked to headline the main stage of this local festival (I think it was only last year when we were trying to figure out if we knew a mate who knew a mate who knew the guy who ran the dance tent in order to blag a gig here), but taking the headline (and therefore last) slot isn't necessarily the best thing when the stage manager disappears when they're already running late. So we're picking up momentum, the crowd are really beginning to move and after only four tracks, we get asked to stop. One more? Stuey pleads. No.

Antiworld Festival

On paper, the line-up looked fantastic for this new festival, brought about by Antiworld, as established name on the Psytrance scene - 9 stages with some of the biggest names in electronic dance across most genres. But in the week running up to the festival, there is some confusion for us as we're told that it's been cut down to 5 stages and that we might have to do a DJ set since firstly the equipment wasn't available for us to play live and secondly, we were going to get paid very little.
After some rather distressing internal band conversations, we eventually found out that the facilities to play live were available so we did it. Which is how I escaped having to learn how to DJ in 48 hours.

Having the sun out for a festival was a strange phenomenon, as was a semi-deserted festival site. True that we were playing relatively early and people might be due to arrive soon, but the fact was that only 3000 of the 10 000 tickets had been sold and the vibe wasn't quite right. Artists and DJs had been told upfront that it was likely that we would not be paid and we could choose not to play. With the majority of punters having paid £100 to get in, you feel semi-obliged to do it for their sake. As for Subsource, we weren't too bothered since it was just down the road and the sun was out and we felt like a bit of a dance.

A couple of days later, it emerged that the festival got shut down on the Sunday. Their official line was that the people responsible for cleaning the portaloos dumped a load of sewage down the nearest manhole cover, which overflooded and a whole load of shit started coming up backstage causing the environmental health officers to shut the place down. Rumours are abound on the Internet that this is a cover for the main organiser wanting to shut it down themselves to cut their losses. After all, let's face it, the guy chronically fucked up by overstretching himself massively on his first festival. Personally I think if he attempts another festival next year, he deserves my respect for managing to bounce back again, but somehow I doubt he'll manage to win back the respect of thousands of punters who spent their money but ended up getting shafted with barely half the acts performing.

Coke Music at Concorde2, Brighton

Back to the Concorde2, where the soundsystem is impressive and like our previous ventures here, the crowd is thin. It's not a huge place to fill, but tonight, that's not the reason we're here as three large video cameras are dotted around the venue in order to get some footage for the Coke Music/iTunes video podcast. Due to some poor organisation, our on-stage mix was pretty bad so we're a little anxious to how we played... I guess we'll find out when the video's put out.

In an effort to come across as being a bit more 'visually appealing to a mass market', Stu's been hitting the gym pretty hard and I've been taking a different route (a single motto: "eat as much as you can as long as it's not heavier than the fridge"). We're both gleaming as much wisdom as we can from the 'Arnold Schwarzenegger Encylopaedia'.

We're back here next month for Slackers Convention's 5th birthday, (we've been trying to get a gig through these guys since we started out, and finally they've gotten round to it) and it should be a big one.

Concorde2, Coca Cola Music

Beatherder Festival

Not very promising to start with...

...but picked up as soon as we started, and they danced on through to the end.

Feeling a bit downtrodden after a very muddy Glasto last week, more mud at Workhouse yesterday and although we avoided any floods on the drive from Wales to Lancashire, there was so much mud here that our equipment had to be ferried via quadbike from the van to the stage.

Great to speak to familiar and friendly faces again from various gigs that we've done up North including Liverpool, Manchester, Carlisle and unbelievably, Wigan.

The effect of feeling obliged to party just because you're at a festival is starting to take its toll after excessive amounts of mud and sambuca. And both can make you fall on your ass if you're not careful.

Workhouse Festival

In the aftermath of Glasto, it's good to feel like we're getting back to roots - we did the Workhouse fireworks party last November and we've been itching to get back to this one. Safely tucked away from hype and all the over-commercialised bullshit, the mostly local folk out in this direction just want to party.. and they gave us a headline slot for earning that reputation last time we were here. It's a comforting feeling when they're chanting 'Subsource' before we take the stage. It's no wonder the majority of Subsource members are voting in favour of relocating to Shrewsbury/Wales... so many lovely people here. A brilliant small festival packed with happy vibes and eclectic music.