Phoenix From The Flames

Ok, this is getting beyond a joke.
It's now been almost 2 years since the last post... I'm really shoddy at this blog posting lark.

But, the title of this post does not refer to my return to the fray, it does in fact refer to the return of an entity that helped to mould me into the man I am today (however good or bad that is).

Earlier this week it was announced that The Crypt would be opening it's doors once more, after closing back in Feb 2011. (Yes it's been WestExit in between, but that doesn't count).
As someone who DJ'd, partied and worked the bar in this establishment many many times between the years of 1994 and 2011, this news made me extraordinarily happy.'
'Why's that?' I hear you ask! Well, you see...

I'm like the Lee Majors / Colt Seavers of the Crypt. The Unknown DJ.
People that know me obviously know I played there regularly, but those that don't know me probably danced their collective arses off oblivious to the knowledge that it was me spinning the tunes on many an occasion.

But that's kind of the way I like it. I never got into DJing for the notoriety or the kudos, I got into it purely to entertain from the relative anonymity that a DJ booth could afford me.
Nothing gave me more of a buzz than a dancefloor full of people dancing to the tunes I was playing right up til the lights turned on at 4am on a Sunday morning.

My first experience of DJing the Crypt was way back in 1994, when I was asked by local hero Mark Rolfe to play the early set at one of his Wash Yer Pussy nights. The headliner for this first gig of mine was a chap named Roy The Roach. Also on the bill were Bob Selway, Glenn Gregory and possibly even Mark himself. It was an experience.
I think I played a couple more of the Wash Yer Pussy's over the years, and enjoyed every last one.

I tried to google flyers, but as you can imagine, the search brought all manner of NSFW results!

Fast forward to the late 90s and early 00's (post-bartending) and you'd have found me upstairs in the Dime Bar, spinning a whole bunch of Indie and Dance music. Sharing the duties fortnightly with Disco Stu, (McKenzie) and then going solo, doing it weekly, with my 'Full Mental Jackin' night.

Was a lot of fun, except for the stairs up to the DJ booth... definitely a Health and Safety matter! haha

Over the coming years there was a bunch of 'One-Off' bank holiday specials, and trying new things on Friday's, which were always a quiet affair, in Hastings as a whole, not just at The Crypt.
Playing a mixture of late 80s dance and acid house, Madchester classics, and a general melée of good, danceable tunes, it gave me a chance to broaden my musical spectrum.
The 'Headlock' and 'Factor 51' nights were fairly successful, from a Friday point of view!

                   

  

Then, towards the end of the 00's, I got the opportunity to fill in for Crypt DJing Leg-End, Charly Cheeba, as he took a few Saturday nights off here and there to recharge his batteries. (Bringing up twins is no mean feat for any man).

This allowed me to knock together a veritable mixed, tossed salad of a night, playing a little bit of everything, including Indie, Hip Hop, NuMetal, Drum n Bass, straight up House and Dance music and a little bit more besides. 5-6 hours of classic tunes and fan favourites.

 

Grabbing it's name from a DJ A-Trak tune, Knucklehead developed into a monthly residency on a Saturday night, keeping the party faithful happy and the dancefloor populated til the wee hours.

And to everyone that ever made the journey down to that underground dwelling and danced your little socks off to the sounds of Dj Steve Bear / Steve Kuma, I extend a heart felt thank you, and I hope you had fun!

Knucklehead lasted right up until the plug was pulled in Feb 2011. Actually, I think, due to circumstance, it may well have been Steve Kuma (me) that played the last Saturday night we thought the Crypt was ever going to see...

That is until this week!!!
To paraphrase Dr Frankenstein... "SHE'S ALIVE, SHE'S ALIVE!!"

Along with a great many other former Crypt faithful, I look forward to seeing what they've done to the old girl. And what their plans are for her.
Knowing who's in charge, I have every faith that they'll have her best intentions at heart, and will do their level best to make it a venue that can fill that void for great live music AND awesome club nights, something that the town centre has struggled with for a good few years,

For more information on this amazing resurrection, go here : www.facebook.com/ElektraGrand

Follow me on Twitter - @SteveKuma
Mixcloud - www.mixcloud.com/SteveKuma/

A Whole Year...

... and a week have gone by since I last typed my 'regular' blog feature!
I truly need to work on my memory!

Anyhoo, what's there to tell?

We did well in the Olympics after all (following on from my last blog post.)
There's been a Royal baby.
I've moved in with my girlfriend (and she's survived so far!!)
We've had snow, rain, a heatwave and now just 'Summer'.

Managed to get a few days in Ibiza in May. Good to be back after missing out in 2012.
And spent last weekend at Fairport's Cropredy Convention with my extended family, the McBastards!

And this is where I'll concentrate this post. Cropredy 2013.

This was my 4th visit to the little, family-friendly, Folk-Rock Fest that is 'Cropredy'.
Previous visits in 2005, 2007 and 2010 have all been good. And this was no exception.
I do try to attend more regularly, but much like this blog, other things come up and it gets missed!

On the line-up this year were 10CC (one surviving member of 10CC anyway), The Levellers, Nik Kershaw (solo / acoustic) and the mighty (mightily theatrical) Alice Cooper! He puts on a good show.
And what a show.
It had everything. Female guitarists, stick waving, baton twirling, fireworks, costume changes, songs about Freddy Krueger and Jason Vorhees, electrocutions, a giant 'It's-a'Knockout'-esque Frankenstein ("Its pronounced Frankenstein" - Gene Wilder)... and a good old fashioned guillotining of the man himself!
What more could you ask for a family-friendly festival? haha
But it was definitely worth a watch.

10CC played the hits. The Levellers played  a very good set. Nik Kershaw was surprisingly entertaining stripping his synth-based 80's hits down to one guitar and a microphone.
And I never knew he wrote 'The One And Only' for Chesney Hawkes! Enjoyed that sing-a-long!

Other acts of note over the three days were The Moulettes, Romeo's Daughter, Mediaeval Baebes and Richard Digance (Entertaining as always!)
And, although I missed them, the Peatbog Faeries were apparently excellent.
There was even a surprise 20 minute stand up from Jasper Carrott... who is starting to look his age. And his jokes were just as old... ;o) Gawd bless 'im!

Fairport Convention finished the weekend out with their typically epic 3 hour set, bringing out guests here and there and generally entertaining the crowd with far more gusto than is to be expected from men of their years! Peggy did seem to have a LOT of pee breaks throughout... so maybe the age is catching up with them after all!

Roll on Cropredy 2014... Meet you on the ledge!
 M

Third time's a charm! So the saying goes...

Ok, so the 'One Blog A Month' (minimum) never really materialised.
Why? I'm not entirely sure. But I think the main reason is I forgot I had one! Again.

As you can see, this is my third post since April 2011.
Technically this is the 4th post, but the original 3rd post got deleted for reasons I'm not going to go into here!
("Questionable content" is all I'm saying *ahem*)

In my last post I had a bit of a George Lucas rant, and towards the end I mentioned Red Tails, his WWII project about the Tuskegee Airmen.
Well, since then, I've seen Red Tails... and its not good. Not really.

With the best will in the world, Anthony Hemingway was never, and I mean NEVER, going to have full control of directing the film. Certainly not 'Final Cut'.
A bit like Irvin Kerschner & Richard Marquand on 'Empire' & 'Jedi' respectively. George just doesn't like to let go of the reigns.
And it showed on Red Tails. There were SO many Lucas trademarks stamped on it, he may as well have just directed it himself.

Poor direction, needless FX shots (mainly comprising of scenes that were clearly shot on a soundstage and had to be 'blended' in with the scenes filmed on location. Stuck out like sore thumbs), the script was poor, and basically I dont think it did the REAL Tuskegee Airmen any justice at all.

Before this post goes off on another rant, I'm going to change subjects.

What to talk about though!?

There's been a whole host of items in the past year that I could have sunk my teeth into, had I been on point and writing this thing regaularly... Events such as the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, Wimbledon, Euro 2012, The London Riots, The 'Batman' Shootings (I hate that 'TDKR' was even mentioned at all, even before the revelation that Holmes called himself 'Joker' to arresting Police), Justice for Trayvon Martin, Mitt Romney being a jackass, The Facebook Share Scam (ok, maybe not a scam, but also not quite as clear cut as it first seemed) and many more worthy subjects.

Of course, currently, the 2012 Olympic Games are taking place in London... and we (Great Britain - not "Team GB" <<shudders>>) are doing rather well... 22 Gold medals (and a total tally of 47) as of 6:45pm - 7/8/12! Go Team!

We seem to excel at Rowing & Cycling, but this year we've also managed to pick up some notables in the Track & Field events, including Jessica Ennis in the Heptathlon, Greg Rutherford in the Long Jump and Mo Farah in the Men's 10k race... a British first in the event! 

And even in the Gymnastics events, which are usually dominated by the USA and Russia, we've managed to hold out own.
London 2012 has been a truly remarkable event... so far! Still another few days to go. More Gold Please! :o)

And yesterday we (the Royal 'We') landed an exploratory vehicle on Mars... on FUCKING MARS! 

Science has produced some wonderful (and accessible) events in the last couple of years... the LHD in Switzerland / France has started to show results, and now we're able to take a closer look at what Mars has to offer... It's been a real pleasure to watch these events unfold.

I'm gonna end on these positives, so as not to get weighed down, or drawn into another rant about something less important. 

I'm enjoying this now... I just need to remember to write things more often! :o)

Farewell and Adieu!

May The Fourth Be... For Nerds... Possibly.

Here we are, month two, and only my second blog.

I forgot I had to do it to be honest. Still, if I can just manage one a month it'd be worth it. Maybe.

More for me than for you, the reader! If indeed anyone is reading this.

Don't know if anyone read the first one, but if they did, they didnt leave a comment... Good or bad?

So, with the two bank holidays and a massive celebration to boot. I, of course, mean May The 4th, NOT The Royal Wedding.

And unlike half of the NERDS on Twitter / Facebook (including such predictable celeb nerds as @simonpegg , @SethGreen and @nickjfrost - no offence meant btw) I got more involved with the latter than I did the former.

Strange, considering I'm a bit of a Star Wars fan. But we're talking Old Skool Star Wars, Original Trilogy (77-83), pre- computer tinkering in 1997. And subsequent tinkering... almost yearly...

I know, its for the kids... but it WASN'T! Not back then. Not entirely.

If it was, there wouldnt be ageing, faded 70's footage of 20-somethings in 'Retro' Star Wars tee shirts doing The Robot in some Studio 54-esque environment... It was ageless.

This appears to be something George lost track of a long time ago, in an office, far, far away (from me).

And with this week's announcement regarding the BluRay release of all 6 films (quite a non-event, seeing as all that was revealed was pretty much already known to even the most uninterested fan) it makes you wonder WHY NOW?

Yeah, BluRay is the new format, after it's battle with HD-DVD a couple of years ago.

But with the already announced 3D versions of the films up and coming, from Feb 2012 on wards it seems (and chonologically no less, so we get the least popular trilogy first - GREAT!) why release these versions of the BluRay now? Well, the release is actually not til September 2011, so again WHY THEN?

Why not merely wait, release the films in 3D at the cinema THEN release the films on 3D DVD / BluRay / Whatever New Format Takes Over in 2014....??

If you have visited www.starwars.com recently, you'll have noticed that virtually every image on the site is a CG / Cartoon related image. There is next to no actual photos of anything Star Wars... particularly on the homepage.

To me this is a VERY sad state of affairs. It says to me that George has given up doing anything even remotely film based, and is quite happy to sit back and let a bunch of animators continue his Star Wars Legacy.

I'd be the first to admit that having George directing even one more foot of 35mm / 70mm / Digital footage on a set is probably the worst idea since Greedo shooting first (still a great analogy), as he's far more suited to the 'Exec Producer' role, unless you count his interference on Indiana Jones 4, but to do eveything in computer graphics is just wrong, wrong, WRONG!

Here we are, 34 years after Star Wars, and he just cant let it go.

Then he goes and Writes and Exec Produces 'RedTails'... about as far removed from The Star Wars Galaxy as you can get... "The story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots to fly in a combat squadron during World War II." (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485985/)

Well, there's a switch. Feeling guilty about the lack of minority characters in The Galaxy?

Despite making Jar Jar Binks a Jamaican, the Trade Federation Japanese and Watto the token Jew?

This blog may seem like a very anti-Star Wars rant, but its more of a questioning of George Lucas.

If I was Anti-Star Wars would I have just signed up to the 501st Garrison?

Yes, the 501st! I'm a member, and I just need to decide on my costume... and them I'm away!

It's all for charity y'know! Not a nerdfest! I hope...

The opening salvo...

Well, its taken me this long, but I've decided to start a blog.

I have no idea why to be honest...

Maybe it's the amount of time I'm spending using Social Media recently (at home, at work, on the go...blah blah blah) or maybe it's just wanting to pass on random titbits (not just personal stuff, but from the world wide web) and get things off my chest in a way that might make more sense than if I'm asked to speak.

When put on the spot, I tend not to be able to get my message across very well. But when given a little time to think about what I want to say, it sometimes (and I mean rarely) comes across better.

If you're taking the time to read this, I apologise. This opening salvo has waffled on already.

And this is me with time to think about it... see what I mean?

This ability to use too many words for the least amount of result has developed over the years!

I'm not happy about it, but I put up with it! Sometimes even try to curb it... when I can be bothered.

The first thing I'd like to share is this from TIME Magazine - Feel free to look through the list, but judging by some of the comments already on there, voting may be a waste of time. You decide.