a letter to a friend

Hey bro,

Cool to hear from you. Hope you're well. Life for me is pretty good. I've got lots going on to keep things interesting, and summer is shaping up ok so far (although we're all too superstitious to point it out too much).

I had 3 great weekends out of town in May. First, at an All Tomorrow's Parties festival curated by the Breeders, held at Butlins holiday park in Somerset. Highlights were Bon Iver, the Frogs, Shellac, Holy Fuck, CSS, I forget who else... And the restorative powers of the onsite water slides :)

The following weekend I visited Prague for a couple of days with a friend I met on a Christmas tour to Paris, the Swiss Alps and Amsterdam. Prague is very beautiful and we had great weather. We went to see an opera: Don Giovanni. I nearly fell asleep a couple of times but still really enjoyed it! I think the highlight was having a golden eagle perched on my arm. Check it out: this thing can crush a human skull in its talons!

And the following weekend I spent four days in beautiful Barcelona at the Primavera Sound festival. I met up with Mark Kneebone and Dave Benge and his girlfriend Tanya, you know them?? The festival was the best ever, great lineup, mellow and interesting crowd, perfect weather plus we stayed in a cool old apartment in the Gothic quarter, close to George Orwell Square. Cue much intellectualism about 1984, Animal Farm and the life and times of Orwell. Over pitchers of sangria, naturally.
(photos to come)

Best bands..Neil Young kicked ass as the headliner. Nearly 2 hour set which flew by! He sure knows how to rock out. Also enjoyed Art Brut, Shellac, Bat for Lashes, Sonic Youth, the Jesus Lizard, Spiritualised, My Bloody Valentine, the Drones, Sunn O)) (fucking mental, they were!) and loads of others. Definitely keen to head back there next year. Spanish festivals are great: the music starts in the evening and goes late, so you have all day to enjoy the city, the weather, and generally put yourself back together. Which I definitely needed.

I thought of you the other day. I've been listening to the new British Sea Power album: you need to hear it! It's a soundtrack to an old black & white film called Man of Aran. The dvd came free with the cd but I haven't watched it yet. It's mostly instrumental, quite minimal and cinematic, I suppose, very atmospheric.. I think you'd be into it. Send me a postal address and next time I'm feeling generous (and like spending my lunch in a post office queue;) I'll send it your way.

I have had a couple of weekends here in London now. Haha - the other week I saw Britney Spears at the O2! I didn't know any of the songs but it was an experience nonetheless. Far more significantly, last week was the realisation of a long-held dream: Faith No More!!!!! Fuckin aye. No one following my twitter feed would ever accuse me of being neutral when it comes to #FNM, so it won't be a shock to hear that the entire experience was nothing short of religious. There are photos posted here on flickr and various outpourings squeed liberally about the internets.



This Thursday I head to Scheeßel in Germany for Hurricane festival, to see Faith No More again alongside Nine Inch Nails, the Pixies!, Nick Cave and lots of other cool stuff. Then back to London for a couple of days before I take on Glastonbury. I'm working there, collecting setlists so we can distribute the performance royalties 100% line by line to the publishers and composers.

Looking forward to some downtime, but for now, can't really complain. Although I still will. Work is pretty uninspiring, hoping to fix that before too long.

So, what's your news?

Jessie x

Painter at Work

This man was amazing - he created beautiful works of nature and sci-fi using spraypaint, right before our eyes. While I was deeply impressed, I wasn't so into dolphins doing flips in the sky around three moons with spaceships in the background, however once he created this one (see the little dinghy boat?), I couldn't walk away.

Found near Plaza de la Virgen, Valencia.

London is going nicely. Megan has just arrived from Sydney for a few weeks, so little Stella and Elizabeth are overwhelmed with three times as many aunts as they had two weeks ago. I've been to Brighton, wandered around the Tate Modern and the National Gallery, seen a peregrine falcon and a would-be bridge jumper, and next week I have a job interview.

O Valencia!

Hi everyone,

We survived Benicassim pretty well in the end. Having worked at a couple of Big Day Outs, it was really interesting to see how a four-day festival operated. Particularly infrastructure like the campsite and plumbing!

Once we got back to Valencia and found accommodation, Ange and I pretty much slept for a long time. Yesterday we met Angela´s sister Catherine, so it was time to wake up and see the city.

We have done a lot of wandering around the Barrio del Carmen area, that´s the old part of the city and it´s really quite amazing. It´s mostly a pedestrian only area, and is all meandering, flagstoned lanes with big old churches and plazas everywhere. Yesterday we climbed up the Torres de Serranos, a tower that formed part of the city wall in medieval times, built in 1392!

Today we checked out the Mercado Central, a big sort of supermarket, and this afternoon we took a tram out to the port to see the (now somewhat deserted) America´s Cup village. The rest of the day was spent lying on the broad sandy La Playa des Arenas, a beach just north of the port.

Tomorrow we bus to Barcelona, although we´ve just spent about an hour trying to secure accommodation with no luck! Fingers crossed my couchsurfing requests might bear fruit; haven´t used that avenue yet on our travels. Anyone living in Barcelona, can you help us out? Email me! Abraham, are you back from Germany? Carmen, where do you live again?! Carlos?? We´re a little desperate. Thanks in advance :)

All going well, we´ll be in Barcelona for the weekend and then it´s a parting of ways. Ange and Catherine are heading to London on Tuesday, and I´m prolonging the good times for a while and returning to Turkey.

Take care all,

Jessie

Musica

Benicassim, Spain. It´s a music festival, so brain power is low, and bullet style must suffice. We finally got here on Wednesday evening, and found Jane, Lisa, Juliet and Rohan at the Camfib campsite. It was fantastic to see them all and we sat up late sharing stories.

Day one: Iggy and the Stooges, Bright Eyes. Iggy is incredible and so distorted and the stage invasion is breathtaking! Bright Eyes is great, he has a large band including string section for some songs, and they´re all dressed in white. Conor is kinda cute, but he needs a haircut. Los Planetas are interesting but I´m too busy talking, and then we are all surprised by the Brazilian Girls. Nice atmospheric jamming, all good until the breakbeat starts jarring.

Day two: spent all day recovering on beach. Very good day. Saw Wilco, lovely lovely, then rocked out to Dinosaur Jr. Saw a little of Devo and nothing else.. spent most of the evening at our meeting point (the second tree).

Dayt three: spent all day recovering on beach. Good sleep. Went into festival early ish to see Peter Bjorn and John, gratified to witness ´Young Folks´ and enjoy mass whistling session. Then we went to see CSS, but I came over a little faint and needed some air so we only caught Á La La´ from outside.. poor sound - that was a bummer. Also there was a power cut mid-set! Highlight of the evening was the Magic Numbers. They are so cute. Saw the B-52s, then traipsed over to see the Human League - really wanted to hear ´Don´t You Want Me´. It was great.

Now we´ve said goodbye to our gang and it´s just me and Ange once more. We have a stellar lineup for tonight, including Calexico, Kings of Leon, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Amy Winehouse (only those two clash, dumb), BRMC, Muse and live Unkle. We´ll see how we get on with all that lot!

Probably tomorrow we´ll head towards Valencia, and make our way up to Barcelona. Ange is heading to London at the end of the month, but I´m toying with the idea of visiting Italy and maybe, just maybe heading back to Turkey.