In the first of a series of guest posts from people who’ll be bringing their ideas, stories and voices to Llangollen for UNCIVILISATION 2010, that most dapper of mountaineers Marmaduke Dando tells us about his electricity-free club night, Power Down. On the first night of the festival, Marmaduke and friends will be taking over the Church – one of the most atmospheric venues of the weekend – to show us how to have fun when the lights go off. But first, check out Marm’ himself on stage at Power Down in London…
The idea for Power Down came about a few years ago when I started reading a number of notorious books on peak oil and climate change. I was moved enough by the facts to want to try to have a positive effect on the world and my local community, no matter how little that might be. I’ve been a musician for years, and have played in just about every toilet venue in London. I know how unpleasant the experience of enduring gigs often is for people.
A gig in London is usually made up of many dull and ill matched bands with nothing very special about them, amplified at ear splitting volumes, in rooms that have no acoustically pleasant features, while the lubrication comes from overpriced tasteless beer in plastic cups. I took from those experiences and tried to form a fresh form of gig with my new found enthusiasm for environmentalism.
The result was Power Down – an irregular night of eclectic musical entertainment that is not powered by conventional sources. The performers are completely unamplified and the audience is silent out of necessity. The lighting is provided by donated candles and a type of candle that I make myself using recycled vegetable oil from a local fish and chip shop. We serve organic and/or locally produced food and drink.
Our regular venue has been the Islington Arts Factory in Holloway, but we’ve also taken Power Down to tree houses, parks and churches. Despite a complete lack of interest from the press, our nights have consistently sold out on the strength of word of mouth. I’m proud that we’ve been able to do this without relying on centralised media.
One criticism I’ve had is that the message of the nights isn’t obvious enough. The blogger in question wanted it rammed down his throat, leaflets pressed into his palms and dogmatic sermons spat across the room. I’d like to think that the subtlety of Power Down is one of the reasons why people continue to come.
Lately, my philosophy has swayed into Dark Mountain territory. With the monumental scale of change needed to avert this or that crisis increasingly apparent, I find it hard to keep up the emphasis on environmentalism. If the future does turn out to be bleak, then I’d rather my efforts in all areas of my life were not in vain. Power Down has been a positive force from an ecological standpoint, but also a most enjoyable one for all involved.
And now the good people on the Dark Mountain have asked me to curate the opening night of UNCIVILISATION. I’ll be bringing with me some of the finest acts that have graced Power Down’s stage in the last few years, and will present them to a rare hushed majority of progress sceptics.
I’ll be joined on the evening of the 28th by a fantastic collection of musicians: Citizen Helene, Rebecca Jade, Monooka, Will Miles. I look forward to meeting you there.
Tickets for UNCIVILISATION 2010 are on sale now, priced £60 for the weekend – including camping. (And the venue is indoors, so we’re protected should the weather turn ugly.) Come and join us for an amazing weekend!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dougald Hine and DarkMountainProject, DarkMountainProject. DarkMountainProject said: Check out video of @marmadukedando & the Power Down crew, who'll be hosting Friday night at #UNCIV – http://bit.ly/cPAzMV [...]
Looking nice and moody. Definitely a good opener. And yes, Christ, these people who positively want reason to flaggelate themselves in public with sermons on every occasion so they can convince themselves of their moral superiority to the masses! I’ve met too many of these people. Let the music and the setting speak for itself.
One thing I really liked when I went to see Power Down is how you could hear noises from outside: ambient, found noises that filtered into the music. Stray urban disembodied frequencies of trucks and trains.
I enjoyed the reminder that music was taking place in a particular time and place and was a special event. I think alot of musicians use technology as a crutch. They want complete control and everything to be the same whatever context they operate in instead of working with that context. Speakers, amps, monitors and leads are all this kind of defense against the audience and between band members- then we are overpowered by this squirty ketchup music in our ears. Different channels like mutually exclusive tracks that sounds travel along like toy trains instead of a shared sonic space that has to be cooperatively shared and experienced intuitively and spontaneously.
Another good thing about the performance was that it was freezing cold: people were hugging, moving, my girlfriend and I ran home. It was more fun then being over heated and deafened in a tiny room. Also the flickery candle-light was more mysterious. Everything was just better than the standard live music night in London. And the beer was good. I got to enjoy music I wouldn’t even normally go for just because I wasn’t being blanked by the artist but I was directly involved in what they were making, with no mediation between their manipulation of the air and my apprehension of it. It’s like being inside the instrument.
Last year there was a headline in the Sun I think ‘Boy Killed By Bass’. Some kid actually had a heart-attack as a result of the severe bass vibrations in Camden’s koko. But it’s like a metaphor of what we’re doing to the planet. Constant growth is an idea – everything has to be more, more, more, louder, brighter, dummer. Our ears are the same, our planet is the same, they are not infinitely elastic like the kind of abstract concepts that govern our markets. Power Down is a great oppertunity to enjoy a heightening of the senses and and it makes me feel really positive to know more of these oppertunities will happen as our current oil age splutters and judders out of energy.
To face the real situation we’re in AND feel really positive and happy is a good thing. What we need is a kind of global existentialism – where we find the spiritual resources to live well by staring down aspects of our future and our nature we are uncomfortable with.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dougald Hine and DarkMountainProject, DarkMountainProject. DarkMountainProject said: Check out video of @marmadukedando & the Power Down crew, who’ll be hosting Friday night at #UNCIV – http://bit.ly/cPAzMV [...]
One thing I really liked when I went to see Power Down is how you could hear noises from outside: ambient, found noises that filtered into the music. Stray urban disembodied frequencies of trucks and trains.
I enjoyed the reminder that music was taking place in a particular time and place and was a special event. I think alot of musicians use technology as a crutch. They want complete control and everything to be the same whatever context they operate in instead of working with that context. Speakers, amps, monitors and leads are all this kind of defense against the audience and between band members- then we are overpowered by this squirty ketchup music in our ears. Different channels like mutually exclusive tracks that sounds travel along like toy trains instead of a shared sonic space that has to be cooperatively shared and experienced intuitively and spontaneously.
Another good thing about the performance was that it was freezing cold: people were hugging, moving, my girlfriend and I ran home. It was more fun then being over heated and deafened in a tiny room. Also the flickery candle-light was more mysterious. Everything was just better than the standard live music night in London. And the beer was good. I got to enjoy music I wouldn’t even normally go for just because I wasn’t being blanked by the artist but I was directly involved in what they were making, with no mediation between their manipulation of the air and my apprehension of it. It’s like being inside the instrument.
Last year there was a headline in the Sun I think ‘Boy Killed By Bass’. Some kid actually had a heart-attack as a result of the severe bass vibrations in Camden’s koko. But it’s like a metaphor of what we’re doing to the planet. Constant growth is an idea – everything has to be more, more, more, louder, brighter, dummer. Our ears are the same, our planet is the same, they are not infinitely elastic like the kind of abstract concepts that govern our markets. Power Down is a great oppertunity to enjoy a heightening of the senses and and it makes me feel really positive to know more of these oppertunities will happen as our current oil age splutters and judders out of energy.
To face the real situation we’re in AND feel really positive and happy is a good thing. What we need is a kind of global existentialism – where we find the spiritual resources to live well by staring down aspects of our future and our nature we are uncomfortable with.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dougald Hine and DarkMountainProject, DarkMountainProject. DarkMountainProject said: Check out video of @marmadukedando & the Power Down crew, who’ll be hosting Friday night at #UNCIV – http://bit.ly/cPAzMV [...]
One thing I really liked when I went to see Power Down is how you could hear noises from outside: ambient, found noises that filtered into the music. Stray urban disembodied frequencies of trucks and trains.
I enjoyed the reminder that music was taking place in a particular time and place and was a special event. I think alot of musicians use technology as a crutch. They want complete control and everything to be the same whatever context they operate in instead of working with that context. Speakers, amps, monitors and leads are all this kind of defense against the audience and between band members- then we are overpowered by this squirty ketchup music in our ears. Different channels like mutually exclusive tracks that sounds travel along like toy trains instead of a shared sonic space that has to be cooperatively shared and experienced intuitively and spontaneously.
Another good thing about the performance was that it was freezing cold: people were hugging, moving, my girlfriend and I ran home. It was more fun then being over heated and deafened in a tiny room. Also the flickery candle-light was more mysterious. Everything was just better than the standard live music night in London. And the beer was good. I got to enjoy music I wouldn’t even normally go for just because I wasn’t being blanked by the artist but I was directly involved in what they were making, with no mediation between their manipulation of the air and my apprehension of it. It’s like being inside the instrument.
Last year there was a headline in the Sun I think ‘Boy Killed By Bass’. Some kid actually had a heart-attack as a result of the severe bass vibrations in Camden’s koko. But it’s like a metaphor of what we’re doing to the planet. Constant growth is an idea – everything has to be more, more, more, louder, brighter, dummer. Our ears are the same, our planet is the same, they are not infinitely elastic like the kind of abstract concepts that govern our markets. Power Down is a great oppertunity to enjoy a heightening of the senses and and it makes me feel really positive to know more of these oppertunities will happen as our current oil age splutters and judders out of energy.
To face the real situation we’re in AND feel really positive and happy is a good thing. What we need is a kind of global existentialism – where we find the spiritual resources to live well by staring down aspects of our future and our nature we are uncomfortable with.
Looking nice and moody. Definitely a good opener. And yes, Christ, these people who positively want reason to flaggelate themselves in public with sermons on every occasion so they can convince themselves of their moral superiority to the masses! I’ve met too many of these people. Let the music and the setting speak for itself.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dougald Hine and DarkMountainProject, DarkMountainProject. DarkMountainProject said: Check out video of @marmadukedando & the Power Down crew, who’ll be hosting Friday night at #UNCIV – http://bit.ly/cPAzMV [...]
Gav, pleased the message is clear enough. By example is the only valid method of persuasion.
Matt, it’s wonderful to hear you say all that. Just when you think the sea of faces in front of you are an indifferent shadowy blob, someone comes out, like you, and gets it.
You’re quite right, musicians these days generally use technology as a crutch, and I count myself amongst them when it comes to recording. I always wanted to put on acts that used technology heavily in their sound, and see how they’d fair in the Power Down environment.
I’m pleased to say that the electronic acts I chose, such as Lemond http://www.myspace.com/thisislemond, and A Human http://www.myspace.com/theahuman brought the house down. They dress their recordings up with lashings of electronic production, but were able to strip it all back and still be just as compelling, which is testament to their brilliance.
I hope you’ll both be present at one of the events coming up, and if you do, please come and introduce yourselves. It would be a pleasure to press palms.
Marmaduke
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dougald Hine and DarkMountainProject, DarkMountainProject. DarkMountainProject said: Check out video of @marmadukedando & the Power Down crew, who’ll be hosting Friday night at #UNCIV – http://bit.ly/cPAzMV [...]