Sunday, March 28, 2004

I'm so tired...

You know that song of The Beatles? That's how I feel. Last Friday was devastating, with the Arnhem radio interview and organizing the [drga-drga] festival in Bosch. We focused on art students showing up, but they didn't. It turned out there was a huge party of the Art Academy elsewhere in Arnhem. Bummer... With only 28 paying visitors, the festival was a financial disaster. The financial side is a thing we're not good at, but we have to learn. Next time, we'll only organize a festival if we can get all expenses paid. There's one coming up in June, but if we can't get the budget we want we'll drop that date.
Of course we want to get funding, but it takes time to secure that. I don't know if we can be on time for June... But it is our intention to write a plan for several festivals in a row. If we can get funding for that, we can set the dates later on. Feels safer that way.

But the festival was good, though. Fiel Garvie and We vs Death played well, my own band Carmenkata got good feedback. Bertin told me to go for a less pumped up sound. I agree with him. It all depends on the FOH-mixer: he can make or break your sound. It wasn't bad, but it was a bit too hyped up. I think most of the audience didn't care, though.
I was happy to notice Martijn of Think Small was there, and André of LVR records. The promoter of the Valkhof Affaire was also there, and he enjoyed it :-) Pity though that he just lost access to the more intimate stages of the festival. Extrapool is now organizing them. We know them very well, but we also know that they're very much into experimental electronic music. Bummer for da Garv and Carmenkata, hurray for Commando Cauldron and Prank Aggressor!!

Some people have reacted on the festival... Check for a review in Dutch. He didn't quite like Carmenkata :-(

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