Submitted by Jay Forster, one of the two main organisers.

Nick our Official Court Music Reviewer will spend the weekend there and I'll be his photographer sidekick again. We'll have media passes and back stage access for musician interviews and general sneaking around, so it should be even more fun.
Sorry, no free Clockenflap ferry for Lammaites this time.

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I'm lovin' it

Check out http://www.clockenflap.com for last minute band lineups and schedule. There are five stages, I believe, so it'll be busy....

Just found this great map at http://timeout.com.hk/media/fck/images/94/Clockenflap_Map.jpg

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Clockenflap Festival 10-11/12/2011

by Nick the Bookman

"Best Clockenflap ever!" -- Jay the Organiser.

Well, that was easy. Six words comprising the quote and the quoter.
That's all you need to know about Clockenflap 2011. Probably not as all-encompassing as nature originates; nurture adapts; outcomes vary (and that takes care of <i>that</i> debate). But, hey, my job is done. Gotta go now....

...just kidding. We all know there's a lot more story to unfold. The late Ken Kesey used to say that you're either on the bus or off the bus. He was referring to his 1964 jaunt around the continental USA with his merrily pranking cosmic cohorts. Back when LSD was <i>legal!</i> Basically, I figure that the estimated 18-thousand people who attended Clockenflap on the 10th and 11th of December are <i>all on the bus.</i> But I'm the driver for my section of this two-day extravaganza. So, buckle up. Adjust your minds in the rear-view mirror of nostalgic reminiscence. The trip is getting started.

Lamma-Gung and I, accompanied by Callum and Patricia (fellow festival followers) have arrived at the main gates before midday, 10/12/2011. I'd like to point out that the Official Media Partner, the SC(i)MP(y) is less use than a chocolate frying pan in terms of festival information. A reprint of the festival poster in the Friday paper. Nothing in Saturday's. Not even in the what's on guide. The British Council at least told you what MTR train to catch to Elements and then a short walk to the DHL balloon and then to the main gate. L-G and I get our media passes (which entitle us to free drinks - something I didn't become aware of until near the end of the second day). There are two venue areas. The People's Party Stage and the Sideflap tent for DJ's. And the larger Harbour Flap Stage and the Robot Stage about 250 metres away. There's also a small Acoustic Stage near the entrance. A film tent, bouncy castle, VIP area and the Artist's Village.
Plus lots of food and drink tents. I'm going to be doing a lot of to-and-froing over this weekend. By the way, Clockenflap is <i>free</i> because it's being held on Government land at the West Kowloon Hub.

Ian and "Oggie" Paul, aka Supersonic are the opening act at Side Flap.
Two half hour sets of old rockers and the occasional newer tune. Including <i>"You Really Got Me"</i> by The Kinks and <i>"Hush"</i> by Kula Shaker kick things off. They're getting the party started. Meanwhile, Milkteeth are the opening act on the PPS. The set is the same as the one they played at the Deerhoof concert on the 7th. The former quartet is now a quintet with new member Paul on keyboards (but not the melodica he played on the 7th). The rest of the band is Joey - guitar/vox. Jeroen - drums. Dixon - bass. And the magical ingredient is Theo on violin and vocals. The sound was a bit muffled at the Deerhoof gig because the concert area was half a basketball pitch and the audience was about five feet away. Here, there's a multi-billion dollar bubble backdrop of both sides of the harbour and the sound has room to travel. Theo's violin is a little bit Stephane Grapelli, a little bit String Driven Thing and makes for a quirky rock band experience. Plus there's Joey's songs of tawdry times in the seething underbelly of HK night life. I've seen them three times now and they're always worth catching. And Joey, your guitar sounded fine!

The next hard rocking band is The Sleeves who recently released their debut CD <i>"Arcade Rock"</i> with a spectacular gig in some TST dive. They got Electric Eel Shock (veterans of two Rock-It Festivals) as their support group. Good way to pull punters through the door. I missed that gig because I was covering the Klaxons DJ set at Fly, but I'm mighty pleased to have seen them today. Especially good value for money is the sort of sleazy <i>"Sex Museum"</i> and a rolling bluesy growled tribute (I think) to Robert Johnson entitled <i>"Walk With The Devil"</i>. Steve Cray from <i>Red Star Rising</i> should be looking over his shoulder for this one. Not sure who plays what aside from Keith on guitar and vocals. There are some electronics, voice samples, bass, second guitar and thunderous drums. The other band members are Andrew, Bee, Matt and Pete. Who plays what is left as an exercise in ingenuity and discovery for you rabid readers. As I queue to buy a copy of the CD, Keith reminds me that we met at The Flaming Lips concert. We'll spend more time together tomorrow. I foresee it!

Rounding out the trio of local rock bands is Poubelle International, who also played at the Deerhoof gig. MC unknown who is having a super bonkers time urging the audience to give it up for... describes them as "Hong Kong's darlings". They made their debut at Clockenflap 2 in November 2009 at Cyberport and released their second CD <i>"Sans Control"</i> at Grappa's earlier this year. Pulled a crowd of some two thousand people apparently.

Most of the songs from their ferocious set are from the new CD. Johan on drums and Ben on lead guitar and vocals remain from those heady days of two years ago. Zane is the new bassist who performs admirably and doesn't fluff his backing vocals. They remind me in some ways of Rory Gallagher's Taste.
Explosively furious at times, but they know how to stretch out the middle parts of the songs. And there are some <i>pukka</i> melodies in the mix. Johan is also kind enough to pen the following soon-to-be immortal words for me.

<i>"Clockenflap is the highlight of the year for Hong Kong local indie bands".</i>
An impression that Chris B. (ex-Adaptors, ex- Sisters of Sharon, Thinking Out Loud and organiser of the long running Underground series of gigs) will no doubt concur. Underground 100 is soon to be unleashed on an excited local music scene. It has longevity legs. It fits comfortably into the local music scene along with Justin Sweeting's People's Party gigs and the other big promoters. There are many musical rehearsal rooms in the mansion and toes generally remain untrampled upon. Anyway, haven't seen Chris for a few years so nice to catch up again and watch her doing her bit as stage manager.

I haven't watched all of Poubelle's gig this time, because Snoblind are in direct competition on the Robot Stage. Veterans of both Underground and the two previous Clockenflap Festivals in 2008/09, they're one of my must see bands. Alas, a scheduling cock-up means they've started early and I catch only the last few minutes. Snoblind are Vincent and Regina who play some toy instruments and craft great heaving slabs of digidelic electronica from their humble laptops. Vincent tells me they've been moving in a dubstep direction of late which sounds like mighty fine news. I arrive to a crystal clear collapsing crescendo of tinkles, bleeps and ice shard fractures of tones and notes. A chaotic cow cascading through a virtual china shop. Fading into a minimal whooshy wind dissipating over an Arctic soundscape. Beatless bliss. Shades of quieter Tonto's Expanding Headband, but polyphonic rather than monotones. The future is now. I have a brief natter with Vincent and slip him some of my later Nixmixes for his enjoyment. Upgraded from old mixtapes to MP3 mixes. I hope L-G has got photos. Also catch up with Nick from hkclubbing, who mentions that Skrillex, the 23 year old American phenomenon who is possibly the hottest dubstep act in the world right now, was in town. Alas, no real chance of a gig, because he basically plays stadiums. Bet he could have fucking well <i>rocked</i> the Clockenflap main stage as the headline act though. Instead of say, Bombay Bicycle Club...

I'd not heard of the B.B.C. before seeing their name on the poster as the Saturday night headliners. Justin apparently met one of the band in Toronto(?) and discovered they were both born in Hong Kong. Right mate, you're going to play Clockenflap. I bought their CD <i>"A Different Kind Of Fix"</i> and it's a little bit weedy-wispy. The sound is very quiet and it sounds like an old offshoot from Sarah records. Sorry, but I was going through the tracks and saying boring, too quiet, filler. Track 9 <i>"Fracture"</i> and track 11 <i>"Favourite Day"</i> had some legs. Enough to listen to them twice. They're slow growers. But it's not just me. Keith from the Sleeves said he played it once and then, back in the drawer. The band are Suren, Jamie, Ed and Jack, but no mention of who plays what. Maybe the hidden depths of the music will come out at really loud levels. Like hearing the voices on <i>"Dark Side Of The Moon"</i> during Roger Water's extraordinary show in HK a few years ago.

Luke Vibert aka Wagon Christ has just finished a crunchy set of tunes on the Robot Stage which has Ian Supersonic babbling away at how brilliant he is at playing all the tunes at the same time. Chopping them up, overlaying and intermingling them via his lap top. Breaking them up and segueing into something else. Ian's more of a technical DJ than Oggie and I so I bow to his superior knowledge. There's trippy visuals on the big screen and Asia's tallest building is right behind the stage. And the moon is starting to <i>disappear...</i>

Yep, Hong Kong is lucky enough to view the last total lunar eclipse until 2014. The whole event lasts about six hours while the totality of the eclipse lasts 51' 8" according to the BBC (British Broadcasting Company this time). From 1932 hours 10/12/2011 until 0132 hours 11/12/2011. And it's red because the earth's atmosphere refracts and filters sunlight to favour the redder wavelengths. Flashes like molten lava appear sporadically on the moon's surface. And a message on the big screen reads "We spare no expense at Clockenflap. If you cast your minds (<i>not eyes?</i>) you'll see the brightest solar eclipse since 1743. ("solar" is changed to "lunar" about half an hour later. I bet Clockenflap did it deliberately to see if anyone is paying attention!)

Bombay Bicycle Club are flowing through their mellifluous set which is being enjoyed by a lot of people. Including me. Hearing the songs at volume with an extra 3-4 people on stage (including a dishy Felicity Kendall lookalike on femvox) makes all the difference. Still can't work out what the songs are. Did they play the CD in sequence or mix it up? They're jolly grateful to be invited to play Clockenflap. Near the end of the set, someone from the band reminds us that the eclipse will soon be underway.

Prompting ribald remarks from around me that it's already started. Get your head out from under the stage tent covering you twat. Something else for you happy readers to ponder. Bombay Bicycle Club now have a lunar link with the mighty Grateful Dead. The Dead played the Pyramids at Giza on 14-16/9/1978. Three nights in September. (I use calendar numbers as day/month/year unlike the Americans who prefer month/day/year i.e. 9-11-2001). Anyway, there was a total eclipse of the moon on the night of the 16th. Rumour has it that the Grateful Dead were playing <i>"Dark Star"</i> at the time. In addition, both bands were crap in the studio, The GD used to drive their producer/engineer Dave Hassinger mad by trying to record <i>heavy air</i>. But the Dead (who now tour under that name since reforming when Obama became POTUS 44) did and do <i>legendary</i> live shows. I wouldn't put the Club in that league, but they are better live than on the single CD release that I have. By the way, the Grateful Dead (formerly The Warlocks) were the house band for The Trips Festivals' where Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters would rock up in their bus Further with the latest batch of Owsley's incredible LSD.

Meanwhile, there have been two new breakthoughs in the field of quantum and particle physics. It was revealed in late November that two experiments have shown that subatomic particles may travel faster than lightspeed. Neutrinos were sent 730 kilometres from the CERN laboratory in Geneva to the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy. Apparently, they arrived 60 billionths of a second faster than the speed of light. Theoretically these "tachyonic" particles could travel back in time, violating the basic law of causality i.e. cause precedes effect. So, assuming this is true, it means I can take huge liberties with the chronological construction of this story. I can write about things that occurred earlier today (10/12/2011) and put them later in the story.

The second headfuck is that Cern's Large Hadron Collider has found tantalising signs of the Higgs Boson - a particle that imparts mass to everything in the universe. First postulated by British physicist Peter Higgs in 1964, it's known as the "God Particle" because it's everywhere, yet is extremely elusive. The real origin of the "God Particle" is taken from a censored title of a book by Nobel physicist. He called it the "Goddamn Particle" because of the frustrations of trying to find it. The publisher preferred The God Particle because he was worried that "goddamn" was offensive!.

So, where was I? Right. I'm using quantum physics to justify a "flashback" in this story. Having already done a "flash-forward" from Skrellix to Bombay Bicycle Club. Does that violate causality? If not, how did I achieve it? I'm glad you asked. I used the square root of minus one to cross the wrong side of a Moebius Strip and plunge into a Wormhole Wonderland and there I will be. Put another way, it's just imagination. Unfettered and able to free roam through space time to everywhere and anywhen. Or simpler yet. It's a literary trick. Now you see me during the eclipse. Now I'm in front of the Harbour Flap stage watching White Shoes & TCC. It's about 1630.

This Indonesian sextet is a bonkers highlight. Their music sounds like Martin Denny or Les Baxter jamming with Dengue Fever (who are more Cambodian). It's probably 1964 and the group are all dressed in slacks and sweaters ready to go to Al's Diner in Happy Days for a sockhop. The tunes are kitschedelic easy-listening lounge-core with a whiff of Tiki culture. The two ladies - vocalist and keyboard player - are wearing the afore mentioned white shoes. The songs fall into the precise meeting point between pastiche and homage. The last tune features guitar, bass, organ and drum solos. It lasts about ten minutes. I'm surrounded by a group of teenagers in hoodies etc. who were born about 30 years too late for this scene, daddio. I'm half wondering if they're pod people, whose bodies have been taken over by their grandparents. The kids are having awesome fun. A few of them manage to clamber on stage and boogie with the band. They're removed by Little Nick, the sound mixer, who's trying hard not to crack a smile. An unexpected pleasure treat.

<img src="http://www.compunicate.com/Lamma/Events/Clockenflap-11/Sydney-C-pic-020.jpg" align=right hspace=6 vspace=4 width=250>Another treat now. A brief guest review from the lovely Sidney C. Away you go, hon. <i>"Beer and music. And cold and wind and Hick."</i> (She meant <i>Nick</i>). No problem. Wait until you read about all my mistakes tomorrow. Hopefully the photo of the two of us will make it into this review [Editor L-G: Photo and mini review emailed to me by "Sidney C:"

Hello Nick,
I'm Sidney who wrote stupid words "Beer and music ... and Nick (it's Nick, not Hick. My hands were freezing cold and wrote the wrong letter on your notebook. I just realized that after you left. I'm such an idiot!"
It's such a sunny (chilly and windy as well) day filled with music. I enjoy going to music festivals but it's not much ingrained in Hong Kong culture. I really appreciate those who organize the Clockenflap festival. There are many nice bands performing in the festival. I could easily find some that suit my style and taste in music. The lineup provided me a diverse experience.There were no big overlaps between bands which would force me to make difficult choices.
I had a great time! I was jumping and shouting all night. I was really exhausted on my way home. And, of course, there is the all important reduction of stress. I'm looking forward to your review, Nick!]

Lots of Lamma people here by now. Here's the roll call of honour for Sian and Chunny. Dave and Eva. Carmel and Guy. Miranda, Debbie and Caroline sitting on the grass. I'm sure there are others. Feel free to send Lamma-Gung a picture of proof and gain access to the story. The more the merrier I say. Meanwhile, 9 Maps is in full folk throttle on The People's Party Stage. I first saw them opening for Elbow earlier this year at KITEC.

Nice sound if a little dainty and mellow.. Justin Sweeting is their mentor and thinks they're a fast rising success. 9 Maps is a trio. Sherin on voice, piano, bass, guitar and percussion. Ciosa on voice and guitar. Gabe on drums and percussion. They all say lovely things about each other on their CD. <i>"High Incline"</i> and big it up for the Bauhinian Collective as well. They're playing a haunting sort of goth American song as I pass by and I am transfixed. Sounds like The Handsome Family in places. Ciosa's shades make her look a little bit elegantly wasted and rock-chicky. She's barefoot and I'm wondering what <i>are</i> those marks on her feet? They look like squiggly tattoos. That must have <i>hurt.</i> They finish their song and say it's not something you want to hear in jail. The last track I hear is called <i>"No Pulse For Uncle John"</i> and is almost as beguiling. This is a big step up from the Elbow show.

Miko Van Chong kicks things up a gear in Side Flap with an energetic DJ set. Opening with the MTR "train door" announcement his set rumbles, bounces, squeaks and bleeps his way into the minds of his devoted fans who are standing right in front of him. Cool breakdowns and some tribal percussion set the scene for the imminent arrival of DP on the People's Party Stage. I've gone walkabout ... OK, I'm back.

DP are Dave and Paul. This is their second Clockenflap as performers. I have powerful memories of Paul's GuitarBar from 2008. He's still got the Ice Cream Vendor White Suit and a new Mohawk for the occasion. Now here's Camron beaming in from tomorrow with his take on DP. I'm rolling. You're rocking: DP was just two people on bass and drums. As I was rocking (see) out in the front I was unsure if they would produce in full. But they did...they sent out complete rock vibes. When two men in skull masks joined them on guitar and synths, all hell broke out in front of the stage (Major moshpit madness methinks). I hit a few people and bought a CD afterwards. You nailed it dude. (And I enjoyed our little frisbee session with you guys tomorrow morning).

The addition of the two mystery men - one called Justin - brings a whole new level of electronic mayhem to the virulent heaviosity that they normally produce. Something I remember telling Paul after Clockenflap 1. Synths, samples, twisted keyboards all have their part to play. Mind you, when DP are a duo, they still rock out. Paul is almost sweating blood as his ferocious drumming never flags. Dave is prowling the stage - the closest thing to Jack Black I've seen at this festival. The People's Party Stage concluded with a Chinese band called Duck Fight Goose. The first tune was more dubbytronica with howling feedback and plenty of echo on the vocals. Chunny told me he enjoyed that opening number, but it got a bit grim later and the sounds were hard to love.

Ocean Lam has taken up her hour long residency slot on Sideflap. DP are a tough act to follow, but she doesn't disgrace herself with a powerful deep house mix of bliss, bleeps, breaks, more drums and a devoted audience following her every twiddle and tweak. The DJ's are coming to the fore at this Clockenflap Festival. I haven't been to many DJ gigs in the past three years. Bit of a sabbatical really and also fed up with sleeping at the Central Ferry Pier. But, I'm slowly getting back into the groove-y as Ciccone Youth so memorably put it late last millennium.

The walking back and forth between the stages is starting to shred my knees. It's the final trek that brings me to Bombay Bicycle Club show, some seven paragraphs back. I notice that a lot of people aren't following the <i>Please Mind The Bushes</i> posters. The shrubbery has been slaughtered and squashed. Trampled underfoot. Not by everyone though.
Wouldn't it have made more sense for whoever runs the West Kowloon Hub to have installed diamond pattern bamboo fences in the first instance? Make them permanent and tall enough so no one can jump them? Done it before The Hub was opened to the public? The ravaged foliage is probably going to cost the Clockenflap organisers a fair bit of wodge. And they're not likely to make a Wall Street profit/bonus out of this show either. Best minimum hope is HK$1 profit. Second best is break even. And then there's the most likely outcome that this show will run at a loss.

I'm a bit sore and grumpy and all I can think of when I see the posters is: Fuck the Bushes. Fuck the Cheneys as well. The Republicans have put the world through hell.
BushReich, The Corporate Whore State. The Wanker Bankers. The One Percenters. And the current crop of septic slubberdegullions squabbling over who should be the next Republican President. In response to the late Hunter Thompson's grumble about how low do you have to stoop to be President in this country, I would say those fuckers are on the same level as the shrimp shit on the seabed of the Marianas Trench.

It's time to (Oh,hi Karina!. I was wondering where and when you'd break into this story. Did you see much of Clockenflap today?) head home. It's been brilliant, draining, exhausting, mesmeric. I feel a whole year older....

....and that's because I am. Happy birthday also to Claudia, Laura, Shereen and Vicki. And to the approximate 86,400 babies who've just joined the world (as we enter The End Days?) And a few million others scattered worldwide, And that's just the birthdays of 11th day and 12th month. And this relentless rise in population growth is increasing day by day. Seven billion people as of the end of October contrasted against the daily diminishing of natural resources. A pandemic or bio-war/nuclear war is somewhere over the horizon. Never mind the chances of natural global catastrophe like supervolcanoes. Richter Scale 10 earthquakes. Asteroid impacts. Whatever. Something is going to snap. See Dr. Malthus for the horrible details.

Right, I'm depressing myself now, along with you dear readers. I'm really in the mood for an ecstatic day and so it will prove. Along with assorted bumbling. (Jump Cut). As I come in the main gate with no problem. I bump into DJ Kulu, sitting by the Jack Wills psychedelic jeep. He's chatting to Kate who politely obliges me by taking a photo with Kulu. A running gag that started at Clockenflap 1. Weird beards grow and groove together or something. I slip him a CD and say I hope to catch some of his set, but it's about noon and The People are playing on the Harbour Flap Stage. The Lamma collective is Clive on flute. Makha, Pitshu and Aly on assorted African drums (they look just like Kumi's drumjam drums. She agrees, but says they're not hers.) Marianne on vocals and percussion. Barnaby on drums. The Mysterious Mr. B, aka Tony, on freakbeat sax. Half an hour of thundering percussion and haunting, lilting African melodies. A good way to kick out the jams. Jim, an old mate from Rock-It Festivals past, agrees. In his own write: "Happy birthday, Nick. Looking forward to The Cribs.

Listening to The People right now. Nice vibes". And the unknown Tourist chips in with " Excellent set from DP. Great survival tactics by David Bowie Knives. A professional performance by Bombay Bicycle Club and Logo - great as always" Apparently DBK suffered power failures during their acoustic set and Sean the mainman had to wander around the audience. I missed that show. Missed all of the acoustic stuff. It's time to wander back to The People's Party Stage and The Sideflap Stage. Simon is doing sterling work as Stage Manager. Chris B. isn't out of bed yet...

Arrive in time for the "I Love The 80"s DJ set. The first time I know all the songs. Tunes by Human League, Simple Minds, "Ghostbusters" and a segue from AC/DC to Bryan Adams which shouldn't work, but does. From "All Night Long" to "Summer of '69". The DJ is attracting a reasonable audience. And a bunch of huge furry animals has arrived. They're fans and friends of Dada Baba and are considered the local equivalent of The Flaming Lips. Dada Baba have just finished their set and come to give enthusiastic support to Laura Palmer - their stablemates on Sean's Metal Postcards label. I initially thought that Laura Palmer was a singer songwriter with the same name as the deceased girl in "Twin Peaks". I was wrong. They're a young quartet devoted to extreme noise, feedback, drones, squawls etc. The singer is not good until he starts to experiment with a voice changer. Which covers a whole lot of dins The drummer has cool to spare. He arrives on stage in a hoodie. Stands up while drumming. At one point he hits the snare with one stick while calmly smoking a fag with the other hand. The band are playing some of the time and just letting feedback and white noise reign supreme the rest of the time. As the fanimals crowd the stage, the drummer dives into them and extracts the Dada Baba singer for a guest slot. Mental metal mayhem. Keith from The Sleeves is here again. He agrees that the vocals are naff, but prefers the electronic assistance which makes them move more in a Joy Division direction. It's a spellbinding half hour. A controlled riot, reminiscent of early Jesus And Mary Chain. Another fine surprise and boy, I'm awake now.

Chochukmo are waiting in the wings. According to Magnus from Lamma and a noted drummer, Chochukmo are his favourite HK band. They are a bit funky, sort of like old Franz Ferdinand, but they have other strings to their bow. Cue fiery rock riffs from the quintet of Jan, Mike, Kitty, Les and Kento, Jan's vocals on songs like "Roll the Dice" and "Something Special" channel the spirit of Rufus Wainwright. Crossed with high falsetto Matt Bellamy from Muse. The band are also quirky art rock in places. Songs stop on a dime and change tempo and it's a pleasure to listen to. Who cares what's happening on the other stage.

The DJ's aren't here to play second fiddle. There's a rush to The Sideflap Stage as DJ Enso starts up with a fucked up version of "Shout" by Tears For Fears. The vocals all cut up and distorted and then the set unfolds like some relentless sea roller crashing on the shore. Enso played at Clockenflap 2 with DJ Kid Fresh as Pimpin' Ain't Easy. Enso is the first (and only) DJ to use the Wheels of Steel. Both of them. Plus a laptop to weave his digidelic magic in and out of the old showbiz tunes that keep cropping up. He's very intense. Gazing at the equipment. Making a gentle tweak here, sliding a fader there.

Oblivious to all and sundry for most of his set. Lamma Gung has arrived and is snapping lots of pics. I wander outside and it's freaky dancing time. Full on. It's like I've been watching a small black and white tv with crackly sound in the Fifties and have suddenly time-warped to the Future Present with a huge fuck-off 50 inch 3-D plasma screen. In trippy day-glow. With wraparound sensurround. I've forgotten my dodgy knee and am swaygrooving on the spot. Waving hands in blurry slo-mo. Caught up in the moment which is rare because I hardly ever dance at gigs. And then get blindsided by a compliment from the lovely Shiz Scott who tells me that my dancing is "fantastic". Thank you, darling! An ecstatic day just got better. Especially when I zoomfocus on the furry animals doing their bunny bops. Time to lie down and enjoy the pulsing tribal rhythms.

Meanwhile, Chad Valley is setting up on The People's Party Stage. A couple of keyboards. He looks more like Jack Black that Dave does. And when he starts singing, he's more Rufus Wainwright too. The melodies are a sugarsweet and haunting blend of Hans Zimmer and Daft Punk. He pretty much stops everyone in their tracks. It's... fantabulous! And after the first song, he produces one of my moments so far. "Hello, Hong Kong. Are you all enjoying Clockenflap"? (Dead silence...) Followed by a magnificently deadpan "Awesome". And straight into the next tune. Actually, some of the melodies could be vintage New Romantic from the 80's. Ultravox or Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. The crowd is like struck dumb while receiving multi-orgasms. I don't want to leave, but I've got to see if I can find Jim and check out The Cribs on the Harbour Stage.

Bad move, I'm afraid. I don't know what went wrong with their sound. It sounds very muddy from where I'm standing. Which is in front of the big screen. And as I move towards the front-and-centre, it degenerates into bad pub rock. Maybe if they'd kept Johnny Marr in the band. Or persuaded him to help out for this gig. Star quality needed.
Jay echoes my sentiment later about the sound. But Marcus and Jane and their sprogs are in wonderland. She's trying to stop the kids from rushing the stage. And there are a lot of other people who seem to be into the guitars and are having a blast. Yeah, and good for them. But, I'm off back to the future. And I manage to round up Karina again. She gave me a lift to town yesterday. Bought me pizza. And vowed to arrive earlier today. She's on her way towards The People's Party Stage. DJ Wendy Wenn and French Horn Rebellion are upcoming.

The duo of French Horn Rebellion are a trio tonight. Paul has returned for a second round of crushing thunder drums. Don't know how much practise he's had with David and Robert, but he slots in seamlessly to their anarchic freeform show. FHR played Hong Kong earlier this year. Opening for MGMT from whom they stole the show.
They were psychedelic electronic lounge-core with hints of french horn and brotherly squabbles (all part of the act I'm assured). Most of the same set is payed tonight I think. Except for "I go to Rio" by Peter Allen. David and Robert are brothers who admit they can't sing very well. Or play their keyboards very well. Or play french horn very well despite compulsory lessons. What they lack in polished showbiz chops, they more than make up with a sexy, frenetic unruly mindfuck of a show. As for Paul, he must have lost about a stone over his two drum gigs which garner him my title of Hardest Working Drummer of the weekend.

Wendy used to play at Yumla on a regular basis. To my regret I never saw/heard her. My loss. She's one of the doyennes of the DJ scene. An undulating, looping deep house cum prog-tribal blast of a gig. Mostly minimalist music. Complete with some techno stabs and recurring sexy fembot vocals. Just using the CD decks and a laptop.
She's got a lot of fans almost sitting on the DJ desk whom she acknowledges with a grin and a fey wave. I'm lying out on the grass float-bobbing along in the melody stream until near the end and then go inside the tent to see how she's performing the magic. I think I catch her eye and get a smile. Must talk to her. Find out when/where she has a regular gig.

(Oops! Big gaffe. The Wendy paragraph should precede the French Horn Rebellion paragraph. I know this because reading my notes to refresh my memory of this section of the night I realise I have accidentally screwed up the time line. Rather than deliberately.) Basically, I tried to find Wendy to talk to. Got chatting with someone else who I recognised and who I was convinced was Wendy. Even though Wendy was wearing jeans and sneakers (and a top obviously!) and the other lady was wearing a dress and boots. We swap cards and it turns out I was talking to Ocean who did her fun stuff yesternight. So, I wander into the crowd to boogie along to French Horn Rebellion and get stopped by someone who sees my notebook. He writes "happy to meet Santa Claus". Followed by what looks like a mega-scribble. Or the Batman logo. He hands my book to his petite companion who writes down something as well. We chat pleasantly and I wander off to find Karina.
And maybe find Wendy. Jesus. Hope I don't sound like too much of a groupie/stalker. I read the book and find written "Goodwill. Heart DJ Wendy Wenn". I was talking to her and didn't realise! And now I've lost her in the crowd again. Do I feel like a muggins or what?

Facial recognition is becoming harder. A few minutes later I think I see Laura (fellow birthday celebrant) and wish her "Happy Birthday". Only to realise that it's another lovely Lamma lassie called Amber. Much confusion. I know I'm a little bit wasted, but have I overmedicated myself by accident or what? Meanwhile, Amber's friend Viv has taken the time to add her thoughts so here she goes. "Really great idea to have an outdoor music festival so everyone can enjoy music together. Great show. Great crowd. Viv."

One long last stroll to the Harbour Flap stage. The headliners are Santigold from New York. MC Delirious is urging us all. again, "to give it up for..." The man is running longer than the EverReady Rabbit. Everyone's coming to check out the main act. How were they?
Absolutely brilliant! They reclaimed the future (at least until 2200 hrs). She is a Tina Turner lookalike with energy to spare. And her voice is sublime. He is a huge Terminator X type of dude who is singlehandedly taking care of all the music. The songs are electrorap to electrodub to electroreggae to electropoprock. There are two dancers giving their best female interpretations of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire via some disco-demented dance show. Unbelievable entertainment, especially when "she" gets about a dozen or so gawky geeks to bust their best moves on stage against her two pros.
Santigold are glad to be in Hong Kong. She doesn't think it's too cold tonight. (not compared to a Noo Yawk deepfreeze of a winter). She sings a song about her old neighbourhood in Brooklyn and it's an amazing sensual magnificent hour long set. Only spoiled by the slow shuffling retreat of the crowd as most of it decide to leave early and beat the rush.

Well, that's about it. Jay tells me later that they did lose money, but they can cope with it. On a more positive note, he;'s delighted to report NO NOISE COMPLAINTS AT ALL! That bodes well for future 'Flaps. Karina is sticking with the last DJ who is playing a quiet set to send the thronging hordes home. She points out that where else is going to be better than this right now? She's got a point. The after parties won't start for another hour or two.

So, three Clockenflaps have taken place. I've written three reviews (thank you, thank you. You're all so kind. No really, it was a joy to do...). I guess now it's time to complete the circle and let Jay have the last word. So, how was it for you, Jay? "Best Clockenflap Ever".

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Media release:

Clockenflap Music, Culture and Arts Festival 2012

Clockenflap Returns!
Hong Kong’s coolest event of the year, the Clockenflap Music, Culture and Arts Festival, returns this Saturday-Sunday, 1-2 December 2012. The organizers are proud to announce the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority as the venue partner for Clockenflap 2012.

Festival Vision
Founded in 2008 by Mike Hill, Jay Forster and Justin Sweeting, Clockenflap was launched to give Hong Kong a festival worthy of our major metropolis. Clockenflap has never been motivated by money – over the years, the organizers have kept a firm focus on providing Hong Kong with the kind of festival people crave and deserve. Inspired by such international festivals as Glastonbury, Fuji Rock and South by Southwest, they have simultaneously showcased some of the world’s most established acts, while putting a strong spotlight on the region’s finest up-and-coming musicians.

Now in it's fifth year, Clockenflap continues to grow from strength to strength. 18,000 festival goers enjoyed 2011's event, with an expected 25,000 people set to attend Clockenflap 2012.

Since its inception, the organizers have faced every imaginable challenge, seeking to establish a sustainable festival format for the city. Equipped with true Hong Kong spirit, the support from the wider community and the WKCD, they have persevered and overcome the near-impossible - to deliver a signature event that places Hong Kong at the international festival level .

Last year’s international headlining acts were awestruck by the incredible location and natural setting, planted seemingly in the middle of our world famous skyline. This is your only chance in 2012 to experience a completely different side to Hong Kong: escape the hustle and bustle of the city for a world of music and multimedia, grass and greenery, all set against the backdrop of Hong Kong’s skyline.

Clockenflap 2012
Clockenflap 2012 promises to be the biggest music, culture & arts festival Hong Kong has ever seen. New for this year: Two additional music stages, totaling six music platforms for our local, regional and international talent. A dedicated arts area with stunning installations; an enlarged film and animation tent; additional family activities and kids’ entertainment; a host of HK's tastiest outlets from around town – and for the very first time, a Clockencraft indie craft market.

Loved by locals and expats, music addicts and multimedia fans, families and food lovers, the Clockenflap Music, Cultural and Arts Festival 2012 offers something for everyone.

Line-Up 2012
The festival's music policy has always been focused on pioneering, edgy artists across genres and geographical borders. Past years have seen such cutting edge international names as Santigold, Bombay Bicycle Club, YACHT and The Charlatans take to the Clockenflap stage, and this year we are excited to announce the first wave of confirmed artists for 2012’s event.

Joining us this December: UK indie gods Primal Scream, US hip hop legends De La Soul and Australian festival favourites Sneaky Sound System. Alongside these established stars, will be the cream of the new generation of international talent, including: Alt-J from England and Melbourne’s hotly tipped Chet Faker - just two of the global ‘ones to watch’ that will be performing with us this year.

Remember, this is just the first wave of international artist announcements, and we’ll be releasing more names, including our Sunday night headline act, in the coming weeks.

As ever, Clockenflap’s commitment to the local scene is unshakeable, with dozens of local musicians taking to the festival’s many stages. Moreover, this year will feature a wider array of styles from across the musical spectrum: Electronica from mainland China, indie rock from Manila and West African world music to name but three. We’ve even got a Welsh male voice choir.

With over 80 live music performances across the weekend, Clockenflap 2012 promises a weekend deliciously full of music discovery - the likes of which has never been seen before in Hong Kong.

Tickets
Tickets for Clockenflap 2012 (Saturday-Sunday, 1-2 December 2012) will go on sale from the 1st October. Student discounts are available and kids under 12 get in for free. Full details and prices to be announced soon – join the mailing list at clockenflap.com to be notified.

Clockenflap gets a Cantonese name
In July 2012, we announced a city-wide competition to find a Cantonese name for the festival that captured the spirit of Clockenflap. The response was overwhelming, with over 1,000 entries received. It's been a challenging task, but after much thought and deliberation, we are very proud to announce our new Cantonese festival name: XXX, which will run in parallel with “Clockenflap”.

Website: http://www.clockenflap.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/clockenflap

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/clockenflap

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Photo, Video, Person, Wildlife, Bird, Artwork.

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Updated poster with (almost) finalised bands lineup:

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Best map I've seen so far of the Clockenflap venue. Ready to be downloaded to your smartphone, tablet or phablet:

http://www.timeout.com.hk/extra/Clockenflap-Map-2012

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My Clockenflap photo gallery:

http://www.compunicate.com/Lamma-zine/PG-3/#Clockenflap_2012

Music review in progress...

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Clockenflap 2012 - Dec 1/2, 2012 - West Kowloon Cultural District

5,056 words by Nick the Bookman

"Best Clockenflap ever."

That was the elated response of Jay the Organiser at the end of Clockenflap 2011. And, given the line up who'll be performing this year, the permanence of his remark is not likely to last the calendar year. If everyone performs to potential, then Clockenflap 2012 will blow all the previous memories straight to the lower depths of the brain bank/box. Put simply, 2012 has the potential to be better than the best one ever. Which got me musing at a tangent on "Blackadder, The Second Series" and the episode "Chains" which sees our eponymous antihero imprisoned in a commode and taunted by Hugh Laurie with a fate worse than a fate worse than death. Better than the best one ever. Worse than a fate worse than a fate worse than death.Symbiosis through a paired duality. Except that the fate worse...than death line isn't in the fucking episode. I imagined it somehow and I was convinced that the line was there but no...

So.basically don't trust my memory to be all exact in what happened. The Game Plan Didn't Outlast First Contact With The Enemy. I know what I wanted to do, but other things kept happening and the herbal ciggies, brownies and rum cocktails didn't help make matters easier. Anyway, this is what I've got. Well, me and Pontus, Mari's nephew, who's here for a month and joining me in our first Festival Happening together. Things didn't start well. We bought the tickets for Kowloon station on the MTR. Went through the turnstiles and promptly out again by mistake.Had to sweet talk a MTR employee in giving us new ones. Made the train, Made it off the train. Got to the Festival Gates.Still, a bit early to enter. I get my press pass although the confirmation sheets aren't there. Doesn't seem to be a problem. We join the near front of the queue where Dave (minus Eva) is waiting. Get inside and amble aimlessly.

The first snippet of action comes from The Sleeves on the Your Mum Stage. Which is set up where the main stage was sited last year.Caught the last two songs which featured some impressive vocals from Keith and some blistering and inventive guitar. Including wah-wah pedal action, hard rocking blues psych licks and robust drums and fluid bass responses. Loud, but clear sound as well. The Sleeves finish with fan favourite "Sex Museum" which is on their debut release. I enjoyed it even more than last year and they deserved a bigger crowd than they pulled..Maybe it's Play Early And Party Late. In their case, I guess it's Play Early And Be Family Men Afterwards. I mean to try and grab Keith for a chat, but we go our separate ways and don't re-connect at all today.

Back at the Pigeon & Kite Stage, the Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir have finished terrorising the spectators with their burly demeanour and close quarter harmony singing and Bella Elektra are on stage. This is a down-tempo trip hop electronic/brass quartet and they ring some mighty changes. The quartet are Jeff on vox. Giedrius on beats and harmonics. And there's Michal on trumpet and Oscar on sax who bring the noise, noise, noise, From Afro-Cuban fiery blasts of melody to an almost "Taxi Driver" late night down-tempo mood. Jeff's singing ranges from falsetto smooth to stu-stu-stuttery over blurts of freejazz and drum n' bass percussion pacing. A little something for everyone there,I reckon. (Where's Pontus gone?) Meanwhile, 31G are rolling out their huge Joy Division-cum-brutal-electronic whizz noise on the Harbour Flap Stage, which is sited near the main entrance. Possibly for convenience. Trying to flit between the three aforementioned acts is heavy going.as they're almost overlapping sets. So this is just a sprinkle taste of what went down.

I've caught up with Paul from DP, but Pontus is still AWOL. Never mind, he;s a big boy now. 360 months old and has already made his way from Kowloon to Lamma with a fucking huge surfboard and bag on his own. I'm not worried. He'll turn up. Anyway Paul has a new string to his bow today.He's playing muted drums and percussion with Sun Eskimos on the Time Out Stage (the acoustic area). Sun Eskimos is Janice Ngiam and she turns in a captivating 20 minute set of mostly originals along with a cover of "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash. It's a soft strummed acoustic singer-songwriter gig with Paul unleashing his inner Nick Mason on brushes and soft cymbal licks to a fulsomely swoonsome small crowd. And Rez, a French videocameraman who is shooting the whole set for a short documentary. Hmmm! Very nice as Whispering Bob Harris was fond of saying as host of The Old Grey Whistle Test.And if that was good enough for him in 1972, then it's good enough for me to tribute/rip him off now. Besides, you can't really copyright words. Unless they're a brand name or something.

Time for some guest interlopers. Here' are the Nick's Henderson and Wood. In alphabetical order NH lets us all know that he "loves Fl5Q (that's what it says) and that it's what life is made of" Meanwhile, NW is more pithily accurate with "Amazing setting. Amazing music.Amazing place". And it's amazing how amazing that the amazing word amazing is amazingly popping up throughout the next few comments .AMAZING!!!. Here's Kate: "So amazing to meet new people and jam together always". And not to be outdone is Rachael with "Amazing Festival,.amazing location, amazing people. Clockenflap f*ckin' rocks" Can't get done for false advertising there I reckon.At this point, Pontus has found me and we've joined the above mention lovely ladies.for some wacky entertainment on the grass. Nicole and Lauren might be suffering a bit of pre-millennium tension because of the imminent demise of our planet on 21/12/2012. Or the imminent demise of apocalyptica as a dining table subject on that date.Will 2012 go the same way as the YK2000 bug? Or shall the solace of Nicole's statement "The end of the world is the beginning" and Lauren's "Make the most of the night and the people...this too shall pass". I'll settle for folk wisdom rather than a review. And hope to see you all on the other side. Or not.

It's another big blast of action at the Pigeon and Kite Stage as The People throw a major party. The partially Lamma based septet churns out a pumping mix of global beats and polyrhythmic percussion. Courtesy oMakha on African drums.Albury on more African drums.Barney on white boy timbalese.Mariane and Terri groove together on the vocals and some dance moves. And David and Anasco whip things up some more with a fine blend of African and Euro folk melodies. I reckon some of the fans up front are still saying Feets, stop yo' stuff. The band has finished its set. Terri, the lead vocalist, is in feisty form. Providing ample proof of Makha's comment that "we've got some good melodies now". I reckon it's the best world percussive/rhythmic/melodic set of the day. Capped off by Terri's closing remarks of "Peace and love. Enjoy the rest of the Festival".

And there's just enough space in this review for another guest/fan. Here's Rakhee Shah" "Totally unique and awesome performance by The People. Something what HK needs.Culture and variety"Terri is a super cool performer. Very talented and a perfect muse for this Maisha concept/concert I'd better stop now before Terri's head explodes with delight at those none more truer words.

The cocktails are working. Pontus and I find ourselves sort of standing in front of the Harbour Flap Stage where Shamus Dark is pretty much blowing my mind with his 21st Century dark electro crooner set. The Man is dressed sharper than the sharp dressed men who inhabit ZZ Top world. In fact, he's probably put Leonard Cohen to shame with his impeccable dark lounge suit, red tie, white shoes and a fedora which is worn at just the impossibly jaunty and ebullient angle to make everyone else in the world ashamed of their own hat wearing prowess. He's telling the audience that "Clockenflap is the only festival in the world named after a sex change operation." I looked it up and apparently it's a German term for an operation where Arthur becomes Martha. Now here's a song from a band from Manchester". He say's the song is"Enjoy the Silence" which is Depeche Mode from Basildon, I believe. Turns out the song isn't called that, but is instead "Atmosphere" by Joy Division who indeed were/are from Manchester. And Shamus on vocals is the nearest thing we're going to get to Scott Walker gracing our presence. There's also a brilliant tune about Zombies which samples the dialogue from the original Night Of The Living Dead and still scares the audience today It was a stunning performance and my left-field-cum-Dark Himaya moment of the day. And of the entire Festival as well. I'm just putting that in now so as to compress spacetime and fuck around with causality by predicting nothing else this weekend will match Shamus. I've written it now and don't have to remember to write it in later. See,things are starting to get messy.

One of the acts the lovely ladies told us not to miss.was Lucy Rose at the Time Out Acoustic Tent. She's on at 1800 hours and according to reports she both blew away her fanbase and was blown away by the fact she had a fanbase in HK which had her debut release in their sweaty little paws. .She also weathered some system malfunctions.and at the end of her short set she patiently posed with every fan who wanted a photo and signed every CD/piece of paper that was proffered to her. A real trouper and a pro in waiting. And we missed her...

Blame that on Little Barry if you're churlish. We just forgot about her because this was another blistering hard rock trio blowing minds at the Pigeon & Kite Stage. Most of their songs come from their debut release."King Of The Waves" The trio are Barrie Cadogan on guitar and vox..Lewis Wharton on bass. Virgil Howe on thunder drums..It was a warmly received, raucous set that mashed up some of the best licks of The Sleeves with any number of good old 80's bands who were recording about the time of The Sound Of The Suburbs punky/rocky/neweywavey, er wave broke out some 20 years ago. And I'm struggling to find the right rocky metaphor or simile to wrap this up. By the way, did anyone else out there think that Little Barry rather resembled Bigger Bobby from Primal Scream. Who are on the Harbour Flap Stage in a couple of hours from now. O.K. It's time to do something else now followed by another thing. Cue Advert break.

While doing all that, I've missed DJ Enso on The Robot Stage. Gutted to miss it because I really enjoyed his set last year, using laptop beats and the very latest HMV record player from about 1927 to craft his set. Hope he played out the "Future Dancehall" he gave me because that reggae/raps like a mutha on speed. I'm not the only one who appreciates his performance. "Enzo killed me". Signed, Cassady Winston (number one fan I reckon). Enso also puts on gigs and raves and happenings at The Triple XXX in Sheung Wan. Well worth going.

I've made it back to the Pigeon And Kite Stage where Small & Tall are putting on a raucously received set. And it's fortunate timing because Wendy Wenn has just started her set. I hadn't realised that she'd joined forces with the guys who have been bringing some top class DJ's here recently. Joey Jones springs to mind. A loosely enjoyable night and Karina and I were both sorry we couldn't make your fabled Sunday Boat trip. Anyway Wendy is crafting a "brilliant deepspaceblipbeatcumtrancey vibe that has me gurning helplessly while trying not to fall over. Wendy's set is exactly the set I wish Sasha had played when he was here about six months ago. He seems to have lost his mojo a little recently.

A quick peek in at the Your Mum Stage where !!!are working the crowd. Including Paul on a break from drummer duties. He considers.!!!are and will be his favourite band of the weekend. I think he described them as "an indie-dance-punk band with a slice of fried funk bass topping" And who am I to argue? The sextet play guitar, keyboards, saxes, drums and bass while sharing vocals. They're like a smaller, more-amped up OingoBoingo Brewing up a sonic stew of Funkadelicbasslines, surf-punk guitar frills, wailing saxes, surly-swirly keyboards, demented drums and a lot of jumping around the stage. Oh, and there's possibly some Prince in the mix, according to Pontus One last thing. This paragraph should precede the one above. Spacetime dilation/distortion wreaking havoc on my linearity it seems.

Azealia Banks has just strut-stepped onto the main stage and is giving her fucking all for all of you. She goes through most of the hits, swears more or less non-stop and flounces her waist-length pink-dyed-in-places hair. A charity spot for Movember or Breast Cancer awareness, methinks. She's a 21-year old Harlem born rapper, singer, dancer and sometime actress. Zach Baron in Spin Magazine describes her signature sound as a mashup of glitchy electronica, London rave-house, glossy pop mated with Harlem street drunk virtuoso rap. Her biggest hit "212" is a paean to the joys of "dining at the Y", "yodelling in the canyon of love" and whatever other euphemism you'd like to use for cunnilingus. Her legion of fans refer to themselves as "kunts". If you get beyond the fact that her show is a high energy workout to backing tracks with her singing live over the top, it's not bad at all. And we won't even mention Milli Vanilli. Personally, I think Santigold set the (ahem) gold standard last year and Azealia is probably a bronze.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. And Primal Scream flies "Higher Than The Sun". At least that's what I've been hoping to hear ever since the announcement that they would headline Day One of Clockenflap 2012. The potential for the title of "Better than the best one ever" is highly charged and positive. This is Primal Scream's third appearance in HK. They first played here on Hallowee'n,1997 and then again in spring, 2000. That show set the benchmark for all future performances. I mean, they were a large band. Nine members including Throb on guitar, He retired soon after due to the pressures of the non-stop party on the road lifestyle that was a Scream specialty.

Keven Shields, ex My Bloody Valentine, was an active member. Mani, ex Stone Roses, was the hard to dislodge bassist. And Adrian Sherwood, dubmeister mixer, producer and mainman at On-U-Sounds, was at the controls! Doing The Mixing!! A LEGENDARY NIGHT!!! I'm sharing this report with Darren, Kath, Kelly and Jill who really couldn't give a shit and want me to shut the fuck up as they're trying to listen to the current incarnation of Primal Scream who are doing the biz on stage. Now. Live. Got It?

Tonight, Primal Scream are a sextet. There's Big Bobby on vocals. Darrin Mooney on drums.Martin Duffy on keyboards and samples. New girl,Simone Butler, who replaced Deb Goodge, ex-MBV on bass. The Unknown Guitarist at stage right and is that? Can it be? It's not! Yeah, it is. It's Little Barrie Cadogan. He's the new Scream guitarist as well. The man is double dipping at this Festival. Two major sets in about three hours. I know Paul is doing two sets as well. With Sun Eskimo (done) and with DP (tomorrow). But two sets in quick succession ain't too shabby.

It's not too bad a set. Mostly taken from "Screamedelica", the songs include old favourites "Movin' On Up", "Shine Like Stars", :Come Together" and "Loaded" The band also play "Slip Inside This House" by Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators. Roky is pretty much the Syd Barrett of the Texan psychedelic/freakbeat scene. With one big exception. He's still alive and fast becoming a revered father figure for up and coming new psychedelicists. On the downside, Primal Scream don't play "Higher Than The Sun". They don't play "Kowalski:. They don't play...well, why be churlish. The Scream aren't the rowdy drug hoovers of yesteryore. But, it's a basically comforting set which will give the new team members a chance to bed down and make their marks. And they did end"Rocks" with about four minutes of short-wave glitch and static electronics, dissipating slowly and intensely into white noise. That scratched my weird noise spots nicely

And with that, Day One of Clockenflap 2012 has ended. Good things should be happening tomorrow. Maybe, the rain will hold off again. Pontus and I get separated and wait for each other at the wrong gates. Meanwhile, I'm chatting with Ollie from Pak Kok who is quite chuffed with the show that Primal Scream have just finished. Like me, he was at the two previous gigs in HK''. He especially liked "Swastika Eyes" and the "Screamadelica" songs. Right, Pontus has arrived. We walk to the Kowloon MTR Station and Ollie sort of vanishes. He tells me later of an epic trek to get home lasting several hours and taking some bad turns. Overall, a good day was had by most of the 10,000 other people on site. Sunday, you've got a lot to live up to. Cue another ad break.

Early start for 2/12/2012. Only 19 days and counting down until The End Of The World Or maybe not. But, I hope it's a rain free mindfuck of a day just in case. Some wacky and wigged out performances to store up happy memories of The Festival That Better Be Better Than The Best Ever Clockenflap. To help get through any possible Apocalypse, Armaggeddon, Biocide and the end of toilet paper. As I said, it's an early start. I'll see Pontus at The Hub later. Arrive at the site. No Sunday media badge/strip available, but they let me in anyway. Quick chat with Justin. He says he's heard stories of people demanding that Clockenflap 2012 be a free festival. I say $590 for a two day pass and over 80 acts isn't bad. I'd pay that for a Festival.In fact I did. I bought Pontus a ticket. Justin says that the cost of bringing Primal Screamalone to HK and putting them up in Grappas or KITEC would be about $600 a ticket. Top price for Sting tickets (on 2/12/2012) are $1500(ish) and $1800(ish) for Elton John on 4/12/2012. Justin also tips The Rubens, who are on The Harbour Flap Stage at 1700 hours, as possibly the next...Coldplay. Or should that be Coldplay??? I make a mental note to...

First band of the day I see is Ketchup and Mustard (possibly named after the colours of the two main Thai political parties. Or maybe just after condiments. Or is that just a hint of a twinge of an inkling of Dr. Gonzo trying to run amok?) They are Jonathon on vox and guitar. Igno on lead guitar.Iceberg on keyboards. Rob on drums. The opening song is sort of a student bedsit folky version of the late Nick Drake. Song three has a "Long Train Running" Doobie Brothers-era vibe to it. Another song has a jaunty, lolloping beat married to a chuffing train harmonica. And they finish with a reasonable cover of "Payphone" by Maroon 5.

That's enough AOR music for now. Who's been scribbling in my book? There's Enso's #1 fan, Cassady, who proclaims his appreciation for Azalea who "was cool". Ben, Vicky and Cha Cha have written fulsome compliments about my beard. Cha Cha has also offered a marriage proposal. I'm flattered, but I don't think Marilena wants to be a Mormon wife, so I regretfully decline. I wander off feeling a little discombobulated (extra strength Irish coffees to keep the cold out. And the odd brownie) and find myself at The Robot Stage for the first time this weekend. Now I'm getting some good Kraftwerk flashbacks as I listen to Biting Eye go bonkers on some vintage Moog equipment. Hello, BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Hi there, White Noise. Fuck me, it's almost Tonto's Expanding Headband. Or Tomita in deep undulating sine wave electrospace( I just made that bit up actually). The most brilliantly unhinged set of the day. All that's missing is 1950's nuclear alert alarms and sirens and warnings by Bob Calvert about the hideous dangers of sonic attack. And maybe R2D2 and C3PO.

Away from the intergalactic depths of a malfunctioning HAL, there's another treat taking place on the Pigeon & Kite Stage. An eleven-member small orchestra-cum-big band called Shaolin Fez is doing a global music tour. The musicians use guitar, bass, trumpet, horn, horn, trombone, violin, viola, bassoon, piano, drums and percussion to provide a classy cinematic orchestral experience. I didn't hear everything, but I was spellbound by their version of "Diamonds Are Forever". It hit all the right emotional notes and left me slack jawed in droolydribbly delight. Marc Gelfo one of the horn players who used to live behind me on Lamma, says that most of the members are with The Hong Kong Philharmonic. And this is how they sound when they wig out on a Sunday afternoon. Bringing cultural joy to the masses.They were fully deserving of their slot. Sierra would like her say now as well. "Fuck(ing) fabulous.The trumpet and ze French horn and violin = Genius". Pithily put, I say.

Pontus has now arrived with the Festival equivalent of horns of mead and nectar and ambrosial foodstuffs. The Munchies Are Vanquished! And there appears to be discord in the heavens, but the situation is excellent. Just a spattering of a spizzle of a storm...and in the intervening period of drifty nothingness, I've somehow missed seeing The Yours, DP and pretty much all of the acts at the Time Out Stage. Keith from The Sleeves has re-emerged from the crowd and says that DP were great for their "first few songs. Just the two of them on stage. Bang, bang, bang. Song done. Then they brought about anothesix people on stage and jammed for about half an hour. Bit messy that". I hope at least the electro-Gimps from last year were back . But at least I saw DP open for ...Trail Of Dead at Grappas about two weeks earlier. I know they're good.I guess that quite a lot of the rest of you will know that too by now. Also met a very nice dude, Damien from Vietnam. He's a music promoter and is up here for our version of Glastonbury. He says he offered Primal Scream's management about HK$25,000 to perform in Vietnam. It wasn't enough to cover a touring act/crew of 16 people. Plus all the equipment. He thinks Primal Scream got paid twice that to appear in HK.

The next band on the Pigeon & Kite Stage are from France. They're called Geste and only received their confirmation that they would play their debut HK gig less than a week earlier. They are Julien La Roche on guitar and laptop keyboards. F.C. Domergue on bass, machines and keyboards Matthieu le Couillard on drumsand percussion. They also had to play a truncated set due to various malfunctions. They' remind me a bit of a Japanese drum and bass/electronic band called Joujouka and a not quite so techno-Goth Nine Inch Nails. With a bit of Suicide in the mix. Their songs include "Price of Grey", "Flavour", "Citizen Ken" and their finale, "Hawking". Named after the world's greatest living astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking. It was a mind-fucking beautiful piece of electronic composition. Starting low and slow and building by degrees into a blissful, celestial consciousness expanding explosion of electronic melody. Worth The Price Of Admission To Clockenflap 2012 all on its own. You know the middle section of "Echoes" by Pink Floyd? The sonar beeps, the atonal soundscape guitars, the whale noises. That was sort of a deep sub-aquatic variant on this theme. Geste have played "Hawking" about 5 times prior to this show and each time it mutates differently. I urge you to check them out. It's worth it. Go to gestemusic.bandcamp.com (MySpace) and savour for yourselves. We got talking after their gig and they promised to come visit Lamma. Which they did. Tomorrow (i.e. 3/12/2012). They also play(ed) Hidden Agenda on Thursday night and hope to return to HK soon. Here's hoping.

Cue ad break and suddenly Pontus and I are at the Harbour Flap Stage for Sunday's big band. They're a quartet called Alt-J and at the beginning of November they won the Mercury Prize. The BBC described them as "quirky Indie rock". Mojo magazine reviewed them at The Green Man Festival in Wales and referred to their"woozyfolktronica' captivating the crowd. I wonder where the merge point 'twixt these band descriptions will fall?Time to find out. Alt-J are delighted to be in HK. Their debut release "An Awesome Wave" is seeping under my right guard something rotten. Based on what aI heard, I've got to go for woozy folktronica. Well,actually it also touches on psychedelic baroque pop and progacidfolk. They could be The Strawbs at times. Or Dr. Strangely Strange. Or Steeleye Span. Or some of the bands on the CD compilation "Insane Times" Their choirboy vocals are almost done as a roundelay while the keyboards, guitar, drums and bass have a country church sort of vibe. The track Bloodflood" seems to channeI the biblical prophesying of Texan gothic balladeer Josh T. Pearson and was a highlight. I was more impressed with them than with Primal Scream the night before. And a great coup for Clockenflap to get them just before they won The Mercury Prize.

Alt-J lose the core of their audience before the end of their set. Nearly everyone has buggered off to the Your Mum Stage to catch De La Soul. I saw them when they toured HK with Gorillaz a couple of years back and they were more thud and blunder than blood and thunder while trying to bring thanoize at least 3 feet high and rising. Basically, not so good. And then Bobby Womack followed them on stage. So, I wasn't too bothered about seeing them again. More fool me is all I can say. Simon, my bellwether, says they were the one band he wanted to see. So did the majority of other 'Flap followers. They pulled the biggest crowd of the Festival and delivered a high energy show that went right back to their roots.and redeemed memories of their HK debut. I saw a couple of minutes behind the crowd on the bank hanging on to the wire mesh fence. and headed back to check out The Klaxons on the Harbour Flap Stage.

Jamie, the bassist/vocalist with The Klaxons is leading his trio of other bandmates through a typical stomping cum messy set. He's delighted that the band are making their HK debut and that it's the first time they've been here. Not strictly true. Jamie and James, the keyboard player, did a suitably off the wall DJ set at Fly late last year(?), but it' is the first time the band have come here. As I said, Jamie is the master of ceremonies on bass and vocals. James jumps up and down behind his keyboards. The drummer (whose name I've forgotten) looks like he's suffering from progeria, but delivers a forceful and precise master class in bashing his four skins while keeping the songs on course. The mystery guitarist sticks in the shadows on stage right while contributing to the chaotic screech and scrawl of sound. They're a bit like The Soft Machine in a way in that no hint of a melody should dare to darken their music. While approaching the execution in a rowdy, rambunctious manner. A little more weird Moog electronica or squeals, blips and blurts of sonic hangover music would add to their cheesy(ish) glamour. Having said that, I enjoyed "Golden Scams", but overall, the set was paradoxically disappointing. Never mind, there's still Tiga to go.

Tiga is a Canadian dark electro DJ. He had a mega hit with Finnish DJ Jorri Hulkinnen a few years ago when they remixed "Sunglasses at Night" by Corey Hart. I don't know if he played it at Clockenflap. Probably not. Not that his devoted audience cares. They're going bonkers as he unwinds a stuttering chopped, twisted jerky blast of lean synth lines and treated vocals. The dancing never really stops. I find Karina at last. She says she moved here for Brandt, Brauer Frick who mix live percussion with loungecore/triphop/dark and uneasy electro melodies and they were brilliant. Then DLS across on the other stage and back for Tiga. Hardly any walking needed. Sounds like a great game plan. Next year, I must remember to get myself cloned so as to see as many acts as possible.I figure about 5 of me should be enough.Unless of course those pesky Mayans have advance knowledge of any galactic spanner being jammed into the celestial mechanisms that run our little ole Space Time Continuum. And of course, there's no pertinent information in The Hitch-Hiker;s Guide to the Galaxy. That I know of. Tiga finishes his set to warm applause. Dean warns us that the police are insisting the show must end at 2200. Or it will decrease chances of a successful Clockenflap 2013. Depending on the Mayans, of course. He says we "don't have to go home, but you can't stay here".

Time to take a hint, Pontus, Karina and I leave past the Time Out Stage where Shhhwing (Silent Disco) has about 30 people grooving noiselessly to random tunes in their future looking LED glowing headphones. It's Disco For The Deaf. Capped by a tuneless rampage through "Sweet Dreams (are made of this)" by The Eurhythmics.The final blast of madness for the night. It's time to get the slow boat home. And, yeah I reckon 2012 will be the Clockenflap Festival That Was Better Than The Best. I await next year's Festival and line up with great interest. Please make Toy your number one choice. Thanks in advance. nick the bookman

_________________
Click here for Lamma-zine stories and recent Lamma Spotlights of the Week:
Photo, Video, Person, Wildlife, Bird, Artwork.

Official Festival Map. Nick & I will be found somewhere on this map much of this weekend, covering it as registered media for the Lamma-zine.
For your comments and suggestions on what to write about, you're welcome to approach Nick; for ideas on what to take pictures of, you can approach me.

_________________
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Email from Clockenflap:

CLOCKENFLAP IS ALMOST HERE!

Get ready for the festival

Just 1 day left until Clockenflap opens its doors and welcomes the world in once more! 2013's festival is the biggest yet bringing you 3 days, 7 music stages, and over 100 amazing artists.

Expect unforgettable performances from Cui Jian, Franz Ferdinand, Chic (ft. Nile Rodgers), Metric, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, 2manydjs (DJ set), Four Tet, The 1975, Tegan and Sara, G.E.M. and much much more!

Join in the fun - Buy your tickets now from http://www.ticketflap.com if you haven't already. But hurry, tickets are selling fast.

See you at Clockenflap!


你準備好未？

剩番一日Clockenflap就會歡迎你大駕光臨！2013年一共會有3日、7個舞台、同100個精彩嘅表演單位，係歷年來最大型嘅Clockenflap！

我地會有崔健、Franz Ferdinand, Chic (ft. Nile Rodgers), Metric, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, 2manydjs (DJ set), Four Tet, The 1975, Tegan and Sara, G.E.M.等等為你送上精彩演出！

一齊嚟玩餐飽！如果你仲未買門票，即上 http://www.ticketflap.com 啦！真係剩番好少門票咋！

Clockenflap 見!

Download your complete festival guide here with the line-up, schedule, festival map, and more.
下載最新音樂節指南！包括表演者名單、時間表、音樂節地圖等等資料…

_________________
Click here for Lamma-zine stories and recent Lamma Spotlights of the Week:
Photo, Video, Person, Wildlife, Bird, Artwork.

I just saw the first 3 draft paragraphs of Nick's Clockenflap review, while restoring his almost-hacked Gmail account by resetting his password. Google had notified us that they stopped a hacking attempt:

"Someone recently used your password to try to sign in to your Google Account - nick.bookman@gmail.com.
We prevented the sign-in attempt in case this was a hijacker trying to access your account. Please review the details of the sign-in attempt:..."

Here it is, Nick's proto-review, raw and uncut... Many more paragraphs to follow soon, no doubt...

---

Clockenflap 2013. The template (1st cut)
by Nick the Bookman

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. (What the Dickens, Charles! Nick, I prefer Nick. Charles is my second name, seldom used until now. Anyway...)

It's the best of times because after five previous iterations, Clockenflap 2013 is becoming a big, burly, brooding behemoth of a blast of a festival. Three days - 29/11/2013, 30/11/2013 and 1/12/2013. This is a good thing. Much more rock to clap at Clockenflap. It's the best of times because previous reviews have tried to top the ones before. I think of them as one evolving continual mega-story. But, I'm running out of superlatives. So, Revise The Formula. From now on every show is "Betterer Than The Bestest"". Easy, flattering synopsis. Job Done. Hope you enjoyed this terse precis. You want more? I can tell. Take Two.

It's the worst of times because I completely failed to achieve one of my most "deep space thinking" pet projects. Yep, no cloning has occurred to enable me to see multiple gigs at once. (see 'Flap 2012 review). I blame BushReich. The fuckers have screwed up almost all of everything since the start of The Third Millennium. The Binary Day - 01/01/01. Even better is the Binary Second 0:1 0:1 0:1/01/01/01. Did you enjoy it. 61 minutes, 1 second into New Millennium Day. Chances are you were most likely singing, sleeping, snogging or swigging. Or maybe plotting a grimly fiendish future military occupation of Planet Earth from some cave like Pentagon. Yeah, like that ever only happens in the fiction of the late Tom Clancey. I do digress a bit. I'm sorry. It's all part of the Evolving Now of the SpaceTimeContinuum. Which basically precedes, subsumes and supercedes our linear wa-(Unless you've been unfortunate enough to take the brown acid)-y of thinking which is Past to Future. More fun when All is Simultaneous. All is One.

And that's me.

Clockenflap 2013 - final cut by Nick the Bookman

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. (What the Dickens, Charles! Nick, I prefer Nick. Charles is my second name, seldom used until now. Anyway...)

It's the best of times because after five previous iterations, Clockenflap 2013 is becoming a big, burly, brooding behemoth of a blast of a festival. Three days - 29/11/2013, 30/11/2013 and 1/12/2013. This is a good thing. Much more rock to clap at Clockenflap. It's the best of times because previous reviews have tried to top the ones before. I think of them as one evolving continual mega-story. But, I'm running out of superlatives. So, Revise The Formula. From now on every show is "Betterer Than The Bestest"". Easy, flattering synopsis. Job Done. Hope you enjoyed this terse precis. You want more? I can tell. Take Two.

It's the worst of times because I completely failed to achieve one of my most "deep space thinking" pet projects. Yep, no cloning has occurred to enable me to see multiple gigs at once. (see 'Flap 2012 review). I blame BushReich. The fuckers have screwed up almost all of everything since the start of The Third Millennium. The Binary Day - 01/01/01. Even better is the Binary Second 0:1 0:1 0:1/01/01/01. Did you enjoy it. 61 minutes, 1 second into New Millennium Day. Chances are you were most likely singing, sleeping, snogging or swigging. Or maybe plotting a grimly fiendish future military occupation of Planet Earth from some cave like Pentagon. Yeah, like that ever only happens in the fiction of the late Tom Clancey. I do digress a bit. I'm sorry. It's all part of the Evolving Now of the SpaceTimeContinuum. Which basically precedes, subsumes and supercedes our linear wa-(Unless you've been unfortunate enough to take the brown acid)-y of thinking which is Past to Future. More fun when All is Simultaneous. All is One.

And that's me. Pontus, my hunky Finnish heartthrob nephew isn't here this year. But I'm wearing his Tuska Crew 2011 t-shirt in solidarity.(An EN for Tatu (Mr. Finland), the drummer from Efterklang. SUVILAHDEN HURMAAJA. You're the first Finn to read this within the story and can hopefully explain the back-history). There'll probably be more EN's occurring. Briefly, I've got the MTR to Kowloon Station. Got off to find the ticket doesn't work. Relatively common experience. Get to the Media entrance where the gorgeously swoonsome and helpful Kinny gets me my media pass. Chat to Justin the Musical Director. "Hi. Enjoyed your interview with Mike on The Word. Who's replacing Two Door Cinema Club? "The Strypes". "O.K. They're a great band". I've got some minor reservations about Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. One fan described them as "surly" in a brief interview in Classic Rock. Give them the b. of the d. and figure it was just post-ironic. I read a Kasabian interview where they said the only gig they cancelled was due to a "Black Rebel Motorcycle Club thumb injury". What realms of rock behaviour are being covered up within that statement?. Anyway, I'm inside now.

The layout is much as before. Harbourflap and Robot stages to our collective left upon entry. Middling walk to the Your Mum Stage and double that again to the circular grassy knoll arena which hosts the Replay and Electric Owl Stages. Never made it to the Vans Stage and the Film Tent. Never made it to Memphis either which was the late Mick Farren's lament. He was responsible for all the EN cosmic fairydust of the paragraph before last. RIP O Deviant Chief! Check out his band's debut album "PTOOOFF" or variant spellings. Work a little here. Break some cyber-sweat.

First stop is Your Mum where ANWIYCTI are making some noise. The acroynm stands for A New World If You Can Take It. The quartet (as opposed to Fourtet who is a onetet) are three bassists and a drummer (mostly). There's Equus on lead bass bass. Joey is the plinky noodly melodic guitar bass. Kun is on trippy FX-play-with-a-violin-bow bass. Plus a smatter of keyboards. Pie handles the thunder drums. They are lovers of dissonance as well as melody and the space rocking starts here. Thanks to Tricia, their lovely #1 fan for the band details. For a first gig, Clockenflap isn't a bad way to start. For me, they recall Peter Hook's now defunct Freebass project and Apokalyptika, another quartet who play hideously expensive cellos and reconstruct/deconstruct Metallica. While also sounding like astral Ennio Morricone. Time for more space trucking.

Back at Harbourflap for the end of Movember. Rene's hosting a mustache-off between Jason and Johnny. Jason wins for best response to the question: If you could shave your mustache into a statement it would be...? "Fuck Cancer!". Johnny agrees and just wins the sash for Best Facial Foliage. The scene is set for The Strypes to make a blistering debut and erase all memories of the unfortunate Two Door who? I'm with Chunny who's hoping for some Ramones and Simon who says he's been hammering their debut LP for months. And Eva's Dave who's here to more than make up the numbers.

The four teens, only Josh is legally allowed to drink, bonded over a shared love of early Sixties R n' B and swaggering blues. Topped off by some fiery harmonica. The thrills within the trills. In the first few songs, they evoke The Who. The way the singer swings the mike is pure Roger. The leap in the air with feet kicked back is perfect Pete T. Who is a fan of the band. The harmonica playing and interplay is Yardbirds (without the feedback) and Them (without piano). Shit, a hint of electric jug could make them into Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators. (Without all the brown acid from above, obviously). They are punctilious about thanking Clockenflap for bringing them here. They name all their songs. Most of which I forgot to write down. They big up BRMC who are following them on the bill. They announce who they are. In alphabetical instrumental order they are: Pete on bass. Ewan on drums. Josh on guitar. Ross on vocals and main harmonica. One one track Josh plays bass while Pete plays harmonica or harp and Ross plays guitar. There's a splendid cover of "You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover" by the late Sky Saxon and the Seeds. Chunny also gets his Ramone's moment. I've started an Androgynous Drummers debate. Andrew looks like his face has jumped straight off the cover of the New York Dolls debut LP. He and Pete are the Mitch and Noel of the band, due to their burgeoning curly hair starting to morph into white boy proto afros. By Mitch and Noel I am referring to the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Meanwhile, Josh and Ross are the only two people on the planet right now who can make That HAIRCUT!!! by Justin Bieber look remotely cool. The first Breakout Performance of this Festival.

One glowing tribute to The Strypes now comes from the ethereal Nicole. She wrote that it's "The closest we're getting to The Beatles in this day and age". She's right if you consider the early Beatles, honed from the hard yards in Hamburg, rocking out before their triumphant return to Liverpool's Cellar. Welcome to the story, love. Enjoy your very own paragraph.

Who knows where the time goes. Sandy Denny didn't and I'm lost too. I'm on the fringes of Your Mum grooving along to the decidedly dubtripbleepbeats of Willow Beats. They seem like amiable Aussies from Queensland, rapt at being here. I didn't get their names, but he looks like he's escaped from the front cover of "Freak Out" by the Mothers Of Invention', She's swathed in lace and shawls like Stevie Nicks. Barefoot and doing slow arabesques around the stage while crooning like some delicious blend of Nina Hagen and Ofra Haze. Theatrical and operatic in places, they're one of the more offbeat and pleasant surprises on offer. Too much to see. Too little time to hear it in.

Karina's arrived by now. In a hurry to see FourTet weave his laptop digital sorcery. He's on the Replay Stage where I'm blown away to find ex-Lammaniacs Sean and Big Mark doing a more than professional job of making everything run slow and easy. Maintain The Even Strain. Sean says almost everyone appears to have happy dances in their eyes as they get down to this remote corner of West Kowloon Hub. Karina's been really busy. We exchange a few greetings and I don't see her for the rest of the weekend. The Boys I do keep up with. They're my main conduit to getting backstage to interview selected performers. Big Mark is really looking forward to BRMC. I feel I should check them out as well, but don't want to miss FourTet. It's about a five minute knee-trembly walk from Harbourflap to Replay. Practical logic suggests I see the first part of FourTet and then roar off to BRMC's debut. Because, it's quicker to leave the Hub and get on the MTR to get the 2230 HKFF and then walk home. I don't care if I Miss the 2230 ferry. The 2330 will/does/has sufficed. Practical logic is wrong in this case. I should have watched all of FourTet, using the latest in applied successful Festival Logic.

I'm not quite sure how BRMC blew it. One quote I heard was "Relentlessly adequate. Your basic stoner rock." BRMC have been compared to JAMC, MBV and Ride. There wasn't any Mary Chain feedback and reverb. There wasn't any Valentine outerspace-meets-galactic-whales type solos. There wasn't a frenzy of FX pedal mashing like Ride. That I could see. In fairness, I'm stone cold ignorant of the BRMC musical body of work. I'd just heard the above mentioned bands used as reference points The drummer is also a bit androgynous. Looks a bit like Rickie Lee Jones. Turns out be She. Good at what She does. I couldn't hear any song titles. No introductions, No bigging up Clockenflap. Most of the songs probably came from the latest LP which is "Specter At The Feast". Sort of showcases a new mellower stonerdelic direction. There was one bit of fan interaction during the last song. Bassman jumped off the stage. Approached the crowd barrier and was politely mobbed by half a dozen fans who helped him play a solo. I'm reminded of the Mel Smith/Griff Rhys-Jones talking faces about grooving to Status Quo. "Der-dun-der-dun-der-dun-der-dun..."(ad nauseum) where they wake up and everything but the lava lamp has been nicked from their grotty student squat. Incidentally, Big Mark lasted the first song. "Right, I've seen them. Time to go". And like Zebedee, he did, (but not to bed).

OK, here's Noble and her moment of infinite glory (by infinite I obviously mean the next 100 trillion years until the eventual and total Heat Death Eradication Of The Universe. After that, me and Sandy Denny still won't know where the SpaceTime goes). Anyway, her little chunk of enlightenment goes as follows. "I think Clockenflap is one of the biggest music Festivals in HK. Enjoy these three days with your heart and soul". There's also a comment "Zenegeist" in 7B. Search It. Seek and you shall find. Let's get inter-active here, folks.

While leaving BRMC's fateful final musical flourishes to float away into freespace, Toby, Amit and Mark are enhancing my enjoyment of this Friday. Toby is spot on. "This is my second Clockenflap. Just as good as the first, but with more toilets". Amit is more cryptic. "Ïf you don't ask, you don't get. Clockenflap gives a lot". Without our asking, they nourish our starving musical spirit. And Mass takes this Friday experience to a whole new level. He doesn't write anything profound. Or silly. He doesn't write anything. Instead, I get my very own original piece of art. It looks more of a pissed Mass-O than a missed Picasso. But, Lamma-Gung has a photo and it's now legendary. I think it would scare the shit out of Lon Chaney who once warned that there is "nothing more scary than a clown after midnight". Welcome to the story Mass. Glad to have your interactive input. Avid fans who want more delightfully deranged art should go to info@markgoss.com and enjoy thrills, chills and beer-spills in remembrance of this moment that's already been downshifted from my short term memory to medium term recall and an eventual long term forgettery. That's It. Day one is pretty much done.

Believe It Or Not. I get a second bum ticket on the MTR back to Central. Two in one day. On consecutive rides for me. The security counter guy lets me out a side gate without explaining what's wrong with this ticket. I mean: Two In One Day! What are the odds on that. All I've got going through my brain is Neil (the Hippie from The Young Ones) groaning "Technofear".

There's an unexpected EN backjump to yesterday when I realise my chat with Justin doesn't start until this morning 3/11/2013. Day Two Of Clockenflap. Oh, well. I'm sure I'm not the only manglee making his way to the Hub for more of the same, but different please. No trouble with electronic tickets today. I think by writing these notes, I have banished, vexed, hassled and harried these electro-gremlins into up-fucking someome else's day one. Dark Himaya are playing on the Vans Stage. Don't get to see them. Have seen them before and they are great. Ditto for The Bollands. Joyce and Christian did a delightful set at Lamma Fun Day the weekend before. Then, they were a duo. Now they're a quartet, augmented by Gabe (from tDBK) on drums and drummer Ali from DP on bass. What little I heard in passing was excellent. But I'm on a mission to see Juana Molina on the Replay Stage. Here's why.

Efterklang who are on the Replay Stage at 1715 - 1800 tomorrow, have praised Juana and her band as One To Watch. "We're particularly looking forward to Omar Souleyman and Juana Molina". In the EN they've missed each other's gigs by a day, even though they're taking place simultaneously. So, how can I help. First. Good call by Efterklang. Your repertoires are similar with ethno-centric local charms. Juana is on guitar and vocals. Odin is on keyboards and occ. acc. gtr. Diego is the master drummer. The music is guttural, chanted, quite peculiarly Argentinian world and folk based and utterly charming. One track, Diego is playing some small finger click sort of beat. That's all, Odin has a sleek, sexy, salsa-like synth bass line coiling and whooping it up while he plays the above occ.acc. gtr. There seems to be some Shamanism at work here. I'm lost in music and lost for words. No way to reveal the magic in the music. After the gig, I meet them for a chat.

I tell Juana (who reminds me at times of the late Janis Joplin - looks and voice a bit) that Efterklang recommended you in their programme interview. Would she like to respond. She does. "Thanks, Efterklang for everything. All the best. Juana Molina". Lamma-Gung has the photo. Martin, her sound engineer is the embodiment of graciousness. He gives me a copy of Wed 21, Juana's latest CD, which the current band play extremely well. Although, they're not on the original recordings. So, I'm spreading the word. Want to learn more? Go to http://www.crammed.be. Or http://www.juanamolina.com. I envy you your first listening experience. Martin says the band is en route to Tokyo. "Juana goes there every year for the past ten years". The band is chuffed by Efterklang's kind words. I say I'll pass on/am passing on/have passed on her message. See if they'll respond in kind. Big thanks to Mike "Wolfpac" Ip from Mugazine music magazine for taking the photos of me and Gerry in front of the stage as JM perform. A special pleasure to chat with Odin and Diego after the gig. I promise them one of my mixes which will be/is/was delivered by Efterklang. Martin, hope you didn't hurt yourself too badly when you fell over.

The chronological route is taking too long.We're now in Day Three. Sunday. Just past tea time. Basically Efterklang turned up on the Replayer Stage on time and delivered their own stunning mix of new sounds and sonic explorations. Normally, a core trio of Caspar on vox. Rasmus on bass. Mads on electronics. And a good beard growing in there, Mads. I'm a big fan of bushy beards. Had mine 18 years. I spent an hour a week shaving. That's 52 hours each year I could be in bed with my lovely wife Mari. Or doing pretty much of anything not requiring a razor. And if it's good enough for most of ZZ Top... Sorry, where was I? On from male grooming tips. Right, core essence. Done. The other members of this sextet incarnation of Efterklang are Martyn on guitars and keyboards. Katinka on breathy Sigur Ros dream-swoon vocals and keyboards. I think her voice evokes a sweet symbiosis of Bjork and Sandy Denny, the late, great Queen of English folk-rock in the '60's/70's. Also dueted with Led Zeppelin on "The Battle Of Evermore". And the aforementioned Tatu, Mr. Finland, on drums, pots and pans. The music is Danish blissful. Lonely, haunted soundscapes. The tempo moves from summer drifty crash out to blazing drum and bass high speed percussive frenzy. Perfectly complementing what JM did the day before.

So I meet them. Caspar is a joy to chat with. He reads Juana's words, Takes a photo at my behest. Now they've got the proof that I completed/joined up the triangle. They've got Odin's email. They've also got a copy of Nixmix #14 which they promise to forward to JM. They like what I say is mixed into it. They might even have played some of it at the Efterklang DJ closing Festival party for VIP ticket holders. Be nice if they did, but I'm not expecting them to waste their DJ gig on my vintage wares. Further into the EN, the answers to all these posers are known. Just not by me. This whole little lovefest music triangle is exactly what I love about Clockenflap. Even in my little old 2-D 'scape of paper and pen, things are getting done. I believe this is called "Networking". That's what someone told me. Nice to try it. Was it that Greatest Living Englishman Lord Melchett of Fry who said to try anything once. "Except incest and Morris Dancing". So, that doesn't rule out bestiality?

Right, It's Yesterday Once More. Just think that if Karen Carpenter had eaten the last half of Mama Cass Elliott's sandwich, they might both be still alive. Actually Mama Cass died of an obesity heart attack and not from a bulimic bender of eat and purge, so that just remains a grim warning not to tell Dead Rock Star jokes. Coming Back From The Dead however is something The Regurgitators have pulled off splendidly. They're on the Harbourflap Stage, partying like it's 2003 all over again. That's when they made a ferociously well-received debut at Rock-It Festival #1 in Victoria Park. They were such crowd-pleasers they were promptly invited back in 2004. Then, they lived in a glass house to record an LP. Quan moved to HK around the start of the New Millennium. Got married here. Still lives here. Brought the reformed 'Gurge to HK to record their latest LP. Now, they're playing Clockenflap. First international band to cross over from Rock-It top Clockenflap. Locally, the Uptown Rockers have done the same.

Quan also helped to do the soundtrack for the legendary Lamma Zombie Movie, "Ïsle Be Damned". What do you mean, you haven't seen it. Stop reading this rave-a-logue and go on YouTube and find it. Now. It's only 15 minutes of your life. Anyway, the boys turn in a stunning crowd pleasing greatest hits. All the funk/metal/synthpop big choons just for you. Some fine rapping by Quan. Good jokes by Ben on bass and vocals. Held tightly in check by the powerhouse percussive skills of Pete. (You're still here? Go and watch the movie. Right The Fuck Now!). Have a brief chat backstage with Quan who remembers me as the...well, let's not spoil that pleasure for the I.B.D. virgins and neophytes. He signs a set list for Patrick who collects them. As do I, but he can have this one. Quan says he can't wait for Chic with Nile Rodgers. "David Bowie's "China Girl" and "Let's Dance".

There's another major EN shift now as I jump ahead to the near end of Day Three. 2ManyDj's are resplendent in their suits on the Replay Stage. Their set is an electro-bubbly stew of mashed up dance hits, smash hits and humongous amounts of tweaking knobs and sliders. There's Doppler shifts in tone and tempo. Buzzing bouncy bass lines. Occasional hints of tunes I know. But the DJ Box of Magic Tricks is not inexhaustible. About 4o minutes into their high-energy technoid set, I'm getting a feeling of boredom. Heard it already. Time to shuffle off as the Festival closes. Other people are on the same track. To my surprise and delight. Cui Jian is still going strong. As befits the rehabilitated Godfather of Modern Rock in China. His band sounds awesome. The song they're playing is immense, Haunting keyboard melodies speaking to me of three thousand years of brutality, bloodshed, persecution, cannibalism and general bad behaviour by The Boys In Charge. It might not have been about any of that. I haven't got a clue. But to me, it sounds like it could have been the most important song/tune to be played at Clockenflap 2013. I hope so. After all, there was a reason he was chosen to Close The Festival on the Harbourflap Stage. I wish I'd seen more.

Wish Granted! Welcome Now to a peripatetic pirouette through the spaceblob/mashtime of the Festival. Floss is very terse, but effusive with his praise. "Bollands. Great!". Mike, from Bella Elektra thanks me for enjoying their show last year and says FourTet was worth the standing about. More or less. He's enjoying Juana (where we are now) and is going to get his boogie on with Chic.

But first, time to check out the stream of songs coming from Ellen Loo and the Ripple Band. There's Waiting Soul on bass. Mike Orange on guitar. Jason Choi on keyboard(s). Stephane on drums. Ellen on guitar and vocals. And, all important. Ming, the Roadie. Nice you mentioned him. Shows the care/respect in the band. Also shown in their Canto-sung, good sounding melodic, alternative(ish) rock. Aided by bags of riffs from the Cho Chuk Mo duo, appearing with Ellen. The band are tight, but have room to swing or jam or solo for a spell. A Gestalt Result. Thanks for Ellen, who used to live a spell on Lamma, for The Phrase Of The Day, nay Festival. You ready? A big shout out to yourselves of "liao bu chi". According to Ellen, that mean's "I'm fucking AMAZING!". And we can be heroes, just for one day (or three).

This next dude has been a hero for longer than that. Ladies and Gentlemen, give it up big time for Chic (featuring Nile Rodgers). His musical foil, Bernard Edwards, can't be here. Alas, he is decomposing. Nile had a hard, by some standards, life. His mother was under 14 when she had him. Both parents were heroin addicts. That was normal in his neighbourhood/slum. Everyone was like that. Got into music. Wrote their biggest early single "Le Freak" after being refused entry to Studio 54 by its megalomaniac cokehead top dog, Steve Rubell. Even though he knew who they were and their music was flying. They wandered in a very pissed off sort of way to their studio and started jamming around a chorus of "Fuck Off" or "Fuck You". Realised it was a hit. Changed the title. Changed the face of disco. Co-wrote "We Are Family", "Material Girl", and "Let's Dance". More recently, he's collaborated with Swedish EDM maestro on the hit "Wake Me Up". Number One in 68 countries. Plus stuff with sometime Queen vocalist Adam Lambert on his debut release "True". And he's helped lift some nearly anonymous French electro duo into the charts with their new release. I think they're called Daft Punk. They are going to be HUGE! Remember, you read it here not last. Oh, yeah, he's also fighting "extremely aggressive" pancreatic cancer.

Welsh Tom tells me later that he and some other fans met Nile outside the W Hotel. He posed for every photo and chatted to everyone who wanted to talk to him. Amiable Pro Behaviour. Chic played 90 minutes. I watched three hit songs. The band is honed to perfection after a summer of big Festivals. But in an odd way the daylight disco doesn't gel. Where are the Studio 54 dark dripping nooks full of copulating couples, crazed on cocaine, champagne and quaaludes? There's no dancefloor rutting/strutting. No mashed monologues of mindbending inanity. No horses.... But Chic produced a show to rival De La Soul last year.

Right. time to enjoy the splendid talents of some of the French Bands. Spread throughout the EN. Right after Chic are Bonaparte who are "brusque plus a burlesque dancer. More urban/sexy tunes in a Jim Rose Sideshow Circus sort of way. Or Circus Archaos. The sentence after this has precis details from the programme with full credit to Clockenflap.. OK, the sentence after this. Swiss musician Tobias Jundt and his small version of his touring big band of 20-ish members push "hedonistic revelry through a lo-fi punk aesthetic...electro and pop...rock and hip-hop...excessive live performances...often surreal". And plenty of hoots and hollers from the up front happy hominids.

French Cowboy and The One is Federico Pellegrini, late of the now-defunct Late Rabbits. He's a grizzled meld of Serge Gainsborough and Harry Dean Stanton, singing tales that evoke sun-seared desert terrains. Tumbleweeds bobbing and bouncing like the juicy beats I'm hearing. That's due to The One who is bare-chested and channelling the power precision of bonkers Butthole Surfers percussive action. Desert-delic.

And La Femme, the most telegenic and quirky of the three. There are Une femme et Cinq hommes. They weave a sultry sugary sheen into their glassy hooks and melodies. Subverted by deliciously twisted and evil Doppler shifts in tones and crazed cartoon psyche-beats and bleeps. At times they're heavier than the similar cut ups being performed by 2ManyDJs further in the now. And sweet sexy vocals intruding now and then in a Tao and Zen sort of rhyming way. Yeah, Shagadelic Baby! Oh, Fuck Off Austin. I don't watch your movies. Don't crash my review.

Finally, Modeselektor close Day Two with a minimal to maximus beautifully crafted set of Intelligent Dance Music. Plus a Kraftwerkian meets Liquid Len type of cyber light show and visuals. There's machine beat perfection and overlays and intermingles of bleeps, phasing, electro-tweaking. Plus more abstract noise in places. They got a standing "O". Mind you, they were up against the miracle performance. Franz Ferdinand on the Harbourflap stage. Completely recovered from his fatal shooting on 28/6/1914 which started WW1 and, well the bloodshed hasn't ceased to bubble and flow and gout and gush. What? Wrong Franz Ferdinand? They're just some cocky kids? And I missed them? Here's the programme notes. "...timeless songwriting flair, lyrical detail, hard-hitting hooks" covering artfunkpoppunk. Apparently, they were also good enough to get 90 minutes. Have the fans dancing Chic to geekcheek.

It's mid afternoon Day Three and Tegan and Sarah and their trusty backing band are wowing the crowd at Harbourflap Stage. They're Canadian and are apparently considering moving to HK. At least in the first moment of confession of this thought. Ripples of dreamy appreciation expand through the crowd at the joy of possibly hearing more. A few people have raved about them and I guess they're in the crowd. They weave a sonic tapestry meshing the country folk rock of say, Gordon Lightfoot with helpings of Kate and Anna Magarrigle (who once played a breathtaking show in HK City Hall as part of an early Annual Arts Festival. And they mix in elements of blissful synth and keyboards which could emanate from Kate Bush or Peter Gabriel's Real World recordings as produced by David Guetta (still, 2013's #1 DJ Of The Year) They mixed and matched their set beautifully and were guileless and warm in their interjectory interactions with the audience. Bravo!

Meanwhile, a hypnotic pulsing performance is coming at ya from the Replay Stage. We've had the Afro-Cuban dance grooves and percussive fun from Banda Orbita at the onset of this EN time (Day One for everyone else) They're one of HK's best kept secrets who have been honing their craft sporadically since 2010 or so. Barney Bruce does his bit on percussion. Lamma talent cooking away. I missed them. But I caught some of Fatoumata Diawara and her mixed band French/Malian musicians. Muscular rhythms. Sinous, snaking guitar playing. Ferocious drums. Elements of jazz, funk and folk from her ancestral Wasserlou tradition. Blended with an Oyster Band sense of rock over folk power of performance. Not quite as imperial as Youssou N'Dor or as sweetly jolly as The Bhundu Boys, but all three shows are coeval. Thanks, and it's my pleasure to introduce the band. Fata on guitar and vocals. Jean-Baptiste Gbaaoe on drums and vocals. Jean Alain Hohy on bass and vocal. And Gregory ("My friend. Life Is Beautiful"). Emonet on guitars. The long-dormant Spirit Of Hong Kong Folk Festivals (passim) is being re-woken. And there looked like there were some Happy Feet enjoying the grooves.

Time for Metric on the Harbourflap Stage. They're another strong Canadian band. In fact the programme lauds them as Indie-rock Royalty. A beguiling mix of great Blondie and vintage Ultravox. Rock chords are chiming out everywhichway. The glacial-sort-of-gloomy-but-not-really keyboards are elegiac in their goth beauty. The singer is Emily Haines and I'm indebted for that factoid to Francesco Ayala who's lying on the ground next to me. She asks what I'm writing. Then coos in excitement as she realises that I'm that guy from... you know and you do that thing you do... somewhere. I think she's trying to say that she's seen my bookshelf on Lamma when she was last there. Anyway, Francesca. It's your turn in this paragraph. "Metric. This is my favourite band in the world". She's clearly chuffed to be breathing the same air as Metric. But remember Ellen and "liao bu chi". We are all as one on this issue. Thanks for your input, Francesca. See you on Lamma somewhen.

There were joys a plenty to be savoured which I missed. Saw nothing on The Vans Off The Wall Stage. Didn't get near it. Karl recommended the German bratwurst sausage from The Flying Brats(?). Divine, my photographer friend, turned up in the middle of Steve Bruce's excellent DJ slot and handed out some slices. Yum Yum. Would have liked to see/hear the Hitchcock film "Blackmail" with a live piano score by Stephen Horne. Missed, Benga, The XXX Bass Showcase, Ocean Lam, Devlar and Casey Anderson and pretty much everything in The Bearded Lady Sideshow. But I'm glad to have got in the tent briefly to catch up with Alok, who got me in the VIP drink tent to speak to some other stars. Thank you Alok. And I really tried to make your gig. Hopefully next year. When I'm cloned... Well, that's all folks. I'm almost written out. I've got to wait for some more short term memories to collide/meld with the medium term recollections and fill in some more blanks. Right now, I'm knackered. It's time to go home. See my wife and enjoy a far far better rest (that) I go to... ntb

Email feedback from Odin Schwartz of Juana Malino, after reading Nick's review above ("Odin has a sleek, sexy, salsa-like synth bass line coiling and whooping it up while he plays the above occ.acc. gtr. There seems to be some Shamanism at work here. I'm lost in music and lost for words. No way to reveal the magic in the music. After the gig, I meet them for a chat."):

"Hi nick, you genius!!!!
Great review! Thank you very much. I'll resend it to Juana! Hope we meet again soon!!!
Best wishes!"

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Plus, the humble early days of Clockenflap... on Lamma!
See this Lamma-zine story:

April 14 2006: Looking for Abandoned Clockenflaps?

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