Neprimerimye

Over at Peppermint Iguana my friend Clint, I use the term loosely for he is a hippy and therefore beneath contempt, has a list of this years Summer festivals. Festivals are held sacred by hippies as they allow them to engage in their favorite pastimes of listening to cacophonous rubbish, smoking 'erb and not washing while avoiding decent society.

Left to their own devices hippies would allow civilisation to collapse and would run round naked but for a liberal daubing of woad. In fact one easy way to spot a hippy is to look for their tribal markings and distinctive clothing or lack of same! Tie dye T shirts and jewelry suspended from parts of the body which are not meant to be pierced are a good indication of a hippy in my past experience.

But the factor which always gives hippies away lies in their persistant lack of understanding as to what is or is not good music. How else can we explain the popularity of such dreadful apparitions as Ozric Tentacles and others whose names I neither know nor care to know. What need have I for their names when their smell alone gives their presence away?

But getting back to the point it is interesting - at least a little bit interesting - that punk which originated as a reaction to the drabness of the mid-1970's music scene has metamorphed into a pallid 'youth style' and/or a drab little tribal scene of shouty sloganeers who base their half baked ideas on what can only be classified as regurgitated hippy drivel.

And so the hippy punks join with the new age hippies and the weekend hippies for the festival season once again. And once again I cast my eyes over the line ups for the festivals in the vain hope that one at least might provide me with some musical stimulation and/or enjoyment. But, alas, the same judgement as in previous years must be returned and I must point out that the festivals are rubbish designed to bilk decent people of their money and/or commonsense.

Note well that a sub-species of the hippy species is very much interested in obtaining the hard earned cash of their fellow hippies. Certainly the peace and love ideology, pass the sick bucket please, is common to all hippies of all generations. But some hippies are more equal than others and not above taking advantage of their more gullible brethren. How else do you think Branston, himself only a semi-hippy but the point is valid nonetheless, obtained his many millions but by bilking poor hippies and selling them crapola like Tubular Bells? The same may be said of Malcom McLaran, a lesser more ideological hippy, but still a filthy hippy.

I challenge anyone with an understanding of the nature of music to find more than one potential valid musical experience at any of the festivals which Clint lists with such care and concrn for the great unwashed of hippiedom. It simply cannot be done for where there are once interesting artists appearing on the bills it is always the case that they have grown senile or are sucking on Satans corporate dick and looking for the largest possible audience regardless of how the music suffers as a result.

But here I must end for I'm growing bored of this rant. But let me remind you, my brave handful of readers, that the only good festival ever was Altamont for it temporarily halted the advance of the 'love generation'. Lets be clear here the B54's should have bombed Woodstock not Vietnam.