Hats off to HaarFest

It's now been a month since Fence Records' second HaarFest event, and I think I'm just about ready to regather my senses, think up a local-news-style headline, and cast a teary backwards glance over the week's events.

HaarFest is Fence's more relaxed sister-event to the now well-established Homegame. Where that festival now has about forty-five acts, crammed into several venues over one weekend of concentrated chip suppers, pear cider and hedonism, Haarfest harks back to the event's earlier days, with the music only running in one venue at a time, and with quaintly diverting activities like sack races and geological walks to fill lazy days. And pear cider.

I was running a felt hat making workshop this year, which ran across two days, to meet demand. Yes, people were mad for making felt hats, it turned out.

The premise was similar to that behind last year's successful googley-eye workshop; to start with a simple idea that then provided a jumping-off point for participants to go bat-poo-crazy with: in this respect, the results could not have been more satisfying!
HMS Ginafore had dubbed the workshop "Hardsparrow's Madhatters Hat Party", and so I felt duty bound to provide party rings and pink wafers, but a majority of these actually ended up as integral elements of people's headgear. We first made simple felt hoods, but these really began to come alive when the workshoppers started adding their own embellishments and design-twists!

You can see pictures of some of the hats on the Fence forum here.


Madhatters in Cellardyke Town Hall.

The hats were subsequently worn as part of a pageant on the Sunday, with King Creosote and HMS Ginafore leading a colourful musical procession, winding its way from the Fisheries Museum to the Cellardyke Town Hall, where a ceilidh dinner-dance brought the week's events to a climax. Later that evening, the last of the bands played, before King Creosote treated those still wobbling to carefully selected gems from his extensive collection of Eighties vinyl.


Confiscate KC's early Eighties vinyl at your peril

Sadly, I missed the church tea, the sports day, the playwriting workshops, and the Pictish Trail's musical pub-crawl, but the fascinating geological tour of the Cellardyke shoreline, and the usual sterling line-up of musical wonders (see video, top) more than made up for that. I'm sure there were other things too, moonlit swims in the Cellardyke pool, Seamus Fogarty on stage in a biscuit and feather-covered felt hat, rescuing toads, wandering around beaches in Pittenweem unable to find Jo Foster's art installation (had it washed away?).. but not much of it comes back to me with any clarity now, lost amidst the usual jumble of laughter, music, good times and drinking that constitute a Fence event! So, a big thanks for all the hard work of the organisers, and to all the inspirational hat-makers, and godspeed next year, when Haarfest will hopefully once again roll to shore.


Seamus Fogarty wears silly hat (photo by Ade Brown)

The "Cellardyke Rose"

Chip Tune Marching Band

Blogging! Reality -as it happens! So.. six weeks ago, on Friday 3rd April, I caught an early (9AM!) train to Helsinki to take part in the Chip Tune Marching Band workshop that was happening as part of the Pixelache Festival. This workshop is run by a friendly bunch from Newcastle University's Culture Lab. The idea is for a group of people, of whatever background, to build a simple electronic instrument and then march with it through the city (Berlin is next). 

Arriving ahead of time at the designated meeting point, in the foyer of Kiasma, I was immediately met by no-one. Like the mountaineer who realises, half-way up, that they have left the bath running, my anxiety was beginning to rise; my brain was plugged in, and both taps were on full. I hurried to the bus station, recalling a bus number but finding no such bus. At the last moment, it occurred to me that I had the number upside-down, and it was with great relief that I climbed aboard. It was with even greater relief that I soon heard the familiar accents of Englishmen abroad, and so was introduced to the Chip Tune team! 

The workshop took place at the University of Art & Design (a wander through which was an experience in itself!). After an informal introduction session (open to anyone, the workshop was in fact mostly attended by alarmingly interesting people working in such spheres as performance art and experience design), we were put in pairs and given the components with which to build our Chip Tune instrument. The workshop stems from a project to investigate taking electronic art out of traditional contexts, often using adapted consumer technology.. so it was that my partner created a device that used a hand-cranked mobile phone charger to generate the sound. I was left with a light-sensor, but was happy to be able to build something that I might be able to use less dextrously, whilst playing guitar or whatnot. You know, by covering it with my foot or something. 

Once we had created our new sound weapons (and many of them really did look like weapons!) we were issued with green logo-emblazoned vests, and toured the halls of the university before heading out onto the mean streets of Helsinki. Attempts to orchestrate a dynamic call and response, between the high and low pitched instruments, generally gave way to a chip-skronk free-for-all, as we wound through the local streets like a particularly noxious cloud of hornets. 

This was a really fascinating day, a chance to meet and talk with some very interesting people, and a doorway, for me, into the previously socially-intimidating world of circuit boards and Maplins components. Maybe now I can go back and build that "non-operative theremin" from Grand Royal magazine! My instrument, pictured here, has since been disassembled and rehoused in a Milk Seafood Noodle pot, and was played, with successful results, in a song in my set at the Homegame Festival in Scotland (hopefully an MP3 to follow!). Thank you CTMB!