Latitude Festival

Sure, the USA has Bonnaroo and South By Southwest and Burning Man and Lollapalooza (I think), but this is far more my speed: the Latitude Festival on the East Coast of England. A fantastic lineup of bands as well as poets and writers, a magical leafy location (check out that photo gallery), and the small-scale feel that makes it far more mellow and family-friendly than the giganto-fests like Glastonbury and Reading.

(Interestingly, the undisputed mack daddy of the summer music festival circuit, Glastonbury, has been having trouble shifting tickets for this year's festivities -- partly, it is said, due to the 'controversial' choice of Jay-Z to headline one of the stages -- while smaller 'boutique' festivals like Latitude sold out in no time at all. The tide appears to be turning against ginormo-fests in favour of the more intimate experiences like this one.)

Playlist from June 18

Blur - Chemical World (Modern Life is Rubbish)
Ed Harcourt - Hanging With The Wrong Crowd (Here Be Monsters)
Elvis Costello - Sulky Girl (Brutal Youth)
The Coral - Dreaming of You (The Coral)
Ladytron - Kletva (Velocifero)
Super Furry Animals - At Least It's Not The End Of The World (Rings Around the World)
Sondre Lerche - You Know So Well (Faces Down)
Supergrass - Diamond Hoo Ha (Diamond Hoo Ha Man)
Belle and Sebastian - Stay Loose (Dear Catastrophe Waitress)
Lilac Time - This Morning (Lilac6)
Elbow - Grounds For Divorce (The Seldom Seen Kid)
Aztec Camera - Good Morning Britain (Retrospect)
Libertines - Time for Heroes (The Libertines)
James - Whiteboy (Hey Ma)
Morrissey - You Have Killed Me (Greatest)
Wonder Stuff - Welcome to the Cheap Seats (Never Loved Elvis)
U2 - Ultra Violet (Light My Way) (Achtung Baby)
St. Etienne - Like a Motorway (Tiger Bay)
Portishead - The Rip (Third)
Kate Walsh - Your Song (Tim's House)
Goldfrapp - LIttle Bird (Seventh Tree)
Kate Nash - We Get On (Made of Bricks)
Camera Obscura - Tears for Affairs (Let's Get Out of this Country)
The Cure - The Only One (new single)

George Harrison -- Crackerbox Palace

Digging around on YouTube I came across this gem -- a video for George Harrison's 1976 single "Crackerbox Palace," directed by that noted Python, Eric Idle. The video is utterly mad, and seems to embody a kind of cartoonish excess, achieving a fusion of the Monty Python sensibility (see: cameos by Graham Chapman and Neil Innes in drag) as well as the Beatles' own take on surrealism (think a live-action Yellow Submarine), all wrapped up in a Fellini-esque carnival atmosphere.

Everyone involved seems to be having what we Brits call 'a total laugh,' and the video features some lovely footage of George's house, Friar Park in Henley-on-Thames. At the risk of dropping names, I was at school with Harrison's son Dhani, and seeing this video took me right back to my childhood, when I too gallivanted around the house and gardens shown here (although I was dressed a little less crazily.)