Introducing Earwig the Antidote to Apples ipod
For all those people who love to party meet earwig, the antidote to Apples ipod. Earwig is a solar powered wheelbarrow disco played by yours truly DJ Dirty Ali. All of the music comes from the dump and so does most of the equipment. Only a few technical bits have been used from new and these will soon be replaced with scrap when suitable replacements materialise.
Since 2007 Earwig has been upgraded to twin turntables, mixing desk and digital recording giving approximately three hours playing time. You can also book DJ Dirty Ali without Earwig or renewable energy for any event. The beauty of Earwig is no wires, great music and better for the environment by far. You can literally make a party anytime and anywhere accessible by barrow.
The plan is to use Earwig to raise money and awareness of the human impact on our environment. This includes giving people a better chance to understand complicated issues like climate change, recycling and renewable energy. Earwig is a practical and social demonstration of green technology and environmental issues for use in communities, education, festivals and parties.
In 2008 Tip of the Pops, featuring DJ Dirty Ail and Earwig, have already played to rave reviews from revellers in Dorset. Including a schizophrenic care home, a bonkers house party, a 50th Birthday party and Buskers Bash. After the success of last years Boscombe Community Fair we will be applying for environmental grants to make the green area a centre piece of this years festival. I am also applying for a grant to set-up and establish Tip of the Pops and the Creative Dynamo website for educational use.
Progress on the studio has been slower than expected and I have still not digitised the remaining Big Green Breakfast shows. Apologies to www.greenvoice.com and the original limey MC Ollie (slick) who featured on those. There are also recordings from Boscombe Community Fair waiting to be done. In the meantime I think I will upload the first climate change talk given at the Bournemouth Fire Festival in May 2007.
If you have any feedback or questions please comment or email me info[at]creativedynamo.net
Boscombe Community Fair 2007
One week after Boscombe Community Fair and I'm finally getting back to normal. I'm even moving into a house tomorrow as I've been on-the-road all summer. The community fair is a great little event that tops off the summer for me every year. This year I managed with a lot of help to set-up the wind turbine for the first time. Even though there was hardly any wind it was up 3 days early and inspired loads of people to enquire about using our electricity. Throughout the whole festival we were providing green power to the healing area, kids area and the agoraphobic pirate arena. On top of that Boscombe community fair want us to provide more energy next year – success.
Friday night I DJ'd as Dirty Ali in the arts tent enchanted forest party. There was a disco dancing contest and I gave away 3 classic disco tracks on vinyl to the winners (congrats to you all). I had been trying to decide all week whether or not to use some of the already supplied equipment or stick with my recycling / reused principles. In the end I had to use a mixture of both as the PA supplied did not even have a turntable! On the other hand my 40 watt amp would've been drowned out by another stage which was over 200m away. The show lasted about 2 ½ hours and was recorded so I will get down to some editing and uploading soon. There are still two more Big Green Breakfast shows on tape and a few other recordings from gigs in between. The studio is developing slowly but should get going very soon. Hopefully I can catch-up with all this stuff now that the summer's coming to a close.
By far the most fun I had at the community fair was using my system as a PA to host the children's rocket launches in the arena on Saturday afternoon. The rockets were made from recycled materials and really blasted-off landing all over the place. Saturday night was an impromptu gig with an MC called Pat. This gig was quite impressive as we managed to get a whole host of kids to stop by and join in with surprisingly good mc'ing and beat boxing from people we've never met before. We also managed to link-up another set of speakers by using another 80's Panasonic ghetto blaster and FM transmitter. I got a real pirate buzz (even now writing about it) doing this gig and announcing we are live on 107.5. BIG shout out to you Pat and the other MC's / dancers who were there.
Kids were also connecting with the music in ways I never imagined. I have a record 'ring my bell' which appears on the video game san andreas. On Friday night a kid dancing on stage aged about 7 came up to me and told me that. I played it again on Saturday and got a similar response. In fact the kids on the mic got so hyped up whilst it was on my 150 watt inverter cut out as they blasted the mic. This gave me the chance to play the record from the start with a shout out to the 'san andreas crew'.
Midday Saturday was a tiny tots disco in the kids area using my gear with friend Sam's laptop. It was a lot of fun for us grown-ups but the kids seemed less impressed. Especially as some nut that used to 'sleep in a toilet' showed up and quite frankly began to bother us all. At 3pm in the arena I was supposed to play a CD for Capoeira dancers using my system. Unfortunately for them and me the only part of the system that didn't perform was digital (the CD player) and there was a 15 min delay whilst we sorted-out Sams laptop again. At 4pm I got the whole system up and running for the minutes NOISE rememberance – this involved the whole festival making as much noise as possible for 60 seconds and was wicked.Photos and recordings will be appearing soon – please get in touch if you are at all interested or were at the gigs and upload your own photo's etc. You can let me know by using the tags tip of the pops – dirty ali disco – bcf or bcfuk and I will find them. Alternatively you can contact me by emailing infoATcreativedynamoDOTnet.
Finally MASSIVE MAGIC thank you to John who I first met at the Big Green and then came to Boscombe fair. Without Johns solar panels or support the green energy would not have been a success at all as I was constantly to'ing and fro'ing between work and festival PLUS there was hardly any wind for the turbine!
The 12th Annual Boscombe Community Fair was on 7-9th September 2007
Tip of the Pops – Sound Control released
This show is hosted by Internet Archive here
Dirty Ali Disco – Sound Control click to play mp3 stream
This is the 2nd show recorded live at the Big Green Gathering festival. Even though the sound is distorted I am really happy with the overall quality. It has taken me 2 weeks of fooling around with the software Audacity to get something audible. The problem being digitisation which messed up in a few places. If you listen to the original analogue recordings you can make out what is being said in most places but transferring this to PC using Audacity's default settings leaves bits out.
As I was running everything at full volume even the mic level on tape is a bit excessive. I have no control over the mic level using the Panasonic SG-J550L so this has been reduced using Audacity's high pass filter effect. I am starting work on an attic studio this winter and all that equipment will come from the dump or skips too. I think I have now got to grips with recording live at acceptable levels and am getting more confident using the software. With the addition of a studio I feel things will certainly get better from here on in. Big shout out to all my work mates at the recycling centre who have been supporting me and finding records and equipment too.
Since returning from the BGG I have played 2 beach parties (outside coasters cafe), 1 birthday and a garden party all in Boscombe, Bournemouth for free. The response is really positive and I am looking forward to next weeks Enchanted Forest party in the arts tent at Boscombe Community fair. This is 3 hours with a stage and proper sound system. I have been involved with this festival for 5 years and this will be my first time as a performer /artist.
Thanks for reading and listening. If you were at any of the gigs I'd love to hear from you please leave a comment or put pictures and video on line and let me know. The next hurdle is archive.org where I am hosting the shows. I have had to sign-up again to upload (a bit weird) and it would also be good to spend more time on line fashioning this blog. Please check out Flash Radio who were also at the BGG and gave me ideas and support for the show.
There are 2 more shows recorded live at the BGG. These were breakfast shows and have slightly different musical taste and children on the mic; which also makes them special. I hope you enjoy listening and thanks for your interest. DA DJ x