Interview: The Imploding Inevitable Festival

Even some of the largest of the UK’s annual music festivals have decided to sidestep this year’s sporting attractions by taking a year off, but The Imploding Inevitable Festival will embark on its third year this weekend, bringing together some of the North West’s finest musicians and poets.

Of the larger festivals, Glastonbury has taken the opportunity for a fallow year while Sonisphere announced its cancellation in March. More locally, organisers of LadyRock had to pull the plug on their south Manchester based event, in an interview blaming the decision on a mixture of factors from poor Springtime weather to the Olypmics, whilst also pointing out the surfeit of nationally marketed, large weekend events, such as the Jubilee.

But The II Festival, as it is often shortened to, has persisted through the range of issues and will tomorrow (Friday 29th June) welcome fans of a variety of folk, blues and psychedelic music to its setting near Lake Windermere at Fell Foot Wood.

Director and curator Baz Wilkinson describes previous years and what to expect this year.

Now Then: Why did you begin the festival originally?

Baz Wilkinson: It seemed the next step up to celebrate a year of promoting the bands that we love. Not only that but it brings everyone together who love the bands, spoken word-ers and, well, we like to drag people from the mundane of everyday life and provide them with something that they can really enjoy and relax with.

NT: Do you have a festival philosophy?

BW: I suppose our festival philosophy follows on from the philosophy that we have created for our regular events. It basically revolves around putting the artist first, keeping things as cheap as possible, which means being non-profit, and ensuring diversity across the weekend and nurturing creativity. For example, in the first year we had the audience contribute a line of poetry to a mass ‘Exquisite Corpse’ surreal poem and last year we had a very good open mic section. This year we are doing the open mic again but also offering woodworking classes and even a crocheting group haha! It’s all good fun…!

NT: There seem to be ten festivals every weekend across the UK during the summer months these days; has it proved difficult with the competition? Why (not)?

BW: I think that’s always going to be a factor with these things. The only thing I can say from experience is that many of our ticket holders have been three years on the trot so we must be doing something right! Not only that, but the feedback we get each year has been superb and is great to read through after the event. I guess the most difficult thing is the weather; we’ve generally been lucky and had great weather but that’s always a wee bit of a worry. I’ve yet to try out my naked sun dance that I learnt when I was trekking in the hills of Wigan – maybe this year, it may catch on, who knows?! We could call it The II Festival With A Wink then ha!

NT: What made you choose the setting of Fell Foot Wood?

BW: Five words: Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty. That is all.

NT: The festival remains very low key and independent; is that likely to change as the years go by? How big is it likely to grow?

BW: I’ve been asked this quite a bit which I like to think is because people can envisage it getting bigger, but for now we are quite happy with how it is. The atmosphere and vibes of the place has a really calming effect on the audience; it seems to put them at ease, forget their worries and have a great time! And, rest assured, if it did become bigger it would still remain true to its ethos in supporting locally sourced materials and food, being totally independent and supporting truly independent artists.

NT: Has there been an Imploding Inevitable Festival performance or moment that is particularly memorable for you?

BW: There’s been quite a few actually! Paddy Steer being unleashed on a totally unsuspecting audience in 2010 was absolutely fantastic. He had a dancing robot (which was actually Men Diamler), lazers and loads of flashing lights – it looked like a UFO had landed. Earlier that day Men Diamler performed waltzing through the audience on the most beautiful of days I’ve seen at Fell Foot – again, that took the audience by surprise and they loved it!

Last year, Magic Arm was the epitome of ‘aceness’, as were Driver Drive Faster. Regarding the poetry/spoken word, Mark Mace Smith put an incredibly gripping performance in showing his class yet again and I particularly love the diversity of that aspect of the festival each year. A truly memorable… memory was last year’s get-together after the bands had finished when we stayed up quite late laughing and drinking through the night with PICO (the comedy puppet act who will be at the festival again this year!) and some of the bands; I’ve never laughed so much I don’t think and those memories will stay a long time with me!

NT: How do you select the line-ups?

BW: It’s a tricky affair as we’d love to book everyone but obviously we have to say sorry to quite a few. But let’s start at the beginning – we’ve always booked based on three main underpinning aims: integrity, creativity and originality. All the artists we promote have these by the bucket-load, so then it’s a case of seeing who’s free, looking at the logistics and seeing what will work, etc. And if we still can’t decide we put all the names of the bands we love down on the floor and our mascot, the nocturnal aye-aye (as in The II Festival), points to the ones he’d prefer.

NT: What do you have lined up for 2012?

BW: We have another cracking line-up with Laura J Martin, Jonnie Common, Jess Bryant, Colorama, Denis Jones, Dave Rybka (Victorian Dad), Meursault (solo and a late addition), the eccentric and lovable Oddfellow & I, Harvey Lord, The Woven Project, David A Jaycock, Rob St John, two artists from Brooklyn, New York, in Jo Schornikow and Scott Rudd, Jo Gillot and not forgetting that Saturday morning we have a harp recital by Rachael Gladwin to wake people from their slumber. Alongside the music we have a superb selection of spoken word performers from comedy to story-telling to straight up poetry readings and then there’s the aforementioned Wood Craft and Crocheting circle to take part in. It’s going to be a cracker!

Words: Ian Pennington
Images: Courtesy of The Imploding Inevitable Festival

Tickets, including student discounts, are available from the site owner at Fell Foot Woods and you can avoid a booking fee by calling 01539 531014. There will also be an option to turn up on the day. For more info see the website and for ticket info follow this link.

An edited version of this interview previously appeared on Manchestermule.com

Arts, Music & Events Preview, April 2011 (Part One)

This latest preview feature again hits after a small bite has already been digested. There’s plenty more to chew on, so without further ado...

Can you believe that it is four years since Prostitutes & Policemen’s first uptempo clubnights raved the Attic’s roof off? Well you can take your nostalgic disbelief with you tonight to Sankeys where they’ve listed the wacky mix-merchants Crookers atop an electro-ridden bill.

Another one for this evening – as well as tomorrow, Thursday 7th – is a film showing screened by Manchester Friends of the Earth. They’ve organised ‘The End of the Line’ in Didsbury to highlight over-fishing, followed by Pete Postlethwaite’s climate change insight ‘Age of Stupid’ on Thursday in Levenshulme. They’re asking a few quid per night.

Thursday 7th is a packed night all around. There’s the monthly An Outlet musical showcase Some Drum I Would Never Hear, which is pitched against a pair of art exhibition launch nights. New collective Underground Separation – art students at Salford Uni – promise a varied Soup Kitchen spread, curated across a broad range of disciplines within visual arts. And to evoke an audio mood Now Then Manchester favourite Paul Green has stepped in to soundtrack the space.

Across town BLANK SPACE has another outsourced exhibition adorning its insides; Perception/Deception is the title that No Such Thing Collective will be wrapping their creative arms around.

For Friday 8th Northern Groove are involved in the staging of Horace Andy, of Massive Attack fame, and his regular backing band Dub Asante at Band On The Wall. That’s not enough reggae? A second dose awaits on Saturday 9th. More for Friday, though, is offered by Micron and their booking of Kiki for funky Finnish frolics. They set up shop at Joshua Brooks, as ever.

In the DJing vibe, Piccadilly Records staff clubnight project Wet Play finds itself again in fresh surrounds, unsurprisingly given its sporadic, nomadic existence thus far. That’s Soup Kitchen on Saturday 9th, where you’ll find John Morales rubbing shoulders with the regular sound providers including Ruf Dug. Around a corner or two This City Is Ours bring the curtain down on their stay at An Outlet, whose neighbours would prefer the bustling clamour of their inner-city living space to be untouched by the relatively chilled-out beats of Blood Boy et al’s combined record collection.

Fast-forward to Monday 11th for some more visual mind food. This one’s Manchester FoE endorsed but run by Man Met Uni in the All Saints Building, who’ve picked out ‘Food Inc’ to tickle your optical taste buds. Back on the aural of the senses, 80s throwback Aussie indie ensemble Architecture In Helsinki’s tour stops off at one of the Academy venues on Wednesday 13th.

Thursday 14th is one of those inexplicably arduous nights in terms of narrowing down what to attend from a long list, as follows... Japanchester, featuring From The Kites Of San Quentin, Day For Airstrikes, Plank[!] and Trojan Horse, is an effort to raise money to help to support post-quake Japan; A Hawk And A Hacksaw at Islington Mill, supported by Dan Haywood and the New Hawks (keep an eye out for an interview to be published here very soon); Saki Bar’s Grand Reopening Weekend misjudges when the weekend is by starting up on a weekday with Reggae Thursdays; finally a factual one in Chorlton for those looking to align their house with a more environmental norm (or just save money through efficiency) – it’s a precursor to Saturday 16th’s Big Green Festival, both taking place at St Clement’s Church on Chorlton’s Edge Lane, where the theme is Bike To The Future (geddit?) and the best all female dance troupe in the UK, Spokes, will perform.

Deep breath. Friday 15th is one I’ll pinpoint a little better. Cutloose present Theo Parrish at the Roadhouse. Cosmic disco grooves aplenty. It’s Record Store Day during the following day, Saturday 16th, so if you’re keen then maybe try an all-nighter to beat the early birds into the inevitable queue outside Piccadilly Records. And ignore this fella (not that anyone’s paid much attention to the NME for a long time anyway).

More for the Saturday, you say? Here’s a couple: Carefully Planned reach ten in their All-Dayer series at Castle Hotel, while Eastern Bloc Records eclipses that milestone with a second instalment of quarter-century back-slapping at Islington Mill.

In other news, Sounds From The Other City tickets are on sale so catch them before the guaranteed sell-out (based on the evidence of all previous years), or get involved with the volunteering team to see the festival from a different angle and make a few new friends. The Imploding Inevitable Festival, a recent regular at the deed poll office, is another with a nod from Now Then Manchester; June 10th & 11th, Fell Foot Wood.

Chorlton Arts Festival has a volunteers open day on Saturday 16th – and make sure you pencil in 29th April as their deadline for The Flash Mob Writing Competition, organised by a group of Manchester bloggers - many of whom can be found on our Manchester Blogs section (left).

And in the immortal words of Columbo, just one more thing: have a little listen to Big Block 454 for some wah-wah funky tones, mellow acoustic oneirism and deadpan lyricism.

Words: Ian Pennington