Camp!
So, Camp A Low Hum... I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow, chronological account because (a) I'm bound to leave stuff out, and (b) it's hard to remember what happened on what day, seeing as there was very little sleep and very little to differentiate each objectively - they all involved mass numbers of bands, unexpected events, drinking, swimming, wandering randomly, meeting people, dancing, looking for food, etc etc. Instead here are some highlights, tales, warnings and random bits in no particular order...

We managed to play only the first show of our scheduled two, as John fell ill and was unable to stay. Kent drove him back up to Auckland, and unfortunately missed half of camp. We played okay, nothing spectacular but solid enough. Our lone new song went alright, much to our relief. It was odd playing 100% sober, to a 100% sober audience, at one in the afternoon sun, after driving half way across the island. We were really looking forward to the second show, instead I was there thanking those who turned up and apologising for not playing. Everyone was really cool though, a common thread throughout the whole four days.

The first night's "big" act was Liam Finn, who was brilliant. After the first few songs, I thought perhaps his trademark looping thing was a gimmick, as he'd only used it at the end of the songs proper... but from then in, it was all integrated masterfully. He'd have live loops coming in and out, the songs sounding as amazing as they would with a full band but seeming even cooler considering it was only him and a backing vocalist/tambourinist. Either that, or Kent's pot had started to kick in, haha.

I went for several swims over the camp's duration. One turned into an Htown/ex-Htowners vs the rest volleyball match, another was at some ungodly dark hour of morning when a friend Tu and I found some foam lightsabers and re-enacted pivotal scenes from the Star Wars series. Someone had the idea of shoudler-carrying battles, so I jumped on Tu and went up against a succession of challengers... losing to pretty much all of them. His volleyball skills didn't translate to Dan-carrying, and my volleyball skills (non-existent except when accidentally sconning Mo in the head) were unfortunately transferred whole.

One time I wasn't swimming, which I wish I had been, was when a pool rave broke out - that wasn't the part I regret missing, but soon enough Disasteradio came along and busted out a mean set right by the fence. It was only a five-minute walk to get my togs, so I must've been on the way somewhere else to pass that up.

It was cool hanging with Tonamu and Gareth again, I hadn't seen "Namu" in donkey's years.He hasn't changed a bit really, which was cool. They were camped out in a quiet area donkey's years away, which required a map to get to (for someone of my directional capabilities) so I didn't get over there much. They were hardly there either, to be honest.

Spent a lot of time hanging with Wellington Zak & Christy and their friend Frances; Heather was around a bit, but was often busy doing Boxwars/Foxcore stuff. Christy had some killer bruises and cuts from her birthday last weekend - she said she fell off a roof, I asked two questions: (a) was she drunk (yes), and (b) did she shout "I am a golden god!" beforehand (I can't remember her answer). Also hung out quite a bit with a tall guy called Neil, I think he might have been Wellington, I can't really recall. One night there were loads of people made up and dressed as zombies wandering around, so we decided to go Shaun of the Dead on them and get some cricket bats. Mine was missing, but I knew our neighbour had some - we got to their tent, and no one was there, but two bats were - a GM, and an iTomic. His first reaction was "grab the GM!" and I said no, the GM is probably worth a few hundred dollars, the iTomic - probably a few... dollars. So we took the iTomic, and hit the party were most of the zombies were - a '60s soul/beat party. I don't recall much else, but I woke up with the bat and a plastic AK47, which I think I found in the pool. I returned the bat, and some of the Htowners said they knew who owned the AK47, so I left it with them.

So So Modern were great - whatever they were playing wasn't anything I knew, don't think it was anything from their EP. MC Stormtroopa got up and did a song, Lord Vader... one of the musical highlights of my entire camp. After the first verse, Stormtroopa yelled something like "sing it with me" and I thought, yeah, like these couple of hundred people know the chorus... I quickly realised I was the only one, haha! Was awesome. Not forgetting, but being surrounded by a couple of hundred people singing, "Ye-ah, Lord VAY-der you are the greatest play-er..."

Boxwars kicked ass. I've never seen 30 people dressed in elaborate cardboard box defenses smack the crap out of each other to live dance-punk. Have you? There was even a Death Star and a Tie Fighter, but they stood no chance against samurai-dinobot guy and the giant-cock-monster complete with swinging balls and a BANG! flag that came out of it's phallus.

In the end it was won by a couple of girls who'd literally taped themselves together back to back - in recognition of just how dangerous that really was.

There was a boat in the jungle that everyone thought was out of bounds, as there was a sign next to it saying 'bands and crew only'. Seemed kind of weird to let bands on it, considering it was completely separate to any stage or performance area... wasn't till the last day when a rave spontaneously combusted on it (if not later) that I realised the sign was for the nearby stage, and no one was banned from the jungle boat. Luckily, cause I did find myself on it one night, with god knows who. Probably Neil.

The bus made twice-daily trips into Levin for people to stock up, and the one day I went was hilarious. The supermarket staff were obviously under-prepared for massive influxes of indie kids looking for cask wine and powerade, and not much else. The classic, stereotypical stoner which every music festival has to have even managed to leave his bag of pot on the counter at the liquor store, luckily for him the staff were kind enough to alert him.

I chatted to Liam Finn one day, who assured me the wrapping to his album I'll Be Lightning is indeed smokeable, as the paper - not as the active ingredient, so to speak. Some people have apparently tried stuffing the wrapper into their pipes and... you get the rest.

Some cool/dubious videos were playing in 'Cinema Aloha'. I caught about 45 minutes of the Star Wars Holiday Special, which has to be one of the worst pieces of TV I have ever seen, fullstop. To be honest, I only left to get another beer, then decided it was not worth going back to. Wiki it, seriously.

I did catch the first screening of Dark Side of the Rainbow, and was pleased to see Blink had got a pre-synched version with good sound. It doesn't work with PAL vs CD, you see...

Trans Am were great as always, even if by the 4th day so many of us were feeling over bands, over camp, over drinking, over not sleeping, and over wandering the darkness...

Shit, there's too much to talk about. Can't possibly relate it all. Tariqa's laminated map she made for me was a masterstroke though, the first two days of non-wornout map were awesome. After that, I kinda knew my way around, and when I got lost it was still cool cause I'd stumble across people playing music in random places and whatnot.

Who else was great? Connan and the Mockasins, despite people going on about their 'old' stuff bla bla bla... Batrider... Tiger Tones... Sam Scott/Liam Finn/Lawrence Arabia - oh yeah. On the first or second day, I stumbled across a band practise by a bunch of redneck looking dudes playing Wings songs. Turns out that was Lawrence Arabia and the Disciples of Macca - all Wings, all the time. Awesome. They even played Band on the Run and Jet.

Coming across random awesome stuff like that (and random not-awesome stuff like Operation Chloe) was pretty much what Camp was al ll about, especially considering we had no idea who was going to be there before we got there - except Trans Am.

There's way too much. I give up! Camp was crazy and awesome and if you didn't go this year you shouldn't go next year unless you know someone who went this year who isn't going next year cause then it'll get too big. Grrr, you made me sound all indie.

I'm bound to remember stuff I NEED to put in, so will do so as an edit beneath this point.