So it's time to get to the heart of Breeze - a week and a bit on.
To be fair I hardly danced and also to be fair one tiny thing put my completely weekend out of kilter. More of later.
There's been some startlingly candid and unintentionally comical comment on the music - most of it more heat than light except where it was blowing smoke. The debate revealed the contradictions of the whole business of change (and indeed the change in business). It was interesting to read and note the blunt edged approach to what the people paying for the event think.
That aside for a while, it was a weekend of the usual suspects provided high standards of musical choice though some were hampered by low standard of fidelity. There were random bits of brilliance but nadirs were also achieved including an ear-bleeding cover version which should remain well under cover.
As I have said elsewhere there wasn't nearly enough slow stuff for my liking on Friday or Saturday night. This kind of comment on the music is like kryptonite to the supermen of the DJ booth, the paying customer having an opinion or worse still making a request is the surest way to undermine their delicate balanced playlists. I'm not convinced by the "DJ knows best" rhetoric later put out: in some cases I trust their judgement, in others I distrust their hubris. Whatever the reason, the survivors photos say it all - people couldn't even be bothered to stay on site long enough to get up early and fill them out.
Floorcraft was close to appalling esp in the pub - not just from newbies. I resisted the temptation to fix a pointed hat to my dance partner to impale a notable Scot and a notable Londoner off the middle of the dance floor as they chatted to some beautiful, clearly distracting woman. These guys should know better. Dancing was extended to the decking thanks to the dry weather. It was very pleasant on Saturday but the wind was chilly on Sunday but this was where space and some time to chat was found. The bar itself was too busy most of the time probably because the music was rather good and there's not much else to do. I didn't go in the fast/main room at all: the chill out room - they tell me - was just as fast which seems a bit odd and unfair on the fast room DJs.
Part of the problem with Breeze is the disposition of the space - not much to be done about that though the bar could stay open longer as it does at Camber for minority interests where these aren't the preoccupations of the musically prejudiced, old or sentimental I imagine. The lack of a slow dance culture there and something akin to a collective tiredness which saw emnity breaking out all over the shop bore down on me.
I don't understand Blues competitions or Neo-Blues for that matter so I avoided it as usual. Neo-Blues may be the way forward but it doesn't really say what it does on the can. I dare say some people expected blues music to be played at Brean - it wasn't, thankfully. Experienced hands will tell you a heavy diet of blues music is consistently over-rated for dancing: appetites fade after 30 minutes.
The chalets at Brean Pontins boast an iron if you pay top whack. Sadly they don't boast suitable furniture - our sofabed was neither. It's collapsed springs provided me with very little sleep, it was filthy when I opened it out and it had been propped against a wall to hide that it's mechanism was broken. I asked for a new one, twice, and got one in time for a teatime nap. Sleep deprived the weekend spiralled down into illness...I had four dances on Sunday afternoon and that was that.
Overall, it's a difficult call - Club chalets are dubious value for £150 each but combine it with petrol costs, using up precious leave and with two 7 hr journeys there and back - all together made me think hard about cost/benefit and whether I'd return next year. I was pretty much resolved not to go again on these grounds.
Once home my interest was piqued by a fascinating bit of public washing of dirty linen on Facebook. If the views were representative (and given their support I think they were) then the approach was very simple. I concluded that slow music was avoided, on the grounds that the minority who want it are too small and for some reason slow music is deemed retrogressive. A simple rule of social media would tell the posters that sometimes is best not to give a view where their customers can see. I have no commercial connection to any of the organisation, so as a customer I see the crude thinking of a few people dominating in a complex mix of circumstances. Being quite blase seems a very straightforward option, the message was sod the minority - one wonders why commercial organisations would go for something quite so direct, cut and dried.
Insightful and creative minds might find answers in Wetherby, Stoke, Huddersfield and most of all Scotland. In these places they find ways to mix fast and slow music - and there's a will there to do it. We must await developments.
To be fair I hardly danced and also to be fair one tiny thing put my completely weekend out of kilter. More of later.
There's been some startlingly candid and unintentionally comical comment on the music - most of it more heat than light except where it was blowing smoke. The debate revealed the contradictions of the whole business of change (and indeed the change in business). It was interesting to read and note the blunt edged approach to what the people paying for the event think.
That aside for a while, it was a weekend of the usual suspects provided high standards of musical choice though some were hampered by low standard of fidelity. There were random bits of brilliance but nadirs were also achieved including an ear-bleeding cover version which should remain well under cover.
As I have said elsewhere there wasn't nearly enough slow stuff for my liking on Friday or Saturday night. This kind of comment on the music is like kryptonite to the supermen of the DJ booth, the paying customer having an opinion or worse still making a request is the surest way to undermine their delicate balanced playlists. I'm not convinced by the "DJ knows best" rhetoric later put out: in some cases I trust their judgement, in others I distrust their hubris. Whatever the reason, the survivors photos say it all - people couldn't even be bothered to stay on site long enough to get up early and fill them out.
Floorcraft was close to appalling esp in the pub - not just from newbies. I resisted the temptation to fix a pointed hat to my dance partner to impale a notable Scot and a notable Londoner off the middle of the dance floor as they chatted to some beautiful, clearly distracting woman. These guys should know better. Dancing was extended to the decking thanks to the dry weather. It was very pleasant on Saturday but the wind was chilly on Sunday but this was where space and some time to chat was found. The bar itself was too busy most of the time probably because the music was rather good and there's not much else to do. I didn't go in the fast/main room at all: the chill out room - they tell me - was just as fast which seems a bit odd and unfair on the fast room DJs.
Part of the problem with Breeze is the disposition of the space - not much to be done about that though the bar could stay open longer as it does at Camber for minority interests where these aren't the preoccupations of the musically prejudiced, old or sentimental I imagine. The lack of a slow dance culture there and something akin to a collective tiredness which saw emnity breaking out all over the shop bore down on me.
I don't understand Blues competitions or Neo-Blues for that matter so I avoided it as usual. Neo-Blues may be the way forward but it doesn't really say what it does on the can. I dare say some people expected blues music to be played at Brean - it wasn't, thankfully. Experienced hands will tell you a heavy diet of blues music is consistently over-rated for dancing: appetites fade after 30 minutes.
The chalets at Brean Pontins boast an iron if you pay top whack. Sadly they don't boast suitable furniture - our sofabed was neither. It's collapsed springs provided me with very little sleep, it was filthy when I opened it out and it had been propped against a wall to hide that it's mechanism was broken. I asked for a new one, twice, and got one in time for a teatime nap. Sleep deprived the weekend spiralled down into illness...I had four dances on Sunday afternoon and that was that.
Overall, it's a difficult call - Club chalets are dubious value for £150 each but combine it with petrol costs, using up precious leave and with two 7 hr journeys there and back - all together made me think hard about cost/benefit and whether I'd return next year. I was pretty much resolved not to go again on these grounds.
Once home my interest was piqued by a fascinating bit of public washing of dirty linen on Facebook. If the views were representative (and given their support I think they were) then the approach was very simple. I concluded that slow music was avoided, on the grounds that the minority who want it are too small and for some reason slow music is deemed retrogressive. A simple rule of social media would tell the posters that sometimes is best not to give a view where their customers can see. I have no commercial connection to any of the organisation, so as a customer I see the crude thinking of a few people dominating in a complex mix of circumstances. Being quite blase seems a very straightforward option, the message was sod the minority - one wonders why commercial organisations would go for something quite so direct, cut and dried.
Insightful and creative minds might find answers in Wetherby, Stoke, Huddersfield and most of all Scotland. In these places they find ways to mix fast and slow music - and there's a will there to do it. We must await developments.
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