For those of you who aren’t dead yet from Truck, looks like I’m sticking around a few more days in Oxfordshire since I’ve got the plague too much to go to Paris. I’ll honker down with the other plagued:) Music with Dusty & the Dreaming Spires, myself, and other special guests, tomorrow nite at the Rusty!!

Amazing music festival i played past weekend, run by the Bennett Family on a beautiful farm in Oxfordshire, UK. With a crowd of 6,000, it is a favorite for it’s vibe, all about the music and the people, not a sign of corporate sponsorship in sight. Discovered so much new music, favs being Wild Beasts, 6 Day Riot, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Yacht, Pulled Apart By Horses, KTB, Jason Sebastion Russo, The Joy Formidable…kudos to the Truck bookers for concentrating on a lot of up and coming music!!

Check out Bethan Elfan’s amazing Radio 1 Live Coverage of TRUCK. So floored that radio here is playing such exciting groundbreaking music! Live stream music & interviews from Stornoway, Dusty & the Dreaming Spires, Fredrick Stanley Star, Them Squirrels and Sweet Baboo, some of my other festival favs. 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/bethanelfyn/

what a shocking transformation, from rolling fields to hundreds of tents, stages, folks dancing, some in costumes, rad adorable people, rock n’ roll dj, pre-show festivities, white lights, good vibrations… feel like a kid on christmas, can’t go to sleep, can’t wait to wake up and play TRUCK!

played a really rad gig in Reading tonite at the Oakford Social Club! Nick Horton promoted, such a sweet guy… why is everyone so nice in these parts? opened for a great coming up English band called Stornaway, check em out, gggreat stuff!!! now a bit of the brown and a bath off to bed, long weekend, and trying to avoid the plague:)

In further news today I delivered village mail on bicycle for TRUCK< avoided the swine flu quarantine house, interviewed a cow about it’s excitement to see Supergrass at the Festival, frolicked in the heathers, wrote tunes, painted signs, and ate at another nicely enforced big family/friend dinner by Mamma Bennett. 

im staying with the outstanding Bennett family, who run Truckfest, which makes me very lucky! grandfather Bennett was a part of the Inklings, a writers group including C.S. Lewis, J.R. Tolkien, who sat in a pub, the Eagle and the Child, and worked through manuscripts. just where does one begin in a house with shelves full of original C.S. Lewis, Tolkein, bound Milton, Keats, Browning, many treasure authors i don’t know, Faery Tales and unending histories…? feels like magic, wish i could be on house arrest here for a while just to make a small dent.not to mention how nice it is to wait for the train to pass, the gate to lift, walk the narrow cobble stone path to the North Star in the royal blue nite and have some passing people smile and say, “Evening.”

last nite, cider from a barrell at the ole north star pub. morning cobblestone walk rolling greens, medieval church, horses, chicks, ducklings, garden… everyone’s here working away in Steventon, painting signs, putting up fences and tents on the farm, planning in the office, getting ready for Truck 12 music festival this weekend! amazing people workin together, a beautiful chaos & sweetness in Oxfordshire…

photos by the lovely Alex Marvar (who just happens to be directing a golf cart around Truck below:)

 can’t think of a better landing into England, tho i do feel like the energizer bunny… ~ 8:30 pm, male stewardess informs drinks are complimentary -> arrive 7:30 am London -> bus to Oxford, hello nap & tea, bus back to London -> tube to Brixton -> meet up with the gang at the Windmill, play to spirited crowd. -> sit in sing with Dusty and Danny and the Champs sets -> bus back to Oxford -> 4am chips n’ mayo on pita ~ sleep?