Hello everyone, how is everyone doing? Well, I guess with this nice sunny day. And we were also lucky and got some sunny days a few weeks ago and we went to a festival!!


Hop Farm!!!


Founded by Vince Power, Hop Farm is a three day Festival happening every year around the first week of July in Paddock Wood, Kent. They have a sweet mixture of oldies and new bands from rock to folk. They don’t have any branding (horay!) and generally expect a crowd of 30.000 but it doesn’t feel like it as it’s quite spacious.


Last year they had Eagles, Bryan Ferry, Morrissey, Lou Reed, Iggy and The Stooges, Patti Smith & Prince. It was absolutely amazing but this year even more so!


We had Peter Gabriel, Ray Davies, George Clinton, Dr John, Bob Dylan, Damien Rice, Patti Smith, Suede, Richard Ashcroft, Kool and the Gang, Nitin Sawhney, The Stranglers, Primal Scream… so many great names! NEXT YEAR, don’t forget to go next year!


So for now we’re going to do a TOP 3 HOP FARM FESTIVAL. Actually what makes this top three besides being the top 3 performances is the fact that each of them have a unique way of making their music, there’s nothing like them, they’re really incredible and deserve our respect.





3) Nitin Sawhney – Nitin Sawhney (Dir. Saifiz Ahamed)


I never heard of Nitin Sawhney until I went to Hop Farm and live he is just so amazing, it gets you in the mood and you float, you dance, you enjoy so much all the the melodies and versatileness. The whole band is incredible, everyone is so talented and the backing vocals he has now are completely amazing. This is a man who already collaborated with musicians and artists like McCartney, Anoushka Shankar, Jeff Beck, Brian Eno, Nelson Mandela, Sinead O’Connor and the London Symphony Orchestra. Nitin Sawhney from British Indian (Punjabi and influenced by Bengali culture) roots has influences from jazz and electronic elements, creating really unique music that is simply beautiful that can at the same time be dance, a mixture of jazz, hip hop, chill-out, orchestral, electronic and “music of the world” really, as Nitin Sawhney describes himself. He composes everything from music for films, theatre, dance to videogames, all that not just as a musician but producer, songwriter, DJ, orchestral composer and of course multi-instrumentalist.


Unfortunately this incredible man of many sounds doesn’t have an amazing video for one of his songs, live or music video, so I’ve chosen the best video I found that’s actually a very nice documentary that explains quite a bit of his work and you can still hear his great songs. But please, just go and see him live, it’s worth it!



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2) Gravity Grave – Richard Ashcroft/The Verve





Oh Richard! Coming from Billinge, Wigan he founded with his mates The Verve and wrote Bitter Sweet Symphony. That’s it. Now go and listen to their music. Haha, no they did more than that but c’mon this song has everything, great meaning behind song, beautiful writing, sweet melodies that just gets everybody wanting to sing loud and hug each other! So, The Verve remained together for 9 years, yeah, too much good music, drugs, getting big and psychedelic stuff, they couldn’t help themselves ending up fighting, they actually tried again in 2007 releasing “Forth” but only stayed together until 2009. Richard Ashcroft kept his solo career going, creating songs and releasing albums. But I might say that the best thing he ever wrote was their first EP as The Verve, called “Verve”.



And that’s what I give you, a music video from this EP with “Gravity Grave”. From The Verve, I believe this is one of their best music videos, I love the black & white, the grain, the footage is simple but great. The editing matches with the music in a nice way. I love the shots of the car and the little inputs of the man at the car wash, the harmonicas being played by the man outside the car and the cafe at the end.



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1) Movin’ On Up (Screamadelica Live) – Primal Scream (Dir. Eagle Rock)


C’mon, do I really need to introduce a band which defined a generation? Which changed music in the 90′s? Formed in Glasgow in 1982, they have been GETTING PEOPLE LOADED, having a good time, get deep down, deep down. They broke so many boundaries in 1991 with Screamadelica and became the face of Enlglish music, yes, THAT good! This mixture of psychedelia, garage rock, gospel, dub, techno and dance is so unique you can tell from far away that Primal Scream is playing. And Bobby Gillespie, the front man, even comes from another well-respected band, The Jesus and Mary Chain, so he totally gets my respect. PLUS, really, who looks that good in his 50′s? Damn it, he’s so amazing that I will just say: FIND A WAY TO SEE THEM LIVE.
But for now, watch this video dancing in your living room. I’ve chosen a live video so you can see how amazing they are live and still how incredible Mr. Gillespie’s voice is, how much fun you can have at their gigs and really, just how amazing the band is and simply how unique and relevant Primal Scream still are!


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Let us know what you think and send us some music videos you find amazing too!
Love, Lara.



If you’d like to see a bit more of Lara’s work for Day Job Records, click here and for her other projects click here