Caught By The River

Told in their own words: “Caught By The River was born on a bankside a little over two years back during an idle day’s casting. The idea – a website that would document lazy days out – became a reality a few months afterwards. Without a great deal of nurturing, it soon grew into a place that people could eulogize about the things that made the working week bearable – books, records, art, nature, angling, drinking, even cake baking. The approach was exactly like putting together a fanzine – an unshackled, uncynical torrent of enthusiasm. Here was our modern take on something hardwired in as part of punk rock culture, only this time the patron saints were Roger Deakin, Chris Yates and Chris Watson rather than Johnny & Joe; the sound of razored guitar strings replaced by bird song and the gentle plonk as the float hits the water.

“In an age of blackberries, mobiles, and time is money, fishing is an increasingly eccentric pastime. We often sit for hours and nothing happens. There really is no point to it. Coarse fishermen don’t even eat their catch. However, if you fish, you have the time to think again, to appreciate and savour the moment. Fishing enables you to take stock, gain perspective, remember great books, hum a tune you haven’t thought of in years. It makes you human again. Sitting with your own thoughts is good for the soul, and you never know, a float might go under, an alarm sound and there’ll be a flurry of activity. Then again, maybe not. It doesn’t matter, you’ve taken time out of the rat race. That’s the key.”

The Caught By The River area will feature readings, live music, DJs and sound installations – hopefully creating the perfect environment to kick back and float away for a few hours… or days…

LINE-UP

FRIDAY 24th (evening only)

Dancin’ Shoes – The Heavenly Jukebox and friends playing good time soul and rock ‘n’ roll.
SATURDAY 25th

The Heavenly Jukebox plus live music from:

1pm THE LOOSE SALUTE
The ‘sound of sunshine’ from Heavenly recording artistes. The perfect way to start proceedings.

2.30pm JOHN HEAD
A rare treat – a solo performance by John Head from Shack (and The Strands and before that The Pale Fountains). A real big fave of ours. Great songwriter and amazing guitar player.

4pm KATHYRN WILLIAMS
A solo performance from Mercury nominated singer Kathryn, who cites her influences as including Nina Simone, Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Simon And Garfunkel and Velvet Underground.

WILL HODGKINSON reading from his new book THE BALLAD OF BRITAIN. From Spring to Autumn in 2008, Will travelled around Britain making field recordings. The idea of the journey was to update the work of the great US folklorist Alan Lomax and capture the spirit of the land and its people through songs and stories. For this talk he will document the journey with a weather map, a few anecdotes, some thoughts on the nature of folk music and, with any luck, a spot of singing from some of the people he met along the way.

ELLIOT EASTWICK’S POP QUIZ

‘SATURDAY NIGHT FISH FRY’
Pete Reilly from the Soul Jazz Soundsystem, plus The Heavenly Jukebox and Romeo from The Magic Numbers.

At midnight, the film WINGED MIGRATION will be shown projected onto the quarry wall behind our tent with the added bonus of the wondrous BRITISH SEA POWER providing their own unique soundtrack, live.
SUNDAY 26th

1.15pm CAUGHT BY THE RIVER ‘NATURE DISCO’ WITH VERY SPECIAL GUEST CHRIS WATSON
Britain’s premier nature sound recordist (and founder member of Cabaret Voltaire) plays a unique set of recordings of rivers from around the world.

Followed by readings from the book CAUGHT BY THE RIVER – A COLLECTION OF WORDS ON WATER.
Our friends John Andrews, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Kathryn Williams, John Niven, Chris Watson and Kurt Jackson read from their contributions to our book.

At 4pm, we will bid you farewell with a performance from the legendary Fence Recording artist KING CREOSOTE.