My Chemical Toilet

The Kooks, Jarvis, Hot Chip - October sees the return of Oxjam. Guilt-free gigging ahoy!

Feel bad frittering away your hard earned cash to see random bands? Well, this is for charity! After the success of last year's events, Oxfam are returning this October to launch Oxjam, their fundraising festival featuring hundreds of local and big-name acts at events up and down the country.

To launch Oxjam a number of secret gigs will be held at London Oxfam shops in early October including performances from The Kooks, Hot Chip, Fatboy Slim, Jamelia and a gentleman who looks like he's been in a charity shop or two, Jarvis Cocker. Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim) told Oxfam he's donated old records to charity shops before but performing in one “will be a first”. You can win tickets for these intimate sets through the Oxfam website.

Secondfest , Second Life's virtual festival - noob's review number 2

Following on from my noob's review of Secondfest, Hippyshopper editor and fellow SL virgin Abi Silvester also entered the virtual mudbath this weekend, with the intention of catching the Pet Shop Boys' set on Sunday night:

There were all sorts of reasons why a virtual gig sounded like a good idea to me. Firstly, I hate mud, rain and (as Charlie Brooker so neatly summarised it after his recent trip to Glastonbury) "any form of discomfort whatsoever", so real festivals don't always fill me with joy. Secondly, having seen the 'Boys perform in the far more real setting of Hammersmith, West London only a month ago, I was keen to discover how my heroes would come across in pixellated form.

Posted by Stuart Waterman on July 3, 2025 8:46 AM in Festival Alternatives| Music News
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A noob's review of Secondfest - Second Life's virtual festival

The other week I wrote a fairly disparaging preview of Secondfest, the festival held at the weekend in online virtual world Second Life. How ironic, then, that my boss should then urge me to "attend" that very event with a view to writing a first-hand account. I ummed and ahhed, but come Saturday afternoon I realised that the previous night's indulgences were going to preclude me from doing anything remotely interesting in real life (henceforth known as "RL", to use Second Life lingo). So why not?

SecondFest in association with The Guardian and Intel - the music festival for people who fear people

Yesterday my colleagues at Techscape reported on SecondFest, the music festival being put on by virtual world Second Life in association with The Guardian and Intel. Performers at SecondFest include Pet Shop Boys, Simian Mobile Disco, Digitalism and The Knife.

Now, I just about get the idea of Second Life. Basically - and I think I've got this right - you sign up to this website, right, and then you enter its virtualness, create a little cartoon version of yourself, run about a bit, interact with other folk doing the same thing, become more and more addicted to the whole thing, forgo having any semblance of a real life, spend real money on things that don't actually exist, sell a kidney to keep your compulsion going, and then wave goodbye to your wife and kids.

So that's clear. What I'm not so sure about is how a music festival works in this virtual world.

Posted by Stuart Waterman on June 22, 2025 1:29 PM in Festival Alternatives| Music News
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Apple to take bite out of UK festival season with free summer gigs

Firstly, apologies for the gratuitous use of the words "Apple" and "bite". Secondly, hoorah! for Apple, which will be mostly spending this summer letting punters watch the likes of Amy Winehouse, The View, Groove Amada and the quite-special-actually Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. For free!

The full line-up, and it's quite exciting, is here. It's all tied up with iTunes, and the only way to get tickets will be to enter competitions for them with those shiny-computered iPod lovers.

For those who can't get tickets (that'll be most of the people who enter, then), the gigs will be available to download from iTunes, although there's no word yet as to whether you'll need to pay for them. We suspect so. Arty types who are already members of the ICA stand a slightly better chance of bagging some tickets thanks to some being reserved. The first gig will kick off on the evening of July 1st with nice-but-weird Mika.

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