Mixmaster Morris at The Big Chill Goa
April 27th, 2007 by rui
Mixmaster Morris’ blow-by-blow account of five days in Goa…
Wednesday
I arrived at Dabolim, and got a shuttle to Morjim – about 45 mins drive crossing three major bridges which makes it easy to tell how far you are.
I stayed in the Valencia, a large guesthouse, which together with the nicer Casablanca next door were packed with Big Chillers. Casablanca has the distinct advantage of a nice outdoor bar with a palm-frond roof, and as we soon found out good food as well.
Most people were apprehensive about the food, given all the warnings to avoid cut fruit, berries, ice cubes, sauces, meat, tap water …. I saw people fishing slices of tomato out of their sandwiches, for example. But unlike the beach shacks they have running water and a washable floor, plus the staff were pretty hygiene-conscious (they washed their hands regularly with Dettol soap).
The menu was in English and Russian … and we soon realised that Russians are the majority of customers and in Morjim, which is why the locals call it Morjimski, or more recently Moscow Beach. Bruce fancied a game of Scrabble, until I pointed out that it was a Cyrillic set.
Morjim beach has escaped the big hotels because of the turtles who lay their eggs here and massive flocks of birds which are a big tourist attraction as well. It’s maybe 3km up the beach to Aswem where the stage is being set up. Of course the scaffolding is red hot during the day so the crews can only work late at night.
Thursday
There is a pre-Big Chill warmup at Tito’s in Baga. It’s one of the biggest nightclubs here, and we all pack into coaches for a 30min drive. When we arrive (about 50 people) we can’t get into the club.. because 8 people are having a salsa class! Everyone splits up to grab some food, with Mr Tom and Pathaan we went to Tito’s outdoor restaurant next door – which would have been a better place for the Big Chill DJs perhaps!
When we get in its not bad, a flight of stairs curves up to the DJ on high there is a small dancefloor and then another bar with a pool table, but best of all there is proper air conditioning. And a free bar for Chillers, hoorah!
Lots of our DJs played (3 records each) but the audience looked a bit perplexed. When Pathaan played all the indian girls came in to look at him! The audience at this one was mainly well-off young Indians and very westernised too with trendy clothes. By the time I had my turn I felt people really wanted to dance but just weren’t going for the downtempo tracks that were being played, so I played that Osunlade single,followed by Get A Move On and Amba’s Shinkansen and that did indeed get the party moving. Then local DJ Pearl came on and rocked them with somewhat mainstream dance but she is the resident at this club, so everyone knows her and she rocks it, later Tom Middleton played again and rocked it likewise, but by 1.20 I was back on the bus.
Friday
Friday night was dress rehearsals/soundchecks. Stuart Hexstatic arrived in the evening and went straight to the bar, where he and Bruce drank all the Tequila in the house. The next day they found that although most of the spirits are 30-40rp (40-50p) the tequila is a whopping Rs250 (over £3) a shot, and they had run up a £50 bill. Although the Indians make plenty of whiskey, brandy and rum they haven’t started making Tequila yet.
Every time I had an alcoholic drink in Goa I got a headache .. which was 5 or 6 times, so I’m a slow learner With temperatures around 95F every day you need cold water and lots of it, and alcohol is the last thing you should drink.
Although I saw plenty of people drinking lots of Kingfisher, who were one of the sponsors too. By this time I had realised that owner Igor’s CD collection was in sad need of improvement, so I had taken over the bar stereo (a dodgy chinese DVD player, but it did play MP3 discs), and the bar was grooving to The Beauty Room and the new 4 Hero LP. Come 6.30 they fire up the clay oven and start tandoori-ing things, especially Pomfret (a fine flat fish rarely seen here) and Red Snappers (huge ones weighing 1-2 kg each). Russians do not like spicy food, so everything is very mild but there are four different chilli sauces on the table for those who like it hot.
Saturday
Saturday is the big day of course, doors open at noon and I arrived a little later.
The site looks great, and all the sound equipment is working, in fact the sound is amazingly good, with huge JBL rigs that sounded ultrasweet. There is an artists hospitality area with four huts to chillout in, and a fridge full of cold water. Even better a teepee with a friendly chap cutting up watermelons and papayas.
There aren’t many people though, and that was quite worrying. But they trickle in slowly through the afternoon as Chilled By Nature do a very tranquil live set.. Lunchtime is too damn hot to do anything, and many punters prefer to take a Siesta. Laptops in particular are suffering although Laura B brought a cool USB fan which kept hers running!
Mad Professor came on later and did a brilliant set which really rocked the site (and emptied the other stages for a bit). Wandered down to La Plage and had a cucumber and mint lassi (like tzatziki in a glass!).
Spotted Norman Jay down here looking cool in enormous shades. As the sun sets the crowd swells rapidly and it’s clear it’s going to go off. Several punters told me they wouldn’t book in advance as they didn’t think it would happen, but The Big Chill Goa is actually happening.
I found the Body and Soul area and booked myself a 1hr Ayurvedic oil massage from an elderly chap called Vishnu. Then I listened to Sheila Chandra wafting over the wall while he dripped hot sticky oil all over my buttocks, and twisted my arm up my back like a policeman.
Sunday
I get to play at last, so I go to the main stage where Jessica Lauren is doing her live set. She’s playing Fela-style on the Electric Piano and it sounds great, unfortunately her laptop crashed and she was fuming, so I urged her to keep on playing which she did with great aplomb. Then I played 90 mins of folky-jazzy-ambient soul before ending with a few choice reggae tunes like ‘Armagideon Time’ and Martin Campbells ‘Wicked Rule’.. by this time I have had about 4 bottles of water but I’m still wilting.
Slightly delirious I leave both CDs in the player and hand over to Raghu Dixit, a live band ….pass Matt Black who is setting up computers 36 hours ahead of his show, he has been here 2 weeks and gone totally native by the looks of things. He had a close shave in Arambol – the house he stayed in was broken into a few hours after he moved out of it.
Over in the Sula Bar Pete is playing a very nice tune which turns out to be The Bird and The Bee which he has been raving about.
Next up the familiar sounds of Amba, sounding better than ever on this great sound system, so I lie down right in front of the stage. I paid obeissance to Mr Middleton in the we’re-not-worthy pose, until I realised he was filming it on his damn mobile phone at which point I stopped.
Then Bruce (Alucidnation) did a really good set, ending with a radically improved new version of I’m Not Bad, his voice sounded great too. After which I got to play another hour, and this time there were more people and I played more downtempo and triphop to a good response, after which an Indian band gave a virtuoso performance on clay pots interspersed with comedy!
Then it was time for the Ambient Allstars, which Tom M was supposed to be organising, but he was nowhere to be seen so I grabbed Mr Tom, Bruce and Ben Fragile and we played back to back in between running off to catch bits of Coldcuts set. When they came on you could hear the rapper well but the music was much too quiet. So I ran over and shouted at the soundman until he turned it right up, at which point the crowd went mental. Matt had recruited lots of hippies from Arambol including a 3piece band called The Essence, who have been playing for 25 years and are in fact weekly residents at the Anjuna flea market. So tonight was really a unique performance in Coldcut history, and Matt was really over the moon about it.
Although by that time I was playing Yoko Onos ‘Toy Boat’ (Anthony & the Johnsons remix)
The last record was Chilled by Nature’s ‘State of Grace’ (Beauty Room mix) when the police stopped it promptly at 10pm. I really thought that they might have been more flexible, but it was not to be. Still everybody stayed around talking and swapping numbers for half an hour,
till a sudden unexpected shower (the first in months) made people head home.
And now i’ve just remembered Jon Hopkins’s fine set in the Sula bar, and of course Hexstatic who waved their chainsaws to pop history with glee yet again and got one of the best responses of the weekend,and Pathaan who played some very nice tunes as did Ben Mynott and Mr Tom… and I could go on for a long time…
MMM
Mixmaster Morris plays monthly at Loft in Space at The Big Chill House, and Nubient at The Big Chill Bar. He also went to Japan in 2005/6 and wrote about it here.
