Modcaf/Westie Arts Festival

Thursday night was a really lovely evening because it was Modcaf and a mini Hive meetup rolled into one.

https://www.modcaf.org.uk/

I’m sharing this post on the Modcaf discord, so if you’ve not heard of Hive before, it’s a blockchain powered social media/blogging/gaming platform an ecosystem far removed from the Facebook menaces of the world. Sounds a bit nerdy because it is! I think you might like it and I’m writing here more than Substack now

A few weeks back I wrote :

@nicklewis/july-16th-meetup-opportunity

It was really lovely to meet @alonicus and his Wife, who’d not traveled that far, they literally live in the neighbouring town from the event itself and had a shorter drive than I had. It was great to get some people to come over who’ve never even heard about ModCaf before who would enjoy it for its artistry, even if slightly baffled by it!

That got me thinking whether there are a lot of people in the Hampshire area that are on Hive and what if we could do a little promotional thing at technology events where we could just put up a table with some informational panels and onboard people.

So rather than running events that are Hive specific, we embed them in others where it would be a good compliment to other interests such as synth clubs, camera clubs and so on.

Anyway back to the event!

I spent the evening chatting to our friends from Hive and the ModCaf crowd plus some other passers by, because although this was a regular meetup, where we perform, mingle, talk technical and have a jam - it formed part of a bigger four day arts festival.

I had set up my gear to show a few people the kind of stuff I do and let them loose on it for the evening. I didn’t do much more with it than that. Realising that to be honest, I hadn’t prepped it as well as I could have done.

Next door other art installations were in full flight and people were having fun. We had a little look.

Great night had by all. May there be many more!

Here are some photos!

John Christian - his music is heavily inspired by the Berlin School style, that I really enjoy because I have similar influences. Melodic rise and fall, building sequences and very progressive. Sparse drums, often none.

Gareth - a keen modular convert of late and his set was powered by some fascinating sample loops and granular effects.

Finn - probably our youngest member always inspires and prefers semi modular synths, style is much more techno and heavy complex beats

Tim - had an exotic musical theme, a bit Vangelis, lots of pentatonic scale (I think) in this one. Nice!