Bloc Weekender - Minehead Butlins

Warp-signed Tim Exile, aka Tim Shaw (pictured), fills us in on happenings at the Bloc Weekender, held at Minehead Butlins on March 13-15.

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Bloc Weekender has had ten days to be sorted, filed and entered into the database of now. The sounds have bedded into the pillow of legend. Transients, cycles, the piping of balloons, dry-mouthed whispers of acquisition, the rattling of shocked ceilings. The stories have been sketched out between friends and the consequences have finished shaking us. After a trip to the stars departing from Minehead seafront, I have regained enough jaw to think.

We mused at how unruffled the Butlins staff were by the debauchery. Apparently Bloc ain't hot enough for Dante. They also host fetish weekends where all the sins of Bloc are ticked and far outstripped by crotchless panties and jizz on the bar. I stopped to imagine a holed leathery rave and my mind steamed through the sphincters high in the vast canvas of the central Butlins dome, snaking like match smoke.

Deep in the complex were sanctuaries for music we know well: Centre Bloc, Red Bloc, Tec Bloc, Jak Bloc. Far outside a well-seen view: a buoy, a retirement colony of sand, the shanty of a seagull. In between: a mucky strait where the cry of endangered gambling species bingoed through the crossfire of leaky loops. Here new life emerged and exciting memories grew in the bollocks of primordial McFlurry. Jungle in Pizza Hut, breakfast before bed, pint in the morning, morning in the evening.

Late on Sunday night this riot of ill-definition punched out. Russell Haswell, speaking for a war-torn generation of Gibraltar misfits, swept Jak Bloc free of comfort and punters with a manifesto for fruit machines and sounds from another room. The revolution started here.

Words: Tim Exile

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Find the official Bloc Weekender website HERE / find Tim Exile on MySpace HERE