On November 17th 2018 we celebrated in style! Continuing the once or twice yearly Once In A Blue Moon Parties we’ve hosted at various quirky venues around Bristol since 2015, we decided to step things up again for this 6th instalment and put on the biggest yet! It had been just over 5 Years since we actually started out and launched the cafe and concept. Long gone are the days of selling homemade cakes and lemonade in the fields of the Stone Henge Summer Solstice, and setting up a Guerilla Cafe Space at Glastonbury’s Stone Circle, however we felt like it was the right time to put on a good old party to remember those days and celebrate how things have panned out since. What better space for it than one of our personal favourites, the weird and wonderful Loco Klub, run by the inspirational Invisible Circus! This time we descended into the main part of the space, the cavernous and long abandoned former coal tunnels under Bristol Temple Meads train station, with a rather fitting theme…‘One Man’s Tat Is Another Man’s Treasure’!
Alongside the general public, friends, family and volunteers were invited to collaborate, perform or just enjoy the party. We brought down all of our handmade cosy seating, cushions and up-cycled decor, usually used in the festival cafe, and decorated the place right up, We also set up our pop-up stall inside to serve tasty organic food alongside, of course, our rare and delicious Choco-Coconut Chai. Thing got going mid-afternoon, and the place soon began to fill up! We were very happy to also supporting Cintre with this event, a charity that helps adults with Autism, learning difficulties and other mental health conditions, in Bristol and the surrounding area, achieve their goals and leading fulfilling lives.
An exciting Workshop lineup started the day off, and we were quite proud of the amount of stuff that we had scheduled in this time around! Chris Baron hosted an interactive Hang Drum session and performance, a great way for people to experience the instrument and its vibrant and meditative musical language. We joined forces for the first time with Skovva Workshop, an arts collective that set out to promote everyday activism through creativity. Over the course of the afternoon and evening a beautiful quilt was created communally from tatted scrap and recycled fabric, later to be donated to the Women’s Refuge Centre in Dunkirk! We also had one of our favourite classes, Sand Mandala Painting. This traditional Tibetan Buddhist practice involves highly symbolic images being carefully constructed over a long period of time, usually with a focus on deities, talismans and sacred geometry. The drop-in session was of course overseen by none other than our good friend Dandala. To finish things off, Muti Movements was back for the second party of ours in a row to hit the dance-floor with his dynamic flow and movement class. It definitely looked like it helped get some limbs loosened when the music began straight after!
Alongside the Workshops and our own Food & Drink outlet, we had an array of other Stalls at the party showcase emerging artists, their skills and their handmade products. It was a pleasure to work with Balulu for the first time, a clothing label that supports small business in India through cool, colourful and crazy designs – perfect for playing and partying in! Local artist Michael Macqueen‘s ‘re-soil-cling’ was also impressive, he up-cycled pots and planters live, embellishing them with scavenged tat from the kerb-sides of Bristol, alongside a range of his own artwork, t-shirts, leggings and more! There was also some lovely jewellery and live demonstrations from up and coming Urraca Studios and M&M Passione Homemade – who shared a table full of beautiful things.
No Once In A Blue Moon Party would be complete without and eclectic lineup of musicians covering an array of different styles. To kick things off, local selector Matt Light showcased his incredibly diverse vinyl collection by spinning some lovely Ambient and Jazz records – complimented the vibe of the tunnels well as people were arriving. A little later, our Cafe Resident PXM stepped up with a warm-up party set of Disco, Funk, Afro-Beat and classic House. Proceedings were then interrupted temporarily, and everyone rushed outside for an impressive Fire Performance – we were collaborating with a new collective here and, mixing a range of techniques, they smashed it! We were excited to have Gipsydelica hit the stage next – our headliners for the evening. We witnessed their psychedelic, ethno-rock fusion, mined from the treasure trove of Balkan folk, for the first time live ourselves! To see the night out, cafe regular and awesome DJ/Producer Hiphoppapotamus laid down a heavy mix of his own Latin, Caribbean and African influenced Drum’n’Bass & Jungle, accompanied by some live saxophone from Snazzback’s Dave Sanders!
There was one final twist to the event, and little special touch from ourselves in honour of the ‘One Man’s Tat Is Another Man’s Treasure’ theme and the past 5 years – a custom OIABM Art Exhibition! A brief history section detailed how we’ve built up the cafe from donated or found items, furniture, artwork, instruments, cups and more over the years, and our policy (that remains strong) that anyone who contributes something to our ever evolving space eats or drinks for free. This nostalgia inducing, ephemera filled showcase was a tasty little insight into the UK Festival Scene and the work involved with starting a creative venture from scratch, and we enjoyed seeing people’s reactions as they read the captions accompanying our photos!
It turned out afterwards that our star volunteer and regular cafe crew member Joe was documenting the event throughout! He knocked up this video, thanks buddy 🙂
