REST OF THE FEST
Rock Ness has more than just great DJs and lashings of live music. We highlight some other points of interest LOCH NESS However hard they try, no other festival in the world can compete with the Rock Ness scenery. The event scores highly with its USP of being the only festival that has beautiful and historic Loch Ness as its backdrop. Nowhere else can you indulge in Nessie-spotting while dancing to Pendulum. Take that Glastonbury.
KEVIN BRIDGES Not content with just getting your feet moving, Rock Ness wants to get you
laughing. And laughing hard, as they have secured the talents of Glasgow’s fastest rising stand-up, Kevin Bridges, performing alongside the likes of Scott Agnew, Rob Heeney, Chris Cox, Papa CJ and more as part of the festival’s inaugural comedy line-up.
BOLLYWOOD Time to indulge in some exotic Bollywood glamour as Indian beats and
movies play out in this sumptuous arena open to VIP ticket-holders. Inside there’s an explosion of brightly-coloured textiles, canopies, parasols and luxurious day beds all hand-stitched in India to the detailed designs of Josie Da Bank and Natasha Dettman.
FOOD Alongside the booze we all need some good grub to fuel our Bacchanalian
weekend of beats, riffs and DJ sets. This being Scotland, there are plenty of good quality ingredients on offer alongside the usual burger vans and noodle shops, as local producers set up stalls and the Loch Fyne Food Market returns, as do the Pure Pie guys. So from oysters to porridge to top class pie, mash and mushie peas, Rock Ness has it covered.
ARCADIA
AFTERBURNER A new addition to the line-up fresh from Glastonbury. OK, so
there is music playing, and very fine music indeed at the Arcadia Afterburner arena with the Sub Club taking care of Friday, Soma with Fergie, Green Velvet and more on Saturday and Subculture hosting Derrick May on the Sunday. Once you’re there, however, you’ll realise the arena is as much about lasers, flames and Mad Max-style sci-fi excess as it is music.
32 THE LIST 10–24 Jun 2010
GOSPEL OF MARKS Howard Marks has an biographical film, Mr Nice, about to screen at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and his own pub, Howard’s End, set to appear at Rock Ness. Henry Northmore finds out more about the ex-drug dealer’s busy schedule
H oward Marks may have appeared at a few festivals in his time but Rock Ness is the first one to give him his own stage, the appropriately named Howard’s End. ‘Well, it’s my own pub, really, which has a stage in it,’ explains Marks in his distinctive Welsh baritone. ‘In terms of entertainment, I’ll do some spoken word things, comedians will tell some jokes and musicians will do musical things. That’s about it, really.’
He’s being typically modest, as anyone who has seen Marks give one of his many talks since his unlikely rise to fame on the back of his 1996 autobiography Mr Nice can attest. That book is a heady tale of hashish, drug smuggling and confounding the authorities that is as much high comedy as it is dark espionage. Marks’ story started in Wales and ended with seven years in an Indiana prison. His travels took him across the globe, into contact with the DEA, IRA and the Mafia, for which dealings he created 43 aliases and 25 fake companies. ‘I smoked my first joint when I was 19, liked it, and wanted to smoke other joints,’ says Marks. ‘I wanted to try different types of dope, I couldn’t afford to buy as much as I wanted to smoke so I ended up buying more than I could smoke and that was what made me into a dealer. It was very, very gradual, over a period of years.’
Rhys Ifans in Mr Nice
It might have started with a few joints but it soon became a multinational operation. ‘Bringing 15 tonnes of Colombian into Britain, that was almost pure audacity. Using a deep-sea salvage tug, which then, and probably now, is the best boat for smuggling ventures across the Atlantic because they’re allowed to communicate on secret frequencies, they’re allowed to be anywhere on the
ocean to help ships in distress and they have all the equipment on board for unloading it.’ It was Marks’ easy-going attitude and staunch refusal to move into smuggling hard drugs or use violence that turned him into a counter culture hero. He still campaigns for the legalisation of cannabis in the UK, and even stood for Parliament in 1997. ‘Any harm that it might have would be lessened if it was legalised and controlled, rather than left up to gangsters like me to hawk it outside the schoolhouse,’ laughs Marks. ‘Basically, I just think it would be safer.’
Marks’ life story has just been given the big screen treatment, with Rhys Ifans stepping in to play him. (Mr Nice will premiere in Europe at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, see page 22 onwards for further EIFF coverage). ‘I’m delighted with it, it’s a bit non-PC to make films about drug enjoying dealers themselves,’ adds Marks. ‘I was allowed to go on set any time I wanted to and I’m sure they would have listened to anything I said. Me and Rhys are very similar in what we believe is right or wrong, so there’s no massive divergence there, he has put something additional into it, which can only be described as Rhys, but it still stems from the same emotion.’
With plans to catch Fatboy Slim, Ian Brown, Leftfield, Aphex Twin, Alabama 3 and the Cuban Brothers over Rock Ness, Marks only has one concern: ‘I hope I don’t end up just propping up the bar and talking shite all weekend, but it’s possible.’ Howard’s End is open at Rock Ness, Fri 11–Sun 13 Jun. Mr Nice, Cineworld, Edinburgh, Tue 22 Jun, 7pm & Thu 24 Jun, 8.45pm.
‘IT’S A BIT NON-PC TO MAKE FILMS ABOUT DRUG DEALERS’