The clouds lay heavy across the rooftops; there was a hush, a rustle, and then the heavens opened, turning Canonbury into a boating pond. As we pressed our noses against the windows and cursed this inclement barrage, it dawned on us we’d rather brought it on ourselves. Announcing that August’s Campfire, our Summer Cookout, would be festival themed… what had we been thinking?

Downstairs on the ditto doors we hosted a selection from photographer Liam Bailey’s extraordinary book documenting his twenty year relationship with Glastonbury Festival. Upstairs, as the clock ticked closer to 7, the ditto girls (chivalry lives) waded into the tempest to wrangle a gazebo upright and provide cover for Brian and his BBQ. Life imitating art?

Robert Castellani, virtuoso guitarist, and returning ditto performer, began to tune up – the rain thundering on the Lighthouse roof forming an interesting percussive addition. It was beginning to look like The Summer Cookout might be a Washout.

Then the strangest moment – as the first guests began to appear, the deluge ceased, and something remarkably like the sun began to poke through. Fortune smiles on the brave, and the sun shines on the righteous. Or we just got lucky. Anyway you look at it, it was an omen that kicked off an epic night. The winners of our inaugural online independent music festival, Sunset, were announced to great applause. With a total of almost 50,000 votes cast, the competition was fierce, but the winners deserving. Ori Pliner won the public vote with his delicately crafted Dark Light, while Raz Olsher scooped the critics’ choice for his darkly mesmerising Prelude with Attitude. You can listen to their music and the other entrants here – and it’s definitely worth a visit. Real music from real people, and not a Svengali in sight.

As drinks were drunk, and BBQ munched, the evening began to spiral. It began to really feel like a festival. A spellbound crowd watched Robert transfixed – the only motion that on camera phones being trained on him. In the calm that followed the obedient throng were then whisked outside to witness fire poi, and the unusual spectacle of woman take an angle grinder to her metallic undercrackers. ditto’s queen of culture even took to the stage (ok, car park) to hurl some fire about.

Throughout the evening, guests tried their hands at juggling, plate spinning, diablo and balloon animals, with some interesting results. Suffice to say it was all fun, AND nobody lost an eye.

Huge thanks to everyone who came along – from the performers and contributors who made the evening so special, to the guests who braved the rain and then threw themselves into the proceedings. As the evening wore on it became progressively tougher to tell the two groups apart. What a perfect celebration of festivals in all their forms; how they throw people together, and how they can bring out the best in us.

The month of August saw a slight change in pace for the ditto Campfire. The first annual ditto Summer Cookout held at The Lighthouse was a great success, with inflatable palm trees to mouth-watering barbecue food and luscious summer cocktails, a great night was had by all.

We would like to extend a personal thank you to the talented and highly entertaining Robert Castellani, who provided a wonderful array of acoustic accompaniment to the night’s playful proceedings. We caught up with Robert after the gig to get a glimpse of his story.

Robert tells us a bit about himself and his music career so far.

“I started playing guitar at about the age of 14, so for the last nine years. In 2002 and 2003 I was runner-up in the National ‘Guitarist of the Year’ grand finals. Since then I have studied music and played in several bands all over the country. For the last few years though I have been focusing on my acoustic guitar music. I also work for Roland UK and am also a lecturer at Suffolk New College.

Music has been the centre of my life and I have committed many years to working hard at my craft. A combination of that and meeting some kind and influential people along the way have definitely helped sculpt my career.”

Robert tells us about the music that he played at Campfire and the influences from which he derived his set.

“I play in a strange style, which seems to have adopted the name ‘percussive guitar’. It involves a lot of taps and knocks on the body of the acoustic guitar in order to create drum sounds and other textures to the music. I first saw this performed by an Irish guitarist named Eric Roche who opened up all these ideas to me. Since then I have also drawn inspiration from Michael Hedges and Thomas Leeb.

“I also like a lot of folk music but my musical influences come from blues, rock, funk and everything I used to listen to as a youngster.

“When it comes to writing music, it should be said that I also gain a lot of influence from the emotions that you feel…Things that make you feel happy or sad… or eccentric or funky.”

Robert gives us some insight to what he would have liked the audience to have experienced from his music.

“I hope people are entertained by what I do. Playing the guitar the way I do has quite an exiting visual quality which I hope is good for putting on a show. I hope that people can see the emotional depth though, the thing that makes them feel a groove or a sensitive melody or chord progression.”

You can find out more about Robert’s up and coming gigs from his website, and listen to his music and become a fan at his myspace page, or contact him directly via email if you would like him for a gig of your own.

September’s Campfire brings us a very esteemed guest in Martyn Ware, founding member of both The Human League and Heaven 17, and currently working with Illustrious, creating new forms of spatialised sound composition using a unique three-dimensional AudioScape surround-sound system.

He will be telling us his extraordinary story as we move into the last few months of 2010 and the dark nights begin to creep in.

So, please place 16th September in your diary now, and we will forward over more information soon.