All Tomorrow's Parties - Pontins Holiday Camp, Camber Sands - 3-5/12/04
5/5
By: Toby L
Wolf Eyes (or how I learned to stop worrying and love the noise). Mellowing is depressing. I mean, I like some pretty extreme shit (Trencher, anyone?), but I still dread (or maybe, in a perverse manner, hope for) the day when my grandkids play me something that provokes me to utter the immortal words 'You call this music? It just sounds like a load of noise to me.'
But the little shits would be hard pressed to find anything quite as jarring, as aurally extreme as Wolf Eyes. They bettered any other band of the day, if only because they blew your eardrums so that you couldn't hear any other band.
Literally, they are a vacuum cleaner. Nozzle-poised by your eardrum. On. Suck out everything you think you know about music, about sound. The result; complete mental emptiness.
For the first five minutes, it tingles. No, it hurts. Then, you adjust to the high-pitched Tinnitus squeal and embrace it; a simple tune fingers its way through your consciousness, sliding in around your lower left ear. That may well have been a figment of my imagination, but after the sheer VOLUME hits you it becomes, paradoxically, pure silence. You can't hear a thing. Not a sausage. Not even that annoying hum that keeps you awake when it's really quiet (and I'm not alluding to your girl/boyfriend's snoring). Just peace. God.
Then, like excited, pee-stained toddlers we run up the stairs into the corner of a large bingo hall and all congregate by the Halloween joke shop. It's a disappointment, but hardly a surprise that we're not at the front (yet...), as for Lightning Bolt, only about seven people ever are. Everyone waits patiently for two musicians, both called Brian, to emerge from the costume emporium and place themselves respectively behind a tiny, battered drumkit, a bass guitar complete with single banjo string, a couple of pedals and a gimp mask, and unleash hell.
Condensing a whole set's worth of energy into one song, the crowd is instantly exhausted, and strongly advised to sit down. Following commands, the people do just that, but can't remain still; backsides on the floor and the Bolt are still just as intense. Drum and Bass in the sense that that's all there is, every Lightning Bolt show is immediately the most punk-rock thing you've ever seen - no stage, no barriers, terrified security, and the most communal atmosphere to any rock and roll spectacle you'll ever witness.
You're being hurt, but by your friends, at your request. The riff for 'Dracula Mountain' kicks up and the crowd stand, trying desperately not to fall over. We're now resting our hand on a bass-drum, holding back a rabid mass of bodies with any body part we can keep still, and make eye-contact. Frozen, a retreat is made to gather thoughts and breathe. Nothing else is like this.
One of only a couple of unfortunate acts to suffer from the Christmas ATP 'truly, where is everyone?' syndrome, LFO plug on regardless of the slight attendance. The only other thing holding it back is the time of day, this being a set perhaps more fitting for a late-night indulgence, but regardless, a live LFO set will always be something of a treat. Dance music at heart, but of the Warp kind (it's ATP, after all) - which basically means this is intelligent stuff that can stand up to a proper, concentrated, sober listen. Soaked in blue light and pulsing beats, there's a perverse funk to it, somewhere between early 90s techno and unfathomably progressive hip-hop beats.
But continuing the minimal duo ethic downstairs are the Minutemen Duet. Between these guys and Lightning Bolt the bands more 'conventional' in line-up are being shown what a little culling in the ranks could do. Still, they didn't choose to lose their guitarist, only not to replace him. And this is ATP; the word 'conventional', if overheard at the bar, would be akin to casually remarking upon an affinity with Hitler. As such, their set is stonkingly tight, riff and rhythm meeting on the root instruments of rock. This has the sordid feel of garage to it, but there's a classy air of sophistication to Mike Watt's smirk. And to call them straight-ahead would be a criminal underrating; whilst the riffs may catch you full-frontal, the rhythms are coming at you sideways, just to make sure you're knocked off your feet.
Shellac are always better after a period of having actually played some shows. Benefiting from some together-time that they didn't manage before the last ATP (a four night, sold out residency at the Scala, no less), tonight theirs is a set so tight, so painstakingly precise that the accuracy adds some extra crippling force to the already weighty thud of the music.
In the long breaks between recording and playing (things which seemingly happen very, very rarely), Shellac consists of two producers and a guy who runs a hairspray warehouse - making this undoubtedly the greatest hobby ever. Not that attention isn't paid to detail - every note, every beat is right on the money. Brilliant. With a combination entailing that riffs that can go from blistering noise ('Billiard Player Song' - ouch) to Bob 'Disco Stu' Weston's bastardised Deep Purple impressions ('Mouthpiece' - groovy), vocals that can be Steve Albini screaming prayers begging for death ('Prayer To God' - blasphemous), or semi improvised rants about the state of radio (the new one with barely three notes that goes 'is this thing on?' a lot and is amazing), Shellac were always going to be contenders for set of the weekend, but song of the weekend is one accolade that's surely theirs - 'Dog & Pony Show'. Nothing else came close. The question and answer session was attempted but fell a little short of its usual hilarity, down to the now common problem of rowdy idiots at a Shellac show. Is it wrong of us to expect a little reverence? It is Shellac, after all...
You sick, sick f**k. That goes out to the pea-sized penis-head that thought groping Peaches down there would be a 'great thing to tell the mates' during a crowd-surfing exercise amidst an otherwise euphoric 'F**k The Pain Away'. You cretin. As Peaches mouths onstage towards the end of her eighty minutes, soon storming off, 'You've ruined it for everyone.' The mammoth room holding thousands, a second ago throbbing with movement, turns bleakly cold.
Shame. Real shame. Because prior to Peaches' hot pants being accosted by a spotty, inadequate wanker, it had been quite amazing. Tonight, and as ever, Peaches casts off social, sexual inhibition and introversion through perverted, naughty, sexy displays - gender-play, S&M and costume-changes; she's bloody filthy.
So we won't let that disenchanted, confused, deprived tosser who misses the point crash it. This is punk, and it can't be broken. Squalling, rabid, exhausting electro punk. With spunk. She's completely insatiable - laying down bursts of noise-pop - 'I U She', 'Kick It', a cheeky, abridged refrain to early effort 'Rock Show' - as sleekly and assured as one of the greats. Madonna for the true delinquents. She gives it everything and we do, too.
Throbbing Gristle: Apparently, this is their LAST EVER GIG. Makes me kick myself that I gave the set-list to some sad old industro-rocker in a cowboy hat when I could have kept hold of it and sold it on Ebay to someone who writes for 'The Wire' and gets paid infinitely more for his criticism than I ever will. Shall we say two thousand pounds, Mr. Bohn?
Well, there's me in the photo pit staring at these two chicken legs, wondering what that really ugly hag has done to Genesis P. Orridge. Oh wait, the penny drops. That is Mr Orridge.
Considering this is the band who (along with Foetus, perhaps) invented industrial music, they've certainly got a lot to answer to, but can be forgiven thanks the sheer stylishness of their set. White backdrop and bleaching lights reflect off the bald patch of the laptop pervertor who, dressed like an abominable snowdad, glitches his way through the hour and a half long set.
Genesis gets away with remarkably little, pushing a bottle against his/her strings nonchalantly, staring occasionally at the love of his life. The contrivance of their more recent compositions highlights the advances made in the avant-noise genre, but the more vitriolic, dare I say it, song-based compositions have a vim to get you bobbing your head along in angsty despair ('Fed Up'). The devoted lap it up, while the merely curious see an exercise in persistence and the conviction of living by your art.
Reviews / Pix: Tom Hannan / Kevin Molloy / Tim Dellow
Day Two
Little Wings, featuring Will Oldham, will just maybe take the prize for our favourite discovery this weekend. And a rather beautiful revelation they were too. Little could have catered for our 3pm-and-already-drunk introduction to the second day better than the wistful beauty of these two, oddball beard-porting minstrels. The songs sprawl like the singer's enormous mane of curly whiskers, to the understatedly strummed, muted and picked electric. The set is sublime, the singer's off his face (writhing to the gentlest most melodic solo folk song in the world may not seem possible, but Justin Hawkins would be proud of this man's slither around the microphone-stand), and we start the day suitably serene, with a warm and welcoming sense of confusion.
Money back please. Destroy All Monsters: the greatest heist in history. Not even the merest sign of a yeti or minotaur. Or Bigfoot. Absolute stitch-up. But Bird Blobs cheer us up; co-runners to gain the revelatory crown as adorned by L Wings, but they take the silliest name competition by storm (a hard-won contest, still, against the likes of Throbbing Gristle and bands with as much punctuation as letters in their name). They also happen to rock like a speedboat in a whirlpool. For the overblown image, read a band that know how to swagger, strut and pout; there's more than a little cock to this Beefheart-tilted rock, but the thought still comes from their heads, not their trousers.
So, they rock out gloriously, flowing locks and vest-tops abound, but the songs mount into glorious symphonies of noise, and descend into primeval rhythms before exploding into something so staggeringly tight and oddly timed it's safest to sit down. Placing them somewhere in between The Mars Volta and Deep Purple wouldn't be right, but it could be a lot more wrong.
Growing - the name says it all really. It grows, it looms, it broods. It's ominous, it's confrontational, naturally it's pretty noisy, but what made this lot stand out from the usual clatter-rock fodder was that, slow and oppressive as it may have been, there were notes in there. Proper, recognisable notes - ones they held pensively as if to make a point, only moving on to the next once the last had exhausted all its possibilities. There were more than you would have thought, especially from just a couple of seated blokes with guitars and buttons. Thank you, Growing. Horizons were broadened, and all from the comfort of someone else's living-room chair.
And like Growing, Comets On Fire - Sub Pop's latest hounds - inspire (or should that be perspire?) with a tiresome, but intense noise-joy treat: four guitars onstage, kids. Don't do this schtick in half-measures, we beg of you. Occasionally rustic on record and partial to some folk meanderings, this weekend their agenda is to (mostly) crush us, and it's a prog-punk-pomp lifeboat that we somewhat perversely grab hold of quite willingly.
Bordering upon psychosis, and perhaps inducing the same in their audience, is all part of Liars' job. Angus Andrew takes to the stage in an untied straitjacket, and there are moments in the photo pit you swear it would be safer for all concerned if it were severely fastened. But hanging himself with the microphone-lead is all part of the show... we're sure... almost. At any rate, 'Broken Witch' and its kin from the new album knock old-style Liars to the wayside of our memories; whilst we may miss the old danceable fusion, the new outfit has certainly learnt how to hammer home its new, raw edge. Often like a chisel through the eardrum. Yet there are moments of melody to the weirdness, and a clarity to the onstage mayhem, and a strange enjoyment in watching a band destroy all you thought precious to music, before discovering it has a strange new beauty lying in broken pieces on the ground.
Miss Kittin might have a silly name, but she's playing with a very clever box of magic tricks up on that big 'ol upstairs stage. Thinking back to LFO on Friday (which seems years ago), it's another of those sets that might be more suited to the wee hours, where the attendance would be slightly more enthusiastic than merely, bless 'em, the loveable bunch of guys and girls down the front who are giving it everything. Well done, you lot. Observing from a distance (trying to form a proper, considered opinion, y'see?), Miss Kittin's much more of a sparkly, ebullient proposition, soothing you into daydreams and occasionally slapping you round the face with a nice chunky beat for not paying attention. It didn't quite connect on a mass-scale, but hey, maybe more of us should have given it a chance.
When oh when did any greater force so kindly decide we deserve this: ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - with two drummers. It's louder than everything. And the band are looking to steal this weekend, make it theirs - we get 'Mistakes & Regrets' as a second song, following nihilistic, crushing, crunching, majestic new album opener (and career standout) 'Will You Smile Again For Me?', let alone a rollicking 'A Perfect Teen Hood' and intrusively ensconcing 'Another Morning Stoner' that both simply obliterate anything else heard all weekend. It's far more than we deserve. Jason Reece still deviates to that side of macabre we're too intensely fearful to follow, clambering about the stage with the stare of a killer, while Conrad Keely tonight sings and gestates with the venom and soul of our most inspired greats. A car-wreck you wish you'd driven.
A Silver Mount Zion: After the diabolic drug indulgence of their last LP, a decent set was the last thing I expected from these Canadian doom-merchants exhumed from the corpse of God peed on my Black Emperor. But I was wrong. Yep, catch it while you can, I admit it so rarely.
The mantra-style of the group's newer compositions (which knocked the classic politi-chamber pop-song of their peak period, off their set-list) are clearly designed to be delivered to a live audience rather than filtered through the speakers of a manic depressive's bedsit stereo. Live, they take on a spiritual quality only hinted at in the grooves of their latest vinyl offerings, building around the room in a desperate cry which flickers with the brilliance of their past form. It seems that this collective have moved past the political, past the natural, past the secular into an ethereal plane in which their dole-drums are forgotten. And in the nihilistic substance abuse of a weekend by the sea in mid-winter, we join them, if only for a moment.
Comparatively, headliners Mercury Rev are a shy, camp, retiring, cardigan-wearing indie-band that dress themselves in the deepest, darkest of theatrics to disguise the fact that their 'Fantasia', hocus-pocus lo-fi is actually bloody twee. Shame there's only about ten people here, too; Aphex has killed it. But that doesn't stop the exultant prevalence of songs more crafted and considered than any of the other exertions this weekend - 'Opus 40' is received as desperately as thermal gloves to an avalanched mountain-hiker (following a predominantly new-song orientated run-through), whilst 'The Dark Is Rising' - proffered after a cripplingly lengthy encore-break - retains that swooning grace and charm that first endeared us (properly) to their woozy atmospherics in the first place.
Richard D James rewards persistence. The full brilliance of the manic end to Aphex Twin's set can only really be appreciated if you were around to witness at least a segment of how this all started. It's organic - Aphex nurtures the set, adding parts, attempting new things, knocking over his building blocks and starting again, dropping noise both jovial and pounding just to make sure we're still following.
To begin, the word is ambience. Setting the scene, misleading us somewhat; a couple of people call it boring, and leave. Good, more room for the rest of us - because when this does kick off, we'll need the room for dancing. It's not about the spectacle, the light show or any stage presence - the boy's at the back right-hand corner of the stage, not lit at all, trying to hide behind his iBook - Aphex Twin is all about the build-up. Eventually, he gets there, and after two hours very much on the upward curve, it plateaus in the first instance of The Nightmare Before Christmas being properly banging. Limbs are everywhere, people knock into each other and hug, quoting only 'come on you c**ts, let's have some Aphex acid!' by way of fitting apology. And it was all the better for having stuck with it.
Reviews / Pix: Tom Hannan / Kevin Molloy / Tim Dellow
Day Three
Always go to see bands with silly names. If they turn out to be great, you've seen a great band, and they've had a silly name - double trouble. If they're rubbish, at least you can say you've seen a band called, for example, Pelican, which might raise a giggle on a slow night. Pelican aren't rubbish by any means; they're of the same school of wonderfully punishing, heavy, artsy metal as the likes of Isis, except this is a wholly instrumental affair. Instead of feeling the need to scream at the tops of their voices (because that's pretty much the only vocal style that could have done this any justice), room is instead allocated to spaced-out, exploratory passages (trance-metal, maybe?), but only in small, respiratory lapses. They like their riffs, large and looming, aping dull thuds to the head. There's perhaps a little too many of those thumps if anything, as we do feel slightly battered afterwards. No doubt that was all part of the plan.
Lyle Perkins - see Miss Kitten; more of that solo keys and synths and laptop wizardry that would and could sound rave-like if only people bothered to dance. It makes us long for the warming tones of Hood once more - first-on in the day - whose cinematic expanse of gentle, rambling country guitars, hushed vocals and refined sense of screen-aided beauty was both sublimely subtle and intoxicating.
B>Sunn 0))) - pronounced 'Sun'. Although the amount of indie-geeks this weekend who say things like 'are you going to check out Sun-n-zero, dash-dash-dash', only to have their friend say, 'Yes. But it's actually pronounced 'Sonn - nought-close-bracket-close-bracket-close-bracket' is baffling. I never thought I'd see so much anal action from a bunch of IMH's (Intelligent Metal Heads - or 'Virgins' for short). But, words don't really define the terror massacre onstage (shown in 360° Slow-Motion).
Initially, the amps hum, with no-one onstage, the possessed machines pouring out their ghosts, then the hooded wickermen step forward in preparation - the percussion a rally of death throws from a sample bank. By the time they move you up a gear into the backwards vocals and shroudy death threats, the marijuana should be making you run for your life. Being the hard man I am, I simply run to the bar, and when I return find that I have only missed two notes. And I ordered two pints of Guinness. So the Devil may not be fast, but he's certainly impossible to miss. And after an hour of this sludgy massacre, it's impossible to deny that Sunn0))) are the true heirs to doom-metal. In the words of Bill Withers, 'Ain't no Sunn 0)))shine when she's gone.'
The Fall, you can't help but expect certain things of their live shows. What we didn't predict was a twenty-minute video mix of Elvis Presley, aurally enhanced to wail and groan that most famous of Las Vegas comebacks with a more feverish, hallucinogenic quality, each 'uh-huh' extended to span a minute, before the 'baby' is screamed at Led Zep rehearsal levels. The crowd are non-plussed; there's no doubting everybody enjoys what they're getting, but aren't we meant to be watching Mark E Smith stumble drunkenly onto a stage and mumble something incoherent about the price of electricity? The cinema stage was downstairs surely?
Well, twenty minutes late is better than not at all. The band take the stage and start up a catchy enough tune, then Mark E, bless his soul, stumbles onto the stage drunkenly, one hand in pocket, and mumbles and slurs a little something about Sparta FC he cooked up on the last album. He's starting to look a little haggard, especially against his youthful backing group, but his age only lends authority to his ramblings, as does the tightly choreographed precision of his band. The present incarnation of The Fall makes for probably the most organised band ATP has ever seen, but never fear, Mr Smith's inebriation makes the perfect match to their sobriety, and the set comes off as a splendid example of what a sufficiently stable podium can do for an eloquent and melodious drunkard.
The beautiful, somewhat legendary, alt-country trio Violent Femmes provoke one of the weekend's guilty pleasure highlights. They cover The Velvets' 'All Tomorrow's Parties', and knock off the traces of brown that its tones evoke, and instead make it church-like - coinciding, quite wonderfully, with our visit to the joke-shop in the main auditorium. We purchase novelty spectacles and a toy gun, which we proceed to aim towards our onstage soundtrack. Not that we'd dare have actually hit them; with their rolling, acousto-rhythms and barnyard stomp, the Femmes close the party with an unhampered honesty and jaunty sweetness, the likes of which only fellow stripped-back triumvirates Low and Yo La Tengo can muster. Three's a crowd; three's all you need. It's the magic number for a reason.
Reviews / Pix: Tom Hannan / Kevin Molloy / Tim Dellow
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