All Tomorrow's Parties - Pontins Holiday Camp, Camber Sands - 22-24/4/05
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Day One
Oh, we do like to be beside the seaside. Very apparently.
And so it is that, for the fourth time in little over a year, rockfeedback finds itself back at Camber Sands. Yeah, four separate occasions. We should know exactly what we're getting ourselves into this time, except it's never quite the same. You needn't have heard of any of the acts or have any special place in your heart for the curators. The same thing never happens twice. It's always, without fail, incredible. The understated genius of All Tomorrow's Parties.
The homely holiday camp that will house us for the next three nights isn't in the middle of nowhere. You have to go through 'nowhere' to get to it. It's a place where trains appear out of mist and taxi drivers revel in making curious jokes that only they will ever understand. It's a trek. And as such we miss the opening few bands - infuriating, because if the remainder of the weekend was anything to go by, we probably missed some corkers. To make up for it, we'll try and recant something about nigh-on every single one of the rest of them (apart from Afrirampo - I missed them and I'm not even sure why.)
So what acts as our opener is Lydia Lunch, a highly charismatic lady with a voice and stage presence so mammoth that it even manages to outshine her rather fantastic costume, part dazzling prom queen and part my old art teacher. Backed by some fellas playing a jarring kind of jazz rock hybrid, she captivates and confuses in equal measure, the kind of performance that wouldn't fit anywhere but here. She ends on a freeform, spoken-word take on The Doors' 'The End', much more Henry Rollins than William Shatner, spitting every single world. It's relatively frightening, but oddly, just makes us want to crack out some Morrison & Co. when we retreat back to the chalet.
There's a great drinking game whereby you have to take a glug every time Jon Spencer shouts 'Blues Explosion!' and we suggest you try it. There is the possibility of passing out within the space of a few songs however, so proud the lad is of his band's handle. The set's an early contender for weekend highlight, largely made so infective because of how evident it is that drummer Russell Simins loves it - before now, you think, I've only ever really heard people work a drumkit. Simins plays one. Over the rhythm, it's the constantly interlinking riffs that really get you, funky, filthy and delivered by a punk-Presley so rabidly he's almost foaming at the mouth. We'd stick around for every one of 'em if Merzbow wasn't about to blow our ears off downstairs. But wait - they've started another one! And it's ace! OK, we'll leave after the next one. OK, maybe the next one. And so on. This is quite something. The Blues is number one.
We walk back downstairs so convinced that Merzbow's about to steal our ears that we hold on to them tightly through fear of them being grated off. Imagine the shock then, that three rows from the front, his set is so subtle that it's possible to hold a pleasant conversation without even raising your voice. The pint in my hand isn't even shaking like we thought it should. Is this background music? No - you can start not even concentrating on it and eventually, unintentionally, become completely encompassed. This Japanese Lennon look-alike (John, not Sean; more of him later), with only a couple of i-Books full of tricks, can soundtrack your conversation so subtly that it almost drifts out of your consciousness, before doing something so drastic to the sound that it can change your entire set of emotions. Only then do you realise how caught up in it all you are. He removes the top end from the sound and you feel sick, as if the blood in your veins has been replaced with sewage. The bottom end comes out and you feel you're falling, the foundations removed from beneath your feet, only strange squeaking noises above you to grab hold of. Beats overlap uncomfortably, parts come and go without you ever being able to figure out where they've come from, let alone where they're going. Then, it ends. Don't ask us how.
The deal with Peaches is the show and not the tunes. She does have a cannon of fine tracks, but she could prance around to any old rubbish and still we'd look on transfixed as she mounts speakers, deep throats a microphone and encourages any diabetics in the house to chuck food at her. Whether that's helping anyone is unclear, but the only person who does what is essentially karaoke as well as this is Har Mar Superstar, and even that mass of sleaze isn't anywhere near as dirty as this. Whereas Har Mar wants you to get with him, Peaches is on a mission to get with us, going in the crowd seemingly attempting to do just that. She surfs over arms, seductive and intimidating in equal measure, a brave thing to do if last year's highly unnecessary groping incident is anything to go by. People are being chucked over the barriers and led away by security, Peaches begging for them not to be thrown out. 'Please, I like contact, I like people,' she says, 'I've had some good experiences and some bad ones,' perhaps in reference to last year. She needs her crowd, without whom she's ridiculous. In front of them, she's pure entertainment, sharing a duet with an on-screen Iggy Pop, swearing, sweating, swaggering and truly f**king our pain away.
Day Two
Typical, you go into a pub for a quiet pint on a Saturday morning (come on, it's a festival) only to find there's some noisy bunch of young oiks bashing out shaky post-rock rock in the corner to anyone who'll listen.
But compared to much of what else is on offer, Youth Movie Soundtrack Strategies don't half sound conventional, if only because you can pick out long forgotten weapons like structure and tune, things you only usually get away with here if wearing a shiny cat suit or striped Y-Fronts. They seem like the kind of band who are here as much to pay attention to the other people playing rather than rocking it themselves, which is no bad thing. You feel as if you're cheering them on as they attempt to get a pub full of hungover punters clapping in screwy time signatures, joining in acapella singalongs and generally digging these riffs. It doesn't quite come off. But bless them for trying.
There's something very hippy-like about the noise The Vitamin B-12 make. A texture of an unkempt beard. A whiff of a Kibbutz. They're quick to point themselves out in the programme as being barely a band at all, finding the idea of a public appearance very funny and much more fittingly conceived of as a collective of mates trying things out. But wonderfully, this is experimentation in the proper sense, people using things to make noises purely to see what happens. It's totally unpredictable and as such, a lot of fun, utilising a child's spelling machine, the talents of an old man on a few bongos, two drumkits and no discernable beat at all. These people are smiling. It looks like a great band to be in, that's if it is a band at all. If Merzbow released a Christmas single, it might sound a little like this. I'm smiling too.
You will always come back from a weekend away at ATP with a new favourite band and Autolux are definitely it this time. For anyone who wishes nobody had ever told Yo La Tengo to turn it down a bit, or that Sonic Youth would stop with the racket and get round to writing those brilliant pop songs we all know they secretly want to, here is your band. It can be beautifully delicate or cruelly heavy, but always has a grip on a fine melody that no amount of squall (and they do try) could ever dim. In one especially serene moment, the stage lit up with twinkling yellow lights, Carla Azar comes from behind the drumkit, kneels in the centre of the stage, closes her eyes, rocks back and forward and delivers a song so mesmerising that people from all over the room drift in her direction, following her every sway, as if responding to a siren. There's nothing dangerous here - only something quite exquisite. They're the kind of band you want to say thank you to.
To carry on referring to Buck 65 as a hip-hop artist is now a mistake. It worked once, and a great one he was, too. But now, whilst some urgency might have disappeared, it's all the more exciting. Buck does country now. He records songs with Tortoise. He's a living genius, one you could listen to all day, and you'd probably learn something as well. He doesn't rap so much as tell stories, both informing and entertaining his audience. And boy, he can scratch well. He's aware the pace is slowed down somewhat, and throws some glitter in to the air to try and add a little pizzazz to proceedings. But these songs, these stories, don't need dressing up. Sometimes the fun in listening to people rap is thinking that you could never have come up with those rhymes. With Buck, you doubt that anyone other than he could. Songs such as the fantastic 'Craftsmanship' leave you wondering how you can become so emotionally involved in a song which is, no kidding, purely about fixing shoes. He's fun, too. He tells all the girls in the audience they smell, the first act to make a blatant declaration of love to Vincent Gallo, and delivers a thrash version of his biggest hit 'Wicked & Weird'. He tells a story about how when his dad looked after him as a kid they would do drawings together on lazy afternoons. Buck would draw a house, with a garage and a tree in the garden. His dad drew a skeleton on fire, riding a motorcycle. It becomes the chorus of a brilliant song. Inspiration can be taken from anywhere. You can certainly take some from Buck 65.
Women & Children aren't a quiet band, but they are a rather delicate one. From all the smiles and giggles coming from their way, we deduce they're a rather shy one too. The sound is thick and the melodies are misty, like listening to Cat Power through a fog. Piano keys are stroked hypnotically, a very studious, but not distant approach. It doesn't grab, but that might be as much our fault as it is theirs. Many of us are still whispering Buck 65's stories to ourselves.
Kid Koala & Money Mark take the stage together. They're mates, and they're showing off. They're good at it. The Kid has a few copies of 'Moon River' on vinyl and, don't ask us how, plays them all simultaneously, scratches them up almost beyond recognition and makes it gorgeous in a way the original could never have dreamt it would ever become. Mark gets busy behind the keys, and when he plays some fabulously funky licks as he supplemented the Beastie Boys' classic 'Check Your Head' with, he's ace also. But he also plays some drawn out and rather dull ballad-like material, which is far less fun. The Kid isn't flawless either, whatever he's doing behind Mark's one man keyboard show disappearing into the forgotten beats of time. You start to wonder what each would be like if left to do a solo set, and conclude that's something you'd rather see. This had as many troughs as peaks, placating where it could have been invigorating. Onwards, then...
Every time you look up, it seems each member of the Olivia Tremor Control isn't playing the same instrument they were playing last time. For us uninitiated types, it's purely a matter of guessing as to what some of these pieces of equipment actually are, but it's one hell of a vibrant visual spectacle, we'll give it that. If you were to bring your ma and pa along to an ATP, this is the band they'd probably love most (assuming they'd missed hippy types The Zombies, who play tomorrow), not a particularly challenging listen, but a really rather fun one. Us, however, we want less of those pretty guitar chords and more of those mad sousaphone skills. What a great band this would be to have play at a wedding.
Taking an absolute age to begin, Sean Lennon & Vincent Gallo obsess about sound. This is odd, seeing as when they finally commence, they're incredibly quiet. Considering how long it took to get it sounding like that, we can only assume that this is at their request. They sing plaintively in voices so similar you begin to wonder if they're related. They delicately pluck away at acoustic guitars, singing when it suits them, initiating a duet when they please. Could they get away with something this unplanned and carefree if they weren't so unfathomably famous? And more to the point, would I be struggling to find ways to make it sound like it was actually pretty good if they weren't?
John Foxx has got some really cracking tunes in him, but showcases his equally prevalent dry side to an all too lengthy degree for the beginning of his set. The silver-haired pioneer of synth music's presence in this setting at first seems rather perverse, sounding and looking as if it was from another time, but from the not too distant past rather than the revolutionary future. But ATP creates a wonderful mood of optimism, so much so that I still think part of me really enjoyed that Gallo and Lennon set. So we stick it out for Foxxy, and he comes good, everything after an ace 'Crash & Burn' being a rather great slice of pumping dance music. I start to miss the eighties, and I wasn't even alive for most of it. Maybe I should get a bad haircut. Or at least a worse one.
The entire downstairs audience are under the control of John Frusciante, for he is the Chili Pepper who reportedly even turns up to ATP when he isn't scheduled to play a note. So in that sense, he's just like us? He's sitting down with an acoustic guitar and chatting about a new Peppers record. When that gets a cheer from a crowd like this, you know you're safe to play what you like. The boy's undoubtedly an incredible axeman, and on this evidence is not a bad songwriter either. It's interesting to hear the man in complete control of everything that happens to his music, making a sound that is all of interesting, intricate, melodic and highly knowledgeable in the ways of rock and roll. Guess what? Frusciante not only comes across like a nice bloke, but his music isn't anywhere near as inexpressive and dull as some of the stuff his full-time employers are prone to bashing out. Nice one, John.
'I haven't played on my own in 12 years and I'm shaking like a leaf - I blame Vincent,' says Polly Jean Harvey, who seems to be standing perfectly still as far as we can make out. There's no need for the shakes, Peej. You're superb. Her voice is wonderful, but we knew that. Try listening to her guitar playing, stripped bare, it's not intricate in terms of solos or complicated, finger stretching chords. But the rhythms are something to behold, they're not angular enough to take away from Harvey's brilliance as a straight-up songwriter, but they are unconventional and difficult enough to set her apart even further. They're often rather hard to figure out. Being away from the band doesn't stop her from playing noisy rock and roll ('Who The F**k?'), nor does she miss them when at her most personally intense ('Send His Love To Me'). If only everyone else planning a set with just a guitar had chatted to her first and taken notes, things could have been very different for a couple of people (they know who they are). And blimey, who'd have thought 'Rid of Me' would be perfect even without The Best Drum Sound Ever Recorded™?
I want Suicide to scare me, not to entertain me, but seeing as they're intent on having a laugh I'll do the same myself. I've just got to let go of my idea of this being one of rock's most challenging bands. They're not going to do my favourite songs the way I want them to. I'll get what I'm given. I'll enjoy it. Let go. Now, Suicide are a weird rave band, a rave where people go bonkers to songs about destitute working class Americans killing themselves and their families because they couldn't afford food. They indulge in their 'legend' status, lapping up the adoration, the sunglasses perhaps blinding them to the fact that the crowd is one of the thinner ones of the day. Those classics are here, changed but still grand, 'Ghost Rider' especially maintaining some menace despite its new found beats. The once petrifying 'Frankie Teardrop' however loses everything that sent shivers down the spine, and is now a visual spectacle. What's more perverse, that this song no longer ruins all chances of a good night's sleep, or that Peaches guests on it wearing - get this - jeans and a t shirt? Suicide have been a lot of fun. I just have to live with that.
There have been some odd things around the site today, but this is the weirdest. 2am, in a garish arcade, a crowd gathers to watch Peaches versus Vincent Gallo at Air Hockey. The score? 7-6 to Gallo, since you ask, although some say Peaches threw the game. He's a charming man, after all. However, I don't feel that fits with the look of dejection on Peaches' face. They stay chatting afterwards, mostly about tactics.
Day Three
Good morning, campers. For your viewing pleasure, on the specially scheduled ATP television channel, you can now find 'Buffalo 66', which at the start seems to be a film about how our beloved curator Vincent Gallo really needs a piss, then turns in to a mentally deranged version of 'Meet The Parents'. It's a great film, and after watching it, everything about Gallo seems to fit a little more. We approach the arena with our eyes opened even wider than in previous days.
However, it's difficult to really care about music when the person making it happen seems so disinterested in it herself. Lesley Winer, dubbed the godmother of trip-hop, could be exciting - diversity is a wonderful thing in a bill, as many bands today will testify. But the set seems all about lethargy, Winer wandering about the stage puffing on a cigarette, disappearing when not in front of the microphone, looking like she feels out of place. An odd position, as very few things here are out of place. Perhaps only those are this drowsy.
The Tints and their hot pants certainly know what their talents are, and play to them. They also have a knack for a cute form of power pop music, playful, speedy and sparklingly melodic. But the adoration and drool from the first few rows is purely down to the girls being a fine looking bunch, not because this sound is anything much to write home about beyond being merely pleasant, Electrelane-like rock. It takes us all in though, we'll admit. Two kinds of looks on faces for this set - the glazed expression that covers those of male punters, not sparing the rich and famous (Gallo & Lennon gaze on), and the disapproving looks from girlfriends.
'My name is Ted Curson, the legendary motherf**ker'. Remember what we said about diversity? This is what it's all about. Curson is a jazz trumpeter, and one hell of a trumpeter at that. And this was precisely what ATP needed right now, a sound that isn't at all in your face, something that soothes and calms but remains exciting. And it's not that he's so large that he's holding a normally sized trumpet and dwarfing it, that's actually one of those small trumpets. You start to really like the fella, his banter, the way he tells you lengthy stories about what his songs are about even though they're instrumentals ('Quicksand' for example, about the perils of Hollywood) - that's a person who cares about his music. You believe him, and join in the polite applause of his every solo. There seems to be some kind of mutual appreciation society formed between him and Gallo, a man he calls '20 years ahead of his time' and is the subject of many a dedication, the actor hanging around backstage so he can have a photo taken with him. We're learning a lot about Vincent this weekend.
You can't accuse Jayne County of not meaning it. She changed gender to be here, after all. The music? Punk rock done without any deviation from the standard 'there is no fourth chord' rule. The show? Here's the real gold. County's an enigma, emptying a bag of flower on her head, thrashing about on her knees, spreading rumours about the mammoth size of Gallo's genitalia. See, we're learning. She covers the Dead Kennedys' 'California Uber Alles' and has a rant about Arnold Shwarzenegger mid-way through it, and for an encore (yeah!), dusts of a song called 'F**k Off'. Barmy.
The programme says that Gang Gang Dance aren't disco punk, which if our experience of emo bands saying they're not emo is anything to go by means they're quite possibly rather disco punk. And - we're slightly correct. But only slightly - this is shares with dance music what the Cocteau Twins did, much more that than Donna Summer. At first, and eventually you regret thinking this, it's rather dull, relying on a kind of ambient drone rambling around exploring the air, certainly inferior to what eventually happens when the beats and bass all take a turn for something new. It gets vital, still hazy, but now a haze you're being marched into. There are wails and there are pulses where there used to be bleakness. Suddenly, it gets rather difficult to walk away from.
But alas, Trapist are on upstairs, and you never know, they might be the best band you've ever seen. Skulking to the front, the concentration on their faces is almost painful. It's a peculiar feeling, to be looking into the eyes of people who might never, ever rock out. Too busy they are experimenting with sounds, each note sounding bizarrely distant and tortuous. It's both lulling and uneasy, at times getting deathly quiet but gaining enough respect from the crowd that when they go silent, we follow suit. Every single note sounds like it could bring things to an end. Then, it stops, and sounds not a whole lot different. Weirdoes.
James Chance & The Contortions are a band full of incredibly competent jazz musicians who today very rarely play anything overly jazzy. Completely unlike Trapist, it seems this lot can't resist the temptation to rock out. It's a similar spectacle to watching Nick Cave when he really lets go, sound and sweat are everything, putting an effort in to it but making it look effortless. Cave might have more of a talent for restraint, but he doesn't play a saxophone quite as meanly as Chance does. This is one of those sets where you take away little more than a memory of it being soaked in red light, bloody loud and most importantly rather good. Sometimes that's all you need.
The Magik Markers are manic and seem to spend the whole set either swaying or thrashing at things. You've got to love watching bands with such urgency that it seems every single note needs to be played right now, no later, as a matter of supreme importance. They're also obscenely noisy and utterly caught up in it; watching Elisa Ambrogio kneel down and screech lyrics she frantically scrambles to find in a notebook is like watching a woman who has no idea that there's even a crowd watching her. What they'd sound like on a record I don't want to ponder in case it loses this vital sense of doing everything in a hurry. Right now, it's bloody great.
Anyone with the new Prefuse 73 rekkid (the highly recommended 'Surrounded By Silence') will get more out of this set than the uninitiated. You don't really realise how much that album's got a hold on you until one of its cuts seeps its way into the thick, beat-ridden mess of Scott Herren and his band of merry funksters' set. It gives you a sudden burst of happiness. As much as he does miss the rappers (why aren't there any?), an instrumental hip-hop set of the highest quality is delivered. I don't think it would be possible to witness more people nodding in one room than there are right here.
You know lots of songs by The Zombies. And they play them all, telling you what year they were released, what record it they on, their chart position and what they had for breakfast the morning they were writing it. They're endearing geeks. They know they're old, and they know they're adored, and they smile all the way through the set. Everyone wishes their Dad was here, if only for what would be a rousing sing along of 'She's Not There'. It's ultimately very much stuck in its time, but you have to admit that the standard of sixties pop music was incredibly high. And we didn't expect a Kiss cover to end either. But The Zombies gave rock and roll to us, and reminded us where a lot of what we presently love came from.
Watching Yoko Ono isn't a gig. It's being in the presence of someone who undoubtedly has the status of an important historical figure performing. In a bingo hall. In Pontins. I love this place. She's already given out commemorative 'Onochord' pocket torches, meant to deliver Morse Code signals of 'I love you' to each other during the set, and is undoubtedly a little bonkers. It could have been awful, in fact many of us expected it to be, but it's shockingly rather nice. Seventy two years old and with a revealing top to prove it, she delivers a very calm, measured performance that's even rather subtle where she's usually famed for her uncontrollable wails (although we do get a couple of those). Kudos to her for actually forcing Vincent and her son Sean to play something with a little structure and volume, joining her on stage as a super-group forms before our eyes, an unholy alliance of Yoko on keys, her lad on drums and a Gallo / Frusciante dual guitar attack. It fits. Everything fits. The whole festival converges on this moment, I understand Gallo, I understand these people. It sounds great. It's been great. We'll be back.
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment