All Tomorrow’s Parties – Butlins Holiday Camp, Minehead – 8-10/12/06
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
DAY ONE - 8/12/06
So, a new site, a very different venue, a much bigger line up and many more people in the audience. How's this going to work out? Let's see.
It starts with Flipper, who are supposedly one of the best bands ever. This is according to one of the actual best bands ever, The Melvins. The thought of their being awarded this accolade rings around in your head whilst you think surely not, surely they're now just an average crusty old grunge band, regardless of what they once were? They're old enough to have gone wrong somewhere along the way. True, it could be that there was once a really great band here, but as it is people seem to be gathered in such large numbers purely because Krist Novoselic, formerly of Nirvana, is playing bass.
There is admittedly a vague twang of charm that comes from their slushy sound, one which suggests the guitars have been drinking (the guitars, not the guitarists, you understand - talking in a Waitsian sense), though it doesn't seem to garner huge support as those other than long term fans leave wondering what all the fuss was about. Still, at least we got to see the mammoth hands of Krist on bass (he plays very well), nodding along having a blast as he always did, waving at us like trees in the wind saying goodbye.
Next, total elation. It sounds corny, but I promised myself at the time that I would write those words, because that's exactly what this was. What an incredible year it's been for The Melvins, with another bass player sacked (reportedly for all the right reasons), it seems that destiny took another swing at the band but this time where it chopped off one head two have grown back in their place. Nothing can stop this monster.
How fantastic will it be if Jared and Coady from Big Business are taught to be Melvins up to the point where when Buzz and Dale's retirement inevitably happens (please may it be many a year yet) they can take over and carry the band on forever. Hell, that new guy even looks like Buzz. Not only are we excited, they're elated too. It's not that The Melvins haven't always been a really enthusiastic live band, it's just that the new members seem to have really revitalised the whole project. After ATP's support of them leading to their front cover feature in this last month's Wire magazine, it seems they may finally have found themselves in the place they belong - amongst the intelligent music listener.
Funnily enough, it's a pleasure to say that there wasn't a single song from 'Stoner Witch' all weekend. There's no longer a need to play the hits, given that it's so impressive as it is. Yes, they did play an incredible rendition of 'The Bit' in their second set the morning afterwards, a song which felt very much like a 'thank you' to anyone who bothered to go see them twice, but it has to be said that one of the best performances of either day was 'Civilised Worm', a totally new little number. Since hearing the new album being played out live and listening to it since granting it my earlier review a month or so ago, I've deemed it necessary to point out how much better the album is than I made it out to be even then. It's a belter, and I'm sorry.
But the revitalisation doesn't stop with the new material. The performance of 'Oven' is the best I've ever seen anything off second album 'Ozma' ever played, and capping the set off with the lovely 'Butterflies' (the version from the oft overlooked 'Electroretard'), featuring some of the best use of two drum kits simultaneously you'll ever hear. Both sets left us at rockfeedback utterly speechless.
Around midway through a set by Iggy and the Stooges you start to ponder whether the entire continued existence of the sensory world is dependent on Iggy Pop. If he can keep going, the world will be OK. If he can continue to act like a hyperactive sixteen year old punk when he's about 118 years old now, we've all got life in us left. We can, all of us, feed off this guy. And that's what this crowd does. We all go away feeling younger, oddly, because we've watched a topless old man shout. And what's best about The Stooges is that, what with the energy and inimitable, crushing precision of their sound, you don't get the feeling that watching them in 1969 would be any different to watching them do this set, right here, right now.
Oh, except they might have paid more attention to 'Raw Power' back then. Really, as great as it was to hear 'TV Eye' and 'Now I Wanna Be Your Dog' twice, to ignore that other Stoogely masterpiece was a somewhat difficult decision to understand.
Whilst some of us got to watch Iggy and then Sonic Youth, due to the wristband situation, others of us had to wander about and go discovering things. So we stumbled in to the room where Islaja were playing. However, someone told us it was Deerhoof, and by this point we could already barely see (yes, we were already a little worse for wear). As such, it took us an embarrassingly long time of saying to our friends how 'they don't usually sound anything like this' before we actually figured out who it was. As for Islaja, they come across as a very rough around the edges band, very creepy, very Eastern European (not that the two things always have to go together, it's just that this year, with the likes of Beirut and A Hawk & A Hacksaw doing it, they seem to have). They do a very crusty, looming, off beat groaning kind of music which is sporadically great, yet they don't manage to make it totally exciting for a whole set.
Sonic Youth however have us in the palm of their hands from the very first chord. 'Teenage Riot' (which they start with). 'Eric's Trip'. 'Catholic Block'. 'Schizophrenia'. Anyone with half a knowledge of this incredible band will know just from reading those preceding few words what a stunning occasion this was.
Sure, there was a lot of stuff from 'Rather Ripped' ('Incinerate' staking even more of a claim for inclusion on any of our future 'Best of Sonic Youth' mix tapes). Heck though, didn't it sound really good? Isn't Lee Ranaldo a superlative lead guitarist? Couldn't you have watched Kim Gordon spin around in that shiny silver dress whilst Thurston loomed over his battered guitar ominously even if they were just playing the half formed jams from 'Experimental Jet Set Trash & No Star' all set? Yes, we all could have.
But this was vintage Sonic Youth. Losing Jim O'Rourke doesn't matter when you've got Pavement's Mark Ibold standing in. Looking nearly as haggard as Iggy isn't a problem when you too are one of the few people in music who isn't at first album stage who look like they're enjoying every single note of playing live. Not one bit of it wasn't hypnotically glorious, and the weekend was only so good because it was their favourite bands who were playing for us. A huge, huge thank you, Thurston.
Pause. Sigh. And onward...
Charalambides are like a mean, hard crooning, all-groaning Cat Power, before all that nonsense Motown stuff. Although it is really pleasant, lovely and acoustic, I still strongly feel there's something really hard about this sometimes stark sound, something that's utterly compelling at times but is consistently nice. There are times however when the set is just too nice, nice to the point of it being a bit boring eve. Possibly it's this venue - full of rowdy people coming and going - but somewhere along the line it is just too easy to lose attention. Overall you're left feeling that whilst theirs wasn't one of the greatest sets ever, you're still somewhat compelled to hear more.
So, the jury's out. If you like Bardo Pond however, you've been tricked. Having forgotten how disappointing their support slot for Mogwai was many moons ago and started to hear their name said in revered tones by intelligent people once again, I let myself believe they could be pretty exciting. They are in a lot of ways a poor man's Mogwai, except they manage to sound much thinner in a way, yet with twice as many members as Mogwai. Their string section just does not manage to evoke any emotion whatsoever, which is often what string sections do best. There's something really drab about this band live, something worrying to how they don't seem to be working together as a unit particularly well. Some of them just don't seem to be particularly interested in the songs. Recorded output however is superior to this, and there's a chance - and this we hope for - that they improve, and justify the kind words the cool people are saying about them.
It pains me to say that the sound for Prurient was not nearly good enough. It's absolutely essential when seeing noise acts like this lad in particular to have all the high and low frequencies there in their correct setting. Having heard a lot of exciting things about Prurient's live performance, it was difficult to shake the feeling that he doesn't do what you'd expect him to do from listening to the recorded material, but that is in fact exactly what he does do. This is good, as his recorded material is really strong, but after the bad sound and the feeling of watching someone do what they probably do at home most nights anyway, you are left feeling detached, and feeling that you wanted something a bit more. Something a little more human to cling on to, perhaps.
Noise, noise every where, and not a drop to drink. Or something like that. So much in fact has been drunk that we have forgotten simple children's rhymes like that one. Forgive us, this is as close as we get to a holiday for a long, long time. How nice it was then, amidst all the clamour and the premature on set of our headaches, to stumble across Fursaxa. Looped flutes, dulcet tones, the oh so welcome presence of a mandolin. It was exactly the calm in the middle of the storm of the day that we needed in order to face the six hour long party that followed it. Thank you, Mrs Whoeveryouwere.
DAY TWO - 9/12/06
Ok, so we got up and saw the Melvins for the second time in two days. Brilliant. Then we got to see Deerhoof, a band who remain utterly charming despite having shed a member who, if you've seen our coverage of Curtains recently, was deemed by many to be the heart of the band. What ATP is about for us personally this year is not discovering new bands so much, as it has been in previous years, but cementing bands who we'd previously enjoyed as fixtures in our list of favourite acts, like, ever. Deerhoof are quirky, of course they are, but don't you overlook them for it. Listen to how intricate it is whilst it's being cute and funny. Deerhoof are amusing, yes. But they're ten times as intelligent as they are mirthful.
Subsequently, Hair Police's performance on this Saturday is fantastic, particularly the work of Mike Connelly. I came away from this show feeling that once Mr Connelly has properly settled into Wolf Eyes (that other band he plays with) they'll have become so good (not that they're not amazing already) as to be unstoppable. Yet at the moment at least Conelly's talents suit Hair Police, his band, far better. This is a much more conventional band than Wolf Eyes in that they seem to show a real appreciation for free jazz and death metal and old punk. What is particularly striking about this show is Conelly's vocals, Mike's guttural vocals reminding you how lucky it is to be alive at the same time as him, and aware of his work.
Mats Gustaffson plays a mean saxophone, in that he plays it meanly, and in a way that you'll never have heard before. Eye is from the Boredoms, and he plays a mean... actually, what the hell is that he's playing? Any of it? Together, Gustaffson and your man from the Boredoms play a charmingly free set, devoid of any boundaries such as melody, tune, rhythm, verse, reward, recognisable instruments, words, convention, choruses or riffs. And if you don't find that exciting, you're at entirely the wrong festival. Back to V with you. Off you go.
If you want drone that really is drone, go see Double Leopards. People are always asking us what drone is (serious, they stop us in the street, we just look that way), but this answer should shut them up. Bloody idiots. First of all, this band succeed in being a good band because they are an extreme that simply hasn't been explored enough. They're also exploring something interesting in that what five people produce can be so devoid of actual parts, instead becoming one big amorphous sound. All sorts of instruments are utilised in creating this massive, low humming sound, and from there the bands set about slowly transforming it into various frequencies and tones. One of the fascinating parts of their performance is that when a member performs something more defined than the rest of the sound such as a lengthy vocal howl, there are at least 3 or 4 seconds of delay before the sound can be heard. The noise then goes on throughout the set, and can be picked out if you wish to. Whether the band can manage to entertain audiences again and again within this same niche is yet to be seen, but I think that it's more than likely that Double Leopards can discover quite a large amount of aspects to this style, provided they're ready to really think about it. We think they are.
Queues - the main problem with this ATP, apart from the beach not being as nice as the one at Camber Sands and the beer not being free. Ask anyone who tried to see first sets from The Melvins, Deerhoof, Gang of Four, Dinosaur Jr. or MC5. Never this problem at the old site, oh no. And suddenly, as the queues snake for a second time around the venue, everyone becomes a little nostalgic for Camber.
Bless the people at ATP however, who do their darndest to get everyone in to see every band they would have wanted to at least once over the weekend by convincing them to play second sets. It's as such that we get to see Gang of Four in their entirety, and what a towering delight it was. Whilst their music is of course decidedly punk in both ethic and aesthetic, what set them apart then and now is the nous behind it all. And so the virility of it lies not in the increased speed of anything, yet in the delivery - the way they loom over the crowd, gaze at us with such harsh stares, every note sieved through the most caustic of filters. Thinking about it, it was peculiar that we felt the need to dance quite as much as we did. At the time, it felt like the only appropriate thing to do.
You see, if a band make you want to react in some kind of physical way, just do it. It's for this reason that we spent most of Dinosaur Jr's set hollering praise and telling our friends how much we appreciated them, man. They're just a band so good that it seemed like there was nothing else to do, given that we had no flowers or chocolates to present them with.
They're a band so loud that the Christmas decorations hanging from the venue ceiling were blown back from their pinned in positions. Every sound was clipping, every note near deafening. Perfect. Really, few better tunes have been written than 'In A Jar' or 'Freak Scene', certainly not on an electric guitar. Certainly none have been played with any more skill, precision and sheer ferocity of volume and emotion at these. And how warming it is to see these people, J Mascis and Lou Barlow in particular, friends again, Barlow even deeming it now acceptable to add his services to a track he was never even on, the classic 'Feel The Pain'. Sheesh, even writing the words 'Feel The Pain' takes me back to a happy place, where they were just in the middle of the bit where it goes psychotically fast. See this band.
Don't, however, see Magick Markers - or at least make sure you're going to catch them on a good day. Send a friend in, get 'em to report to you as to whether they're on the money or not. Make an informed decision. Otherwise you could end up like us, sitting watching something that was on the edge of brilliance, but unlike so many bands in a similar position this weekend, fell instead in to the pile marked 'Shambolic and Aimless' rather than 'Inspired and Essential'.
And so to bed. Hang on... they're playing PiL in the pub? Let's dance!
DAY THREE - 10/12/06
This guy, Aaron Dilloway, knows exactly what he is doing from the outset. An ex-member of Wolf Eyes, Dilloway not only proves that he can stand up on his own but that not being in Wolf Eyes has allowed him to pursue some much more subtle elements of his style, showcasing a sincere love of tone. Dilloway moves through a host of varying sounds, starting with a noise that from the bar could be mistaken for the atomic wall of death, but with Dilloway it is predominantly about the nice decayed clicking sounds, not the full on apocalyptic onslaught. He's an incredible performer, not going crazy but listening to the music he creates with acute concentration. He closes his eyes and looks almost reverential in his control of the performance, something reflected also in the sound of his breathing, which is heard from tiny microphones inside his mouth. The physical look of the stage set up is also very appealing, with a big wooden table in the middle of the stage piled with gadgets and gizmo's a speaker to the left of him and Aaron for most of the set sat like a guy in an office at his work desk... with wires in his mouth. But he's not sat down the whole time - in parts he stands up and slowly pulsates, clutching the desk. About 25 minutes through a fantastic terror-doom guitar riff comes from no where and produces one of the most satisfying horror chord progressions you have ever heard. The sound then stops. Dilloway gets up and leaves the stage. That's it, the shows over after 25 minutes, but it's in many ways one of the most exciting things about the set. The overall show is now an immensely exciting little slice of noise perfection, confirming Dilloway as a truly magnificent artist.
People bang on and on and bloody on about how influential the Stooges are, but it's only when you've got them on the bill at a weekend like this that you see exactly who they're influencing. Awesome Colour sound a lot like the Stooges. They've got that psychedelic, f**k you thing going on, and look and sound as if they live for but two things - rock, and roll. And for this much, plus the fact that they have a cool name that only an American band could pull off, they're worth having around. But quite why they're currently enjoying a status as Ecstatic Peace's (Thurston Moore's label) flagship act isn't really displayed in this set at least. Something's missing. Let's hope they either find it soon, or as so many other bands are, become great at exploring where it might be.
Monotract were one of those bands that make you wonder what it is about this band in particular that makes you fail to enjoy them in the way that you enjoy bands that are really similar. It leads you to thinking, hey, maybe they are good, maybe I haven't given them enough time yet... but usually, this is a very bad sign. However, I really don't think that Monotract should be dismissed, and it must be taken into account that they were sandwiched for me between Dilloway and Wolf Eyes. And ohh, do we like Wolf Eyes.
To start with, I wanna say that Wolf Eyes are one of the best bands in the world both live and on record. From the outset of the performance the Eyes display an incredible and unrelenting ability to push out huge walls of sound without thinking twice about giving it there every last breath. They also show an ability to listen to each other and to what they are doing, which allows them to explore the soundscapes that they are producing with a high degree of expressive feeling.
However, there are a few things that I would like to get off of my chest. First of all, many of us were really, really hoping that Aaron Dilloway was going to play with his former band as well as Mike Connely, many of us never having been lucky enough to see this but have yet heard about quite how good it is. Secondly when many of us witnessed Wolf Eyes for the first time at ATP two Christmasses ago, they improvised large parts of their set. They brought out all manner of crazy instruments on stage, and as much as I tell people off for getting angry for bands at not taking the direction that they wanted them to (after all it is much better for a band to be uncompromising and to have faith in their own opinions as artists), I cannot help but feel that with all their drum machine pummelling and fists in the air simplicity, coupled with their ever increasing use of guitars, not to mention the fact that the majority of their sets are recognisable as coming from their most popular albums (they start with 'Stabbed in the Face'), that they stand to lose too much as a creative force. Whereas once, their creepy earthy atmospherics made them seem like an otherworldly entity, now they seem, depressingly, far too much like a normal band.
On the other hand, they're still great. Of course they are. Also, they're doing the music world a lot of good, especially when you look around in this packed hall to see all these people enjoying (as Wolf Eyes would admit from the stage) 'noise, not music'. That's so, so worthwhile.
Not being particularly learned in the ways of the reportedly seminal Negative Approach is a strange position to be in as a viewer to this onslaught, and here a subject discussed earlier comes in to question again. Yes, my immediate reaction was that this just sounds like loads of moronic NY Hardcore that is so easily dismissed, but once you let go of these preconceptions you'll have a great deal of fun watching this band. Thurston certainly did. Like at the side of the stage, or the singer at the front of it, you too will have your fist in the air by the end of this set as there really is something inherently good about this music - it's fast, simple, yet strangely melodic, and they use all the fantastic hall marks of proper punk. I think I might go home and dust off that Slayer album of punk covers.
As for the No Neck Blues Band? Oh yes, very silly aren't you, with your funny, funny masks and your dust catcher. Pah.
Time for a proper rock band, which DTK / MC5 should have been. But of course, they're a bastardised MC5 - only three original members, and Mark Arm from Mudhoney. Even so however, with these ingredients it should have been better than what it was, which was rock and roll played with a hundredth of the passion of The Stooges (now there's how to reform, guys) by men with dollar signs in their eyes.
Everyone was there simply for 'Kick Out The Jams', and for people who once believed this band could change the world, that's gotta hurt. For us, Sunburned Hand Of The Man were a far more interesting proposition. And though it takes you a while, eventually you get what's great about this band, and it's the feeling that truly anything could happen next. Well, apart from anything too coherent, that would be pushing it - this grungy, noisy catastrophe of a band are in a lot of ways the best way of finishing this weekend off.
They're perhaps not quite as silly as the No Neck Blues Band but somehow they're more deeply weird and out of control. This is what happens when a band truly has no ideals. There's a lack of drive to anything in particular which does have its downsides in that you'll never know what they're capable of (perhaps they themselves aren't sure) and they don't try particularly hard to let you know, but on the plus side, they do exactly what they want and have a hell of a lot of fun doing just that.
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT SOL ARCHER
Reviews - Tom Hannan & Charlie Potter (Sexy Kids).
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