Day Three. Highly unusually for ATP, I am expecting Sunday to provide the most highlights. From Grails at 4.45 to The Mae Shi finish at 11.30, I hear nothing but net. Even the Pavillion stage seemed shrouded in a mysterious fug that gives it the mystic air of some kind of cathedral. Totally un-Butlins.
Grails are indeed massive. There's a kind of paranoid bliss to their sound, that works as a metaphor for my weekend. It sounds like the soundtrack to important life decisions. Some Eastern sounds, some dubby moments. I find it all very uplifting and am quite emotional when I move on downstairs to catch another act I'd mentally circled for greatness.
Future of the Left enter stage left with “ATP” taped on the back of Kelson's bass, and yet it seems the band have been held up as some anti-ATP totem by the Hipsters That Be. The band adopt this role with relish, setting themselves up against the “friendly bearded cunts” that make up the majority of the audience, claiming that 40% of the audience are made up of the same moneyed class nobs that litter the Royal Family, “if your foreheads are anything to go by”. Perhaps that's the point. Despite the fact that they seem closely modelled on a higher-regsiter version of former curators Shellac, they give off more static than the rest of the assembled rock stars rolled up into a mute foetal ball. By two songs, they've spoken more words than the rest of the bill does all weekend. They are sharp, gruffly eloquent and angry. They are not Beirut. They are not Health.
When people think of Welsh bands, they often think of the mystic, fuzzy types like Gruff Rhys' various projects or Gorky's. These boys are different. They are spiky Silurian fucks. They dress in Motorhead black. They are witheringly funny and will not tolerate dissent. They are those manly types with library cards that my Mam never warned me about. They are the upside of the British Pop Instinct, playing fierce, punchy, literate rock. Beautiful, beautiful men.
After that sharp, anti-rock punk blow to the senses, !!! suffer horribly by comparison. I've heard them play a couple times live before, including a great set at Glastonbury a few years ago, but I'd never actually SEEN them before. I had never seen the embarrassingly sub-Jagger posturing of Nic Jammer. (Do you see what they did there?) The bassline heroics are still there, but the rest of it is a lazy, muddy pile of “We Love You, England” showbizz bullshit. Funk, maybe. Punk? Nope.
I decide against Parts And Labor (previously burnt fingers) and Killing Joke (not one for middle-aged rock operatics), and I only come out to lend Spiritualized an ear when I realise I could be chalet-ing Sunday away completely. Weak. I have an innate suspicion of bands with Gospel singers backing them up. It suggests a lack of conviction, and it never worked for Paul Shane. All light show, no substance.
School of Seven Bells fail to bring their A-game to the party as well. “Alpinisms” is a beautiful LP, but cute as they are, the Deheza sisters fail to reproduce the magic. So I head to The Mae Shi. They are hyperactive, inventive and anarchic, with a sizeable nerdy shout-along pop edge. Blink 182 with Jello Biafra, or a band full of Mike Pattons. The sound is horribly muddy, but the sheer enthusiasm of band and crowd alike pushes it over the tape.
I take a quick look at The Jesus Lizard, watch Yow surfing the crowd and pacing about like a childbeater, but decide to see out the weekend back at Crazy Horse with Fuck Buttons on the decks. I'm just an iPod with genitals, you understand.
A day of contrasts it had been, a little underwhelming in places perhaps, but I'm already jealous of the lucky fuckers making their way down to Minehead next weekend. Please touch the hem of Laura-Mary Carter's garment for me. Thanks.
Your pal, Coc x
Showing posts with label ATP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ATP. Show all posts
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Saturday Night's Alright For Writing - ATP v Fans (Day The Second)
Day Two. Begin by watching The Decline & Fall of Western Civilization: The Metal Years on ATP TV. I hated hair metal during the Eighties, and was delirious when Nirvana et al saw fit to sweep the preening pricks into the sea almost twenty years ago. Any admiration I feel for these pussy-hunting peacocks and their painted muses as I watch is so completely intermingled with contempt for their bone-headed hedonistic optimism that I leave the chalet in a strange mood.
The consistent subliminal message of ATP is that Americans ROCK so much better than we do. Perhaps this is because they are still at war with Daddy over there. We won that battle years ago, and Duran Duran rushed in to fill the void. They're audial; we're visual. They're stoned; we're rushing. All we want is a fucking disco: we're iPods with genitals. If we could just jam out the fucking pop signal that crashes into our faggy art school brainwaves, maybe we could sound heavy too. Even Mogwai had ironic t-shirts. We're doomed!
Retribution Gospel Choir is kind of name usually employed with a black irony by the thuggiest heavy rock geezers, but when actual Mormons are involved (Low's Alan Sparhawk) it becomes a little creepy. They rock, they wail, etc. but as I'm listening a new theory clouds up in my head. What exactly is rock'n'roll supposed to save us from now? Sexuality stopped being suppressed decades ago. Anti-authoritarian individualism has long been co-opted by ex-hippy marketing gurus. No matter how well-performed rock is nowadays, the initial impulse has long ebbed away and we're left with a noisy, fuzzy, empty museum piece. This is the sound of that magnetic husk.
I hang around upstairs to watch some of David Yow's other band, Qui. They churn and throb with satisfactory menace, but all eyes are on The Jesus Lizard frontman. He stalks about the stage, barking at hecklers, watching his own (voluminous) clouds of spit glisten in the stage lights. He reminds me of Chancellor Palpatine from Star Wars, but played by Sean Penn; and he cuts a sizeable contrast to the next band on.
Young Marble Giants are so English, it's too extreme even for parody. They bring on sheet music, despite the very un-orchestral nature of their sound. They make polite jokes about “tiffin”. At one point, Stuart Moxham says: “Nice forbearance everybody.” It is stiff upper lip middle class pop with husky guitar, observational lyrics and a refusal to be rushed. Despite the fact they are billed as playing “Colossal Youth” in its entirety, they don't perform “Final Day”, blaming an unco-operative keyboard. Irritating.
Grizzly Bear are already going by the time I get back downstairs. While I'm a bit suspicious of the multi-melodic aesthetic on anti-Eagles grounds, their lovely arching melodies match the circling shadows of the seagulls on the Pavillion ceiling so sweetly I just sit and watch pretty girls wander by and enjoy the warmth. There are so many checkshirts on stage it's like the band have been infiltrated by lumberjacks. This unsettling rock/pop dialetic mood will not leave me.
Beirut are so bad that we mime tearing the ears from the side of our terrified heads, but there is no escape. In the end, we flee to an empty Crazy Horse disco and watch a lone booty-shaker dance for her DJ boyfriend. We don't leave until we are sure this smug anti-music has finished, the aural equivalent of the pretentious, beige novels that clog the bestseller charts month after month. A horrible waste of trumpets.
We stumble relieved into Reds to see Errors, back to the pop end and voted for by The Fans. A bit like Mogwai with synths, swirling somewhere around the Hot Chip/New Order nexus. Our blood pumps once again. After a diversion of some more hippy rock nonsense from Sleepy Sun, we close the programme with Marnie Stern, a bizarre Suzi Quatro update with sewing machine fingers and a needlessly squeaky voice. It all feels a bit High School, as she and her sexy bass-playing bandmate trade slutty jokes, but it fits the need for Saturday night fun.
A long night of revelling follows, including mashing my skeleton to pieces in a sweat-drenched attempt to dance to “Windowlicker” at the Crazy Horse and watching a disturbing topless distress flare display. Garth Merenghi's Darkplace is on TV when I get back, but my body can take no more.
Your pal, Coc x
The consistent subliminal message of ATP is that Americans ROCK so much better than we do. Perhaps this is because they are still at war with Daddy over there. We won that battle years ago, and Duran Duran rushed in to fill the void. They're audial; we're visual. They're stoned; we're rushing. All we want is a fucking disco: we're iPods with genitals. If we could just jam out the fucking pop signal that crashes into our faggy art school brainwaves, maybe we could sound heavy too. Even Mogwai had ironic t-shirts. We're doomed!
Retribution Gospel Choir is kind of name usually employed with a black irony by the thuggiest heavy rock geezers, but when actual Mormons are involved (Low's Alan Sparhawk) it becomes a little creepy. They rock, they wail, etc. but as I'm listening a new theory clouds up in my head. What exactly is rock'n'roll supposed to save us from now? Sexuality stopped being suppressed decades ago. Anti-authoritarian individualism has long been co-opted by ex-hippy marketing gurus. No matter how well-performed rock is nowadays, the initial impulse has long ebbed away and we're left with a noisy, fuzzy, empty museum piece. This is the sound of that magnetic husk.
I hang around upstairs to watch some of David Yow's other band, Qui. They churn and throb with satisfactory menace, but all eyes are on The Jesus Lizard frontman. He stalks about the stage, barking at hecklers, watching his own (voluminous) clouds of spit glisten in the stage lights. He reminds me of Chancellor Palpatine from Star Wars, but played by Sean Penn; and he cuts a sizeable contrast to the next band on.
Young Marble Giants are so English, it's too extreme even for parody. They bring on sheet music, despite the very un-orchestral nature of their sound. They make polite jokes about “tiffin”. At one point, Stuart Moxham says: “Nice forbearance everybody.” It is stiff upper lip middle class pop with husky guitar, observational lyrics and a refusal to be rushed. Despite the fact they are billed as playing “Colossal Youth” in its entirety, they don't perform “Final Day”, blaming an unco-operative keyboard. Irritating.
Grizzly Bear are already going by the time I get back downstairs. While I'm a bit suspicious of the multi-melodic aesthetic on anti-Eagles grounds, their lovely arching melodies match the circling shadows of the seagulls on the Pavillion ceiling so sweetly I just sit and watch pretty girls wander by and enjoy the warmth. There are so many checkshirts on stage it's like the band have been infiltrated by lumberjacks. This unsettling rock/pop dialetic mood will not leave me.
Beirut are so bad that we mime tearing the ears from the side of our terrified heads, but there is no escape. In the end, we flee to an empty Crazy Horse disco and watch a lone booty-shaker dance for her DJ boyfriend. We don't leave until we are sure this smug anti-music has finished, the aural equivalent of the pretentious, beige novels that clog the bestseller charts month after month. A horrible waste of trumpets.
We stumble relieved into Reds to see Errors, back to the pop end and voted for by The Fans. A bit like Mogwai with synths, swirling somewhere around the Hot Chip/New Order nexus. Our blood pumps once again. After a diversion of some more hippy rock nonsense from Sleepy Sun, we close the programme with Marnie Stern, a bizarre Suzi Quatro update with sewing machine fingers and a needlessly squeaky voice. It all feels a bit High School, as she and her sexy bass-playing bandmate trade slutty jokes, but it fits the need for Saturday night fun.
A long night of revelling follows, including mashing my skeleton to pieces in a sweat-drenched attempt to dance to “Windowlicker” at the Crazy Horse and watching a disturbing topless distress flare display. Garth Merenghi's Darkplace is on TV when I get back, but my body can take no more.
Your pal, Coc x
Arbeit Macht Freitag - ATP vs Fans (Day The First)
ATP v FANS, Butlins Minehead – 8-10 May 09
Sunshine? Weird. ATP is not about sunshine: it's about huddling around the flickering flame of alternative music under overcast skies. It's about booking a cavernous holiday complex and filling it with glamorous long-haired bearded psych-rock types, even if their waistbands thicken ever so slightly year on year. It's about Fuck Buttons playing every year. It's about monstrous seagulls and a deepening morass of nostalgia for the rainy days at Camber, when you could leave your chalet unlocked and the neighbours would pop round for a cup of absinthe. It's subtle, this incremental heartbreak. Some years it seems as though the gig is up, but I always drift back.
Day One. I skip Casiotone, giving in to bad band-name prejudice, and kick off watching Jeffrey Lewis on the Pavillion stage. He does his half-lecture on the development of punk rock on the Lower East Side, which is always a pleasure. “Bugs & Flowers” from the new LP sounds sweet and darkly lush. Then up I tramp to the moodily-lit cabaret lounge that is Centre Stage for one of the hotspots of the weekend.
Health are awesome – Close Encounters with tachycardia. Constant battering drums, earthmover bass, guitar noises mashed through a thousand tiny metal teeth. At one point, a noise is emitted like the funereal sod hitting your coffin. Visceral, beautiful broken stuff. I desparately want to put my finger on what these tropical punk sounds from the Smell club and Brooklyn's Animal Collective types share, but I can't. Some sense of music as a living, vegetative yet potentially cruel force. It's so thrilling, I can almost forgive LA for Guns 'N Roses - but not Motley Crue.
Then a bleak period. I watch some M83 with fond memories of their “Dead Cities” era, but the slo-mo adolescent glory I remember translates into a dreary Euro drudge in the semi-oudoor atmosphere of the Pavillion. Unsuitable. Against my better judgement, I then sample Andrew WK. Rancid. Tom Cruise on Lazytown. He runs about the stage, preaching the party line in his white tee and jeans, hammering at his little piano. Self-help seminar toss.
Devo tried to warn us about shaven chimps like WK. Thirty years ago civilisation's decline was mainstream stuff, fit for perky novelty pop, before it became the domain of Radiohead and Slipknot. Five paunchy men in matching jumpsuits would normally spell IRRELEVANT; but seeing as no-one talks about how shit humanity is in this punky poppy format any more, they seem pretty fresh. There's the same sociopathic twitch to the synths, and the auld spudboys are as tight a unit as the black shorts they whip out halfway through the set. They play all the hits - “Mongoloid”, “Gut Feeling”; they wear all the outfits. They're living proof of how edgy youth gets fat and goes to seed – and it's beautiful.
Hip-hop acts always seem to stiff a little at ATP – a black, urban spectacle for white, middle-class onlookers to pore over without getting involved. Even Anti-Pop Consortium's brain-friendly dubstep-inflected enormity fails to snap people out of their museum poses - criminal. The boys crowd round their equipment, nodding and twitching and running glorious from the mouth, fizzing with a cool menace. “Human Shield” is massive, smashing thousands of crippled Lil Wayne clones like beer cans against its majestic forehead.
My Friday is finalled off by ATP-protegees Fuck Buttons. Seen them twice and loved them, but this time they lack a little special spasmodic something. Loops build, organs swell, drums are smacked, but there was precious little taste of chaos. A friend complains that they tick too many boxes without ever stepping out of them. I am sated.
Your pal, Coc x
Sunshine? Weird. ATP is not about sunshine: it's about huddling around the flickering flame of alternative music under overcast skies. It's about booking a cavernous holiday complex and filling it with glamorous long-haired bearded psych-rock types, even if their waistbands thicken ever so slightly year on year. It's about Fuck Buttons playing every year. It's about monstrous seagulls and a deepening morass of nostalgia for the rainy days at Camber, when you could leave your chalet unlocked and the neighbours would pop round for a cup of absinthe. It's subtle, this incremental heartbreak. Some years it seems as though the gig is up, but I always drift back.
Day One. I skip Casiotone, giving in to bad band-name prejudice, and kick off watching Jeffrey Lewis on the Pavillion stage. He does his half-lecture on the development of punk rock on the Lower East Side, which is always a pleasure. “Bugs & Flowers” from the new LP sounds sweet and darkly lush. Then up I tramp to the moodily-lit cabaret lounge that is Centre Stage for one of the hotspots of the weekend.
Health are awesome – Close Encounters with tachycardia. Constant battering drums, earthmover bass, guitar noises mashed through a thousand tiny metal teeth. At one point, a noise is emitted like the funereal sod hitting your coffin. Visceral, beautiful broken stuff. I desparately want to put my finger on what these tropical punk sounds from the Smell club and Brooklyn's Animal Collective types share, but I can't. Some sense of music as a living, vegetative yet potentially cruel force. It's so thrilling, I can almost forgive LA for Guns 'N Roses - but not Motley Crue.
Then a bleak period. I watch some M83 with fond memories of their “Dead Cities” era, but the slo-mo adolescent glory I remember translates into a dreary Euro drudge in the semi-oudoor atmosphere of the Pavillion. Unsuitable. Against my better judgement, I then sample Andrew WK. Rancid. Tom Cruise on Lazytown. He runs about the stage, preaching the party line in his white tee and jeans, hammering at his little piano. Self-help seminar toss.
Devo tried to warn us about shaven chimps like WK. Thirty years ago civilisation's decline was mainstream stuff, fit for perky novelty pop, before it became the domain of Radiohead and Slipknot. Five paunchy men in matching jumpsuits would normally spell IRRELEVANT; but seeing as no-one talks about how shit humanity is in this punky poppy format any more, they seem pretty fresh. There's the same sociopathic twitch to the synths, and the auld spudboys are as tight a unit as the black shorts they whip out halfway through the set. They play all the hits - “Mongoloid”, “Gut Feeling”; they wear all the outfits. They're living proof of how edgy youth gets fat and goes to seed – and it's beautiful.
Hip-hop acts always seem to stiff a little at ATP – a black, urban spectacle for white, middle-class onlookers to pore over without getting involved. Even Anti-Pop Consortium's brain-friendly dubstep-inflected enormity fails to snap people out of their museum poses - criminal. The boys crowd round their equipment, nodding and twitching and running glorious from the mouth, fizzing with a cool menace. “Human Shield” is massive, smashing thousands of crippled Lil Wayne clones like beer cans against its majestic forehead.
My Friday is finalled off by ATP-protegees Fuck Buttons. Seen them twice and loved them, but this time they lack a little special spasmodic something. Loops build, organs swell, drums are smacked, but there was precious little taste of chaos. A friend complains that they tick too many boxes without ever stepping out of them. I am sated.
Your pal, Coc x
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