The development of the lineup for this year's ATP Nightmare Before Christmas festival has been exciting. I've had tickets since pretty much Day 1, knowing that it was being curated by Mike Patton and the mighty Melvins, of which I am a huge fan. By and large and somewhat predictably (in a good way), Patton has been responsible for picking the more avant-garde acts and the Melvins have added the Punch of Punk Rock. First of all Melvins picked their buddies Isis, of which I am also a pathetically huge fan, alongside Torche (HydraHead's latest critical hit) and some others I'd never heard of. Patton waded in with his own Fantômas band, The Locust, Bohren und der Club of Gore (who I've seen supporting Isis on the Panopticon tour in '05, playing in near complete darkness), Dälek (the only hip-hop act I've ever truly enjoyed and one-time Faust collaborators) and some equally leftfield acts. Okay, I thought, this could be both the most experimental AND the most rock-oriented ATP I've ever seen, all in one festival.
Then came the additions of both Mastodon and Squarepusher at the same time, picked by the Melvs & Patton respectively. Holy fuck. It just stepped up a few notches in one go.
After that, the floodgates opened: J G Thirlwell (of Foetus), Mark Lanegan's band, a Stockhausen performance, Trevor Dunn's new band Madlove, Boss Hog (ft. Jon Spencer of Blues Explosion fame), the reformed Butthole Surfers, Rahzel and The Damned. And lots more names entirely new to me.
I only had time for a few days of over-exuberance at the inclusion of the Butthole Surfers before yet more esteemed musicians came rolling in - Lydia Lunch & Thurston Moore re-unite Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, the Meat Puppets and Joe Lally answered the Melvins' request, and Patton stunned me with his successful acquisition of the legendary Os Mutantes, who I never thought I would ever get to see.
For all the eclecticism on show here, and this can be said for most ATP festivals, there does seem to be something that ties all these artists together. For instance, I don't recall seeing anything on any ATP bill that's made me think "That shouldn't be there". Portishead, the Britsol trip-hoppers, curated the only other ATP I've been to, and they loaded the lineup with doom metal. The Mars Volta did one a few years ago that leaned towards the excesses of the Old-School Psychedelic, but they also booked ATP's first bona fide Metal band, High On Fire. After the first couple of years, you'd be forgiven for assuming it was something of a Pretentious Shoegaze-athon; even though great bands were present (Godspeed etc.), it appeared rather insular.
But the lure of recklessness could not be resisted. Tape loops now co-exist with downtuned riffs, Headbanging and Chin-stroking can be done simultaneously. The dust is settling and it appears that quite a few of these highly disparate styles can be collected together with the only common factor being Us, the Audience, the Fans - which, of course, includes Them, the Performers, the Musicians, because they are all Fans too.
What do Squarepusher and Mastodon have in common apart from my fanship and their inclusion in the lineup? Musical prowess, intensity of sound... But then we have Rahzel the beatboxer, a man whose lack of drums is as notable as Dale Crover's use of them. And then there's Joe Lally and Sergio Dias of Os Mutantes, whose music has been politically and socially effective on several levels, sharing a bill with King Buzzo, whose early lyrics were literally gibberish, and the Butthole Surfers, whose Grand Plan seemed only a ten-year blaze of hedonism and finely-wrought chaos.
I can't link them all up in any way, they come from different backgrounds and they create music from different angles. Some are straight-faced and others sly-grinned. They are all at the very least singleminded enough to be unmistakeable, and perhaps that's the common ground - individuality and authenticity. These traits extend beyond the festival itself and stretch out almost infinitely, dwarfing the numbers of those making derivative and dishonest music without flair or purpose. People seem to think I hate most music, but that just can't be true.
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