It's been less that a couple of weeks since I got back from the Melvins/Patton-curated All Tomorrow's Parties, and I still haven't quite recovered from the sheer awesomeness of the event, as well as the reckless abandon with which we treated our chalets, eardrums, immune systems and body clocks. There was enough going on for me to write a whole book about, but this is (honestly) the Short Version, leaving out anything irrelevant or long since forgotten:
The journey was straightforward, clear sky etc. Homemade Somerset Chili Burger at a roadside trailer for breakfast, and a cup of tea. I took a bag of CDs along for the journey without recalling that J, the driver, has possibly the best MP3 Player contents in the world, and so most of my contributions were superfluous. We pulled up listening to 'Rembrandt Pussyhorse' and some Hellboy courtesy of Dubya. I was dismayed to find that our chalet had no living room and only one wooden chair, so we headed immediately to the Irish Bar, then for another in the main pavilion next to who may or may not have been two-thirds of Teenage Jesus. After another two drinks and some ill-advised shots in the Pool Bar, we decided to go for pizza. Walking out of the bar, I was bemused to recognise something from Rolo Tomassi's 'Hysterics' from the speakers. This certainly was ATP.
We headed to the Centre Stage, a wide and impossibly dark venue, for Melvins 1983. I enjoyed this set, but it could have been better in all honesty. It was short, and the band (& soundman) only really geared up in the second half. 'Snake Appeal' got people moving, and the last song was great.
I caught Madlove next having not read the booklet blurb on this band, so I was expecting something not so straight once I knew it was Trevor Dunn's project. It was decent, interesting Alt Rock stuff and it came off well live.
Since we'd been drinking with serious intent from about 1.00pm, by this point I was already pretty hammered. I'd decided for some reason to smoke a large joint before Big Business: stupid idea. I was a bit too spaced out to get the best from this set, but it was really very good anyway. Their music makes a lot more sense to me when it's not seguing into the Melvins' set - sonically it stands up better when it's not immediately juxtaposed with something more powerful. That's nothing against them - the Melvins are just bigger than Big Business in sound, performance, numbers and noise levels (much of that can be attributed, ironically, to the Business boys themselves...)
During that set, Dubya was wandering a bit. Maybe he'd had too much to drink. It was only 6.30pm, but it's easily done when the music goes on for over twelve hours each day, at least six of those hours stretching out far beyond the edges of the average Bad Hangover. Net result: three full days of self-flagellation and broken promises Never To Do This To Myself Again!
I think I missed the beginning of The Locust due to Dubya staggering around the fish & chip shop irritating random people and trying to seduce the blonde girl at the Spirits trailer, but what I did see was quite masterful. They are in total control, unique and skilled, with inimitable stage presence. I knew not one single note of what they played, but it didn't matter. People were pretty lively, I heard, but I don't remember much violence.
I'd seen ISIS the night before and loved it, this was even better. The sound was dead on from the start and the new song stood out as particularly awesome. A lot of people I spoke to decamped to Zu instead, who were apparently amazing. I'm sure they were, but in all honesty I was never going to miss Isis for anybody, Melvins included (though luckily it didn't come to that). Friday night was the 7th time I've seen them. One of the best bands on the planet.
Meat Puppets next, I enjoyed it. I'm new to them (except for the Nirvana MTV Unplugged covers) and I was wondering if the more "country" material would be too tame, but it comes across more forcefully live and the three-piece lineup were well balanced, experienced and very good players.
Decisions needed to be made over what could have been Time-Clash Of The Fest: Os Mutantes and Porn. Although I now know Porn's set included Thurston Moore and Brent Hinds among the usual suspects, Os Mutantes were the trump card of the whole festival. I've loved this band for a year or so and was overjoyed to see them added to the lineup. I had never guessed Patton would be such a fan, although it makes sense that these guys might have been just as much of an inspiration for 'Disco Volante' as, say, The Mothers of Invention. Their original recordings are much more experimental than what comes across on the stage, where they are unable to recreate the Musique Concrete and the Big Band stuff. While it was just the Baptista brothers and some hired guns, the whole show was vibrant and amazing. Sparkly jackets, tights, capes, dreadlocked percussionists, vocal harmonies... it was a party. Mike Patton watched most of it from the wings, as did Dale & Jared a bit later on. Sergio Baptista is a very good, traditional-style guitar player and some of his solos were great. I danced around like a loon for the rest of the night and by the time I got back to the chalet I was a little worse for wear, standing on a chair shouting the (few) words to 'Bat Macumba' in a very cracked voice.
Saturday:
I started off thinking Junior Brown was just an old-fashioned R 'n' B & country player, but it took a while to sink in before I realised the music itself is far from simple. Some of the chord progressions were highly unusual. Had this guy been around in the 50s, he would be considered quite the oddball. Good stuff though, and the guitar/lap steel cross he uses is worth coming out for.
It was the third time I've seen Mastodon, and I staked my place by the sound desk to get the best mix in my ears. The fact that they were one guitarist down only emphasises quite how powerful they are at full strength, and while the performance and material (lots of 'Blood Mountain' and 'Leviathan', plus some new stuff) is strong, I know how this band can lay waste to a venue. They didn't, but it's not their fault really. Expecting them to be devastating and finding them merely excellent... well, that's hardly cause for concern.
The Melvins were reliably awesome. My first time hearing 'Nude...' material live didn't disappoint. 'The Kicking Machine' and 'Dog Island' were the winners from that album, with the bulk of 'Senile Animal' still sounding great alongside it. 'Tipping The Lion' was a welcome surprise. The slow one from 'Senile Animal' sounded nasty as fuck. Another Melvins show doesn't disappoint, what a surprise!
Next up, the Butthole Surfers and yes, Gibby was drunk as fuck but what do we expect anyway? The set was great, full of old classics and Paul Leary was particularly deranged. Gibby veered between having the crowd in stitches laughing and having them heckle him wildly. He picked up a Telecaster, muttering to the crowd something like "Try and visualise, if you can, me... being able to play the guitar" and lumbered about twanging discordant notes for two minutes before losing interest and putting it down. Irreverant and timeless, I'm glad I finally have a Butthole Surfers gig under my belt.
I was slightly disappointed by the lack of Dave Lombardo in Fantômas, but Dale Crover stepped up and delivered admirably. I know he's an awesome drummer, but Lombardo has the speed thing down perfectly and some Fantomas stuff is pretty frenetic. Anyway, they were brilliant - tight, eclectic, brutal in places. Patton commented graciously on the festival as a whole, saying he'd seen more amazing music in the last day and a half than in the last ten and half years and thanking ATP etc. He's a very compelling frontman to watch, and 'The Director's Cut' album itself came across like a sardonic rock opera. Most of the time I was watching Dale, though. He was probably the highlight of the set.
I spent the next two hours drinking and smoking too much in the chalet of some new friends Dubya had made, so I was quite leathered by 1am for Teenage Jesus & The Jerks' second set, but I somehow had a perfect view. Short, angular, pissed off and very committed, controlled and forceful. The drummer was particularly powerful for someone with only one actual drum to use. Lydia Lunch, Thurston Moore and Jim Something-less-pronounceable from The Bad Seeds have all been Pros for such a long time that they could possibly have approached this nasty, squalid old material in the wrong way. But no, it was very very good indeed. Lunch's post-Branca guitar noise was all but perfect.
After Teenage Jesus, more Ouzo happened to me and we bowled in to see Squarepusher en masse. This was truly the best set of the weekend by some margin. This guy can do anything. He has a melodic sensibility like no one else, and seems to be unerringly in love with the bass guitar because he has wrung more out of it than any other bass player I can think of, and continues to do so. If Buzzo is a bottomless pit of riffs (which he is), then Tom Jenkinson is a bottomless pit of ideas. It's not like he's never made any filler, but who can hold that against him? The 'Just A Souvenir' material is a major departure from his usual stuff, but the rock riffs and drummer work brilliantly. The live drums are also an asset when the set gets to the inevitable 'Come On My Selector', it's "let the bass kick" drop was the singular high point of the weekend for me.
The rest of the night is lost to uncertainty. After heading back to the chalet of our new friends, I remember making a go at finishing the Ouzo while watching 'Goodfellas' over many animated and unsober conversations, failing, and hauling myself home at what must have been at least 5am.
Sunday:
My terrible hangover was only slightly lifted by Joe Lally. I love Fugazi and Ataxia, but Joe is an unassuming performer of subtle alternative rock music, and I had nothing to really grab at at a time when that was desperately needed.
I caught a bit of Leila as well but she was having terrible sound problems. Hardcore digital clipping. Not pleasant. I was with Tim Cementimenal, and he said "It would have been fine if it was just that sound."
I sat around feeling sorry for myself for a while, then grabbed J (who had been awake about thirty-six hours by this point) and headed for Monotonix. I won't go too far into it as I'm sure people have talked a lot about this band already. I decided to forego the bar and head into the melee. It was impossible to see what was going on, occasionally you'd see a guitar neck poking out from somewhere in the crowd. The vocalist shoved past me occasionally, on his way to climbing the walls & railings or hanging from the ceiling. You couldn't tell where the band were most of the time. Bits of drum kit were being passed along, played by members of the crowd. I was looking for the guitarist when I saw a swelling of people coming towards me, and I got out of the way to find the whole band moving their gig to right in front of the sound desk. After a while the vocals cut out and the drums had been dispersed. The gig appeared to be over. I decided to go outside and look for my mate in the smoking area but there were hundreds of people blocking the doors. I phoned him up and he said he was "outside, watching the gig". We filtered out, hearing wild cheers from outside. By the time I got out the door, the band pushed past me and back inside with whatever instruments they still had hold of. The gig was now over.
Another period of self-pity followed. It was imperative I didn't get drunk or stay up too late as we had to check out at 10am. Dälek are, and were, brilliant. They had two more collaborators adding sound manipulations and contributing to the general Industrial Brick Wall Noise the duo are well-known for. They remain the only hip-hop act I've ever truly enjoyed because the music itself is so strong and effective. I don't listen to anything purely on the strength of its lyrics, and most hip-hop backing tracks sound like just that. Aside from a few tasteful examples I can think of (and my knowledge is pretty basic), it just sounds tepid, uninspired and cheesy. Dälek are one of those examples.
Melvins again, and I actually detected a little rhythmic sloppiness in the middle of this set. It didn't really deter much though, and once again the latest two records got the lion's share of the setlist. 'Boris' was the real high point of their two performances, with the ending part of 'Eye Flys' running a close second. That's not me being elitist about their old material (although 'Oven' or 'Antitoxidote' would have been nice), those songs are just their most crowd-flattening. Buzzo finished off with a minimalist rendition of 'Okee From Muskogee' while Jared crowd-surfed and assaulted a roadie who was then finished off by Dale creeping back on the stage to drag him away. Not a real assault, but tell me you wouldn't feel a little raped with Jared straddling you in front of thousands of people, harmonising a country song.
Contrary to most people, I enjoyed The Damned. 'Love Song' and 'New Rose' were worth staying for, and I found their eclecticism enjoyable. They have a big sonic range that packed a lot of clout, what with the keyboards and Captain Sensible's very fat-sounding Gibson SG.
After this, we went back to our friends' chalet. Ben from Reading had been sitting around all day in his poncho, resigned to not seeing anything at all as he'd overindulged so much the previous night. Not for me though: rousing myself for a final push of adrenaline, I walked in mid-Double Negative and immediately rushed straight to the pit. What can I say? They know hardcore punk rock, and they know it well. Completely fantastic. They ended with Minor Threat's "Seeing Red".
Finally, another great Squarepusher set, though slightly eclipsed by the previous night. I managed to get to the front, where a very inebriated individual was propped against the barrier with his head bowed. He somehow managed to nod the affirmative whenever the security asked him if he was okay, but would then zone out again. Eventually I decided enough was enough and, through succinct hand signals that would have been far beyond the capabilities of my sober self, conspired with another reveller to quickly hoist the comatose raver over the barrier and drop him on the other side so we could take his place. Outstanding success, much high-fiving ensued.
Checking out in the morning was a semi-conscious affair, and we were two hours away before I realised my denim jacket was still at Butlins. And so the weekend ends with me grumbling, swearing and frowning into a sub-par Service Station toad-in-the-hole, or maybe it ends later on that day, after a long detour, in the square of a sloping Cotswolds village drinking coffee and preparing for the home stretch.
(Photos to follow - mine didn't come out.)
1 comment:
Sounds like a great weekend!
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