Great Perfect Thanks - All Tomorrow's Parties London Recap

Bands seen:

Friday: Tarpis Tula, Islaja, Charlambadies, Fursaxa, Prurient, Bardo Pond, The Dead C.

Saturday: The New Blockaders The Haters, Hair Police, Matt Gustaffson EYE, Blood Stereo, Sun City Girls, Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, Magik Markers

Sunday: Dinosaur Jr, Bark Haze, My Cat is an Aien, White Out Nels Kiine, Monotract, Aaron Dilloway, Awesome, Color, Wolf Eyes, Iggy The Stooges, Alexander Tucker, Six Organs of Admittance, No Neck Blues Band, Sunburned Hand of the Man

Movies: Miami Vice, The Devil Wears Prada, Little Miss Sunshine, Cars

Um..

God, okay, I only left london an hour ago but let's see if I can do this.



Got to London in decent time - Virgin Atlantic's "premium economy," is, I find, basically a complete crap shoot. It was overcrowded and horrible on the way there - the seat was literally more narrow than an economy seat.

It had this great big wide armrest like they do in first class, but it only served to take up any space gains they may have gotten by removing one seat from each row. The service was so so but I didn't really talk to any of them. The seat in front of me leaned all the way back for five hours which basically erases 90% of the extra legroom you get, and makes it almost impossible to use a laptop.

So I watched Miami Vice finally, and it was better than I was expecting, but not quite as good as I was hoping, but man, that movie made me feel very white and without soul. I can't salsa dance or drive "go fast boats" or wear white suits or even, really, tan.

Oh, but the worst part of my outbound "premium economy" flight was there was the ad in the in-flight magazine for "the new premium economy," which showed a ovely photo of a really beautiful seat, easily 6 inches wide4r than the one I was cramped into.

Oh, I see. Huh. The New Premium Economy, huh?

I guess I got the old one. Um, thanks for letting me know!

ANYWAY, to finish up the whole "Premium Economy is a crapshoot" thing, I'm flying back now, and it's really quite glorious.

EXCEPT, it's all very confusing because, well, the seats still look nothing like the ones in the picture, though they are, um, simething like 2-3 inches wider, which is really all you need - just enough so you can ever so slightly part your legs and not feel completely trapped and cramped.

So yeah, this flight is pretty awesome. The in flight system's totally cool and I am watching the Devil Wears Prada and that is cool and yeah.

Word.

So that's about the flight, so isn't that fantastically interesting? Customs sucked the high big one.

I mean, good lord. It was the worst thing ever. Seriously.

Like well over an hour. Though I new right from the beginning of the line exactly which customs agent I'd get, and I knew he would be pleasant and it would be easy, and it was, once I finished waiting for 80 minutes or so. I was like the first person off of the plane and the last person to pick up my luggage, after the carousel had stopped.

My poor bag was sitting out there all by it's lonesome. Oh, poor bag, woe is it.

So um, then I tried to take the shuttle bus to the hotel but um, well, it was gonna take forty minutes, so I took a cab.

Woo. I love English taxis. So then I got to the hotel and checked in and met ashley and passed out.

And I snored and farted a lot. More on that later. Ben joined us about an hour later and we all slept until our late check out time, an then we went to the car rental place and rented a car and Val met us there and it was awesome.

Awesome. And so then we drove to Minehead!

Ha.

Sounds so easy, doesn't it? I was pretty fried, so Ben drove first - you could see the excitement in his eyes to give it a go. And man, that's some terrifying shit right there, let me tell you.

But ben did a great job! We had two obstructions on the M4 and the M5 - one of them was actually a wrecked masonry truck which, um, actually spilled rock onto the road. Our road to rock was blocked by rock.

Things got even more hairy when we left the freeways. Okay, so: Minehead. We were going to Minehead.

Picture the island of england. You know that bit that sticks out on the bottom left of the island? We went to the north east part of that, if that makes any sense.

Sorta near Bristol.

The thing is about this is that there are no big cities, no train stations, not really much of anything. So, you leave the M5 and you take this road - the A139.

And it is like one of the most terrifying roads on the face of the earth, in the best of situations. And we're driving it in the dark. Without much experience.

And the lanes are like not wide at all. Like maybe 3 feel more wide than the cars. And there are like rock walls on both sides.

And it was um, terrifying. But, man, rocked it. Just as we thought maybe it was getting better, there appeared on the street a "falling rock" sign.

Yeah, um, great. More rock obstructing our journey to the rock.

So, the obstructions and the time ran high and we missed two bands that I really wanted to see.

Nothing mission critical, mind you, but, well, to sad ones: Nurse With Wound and Flipper. And um, WHO STARTS OUT A FESTIVAL WITH NURSE WITH WOUND? Madness.

So we got there, we parked, and we checked in and checked out our room.

And so: Butlins. Butlins.

Just saying it is funny. The family fun center at the end of the world. Compared to Camber Sands, Butlins is definitely pretty nice.

There's this massive pavillion at the center of the park that looks kinda like Harbor Lights and inside has the main stage, an irish pub, a night club, a Burger King, a Pizza Hut, a million arcade games, a bowling alley, a sports bar, a movie theater, um, well, like everything. It was pretty gaudy and garish and ridiculous, but pretty much a massive custom-built fun center with the gaudiness turned up to eleven. Six thousand people are staying there in these long sort of dorm buildings - they remind me of the dorms built in the 60's and 70's at UAF.

So we threw our stuff into our room and began ROCKING. We walked into the main center and before we could even get our bearings Val had run into some people she knows. Having been in Sunburned Hand of the Man for maybe five years, she's toured or played with maybe 10 or so of the bands playing this weekend.

It was the perfect thing for her to come to. Me and Ashley and Ben went into stage 2 - CRAZY HORSE for the first band of our rock fest: Tarpis Tula. The were noisy.

Ha. Next up was Islaja which is this super hot Finnish girl doing cool sorta sigur ros stuff but sometimes rocking out like Spiritualized. Very good, very not noisy and very unique this weekend.

Then we had Charlambadies, who were all right - quiet and melodic and melllow and sparse. Not what I expected. Then Fursaxa.

Ditto.

Then we headed to stage 2 (2,000 capacity) for Bardo Pond, who were as blissful and psychadellically awesome as always, and then Prurient, who were as awesomely ridiculously amazingly noisy as you can possibly be. One man, one mild mannered man, with a guitar, but.

.. um.

.. louder than Neubauten.

pure noise bliss. Awesome.

Then we had in the main room The Dead C who were loud and awesome and insanity and wonderfulness and made me very very happy.

EVERY BAND was noisy, basically, in the whole weekend.

Okay, I gotta skip this part cuz I don't have my list for

So after that we headed to The Pub. This was one of the big mysteries of the weekend; what would ATP be like without The Pub?

Luckily there was a pub, and while it wasn't perfectly as awesome as the Camber Sands pub it did the job. We rocked out to a few classics - because we had the SAME DJ as last year. I suppose this should have been awesome, but we were excited to see Declan DJing.

And we were even more excited to discover that at ATP the Shellac song "Prayer to God" is a dance hit. I swear, after Touch and Go and seeing Big Black and Shellac, it is The Year of Albini. AWESOME.

Then we went to Jumping Jaks - HA - which was a western-themed dance bar where Dave Ball was DJing and that was 100% awesome. He played Northside, Ultra Vivid Scene, and he even played "How You Satisfy Me" by Spectrum which was pretty fantastic.

Dancing till four.

It's the bomb. Passing out, getting up and ROCKING again, that's the bomb too.

We learned on our first night - friday night - that I snore.

Now, I don't always snore, but I do a lot when I travel, and I do when I'm on a crap bed, and I do when I have allergies, and all of these were happening. Oops. So poor ben slept on the couch the first night, so on the second and third nights, I was banned to the couch to spare Ben from my snoring misery.

So there were some serious line issues at ATP this year. It was kind of alarming, really - like it wasn't like that at Camber, and people were clearly pretty upset about it. They did a fantastic job working with what they had, but, I mean, there were definitely some issues.

The security people were ridiculous - I mean, seriously. They were searching people's bags CONSTANTLY. And for what?

WHAT? You could bring in a camera? Everyone there was smoking pot and um.

.. seriously.

What were they searching for? Over and Over? You couldn't bring drinks from one stage to another - um.

. why? And who's gonna travel all the way to Minehead and not have a wristband?

Let it go, let it go. We had a mixup with our wristbands so we popped over to get different ones and the organizers were telling us that the capacity of the rooms was 3,000, 2,000 and 1,000 for stages 1,2 and 3 respectively, but that security was stopping people from getting in when there was still 600 empty spaces. They were negotiating to get more people in - not sure how that worked out.

The other thing: because there were so many noise bands playing, there were really short sets. Many bands were finishing 20 even 30 minutes early. So there were many times when there should have been 2 or 3 bands playing but in fact there was only 1 band playing, on stage 3, and everyone who wanted to see a band was trying to crowd in.

So weird random bands would be too crowded to get into like MV/EE and Alexander Tucker.

BUT, the cool thing is, the organizers were doing everything they could. I'm a bit worried how future ATPs will work out - I mean, the Butlins people didn't seem super happy to have them there.

I was thinking about how moving ATP to Minehead was like moving the soul of their whole enterprise. What if it didn't work? Can they go back to Camber?

And they have TWO MORE coming up that they're gonna need to do some serious work on before they make it happen.

Before the festival, they identified two bands that were going to draw so many people that everyone that wanted to see them wouldn't all fit at stage 1: Iggy and the Stooges and Sonic Youth. In the end, there were more like 7-8 bands that were playing the main stage that more people wanted to see than the room could handle.

Luckily the bands were all pretty much awesome and agreed to play multiple shows, so in the end second sets were played by Dinosaur Jr, Deerhoof, The Melvins, and Gang of Four. They did some cool stuff with the MC5 where if you REALLY wanted to see them, you could get a wristband in advance and get priority entrance, so that solved that problem.

Wow I am way more engaged in The Devil Wears Prada than I thought I would be.

Weird. Sorry. Forgive the scattered prose.

So Saturday we got up at 2 or so and started rocking. It started with The New Blockaders The Haters, which was pretty awesome. They wore black masks and were scary and noisy.

Then we went and saw Hair Police and they were funny and had good stage banter and a quality happy noise style. Don't ask. Then camed Matt Gustaffson and EYE, aka Yamatsuka Eye from the Boredoms.

EYE was as crazy and energetic and weird and awesome as he ever was with the Boredoms, and Matt Gustaffson was a boring old saxophone player. There I said it.

Next came Blood Stereo, who I immensely enjoyed even though didn't.

They did cool things with their mouths and looped them and then did cool things with them and made.. wait for it.

.. noise music.

I liked them, though. I like the gadgety noise bands - and boy were there a bunch of those at this festival. Next up was Sun City Girls.

. Ben summed them up pretty awesomely the day before: strangely boring but strangely awesome and compelling, confusing. I um, don't remember the exact quote.

But that's them. Second time i've seen them now and they're exactly that. They're doing this weird shit that's ridiculously difficult to do but is kind of pointless and boring and are doing it basically to confuse and annoy.

It's pretty awesome in its own pointless way, honestly.

SO, then came the Queue. We waited maybe an hour to get into Dinosaur Jr.

We weren't gonna get in. But they actually figured out that Dino could play again tomorrow BEFORE the line left, so they passed out tickets to get in to a bonus extra dinosaur show tomorrow morning. So we left the Queue to try to get in to MV/EE, but so did the enditr rest of the line, so we ran back into our place in the queue for Dino, and low and behold it started to move.

SO, we caught the last half and holey moley, they are so awesome. WHY HAVE I NOT BEEN GOING TO THE DINOSAUR JR REUNION SHOWS? Oh man, it was like the heavens parted.

Wow, the sound. Wow, the sound.

Left Dino and went and caught some of the Magik Markers with my sister and John Mahoney from Sunburned.

Met his girlfriend Sarah she seemed nice. He's moving back to Boston soon. Left the Markers, who I have to say I found a little underwhelming, and headed in to see Sonic Youth who were as awesome as they always are.

Who is that new Fifth guy in the band, does anyone know? Anyway I just saw them a few months ago and they were awesome again. AWESOME SOUND GOING DOWN.

And there ends the night two. "Only" eight bands. The dancing was kinda messed up on saturday - Stuart from Mogwai was supposed to DJ and he was nowhere to be found.

They also did a bonus Gang of Four show after Sonic Youth, so the 2,000 or so people that would be dancing in the big room weren't there, so it was kinda a bust. We did some funny rave dancing for a bit, and headed back to the room where we watched some TV, drank a bottle of Veuve and watched Ashley get drunk. It was cute.

On Sunday I got up a bit earlier to go to the bonus Dinosaur show which was 100% awesome. Same set, I think. But I mean, I had missed half, so that was awesome, I got to see it.

Awesome awesome.

So then we went to Bark Haze. Dude, that was the shit right there.

Bark Haze is Thurston Moore and one of the dudes from the Magik Markers and one other dude. They rocked it, man, hands down. Sounded like Bright for a bit at the beginning, and then they found it - the perfect groove.

Awesome. That Markers drummer can rock it, no doubt. He was a million times better than he was in the Markers.

Weird.

So then M Cat is an Alien, which was awesome japanese noise where they played with a lot of light up toys and played guitar with a light saber. They were a good time.

Quality noise.

Then Aaron Dilloway, who played noise with some sort of electrode in his mouth. That was awesome.

White out Nils Klline - that was sorta wanky folky noise but that was a good time. Awesome Color next who were hilarious stoner rock and kept saying things like "What's up ATP" and "where the fuck are we?" and "is everybody HIGH?

YEAH!" to the audience, which made for a really good time. Next was Monotract who didn't really do it for me.

Next was Alexander Tucker. HOLY HELL. Biggest surprise/highlight of the weekend.

He freakin' RULED. At one point I thought he was done because he was playing a quiet part and I was like "oh my god this house music is the greatest thing I've ever heard II have to find out who this is," and then I realized he was still playing. Seriously.

I've never heard anything like it. It was awesome. I pray pray pray he has a CD but if not, I'm going to see him whenever possible.

Next up was Wolf Eyes who were noisy. Ha. No, I've seen 'em before, they're a good time.

Scary and over the top and ridiculously noisy but with some energy and excitement, though I gotta say, noise, man, I'm kinda done with it. Not becuase of this festival or anything, but fuck, come on. A scary noise band?

That's so 70's. Who's scared by noise bands anymore?

Next was Six Organs of Admittance which was phenomenal.

Six Organs has gone electric, ladies and gentlemen. John Mahoney from Sunburned is on drums and another guy is on Bass and it is AWESOME. They sounded so good.

really top notch. I loved it.

Then we popped over and saw Iggy and the Stooges.

Um. weird. Um, let's write that again.

We saw Iggy and the Stooges. I was reading Byron Cole's liner notes to the festival in the little booklet and he said that watching the Stooges is ridiculou - ridiculous how much power they have. And seriously, it's true.

You walk in the room and it's impossible to believe those four dudes are making that much sound. And Iggy is what? freakin 60?

You wouldn't know it. He has 10 times more energy than I have. When they played "I Wanna Be Your Dog," it was like 1,000 times more rocking and scary and intense than anything on record.

And, finally, toward the end he said "Iggy doesn't stand on ceremony. Get up on this stage. Come up and dance with the stooges!

come on!" and 50 people climbed on stage and danced with the stooges. punk rock lives.

Wow.

Ended the night in Crazy Horse with val's posse. Met up with Val and we went backstage and said hi to everyone.

Thurston even said "hey man," to me. That was awesome. Ooo.

Watched most of No Neck Blues Band from the side of the stage but missed the topless boobage action but got some awesome photos. Then I plopped myself front and center stage for Sunburned Hand of the Man, which was awesome, though they had this sorta tool of a guy up front in a dumb red wig. But it was awesome seeing Val up there again, and man did they make an unholy din.

I haven't seen them in like 2 years, so it was a good time.

The dancing sunday night RULED. RULED.

I can't convey the extent of the ruledess of the dancing. Mudhoney. Sonic Youth.

The Butthole Surfers. Shellac. Dinosaur Jr.

You do not hear things like this at a dance club. and 2,000 people danced - proving why ATP is so awesome and proving that you CAN DANCE TO ROCK.

We passed out around 5 and we thought they were going to kick us out at 10 AM, but they didn't do it, so we all ended up sleeping until 12:30 or something which was awesome but also made us very late to london.

It also meant we completely missed the rush - we thought we were gonna be backed on the A139 with 1,000 other cars for hours, but by the time we left, there was like NO ONE left. There were maybe 20 cars in the lot. AWESOME.

I got to drive for the first half of the way back - UK driving isn't THAT hard, though it requires constant vigilance - you're always trying to drift to the right in your lane, and if you don't pay attention, you go the wrong way or go into the wrong lane at an intersection. But it was fun, definitely, and I am proud to have done it!

So we went to Heathrow, returned the car, took the Heathrow to Paddington and then cabbed it to the hotel, which was immaculate and perfect.

We then went up to Camden town and met Aug and Kasia (how DOES one spell it?) and ate at Wagamama which was as awesome and wonderful as ever. Judi told me on the phone that there is a Wagamama opening up in Faneiul Hall.

Is that true? Um..

. Okay ohmigod that would be amazing. And I'd be free of having to go to Wagamama every time I went to London!

And if they're gonna open a Wagamama in America, high-freakin-five that it's in Boston! But if you're gonna be in Boston why do you need to be in Faneiul Hall? Ugh.

Ugh.

Anyway, then we went to the Pub and that was awesome. We had a few pints, chatted, and eventually ti was time to move on.

Ashley headed home and then the rest of us went to DJ Scarlett's night at a club in Soho and that was AMAZING and a great time and we danced forever and drank way way too much and then the wonderful DJ Scarlett and a friend took us to this super strange secret bar IN A SUBWAY STATION. Seriously. You enter the tube, go downstairs, and go through this unmarked black door and there is a massive bar.

WTF? I am in awe. It was amazing.

We stayed longer than we should have and drank more than we should have, but it was wonderfully awesome and Scarlett's friend MADE US A GRILLED CHEESE. Seriously, the place was like 10,000 square feet and had like 20 pool tables. I was in awe.

Eventually, though, we left, and Val and I caught a taxi back to the room where we ill advisedly ordered a bottle of champagne and then we broke a bottle of perfume, oops, and had to sleep with the door open because the scent was so overpowering. But luckily we were in an electric Tempurpedic bed that heated AND cooled.

And, magically, my snoring ceased in a perfect bed.

I need a Tempurpedic bed. it's obvious now.

Val and I were WAY TOO LATE on getting out of the hotel - I hope hope hope she made her flght.

Oh man, I'd feel terrible if she didn't. Please please please.

Pics coming on in a sec.