All Tomorrow’s Parties
Nightmare Before Christmas
Pontins, Camber Sands
summary : ireallylovemusic's John Doran gives us the rundown on recent noisy happenings @ camber sandsDecember 3 - December 4 - December 5
December 3
‘Twas the night before Christmas and nothing was stirring, not even a mouse. Well, nothing apart from that velociraptor being dragged tail first into a meat grinder. Sampled and slowed down to a hundredth of the speed and fed through a chorus pedal. And played backwards. Through an Apple Mac. Yes, the UK’s most charming extreme music festival, All Tomorrow’s Parties has launched a pre-Christmas bash for the first time ever but despite being overwhelmed by the smorgasbord of horrific noise and soothing grooves on offer we can’t help but wonder; is holding this event for the third time this year somewhat too much?
All Tomorrow’s Parties is a very straight forward concept, get an indie sleb curator to pick a roster of left field music acts and have an indoor festival in a seaside holiday camp. Foreign bands who are too marginal to get a tour in the UK, have chance to play in front of audiences who wouldn’t usually get to see them. As an indie event this was kick started by Belle and Sebastian’s Bowlie Weekender, the concept of which was in turn nicked wholesale from similar soul and rockabilly events. It has proved to be the festival of choice for anyone interested in alt/extreme music. And its bizarre setting has thrown up some strange sights over the last few years. I mean, where else could you expect to see Public Enemy and the S1Ws playing a round of crazy golf or have a dance off with Peaches in a seaside arcade? But this is the third time the festival has been held in 2004 and nay sayers are starting to suggest that ‘their’ festival is becoming an excuse to wrench money out of punters’ pockets.
The last criticism you can level at festival openers, Wolf Eyes, is one of blatant commercialism. The first time you listen to the latest long player by this Michigan noise core, three piece, ‘Burned Mind’, you can’t help but think that it’s a piss take. “It is”, you hollowly echo your dad, “just noise.” But even by the third listen, it is amazing how much structure you can ascertain in it. How conventional it is, almost. Surprisingly, this is even more so the case when they play live. Aaron Dilloway strafes sheets of white noise from his guitar (although he could be strumming a mastodon for all the resemblance to chords the sound possesses) as John Olson uses home made oscillators and FX pedals to churn out the rhythm. But a rhythm it is. If you imagine the primate in the iconic opening scene of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, it is not hard to visualise it catching the tossed femur and using it to pound out this utterly primal tattoo. Nate Young howls out the lyrics over the top of this with lupine intensity. It’s just that you can’t understand a word he’s saying. Not even on ‘Urine Burn’. The ‘Eyes definitely owe a debt to Whitehouse and Throbbing Gristle but there is nothing of the art school project or the psychology degree experiment about them. What they do is music pure and simple; although it’s hard to tell whether the ability to endure and ultimately enjoy this, the most extreme of noise, is down to the skilfulness of the band or just some glitch in the brain of the listener. Whichever, Wolf Eyes are rapidly becoming essential bath time listening for this blunt.
Lightning Bolt were the runaway success of this Easter’s ATP, when they came over as guests of Steve Albini. Their guerrilla-style gigs, refusal to play on stage and unorthodox look (drummer with a microphone in his mouth and a pillow case on his head and a piskie-looking bassist) have made them this month’s must see band. They set up their equipment next to the bar attracting a dense mob of people round them meaning it is impossible for any other than the extremely hardy or the freakishly tall to see them. LB play an instinctual and warm brand of thrash metal played on clattering drums and warmly over driven bass, the epic and elemental song titles (‘Ride The Skies’, ‘Wonderful Rainbow’) reflect a phenomenally massive sound for such a basic set up. The scrum to peer at the pair becomes too much and the band refuse to continue playing until everyone sits on the floor. But even this proves too much for some punters who keep leaping to their feet like the plastic animals in a bash the groundhog arcade game. Lightning Bolt make me feel old in the best sense, in that they truly represent the shock of the new. As enjoying as they are they provoke the knee jerk reaction of ‘this isn’t right’, ‘there should be a law against this’ or ‘someone’s going to get hurt’ and that, of course, is fantastic.
Next up on the small stage are Shellac, who are almost the embodiment of ATP, singularly ploughing their own furrow in the face of critical indifference with an almost perverse spirit of independence. This said, their set is rapidly becoming predictable schtick and there is hardly any difference between the set they played here in Easter and this one. Do they engage in a sardonic question and answer session with the audience? Check. Do they spend ages fannying about pretending that they can’t come in on time at the beginning of ‘My Black Ass’? Check. Do they all play cymbals standing in a triangle at the end of the set? Check. Do they take the piss out of Canadians? Check. Does Todd Trainer look like a horse’s skull with a Beatles wig perched on top of it? Check. But this schtick is warm hearted and inviting for those who actually like the band, just as it is alienating for those not in on the ‘joke’. The highlight is the bathetic ‘Prayer To God’, the ultimate in teen revenge fantasies, the impotent plea for violent retribution against an ex-girlfriend and her new lover from the self pitying cuckold. The new material sounds excellent, especially ‘The End Of Radio’, which paints a picture of a DJ playing his favourite Jonathan Richmond records as the world ends, entirely unsure as to whether anyone is listening or not. The song asks the pertinent question, is it really broadcasting if no one is there to receive. Steve Albini dedicates the song to John Peel saying brusquely but correctly “anyone who thinks this festival could have happened without him is a fool”.
Not normally reknowned for being a barrel of laughs, Throbbing Gristle are in a terminally dour mood tonight, headlining the main stage and not least because of the recent tragic death of co-conspirator and Coil mainstay, Jhonn Balance. But this just serves to propel their graceful and pulsatingly evil take on techno to stratospheric levels. They are the most ‘modern’ sounding act on the bill, even more so than the decidedly pedestrian Aphex Twin despite the fact they have been recording almost as long as he has been alive. Their entire performance is a (final) reminder of when industrial music had a philosophy before hollow headed dilettantes such as Trent Reznor got involved. That this is their last ever gig is something to be lamented. That they choose to play songs such as ‘Hamburger Lady’ in the dilapidated concert hall of an out of season holiday camp surrounded by giant fading signs pronouncing ‘Fun Factory!’ is laudable indeed. It’s easy to lampoon Genesis P Orridge as being a cross between Eddie Izzard’s dad and Anne Widdecombe’s non-existent daughter; a sort of pseud-y Pete Burns of alternative music but tonight he is an imperious figure with a continuous look of distaste on his face. Or perhaps it’s disappointment at the fact that despite having thirty years’ worth of opportunity, the rest of the world never quite caught up with his musical vision. During ‘What A Terrible Day’ Genesis, resplendent in mini skirt and sleeveless blouse, plays the guitar daintily with the neck of a beer bottle in a perverse inversion of macho rock iconography. (During ‘Hamburger Lady’ my girlfriend turns round to me and beams “I’m feeling so festive!” without a trace of irony. It is one of the most inappropriate things I’ve heard all year.)