atp day 2 (mbv, etc)

yeah. waaay late. oops!

so day 2 of ATP was the day i was most excited about, if only because of My Bloody Valentine.
we started our day with lunch a pizza hut, as we were getting liberty diner fatigue. pizza hut is what pizza hut is - much better than the food court was offering at the show, and less Millers Crossing (or maybe Mulholland Drive) than the diner.

we got there aboud mid day, in time for Gemma Hayes on stage 2.


setlist:
Happy Sad
Nothing Can
Home
In Over My Head
TBTF (Kevin Drew/Broken Social Scene cover)
Oliver
Easy on the Eye
Tear in my Side
Out Of Our Hands
Let A Good Thing Go

so a good mix of all three albums. the crowd was very quiet, as all the stage 2 crowds were, but something about the performance lent itself to the intimacy of it all.
one could ask where she fits in on a bill that, especially sunday's acts, is more identified with noise and volume. well, one, she absolutely was able to bring the noise factor (there had to be a reason kevin shields not only picked her for the concert, but also produced her newest album) - though less like, say, dinosaur jr's wall of feedback, and more like mercury rev's hazey atmosphere of sound. a little bit of a female nick drake crossed with the last few flaming lips records maybe? granted, i only have her first 2 brilliant EP's and the first album - new one has just come out, and the second one - the roads don't love you - was sort of hard to find and hasn't been a huge priority on my shopping list. i downloaded a few tracks and liked them okay, but not as much as the first lp so... the new album is supposed to be more like the first, so i plan to check it out when i get a chance. honestly, part of me wanted to see her because i have a ridiculously schoolboyish crush on her (irish girls do that to me i guess).

then came stage 1 for the rest of the night. which is what i think a lot of people did, ultimately. only act i was sort of regretful about missing was bob mould, who apparently ended his set by tearing through some husker du songs. i assume he's touring, so i'll catch him when i get a chance i guess. but still...

they - they being the atp security - did try the dumb "empty the room" crap after mercury rev (and after yo la tengo), but i think they realized they might have a small riot on their hands, so slowly but eventually gave it up (with a few rules - something about no professional cameras, which was largely ignored, and something about if you left the room, you had to stay out until the doors reopened for the next band).



mercury rev were amazing. period. and they played the dark is rising! yeah, a little theatrical, but that's mercury rev. we did miss a couple of songs, as stage 2 seemed to run a little late (stage 1 would ultimately follow suit), but it was truly... again, and more apt, the flaming lips comparison is obvious. (no setlist. sorry...). easily one of my favorite performances of the day, if not the whole weekend. there's just something ethereal about them which can't really be described adequately without actually seeing them.

yo la tengo's set, next, seemed really short and was heavy on long, drawn out, almost more ambient jams. when i saw them in baltimore... about 5 years ago i guess, they were the headliners, and actually played a lot of songs (though also a lot of feedack).

setlist:
*ambient opener*
Flying Lesson
I Feel Like Going Home
Watch Out For Me Ronnie
The Story of Yo La Tango



they were the last band i felt comfortable during without earplugs, which was pretty much expected. and possibly one of the prettiest sets of the weekend, with their gorgeous beach boyish - and by that comparison, i mean pet sounds/smile era beach boys, not kokomo! - harmonies (musically and a little vocally). i would have liked maybe a longer set, but no complaints.

mogwai. having only seen them before outdoors, i wasn't entirely sure what to expect. other than loud. earplugs? check!



setlist:
precipice
jim morrison
hunted
friend
scotland's shame
satan
space expert
herod
batcat

now, i truly love me some mogwai. and live mogwai makes me love them more.

(not my video, found on youtube while looking for the setlist)


my favorite moment was when they stopped people from clapping in rhythm, as well as stuart's speech about feeling the same way he felt seeing mbv 6 years ago when he saw some of the newer bands that played the festival. sadly - and possibly responsible for some of the rest of the evening's delays, including mbv's:

"We are sad to announce that we have had to cancel our remaining American and Canadian shows due to ill health. Our other dates in Europe and Japan will be going ahead as planned. We will re-schedule the shows in 2009.

I [Martin] was taken into hospital last night almost immediately after the show at ATP. I've been having some problems with my pacemaker for the duration of the tour and it unfortunately culminated in me being sent to the emergency room. The doctors there initially thought i would have to have corrective surgery at a larger hospital nearer NYC but i have been given the all clear to travel home on the understanding that i go straight to my cardiologist on arrival back in Scotland.

Tbh, i'm really bummed about having to go home and feel for the folk who had bought tickets for our upcoming shows but i can honestly say it would be almost impossible for me to carry on at this point as my pacemaker has broken skin and the surrounding area has become infected.

Mogwai

now settled in our spots, we waited while they wheeled out j mascis and lou barlow's giant stacks of speakers, signaling the wall of noise that was to come. lou barlow was especially animated, certainly more than i remember him being the couple of times i saw sebadoh. i never saw this lineup of dinosuar, as by the time i got to see them live, neither lou or murph were with the band anymore. they played a good mix of old and new, including "forget the swan" from the first album (though no repulsion). i unfortunately didn't get the whole setlist comitted to memory, though i know had they not been told to cut their set short, they would have gotten to just like heaven, which might have made their set the non-mbv highlight of the weekend.

honestly, i like the post lou songs better with lou on them, although i guess there's not that much difference (same songs, just a different rhythm section really).


dinosaur jr was the only band i really really noticed the moshers (they were certainly there for YLT and mogwai, but neither of them had stage divers! my only complaint with dinosaur jr is that my ear plugs had the unfortunate effect of muffling the higher tones, making some of their songs sound muddy. of course, taking them out was not an option, so adjusted and stuck it out. but it was annoying...

and then... the room filled.and people waited. and waited. aaand... waited.

and waited.

there was some chanting. and i think some people even walked out (granted, mbv were so loud, they could likely be heard from anywhere in kutshers, if not felt). finally. the lights dimmed. and....

we waited!

was it worth it? yes. when belinda, kevin, colm, and debbie walked on stage, all the waiting seemed like nothing...



the setlist:
01 "I Only Said"
02 "When You Sleep"
03 "You Never Should"
04 "When You Wake"
05 "Cigarette In Your Bed"
06 "Come In Alone"
07 "Only Shallow"
08 "Thorn"
09 "Nothing Much To Lose"
10 "To Here Knows When"
11 "Blown A Wish"
12 "Slow"
13 "Soon"
14 "Feed Me With Your Kiss"
15 "Sue Is Fine"
16 "You Made Me Realise"

basically, it was everything it was supposed to be. too loud? maybe, though unless your ear was stapled to a speaker, earplugs did their job. some reviewers seemed to think it was just noise and that you couldn't tell what songs were being played/hear the vocals/ etc. can you ever really hear the vocals with mbv, especially on loveless? basically, brilliant set, worth the extra hour and a half or so wait. my ears rang... well, no, not really ringing, it was more a weird, spirally, buzzing noise, all the way back to the liberty diner (where i finally found something there i liked more than as just food) and then to bed, as we had a longish drive ahead the next morning.

bands i kind of regret missing:
bob mould, le volume corbe, trail of dead, spectrum

but again, mbv made it all worth it!

atp pt 1 pt 2 - corrections, additions, edits...

so i made a bunch of errors and omissions in the first post about atp. so i will fix them this way instead of just going in and editing.

1. The biggest being that, for some reason, at least on the two main days (so not the "don't look back" day) the had this weird notion of kicking EVERYONE out of the room where the bands were playing, ostensibly for setup and soundcheck, though there was some speculation that it was also so everyone could get a chance to get up front... they mostly gave this up by the time dinosaur jr went on on the MBV curated day, but still.

should have been clearer. for some reason, between bands, they (the organizers? kutchers?) decided it would be good to have the security folks - who were in their own way kind of awesome, and as alan sparhawk said during low's performance, probably didn't know what to make of all the white people (seriously, the looks on their faces during MBV's 25 minutes of feedback was one of utter bewilderment) - make everyone leave the room and stand outside. when we first had to do this before low, it was sort of like, oh, well... ok... but then after low it just got more crazy. it kind of reached a header on day 2 when, after mercury rev went on and everyone was pushed out to the waiting area, there was a lot of mutinous talk and riotous behavior, ultimately surrendering shortly after and letting the majority of people stay in (though, if you left you had to wait, and there was something about no professional cameras, which also seemed to get mostly ignored). honestly, i have never been to a concert of any sort where they have done this - i'm sure they had reasons, and yes, on stage 2 due to the intimacy of the space and the fact that the audience was two feet from the stage, i can see how maybe letting the bands soundcheck to an empty room made sense. they still did it on stage 2 (we had to wait outside the room for gemma hayes on day 2) so i don't know... seems to be something they could have handled a lot better.

2. also, they really should have had a bigger, more open (ie not a sealed off little room, that smelled of BO, and also... well... actually open during the operating hours of the show).

so the merch area didn't open at all the first day. they had a wooden dividing wall closing off one corner of the main floor of Kutcher's, and a locked door. this befuddled many, including a few bands (thurston moore seemed slightly confused, built to spill seemed practically offended they couldn't get in). it eventually seemed to open, where we each got ATP t shirts, MBV shirts and a neat print. but it was just too small a space for the amount of people going through. the second day, we tried in vain to get some more stuff - we wanted to look at the mogwai shirts and a few other things - but it was too cramped and smelly to really bother.

3. a little about the venue.

i can't believe i forgot to mention the venue, which while certainly not in its heyday (as a lot of artists made reference to, it was once a pretty swinging place, where comedians like jackie mason made the crowds go wild. the village voice seemed to say it best:

Let's start with the Kutsher's Country Club lobby. The walls are the color of salmon. The carpet: salmon catfood. Around one corner, there's an air hockey table. Around another, a department-store-style glass-display counter promises Mary Kay-style make-up demonstrations twice a day. This afternoon, a woman who looked like Delta Burke’s great aunt was seated behind the case, though she had no customers—the art-rock sojourners here are far more interested in stocking up on Budweiser cases for tonight's post-rock summer-camp festivities than discovering the perfect grandmotherly blush. They're also interested in Steve Albini, who last night ran a poker game in the "Executive Card Room" and just now walked by with a small digi-camera crew in tow.

Kutscher's isn't just ATP's lodging—the main stage is just past the make-up counter. ATP founder Barry Hogan wasn't kidding when he described Kutsher's Country ClubThe Shining meets Cocoon. “I keep expecting to walk into one of these rooms and seeing a dude in a bear suit blowing a guy in the bed,” Patton Oswalt joked last night on Stage 2. The hallways seem to go on forever, the adjacent “lake” cries out for Jason Voorhees, and I think I can hear Edith from Grey Gardens voice in the bathroom. “Every room smells like a fart gave up,” said Patton last night. That time, he wasn't kidding. as

some pictures of the "lake"



i'm pretty sure that green blob in the middle is either jason vorhees waiting to strike, or lily pads

or swamp thing. definitely swamp thing.

4. a dissappointing visit to the food court (the food there was another minor complaint. from the undercooked and underseasoned vegetarian on a pita, to the sort of boring ratattoullie... meh... the sweet potato fries were decent enough, but we ended up eating more at the liberty diner, near our hotel, which had a weird coen brothers movie feel to it...

or, as the village voice also stated:

Most deceptive line in the ATP FAQ: "There will be food vendors on-site with several options covering carnivores, vegetarians and vegans." "Vegan options" in this case means "we won't put meat in this gyro."

5. more about the year punk broke.

Dave Mackey, the director, was a really humble, nice guy who generally cared that he was showing his film, plus 40 minutes of extra footage, to a crowd. the moron who acted as if he hadn't directed other things (he has - many music videos, and other short films) in his question was annoying. i had sort of hoped that thurston moore would pop in to ask some odd, funny question, but it didn't happen (though there were artists everywhere at the venue, so it wasn't impossible). i think - much like the crowd at stage 2 - the packed room was just too quiet, which may have seemed like disinterest, but was more likely awe. "1991" is a pretty amazing little film. i sincerely hope that he talked to the criterion folks there, and that we'll soon be hearing of a criterion collection edition (with the bonus "blues scale" footage as a feature). the only pointed remark mackey made was how he had given a bunch of the nirvana footage to the band for free (in particular, in response to a dumb question about courtney love and whether she's possibly what's holding up a DVD release). he didn't seem to be upset by it - he personally stated that it wasn't that courtney was blocking anything, it was that nobody had asked her (he also pointedly remarked how it was he that gave kim gordon Hole's demo tape, so i guess there may have been some bitterness there after all...).
day two review still to come, with more pictures!

atp pt 1.

finally, an all tomorrow's parties post.

so, first of all, a few minor complaints. and i say minor, although one was certainly a major hassle, because all in all they were not a big deal. the biggest being that, for some reason, at least on the two main days (so not the "don't look back" day) the had this weird notion of kicking EVERYONE out of the room where the bands were playing, ostensibly for setup and soundcheck, though there was some speculation that it was also so everyone could get a chance to get up front... they mostly gave this up by the time dinosaur jr went on on the MBV curated day, but still. also, they really should have had a bigger, more open (ie not a sealed off little room, that smelled of BO, and also... well... actually open during the operating hours of the show). also, letting us know things... such as when the first performances were, at least approximately, and about the whole room clearing thing, etc... would have been nice.

anyway... the lineup (wow, that's largely illegible).



so day 1 was the "don't look back" day, where bands played the entirety of "Classic Albums." we skipped Bardo Pond performing "lapsed" (honestly, i've never been a huge fan. they're good enough, and the album if i recall it isn't awful but...). in the process, i did have my first geeky moment where thurston moore walked by to take stuff to the merch booth (more on this later...). we did walk around the facility, where we had chosen not to stay but i think if we go next year, we will (tickets are already on sale, though i think it's worth waiting to see who's curating, just in case...). then we went to stage 1 for a few of the performances (no pictures ahead, i neglected to bring my camera).

meat puppets performed meat puppets 2. odd how grizzled and old they really look. also, forgot how good that album really was. a large portion of the crowd seemed to be mostly familiar with "plateau" and "lake of fire" (though the harder, faster version from MPII seemed to confuse those who largely knew it from the nirvana unplugged performance). they also played a couple of covers (neither if which i recall the name of right now... ) thankfully, nothing newer (such as backwater... meh... or anything else from too high to die, which is probably the only other meat puppets album people know), as it would have been unnecessary.

tortoise were next and very... spacey, as one would expect. i don't think i've ever heard an entire toroise album, as a few songs in, it seems redundant. not that i dont like tortoise, i just find them to ber very run on and samey. someone compared them to "isis, without words," though i have always kind of felt that... well... no. isis are some scary shit, tortoise are much more chill out music. not necessarily something you'd rock out to. i still don't feel like i need to own "millions now living will never die," and likely never will. i wouldn't mind a few tortoise tracks on my mp3 player, for long drives and the like.

then came the tall, gangly, certainly not youthful but definitely sonic, thurston moore playing"psychic hearts." kim gordon was there, as was kevin shields (and a really dancey, slightly annoying woman, who may or may not have been a VIP but was certainly not bilinda butcher, who we did see throughout the weekend with her lovely family). and so on this, despite being in proximity to many people from several bands - we must have passed members of silver mt zion quite a few times, especially on the day of their performance i'm not really the person who's going to make a scene, and bother them. if i see a lot of people doing so, eh,maybe, or if that's the reason they are there - yeah, i have met members of bands at shows and talked to them in non-fanboyish ways but as a rule, i don't. so i didn't (i did feel really embarassed pointing out that low were walking through the door at one point on day 3, as well as apologized to gemma hayes for almost running into her, but otherwise...) there were a lot of familiarly famous faces there -though a lot i couldn't quite place... but really, i felt it would be rude to bother them. anyway... anyway.so thurston played the album, and did seem to do an encore (or forgot a song from the album. he was using notes and lyric sheets on a music stand throughout the performance, so it is possible he forgot...). we left before built to spill - not a big enough fan of "perfect from now on" to hear it in it's entirety.

day 2. after taking it easy in the daytime, we got there to watch sonic youth's "1991 the year punk broke" at the criterion cinema room (they were playing other movies too, but out of the ones showing when bands we didn't want to see play, this was the only one worth it).
i own it on vhs but it was cool seeing it on a larger screen. there was also a q and a with the director, which was filled with lame questions about courtney love, and nostlagia. dave markey didn't seem to have a lot to say in response to questions, and was sort of annoyed by some. he did seem to indicate a possible dvd release someday (maybe with criterion... hmmm...) it was really entertaining seeing kurt cobain just before stardom (man was funny), and just how... goofy and fun thurston moore is.

then we made our way to stage two, after a dissappointing visit to the food court (the food there was another minor complaint. from the undercooked and underseasoned vegetarian on a pita, to the sort of boring ratattoullie... meh... the sweet potato fries were decent enough, but we ended up eating more at the liberty diner, near our hotel, which had a weird coen brothers movie feel to it...

after they finally let us in (this is where we learned about the room clearing rule)... we saw low. mostly newer stuff, plus a new and sort of creepy new christmas song about santa coming.
setlist (i assume complete, i found it online here):
Candy girl
Murderer
Pretty people
??? (creepy santa song, i think)
Always fade

awesome performance, though lacking my favorite song by them. maybe it was because we were right up front, but it felt like a low performance should feel - very intimate and direct. the really cool chandelier in the room they played helped, as did the stage setup (as we were basically at the same level as the stage, rather than having it raised above us). then, they kicked us out again to wait for silver mt zion...

no setlist, sorry, but it was... possibly my 3rd or 4th favorite performance of the weekend, mbv not inclusive. there's something about seeing silver mt zion live which just blows me away completely. there was a lot of... was it heckling? not really, though a little. banter, mostly people saying dumb things and efrim not hearing them, causing some confusion. the intimacy of the stage setting made it all the more intense, and beautiful. yeah, i can't even do it justice here...

we then made our way to stage one, to catch Shellac, before we called it a night. we got a decent spot in one of the tiered sections of the floor, to the right of the stage. they were just loud enough to not need earplugs, but definitely fast, and brutal. albini is exactly as i would expect him to be live. . bob weston took questions from the crowd, such as their stance on unicorns ("not extinct yet.") and could they name a song worse than kokomo (albini: "i'm sure jimmy buffet has hundreds.") i was more than pleasantly surprised by them, though i expected to enjoy them. definitely a highlight.

bands we missed i wouldn't have minded seeing:
fuck buttons, polvo, autolux, harmonia

band im glad i missed:
les savy fav.

so here's some pictures (sorry if they're a bit dark):

Low



Silver Mt Zion



Shellac



i wonder who this guy was there to see...



(part 2 later, with more mogwai, mbv, and more!)

oooh!

so i have been talking about hoping for this for.... years now, and now it's official:

(from the B&S myspace page)

BBC Sessions release ..We are pleased to announce the release of the long awaited compilation of BBC recordings spanning the years 1996 – 2001. The BBC Sessions is released on Jeepster Records, week commencing 17th November in Europe and on Matador Records in the USA. It is initially available in three formats: as a limited edition double CD which includes a live recording of the Christmas show in Belfast from 2001 as bonus content, and with all the tracks as a download. In addition, the session tracks are also available as a double vinyl edition. As well as different versions of songs from the first three albums and associated EPs, the album contains four much bootlegged songs recorded for John Peel in 2001, none of which have previously appeared on CD or vinyl. Among the highlights of the fourteen session tracks are five songs from the two 1996 sessions for The Graveyard Shift (presented by Mark Radcliffe), an alternative version of the single, Lazy Line Painter Jane and a definitive version of Slow Graffiti recorded for The Evening Session, presented by Steve Lamacq. The next appearance on the show yielded an early version of The Wrong Girl when it was still known as Wrong Love. Despite featuring in John Peel's Festive Fifty every year during the period and being played regularly on his show, the first Maida Vale Peel session did not take place until 2001 – the first of four subsequent Peel appearances which included a visit to Peel Acres and a legendary, sixteen song Christmas gig at Maida Vale, both in 2002. The four songs from 2001 – The Magic of a Kind Word, Nothing In The Silence, Shoot The Sexual Athlete and (My Girl's Got) Miraculous Technique – never made it on to subsequent albums, and are the last recordings to feature Isobel Campbell. They capture the band at the end of one part of their history and at the start of another. By the time of the recording of the Christmas show some six months later on 21st December 2001 in Belfast, Bob Kildea had joined on bass and guitar, and playing live had moved much further up the agenda. The gig is full of relaxed seasonal cheer, with requests, guest vocalists from the crowd, old favourites and three cover versions – Here Comes The Sun (The Beatles), Boys Are Back In Town (Thin Lizzy) and Waiting For The Man (Velvet Underground). The full track listing is as follows: Disc 1 – Radio Sessions: The State I Am In, Like Dylan In The Movies, Judy and the Dream of Horses, The Stars of Track and Field, I Could Be Dreaming, Seymour Stein, Lazy Jane, Sleep The Clock Around, Slow Graffiti, Wrong Love, Shoot The Sexual Athlete, The Magic of a Kind Word, (My Girls Got) Miraculous Technique Disc 2 – Live in Belfast: Here Comes The Sun, Theres Too Much Love, The Magic of a Kind Word, Me and the Major, Wandering Alone, The Model, Im Waiting For The Man, The Boy With the Arab Strap, The Wrong Girl, Dirty Dream 2, Boys Are Back in Town, Legal Man

needless to say, i will be getting this sucker... the amazon.com entries for it are very confusing, as it seems to be listed several times for the same thing (2 entries for the deluxe, one with bbc spelled bcc. a listing for the regular edition and one for the vinyl... the "bcc" one actually seems to be the right thing...)

!!

i have a lot of the tracks as bootlegs either on cd or in mp3 form, but it will be nice to get some of them on quality sounding recordings, instead of the more or less spotty ones i have accumulated. the live in belfast gig looks to be a similar setlist to what they played when i saw them on the tour for "fold your hands child..." at the 9:30 club.

unfortuntely despite having songs from that particular date, it seems to lack the actual christmas songs from the christmas show, meaning those will have to live for me as bootlegs... which is kind of sad. since half of them were traditional, i don't think copyright issues kept them all from release (though i can see "Santa Bring my Baby Back to Me" and "Santa Claus go Straight to the Ghetto" being a problem).

overall, it's a pretty complete collection of their various sessions for the BBC, at least as complete as any bbc session cd could be or has been, in lieu of an actual NEW album from them (which, seriously, i guess we were spoiled when it felt like we were getting an album or ep a year from them, but it kind of seems that since the move to rough trade and acting like a band of their talent and stature, they've really become less productive). when they do come out with another studio album, it had better be the best thing since the boy with the arab strap (which sounds like im dissing the last few albums, but i'm not, i just don't think they've topped BWtAS - yes i think i might be the first person to refer to it that way - yet).