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Most of the below transcribed from illegible notes in my homemade Brian Wilson notebook:
Overall Top 5 performances:
Sonic Youth
The Boredoms
Cat Power
Sleater Kinney
Stereolab
Top 5 cool bands I wasn’t previously familiar with:
Erase Errata
Peaches
Mike Watt’s Secondmen
The Dead C
Quix*o*tic
4 bands who kinda sucked:
Destroy All Monsters
Califone
Eddie Vedder
Saccharine Trust
FRIDAY (the ‘mostly girl’ day):
Quix*o*tic – put on a somewhat varied performance, starting with some Sleater Kinney / Shellac inspired grrl-maths rock which is .. pretty cool, but not as cool as either of the aforementioned influences. Then the drummer comes to the front and sings some songs and it all goes a bit kind of .. tribal drumming and weird harmonies .. which doesn’t exactly hit the mark, but then we are sitting miles away and feeling pretty dazed.
Erase Errata – FUCKING ROCK! Dressed up all in neon with weird accessories and lots of flashing lights and the sound turned up FAR TOO LOUD. They sound pretty much like a gender reversed version of Big Black with the ‘fuck you’ attitude of Bikini Kill. They make an absolutely brilliant fucking obtuse anti-social industrial punk racket that you can dance madly to. Check ‘em out!
Kim Gordon, Jim O’Rourke, DJ Olive and Ikue Mori – the first of the SY solo/collaborative messings about and probably the best one. Kim screams and reads some poetry and batters her guitar and Jim potters about at the back twiddling knobs and making deep, rumbling bass noises and DJ Olive does some totally crazy scratching and Ikue Mori plays .. some kind of instrument that looks like an organ but makes lots of Japanese percussion type noises.
Together they make a terrific avant garde soundscapy noise which raises absolute sonic hell … this kind of thing is obviously loads of fun to make, but whether it’s actually fun to listen to is another matter .. I certainly think it is, but I can understand why others may be happier leaving it to po-faced, freak-earred beardies who have their back copies of The Wire stacked in chronological order.
(As it turns out, Kim & pals were actually kind of accessible compared to a lot of the acts).
Eddie ‘the singing dork’ Vedder – the plan was obviously to duck over to the other stage and catch Bardo Pond whilst this guy was on, but queues, overcrowding, seating arrangements etc. conspired to make that impossible. Shit. Needless to say, the ballroom was packed out with meat-headed, day ticket holding Pearl Jam fans saying ‘dude’ and smoking rank weed and giving the twat a standing ovation and a barrage of cheering every time he coughed. He was, incidentally, shit.
Cat Power – what to say beyond … she was on top form (relatively speaking). She joked with the audience, played some cover versions and selections from her forthcoming record and her music was … sublime and beautiful .. and fully deserving of everything those clichéd words meant before they were clichéd.
She frequently stops mid-song, get’s chord progressions and lyrics wrong, spends excessive amounts of time tuning up and coughing, but all this – pretty unacceptable from any other artist - counts for nothing .. her music is quite impossibly moving, and that’s all that matters.
In my (forthcoming) utopian republic based on the power of art, the fuckhead’s who marred Chan’s performance by muttering, heckling and making stupid noises would be TAKEN OUT AND SHOT. Quietly.
Television – yes, it really is those four scary men from the front of Marquee Moon .. I’d always assumed that picture was only put together to warn children of the dangers of heroin, but no, here they are, 25 years on and considerably less scary looking. Tom Verlaine still looks kinda cool in a Andy Warhol / Bill Burroughs ‘grey haired subversive’ kind of way, but the other three have got receding hairlines and sensible shoes and look like they should be doing session work for Pink Flloyd or something … but still, they’re TELEVISION.
They fuck around for absolutely ages, tuning and retuning and muttering and messing about, but they can get away with it – they’re TELEVISION.
The set starts properly when they launch into a few post-Marquee moon songs that I don’t know. The sheer precision and structure and complexity and the interplay between the different instruments is amazing .. but then it ought to be – it’s Television. These songs lack any real energy however, and occasionally get a little dull. Then they play “Prove It” and the place comes alive, so to speak. Then a few more breathtakingly complex and well performed songs .. and then they play “Marquee Moon”. If ever a piece of rock n roll music deserved to be called genius .. well, that’s it right there.
Sadly, due to excessive tiredness and confusion, we miss Malkmus & The Jicks, which is a shame .. my friend’s promise to buy me a ticket next time he plays in the UK.. we do catch a few minutes of Ashton, Mascis, Watt, Moore & Gordon’s tribute to the Stooges – they sure are tearing shit up and having a lovely time, but probably no more so than any random Stooges covers band. Bit of an indulgence really I thought, having them headlining the biggest hall.
FRIDAY’S CELEBRITY ENCOUNTERS: Whilst standing at the front watching Television, I was STANDING NEXT TO SLEATER KINNEY. No really, Janet Weiss said ‘excuse me’ and pushed past me. I think I’ll repeat that: last Friday night I was standing next to Sleater Kinney watching the original Televsion line-up play. I dare you to convincingly claim you were doing something cooler. (Out of interest, they didn’t seem particularly impressed by Television – just clapping politely and looking stoney-faced.)
SATURDAY (the ‘mainly tuneless noise’ day):
Thurston Moore, Mats Gustaffson, Nels Cline – Thurston’s free jazz messing about slot is surprisingly enjoyable – evidently fun to make, but once again the listener’s appreciation will depend on their tolerance for this sort of improvised guff. Gustaffson’s ‘experimental’ saxophone playing techniques are slightly less than impressive, but, as ever, watching Thurston tear it up on the guitar is absolutely electrifying.
Destroy All Monsters – I CAN’T BELIVE I ended up missing Cannibal Ox to see these losers. There’s an important and (usually) easily identifiable line between innovative noise improvisation and what is commonly known as ‘wasting everyone’s time and behaving like wankers’. Destroy All Monsters are well and truly on the wrong side of this line. Wandering around a stage filled with silly homemade instruments and hitting them randomly whilst giggling at each other does not stretch any boundaries, provoke any emotion (except boredom) or make any decent noise. And the fact they’re allowed to get away with it for 45 minutes pisses all over the achievements of genuine experimental music. Not even the fact that they have John Sinclair playing squeeky toys can stop them being wankers.
Califone – Not being terribly impressed with their overwrought alt-country shenanigans, I have a nice nap.
Lee Ronaldo, Kevin Drumm & Leah Singer – Kevin does some of his highly entertaining ‘rectal prolapse’ turntablism with occasional amusing dialogue segments, whilst Lee soon gives up on recognisable guitar playing altogether and sort of plays feedback. Cool. Supposedly a soundtrack inspired by Leah Singer’s abstract films, which are projected behind them. Actually, yes, you’ve guessed it, A LOT OF FUCKING NOISE.
Merzbow – is an EVIL, EVIL man. This is dark, painful, punishing, relentless, headfucking, inhuman, terrifying fucking BLACK NOISE of the highest order. It sounds like a bunch of pessimistic SF writer’s worst global-killer-robot-industrial-deathcamp-drone-hell-extermination-nightmares condensed into sound. Technically, it’s quite stunning – varied tones of pure chainsaw noise interfacing with each over a background of shrieking, black mechanical sheets of terror, fucking and giving birth to twisted, percussive bouncing patterns formed out of what may long ago have been screams .. Merzbow is complete, unstoppable SONIC CARNAGE which is just TOO EXTREME. Many audience members stubble off toward the doors in a daze as the noise gets louder and louder .. but, being hardcore, I stay to the end .. thankfully somebody wanders on stage and mutters in his ear and he winds things down shortly before permanent brain damage is incurred. And let me point out once more that this isn’t celebratory, triumphant noise either – this is bad, dark noise that leaves me feeling like shit and completely drained of energy. Merzbow, you are evil.
So thank the gods for the wonderful, redemptive power of Sleater Kinney!
The only one of tonight‘s bands to have songs, let alone tunes, you probably already know that they’re one of the coolest bands in the whole world, and tonight they’re fantastic, banishing the remnants of all that nasty noise with a call to dance, an invocation of basic ROCK N ROLL FUN, a selection of fantastic songs from their forthcoming album and a sense of pure fucking coolness and good natured fun-ness way above and beyond any of the previous acts. WOOO!!! Sleater Kinney Kick Out The Jams! Filling the audience who’ve just been fucked in the head by Merzbow with new enthusiasm and new energy. Their set seems much to short, but actually lasts over 50 minutes. They leave me completely resurrected, jumping up and down and is perfect health for..
THE BOREDOMS! To try and actually describe the music created live by Eye and his three drummers would be a futile task .. suffice to say that I’ve only once before heard such totally transcendent live music, and despite tiredness, jetlag and a heavy rucksack, there is absolutely no response to the Boredoms other than to dance frenziedly like a complete mad bastard … I’d like to write more words on the Boredoms, but I honestly can’t think of any .. it was beyond words, so I’ll fill up a bit of space with … BORE!BORE!BORE!BORE!BORE!BORE!BORE!BORE!BORE!BORE!BORE!BORE!BORE!BORE!!!!!!
Aphex Twin’s set was simultaneously a big ‘FUCK YOU’ to the concept of live music AND a complete dismissal of any allegations of beardy po-facedness. Essentially, what the eager fans awaited his ‘exclusive US engagement’ got was a prerecorded mix of absloutely killer, highly danceable, drum ‘n’ bass and a bloke in white robes and a bird mask dancing like a tit. Hilarious! And, even more so than the Boredoms, this saw the motionless, beard stroking ATP crowd transformed into something more resembling an ecstasy fuelled warehouse party full of flailing mad people, glo-sticks, strobes, nudity and gravity defying nutters scaling the walls. Not bad, considering Richard D. James was probably home in bed in his weird house in London..
SATURDAY’S CELEBRITY ENCOUNTERS: We saw Jim O’Rourke wandering around about five times and the rest of Sonic Youth were all clocked hiding in various dark corners of the Ackerman Grand Ballroom.
SUNDAY (Sonic Youth day!):
Black Dice – My initial thought was ‘oh, fuck me, not another tuneless white noise freakout band’, but actually they turned out to be pretty good, mixing rumbling sheets of fuzzy noise with electrified screeching and heavy live drumbeats, making epic soundscapey things with nods to the Boredoms, Can, Merzbow, Swans and My Bloody Valentine. They also have the good sense to realise that endless noise holocaust gets pretty boring after a while and start to stick in some rather cool, almost Boards of Canada-like, melodic quiet sections.
Saccharine Trust – Initially they seem like a sort of surrealist punk group, with the band making a weird detuned racket and the singer charging around yelling random poetry from a sheet of paper and throwing cuddly toys into the audience. So far so good. But the band’s whiteboy funk stop-starting Captain Beefheart-isms become extremely irritating extremely quickly, and we duck out to get food.
The Dead C – A bit I read in my complementary copy of The Wire says that this band were inspired to make music by the fadeout on SY’s ‘Expressway to Yr. Skull’ .. which kinda figures. Another noise improv. band, this one’s basically shoegazing taken to extremes. The drummer plods alone at a sedate pace whilst the two guitarists unleash endless hails of feedback, building it up and knocking it down and building it up again .. comparisons to MBV and Bardo Pond are meant in the best possible way.
Peaches – Previously being a bit of a sceptic, I’m forced to admit, PEACHES ABSOLUTELY ROCKS. And I don’t know if she does this at her other gigs, but she had the best gimmick ever – A LIVE CARTOONIST! Seriously, this women was sitting at the back, scribbling pen and ink drawings which were being projected behind the stage. It was brilliant – we had ‘can you guess what it is yet?’ moments with drawings of claws and scary old ladies, random cartoon obscenity, ink spillages, glitter and an orgy of pornographic shadow puppets. The best bits were when Preaches interacted with the cartoons – for the song with the Big Guitar Riff, the cartoonist draws a guitar and Peaches stands in front of the projection ‘playing’ it .. that kind of thing .. it was quite fantastic..
And the music? Yeah, it rocks hard – we’re all punching the air and cheering and singing along but, um, I can’t exactly see myself coming home after a hard day being a student bum and putting on Peaches, if you know what I mean.. a bit of a one trick pony maybe. Peaches = the Andrew WK who’s clever and cool to like. Though maximum respect for the cartoonist gimmick.
Mike Watt’s Secondmen – are about as far removed from Peaches as one can possibly imagine, but ROCK equally hard. Despite being, like, really old dudes, these guys are probably the best punk band of the whole festival. Blasting their way through a quick, tight set that mostly consists of old school punk covers ( I spot tunes by Wire, Husker Du, Black Flag and Television – there are probably lots of more obscure ones) they .. well I use the terms ‘rock’ and ‘kick ass’ far too much, but hopefully I can get away with using them again. “Start your own band!” shouts Mike as he leaves the stage – will do, sir.
Stereolab – Yay, it’s Stereolab! And they do everything that has come to be expected of Stereolab, with perfect finesse, for the best part of an hour. Which, in case you need telling, is extremely good. Apparently most of the tunes come from their last LP ‘Sound Dust’. I seem to remember the album getting panned for being too much of a noodley and insubstantial affair, but it all sounds like pretty poptastic, booty-shaking stuff to me. Lot’s of fun, top stuff, a unique band.
Sonic Youth – Yay! It’s SONIC YOUTH! I don’t suppose you need to be told the level of excitement that awaits them when they enter the stage, or the level of adoration when it becomes clear they’re going to play a PROPER set with SONGS. It’s kind of amazing the way that, despite being nearly as old as my parents, they look just as cool and youthful as they did 15 years ago .. some real ‘fountain of eternal youth’ stuff going on.. But anyway, they do a selection of songs from yesteryear – ‘Bull in the Heather’, ‘White Kross’ and FANTASTIC supercharged versions of ‘Nevermind (What Was It Anyway?)’, ‘Drunk Butterfly’ and ‘Mote’ .. hearing them live with super-tight dynamics and additional layers of guitar skronk is pretty awe-inspiring. Most of the songs they play though are from their forthcoming album ‘Murray Street’, and fucking brilliant they are too. Sadly, they seem like a bit of a return to the standard ‘90s Sonic formula established by Dirty and A Thousand Leaves, rather than a development on 1999’s fantastic NYC Ghosts & Flowers, but they’re still absolutely awesome examples of said formula.
In terms of beautiful, fucked up guitar noise, they’re still peerless .. fantastic, energising .. Sonic Youth live and on great form .. what more is there to say?
The set seems really short, but it’s actually nearly 80 minutes. They could have easily played for twice as long and still left us yelling for more..
There’s some great on stage banter and audience heckling, from the inevitable “PLAY THE LOUD ONE WITH FEEDBACK!” to the following exchanges which made me chuckle:
Girl in audience: “KIM GORDON, YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL!”
<Kim gives no sign of recognition>
Guy in audience: “JIM O’ROURKE, YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL!”
<Jim takes a momentary break from skulking around at the back like a hunchback making rumbling noises and gives ‘smoking gun’ gesture>
Or:
KIM: So, has anyone been following the UCLA basketball? … when I was a little girl, I used to watch the UCLA tournament on TV..
THURSTON: When I was a little girl .. I used to watch .. ‘GET SMART’.
KIM: let’s do the next song.
There are a few drawbacks though – firstly, what exactly IS Jim O’Rourke’s role in the band? I’d assumed he’d been roped in to do electronics and production and stuff, but here he plays guitar. Which, when you’ve already got two of the world’s finest experimental no-wave guitar players tearin’ it up, seems a little unnecessary – I don’t know if I could actually pinpoint one distinctive noise he made during the performance. He only really seems to be of any use in a live context when he takes over on bass, leaving Kim free to do some of her brilliant gonzo punk riffing. Also, and I didn’t think I’d ever be saying this about Sonic Youth, they’re too humble. All their songs are relatively short and straight forward, and when they remerge for the encore they repeatedly thank the audience, thank the organisers, thank the other bands and play a version of ‘She is Not Alone’ off their debut EP, curtailing it after five minutes and leaving for good. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic to hear that song, and it’s an absolutely breathtaking performance, but … where were the improvised epics? The 15 minute noise burnouts? The flashing lights and crazy projections? I’ve got this bootleg of a show they did in 1998 where they finish with ‘Death Valley ‘69’ and expand it into a 20 minute white noise / instrument destroying frenzy .. I was really looking forward to something of that nature tonight. But hey, such concerns are relatively minor – it was still a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant set and a brilliant, brilliant end to a brilliant, brilliant weekend.
SUNDAY’S CELEBRITY ENCOUNTERS: we turned up at UCLA several hours before doors, just to make sure we got a good position (and because we didn’t really have much time to go anywhere else), so we were amongst the first ATP goers to arrive. And – ok, get this – we walked round the corner of the library building, straight into *Thurston Moore* who was going the other way, talking on his phone .. not quite sure what do do, we stood and gawped at him like fools. “Hey There” he said and grinned at us, obviously recognising gawping fans when he sees them. Wow. Somehow inspired by this moment, I five minutes later vowed to start a band, called THE TEENAGE MICE. And I will, too.
We went and sat on a bench in the park, discussing whether we should print some “Thurston Moore Acknowledged my Existence” T-shirts, and saw Lee Ronaldo, Kim Gordon and Jim O’Rourke wandering past looking cheery. Seeing members of Sonic Youth was actually becoming pretty dull by the time Steve Shelley went past, giving us a full set.
Also, the next day we saw half of Stereolab at the airport - they were in front of us in the queue to use a broken stamp machine. |
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