ATP 04 2.2 - tonight's the night we're gonna have a party
"Konichiwa. We are oh-oh-eye-oh-oh."
And we're back on track.
00I00 just might be the most joycore band of the weekend. I totally get the Yoshimi thing now, too (fuck, I didn't know she played in Free Kitten - I'm embarrassed now). At times this year's ATP seemed to be dominated by drummers, I'm telling you. I think it's thanks mainly to the percussion that 00I00 have this whole Slits thing going on, which as everybody knows is never a bad thing. But maybe the best thing about 'em is the way they can switch up effortlessly between pure sugary pop rushes and atmospheric, tinkly soundscape stuff which I guess must be psychedelia, but don't ask me about psychedelia, I don't do enough drugs these days and never really did the right ones. I can't find a site for 00I00 but you can read more about them here - apparently they started life as a fictional band - how cool is that?
Erase Errata remain a band I really like in theory, a band I really want to like? But I can never quite get into them, on record or, as it turns out, live. Especially after the breezy, thrilling 00I00, Erase Errata just seem a little bit too... well, rocky. In the sense that is almost always lost on me, which is to say without much in the way of decent TUNES... Um, I feel really bad about writing that. Sorry.
I should mention that walking through the downstairs venue at some point later I see the funniest sight of the weekend: I'm not sure if it's Charalambides or Wolf Eyes, but the lead singer wears a black t-shirt with a skeleton design, and stands on stage cradling himself in his arms, hair hiding his face, rocking side to side like he?s gone catatonic, while the band makes feedback noise. Rock on? No. Dried smelly wankstains.
Le Tigre have - amazingly - got even better since I saw them play in London. Sexier, more disco, more rock, more hip-hop, more joycore... They begin with a cover of 'I'm So Excited' that is so incredibly fucking good words will not do it justice - suffice to say they totally make that song their own and if this cover isn't on the new album, then they're insane. And why deny it: Kathleen Hanna is incredibly hott, especially during this song. It's not just the outfit or the, ahem, thickness, it's the confidence and the charisma too... Although JD Samson is increasingly becoming the star of this band, definitely the one who makes the hip hop element work. JD really shines on a new song that is introduced as being "about butch lesbians" and features a great chorus which goes something like "They call it binding, and we call it VISIBILITY... They call it way too rowdy, we call it FINALLY FREE."
Note: Le Tigre navigate their way through the minefield of where their politics intersect with the politics of race, sexuality and trans issues with their usual careering ambiguity (not sure I have room to explain this in detail here, but just for starters, I'm not sure that everyone pictured in the cartoon which accompanies the aforementioned new song identifies as "butch lesbian", and it's not like they don't have previous for pissing off trans people). But just for tonight, that seems like just an inevitable side-effect of all the great political bands (Public Enemy, early Manic Street Preachers - DON'T LAUGH OR I BREAK FACE) - they're always messy, always fucking up, always letting off their guns righteous anger and angry idealism in crowded rooms full of innocent people, that kind of thing.
While we're talking about the political content, Le Tigre score more points for keeping the between-song banter short and sweet too, tonight - one of the few things I didn't like about the Le Tigre gig I saw previously was the tendency of the space between songs to be filled with slightly over-long, over-hectoring speeches - not because I disagree with the politics but because it's all there in the songs already and really, should a gig be the place to remind people who are in all likelihood already trying to do their bit that they can always be doing more? Maybe it is, I dunno, but they skipped any of that this time and kept it more of a celebration, and it was awesome.
Some songs they played: 'Shred A' (works so much better live than on record), 'Let's Run' (God I love that "we get our grades from Professor You" line, and Hanna really plays it up, pointing at the crowd, "you, and you, and you..."), 'The The Empty' (cue audience call and response: "OH... BABY!"), 'Mediocrity Rules', 'FYR', 'Well Well Well' (the hotness...), 'What's Yr Take On Cassavetes?', 'Hot Topic' (I?m pretty sure they've rearranged the slideshow, just to make it more fun for the "name the records / books / people" geeks), 'Yr Critique', 'Deceptacon' (still sounds like the best song ever), 'Keep On Livin'... I didn't even miss 'Les And Ray' too much.
(Check out the photos at Sleeve Notes, please do.)
So as you can imagine, at this point in the weekend I?m pretty much thinking that nothing else will live up to Le Tigre's show this weekend, and for a while, nothing else does.
Sonic Youth are okay. They're just okay, y'know? And people who like them tend to think that they're one of the best bands in the world, and I honestly wanted to experience an epiphany tonight and leave ATP as a convert, a Sonic Youth fan come lately. But it didn't happen. They're not in any sense bad. They're just okay.
Then to the pub where Arab Strap are still drinking, then back to the chalet to listen to Johnny Cash and discuss the loss of the Man In Black and also Joe Strummer.
"Konichiwa. We are oh-oh-eye-oh-oh."
And we're back on track.
00I00 just might be the most joycore band of the weekend. I totally get the Yoshimi thing now, too (fuck, I didn't know she played in Free Kitten - I'm embarrassed now). At times this year's ATP seemed to be dominated by drummers, I'm telling you. I think it's thanks mainly to the percussion that 00I00 have this whole Slits thing going on, which as everybody knows is never a bad thing. But maybe the best thing about 'em is the way they can switch up effortlessly between pure sugary pop rushes and atmospheric, tinkly soundscape stuff which I guess must be psychedelia, but don't ask me about psychedelia, I don't do enough drugs these days and never really did the right ones. I can't find a site for 00I00 but you can read more about them here - apparently they started life as a fictional band - how cool is that?
Erase Errata remain a band I really like in theory, a band I really want to like? But I can never quite get into them, on record or, as it turns out, live. Especially after the breezy, thrilling 00I00, Erase Errata just seem a little bit too... well, rocky. In the sense that is almost always lost on me, which is to say without much in the way of decent TUNES... Um, I feel really bad about writing that. Sorry.
I should mention that walking through the downstairs venue at some point later I see the funniest sight of the weekend: I'm not sure if it's Charalambides or Wolf Eyes, but the lead singer wears a black t-shirt with a skeleton design, and stands on stage cradling himself in his arms, hair hiding his face, rocking side to side like he?s gone catatonic, while the band makes feedback noise. Rock on? No. Dried smelly wankstains.
Le Tigre have - amazingly - got even better since I saw them play in London. Sexier, more disco, more rock, more hip-hop, more joycore... They begin with a cover of 'I'm So Excited' that is so incredibly fucking good words will not do it justice - suffice to say they totally make that song their own and if this cover isn't on the new album, then they're insane. And why deny it: Kathleen Hanna is incredibly hott, especially during this song. It's not just the outfit or the, ahem, thickness, it's the confidence and the charisma too... Although JD Samson is increasingly becoming the star of this band, definitely the one who makes the hip hop element work. JD really shines on a new song that is introduced as being "about butch lesbians" and features a great chorus which goes something like "They call it binding, and we call it VISIBILITY... They call it way too rowdy, we call it FINALLY FREE."
Note: Le Tigre navigate their way through the minefield of where their politics intersect with the politics of race, sexuality and trans issues with their usual careering ambiguity (not sure I have room to explain this in detail here, but just for starters, I'm not sure that everyone pictured in the cartoon which accompanies the aforementioned new song identifies as "butch lesbian", and it's not like they don't have previous for pissing off trans people). But just for tonight, that seems like just an inevitable side-effect of all the great political bands (Public Enemy, early Manic Street Preachers - DON'T LAUGH OR I BREAK FACE) - they're always messy, always fucking up, always letting off their guns righteous anger and angry idealism in crowded rooms full of innocent people, that kind of thing.
While we're talking about the political content, Le Tigre score more points for keeping the between-song banter short and sweet too, tonight - one of the few things I didn't like about the Le Tigre gig I saw previously was the tendency of the space between songs to be filled with slightly over-long, over-hectoring speeches - not because I disagree with the politics but because it's all there in the songs already and really, should a gig be the place to remind people who are in all likelihood already trying to do their bit that they can always be doing more? Maybe it is, I dunno, but they skipped any of that this time and kept it more of a celebration, and it was awesome.
Some songs they played: 'Shred A' (works so much better live than on record), 'Let's Run' (God I love that "we get our grades from Professor You" line, and Hanna really plays it up, pointing at the crowd, "you, and you, and you..."), 'The The Empty' (cue audience call and response: "OH... BABY!"), 'Mediocrity Rules', 'FYR', 'Well Well Well' (the hotness...), 'What's Yr Take On Cassavetes?', 'Hot Topic' (I?m pretty sure they've rearranged the slideshow, just to make it more fun for the "name the records / books / people" geeks), 'Yr Critique', 'Deceptacon' (still sounds like the best song ever), 'Keep On Livin'... I didn't even miss 'Les And Ray' too much.
(Check out the photos at Sleeve Notes, please do.)
So as you can imagine, at this point in the weekend I?m pretty much thinking that nothing else will live up to Le Tigre's show this weekend, and for a while, nothing else does.
Sonic Youth are okay. They're just okay, y'know? And people who like them tend to think that they're one of the best bands in the world, and I honestly wanted to experience an epiphany tonight and leave ATP as a convert, a Sonic Youth fan come lately. But it didn't happen. They're not in any sense bad. They're just okay.
Then to the pub where Arab Strap are still drinking, then back to the chalet to listen to Johnny Cash and discuss the loss of the Man In Black and also Joe Strummer.
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