ATP 04 Part 2.1 - Saturday Part A! - or “Thanks, Thurston.”
It’s worth noting that the whole “choosing between two different bands you know nothing about” thing is fraught with peril, and this is not helped by the tendency of the text that accompanies each band name (in yr handy pocket-sized guide to the line-up schedule) to be more cryptic and poetic than informative. Stephen Malkmus’ notes are relatively helpful (the drummer from Enon “plays ’78 disco beats way convincingly”, thus tipping me off to their goodness; The Shins “have a lot of songs, in the traditional sense”, thus tipping me… yeah, you guessed it), not to mention amusing - under his own name is written simply: “Dear mom, send money. I think I’m going to be shot for meat.” On the day Sonic Youth are curating, however… well. Here’s the ‘description’ given for the band Fuck:
“No one knows for sure what makes any man want to argue. Particularly when the potential for flower blooming goo-drops are manifest. Soft or hard and consensual.”
Thus was born our chalet’s catch-phrase on the Saturday when trying to get a clue as to what a band would sound like: “Thanks, Thurston.”
So anyway, Saturday. Having initially been scared off by Carla Bozulich’s introduction (because it occurs to me that scratching drumsticks against cymbals might be all they do – I’m obviously having a flash-forward to Jackie-O Motherfucker tomorrow), I go to see what Fuck are like and they’re an inoffensive guitar band, and I can’t help but imagine them sitting around thinking “hmm, we’re kinda bland, how are we gonna draw attention to ourselves? – wait, how about a rude name!?” Apparently after I leave they punctuate the music with a magic show, so I guess they have more than one gimmick up their sleeves, but still: nothing to write home about.
So I come back downstairs and lo and behold, Carla Bozulich / Nels Cline are pretty fucking great after all. The songs are sometimes reminiscent of PJ Harvey, sometimes the Dirty Three, and these are of course very good things. Although the name of Carla Bozulich’s former band the Geraldine Fibbers is familiar to me, I’d never heard any of their songs to my knowledge – a few were included in today’s set (pretty sure ‘Butch’ was one of them) – good stuff. Best of all though is a medley of what I later learn are Willie Nelson songs (Bozulich has covered an entire Willie Nelson album, on which Nelson himself sings). ‘Time Of The Preacher’ / ‘Red Headed Stranger’ is brilliant, blood-in-the-sand stuff – it sounds like the theme song to the best Western never yet made (forget Bon Jovi, and try not to think of Garth Ennis either for that matter). Carla sings with particular relish the line: “You can’t hang a man / For killing a woman / Who’s trying to steal his horse.”
Carla & co end with a cover of Marianne Faithful’s ‘Times Square’, which can only be described using the critically clichéd term spellbinding. It’s real blues, alcohol poured over heartache, and may just trump Cat Power for most tear-jerking moment of the weekend. At the end of the show we learn that the guy playing stand-up bass (I didn’t catch his name) only met the rest of the band five days ago, which is pretty incredible given how well they played together. Yeah, so anyway: Carla Bozulich = a star. Well dressed, too. Looks uncannily like someone I know.
My hangover doesn’t kick in until slightly later in the day, which means I’m feeling pretty fragile when I walk into the upstairs venue to see Black Dice. So I walk straight out again on hearing that they make deliberately irritating noise. Tense, nervous headache? If you don’t have one already, these boys will fix that. Silly of me to bother really: everything I’ve read about Black Dice suggested that they’re not my cup of tea, but the DFA connection had me hoping that maybe there would be some rhythm or tune or point to it all… No such luck.
It’s worth noting that the whole “choosing between two different bands you know nothing about” thing is fraught with peril, and this is not helped by the tendency of the text that accompanies each band name (in yr handy pocket-sized guide to the line-up schedule) to be more cryptic and poetic than informative. Stephen Malkmus’ notes are relatively helpful (the drummer from Enon “plays ’78 disco beats way convincingly”, thus tipping me off to their goodness; The Shins “have a lot of songs, in the traditional sense”, thus tipping me… yeah, you guessed it), not to mention amusing - under his own name is written simply: “Dear mom, send money. I think I’m going to be shot for meat.” On the day Sonic Youth are curating, however… well. Here’s the ‘description’ given for the band Fuck:
“No one knows for sure what makes any man want to argue. Particularly when the potential for flower blooming goo-drops are manifest. Soft or hard and consensual.”
Thus was born our chalet’s catch-phrase on the Saturday when trying to get a clue as to what a band would sound like: “Thanks, Thurston.”
So anyway, Saturday. Having initially been scared off by Carla Bozulich’s introduction (because it occurs to me that scratching drumsticks against cymbals might be all they do – I’m obviously having a flash-forward to Jackie-O Motherfucker tomorrow), I go to see what Fuck are like and they’re an inoffensive guitar band, and I can’t help but imagine them sitting around thinking “hmm, we’re kinda bland, how are we gonna draw attention to ourselves? – wait, how about a rude name!?” Apparently after I leave they punctuate the music with a magic show, so I guess they have more than one gimmick up their sleeves, but still: nothing to write home about.
So I come back downstairs and lo and behold, Carla Bozulich / Nels Cline are pretty fucking great after all. The songs are sometimes reminiscent of PJ Harvey, sometimes the Dirty Three, and these are of course very good things. Although the name of Carla Bozulich’s former band the Geraldine Fibbers is familiar to me, I’d never heard any of their songs to my knowledge – a few were included in today’s set (pretty sure ‘Butch’ was one of them) – good stuff. Best of all though is a medley of what I later learn are Willie Nelson songs (Bozulich has covered an entire Willie Nelson album, on which Nelson himself sings). ‘Time Of The Preacher’ / ‘Red Headed Stranger’ is brilliant, blood-in-the-sand stuff – it sounds like the theme song to the best Western never yet made (forget Bon Jovi, and try not to think of Garth Ennis either for that matter). Carla sings with particular relish the line: “You can’t hang a man / For killing a woman / Who’s trying to steal his horse.”
Carla & co end with a cover of Marianne Faithful’s ‘Times Square’, which can only be described using the critically clichéd term spellbinding. It’s real blues, alcohol poured over heartache, and may just trump Cat Power for most tear-jerking moment of the weekend. At the end of the show we learn that the guy playing stand-up bass (I didn’t catch his name) only met the rest of the band five days ago, which is pretty incredible given how well they played together. Yeah, so anyway: Carla Bozulich = a star. Well dressed, too. Looks uncannily like someone I know.
My hangover doesn’t kick in until slightly later in the day, which means I’m feeling pretty fragile when I walk into the upstairs venue to see Black Dice. So I walk straight out again on hearing that they make deliberately irritating noise. Tense, nervous headache? If you don’t have one already, these boys will fix that. Silly of me to bother really: everything I’ve read about Black Dice suggested that they’re not my cup of tea, but the DFA connection had me hoping that maybe there would be some rhythm or tune or point to it all… No such luck.
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