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.

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.

Yeah son, no kidding, it's the ATP 2004 Weekend Two motherfucking write-up, part 1! It's Friday, and it's Friday. And it's Friday, and it's Friday!

I should say that one of the great things about this weekend was that each day was progressively better in terms of music, so when I look at the list of bands I saw and liked on Friday, it seems comparatively sparse. This might be the place to put some general observations about the crowd: many freaks, many beards (I blame Will Oldham, also possibly James Murphy), many hipsters-gone-wrong, but also many HOTT people of all genders, and a much healthier boy/girl ratio than two years ago.

The Fiery Furnaces are a good band, but they’re nowhere near as good this time as when I saw them live previously. That time, I was expecting something that sounded like Gallowsbird’s Bark and was rewarded with raw rock’n’roll, but at half past five on a bright afternoon in Camber, something close to the sound of that record would have gone down a treat. Instead, the Furnaces sound far too choppy: their habit of segueing from a snatch of one song into another becomes a handicap in this context. You can see the crowd start to energise as ‘Tropical Iceland’ begins, only for that energy to disperse when they suddenly cut into a new song less than halfway through. Essentially I think at a festival like this you need to be able to settle into the feel and groove of each band, and I found I couldn't do that with the FFs on Friday, even though they were one of the bands I'd come to see.

Still, that one that goes "he beat me he bang me... and I wish I was single again" - that was good.

Nina Nastacia is more impressive, ironic since I’m sure I’d rather listen to a Fiery Furnaces record than one of hers nine times out of ten. I only catch the end of her set but it’s very much in a folksy, mournful, countrified kinda vein.

I have to agree with the assessment of The Shins as offered by a guy we ran into on Sunday: they just sound like Travis to me. Everyone else I’m with seems to like them though, so what do I know? And a German guy in the crowd for The Shins provides the line of the weekend when he raises his arms and calls out: ”The crowd is ready: play on!” - so not a complete loss...

I go downstairs though and discover Enon, who comprise a genius drummer, a Jenny Everywhere, and Andrew from Buffy – no, seriously, not only does he look like an older Tom Lenk (Hobbit hair version, as seen on Angel), but he even talks like him between songs: “thank you for being so kind and gentle with us…” Anyway, Enon start off sounding a little or maybe a lot like Blonde Redhead’s more spiky, poppy moments, and that’s okay – but then Andrew (okay, his name is John Schemersal) puts his guitar away and starts throwing shapes and getting in touch with his inner Jake Shears, and the music gets more electro, and it’s fabulous. Then he and the girl swap places and things get better still. I still don’t really know anything Enon other than the fact that I remember Flux talking about them once, but I’m keen to find out more – I know a couple of titles of songs I liked: ‘Starcastic’ and ‘Monsoon’, although I have a terrible feeling that their latest album is only available on import in the UK… Band of the day, so they get a linkity.

Modest Mouse are the worst band of the weekend, not so much for the music (which is dull, dull, dull), but more for the whining and haranguing of the crowd in between every song. RESIST EMO!

ESG are great, for the one snatch of song I see – unfortunately the downstairs venue is completely crammed and hot as hell, and I am slightly exhausted by the day. Besides, you can hear a surprising amount of the ESG gig from the pub. Honest.

I don’t really have much to say about Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Malkmus is a guy whose stuff I like occasionally, and who is liked by a lot of people I know and otherwise share taste with, but he doesn’t do anything for me. He did even less for those who dragged me away after only a little of his set, though… It’s not like I get paid for this, so it’s back to the pub, to run into random unexpected ‘Lither Ms Mono, then onto the dancefloor… and then to bed.