Miscellaneous - Minehead, Somerset, 8/12/2006...10/12/2006

  by Dominic B. Simpson

published: 12 / 2 / 2007

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Article

Minehead, Somerset, in early December, is a cold, bleak place to be. The local Butlins holiday camp is not the kind of place that would strike you as a perfect setting to watch experimental noise bands, but life can be surreal like that. There’s something whimsically English, with a sense of the absurd, about having some difficult terrain in a setting such as Butlins, usually full of families on a weekend away, screeching kids in tow. All Tomorrow’s Parties have chosen this venue as their setting, and this specific ATP is to be curated by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth – a man who, along with John Peel and possibly Steve Albini, has done more to popularise ‘independent’ music in the last 30 years than practically anyone else. ATP’s previous home was at the Butlins in Camber Sands, on the east coast of England; Minehead’s branch is bigger and upgraded, more an entertainment complex than a holiday camp with beach chalets. Hence the allowing for a larger capacity, though this hasn’t stopped the torturously long queues for the big-name acts over the festival’s three days. FRIDAY While I miss Ashtray Navigations – perhaps I was playing crazy golf - on the superbly-named Crazy Horse stage, we’re treated to a no-holds barred start in the main arena (a huge bingo hall): Nurse With Wound, with Current 93’s David Tibet on guest vocals. Part of that strange sub-genre – or micro-genre if you will - in the 80’s that included the aforementioned Current 93, Coil, and Whitehouse, and linked with the now-defunct World Serpent Distribution, it’s an extraordinary way to start the festival, with Nurse With Wound’s barrage of industrial noise and music concrete, all topped off by Tibet’s creepy, intense vocals that wrap around the music. The bar staff look frankly shocked as Tibet repeats “I’LL SEE YOU ON THE DEAD SIDE ON THE MOON!” like a mantra, the music pounding like the cogs of a vast machine. Still recovering from such a heavy opener, and with Nurse With Wound followed by San Francisco punk-grunge legends Flipper on the same stage (with Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic guesting on bass), the next destination is Crazy Horse, where Richard Youngs’ distinctive, Cambridgeshire twill emanates alone from the stage. Bravely unaccompanied by any musicians or even an electric guitar, his only adornment above that voice is to play the Japanese lute, it’s forlorn, simple recorder-like notes the only respite from a long personal folk lament at the end of his set, in which he repeats the lines as if trying to fully come to terms with the significance of the lyrics. You can hear echoes of this set conclusion in albums such as ‘River Through Howling Sky’ and ‘The Naïve Shaman’, always topped off by his slightly melancholic, very English voice. A spellbindingly intense act, and while Taurpis Tula follow him with their psychedelic freakout, and Wolf Eyes offshoot Dead Machines occupy the ‘Reds’ stage – with it’s plush Las Vegas-style arcade bathed in, well, red - the Melvins in the main arena are clearly here to rock in a more conventional manner; this means riffs and double drummer action, with accompanying ludicrous facial expressions during the drum solos, courtesy of Dale Crover. A more hushed, reverential atmosphere can be found back on the Crazy Horse stage with Finnish free-folk chanteuse Islaja, aka Merja Kokkonen, here with a full backing-band. A mainstay of Finland’s brilliant Fonal label - who also had her play as a duo at a label night at St Giles In The Field church, in London - her set is a beautifully expressive, gauzy freeflowing evocation that takes in a myriad of folk and contemporary styles yet never sound forced or bland. Charalambides’ set likewise is a spellbindingly dark, haunting thing of beauty, Christina Carter’s forlorn, wordless cry’s accompanying Tom Carter’s feedback, guitar drones and tremolos. While the music is an evocation of American blues and country, it’s filtered through long, experimental and open-ended guitar workouts, so that the music transcends any detectable roots. Her voice rises in peaks and troughs, raging from a whisper to a near scream, and at times in the hushed nature you can hear a pin drop – difficult for some members of the audience, many of whom would have just caught the first of Iggy & The Stooges’ fiery two sets over the weekend. Meanwhile, while Charalambides are followed by Fursaxa – aka Tara Burke, a multi-instrumentalist who mars ethereal drones and percussion - Bardo Pond’s combination of stoner riffs, Spaceman 3-style drone, and unexpected pastoral interludes takes on the Reds stage, with their new album ‘Ticket Crystals’ one of their best yet. They’re followed by the overdriven bluster of freak-out specialists Comets on Fire, but it’s to the main stage we go, where New Zealand’s the Dead C deliver a punishing, uncompromising set at 1:15am (accompanying by grimaces from the bouncers at the front of the stage). Swatting aside any fears about having to follow Iggy and the Stooges – this lot have been going for 17 years, after all (with eighteen albums under their belt!) - the improvised guitar scratches and feedback are accompanied by brutal, pummelling drums and barely recognisable bass. At the end there’s barely any musical idioms or anything recognisable to cling on to; the band exit the stage to a howling, ghostly rage of feedback. As I pass the Reds arena, Prurient – aka Brooklynite Dominik Fernow – emits inside a maelstrom of pummelling industrial noise, cathartic screaming, and brutal power electronics, almost as if there’s some unspoken need to challenge the Dead C for extremity. Whether he’s kept the leather gloves and grimacing grunts (emitted facing away from the audience for added gravitas), as he did when this writer saw him live in London, is anyone’s guess. But the looks at the hot dog stall directly outside of the venue - as this inferno of noise bursts out of the open doors like the screeching of the xenomorphs in the film 'Aliens' - are an absolute peach. SATURDAY People are well and truly getting into the spirit of things now, with the all-night pub still busy at mid-day. A quick walk on the beach tames a raging hangover from last night, and is good preparation for some seriously heavy acts to follow. And they don’t come heavier than the combined forces of The New Blockaders / The Haters, two elder statesmen of industrial music who appear onstage like a squadron dressed in industrial laboratory worker outfits, their faces obscured by radiation masks; together, they make Wolf Eyes look like the Field Mice in comparison when they open the Crazy Horse stage’s line-up today – the noisiest band of the festival? Speaking of which, in every chalet there’s a TV with channels programmed by both Thurston Moore and ATP; one of the channels has footage of Wolf Eyes offshoot Hair Police trashing a venue and attacking fans. I decide not to catch the real thing live hours later. There’s also yet another Wolf Eyes offshoot in the shape of former member Aaron Dilloway, but before him is a second set by Deerhoof - who also played yesterday, and have been afforded a second set due to the amount of fans barred from entering their first gig due to overcrowding and general problems with queues (a recurring theme all weekend, sadly). Now whittled down to a trio, they’re tight, streamlined and disciplined; it’s like watching Fugazi more than a twee indie band, with ferocious versions of ‘Dog on the Sidewalk’ and ‘Milk Man’. Even when a string breaks, the band’s composure and steely musicianship sees them through the set without as much as a bum note. Dilloway follows, after which American ‘collective’ Wooden Wand take the stage….with only two members. Sometimes numbering many members (and adopting the current fashion on having different variations on your name – Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice, Wooden Wand and the Sky High Band, etc.), this time they are decidedly low-key, with James Toth on vocals and guitar and a female member backing him up on second vocals. The ever-reliable Crazy Horse stage turns out to have decidedly more interesting bands in the shape of, first of all, Brighton duo Blood Stereo, who build giant delayed prisms of nothing else but their own squeaks and squeals, fed through numerous effects pedals. The only truly accappella band on the festival bill, their grunts and screams reach a tumultuous crescendo, with seriously disturbing results. In the ATP programme, there’s a picture of one of the band with a huge shotgun. Enough said. Also fond of effects and unconventional band set-ups is Brooklyn’s Double Leopards, composed of two men and two women (one of which, Marcia Bassett, also plays in Hotogosisusu with Britain’s Matthew Bower). As they fiddle with various analogue devices and rewired keyboards (all ran through a mixer onstage) and Bassett furiously plucks at her guitar strings and e-bow, a beautiful luminescent drone emits around the venue; their set ends with all four members chanting like monks in an echoing church, the band forming a tight enclosed circle. It’s a fantastic festival highlight, after which I head off to the ‘jazz skronk’ stage (as the Reds venue is nicknamed), where there’s a seriously heavy double-bill: first Boredoms main man EYE Yamataka with Swedish sax player Mats Gustafsson; then the ‘free jazz-noise’ trio of Chris Corsano (of Sunburned Hand of the Man and many other groups, on drums), Paul Flaherty (sax) and C Spencer Yeh (on vocals and violin). The latter’s set (following on from Corsano and Flaherty’s ‘The Hated Music’ album) is punishing stuff, particularly with the excruciating moments with Flaherty hits those high notes; this is not the kind of coffee table jazz that would sit next to a Zero 7 album, more the soundtrack to ‘The Driller Killer’. As a result of their exhausting set, I miss 16 Bitch Pile-Up on the Crazy Horse stage, who are no doubt a charming bunch of people, and press on to the main stage to catch Dinosaur Jr’s set, with Lou Barlow back in the fold. They are a revelation after the last time this writer caught them live. Brutally loud yet totally in control, and with some truly wonderful guitar pyrotechnics, their set climaxes with an ecstatic version of ‘The Wagon’. I take any doubts back after this kaleidoscopic set. Meanwhile, on the Crazy Horse stage, there’s the Magic Markers headlining, whittled down to just a duo, and hitting they’re stride with some seriously out-there No Wave noise. Beginning with audio hums and static, their set builds with frontwoman Louise Ambroglio cooing into the mic and slashing at her strings with a bottleneck slide; slowly the set builds, with Ambroglio manipulating wah-wah and effects devices. Near the end of their set the music finally gets raging; I leave as Ambroglio points an imaginary gun at her head and screeches at the audience. A quick walk to the main stage gives me a chance to catch some of Sonic Youth’s set; Kim Gordon is dancing onstage as I arrive, with the bass parts played by what looks like Mark Ibold from Pavement; the band soon launch into ‘Teenage Riot’. The set’s climax sees Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo lock guitars into a cross shape. The main stage’s action isn’t finished, however, with Gang of Four taking over for a second set after a gig earlier in the day, allowing many to catch them who couldn’t earlier on. Despite the ludicrous comparisons that many current acts are afforded to these former Leeds University students, there’s no doubt that they’re a powerful, incendiary force onstage, even if the singer’s propensity to have an unbuttoned shirt can be slightly embarrassing (he is the CEO of a media company after all). After a rapturous set, I head to the all-night bar, and am greeted with some cheesy metal classics by the DJ. SUNDAY After Saturday night’s partying, people are beginning to look seriously bedraggled, and the bill today contains some of the most brutal music of the whole festival. Bark Haze are a trio of Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, the Magic Markers’ Pete Nolan, and Andrew McGregor from Gown who play free-flowing rock, while White Out with Neil Cline guesting on guitar play some seriously challenging free jazz improve noise. Armed with synthesisers, punishingly atonal guitar workouts, and some extraordinary drumming from Tom Surgal, they’re set brings to mind a strange hybrid mix of Sun Ra and Hawkwind. Meanwhile, on the main stage Ann Arbor, Michigan trio Awesome Color play primitive, fuzzed-out garage rock as it should be done, backed up by some awesome drum power. Wolf Eyes are next, terrorizing their audience with their bludgeoning, all-out attack, the jackhammer beats and noxious industrial noise topped off by Nate Young’s distorted screechings of the soul. Some light relief – relatively speaking – is provided by Italy’s My Cat Is An Alien, whose instant pulsating drone washes over the crowd in the Reds arena. Glorious Technicolor spacerock dispensed by grown men wielding water pistols on stage, My Cat Is An Alien are a entrancing revelation. They are followed by Ecstatic Peace signing Monotract, who marry some seriously detuned Sonic Youth-style workouts (well, obviously) with pulsing electronics, while Mouthus descend from the same Load records scene at Lightning Bolt and play a slow, entrancing mixture of psychedelic guitar drone and abstract electronic noise. Thurston Moore watches from the side of the stage. Jackie-O Motherfucker have cancelled, disappointingly, though there is to be a side-project entitled Inca Ore. Wonder why Jackie-O couldn’t play? Lost on the motorway, maybe? As Alexander Tucker wows the Crazy Horse stage with a semi-improvised workout of looped vocals and guitars, all fed through various effects pedals, and hardcore punk legends Negative Approach take no prisoners on the main stage (the moshpit was doubtless huge), I join the queue for Iggy and The Stooges, who are to be the main stage’s next act. It’s not the first time I’ve queued this weekend, and with the line snaking around the whole main complex of Butlin’s, you have to wonder if there were some organisational problems. Nonetheless, it’s worth it: The Stooges are simply thrilling, and even if the sound wasn’t quite on par with their extraordinary set at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2005, it’s still pretty unmissable. They open with “Loose”, Iggy running around the stage like a madman, offering numerous expletives to the audience during his happy-to-be-here speech, and stagediving in the audience. Without such a frontman, The Stooges would never have been such an extraordinary act, yet it should be remembered too just how much ability and muscle come from the three backing musicians. The stage invasion during ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ (played twice!) may have had a contrived air about it, but this was unmissable stuff, even with a new track entitled ‘My Idea of Fun’ aired tonight (“my idea of fun / is killing everyone” – morning, Iggy). They play most of their self-titled debut and ‘Funhouse’ too, during which we are treated to a free-jazz saxophone meltdown from Steve Mackay, and nothing from ‘Raw Power’, but it doesn’t matter. Still an awesome distillation of sheer rock n roll genius 25 years on. We’re then cleared out of the venue, which means that I then miss the MC5, a fine double-bill if ever there was one. With another long queue stretching far into the complex, I decamp to the Crazy Horse stage once again to see another fine double-bill in the shape of No Neck Blues Band and Sunburned Hand of the Man. While No-Neck are an impenetrable fusion of rock, jazz and world music, Sunburned head straight for the cosmic melt-down, with their set consisting largely of one freeform track with various echoing yelps submerged underneath waves of guitar, Korg keyboards, crashing guitars, and everything else. One glance at the bouncers at the side of the stage tells it’s own story: complete bafflement at this procession of freaks onstage, including a gentlemen with an empty crate of Stella Artois bottles, and someone dressed up in Victorian costume, with a silver wig and sunglasses, blowing bubbles at the audience. I close my eyes and feel the endless wash of freeform noise in this freakout, trying to pick out the various instruments, but it’s best just to go with the flow. And then it’s over – and so is the festival. By this point I am too exhausted to think. Thank you, ATP, and see you next year. The photographs that accompany this article originally appeared on www.efestivals.co.uk

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