Thurston Curating ATP Nightmare Before Christmas
 

http://www.atpfestival.com/

Thurston is curating this year's UK event, only confirmed acts are SY and The Stooges. New venue Minehead Somerset Butlins 8 -10th December. Tickets on sale this Friday 7th April.

Should be fun

ah shit you beat me.
edit: Still, it sounds wicked. I have to go, even if i sleep in a pub, i have to go.

should be good times. no fun fest euro-style.

Ive just looked at my timetables, and i will have a test in that week. Shit. Shit on a stick.

I live in this shitty ass country called the United States.
I wish I could see this festival.

Hey chabib, you can unblock my sig pic now. As you can hopefully see, I've changed it.

actually, isn't sonar already the UK version of no fun?

edit: i was thinking of subcurrent--not sonar. sorry for the lapse of reason.

fuckmefuckmefuckmefuckme

im there. i live somerset as well!

Sonar is held in Barcelona, Spain.

But Oh my God the Nightmare before Xmas sounds amazing already... I'm so there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!... this is a very happy Johnny.

Nice Avatar Sir Paul.

am i the only one who never really understood why so many people like slint? whenever i hear them i feel like someone's just struck me on the head and i'm fighting back the inevitable unconsciousness that will ensue.

minehead though its fucking miles away

I can't really understand it either. I don't necessarily dislike them, but I don't find them particularly innovative. I think they're rather monotonous, to be honest. Yeah, we get that you can play the guitar, but it's not meant for aural hypnosis.

Anyhow, how far is this place from Ireland, say, Galway? I'm crap at geography.

UK version of No Fun is Subcurrent in Glasgow... last year we had Double Leopards, Wolf Eyes, Tony Conrad...
This year we got Skaters, Mouthus, Pruriernt, Hive Mind, Jessica Rylan, Smegma...

that's the one i was thinking of! i have to check that one out.

between subcurrent and noise ATP we're gonna be pretty spoiled in the UK this year... not to mention gigs from Magik Markers, Wolf Eyes, Lightning Bolt...

I get the impression that ATP will be toned down to some degree. Maybe I'm wrong but I doubt we'll be seeing the likes of Macronymphia, Skaters or Borbetomagus. I sort of hope I'm wrong though.....Borbetomagus would be sweet.

I imgaine it's going to be one of those fests that's sold out before most of the line-up is announced though.

if it's not toned down, it'll renew my faith in the way the festival's presented. the UCLA ATP was pretty incredible as far as lineups go. if barry agrees to allow thurston to come up with something along the lines of that, they should make something pretty fantastic--particularly if thurston pulls jazz, poetry, noise and rock together as i reckon he may.

Well, that's good to hear. It's nice to know that there's hope for a varied and interesting fest.

I just hope there is at least a partial line up announced before tickets go on sale but I doubt it seeing as that date is so near. I understand that you can't always have the full lineup in place before tickets go on sale but it seems like it's standard practice to sell a festival on the basis of the name of the festival alone rather than whose actually playing. I guess ATP is slightly different due to the fact that you can take a fair guess at the lineup from the curators.

when you consider thurston's taste in music and stuff like his top10 records of 2005 i'm sure there'll be a lot of radical esoteric underground shit going on... but it will probably sell out on account of SY/Stooges...

fuck, if it's anything like SY curated ATP 04 at camber sands, it'll be damned immense

the problem however, is to overcome the tendency of returning curators to develop an incestuously familiar lineup... when ATP has a relatively predictable roster of returning acts, it loses something. the beauty in it is when performers are either of pulled out of nowhere or infamy and placed into the festival. the only brand names it needs to sell the fest are sonic youth and the stooges and both of them are already multiple-time returnees. everything else can be completely fresh to ATP and the lineup would be great. if bands like wolf eyes, lightning bolt, magik markers, dino, merzbow and double leopards aren't on the lineup, it would be really impressive. it's hard for me to say that since a bunch of them are friends of mine, but i think that they'd know what i mean. besides... most of those bands have other projects that are just as interesting as their primary ones.

no, i agree chabib.. i just meant at the time of ATP 04 I had never heard Black Dice or Wolf Eyes... I was totally blown away... Thurston's top 10 records of 05 for volcanic tongue has lots of esoteric stuff eg. Cant, Religious Knives (double leopards side project).. i haven't heard of most of it.. i just meant if the spirit of this ATP is anything like ATP 04 eg anything goes complete WEIRDNESS, then it'll be all good.. which i'm sure it will..

i think festivals suck big time.

i'm curious about the lineup though. like chris says, let's see if they can pull one without the "usual suspects"

Oh shut up. Just shut up the lot of you.

why? there's pretty much only constructive criticism in this thread.

festivals largely suck but ATP is one of the exceptions to this rule. You get to stay in chalets and listen to the most obscure cool shit imaginable.. there seems to be a lot more underground festivals cropping up these days eg. No Fun, Subcurrent, Kill Yr Timid Notion, Le Weekend etc.

i'm with kegma here, but also against.

it's not the same watching a show in a small place with (semi) unlimited time to play than seeing 50 bands play for 30-40 minutes in a big place where the energy is lost. also, when you go see a couple of bands you are almost into them or open to listen to stuff you haven't heard, and with festivals, it's mostly people who just go to see a couple of bands and get bored the rest of the time, to me, that's a buzzkiller.

that's my point of view.

I like festivals for their variety, it's a whole day or more event, and because it's a gathering of cool people (usually).

BECAUSE I CANT GO!!!!!! HIGHER EDUCATION NEUTERS MY BEING ONCE AGAIN!!!!

I'm VERY excited by this. Very, very excited.

I love All Tomorrow's Parties. I love everything those people put on. All the ATP events I saw last year were great, easily the live highlights of 2005 for me (Vincent Gallo's ATP weekend at Camber Sands, Mike Watt & the Secondmen at the ICA and (of course) The Stooges performing 'Funhouse' at the Hammersmith Apollo.)

I can't wait to see what Thurston puts on (and what the new venue is like.)

well ATP takes place in a fairly small indoor venue... and most bands play longer than 30-40 mins i think, also seeing like 60 bands play over the course of 3 days is a totally amazing headfuck.

sonar is a danced based festival in barcelona, though it does feature "avant-garde" type stuff too

yeah. sonar wasn't what i was thinking about. it was subcurrent. i'm not even sure why sonar was on the tip of my mind.

Just die, all of you, just die in immense teenage pain.

and along with that, there won't be much of that boredom: the people there are generally a lot more open-minded than at most festivals. maybe even more than the many scottish experimental festivals mentioned, as they're cheap enough for anyone with a moderate fancy for something to do to come along.

but despite that, i hope to get some amusement from the trad rocker types being baffled and enraged by something like a dredd foole solo vocal performance.

Why don't they do the ATP festival in Long Beach anymore?
It makes me sad...:(

If there's some sort of Dredd Foole solo vocal type deal then It'll probably be worth it.

Snoop wasn't having any of it!

The accommodation appears to be in two-person rooms, but none of my friends are into the kind of music as me. Anyone interested in sharing?

Fucking Minehead - that's only a couple of Junctions away from me - I'm closer than Charlie... ace. Anyone know how I might apply to work there? I can be there in 20 minutes. Mwuhahaha.

[I'm in WSM for those who know parochial Somerset geography]