Quarterlifeparty

Casey Fighorn is a friend of Quarterlife and general critic of all things.

One of the things that set this past weekend’s All Tomorrow’s Parties apart from other festival events was the mingling of the performers with the crowd. Throughout the weekend, the six people in the group of us that attended together stood next to band members who were watching other bands play. Kevin Shields —the mastermind behind Sunday’s lineup as well as My Blood Valentine— stood elbow to elbow with the crowd watching Polvo get back to its eastern inflected roots Saturday night. Polvo’s Ash Bowie stood behind us as we watched Shields and company the following night.

Set at Kutsher’s Country Club on the Western side of the Catskill Mountains, the shows unfolded on two stages in rooms that kept fans close enough to see the whites of the performers’ eyes. The sound was phenomenally produced, the bands were almost universally spot-on, the crowd was into it but kept the general atmosphere free of histrionics. It felt more like a convention of mid ’90s indie literati than the festival scene has felt in a decade.

Friday’s line up comprised of 5 bands performing one of their seminal records in its entirety. None of the records was released in the past ten years.

Philly’s Bardo Pond played all of its 1997 record Lapsed, blissfully setting off the proceedings at 4:30 Friday afternoon with waves of flute, violin, and a pummeling wall of hash-smoked guitars. The band stayed at the festival for the entire weekend, mingling with fans.

The Meat Puppets played their 1984 masterpiece II, with Curt Kirkwood blistering through songs that inspired the likes of Nirvana and Built to Spill, at an absolutely feverish clip. Punk Rock fingerpicking, at its finest. The music conjures up images of a dilapidated West

Tortoise performed all of 1996′s Millions Now Living Will Never Die… and absolutely stole the show from the remaining bands. This particular record served as 2000s post rock’s quintessential blueprint, and they gave the audience an absolutely flawless rendition.

Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore trotted on stage with a music stand and hand printed lyric sheets to pick his way through Pyschic Hearts, his legendary 1995 solo outing. This edition of the band included only one original member save Moore, in the form of drummer Steve Shelley, Chris Brokaw —formerly of Codeine, currently of The New Year— on guitars, and Matt Heyner of Malkuth and No Neck Blues Band on bass. The set was loose, but the band, and Moore in particular, were clearly enjoying themselves. Moore made jokes with the audience as he tried to remember songs that he hadn’t played much in 15 years — the set of the night that was most fun to watch. especially if you knew the songs. Even with all the cobwebs, Moore’s skill with his guitar is obvious.

Built to Spill played all of their 1996 opus, Perfect From Now On to a packed Starlight Ballroom. As tight as any band could be, with songs as amazing as can be imagined, singer/guitarist didn’t seem terribly enthusiastic about performing. They seemed listless in comparison to other times I’ve seen them, and several of my companions agreed. That said, a BTS show on a bad day is like a bad day fishing, it’s still better than the alternative of seeing a mediocre band on a great day.

Sadly, I am ashamed to say that we missed ALL of the comedians performing on Stage 2 Friday afternoon. The Borscht Belt had a tradition and reputation of comedy performance in the 1950s and ’60s, and I totally ignored it.

Criterion put on a film series in an auditorium, featuring the works of Jim Jarmusch and others. Dave Markey, 80s punk documentarian of yore, showed 1991: the Year Punk Broke and answered questions about it afterward, I also missed this. Really, the only similarity that this festival had with other festivals was the massive amount of things to take in, see, do, and enjoy. You simply couldn’t see every band, you couldn’t do all of the things that you would want to during the time available. One of the things I was most unhappy to miss was sitting down for a hand of poker with Shellac’s Steve Albini in the game room that he hosted.

Water didn’t cost $8, only $3. Drinks at the bar were rather high in price, but buying them was only necessary if you lacked the foresight to bring your own. Who would imagine that in this day and age? The only real complaint I could conceivably lodge against the entire proceeding was the lack of variety in food choices. There were two vendors, and the notion that eating what they were serving was a choice seems far-fetched in light of how intensely bland the fare was.

Saturday’s set of bands was curated by the organizers at ATP.

We caught a little bit of Harmonia, the legendary “other Krautrock band.” The one you probably haven’t heard of. They were entertaining, but more in that way in which you want to sit in your bedroom and listen to a record kind of way. I moved rather quickly on to catch a little bit of Edan’s set before heading back down to see Om on the second stage.

Om is basically the remnants of the legendary stoner/doom band Sleep. Al Cisneros on bass, and new drummer Emil Amos from Grails. Amos is a step up from the previous iteration of the band, featuring Sleep’s original drummer Chris Hakius. The minimalism inherent in the bass riff and very simplistic percussion of the old Om has evolved into a more complex accompaniment that doesn’t detract from their signature droning, chanting, hypnotic sound.

I caught one song by Low on the second stage. They’re amazing, but definitely a band that can be difficult to watch live. It’s not referred to as “snore-core” for nothing.

Polvo did its math rock best to remember how to play songs it stopped practicing 10 years ago. While not unsuccessful, a companion of mine noted that their songs all sound more like the way the later records did; muddy, not bright the way the earlier ones were. Still, it was great for me to see this band as they were my introduction to the world of independent music. They closed the evening with a song from Today’s Active Lifestyles, “Thermal Treasure” the first song I heard them play 14 years ago. At 18, this song changed my life. At 32 it had changed itself, being reworked a little. It wasn’t life altering, but it was still pretty damn good.

Les Savy Fav’s Tim Harrington got up to his usual antics, swilling from a bottle of wine on stage, rubbing his paunch suggestively and making out with audience members. The band played on regardless, like nothing odd was happening. At one point, he pulled a ladder into the audience, set it up and climbed to the top before the audience lifted the ladder, and Harrington into the air. The music was pretty good too.

Steve Albini and Bob Weston of Shellac (guitar and bass, respectively), aren’t anywhere near as spontaneously theatrical; they do their best to make it clear that they’re very much regular dudes. While Albini tunes his guitar, Weston leads a Q&A with audience members. Stupid or uninteresting questions are ignored or derided. They talk about baseball, food, or other subjects that regular dudes would be interested in. Then drummer Todd Trainer —Albini and Weston’s complete opposite on a visual level— raises a stick to the heavens and they blast into a bombastic assault on audience ears. The highlight of Saturday, for sure.

Lightning Bolt set up in a corner, off the stage at nearly 2, with the audience crowded around them. Loud, energetic, awesome; but just not something I could handle that late in the evening.

Sunday, we arrived late to Kutsher’s and missed a good few of the earlier bands on the second stage. Caught a little bit of Spectrum, Pete Kember’s post Spacemen 3 group. Imagine the noisier aspects of Spacemen 3 brought to the forefront. Not as crescendo filled as Spiritualized by similar in style.

Mercury Rev was excellent, but all of my compatriots were anxious for nightfall to catch the headliners.

Yo La Tengo played the hits, basically. A short set but an excellent one, this band has so many songs that they could play two weeks of shows and never play the same song twice, so some of our group were disappointed not to hear their favorites.

Mogwai was breathtaking as usual, mixing classics “Like Herod,” “Mogwai Fear Satan,” and “Hunted By a Freak” with songs from their new record, The Hawk is Howling, which Stuart Braithwaite made sure to inform us would be “available [the following] Tuesday at Target.”

We checked out Trail of Dead for a minute, but I found them truly disappointing, and ultimately boring so we went and got a beer.

Dinosaur Jr. was surprisingly good, and formerly snubbed-and-replaced bassist Lou Barlow clearly enjoyed himself. It was incredibly loud, J. Mascis played in front of 8 Marshall stacks.

We stopped over at the second stage to see Brian Jonestown Massacre, but found them rather boring as well. They were’t bad, but just not really up to par with the other bands we’d seen all weekend.

My Bloody Valentine came out an hour late. They looked sharp, with Bilinda Butcher still incredibly attractive. Having heard rumors that people had lost significant portions of their hearing after their 1992 tour, I was prepared with ear plugs, but still felt I had to experience the sound without any barrier for a little bit. It was so loud that I could feel the air in my lungs vibrating in tune with the music. After a lengthy set of songs mixed up amongst their two full lengths and various EPs, they proceeded to batter us with 28 minutes of aggressive noise. For a band whose signature vocal style is androgynous and whispery, this was one of the most aggressive sounds I’ve ever heard. After the half hour they jumped right back into a song, and walked off. Completely breathtaking, we all noted feeling slightly altered. With my equilibrium out of whack, and feeling at least a little bit like I had hallucinated for about two hours, we drove back to our cabin.

Can’t wait to see what acts they’ll get for ATP New York 09.

Tags: