ATP I'll Be Your Mirror, reviewed

Firstly, here’s three reasons ATP-run festivals are better than other festivals.

1. No more tents. Getting lashed and watching cool music is fun. Going back to a campsite after the bands have finished, probably in the dark and with the ground churned into five different kinds of crap by bad weather and foot traffic, and sleeping inside essentially an oversized Pac-a-Mac, probably with large rocks digging into your back, most likely surrounded by loud idiots, and running the risk of having your stuff stolen, or having someone even more wasted than you are piss on your tent in the night, fall into it and demolish it, or even set it on fire (all of these things I have seen at festivals)? Well, that’s not so much my idea of fun. ATP neatly sidesteps these problems by setting most of its festivals in Butlins, with chalets and microwaves and showers and proper beds. No longer do I have to live like an unenthusiastic Duke of Edinburgh participant for three days to watch some cool bands...

My review of ATP's recent I'll Be Your Mirror fest:

1. Features Company Flow, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Alan Moore and Stephen O'Malley, Foot Village, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Acoustic Ladyland, PJ Harvey, (MF) DOOM, and Portishead;
2. Begins with one of the most ridiculous run-on sentences i've ever written;
3. Is now up in two parts at Never Enough Notes. (part 1, part 2)

Pleasingly, Foot Village have already expressed their approval!

Back from Kendal

Got back yesterday from thee Kendal Calling festival which we played with our pals in Out From Animals (soon to be known as Scams). We did two songs, "Skeletons" and a new 16 bars over their tune "Up All Night", which we wrote in about 15 minutes the day before. Here's a picture of me not quite being able to get back up on to the stage.

credit: Christine Mayers

D'oh! Other highlights: the two sets of incredible, fashion-music-scorning, pronk/klezmer/polka/etc. Glaswegian seven-piece (though only six were in attendance) Punch & the Apostles, opening the main stage on the final day and ending the whole festival that night with their wholly unpredictable music and ace showmanship.¹

Craig Charles kicking off his DJ set by persuading the crowd to all shout "awooga!" and then dropping a funk version of RATM's "Killing in the Name"; also childishly shouting "what's the crack, Craig?" at him (he didn't hear us). Discovering an open-to-all drum circle with drums and percussion instruments attached to central frame, and completely dominating same. The liberating moment when we realised that the "queue-cutting" male urinal-stand things were literally as pointful as pissing on your own shoes. Ash throwing out "A Life Less Ordinary" second. Cornershop closing with a triumphant "Jullander Shere" (pick whichever a.m. you want).

London poet Beyonder's affecting song for his father "Props for Pops", delivered over the "broken jazz" of the Tongue Foo Band in the (solar-powered) poetry tent. 50 tonnes of real snow imported from the mountains and spread over possibly the least impressive slope in the entire Lake District; and watching our bassist go deliberately arse-over-tit over the crash mat at the bottom. Seeing the excellent Birds vs. Planes and then finding out they were the same charming folks parked next to us suffering from recurrent car alarm trouble. Laughing our asses off at the Avenue Q soundtrack and David Cross after-hours in the van.

Frank Turner's well-balanced mix of gutting and redemptive. Having to repeatedly redo an ident for Lakes TV but "without the swearing" (after about three attempts, we realised that he was talking about our band name). Bradford singer/songwriter Captain Hotknives' hilariously profane comedy singalongs ("I hate babies! I fookin' hate babies!") Buying a suave new hat (think 1970s private detective agency) and promptly dropping the fucker into the lethal enveloping mud of the Kaylied tent. One of the only seating areas onsite being unexpectedly transformed into a Jackson Pollock exhibit on the Saturday morning and subsequently covering most of our group in paint.

In summary then, a top one all round. Thanks to OFA for having us play with them and to everyone who came to watch the set and indeed, everyone who recognised us in the next couple of days and came up to say nice things. You were surprising and most gratifying.

mp3: Captain Hotknives — "Glue"
mp3: Frank Turner — "Long Live the Queen"
mp3: Punch & the Apostles — "All the Nosey Bastards"

¹ And their rather beguiling tenor sax/electric violin player, for that matter. Yeh, so maybe i'm being a crap shallow male with that one, but a girl with a talent does it for me, and she's both lovely and can play the hell out of that sax.