Sonic Youth, Arkestra, De La Soul, The Horrors, My Bloody Valentine for Kev Shield's 2009 Nightmare Before Xmas in Minehead

Just announced.

You might want to edit 'Sun Ra' in that piece dude...

My young minions are being informed of mortality and it's effect on cosmic jazz legends as we speak. Cheers.

this will RULEEEEE

seen the post-RA Arkestra twice (once at an ATP!) and both times they were v. v. mediocre - there's so many more interesting/exciting jazz groups out there

btw EPMD are playing too

I liked the Arkestra in Nov when I saw them but I'm not v schooled on Sun Ra... I know I'd rather see them again than 00s De La Soul

have you seen De La with the big band they were using last year? it was fantastic.

No I didn't know about that (or forgot) - will hold fire in that case

basically had a 12 piece band recreating the records. probably some of the best live hiphop i've seen.

When are you closing out the fans weekend Summers?

HINT: we need Half Man Half Biscuit.

ATP should take Ornette Coleman out for some fine dining and contract signing when he's in London for Meltdown. MBV, SY and some classic hip-hop is fine, but I'd love to see ATP see how powerful its brand is by getting some jazzer in to curate. Actually, a Matts Gustafsson ATP would be ace, if highly unlikely!

this bitch is on sale now. just sayin.

I heartily second the spirit of stew's post. much as I like MBV and SY, it's got a hefty dose of deja vu to it, you know?

coleman would be a good choice, but as you say, he's already doing meltdown. grant morrison would be good. or zorn. or meshuggah. or brotzmann. or slayer. or AMT. just a bit tired of indie-rock royalty...

for those interested £10 off early bird tickets are available for all of the chalet sizes this morning: http://www.seetickets.com/see/event.asp?showcode=389580&filler1=see&filler2=home

I'm impatient and want to know who else might be playing, or are you waiting 'til you've got enough money in the bank to actually guarantee it'll happen first?

more to be announced hopefully next week.

BUZZCOCKS
SPECTRUM
F**KED UP
LE VOLUME COURBE
WOUNDED KNEES

Spectrum and Volume Courbe to be expected, as are a band with Fuck in the name, Buzzcocks is surprising though. I'd also completely forgtten Sonic Youth were playing until I looked for this thread, so that's like a bonus addition. By December I'll probably have forgotten MBV are even in charge, and it'll be like all my dreams have come true.

Wounded Knees is Kev's brother's band IIRC? Not Wounded Knee singular who I like a bunch

Yeah, that's what ATP website says. I just told one of my chaletmates and he was like "oh wounded knee is really good", and described him in a way that sounded really good, so I've learnt something today.

Getting the impression Kev's address book is not actually that big, and he's dreading reaching the stage where he has to call on Primal Scream to fill the gaps.

Or he could just get ATP to do it for him and act as more of a figurehead to sell tickets

No wait, that's a bit farfetched sorry

lol, i remember an old wire mag 'invisible jukebox' where shields was shown to be a bit of a clueless cumbubble, so im not surprised that this is such a shite lineup

countdown to alexander tucker in 5, 4, 3....

Not surprised Buzzcocks have been announced, that strongly implies the guy that broke they were because "my mate's band are playing and they've been told lots of names but told to keep it quiet because they're not announcing them all at once" on DiS may well have been right when he said them, The Fall and Public Enemy.

I read PE's name a bunch in the MBV 33 1/3 book and pretty much figured they were invited to the NYC ATP that MBV curated but couldn't do it for whatever reason.

Yes, but Public Enemy Doing A Nation Of Millions has become an ATP/Foundation staple so it's as likely their choice as Kevin's.

Smith has said that he's fallen out with ATP, so I doubt they'll be playing it again.

This is obviously a shame as they're the ideal ATP band. Well, for me anyway.

I mean, it's not much of a toss up - The Fall or My Cat Is An Alien.

J Mascis & The Fog, Lilys, The Pastels, Witch and A Place To Bury Strangers confirmed. 5 more next week.

Bob Mould and Swervedriver coming too.

I LOVE the "stay at minehead between weekends" option, which is perfect for people coming out of country. Except, WTF is there to do in Minehead for four days?!

Oh man this lineup looks awesome. Wishing I was independently wealthy right about now.

Well there's some nice countryside around there if that's your thing. or if you have a car there's more stuff a close-ish drive away. we're gonna put on a few bands and djs each night in the Crazy Horse venue too. plus of course: TROPICAL SWIMMING COMPLEX.

Dirty Three are on for thisun

EPMD!!

This will be my first Minehead ATP.... quietly excited

EPMD were fucking great at ATP NY last year -- enjoy!

"We are thrilled to announce the latest bands to be confirmed for the My Bloody Valentine curated Nightmare Before Christmas. We know you have been eagerly waiting for new additions – so we are very happy to be able to finally reveal Primal Scream, Yo La Tengo, Brightblack Morning Light and Serena Maneesh have today been added to this already incredible bill.

The line up is looking like this so far with plenty more acts to be added...

My Bloody Valentine
Sonic Youth
De La Soul
E.P.M.D.
Sun Ra Arkestra
Primal Scream
Yo La Tengo
The Horrors
J Mascis And The Fog
Bob Mould
Swervedriver
Dirty Three
Buzzcocks
Fucked Up
Spectrum
Witch
Brightblack Morning Light
Serena Maneesh
Le Volume Courbe
The Wounded Knees
The Pastels
Lilys
A Place To Bury Strangers"

I thought Serena Manessh broke up?

Maneesh, that is.

more good now!

MBV were pretty mind-blowing at this, though the deafening volume and need for earplugs was almost a hindrance in some ways. Still can't decide whether Shields is realising his original vision with that or just upping the ante "this one goes to 11"-style, just because he can. But it did take it from from amplified music to some kind of force of super-nature. I endured the building-shaking bowel-loosening rib-rattling mind-erasing sonic chaos of the You Made Me Realise holocaust three nights in a row, which was some kind of test of sanity.

Sonic Youth were great, if a little underwhelming, and their noise/chaos was quite restrained by comparison, aside from a fine closing Death Vally 69. Sun Ra Arkestra were strangely Chicago bluesy and trying to be crowd-pleasing, in a corny way (never seen them live before, maybe this was some misjudged MOR festival schtick?). Spectrum were great, heavy without being deafening; Revolution got the crowd excited. Buzzcocks did a fun greatest hits show. Missed Lightning Bolt, J Mascis & the Fog, Witch (described to me as boring 70s heavy rock?), Bob Mould... loud guitar bands paled into insignificance next to MBV, especially superficially similar bands like Th'Faith Healers and Swervedriver; there was just too little desire to hear them and the need for ear-rest was significant. More different-sounding bands like the Pastels, Dirty Three, Mum and Robin Guthrie were the perfect antidote to the hurricane, the last two a nourishing soothing aural massage.

Some of "the kidz" were mind-blown to learn that I had seen MBV in '90/'91; you could see them mentally doing the math: "ok, I was 3, you could have been around 20, so you must be - OMG 40! an old person!" But too polite to say it. It was an overwhelmingly restrained polite crowd overall. One of my group hit someone's head lifting a chair, and the recipient of the blow apologised! MBV seemed preserved in botox or something, the only visible change in 20 years is Kevin's hair is a tad thinner and frizzier. Best moment, holocausts aside, was Bilinda on Sat. night, saying "I hope you're all enjoying yourselves... [sheepish smile] ...in Butlins." Too cute.

Anyone else there?

oh god yes. still recovering. i made a point of scribbling my favourite moments in my diary while i was there because i knew that everything would just be erased by the holocaust.

it was kind of a complete nostalgia trip - as my chalet mate and i were walking from registering to our chalet, we just looked at the queue and went "everyone here is a *type*" and then looked at each other and went "argh, we are types too!"

went for MBV on friday and sunday, and i think that was the right choice. my chaletmate went every night, but she's been following them since before bilinda joined and has seen them a couple hundred times. we were right by the soundbooth both nights - i got told off for getting excited about the compressors but holy shit - they had two different compressors for *each* drum in the kit, plus an avalon each for kevin and bilinda and my chaletmate had to physically restrain me to stop me hopping over the barrier to just rub my nose against the fx units the blinking lights were just mesmerising.

LIGHTNING BOLT

were they the "t.b.c." on sunday night after all?

i heard about a dozen rumours go round the site about who "tbc" were and not a one of them turned out to be even vaguely correct

i made a point of scribbling my favourite moments in my diary while i was there because i knew that everything would just be erased by the holocaust.

It's worked before

yes they were. they killed it.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2516/4169145424_27fe2c5bd2_o.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2524/4168381989_dfdea9fca9_o.jpg

These are the only band photos I took.

Dirty Three were my favourites.

were you on the party side of the room or no?

(i love how they just gave up trying to even pretend that our side of the room was the party side at all)

i'm always on the party side. i lost all of saturday b/c got carried away on friday

I wasn't on the party side of the room. I didn't even bounce my hand. Enjoyed several things, Sonic Youth, MBV, No Age and what I saw of School of Seven Bells, without being blown away by anything.

In fact the most mind-blowing thing I saw was an Alan Vega documentary on tv on Sunday night, oh, and I also enjoyed dancing to some '50s/'60s records Ian Svevonius was playing on Friday. Had a great time tho, and met up with some nice friends, so it was definitely worthwhile. Feel very tired today tho.

this is the moment i realised that i really am old - saturday night i had to give up and go back to my chalet. not because i had been drinking (i didn't actually drink all weekend) or any kind of ruin - but because i had managed to completely do my back in - DOING THE SHOEGAZE HEADSHAKEY DANCE TO SPECTRUM AND THEN ROBIN GUTHRIE

i have never felt quite so old in my life

resolved to take up pilates or the alexander technique or something upon my return home

MBV were great on Friday despite the general moodiness from Shields etc. (I saw them in about 1988 in St Helens and they're utterly different now.)

The Membranes were the most exciting band of the weekend. But then they didn't have much competition in that kind of thing.

The Horrors were great - it was good to see some of the songs have mutated quite a lot on tour - and won over a pretty beard-tastic ATP crowd. (Mind you Primal Scream did likewise and they were pretty boring.)

Lightning Bolt were probably the best though - glad to see them playing on a stage. They don't need that novelty aspect to what they do.

I wish Fucked Up could somehow reproduce what they do on record live.

yes I am not feeling 100% quite just yet. Saw MBV Friday & Sunday, made me just about as happy as a gig can, think tht I might still feel pleasantly wobbly now as aftereffect of some holocaust muscle-relaxant effect. More of an excited atmosphere Friday, but more of an edge maybe to the band on Sunday.

I feel like I did lots but didn't see that much else. Was not in the mood for Lightning Bolt on either night, sadly, but heard they were fantastic. Liked That Petrol Emotion, but think I was just ready to see some middle-aged men having fun on stage at that point. That singing vagina film on the telly on Saturday afternoon was good too.

But it was a huge, fun weekend spent with good people. Thank you Jamie ATP! (assuming you're an organiser, and not just a really enthusiastic & knowledgeable festival fan)

to be fair to shieldsy, they were having a *lot* of sound problems on friday. (this is one thing that standing by the sound booth will make you... (ha) realise)

they were supposed to have a soundcheck/dress rehearsal on thursday which didn't happen due to their simply not having enough electricity - they had to get another generator in on friday - so they were ironing out a lot of the problems with the sound on friday during the show, as they went along. hence why they kept complaining - they could not actually hear their vocals at all in the monitors (or indeed the sample track a lot of the time - hence why they went off the loop during Soon)

I don't really care about stage craft from a group like MBV but it was embarassing to see him ripping into band mates on stage and then his dismissive hand waving at the crowd on the Saturday night. Like I say, it doesn't really matter but it certainly feels like he was the only one in the room not enjoying himself.

considering there was about 1000x more pressure on shieldsy than on anyone else in that room on friday night, i am quite willing to give him quite a bit of latitude with regards to his dissatisfaction with the sound

Fair enough. No one's expecting him to be like a CBBC presenter.

Problems with Bilinda's keyboard on Sunday So I would say that Saturday was the best night they did. ( I went to all 3)

I enjoyed the Sun Ra arkestra (they are always like that), Bob Mould, Sonic Youth & th' Faith healers.

Wish I had seen lighning bolt but wasn't prepared to queue and miss beginning of MBV on sunday.

After a while, every band ending on a white noise strobe freak out got to be a bit grating.

really enjoyed MBV tv, especially the Kenneth Anger double bill which closed off my weekend.

On a final note, was on a weekend long mission to find the "I beleive in........" track that played before MBV usually going into a beatles number....any ideas?

The TV had a lot of good things on, but annoyed by the late starts and random ends - think the Fall Doc got cut off 20 minutes early (mid-sentence), & on Sat night/Sun morning driven to madness waiting for the early Prince videos to come on & seeing those ATP Idents over & over & over.

Question 1: Could we have found an office on the site from which the tv was being transmitted, and have asked them what was going on? (Never going to happen of c, given our state Sat night/Sun morn, but a question of interest to the chalet).

Question 2: Another name-that-tune. What was that cutesy song playing in the longest ATP TV ident, goes maybe "I wanna be your [girlfriend?]" in a high, sing-song voice over a child-like, slightly 80s backing? Sounds maybe a bit Waitresses, but suspect it's recent.

(ps I didn't just sit in the chalet and watch tv all weekend. Ask Gamaliel. He saw me outside.)

also, what the hell was with the sitar-and-free-jazz live soundtracking of Night Of The Hunter?

we were really really o_O over that coz we couldn't work out if it was actually happening or not

Yes - lots of weird sound issues, didn't mention it here in case it was localised to our chalet (like next door fiddling with transmitters or some shit) or hallucinations. Excalibur, along with drones and interjected voices, had California Dreamin' soundtracking its Grail quest.

a few xposta

the tv is one of the best things about atp. when i went in 08, my gf got tired and went back to the room early to watch Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer (thx, mike patton) and got completely freaked out. When i finally rolled into our 2-person chalet at 3 in the morning she screamed in terror when i opened the door.

x-x-x-p: "Problems with Bilinda's keyboard on Sunday"... on the other hand (lol) the keyboard melody which she studiously played on the other nights seemed to play away without her involvement! Other Bilinda highlights: when she didn't get her guitar changed on time for the beginning of... was it "You never should" on Saturday? And then standing there smiling apologetically holding the guitar lead, after failing to get the rest of them to stop for the first verse or so. And when my friend thanked her for the weekend after noticing her in the dwindling crowd at School Of Seven Bells, I think, and remarked that there weren't many people at it, she responded "Well, I suppose everyone's just really tired by now" with that same kindergarten-teacher-with-a-heart-of-gold-and-the-patience-of-a-saint-who-really-cherishes-each-child-as-much-as-the-others smile of hers.

x-x-p: "sitar-and-free-jazz live soundtracking of Night Of The Hunter?" - haha! I was the only one who noticed that and thought it was coming through the walls from the next chalet or something, while people I was with stared at me as if I was hearing things, which I was prepared to believe at that stage, lol.

A lot of the music TV stuff looked like home recordings, maybe Shields' or ATP staff's personal stuff?

ha ha, I now have this vision of the entire festival site bent over their television sets going "huh? is that coming from the telly or from next door?!??!"

Lol! But it was all like xmas holidays when you watched cartoons from early morning, for music fans - you got up every day and watched a 70s interview with Bowie, or a Ringo Starr-directed T-Rex docu, or the Dead Boys live... fantastic way to enhance the whole experience. That and the great, strong, local ales which cost LESS than whatever the corporate lager was, and was n-times better.

they need to publish the tv guy's extension in the guide so you can remind him, that we've been on the DVD menu for 20 minutes.

and possibly suggest other things to play over the top of certain scenes.

x-p the great, strong, local ales which cost LESS than whatever the corporate lager was, and was n-times better. but tended to cause shouting and staying up too late

in ATP's lo-fi style, we sometimes can't help if the guys pressing play fall asleep when they're meant to change films at 6am. but mostly it runs okay! lots of good stuff lined up for this coming weekend on the telly.

The right lyrics came back to me and now I can answer my own question 2: it was I Wanna Be Your Lover by La Bionda.

Still not together. Just spent two minutes trying to get rid of hiss in my left speaker channel before I realised it was the sound of a pot boiling over in the kitchen.