pop stars as curators & compilers: C or D?

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artists choosing other artists for cd compilations or deciding who performs at festivals like All Tomorrow's Parties, etc.

is this just a way to get a little star-power for the event's ad campaign while letting the curator/compiler indulge in some vacuous celeb log-rolling? Or is it a chance for established artists to give a leg up to neglected bands? (Not that these two options are mutually exclusive.)

― fritz, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Finally, whose mix-cd or festival would you be most excited about?

― fritz, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm probably in the minority here but i think almost all artists suck as curators, atp (in the us & uk) has suffered from this in a bad way.

― nicole, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess the essence of this question is: do you care who david bowie/thurston moore/miss kittin/etc. wants you to hear?

― fritz, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

nicole, i think most here would agree with you (i certainly do). artists don't seem to make good curators for some reason (the autechre atp is very disappointing lineupwise). as for 'do i want to hear what artist x wants me to hear?' - yes, i think, thinking about it, i do. i mean, when a record label comes along and is good for a couple years (wurlitzer jukebox, 4ad, harthouse, rephlex etc), i'm interested to hear the next release even if its by a total unknown, and those labels are shaped in the 'curators' image - who, often (richard d james) can be the artist

― gareth, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think its a matter of caring who X celeb thinks you should listen to. I couldn't give a monkeys about Albini but I was well impressed with many of the bands at the last UK ATP. So basically if they do a good job in their selections then fine - I don't think there's any reason to expect them to be intrinsically better or worse than a non-celeb selector.

― Winkelmann, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm sure that Kim Gordon's nice to some people, but nothing would make me happier than holding her down in front of an audience full of art world people and farting down her mouth.

― maria, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

maria is my new hero.

― nicole, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

kim gordon is the anna wintour of indie - discuss.

― nicole, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Prince should put together a music festival. It would be SLAMMIN'!

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Bah, the Tortoise and Albini ATPs were both excellent, for different reasons, and introduced me to groups I might otherwise not have heard (Low, Oxes, Prefuse 73, etc.) And the SY ATP line-up looked like the greatest festival evah (Cecil Taylor, Boredoms, Tony Conrad, Derek Bailey blah blah.) I even think the Autechre one looks promising - Aphex Twin, Bernard Parmegiani (!!), LFO, Coil, Jim O'Rourke, Earth (!!), Farmers Manual, Pita, SND - although they prob. need to add a few more populist acts to make it seem a little less 'serious' or whatever.

Anyway, all of these line-ups are better than anything ever put on at Glastonbury, Reading, Phoenix etc. where corporate sponsors, TV, record labels, managers, promoters etc. all have much more say over who does or doesn't make the bill. Gd thing abt pop stars being curators - it's much more difficult to say to them no, you can't have Bernard Parmegiani, who the fuck's he etc. etc.

― Andrew L, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Prince as curator? He's unleashed plenty of horrible acts into the world in tne past, I don't think he'd do much better now! I'd rather he do one show wherein he performs every song he's written to date, and then take a break for five years or so.

― Matt Riedl (veal), Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, come on. A music festival with The Time, The Family, Jesse Johnson Revue, Vanity, Appolonia, Carmen Electra, Sheena Easton, Sheila E., Rosie Gaines, Maceo Parker, and Wendy and Lisa would be SO MUCH FUN.

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

i don't know about that... Vanity Six, The Time? Sheila E? really, who would you rather see, Shellac or Appolonia?

― fritz, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

simultaneous posts there, paisley park is clearly in both our hearts

― fritz, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

People who I'd like to see curate a festival:
Martin Scorcese
Chuck Klosterman
Chuck Eddy
The McDonald Bros. from Redd Kross
Phil Spector
Puffy (amiyumi)
Lux Interior & Poison Ivy
Duane Doorag
Dave Q
Mick Farren
Funkmaster Flex

― fritz, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I sympathize greatly with the Maria/Nicole/etc. wing of things (and while I understand where you're coming from, Andrew, one person's decision is not automatically better than a corporation's -- and even so, that one person has to take into account whether a chosen band can get there, if they're going to be touring, etc.).

When I heard that Sonic Youth was going to be curating ATP out here at UCLA, I had my fears. Then I saw the line-up and that pretty much confirmed it -- had it been a line-up for a show, say, six years previous to that, I would have thought it was great! As it was, I just went to the separate Dead C show the night afterwards instead.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

In 1988 or so, unquestionably. Now? ARGH!

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

backstage might be still fun now, ned. or maybe not... they're all probably completely strungout cokeheads or born again. (check out the bit about Appolonia and Tommy Lee in "The Dirt")

― fritz, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

You've got a point there. It should be called Behindthemusicathon.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

''I sympathize greatly with the Maria/Nicole/etc. wing of things (and while I understand where you're coming from, Andrew, one person's decision is not automatically better than a corporation's -- and even so, that one person has to take into account whether a chosen band can get there, if they're going to be touring, etc.).''

but as you say Ned it may not better and therefore not worse than a corporation. The SY line up was great, Autechre and albimi's I knew little about but that means there's a good opportunity to find out about acts, etc. that you won't know about.

wish i had the money, time, etc. to go to these...maybe one day.

― Julio Desouza, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

If it's someone like Konishi Yasuharu (ex P5), I'd buy anything he put his hands on... KY has reissued, repackaged all sorts of stuff that would have been otherwise unnoticed, '60s Japanese pop, '80s Scottish pop, etc. But then he is already a curator of sorts, with P5, being a DJ, and now having his own record label. Similarly with Keigo Oyamada, these people are music heads and it's great to be offered a passageway into their little worlds. Also for Bertrand Burgalat at Tricatel. But I guess all of my examples are from musicians who also run their own small, idiosyncratic labels, which is in itself a type of music curation.

― Mary, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Sonic Youth got Cecil Taylor, Boredoms, Cat Power, Merbow, and Big Star to play. And Television and the mighty Saccharine Trust. The fact that it would have been a great bill six years ago doesn't make it any less great now. I like the idea of curators whose taste goes back beyond last summer.

― dan, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Sonic Youth got Cecil Taylor, Boredoms, Cat Power, Merbow, and Big Star to play.

In order: eh, great but I'd rather see them on their own, eh, what's the point, a bad joke these days. Saccharine Trust I never cared for. This is not a line-up that had me -- the current one, not a younger more star-struck one maybe -- salivating. There was zilch in the way of honest surprise.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

The SY line up was great

Julio, it was a Lollapalooza or a Reading Festival for folks like you. Nothing more and nothing less. ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

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