Of course, Chris is neglecting to tell you that he missed Uzeda too. So that’s only the two best bands of the weekend then.

(Sorry Chris)

Most drunken person there eh? WALK A MILE IN MY FUCKING SHOES! I MISSED SHELLAC.

anyway.

Highlights:

LUNGFISH

PART CHIMP

JAMES ORR COMPLEX

I’m quite interested by the fact that no pain was caused by being in close contact with Lightning Bolt, Mogwai, Boredoms etc. but a 50 minute plane journey from London has broken my ears. Certainly I am getting old. But WOOO, best ATP ever! My top highlight was Lightning Bolt. Don’t listen to anyone who says they were crap, they’re just sulking about the playing on the floor thing. I couldn’t see them but they were still astonishingly great. So good I went next door and impulse bought the DVD. Also brilliant were Boredoms, Shellac, old skool Mogwai set and little old Chris Mack on that big stage. Tortoise, Papa M, Cat Power would have been great if I hadn’t shouted to people constantly over the former or been able to hear the latter two. I spent a lot of time being extremely un hardcore, sitting down during bands and hanging out at the chalet and thus had a 100% excellent band percentage by Saturday afternoon. My drinking antics were pathetic thanks to damaging my throat within 10 seconds of arriving in London. Most drunken person there – a tie between Chris Summerlin and Colin Kearney. Addition of the gambling area was a stroke of genius also. Yay, ATP. I’m off to have a bath now, despite spending half the weekend moaning about how our chalet had a bath instead of a shower. Go figure.

Shellac were AMAZING at my birthday party on Thursday also. I love that band. Hello to everyone I met and thanks to the kittens for my birthday pie, of which I ate 2/3rds. Mmmm, pie.

Everybody I met or spoke to at ATP – new friends or old – are great people. Seriously. Thank you all

Still too tired and confused to work out my musical highlights so far, due to not being able to take alcohol any more without getting a week-long hangover.

glad to hear people had fun at atp (although not entirely surprised). i won’t dwell on that too much in an attempt to cheer myself up for having missed so much fun recently, but one thing; stu! that was two years ago! time is indeed flying by though, i will turn 40 next year etc.

some considerable time after everyone else, we have finally come to appreciate the joys of curb your enthusiasm. having heard many people rave on about it, we finally caught bits of a couple of episodes on tv, and it seemed ok, but not really anything astounding. then, gradually, we saw more and more of it, and it seemed to get a little funnier each time. then last week we bought season one on dvd, which has finally caused us to share the common opinion that this show is a work of fucking genius. last night we watched the dermatologist one, and by the time larry was doing his “norman! not on the weekend!” speech in the car, we were both verging on delirious. lovely stuff.

i’m still half kidding myself that we could go to atp next weekend, despite the fact that a) it’s 3000 miles away, b) we don’t have any money and c) it’s sold out. a boy can hope though. failing that, there is the prospect of sun city girls in louisville next month, or possibly hair police/prurient/kites/wolf eyes in michigan, although on the way back from there last week i lead us on a somewhat unnecessary 120 mile detour, so i’m not even sure kim will ever let me be in a car with her again, let alone drive us back there. we were there to see the ever horrible khanate, who were spectacular as you would expect. i was very drunk which didn’t help with the whole “GGGRRRUUUUUURRGGGHHHHH-CCZZZZKKKKKIIIIINNNNNNTTTHHHHH-RRRRAAAAAAAAGGAAAWWWWWWAAAAAAA” aspect of the evening, in fact by the time khanate had played i could feel the fear rapidly approaching, but thankfully i managed to keep it together till the end. bought a fucking amazing shirt, so nice that i feel the need to show it off.

This seems like as good a time as any to break my blogophobic habits and rejoin the fold post-ATP. Not too much to say now, as I’m sure we’ll be putting up a diskant feature like we did last year, but HELLO to everyone I spoke to from the diskant fold – you’re all WINNERS. And HELLO to Ivory Springer, Big Joan and Ann Arbor, who are all GREAT and lovely and you should go check ’em out.

Personal highlights were Lungfish (who were even better than I thought they’d be – get that gurning!), Boredoms (who gave me the best headache EVER and made at least one of our party retire to the beach in pain), Lightning Bolt (who sounded like they were probably utterly skill from where we were standing, but were predictably only properly experienced by the 100 or so people nearest to where they set up), Uzeda (such a shame they overlapped with Shellac), Cat Power (who was TOO QUIET TOO QUIET TOO QUIET and as such didn’t seem to go down very well beyond the first few rows of people), and Shellac, obviously. AND I’m going to see Cat Power again tomorrow and Le Tigre next week, which makes up for the weekend two lineup being BETTER. Anyway, work – BOO, ATP – yay. Also, I’m a plane.

Hi all. I’m now returned from All Tomorrows Parties, as I’d imagine most of the other web-hackers on this computer site are. Suffice to say, it was great. I’m not going to write much because my eyes are about to bleed from exhausation, but what I will say is this-

– Trans Am, Boredoms and Uzeda were my favourite three bands of the weekend.

– Everybody in attendance was equally nice and friendly, barring the sub-moronic, chest-beating neanderthal who kicked me as I tried to get past him during Shellac (performance #2). He should be killed.

– If one more person excitedly taps me on the shoulder to tell me Lightning Bolt are playing an impromptu gig in a toilet/cupboard/suitcase, I will vomit hard and long.

– I lost 40 pounds somewhere on the beach.

– ‘Western Train’ is the most unusal arcade amusement I am ever likely to experience in my lifetime. ‘Players enjoy to control our train directly’, and that’s a fact.

– ‘Festabulous’ isn’t a popular word.

Now sleep.

Any diskant friends/fans/wellwishers should come and say hello to us at Shellac tonight or ATP over the weekend. Look out for our diskant badges (also pictures here)! If in doubt, come to the record sale outside the pub on Sunday. You might even get a free diskant badge! Anyone who just shouts my name at me from across the street as last ATP will get my usual suspicious glare/look of confusion and NO BADGE. So, don’t.

No updates til after the weekend obviously. Hopefully Ollie will keep you entertained here while he’s blubbing into his jumper over all the fun he’s missing.

Hah, Dave is describing EVERY SINGLE GIG I HAVE EVER BEEN TO. Well, not that Hella have played every gig I’ve been to but that they could have been standing in for all the bands as I would not have seen enough to notice. The only gigs I have ever seen are those when I had permission to stand on or beside the stage so as to take photos or when no-one else bothered to come to the gig. This is why I can’t remember what people in bands look like but can recognise random people that go to the same gigs as me.

I enjoyed the Unexplained Snacks of America article on The Morning News today but…..when do we get the answers?!!

Evening,

I was going to post about how I went to see Hella play their first ever gig in the UK tonight. And indeed I went. Unfortunately, see them I did not, for there were approximately 139 other people in the way crowding around them. I was lucky enough to catch a couple of glimpses of Zach the guitarist’s beard and also the odd flash of the bicep of a pummeling arm that belonged to the GREEK GOD manifesting itself as Spencer the drummer. That was it. Oddly disconcerting. Oh well, they’ll be back with a “proper” tour in August/September, and hopefully then they’ll BLOODY WELL PLAY ON A STAGE SO MORE THAN A DOZEN PEOPLE CAN SEE THEM.

If this happens when I see Lightning Bolt next week, I shall be upset. Though their propensity for volume may be a compensating factor.

Oh, and listen-to is great, unless you use a record player. So I’m currently listening to Charalambides – IN CR EA SE, and wondering why they can’t play any other UK dates apart from ATP weekend 2.