Glastonbury

posted Feb 8, 06:06 PM by Rick Webb

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I randomly signed up for the ticket lottery for Glastonbury a few days ago. I’ve never been, and it makes me sad, really. I know I’ll hate the camping but hell, I should go one time in my life, right?

Imagine my excitement, then, when my hero Leonard Cohen has been tapped to play Glasto this year, along with The Verve, British Sea Power and Neil Diamond. Okay, yeah man, bring it.

I suspect I won’t go, I suspect the rumors of a leonard cohen tour will pan out, and I’m seeing BSP SXSW and The Verve Coachella, but… still.. it’s a nice coincidence and it definitely puts Glastonbury on the map this year.

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Eco Rock Tourism

posted Jan 31, 09:03 PM by Rick Webb

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So, I am a Rock Tourist. Many of us are tourists, of course. Many of us like to visit different places in the world. I’ve heard it said many times that tourism is the world’s largest industry.

I also try to be a good global citizen. My prediliction for Tourism, coupled with my life as a business man, puts me in a situation that is, perhaps, familiar to many of us who try to be good global citizens: I am torn about the emissions that my travel brings about. I’ve taken the tests: despite not owning a car and embracing walking and public transportation, there’s no doubt. I leave a pretty big emissions footprint. I do my best to account for this, of course. I am a diligent buyer of carbon offsets, and I work hard, through my position in the marketing industry, to encourage corporations to adopt carbon-neutral and carbon-friendly practices. Still, though, it can’t help but leaving me feeling a tad uncomfortable.

I think many of us have this same problem: is tourism socially responsible? Is it defensible? Although I’m not 100% certain of the decision, I have, for the time being, decided that tourism is ethical. I believe that the social benefits that well-traveled people bring the world offset the carbon emissions spent acquiring this experience. I don’t profess to know the stats – I’ve heard anecdotal statements that air travel isn’t the largest emissions problem we face, and I’ve heard that tourism is only a small part of air travel. I don’t know if these are true. I do know that, for now, I have made the decision that tourism is still a good thing. I have a hunch many of you have made this same decision. I will revisit it, of course, through the years, but it saddens me to think of a world where we can’t visit other places.

Of course I am in full support of any laws and regulations that require me, along with other people and organizations, to be taxed appropriately for the emissions they cause. I believe the costs should be worked into every product. I also, of course, recognize that money doesn’t solve the problem, and the technologies don’t necessarily exist to turn that money into cleaner air. But i do believe that if incentives were aligned, and the funds existed, and the economics were calibrated so the true costs of products were built into them, the market would adjust and cleaner products would, over time, become more popular than unclean ones. Would that happen in time to save us all from certain doom? I honestly have no idea. But I digress.

If we take, then, that tourism is acceptable, then I would posit that Rock Tourism’s as acceptable as any other type. And here we come to the reason why this post is in my Rock Tourism blog as opposed to one of my others. The way I see it, we all sort of have some sort of operating principal to our tourism. Perhaps we like to getaway from it all and relax. Perhaps we like to see the world’s cultures. Perhaps we like adventure. Perhaps it’s a love of art that dictates our next vacation spot. For me, it’s rock and roll. It’s live shows. I think of places I want to go, and I go to them when there’s a rock show I want to see. I love it. It combines two things I thoroughly enjoy – rock and traveling. It lets me meet like-minded people when I travel. It allows me to do things I enjoy on my vacation rather than things I just think I should do.

It is, essentially, the basis for my travel, and the basis for my blog.

So, recently, oddly, this happy hobby of mine has become a bit of a news item. Well, let me rephrase that. It has, peripherally, come under discussion. And it’s caused me to think about the social ramifications of what I do.

Recently, Radiohead, a band that I admire very much, have started doing some soul searching of their own about emissions, carbon footprints and the like. I respect Radiohead enormously, and I have a hunch that if a respected environmental organization came to me and pointed out how bad of a global footprint my business and life was leaving, I’d be feeling pretty upset about it too. i would want to know exactly what the ramifications of me deciding to tour were as well.

I can’t claim to be 100% certain of Radiohead’s approach, but i get the sense that right now they are in research mode. I know that they are weighing environmental impact as a factor in their upcoming tour. They are considering factors like whether a gig has sufficient access to public transportation. They are thinking about whether gigs in the burbs are more or less damaging to the environment than urban gigs. I suspect, though I have no knowledge of this, it must be a very difficult decision for them. Every gig leaves a footprint. Do more small gigs leave a bigger footprint than a few big ones?

I remember the Kid A “tour” of the United States. It consisted of exactly two shows – one in New York and one in LA. I literally knew dozens of people that travelled from other cities to go to one of those two gigs. Though I combined it with another trip, I chose to see Radiohead on the Kid A tour in LA.

In the afore-linked report on the upcoming Radiohead gig in barcelona, it is hinted that Radiohead are taking into account whether or not the concert goers are coming from another city. I think the assumption is that if many people are coming from another city, those concert goers are leaving a larger carbon footprint than the concert goers who already live in the city.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem unreasonable, and I can understand why, on a per show basis, this may seem like useful information. It seems to me, however, that this brings up many intractable problems.

First, I would imagine nightmarish calculations around how many shows to do. Radiohead is hugely popular. There are literally millions of people on the planet that want to see them. How many shows, then, is the most ideal number to fill that demand? Is fewer, large shows the right approach? I’m willing to wager way more people travelled to see Radiohead on the Kid A tour in the US – where like I said, I knew dozens of people travelling to those shows – compared to the Amnesiac tour, where they played a lot of dates, and I don’t know anyone – save for a few fanatics – that travelled to see a show. Which is worse?

Of course Radiohead is right to undertake an endeavor to learn this, and I would welcome them sharing their findings. It also brings up other difficult questions: we all tend to like more intimate concerts. The bigger the venue, the less connected we feel. What if it transpires that the most efficient, least impactful tour schedule is only one show per continent, to, say 400,000 people each? How much of a drag would that be? And how would the band balance this environmental concern with their artistic ones? And would other bands be thought less of if they made different choices?

After all, this logic, extended, makes it very hard to justify touring at all. And yet live music, to me, and to millions, is one of the most rewarding, artistically soul-nourishing things out there. And to musicians it is, often, both their life blood and their artistic inspiration.

Additionally, the math becomes impossibly incalculable. Let’s take my Kid A concert-going example. I came from another city. Fair enough. But I was in LA to visit my friends. If I didn’t go to that Radiohead show, when I was already in LA, would the carbon footprint have been any lessened? Don’t these intentions matter? But there seems to be no way of knowing them.

Finally, let’s take this Barcelona example. I don’t think they’re going to do this, but say that Radiohead, or the festival, required proof of residency in Barcelona, prior to selling you a ticket. This is, of course, a burden that many people would gladly bear for a band they absolutely loved, but it wouldn’t particularly work if you just, say, wanted to see what the hubub was about for some new band. Do we then have to show our ID every time we buy a ticket? And, of course, then I’d just get my Barcelonan friend to buy my tickets for me. So presumably the whole affair would be useless unless they instigated some sort of Glastonbury-esque anti-scalping measures, putting my photo on my ticket, or only letting me pick them up at the door, with an ID. Even this might not cut it, of course, after we experienced the Arcade Fire’s endeavors in New York last year that made everyone’s life miserable but didn’t inhibit scalping, but rather just drove the prices up exhorbitantly.

In the end, though, I think it comes down to something more pure: is it wrong to travel? And is it any more wrong to travel to see a rock show, than, say, a museum, a sunset or a cathedral? Again, I don’t think Radiohead is going there – the very fact that they are touring at all indicates to me they understand environmental responsibility must be only one factor. But I confess I’m feeling a bit defensive and guilty that one of my favorite bands – who I have managed to see on every tour and in several places that, now, they are telling me were bad to see them (LA, Worcester) – is raising this for discussion.

I don’t have the answers. I suppose I’d be okay with paying a higher fee for a show out of town, provided that money went to the right source. And, of course, I buy the offsets on the flights there. Obviously the least impactful way to see a show is to walk across the street to TTs or the Middle East from my house in Cambridge or to see a show when I’m already in New York at the Mercury Lounge or something.

But it seems to me if that you take tourism is something we are still “allowed” to do, then being a Rock Tourist seems to be still okay, right?

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Explosions in the Sky

posted Jan 7, 05:49 PM by Rick Webb

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You know what, Explosions in the Sky? You’re good, but you sir are no Mogwai, and if you’re going to shun my hometown on your upcoming tour well then I shun you back. Sniff. No ATP for me.

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ATP: The Nightmare Before Christmas

posted Dec 13, 01:17 PM by Rick Webb

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Travel: London, Minehead, Bristol and Taunton, UK
Bands: Sparklehorse, Glenn Branca, The Gas Giants, Portishead, Chrome Hoof, The Horrors, Fuck Buttons, GZA/Genius, The Heads, OM, Aphex Twin, A Hawk and A Handsaw, Julian Cope, Jah Shaka Soundsystem, John Cooper Clarke, Damo Suzuki, Black Mountain, Sunn O)))

Recap from All Tomorrow’s Parties: Portishead: The Nightmare Before Christmas

Photos here

Thursday: Working all day and then flying after work and then landing at 6 in the morning and not having a place to sleep until 2 PM is a little rough. We got to the hotel at around 9:30 – and it was quite the lovely hotel. Nothing to complain about there. The hotel was near Tottenham Court Road, so I knew the area a little bit. emmascully handn’t ever been to London before so I figured we should see the sites a bit. We walked up to the Natoianl Gallery in the rain, arriving and getting to be the first two people who walked in. Yay! We kllled about two hours looking at the DaVincis and Vermeers and Rembrandts and trying to remember why it was I hated Sir Joshua Reynolds so much but man Ioved Constable. I forgot about Constable. He’s awesome. Oh and they had some really awesome Turners. I’m always going back and fourth about that guy, but I think Im into him again. They didn’t have the Fantin Latour from the cover of Power, Corruption and Lies out, though. They never do. That’s sad.

We were totally running out of ideas for what to do with our time, because, a) it was raining, and b) we were exhausted having been up a whole day already. Then Emma got the brilliant idea to go on one of those hop on hop off busses, and it was perfect! We took a three hour tour around London from a double decker bus, so we got to sit and stay dry AND emma got to see the city – buckingham palace, fleet street, marble arch, the tate modern (which I thought about going into but I was just too tired to deal with those big dark rooms with those moody video screens that you just KNOW they had). Big Ben. Parliament. Etc.

Our bus trip did a full circuit and dropped us off back in Trafalgur Square in time to pop up to our Hotel and get in a nap before meeting augstone for dinner. We took the bus up to Camden Town and went to this new Cuban place in Camden Locks that was solid and lots of people were learning salsa dancing. Then we went to some bar and that was fun and quiet but then some band started playing so we moved on to the Factory Records Night. How fortuitous there was a Factory Records Night when I was in London! AWESOME! So while there we drank lots, of course, and aug told us funny Finnish jokes and then John – our future chalet mate at ATP – came in with a woman named Joy or Jill or something and we all drank more and there was dancing to New Order and Joy Division and Crawling Chaos and A Certain Ratio and on and on though no Red Turns To… We busted out of there in time to get some sleep before our big ATP day.

Friday: Get up super early and get to the Hertz rental place at Heathrow. Rent the car and can’t figure out how to get in because the door’s locked and.. oh yeah, right. The Driver’s side is on the other side. Get used to the car, figure it all out, just in time for ksta and John to arrive. We have a relatively painless escape from Hertz this time – not near as terrifying driving on the left hand side of the road this year as it was last year. Pretty quick traffic up the M-4 till we get to Bristol, where Kasia takes us on a tour of Bristol (she went to college for a year there) and we needed to buy some Groceries. I also figured it was appropriate since we were going to see Portishead and they are from Bristol. Good times grocery shopping in other countries – I love it so. I was accused of overbuying on the food, but I was hellbent on not eating too much at the Burger Kind or the terrible Chip Shop this year. PLUS champagne is so cheap in England! Then on to Minehead, and the scary 29 mile drive from Taunton to Minehead that nearly killed us last year and was so scary wasn’t nearly as bad this year. Got to Minehead relatively on time, and checked in amazingly quickly and it turns out our chalet was SUPER close to the venue this year – building A, actually. That was cool because it meant that I didn’t have to wear a coat all the time. We loaded our stuff into the Chalet and parked the car and headed out all quickstyle because Emma and I wanted to see Sparkelhorse.

And here’s where things get interesting. it turns out that since I was at an ATP a year ago they have reworked the configuration completely. They used to have three small venues, and they were all sort of clublike rooms, the largest being maybe the size of avalon. Now, they have carved out a giant venue underneath the main tent of Butlin’s, that would easily hold 5,000 people. On the flipside they have invited fewer people to the event. I suppose this is necessary: when we were there, there were tons of bands that people wanted to see that they couldn’t see because of capacity issues: and they compensated by having all the bands play second shows, but that’s not always viable. Still, it sort of threw me off, and provided a strange opening to the festival because Sparklehorse were playing on this main stage and it was BOOMY and ECHOY and loud. Also, Sparklehorse was just Mark by himself this time, and I don’t like him when he doesn’t have the whole band. Well, I just don’t like it when he plays to backing tracks. His songs are so good, but it’s distracting.

So, after that we explored and showed Emma and Kasia and John around, then we moved on to the main room to catch Glenn Branca perform New Works for Guitars. He had ten guitarists on stage – basically all the guitarists at the festival: Thurston Moore, Ben Power from Fuck Bettons, John Parish, Adrien Utley from Portishead, etc etc. I was skeptical at first but the piece evolved hypnotically and compellingly and by the end I was sold. Good times.

Then we popped out into the main room to see The Horrors who sounded pretty awesome and terrifying from the back, but then you see pictures of the and you want to spank them.

Portishead were playing two shows on the smaller, center stage. You got a bracelet that was either Silver or Black, allowing you access to one of the shows. We got black bracelets, so we had to see Portishead friday, which was strangely exciting and disorienting, but also kind of awesome. So we got in line right away, and got a really amazing spot for them. Before they went on, though, there was a fifteen minute set by a group called The Gas Giants that seems to be the band of someone from some other band (man I should really get my program out now) and they played sountracks and jazz for 15 mins or so but weren’t as bad as that sounds.

Then came Portishead.

Save for one brief charity half gig, Portishead haven’t played in ten years. You wouldn’t know it. I remember fairly vividly Portishead on the other two tours. The first album was a great tour but still a little rough, but by the time the second one came along, they had nailed it. This tour was pretty much a repeat of that one, sans strings, and with four new songs. They opened with two new ones, both seemed a bit darker and a bit more tense but generally the same. Then they played some hits, they had one very electronica-inspired new one in the middle and a very Portishead-esque new one at the end. But man, they played pretty much everything: “only you,” “cowboys,” “sour times (nobody loves me),” “glory box,” a truly creepy, sexy, weird, totally different version of “Wandering Star” that was pretty much acoustic, “Over,’ “only you” and more. They didn’t play “mourning air” which was said, but.. wow. Solid. They had the DJ doing the live scratching and he nailed it all the way though, which is always awesome.

We were all quite happy afterwards, and basically could have stopped seeing bands at that point. We did however check out some Chrome Hoof, after an extended bout of in-chalet drinking, and they were good – had great outfits, and a basson on the plus side but a bad diva chick singer on the minus side. A lot of energy though. Then Fuck Buttons who won the award for wall of noise onslaught this year – and given the lineup that was no slouch.

Mainly, though we kept looking for good dancing. The first night was pretty rough – it’s not a fully attended event yet on friday and SIlver Apples, who I skipped because I’ve seen them enough – ran late so we went to the pub, which was fun playing bad 80’s hip hop and it was awesome how emma didn’t know most of it and I could feel smart about hip hop. And the Crazy Horse – a bar – was now the main dance room and it was playing soul. Ew. Oh well. We wandered from venue to venue listening to the different dance music (an electronica club opened up a little later), but eventually got bored, sat in Crazy Horse for a bit drinking beer, and made it to the end of the night.

Saturday – After two days of no sleep, I woke up INSANELY late. Everyone else was up hours before me, but I woke up at – get this – 3:47 PM. Yep. Still, though, I stuck to my festival guns and I made some potatoes and eggs like I do at festivals, and got a nice breakfast in me before rocking. First up was A Hawk and a Hacksaw – mainly because I got the stages mixed up, and was trying to see The GZA. I coudln’t figure out if this was some super high concept thing, or if I was in the wrong place until, thankfully, emma figured it out for me. A Hawk and a Hacksaw were cool in their own right, though, with a dude (who looked strangely like Daniel Handler) playing a hammered dulcimer (I think) and an elusive marching band that seemed to emanate from nowhere and wandered through the crowd. I was into him, though it was no GZA, and I would check him again.

Next was The GZA and Genius doing the album Liquid Swords in its entirety, as part of the ATP “Don’t Look Back” series, which I have waxed excited about before. It was pretty solid and fun and hilarious and it’s funny to see 5,000 white british dudes wave the Wu Tang sign in the air while the GZA goes “What’s up MINEHEAD ENGLAND!! HOOOOOOOOOO-OHHHH!” Good times. Scary album. Badass.

Then we went and sat at the Bar in the main area and met up with sadotter and Marcie for a while and caught up, then they drifted off and Kasia and John came by and a friend of Kasia’s named Kay, and we all went to see the awesome Julian Cope.

Julian Cope. hoo boy. Man, that guy is nuts, but in the most awesome way. I’ve been a longtime fan, of course, thanks to Mr. Aug Stone, who leant me Head On and the second autobiography a good ten years ago now. Wow, that is a long time. He’s sort of a personal hero of ours, despite a lot of bad music and a rather strained physical appearance. So it was super exciting to see him live. I had no idea what to expect. Would it be folk? Kraut Rock? Ancient Druidic chants? Japanese noise?

No, it would be metal. Metal like “I wear a leather policeman hat” metal. Metal like his band looked straight outta a Judas Priest cover band. Metal like they had a drummer, a second “bass drummer’ and a third “mega bass drummer” along with, later, a dude dressed as a ninja who did nothing but hold up a second bass drum for the drummer to bang on. Not that he didn’t already HAVE a bass drum.

He played everything sounding like metal, but in there, he did play like 3 songs off of Peggy Suicide, and, even crazier, he played two songs from his old band, The Teardrop Explodes – he played, in fact, a screaming metal version of “Read it in Books,” and an almost normal, like-the-original version of “Sleeping Gas” that then descended into a sort of “ooben eeben glotten globen” type of goblins doing druidi stuff that was pretty wonderfully hilarious. They obviously had more material than time, but in the end he opted to use his last five minutes for a speech rather than a song, which was pretty glorious, and I don’t remember it all, but ended something like

so we have to go, as we are wont to do, but we are not leaving you. We will be over there. Come join us, and partake in our pile of blow on the girl, and if not, well, go back to your chalets, tonight, gentlemen, and make love to your ladies, and when you do, think of me, mister julian cope.

He was really pretty wonderful.

Then came The Heads. We lost Kasia and John around this point but picked up Ben and Marcie and watched them, and Ben commented about how there’s always one band like this – awesome droning, repettive, thumping rock. Be it Awesome Color or Endless Boogie, or, this year, the Heads.

Then Om who I actually liked a whole lot but think I may have been the only one of us who did. It was a bassist and a drummer and they’d play comically quiet, slow, doomy death metal that would occasionally erupt into the damndest wall of noise you’d ever heard. Out of the blue. It was quite confrontational and quite… surprising.

Then, finally the Aphex Twin who a) played the first normal set I’ve ever seen and b) has shaved, and c) played normal downbeat housemusic. It was… we danced a lot. It was fun. it was an awesome rave as raves go, but.. it wasn’t like life changing like everything the Aphex Twin should do. Man, he doesn’t even look like himself anymore! I mean, he does, but he’s not sitting there with long scary hair and a shit eating grin.

So, eventually we mozeyed off and went to the pubs and danced and had fun and ate some chips and ran into Donnie and Katie (mine and Ben’s original ATP chalet mates, and his chalet mates this year, and also making appearances in this LJ in Touch and Go 25). We ran into a completely crazy chick from Canada and who worked in a strip bar (but only as a waitress) who Donnie couldn’t stop fucking with. Upon finally escaping I remarked to emma “I wonder where her boyfriend was” (she had mentioned she was @ the festival with her boyfriend,) to which emma replied “avoiding her.”

And then we danced some more. Arcade fire, I don’t remember what else. We had hit the pub earlier – me and emma and ben and marcie – and Declan was DJing and it was awesome and we danced to Arcade Fire and Shellac and some other stuff, but it wasn’t critical mass of dancing awesomeness yet. It was still good, though. And the end of the night DJing on Saturday was decent, though most people were still in Aphex Twin. Still, for the second day, we were out till the bitter end. That was good. I was proud.

Sunday Man, sunday was SHORT. Lots of “activities,” not so many bands. The bands I came to the festival to see were Portishead, Cope and Aphex Twin, so my work was done. Normally, at an ATP I would run around and see a little of each and every band, but i was really enjoying the company of my chalet mates and we had a) a lazy breakfast, and b) a long lunch/dinner/drinks and c) an hour of pool playing throughout the day, so bands were few and far between. We saw a good chunk of Damo Suzuki who had like 11 members in his band, including Adrian Utley from Portishead, and that was decent, though nothing mindblowing. We tried to go see the Jah Shaka Soundsystem, but it was super Reggae (why is it I still haven’t learned that everything with the word soundsystem in the name, save the one obvious exception, is reggae?)

The one good hit of the day was the legendary John Cooper Clarke, who was fantastic. He’s a legendary mancunian comic, who I learned about from my Factory obsession – he’s in a Joy Division Video. He can also be seen in Control, if you’ve seen it, depicting himself opening up for a Joy Division gig, even though he’s 30 years older. Still, though, he was solid and hilarious and both his poetry and his jokes delivered. We all liked him.

Saw a little bit of Black Mountain, and I liked it in its metaly wall of noise kind of way.

But the wierdest thing of the day was SunO))) who were sort of like the usual Sunn O))) show, except a) they had a 20 minute instrumental pre-recorded intro, b) the fire alarms were going off the whole time, and c) they had a man dressed as an ent doing druidic chants the whole time with a green light shining dramatically on him and enshrouded in fog. If you’ve never seen SunO))) before this was probably totally weird but if you had seen them before, it’s even more confusing. WTF. John actually in the end developed a theory that the Ent was Julian Cope, based both on the words we could hear (Loki, and that sort of thing) and because one of the members of SunO))) was in Julian Cope’s band. I would buy it. There were some other people up there, Donnie and I assumed from Boris, who played right before them and with whom they have a collaboration album and a show the next night in London.

Other than that, Declan really delivered on the DJing sunday – man, it was awesome. Wedding Present, Shellac, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Big Black, Arcade Fire and more. He’s the greatest DJ in the world. Except when he plays Raggae and Dancehall. Still, though, wow.

I fucked up again on 24 hour time, so our flight wasnt at 4 something like I thought but at 2 something so we had to get up early sunday, so as much as we wanted to stay to the bitter end, we all retired early. It hurt, too, because the dancing wasn’t up to snuff this year, and I could tell, around 1 when I turned in, that it was really starting to kick in with Declan and Justin Spear on the decks. BOOOO.

next year maybe I’ll do that early checkin late checkout thing.

And next year I have to remember to go to the gas station before I return the rental. OW.

Monday Up early, make breakfast, clean, out of Minehead by 8:15 yes! Get to Heathrow, despite a Loooong detour through Taunton, by 11:45 and we say our farewells to our Chalet mates and check in for our flight and do the departure lounge thing and look for good books from borders in airport editions and then we take off! And the flight was good EXCEPT I HAD NO LAPTOP POWER. That sucked. A lot. It’s basically what i paid for premium economy for. It was my own damn fault that I had run one of my batteries down and checked another, so I was down to one battery. I plowed through 400 emails in the 2 hours of battery I had, but I didn’t get to write this, or do the photos, so I am half assing it now. Sad.

Still, though, another ATP and I am still a fan. It’s a great time. Of the two upcoming ones, the Explosions in the Sky one is looking pretty good, but I think it’s probably too soon after SXSW and Coachella, and it really is quite an expensive operation to get to Minehead. I love it, though, and I’m thankful for my three chalet mates, all of whom were ATP virgins and all turned out to be excellent company (so much so that we kept missing bands!) and seemed to enjoy themselves! yay!

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Iceland Airwaves

posted Nov 18, 03:56 PM by Rick Webb

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Oops! We forgot to mention we headed to Iceland Airwaves last month! It was awesome! Great festival, and a good time. You can read the full round up here

Bands included: Perla, For A Minor Reflection, <3Svanvít!, Naflakusk, Eliza, Smoosh, Lights on a Highway, Jenny Wilson, Boys in a Band, Duke Spirit, Retro Stefson, Teenagers, Kimono, Singapore Sling, Computer Club, Loney, Dear, Trentmöller, Heavy Trash, Motion Boys, Gus Gus, Frost, Mental Overdrive, Amiina, Tied & Tickle Trio, Ms. John Soda, Benni Hemm Hemm, Lali Puna, Ra Ra Riot, Hafdis Huld, Annuals, British Sea Power

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ATP Round Up

posted Nov 18, 03:55 PM by Rick Webb

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Okay: First off we have the upcoming Nightmare Before Christmas curated by Portishead, and featuring Sparklehorse, The Aphex Twin, Julian Cope, Glenn Branca, the Silver Apples, Thurston More, Boris, Om and a million more. I’ve been on the fence about this – though I bought tickets when they went on sale – but now I’m thinking I may go. Anyone interested?

Next are the two springtime ATPs:

First, we have the Explosions in the Sky ATP, featuring Broken Social Scene, Dinosaur Jr, Trail of Dead, Iron and Wine, POLVO (!!!), Ghostface, Animal Collective and Four Tet. This is definitely looking like the better of the two for me.

Next is the ATP Vs Pitchfork, which is simultaneously kind of cool and kind of painful, especially after Iceland Airwaves, where the pitchfork reporters and photographers were about the most painfully embarrassing people at the whole event. The lineup isn’t terrible, but it’s definitely a little weaker. It does feature Sebadoh, though, which is pretty awesome, though this whole thing of trekking to the wilds of Somerset to see bands that are from Massachusetts is kind of silly. Other decent bands at this event feature Ween (I know, I know, subject to debate), the MEAT PUPPETS (I LOVE ATP’s undying love of grunge), Caribou, Les Savy Fav and Hot Chip.

Also, neither one seems to be during Coachella this year, which is nice. So hopefully I can make a spring ATP this year? Anyone interested?

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My Bloody Valentine...

posted Nov 18, 03:42 PM by Rick Webb

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So All Tomorrow’s Parties – my heroes already, even moreso now – have announced a series of dates across the UK for My Bloody Valentine. Rock Tourist participant Ashley is headed to the Glasgow show, and I bought for one of the Manchester shows, figuring it’s high time I went to the city that brought me so much music I loved.

Unlike most people freaking out about these shows, I’ve actually seen My Bloody Valentine before – three times on the Loveless tour, including the last show, to date, the band has ever played. And while they were pretty awesome shows, I do think there’s little chance the poor band can possibly live up to the hype of the reunion.

I’m also pretty convinced the Coachella rumors are true, and we’ll be seeing stateside shows, starting with a Coachella date. If that, plus the Portishead rumors are true, well, then, Coachella is shaping up to be pretty awesome.

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Iceland Airwaves

posted Sep 14, 11:31 AM by Rick Webb

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I should also mention that me, the girlfriend, jelena, ashley and a few others are hitting Iceland Airwaves next month. We bought the tickets in april as some cheap package because we always wanted to go to Iceland. We didn’t know the lineup at the time, but it looks like it’s turning out pretty good! This makes it tough, of course, because now we have to balance tourism and rock, but hey – that’s what Rock Tourism is all about. Hells yeah.

Here’s the international lineup:
!!! (chk chk chk) (US)
Annuals (US)
Best Fwends (US)
Bloc Party (UK)
Bonde do Role (BR)
Boys in a Band (FO)
Chromeo (CA)
Computerclub (UK)
Cut Off Your Hands (NZ)
Deerhoof (US)
Frost (NO)
Grizzly Bear (US)
Heavy Trash (US)
Lali Puna (DE)
Late Of The Pier (UK)
Ms John Soda (DE)
of Montreal (US)
Plants and Animals (CA)
Prinzhorn Dance School (UK)
Ra Ra Riot (US)
Radio LXMBRG (SE)
Slow Club (UK)
Snake And Jet´s Amazing Bullit Band (DK)
The Bronx (US)
The Duke Spirit (UK)
The Ghost (FO)
The Teenagers (FR/UK)
The Tremolo Beer Gut (DK/SE)
Theatre Fall (SCO)
Tied & Tickled Trio (DE)
Ungdomskulen (NO)

Full lineup here

Anyone know anything about icelandic bands that wants to tell me who I should try and check out?

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ATP Don't Look Back: Sebadoh

posted Sep 14, 11:27 AM by Rick Webb

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I know this blog is basically looking like an ATP advertisement, but COME ON.

On my birthday next year, ATP’s Don’t Look Back series presents Sebadoh: Bubble and Scrape. All original lineup. The whole album. On my BIRTHDAY. Ow.

Info here

This does, however, make up for missing the House Of Love play their first album last night. Being like the only fan in the world of that album, I am BUMMED.

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A Factory Night (Once Again)???

posted Jul 4, 11:46 AM by Rick Webb

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From my buddy John Hurwitz:. I doubt I can make this if I go to the Portishead ATP, but I am definitely going to keep an eye on it. Section 25 has been threatening to come to America for almost a year now but keep postponing because of “Visa issues.” I’m hearing a lot about this – something along the lines of bands not being able to get visas in time because the State Department is so backed up with their ridiculous new passport rules (don’t even get me started on that), but I haven’t seen any solid article outlining the extant of the problem. It’s not like Section2 5 were ever some crazy drug gobbling grave robbers or anything, so I suspect the delays are more bureaucratic than security related?

Anyway, this tour looks awesome. I want to go. Kevin Hewick! I saw Crispy Ambulance a few years back in Boston and it was actually shockingly solid. Worth seeing again.

Details are emerging of a special mini-tour by Section 25, Crispy Ambulance, Kevin Hewick and other ex-Factory artists.

The tour will go under the banner of ‘A Factory Night (once again)’ and will take place in selected continental European cities in December 2007.

Schedule

venue tbc, Cologne, Germany – Friday 14 December
Plan K, Brussels, Belgium, – Saturday 15 December
Melkweg, Amsterdam, The Netherlands – Sunday 16 December

What’s happening

Live: Section 25, The Names, Crispy Ambulance, Kevin Hewick (final line-up to be confirmed)
DJ sets: Martin Moscrop + local DJ’s
Exhibitions: Philippe Carly (www.newwavephotos.com), Katja Ruge (www.myspace.com/fotoreportage23

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