ATP Nightmare at Butlins; Corsano / Flaherty / Yeh / Brotzmann / Bennink / Markers / Iggy / Sonic / Wolf Eyes......

Let me blemish this page of pretty and compelling pictures with some clumsy English words perchance to flourish your minds with a bigger picture of the event which was named the 'Nightmare Before Christmas'...
Butlins is a really bad fucking choice for a three day "festival" of music of any kind, let alone some of the world's best free-improvisers. The middle of winter is an even worse fucking choice. Well what do we expect from ATP Corp? Butlins is a nasty, nasty holiday camp idea left over from the 60's which continues to blight the isle due to the flea-sized mentality of today's British public; totally fucking automated into ultra-consumerism. The main central building in this particular concentration camp is a huge fake big top, it has two main shopping malls complete with holiday agency (?!) pretend pubs, 24hr supermarket, junk food takeaways and of course "amusement arcades" every few yards (machines where stupid people throw away money). Holiday centre?! So, you getting the picture? Not bad enough? Fill it with loads of security guards (in house and hired in rednecks) shouting and seearching at every door. Point 1 - a shit atmosphere. Let me continue. Taunton (where?) is 4hrs from London, in the middle of nowhere. Minehead (where?) is 60 mins from Taunton .The sea at Minehead is part of the heavily polluted and dangerous currents of the Bristol Estuary, flanked on the other side by Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station. Nice. Butlins is bigger than the town itself. The three staged venues inside Butlins lead off the main central 'big top'. They are all very dirty, dark and depressing; low ceilings, manky carpets and reeking with memories of failed families, a thousand commercial pop bands and, hellfire, cabaret nights... They all have stupid theme names but let's call them 1, 2 and 3, 1 being the biggest, 2 is underneath it and 3 is the smallest nasty dark little 'wild-west' theme room on the opposite side of the 'big top'.

Friday. I'd heard a lot about Nurse With Wound and they were alright, I'd listen to some of their records but it's a bit analoguey... Moshing with 2000 Iggy fans I could feel the floor going up and down which was a little disconcerting. Hey hang on this is Iggy and the Stooges! If the floor gives what do I care? I die happy, don't I! Hooyaa, rock 'n roll man... Naah, they were good but not that good. Good crowd puller though eh Thurston?! Well let's face it, it ain't the likes of Brotzmann or even Wolf Eyes that will sell 6000 tix at £135 each. Oh, I forgot to mention the lovely chalet accomodation...prefabs as far as the eyes can see, mimicking council estates; broken shower, no fuse in the kettle...you get it. ATP and Mr.Moore have both attempted to put a 'TV channel' together with old films and shit but they are both very, very boring; 'classy' old films, one after the other...footage of Johnny Rotten's court case....etc.

The Melvins were...well 4/4 you dig? The guys hair - is it supposed to be a joke? Are they 'original'? Was I supposed to 'get' something? Oh god I'm such a misery...but this is my website so piss off! Haha... No, sorry, do read on... Ok Sonic Youth are a good act but it just didn't feel live to me man, I mean 'alive'! So after three tracks I wandered off somewhere...... and back again into the dark, dark crowds of drunk and drugged youth all going on about shite... talking talking talking...... Momentarily I looked up at the ceiling in venue 2 and see the whole thing, speakers, lights and all, bouncing up and down by about six inches. Binking I realise this is not an illusion as Iggy (probably) is off again and the crowds are all jumping up and down above us (as we did the night before), these are large iron girders and concrete but I'm taking no chances and get back a few feet, noting where the emergency exits are. Later on Prurient did something for me, standing in the middle of his own screeching, screaming hurricane sending vibes of peace from the other side iof a seriously fucked up world. That night I dreamed of Iggy and the whole pit coming through into room 2, the guitarist chucks his axe down into the hole and walks of stage. That and the terror of dying standing up, crushed by people on all sides. Aah Butlins, cherish the memories.

Saturday

Ok get planning your evening with your little schedule booklets cos you'll miss something, or part of something. Just caught the end of New Blockaders, six masked guys giving the dials some welly. Hmm..Zipped upstairs for a few mins of Wooden Wand (some deep South drawled ballads; yawn) then back down again for the Hair Police set which was cool but kind of diluted with the added sax.., somehow it's meaner just the three of 'em. Back upstairs for the Sun City Girls. Hmm, what can I say, very talented I'm sure. Overall though seemed like an exercise in 'how many different styles can we pull off' - sure I missed the point, but got the ooportunity to lark around with mates and totally ruin some geeks hi-tech bootleg recording with our racket - What? fuck off! - we are having FUN! The fucking atmosphere was killing it again (that horrible wide stage with its curved outline and cabaret lights - yuk!) They're an impressive set of musos individually (espec. the rather aged and animated drummer). Then (you guessed it) back downstairs again (getting bored yet?) Don't sweat it as here comes the highlight of the whole weekend for me: Flaherty / Corsano / Yeh. Fuckingnora can these three deliver?!! I'm four cans of Guinness down (smuggled in from the 24hr shop - well I ain't paying £3 a pint inside the venue when it's 95p a can am I for god's sakes?!) and I'm a little less than attentive but Corsano's midway solo grabs me hard by the balls. The crowd are going wild as he stops and shouts over for Flaherty to get back on stage. The most amazing insane musical tantrum I've ever had the honour to witness, from almost the front row. Above the totally gelling fucked up madness of the drums and sax comes Yeh's violin swirling and twisting like you've never heard anything creating in me an ecstasy where something had to give. One hand clutching can, other waving circles above my head demonstrating the annihalted dervish, tears run down my eyes with utter appreciation and love for what I'm 'in' - not just hearing, get it?

What a kid I am. I was so blasted away by this set for some unknowable reasons I almost didn't have enough mind left to appreciate Benninck and Brotzmann who followed, with what I gather was an equally awesome sound, in their own legendary way. God bless 'em all. Fuck I'm so inspired I could fart. Go listen to 'A Rock in the Snow' by C/F/Y - it doesn't come near the live experience. You heard the new Bennink / Brotzmann yet? Me neither, didn't know there was one.
Staggering out into the sick holiday pleasure dome I bump into Elissa Ambrogio of the Markers - heaven; she remembers me (probably as the charming little twit in Sheffield who tried to sign them up at 3am after their gig. Big hugs as I tell her I love her (her work you do understand) and she is flattered as she tactfully introduces me to her boyfriend. After hanging out with friends for a bit again I waited and waited...bored bored bored, in venue 3 (the horrible wild west room - Why oh why don't they turn off those spinning lights and put on the house lights between acts - I don't want to shut my eyes yet!!). Half asleep, half hypnotised, I see the Markers come on stage. (minus Leah who has left - I didn't know). Wow what a set. Best ever. Elissa is staring straight into the crowd as she plays and speaks, which I've never seen her do before (of course she's looking straight at me..) but I can't tell what she's saying over the pure, paradisical din. How the heck does she do it? Pure soul man. PURE SOUL. Here she is (in the pic you ijit!) almost coming into the audience of delighted young men playing quiter and quiter as she goes, scraping at a single string like she just invented the bleeding Strat. Bitch! We are all transfixed of course. Good night.

Sunday

Headache. 10am. John's asleep on the sofa with Alan Partidge blearing out the TV (Mr. Moore.??). Bel has been back an hour. Some chi-gong on the drizzly beach moves it into my body, then back again. Excellent cup of tea in hell on a sofa from heaven and at 1.30 pm (!) we're kind of ready to witness 'Dinasoar Jr' whoever they are. Last night I saw a queue for folks to see Sonic Youth that would put a refugee camp to shame, now I'm seeing signs everywhere saying that various bands are doing second sets - all due to some terrible logistical planning. I'm told earlier by the piped channel that if I want to see MC5 later I have to get an extra wristband from the er, holiday shop and if I want to grab a seat on one of three (yeah thats three) coaches being laid on for the mass exodus I have to go now and buy it. Of course it cost us £45 in the fecking cab to get here from the station so...
A couple of Paracodeine or whatever tabs and half a pint and at 2pm we're in room 3 in a rock concert again. Yep, painful I know. They are a good rock band but so were Judas Priest. God knows what happened in the afternoon but the next thing was I managed to miss Aaron Dilliway and saw some of Bark Haze; a kind of 'intro to noise' featuring Thurston. White Out and Nels Cline were interesting; a rather gimmicky use of some spacey electronics got boring but there was some rather interesting free guitar playing by Nels.

Then marched out dutifully to the main room for the start of Wolf Eyes. What an awesome fucking noise!! Straight away I am chukling to myself as they are totally pissing on anything else that attempts to sound raw, energised, grating, whatever...and they are making total use of what must be a 150k stack. It is blinding. I look forward to seeing them again. As far as electronic noise goes with me I can take it or leave it nowadays but these bastards are sonically raping everyone in this hell-hole inside and out. They unleashed the demons that Iggy only poeticised about, that Sonic Youth wrote fairy tales about, that Prurient had only befriended, and these huge fucking 90ft human gobbling noise-helldogs were eating up Butlins, and boy was I happy. A great moment for me was when one of the pathetic front stage 'security' guys kept turning to his mate laughing in suprise as his robo-musical mentality was slowly torn to shreds, his shock soon turned to horror as they pumped it up and kept fucking going. A full house and I expect the Eyes fucked a lot of people's minds that gig.

I saw a lot of stuff and I didn't get to see a lot of stuff. Did I miss much? Doubt it. Sunday night I puked and went to bed early, worn out and bored with the shitty atmosphere. Mind you, I was actually on the first night of serious two week bout of Hepititis A, (which I am still recovering from now) caught last month in Morocco. Then again, lots of people looked worn out and bored with the shitty atmosphere, some also told me they were. Fucking Butlins!? Fursaxa, Brotzmann and Wolf Eyes on the same bill? In Winter? In Minehead? £3 a pint? At Butlins? Yep a real fucking nightmare before Xmas.

Moodi