ATP, curated by Pavement

14/05 - Now, the reason I am back in the UK - ages ago I bought tickets for Kelly, Simon, Frau and myself to go to All Tomorrow's Parties at Butlins in Minehead. It is a funny sort of a festival, where all the bands are chosen by a guest curator - in this case, Pavement. I don't know much Pavement, and I mainly bought the tickets after Sam Joynes persuaded me it would be awesome. I met Simon at Clapham Junction on our way to Andover, where Frau picked us up and we headed to Tesco to buy a silly amount of alcohol and food. We got to the festival at around half past five and checked into our chalet, which was a bit odd - two bedrooms and a nice little kitchen/living room. We opened some beers and went for an adventure, to see what Butlins had to offer. We watched some bands in the main pavilion, namely the end of Calexico and a bit of Broken Social Scene before Kelly arrived - my Mum and sister had very kindly offered her a lift from Taunton station, a good 40 minute drive, so I offered to show them around the chalet but they balked a little at the walk, so I bid them farewell and Kelly and I went off to see some bands.

Well, for the next couple of hours we just minced about with Si and Frau, before going to see Marble Valley (bonkers and good, the singer is the drummer from Pavement), then popped over to see Wooden Shjips, who were pretty incredible - I am not sure of I necessarily liked them that much, but they made a powerful noise and had amazing beards. I think we then proceeded to wander about and booze a bit, but I am not too sure… there may have been tequila drunk out of empty single-serving milk things. I know we got to bed around 4.

15/05 - I am not too sure what we did today - we had a leisurely breakfast and then went to Splash Waterworld, where I bumped into Joseph Lilley (a guy I know from CERN) who insisted on giving me a big wet semi-naked hug. We went on one ride, the Space bowl, which involves going down a flume and landing in a big bowl which you spin around a few times before dropping into a deep pool - like those things for putting 2p pieces in. Awesome. Kelly and I then left and went for a walk along the beach, got a sandwich and got back to Butlins in time to catch some of Mark Eitzel - a desperate seeming fellow, singing sad and beautiful songs in a scruffy suit. I liked him a lot. We then went over to see Camera Obscura who, apart from the two songs I recognised, we rather a disappointment. Luckily we had smuggled in a bottle of tinto so we didn't mind too much. Next were, supposedly, the main attraction of the weekend - Pavement. They were OK, I think the Pavilion stage is not really a very good venue. I liked some of their stuff, but I think I am just going to have to come out and admit it: I don't like Pavement very much. Or their choice of bands.

Kelly and Simon, enthusiastic

Looking back at the lineup I am having trouble figuring out how we filled so much of the time - although I do know that we went back to the chalet and played two or three drinking games at once and drank a load of tequila. The next thing we saw was Omar Souleyman, who wasn't on until 0045. He was mental too - really fun though. He is a Syrian singer with a band of two, playing insanely fast Syrian folk-pop stuff. Good for a bonkers dance about - Kelly is convinced that he is a gimmick, me not so much. Kelly and I got chatting to the drummer(s) from Pavement in there as well, as one of them is from Hull. I bought the main guy a drink, saying "this is for Marble Valley, not Pavement", which may have been a little rude, in retrospect. We caught some of Still Flyin' as well, and tried to join Sam in Crazy Horse for some disco, but the queue was far too big.

Omar Souleyman

16/05 - I awoke at some ungodly hour to see Kelly sitting bolt upright in bed, clutching a saucepan of vomit. Apparently my reaction was to exclaim "oh God!", leap out of bed, take the saucepan and run to the bathroom to dispose of the contents and return with a washing up bowl (a far more practical receptacle) and some tissues.

We got up pretty late today, partly because of yesterday's Tequila, and headed straight to see Tim Chad & Sherry, a kind of lounge band from the southern US, with a singing drummer who looked entirely incongruous - definitely not a lounge singer. Their last song had an incredible chorus, which went as follows:

When you put your arms around me,

and put me to the test,

you know you've found your hero,

'cause my love is the best!

Stirring stuff. It was pissing down today, which was a bummer as we had planned to do some Adventure Golf, which I think may have been the main reason Simon wanted to come this weekend. Instead we sat about drinking tea/beer and watching Countryfile - a novel thing to be doing at a music festival. We tried to go bowling and were informed that the earliest we could do so was at 5pm. Unfortunately Kelly had to get the 1650 bus to Taunton, as she had something she had to attend at 0800 in the morning, so I bid her farewell and went bowling. Sam and his mate Alex joined us, and we gave a pretty poor showing - I think the highest score was 99. We then went to see Boris performing Feedbacker - a 44 minute single song which blew me away. We then went home to think about what we had seen. Also, as Frau is driving us home tomorrow morning, Simon decided that we had to 'burn bright and early', and he poured the remainder of the tequila into three wine glasses which we had to down. There was probably only about 75 ml left, but it was no easy task.

Mmm, tasty. Note the Burger King salt sachets.

A beautiful sunset over the Skyline Pavilion

We grabbed some beers and made a bottle of tinto, which we drank en route. We were a little slower than we had anticipated at this, and as it was getting cold we ended up drinking it behind a wall by the football pitches. Bob from Pavement stumbled by and kicked a football to far, and then we caught a bit of The Fall and went to watch the Raincoats, who were terrible. I really didn't enjoy a second of their show, in fact we left and sat around in Bar Rosso for a bit instead. The last band of the weekend was Endless Boogie - another one-song band, they played some pretty awesome stuff for 45 minutes, then Steven Malkmus from Pavement came and joined them for the last song. Frau very sensibly went to bed while Simon and I met up with Sam in search of a chalet party. We walked around for ages, found nothing, and Sam ended up hosting one himself, much to his friend Alex's annoyance. It was an odd festival, I felt there weren't really enough bands (only about 41 bands over three days), meaning that on a few occasions there was only one option, and if that sucked, there was nothing else to see. I would go again, but only if the curator was someone who (a) I liked, and (b) whose music taste I trusted. I did really enjoy a few of the unexpected bands (Marble Valley, Boris, Omar Souleyman and Endless Boogie), but four bands out of forty is a pretty poor ratio.

17/05 - Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. Monday morning was precisely no fun. We were up before 9, checked out and on the road by 10, and parked at the back of Tropiquaria animal park so that Simon could be sick in the bushes by 1015. The journey was OK, but none of us were in the best state - Simon was gently moaning for a lot of the trip, while I fell asleep in the back until Reading, where I was able to get the full English that I had been craving all weekend. Frau dropped me off at home about 1430, and I promptly fell asleep for a couple of hours on the sofa. Kelly rang and I went and met her at the supermarket, we made fajitas and watched Sean Of The Dead with Ed and Bob. This would have been a prefect evening, had it not been for the fact that Kelly hates films with things jumping out on people. Zombie films probably not a good idea then.