All Tomorrow’s Parties is probably the closest thing to a cult in the rock festival world. You meet at secluded resorts around the world to share your dedication to music that the majority of people will never hear of. That might explain why people fly from far off countries to New York for ATP. Hell, I flew to England last year to hit up two ATPs curated by Pitchfork and Explosions in the Sky.
What makes ATP different is that they find resorts that have enough hotel rooms to hold thousands of fans then create an all-inclusive festival weekend where most of the bands are chosen by another band. Last year ATP NY was curated and headlined by My Bloody Valentine and this year Flaming Lips were blessed with the honor. (full disclosure – one of my goals with ICM is to be able to curate an ATP one year. Why not…. Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons got to)
ATP takes place about two hours outside of New York City at Kutsher’s Resort in the Catskill Mountains. It’s tough to get people to part with their bucks and to find their way to the mountains so ATP makes it a point to have artists or performances you won’t be able to see anywhere else. A few of these shows were Sufjan Stevens performing his album Seven Swans, a rare performance from Panda Bear, The Boredoms with NINE drummers, Caribou with an extra-sized band, and Suicide and Jesus Lizard playing full albums live. Yeah….. like I said, this is a cult for freaks of live and loud music.
I’ve been lucky to attend seven ATPs and at each one I’m reminded why they’re one of my favorite events all year. Because the truck was in Seattle for Bumbershoot we used our push cart that we store in Brooklyn. Ernesto and Estrella at Kool Man Ice Cream ordered up our cream for us and let us borrow a couple freezers and we packed as much cream as we could then headed North. The weather Friday was a bit dreary and we didn’t get in till around five so we decided to wait to sling until Saturday and just rocked out to some Dirty Three, Suicide, Panda Bear, Iron and Wine and Jesus Lizard. The early highlight for me was Suicide’s “Cherie, Cherie” which sounds like demented ice cream truck music to me.
The weather got a little bit better on Saturday and we were set to make two rounds around the lake and hotel. After a drive into town to get some diner food and slipping away to watch Sufjan we got back and loaded up. Our first stop was the front desk. The staff at Kutsher’s is so nice and we’re so lucky they let us party down there all weekend so I wanted to make sure they got lots of ice cream. The ATP staff was helping with tickets and rooms too and they’re big fans of cream, especially the secret Choco Tacos we had on board.
After the first batch was out I sent a text to Randy from No Age and asked if he wanted to roll by our room to play something for Road Trippin’. He and Dean came by with their friend Avi and jammed a few tracks including their first attempt at an acoustic track with ‘Brain (?)’
Later in the day we went through another load of cream, mainly hanging out outside and slinging to people who were leaving the main ballroom after El-P. There was plenty of great music with Animal Collective, Shellac, Deerhunter, Boss Hog and the Melvins. I was bummed to have missed so many other great bands that played that day like Circulatory System, Akron/Family, Sleepy Sun, Atlas Sound, and Antipop Consortium (twas great to see Beans again).
Saturday night is usually the night when people let loose and party late and this year was no exception. I’m not sure what happened, or in what order, but I know I played some intense ping pong with Seth from Akron/Family, played poker with Steve Albini and joined in on a dance party or two. Whew…. Glad I didn’t end up too hung over on Sunday.
We really didn’t get going on Sunday morning until 2:30 when we were set to meet with Sleepy Sun. Everyone was moving slow and although we wanted to make it a little ways from the resort to setup and record we only got a few steps out the door before everyone sat down by the bank of the lake. It was fitting the song they played was called “Marina.” Their music is more electric and psychedelic but worked great in this acoustic session.
The Boredoms were just getting started and, hindsight, I wish I would have headed over there to at least watch a little bit of their set. Instead we loaded up on cream and tried to get the cart over towards the area where everyone would be coming out after their set. There’s no better way to cool off a melted mind than with ice cream. The cream went fast and we headed back to the room to crack a cold one after such hard work (hehe). I noticed it was 5:00 which was the time that the poker room was set to open. Since we missed filming there the night before Wayne, Kate and I headed over and I was lucky again to get the last seat at the table. After a few hands I got lucky and pulled a full house, sevens over threes, and ended up making $30 in about a half an hour. The Stereogum cats were waiting for a seat for Bradford from Deerhunter so I donated mine and then headed back out for the last round with the cart.
Since it was twilight time it took a while longer to get rid over everything. I was in a good mood and liked talking to people so it didn’t matter too much to me. Eventually it was all gone and we were able to catch some Boris then Crystal Castles. No Age was playing with Bob Mould and they were going back and forth between Husker Du songs and No Age ones, which was super cool. Bradford jumped up on stage for the encore then we ended meeting up with him in his, surprisingly clean, hotel room where he played a couple beautiful acoustic versions of songs off his new album, Logos.
With so much great video in the can we put away the video cameras and all headed down to watch Flaming Lips. The crowd was going crazy and there were laser pointers, balloons, and some new songs to keep people happy till one in the morning. I had been itching for a rematch with Seth but by 3, when I got his text, I was only seconds away from slumberland.
Thanks to Deborah, Barry and Kutsher’s for making ATP possible and for allowing us to attend and give away ice cream. Thanks to all the helpers who make the festival a reality as well. Thanks to Kate and Camino for helping with ice cream and pics. Thanks to Dan, Chris, Judy, Randy and Todd for helping line up some performances for us too.
