sfj on atp (planes are the best)
Sasha Frere-Jones’ ongoing blog coverage at The New Yorker of the upstate New York indie rock festival All Tomorrow’s Parties was the perfect antidote to a weekend filled with VMA madness. I followed along only as a jealous fanboy should; here are a few highlights…
I loved the post about Steve Albini’s band Shellac…
“Wingwalker” is either about a woman who entertained people by walking on the wings of biplanes, or about someone who imagines himself to be that wingwalker, or a plane. (The repeated phrase, “I’m a plane,” allows Albini and Weston to imitate planes with their arms stretched out. Symmetry can be fun.) This version of “Wingwalker” included several ad-libbed endorsements of planes: “Planes weigh more than houses and they fucking fly!” Albini yelled. “Planes are the best.”
His photo of the stage setup made me want to buy a kit and start drumming again.
Who wouldn’t want a schedule package baked into the form of a View-Master?
Barry asked Kii to incorporate the View-Master into the original art, but it was my idea to have the reels as time cards, and to have the book and envelope program look like a View-Master pack. In a perfect world, we would have provided everyone with their own ATP View-Master and done 3-D shoots with all the bands.
Mmmm, 3-D. And finally, advice from SFJ on how ATP can serve as a model…
ATP isn’t just a model for music festivals—it’s a business model for everybody in the arts. Keep your costs low, spend on what counts, keep major corporations out of it, treat everybody decently, and have the confidence and patience to let these strategies work.