Ten Years Of ATP

Pitched as “a mixtape of a festival curated by your favourite band”, this weekend All Tomorrow’s Parties turns ten. Festival organiser Barry Hogan reveals his “Wayne’s World” moments and why Slint won’t ever play V…

Hi Barry, what are you up to?
Hi The Fly. I’m just preparing the final times for Bowlie Weekender. Just going through the final time slots and making sure everyone agrees where they’re playing so we don’t damage any egos. So they don’t go, “I’m not playing before them!” The one thing about ATP is that it’s not really about headliners or billing, cos sometimes we’ve had bands like Boredoms and Mogwai – bands that could headline the festival – who’ve played first on because they’ve wanted to open up the day. I think that’s good, because we do things in an unorthodox manner, as opposed to other festivals.

It always seems to be a very egalitarian event.
Yeah because there’s no VIP area. Everyone is treated equally; from the bands to the fans. If you’re walking around you could see Nick Cave or Thurston Moore or Geoff from Portishead just wandering around and you can just go and say hello, have a chat, maybe have a drink with him. It’s not like say, some of those bigger festivals where it’s like “Hey, we’re famous and fancy! We’re in this part! And you, you’re all out there.” It’s good in that sense.

What do you make of the more mainstream festivals? Reading And Leeds, V Festival?
I don’t think those festivals are necessarily bad. I think they’re just designed for a particular market. Something like V caters to people who like pop music and buy their CDs in Tesco’s. They’re not really music fans, they’re just going for their one music experience of the year. To stage those big festivals, you definitely need some help because the costs on them are obscene, and the bands need to get paid. Plus, the promoters need to make money because they’re risking quite a lot. I don’t think sponsorship is a bad thing, it’s just when it starts taking over with naming rights; like Wireless – it dilutes the idea of a music festival. It’s like you’re trying to sell a product. If you wanted to sell a phone, why not get a job at Carphone Warehouse? As opposed to branding it on a stage. That’s the thing about ATP, we’re an alternative, we’ve not had sponsorship so far and we’re able to do it without it. It’s a smaller, more intimate, bespoke thing. I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s lasted ten years.

How has the live music landscape changed since ATP started?
When you look back at when we started this, there weren’t any alternative festivals at all. If bands like Low or Smog, or Tortoise came over it was a big deal; they came over once a year. People made the effort and went out to the shows. Now – I’m not trying to sound like an old git or anything – I think that the younger generation don’t realise how lucky they’ve got it, because there’re bands on – five or six great bands on – every night of the week. There’s probably too much choice out there and the market seems a bit flooded. But I think the good thing about ATP is that it’s opened up a platform for people to come and see all these bands that they wouldn’t previously see. Plus, we’re also able to throw in these odd things; bands like Sleep or Slint, which I’m sure you wouldn’t see on a bigger festival’s bill.

Can’t imagine Slint playing at V, somehow, no.
No, can you imagine? ‘Good Morning, Captain’ on the main stage?

Come on, they’d go lovely right before Stereophonics. So what are your favourite ATP memories?
There are so many different things. One of the things that really sticks in my mind is watching Slint. ‘Spiderland’ is one of my favourite records of all time. I tried to get them for years to play and they kept saying, “We will never reform”. In the end I was able to make them an offer than wasn’t just about money, it was about them being involved in showing what they’d meant to all these other bands. Just seeing them perform ‘Nosferatu Man’ and ‘Washer’, that was a moment where I felt proud. But we’ve had people from The Stooges to Sonic Youth playing – these are bands that I used to bunk off school to buy records by. Like with Pavement; they’re one of the reasons why ATP is a three-day festival. When we did Bowlie Weekend – the pre-ATP festival [that’s still going strong] – it was basically a Saturday and a Sunday. We got all excited about the line-up we had – from Belle & Sebastian to Cornelius – we were like, “We must get Pavement”. We made an offer to their agent, and he said “Yeah, I think they’ll play this, this sounds great”. So we built a whole bill around Pavement and tried to line them up… and they couldn’t play. Six months later, they split up. So we’ve spent the whole time of doing ATP ringing them up every year asking, “Can you come and play?” So to have them curate and play on our tenth anniversary meant a lot. As much as we put a lot of esoteric music on, I am an indie kid. Seeing them play songs like ‘Range Life’ and people singing along to it, that was just like, wow. I never thought I’d get to see that. The funny thing is, when they used to play, they were shit. Dinosaur Jr. was a similar thing when they reformed. They’d become a fantastic band. Years ago, when they never used to get on, you used to come out of the show and think it was pretty disappointing – the same with Pavement. But this time round the show was brilliant. It was good to see them all getting along again, I guess life’s too short to be angry at everyone all the time.

What’s been your most experimental booking?
We’ve had a lot of experimental stuff: we’ve had Kokono No. 1, we’ve had Stockhausen’s ‘Kontakte’ performed by William Winant – the list is endless. When we were looking back at the tenth anniversary, I was looking through all the line-ups we’d had and I thought “shit, we’ve handled a lot of bands”. You look through and you think “Wow, some of the line-up is pretty out there, I’m surprised we sold that out”, it seems to be a loyal fanbase keeping it going.

Totally. You can feel that community atmosphere.
The other thing about our fans is that you couldn’t palm them off with a shit line-up. Despite that we put a lot of time and effort into the line-ups, some people are still like, “What? I’m not going to that!” For instance, Animal Collective are curating in May. It seems to have upset a lot of people. They were saying “Why are you only doing one weekend? And then you’re only doing Animal Collective? I’m not going. Fuck that.” I just thought, well, come at Christmas?

To be honest Barry, you’ve made a rod for your own back in doing a festival for people who are notoriously hard to please.
I know! There’re so many haters out there [on the internet]. They’re the kind of people who if they had a gold bar they’d complain it was too heavy. Nothing will ever be right for them. We once had a group of people write to us complaining that the bus they got down from Scotland to the site – a bus that they’d booked independently that was nothing to do with us at all – had its heater on all night and when they got to Butlins they were too hot.

If you’re trying to get a band you love to reform for ATP, is it really awkward to approach them?
Well, we don’t just ring them up and say, “Hey do you want to play? Here’s a load of money.” We explain about the festival first. I remember the first time I went to meet Slint. I went to Louisville and we got to the room with four of them there. Todd – the original bass-player who didn’t end up playing the shows was there too. We were in the room together and they turned to me and said, “This is the first time that all four of us have been in the same room together for 13 years.” I was like, wow. I asked to go to the toilet. I didn’t need to go, but I was in there chanting to myself going “YESSS!!! THIS IS AMAZING!” – it was a proper Wayne’s World moment! Then I had to compose myself and come out and talk business. It was like Christmas had come to me – that feeling you get when you’re a kid and you get excited about things. That’s what a lot of this is, it’s like Fantasy Football but with bands. Sometimes we shoot for the sky and we’re successful, other times we get told to go fuck ourselves. But I guess if you don’t ask, you don’t get.