All Tomorrow's Parties is a music festival which takes place at Butlin's holiday camp in Minehead, Somerset, England.[1] and Camber Sands holiday camp in East Sussex[2]
Named after the song "All Tomorrow's Parties" by The Velvet Underground, it was founded by Barry Hogan in 1999 as an alternative to larger, more corporate festivals like Reading or Glastonbury, with a tendency towards post-rock, avant-garde, and underground hip hop, along with more traditional rock fare, but presented in an environment more intimate than a giant stadium or huge country field. All Tomorrow's Parties is a sponsorship-free festival where the organisers and artists stay in the same accommodation as the fans.[3]
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The festival has its origins in the Bowlie Weekender, curated by Belle & Sebastian at Camber Sands in April 1999. Artists, usually musicians (but sometimes visual artists like Matt Groening, whose line-up featured in the Observer's list of the ten best festivals of the year,[4] or Jake and Dinos Chapman) are asked to curate the festival by inviting their favourite performers to play. The idea is that it is akin to dipping into the curator's record collection, or as founder Barry Hogan described it, "ATP is like an excellent mix tape".[5]
In 2002, the festival expanded to the USA, and several events have taken place there in subsequent years. In recent years the All Tomorrow's Parties organisation has also been involved in booking stages at the Pitchfork Music Festival[6] and the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain. In 2008, All Tomorrow's Parties ran their first East Coast USA festival, which took place at Kutsher's Hotel and Country Club, Monticello, New York and was a huge success – this event occurred again in 2009 and 2010.[7] In January 2009, the festival took place for the first time in Australia, with events in Brisbane, Sydney and Mount Buller (in Victoria) all curated by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.[8]
The small organisation that puts on these festivals also promote concerts in London and the rest of the United Kingdom, curate the yearly Don't Look Back concert series and run the record label ATP Recordings.
In 2009, Warp Films released a long-awaited feature length documentary about the festival named All Tomorrow's Parties. It premiered at the SXSW Film Festival, and then premiered in the UK at Edinburgh in June. In October 2009 the film was screened at a number of 'one night only' UK theatrical screenings also featuring live music from Les Savy Fav, who feature in the film and have long been mainstays of All Tomorrow's Parties line-ups.[9]
In 2010, ATP announced I'll Be Your Mirror, a series of events taking place in cities around the world. I'll Be Your Mirror is named as such as it is a sister event to ATP, still involving a curator choosing all the music and films that play at the event, but without the holiday resort accommodation. "I'll Be Your Mirror" is the B-side to the original 1966 "All Tomorrow's Parties" single by the Velvet Underground. ATP announced the first event to take place in Tokyo, Japan in February 2011. A UK IBYM weekend has been confirmed for 23rd/24th July with Portishead installed as headline act and curators. [10] Portishead also co-curated and headlined ATP's first U.S. I'll Be Your Mirror in September 2011 in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Forthcoming UK All Tomorrow's Parties Festivals9-11 March 2012 (rescheduled, originally set for December 2011). This event will be held at Butlin's holiday camp in Minehead, Somerset. The rescheduled line-up features:
Jeff Mangum (from Neutral Milk Hotel), The Olivia Tremor Control, Young Marble Giants, The Magic Band, The Raincoats performing (debut LP) The Raincoats, A Hawk And A Hacksaw performing a new and original soundtrack to 'Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors', The Apples in Stereo, Mike Watt & George Hurley Perform The Songs Of The Minutemen, Robyn Hitchcock Performs I Often Dream Of Trains, Scratch Acid, Yann Tiersen, Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise, Half Japanese, Low, Boredoms, The Fall, Lost In The Trees, Joanna Newsom, Thurston Moore, Sebadoh, Tall Firs, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The Magnetic Fields, Versus, Group Doueh, The Music Tapes, Mount Eerie, Roscoe Mitchell, Earth, ACME (American Contemporary Music Ensemble) performing Gavin Bryars' Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, Rafael Toral, Matana Roberts, Yamantaka//Sonic Titan, Demdike Stare, Blanck Mass, Sun Ra Arkestra, Oneohtrix Point Never and Feathers with more to be confirmed.
25–27 May 2012. This event will be held at Alexandra Palace in London, England. Mogwai will curate in junction with ATP. The line-up will be:
Friday 25th: Slayer, Sleep, Melvins, Wolves in the Throne Room and Yob with more to be announced
Saturday 26th: Mogwai, Dirty Three, Codeine, Mudhoney, Chavez, Floor and Balam Acab with more to be announced
Sunday 27th: The Afghan Whigs, Archers Of Loaf, Thee Oh Sees, Demdike Stare, Siskiyou and Yuck with more to be announced
Forthcoming USA All Tomorrow's Parties Festivals21-23 September 2012. This event will be held at Asbury Park, New Jersey. The line-up will be:
21st September curated by ATP
To be confirmed.
22nd September curated by Greg Dulli
The Afghan Whigs, with more to be confirmed.
23rd September curated by ATP
To be confirmed.
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