The Further Adventures of Mission of Burma.
Day 1+2: Sat. + Sun 1st + 2nd December – ATP

Long flight with stop-over in Dublin. Hour long delay caused by London Fog. We were all pretty gonked by the time we got to Pontins Holiday Camp/ATP in Camber, southern UK. It really is a holiday camp: just like in Tommy.

We muscled our tired bodies up enough to catch some music: Buke and Gase was my first choice, a highly interesting duo of bass ukele and guitar/bass with the gal/Uke player singing in a semi-operatic style. They both played percussion w/their feet and they sounded totally full. The bassist seemed to be influenced by Rockette Morton from Capt. Beefheart’s band. Curious as fuck.

Later I saw 3 or 4 song by Wire, who seemed to be struggling with their sound. The issue at these kind of festivals is there are no sound-checks (if there were, the first band would end up going on at midnight), so every band I’ve seen struggled for the first few songs. Both Pete and Jimmy said that by the end of the set they were full throttle, but I split downstairs to catch Melt Banana, who I’ve seen less than Wire. Not a bad problem: more bands that you really want to see than you have time for.

Melt Banana – duo this time w/pre-recorded rhythm tracks, not full band. But they still managed to project that control vs. total mania that they excel at. Anyone who thinks Japanese girl singers are just cute and coy should check them out: half the time you couldn’t tell if it was her singing or their amazing guitarist getting feedback. Exceptional band. Really.

Shannon Wright:
I preferred her when she was doing kind of a free-jazz finger-tap thing w/a drummer (Boston some years ago). This was more centrified, but in an avant-blues manner, somewhere between Capt. Beefheart and PJ Harvey. She remains a very interesting guitarist, if not quite as interesting to me personally (see my salt comment later in this blurb/blog).

Sunday:

I slept from 11pm to 11am, and in case you’re curious, 12 hours of sleep is not my norm. After I paid for 2 lattes (my fave road coffee) I was pretty much awake. Doin’ SKYPE w/my gal Debra was very good.

1:30 pm: Rachel Grimes
Solo piano in the downstairs room. I’m friendly w/her, so I figured I’d go watch her with a few friends. Lo – 500/600 indie rockers in revered silence for the entire set. It was kind of amazing. And she played a Yamaha C3 grand that was surprisingly well in tune!
But fuck, how many hours can I take in clubs in a day? So I took a walk towards Rye (a quaint nearby town) and photographed sheep. Quite pleasant really. Room to breathe and think (sic).

6:30pm: Future Of The Left
Savage rock, and when they brought in melody they were seriously transcendent. Loved the sporadic keyboard use. How often does keyboard actually fit with ass-kicking rock band? Answer No.1: not often. Answer No.2: In Future of the Left. We are totally looking forward to playing with them in Bristol tomorrow. Their albums are faves of ours. One of the more “hey, they fit w/you guys” bands we’ve played with, though we don’t sound anything alike.

Burma:
Our set had some odd moments, but for a first set of a tour, was better than expected. My amp stopped working during the breakdown part of Mica, our 3rd song. Bummer. Pete and Clint continued making noise and just when I was giving them the signal to give up, Jimmy changed the plug where the amp was engaged with electricity and suddenly the amp turned back on. Audience members close to the stage yelled “It’s on!”. I turned around, hit the Vacu-Fuzz causing feedback, Pete hit the snare, and we were back into Mica (after a VERY extended breakdown, literally, section). A few songs later (in this case, Trem II) we hit our stride, and things for some reason went quite well from then on. Variety of old, Obliterati, and UNSOUND. Yo. Kinda wiped after the set, but allinall, didn’t suck.

The Ex:
The Ex w/horn section. Heavy funk-dance groove w/post-avant-garde horn overlay (how’s that for a one-sentence review?). I preferred them more some years ago in Boston with avant-cellist Tom Cora (RIP), when the guitarists did a lot of preparations to their guitars. But you have to take my personal opinions with an avant-garde grain of salt (is that another line to forget?).
The ghost of Gang of Four hangs over some of these bands (technically, Go4 is not dead, so their ghost is still attached to their body). The politico/funk groove of the Ex had strong Go4 underpinnings, and occasionally (though considerably less obviously) Future of the Left’s angst as well.

Shellac:
They pounded their groove in hi-pulverization form. Great as always. Fun to see Bob up there. He played as a main member in two bands (hey, isn’t that double-dipping?) as well as sitting in w/others.