I can’t hear anything this morning. My ears are bleeding thanks to Scotland’s premier psychedelic post rock band who didn’t just play very loudly last night at the HMV Picture House but played through speakers that were actually 747 aircraft engines. Well, it seemed that way to me.
I had to retreat to the relative quiet of Lothian Road a couple of times. Now there’s something - how often does ‘quiet’ and ‘Lothian Road’ appear in the same sentence or thought process.
It was the worst kept secret in Scotland this year that the secret band that was playing the secret gig at the hippest event of the film festival (last night June 24th) was Mogwai. All you heard all week from anyone you bumped into was ‘yeah it’ll be great…oh and by the way the secret band is Mogwai but I didn’t tell you that.’ Even Mogwai told me. ‘We’re not playing the secret gig wink wink’. The comedy presenter who introduced them (a deliberately crap poet with a dolls house on stage) hinted that ‘they are a bit like The Shadows’, which is like saying that Nat King Cole is a bit like Diana Ross.
Yes, I admit Mogwai don’t sing much but that doesn’t make them The Shadows. I thought perhaps the Mogwai rumour was a curve ball so that we’d be caught off guard when in fact it turned out to be Belle and Sebastian or Aberfeldy or Girls Aloud doing Sex Pistols covers with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Williams. That would have been a genuine surprise and probably quite enjoyable.
I hope guest director Joe Dante, who was also in town last night having dinner with the slightly more legendary Roger Corman, took a moment to pop his head in as the band’s name comes from his…um very influential…. ..er…’landmark’ film….um…Gremlins (bright light! bright light!).
Gremlins to me is the birth of what is essentially horror films for kids and disguising them as a cute comedy for all the family when in fact they are actually quite scary. Remember shoving one of them in the microwave until it explodes? Joe Dante’s basically an evil Spielberg. I loved Gremlins when I saw it but I still saw funny shapes moving at the end of my bed by moonlight for weeks to come. Bastard.
All Tomorrow’s Parties or ‘ATP’ as everyone hipper than Jarvis Cocker refers to them are the curators of quirky concept small scale music festivals where the underground, the hip, the terribly cool, the up-and-coming, the influential and the occasional rock gods come together every so often for a big, ephemeral, love-in jam session where they ‘curate’ each other’s gigs.
The first one was The Bowlie Weekender at Camber Sands holiday camp in ‘99 and much of that event features in the film which last night’s party at the beautiful HMV Picture House celebrated the launch of. Since the Camber Sands event, ATP has expanded to become a bit of a brand and a phenomenon albeit an anti commercial one (that wont last long eh?). And now it’s the title of this film, which is of course, of itself.
The film is made entirely of found footage taken by musicians and festival participants from principally two ATP events. It’s almost an hour and half whittled down from hundreds of hours of super 8, mini DV and other suitably grungy formats, even mobile phone footage.
Co-directed by Jonathon Caouette who made the astonishing Tarnation - a startling, narcissistic, volatile and angry examination of his own traumatic childhood (by cobbling together his own home movies) was the right choice for this kind of an experience along with co-director and producer Luke Morris.
Credit is also due to editor Nick Fenton and sound man Dan Johnson who have made this not just bearable but often damn exciting as there were a few moments that got the hair on the back of my neck standing up.
There’s a terrific shot of a beach fire filmed in nightvision mode off a camcorder. The footage strobes and staccatoes as we get closer to it as the noise revs up of the next band we’re about to jump cut to. It was these little touches that made this not just a collection of band footage, but a more rounded experience. It’s punchy and kinetic from start to finish and considering I had to stand during the whole event, it kept my attention for this reason.
Off the top of my head the artists include Battles, Daniel Johnston, Patti Smith, Nick Cave, Gossip, Iggy Pop, Sonic Youth, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Belle and Sebastian to name a few. In fact it’s the latter’s haunting version of the The Boy with the Arab Strap that really sticks in my mind.
It’s a giant collage of footage taken by and of the bands in action, or the bands jamming alone in a cramped hotel chalet room, or drumming on the pavement in the rain, people accidentally falling off balconies, falling out of trolleys, pissing off the security guard in an arcade and so on.
And equally it is shot by, and of, the screaming fans. The quality of sound and image is variable but that’s to be expected from the source material and part of the aesthetic. In fact this really is a new aesthetic when anyone can cobble a scrapbook together. However – it takes a bit of real talent and oomph to make it worth watching and here they’ve succeeded admirably
In fact, this style of film making, a sort of ‘scramble aesthetic’ is perhaps becoming, just to be a little pretentious here the new nouvelle vague where anyone and everyone can participate in the process. C’mon lets call it the Scramble Wave from now on. I need to invent something once in my life:
‘Do you know Dylan?’
‘Yeah he’s the guy that invented the phrase ‘Scramble Wave.’
‘Cool, what else has he done?’
‘Nothing. He got buried like Mozart at the end of Amadeus. Tossed in a wet paupers grave and covered in lime. Yeah, the other stuff didn’t work out.’
‘Shame, still, he did invent the phrase Scramble Wave and that’s something?’
‘Yeah I guess……hey c’mon, lets get a Pina Colada and watch the Gremlins extras on DVD’.
Quite quite. Hold that thought - I’ll review the party in a separate blog coming shortly.
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