Named after a song by the Velvet Underground, All Tomorrows Parties – better known as ATP – is a festival set in a holiday camp that brings fans and artists together in a uniquely celebratory atmosphere. Now celebrating its tenth year, and with an influence that stretches across the globe, it has come a long way since Barry Hogan first started working on the project in 1999. The festival has been curated by some of the world’s most celebrated and interesting artists, including the Chapman brothers, Matt Groening and Sonic Youth. The festival attracted the attention of Warp Film’s Luke Morris, who decided to produce a documentary that captured the peculiar vibe of this determinedly individual festival. The result is All Tomorrow’s Parties, an enthralling film available now on DVD.
LWLies: What inspired you to make a film about All Tomorrow’s Parties?
Morris: It’s something that deserves to be captured and preserved. We wanted to make a sort of cultural time capsule capturing those things that set ATP aside from other music festivals: Nick Cave playing crazy golf, Iggy playing in a bingo hall or Grizzly Bear playing on the beach. They’re just cool moments.
LWLies: What makes ATP unique compared to other mainstream festivals?
Morris: It’s about the fans and bands intermingling and hearing incredible music in an unusual setting. The first ATP I went to as a fan was the Vincent Gallo curation in 1995; I remember driving down with some friends and pulling into the gates at Pontin’s, Camber Sands, and one of the first things I saw was Vincent Gallo kicking a football about with some people in the middle of the chalets, then a door opened and Yoko Ono stuck her head out. It was a great introduction to what the festival was all about. There’s this level playing field that exists between the fans and the artists.
LWLies: Somebody once said the impression they got of ATP was if you imagine what it’s like to go to summer camp with Nick Cave and Daniel Johnstone. Does the film capture that?
Morris: I hope it does… I hope it captures that intimacy and I hope it reflects the things that are unique about and to the festival. There’s a scene in the film with Lightning Bolt playing in the grounds with the fans crowded around, leaning on the drum kit talking to the band and another scene with Daniel Johnston playing on the grass outside his chalet, or John Cooper Clarke doing a gig inside a chalet. Those things were important to put in there because they represent the fact that there is no VIP area at ATP.
LWLies: No ATP is the same as the last, how hard was it to capture the essence of the festival?
Morris: Every curation and line up is different and has a different appeal. It’s difficult to represent a festival which is about the sum of its parts… it would have been a lot easier to make a film about one ATP weekend, but by using all the fan curated and contributed footage which essentially came from 20 different festivals we could do nothing more than represent the spirit of the festival which is what we wanted to do.
LWLies: The film features performances from both big name artists and less well-known acts. How important was it to strike this balance?
Morris: That’s actually something we really wanted to represent in the film, the balance between the bigger acts and the smaller, newer bands that people don’t know. It was one of the guiding principles for what music went into the film, because obviously there was a huge choice. The people that go to ATP are really open-minded and they trust the people putting the bill together, whether that’s the curators, ATP or the fans themselves., There’s always a balance in the bill between the big influential bands, be it Sonic Youth, The Stooges or Portishead and all these bands that no one’s really heard of. So much of the point of the festival is about discovery and discovering new music, it’s not about fads or who’s hot in the music press, it’s about checking out what somebody’s recommended live on stage.
LWLies: Were the bands cautious about getting involved in the film?
Morris: If you go to Reading, Bestival or Glastonbury, a lot of the bands are really up for promoting themselves. Their managers and labels are telling them to do lots of interviews but most of the bands that play ATP don’t really care about that kind of thing, they just care about playing. A lot of the bands on the ATP bill barely play, like Boards of Canada or Sleep, and some reform just to play the show. After we’d explained that we weren’t making a cheesy rockumentary or promotional film they agreed. Perhaps out of respect for ATP or maybe because they thought the approach was the right one.
LWLies: Will the film appeal to people who have never been to or heard of ATP?
Morris: The thing that makes the film connect is the same thing that’s at the heart of the festival: the music. My dad loves his music, but when he came to the see the film in Dublin I wasn’t sure whether he’d go for it. But he loved it and I think the reason he did was because he enjoys discovering new music and I think he was excited about being exposed to new bands which he might never have heard of otherwise. ATP is kind of exclusive and inclusive at the same time… and probably as a result the film is a bit as well. The film works best for people who bring something to it in terms of knowledge about music and about the festival landscape. It’s very clear if you’ve been to Reading and Glastonbury why ATP is so different, if you haven’t been to any festivals it might be more difficult to tell.
LWLies: How did Jonathan Caouette come to co-direct the film?
Morris: The soundtrack to Tarnation had a lot of ATP style bands on it, like Low, which was a great fit for us and although Jonathan had never been to the festival, he was really excited to get involved with the film because he was such a big fan of many of the bands that had played and curated.
LWLies: All Tomorrow’s People get a co-directing credit too. How did you source all the fan contributions to the film?
Morris: We did a few things. We put out regular calls before the festival asking people to shoot certain stuff. For example we’d say we wanted to shoot The Stooges and we’d pick a couple of tracks and ask the whole crowd to shoot it at the same time. So we had like 30 or 40 angles on the Stooges show. We also managed to build up a team of people who would almost always be at ATP and would almost always be willing to shoot. Sometimes we would get sent footage but we wouldn’t have quite enough so we’d have to go on YouTube or MySpace and find the angles then if we found them we’d ask the person if we could use their footage or if they had any more.
LWLies: Were you pleased with the quality of the varying formats of fan footage?
Morris: One disappointing, frustrating thing was how little of it was off stage material. People just love shooting bands… Personally I think it’s far more interesting to turn around and shoot the crowd; I think people are more interesting in a sense. Although we did get some good stuff and there were some real discoveries. After the Thurston Moore ATP in Dec 2006, this guy responded to one of our calls and he sent this amazing footage in which he’d cut into a short film.That guy turned out to be Mathieu Saura. He’s a professional but what makes his footage amazing is that ultimately he is a fan and he gets this footage that if you hired a pro camera guy you just wouldn’t get it. He’s in there, he’s living it and he’s managed to capture it in a way that would be hard to do otherwise. He comes to enjoy himself and see bands but he shoots the entire time, he doesn’t sleep and he gets those key moments at five in the morning.
LWLies: How important was the relationship between Warp and ATP in bringing about the film?
Morris: It was pretty important in getting it going. Warp and ATP have a lot in common; they’re both artist driven and are about respecting the audience. The sensibilities of ATP and Warp have a lot in common. Barry Hogan who runs ATP and Steve Beckett who runs Warp Records have worked together a lot in the past. Barry promoted a lot of Warp gigs in the early days as far as I know, they knew each other and I think at the time Warp films was beginning to mushroom we spoke to Barry about the idea. Because there was a familiarity and recognition of the common ground between the two labels, there was a trust in place already which probably made it easier to get off the ground.
LWLies: What does the future hold for ATP?
Morris: Who knows? It may be around for another 10 years or it may be around for another year. I’m not sure. We’re looking to make more short films at individual festivals. We’re just putting the finishing touches to a short we commissioned Matthew to make at the My Bloody Valentine curated ATP at Kutsher’s, New York. So the project continues.
