The Daily Swarm

Barry Hogan, the British festival producer, programmer, and promoter who started the All Tomorrow’s Parties weekender series ten years ago this year, brings his fiercely independent series to New York for the second time this weekend. Last year, he helped coax My Bloody Valentine out of a 17-year hiatus, co-curating a mind-bending weekend of music with the reclusive Kevin Shields. This year he enlisted the Flaming Lips to help plot out the lineup. But the greatest coup in his North American editions thus far is be the venue itself: Kutcher’s, a dilapidated Catskills resort with a lake and a ballroom that, kitschy murals aside, may be one of the finest rooms for rock music in the entire USA.

The Daily Swarm talked to Hogan on afternoon last week has he was driving back to new York City from the final pre-event site visit before the second New York event begins tonight.

TDS: The first time you walked into Kutcher’s Ballroom – as a promotor and a fan – what went through your mind?

Barry Hogan: (laughs) When I walked in I just thought, “oh my god, this is just like one of those cheesy nightclubs you see in movies and then and I was like, this is going to be fantastic.” The place we did in England is in a holiday vacation town and its got old bingo halls and stuff that we use. The big thing you hear in Kutsher’s…the things you have on the wall, like the murals, the stars and the moon and stuff like that and just the way the stage is set in the middle of the room, its very kind of cabaret style and you can imagine kind of Rat Pack bands playing there and I just thought, imagine seeing My Bloody Valentine in this room with their sonic force…it was definitely a sight to behold. I think I laughed out loud when I saw it, I was like “this is gonna be great.” The funny thing is, now you talk to bands who’ve actually played there, they all think its one of the best rooms to play in.

The sound was really rich, it was a room actually made for music.

Exactly. We used a company that has done sound for the Superbowl and stuff like that and we just wanted to make it so the sound is incredible wherever you stood in the room. We’re trying to make it all about the music and the sound system is so important, we want it to be an overall experience and opposed to how some people just like to cut corners and stuff. That’s what we’re all about.

My Bloody Valentine at ATP NY, Sept. 2008

In the U.K. there is a long tradition of “weekenders” – Northern Soul weekenders or even going back to the mods vs. rockers scenes in “Quadrophenia.” Was that part of how you envisioned doing ATP when you started 10 years ago?

There weren’t many festivals around in the late 90s apart from Glastonbury, Reading, and the V Festival – big corporate festivals that have 50 or 60 thousand people. There was no alternative version of any of those festivals and the idea of starting ATP was trying to do it more intimate with an amazing lineup. But it was also when we were looking in magazines at pictures of Lollapalooza—when they started up and they had exciting lineups and it was all about the music then—before it became the big, bloated Wal-Mart that it is now. We thought that if it could work as a weekender maybe we could tour it across the world and do it in other spots. It never materialized like that, but we have been fortunate enough now after 10 years to have done it in Los Angeles and New York is a regular fixture and most recently in Australia as well. Going away for a weekend is a tradition in Britain, and we found doing it in America, people do go away for the weekend but not necessarily to a rock festival, so it’s been slow educating people.

Was co-curating with artists part of the plan for ATP from the very beginning?

No. The very first editions and even some of the current ones we do in the UK we curate with the whole thing. Sometimes we’ve had some people curate just one day and then we’ve had like 3 curators just one weekend.

When the bands are curating or co-curating with you, do they submit a list of artists they would like to see or does it go further? Do they make calls on your behalf to convince some of the artists to come? Do they help schedule the day?

It depends on the curator. For example, My Bloody Valentine gave me a wish list and then Kevin Shields is a very sociable chap – he always goes out and he’ll bump into people and it might be someone he admires and he’ll be texting me, like “Barry, we’re gonna add these people to the list.” The Flaming Lips were pretty cool because they were comfortable straightaway and they actually got in touch with bands themselves and they gave me a list and said “we approached these people and we’d like them to play.” It’s nice if you’re one of those bands and you get invited by someone like the Lips.

The Lips will send me a list and I’ll kinda crunch the numbers and do all the nuts and bolts. Its good, they’ve had a good time with it, they’ve taken to it, and one of the things they asked of the bands on their day is to kind of perform a different show. Like for example the Boredoms are gonna do their BOADRUM 9 drummer show, Boris is gonna perform “Feedbacker” and No Age is gonna perform Hüsker Dü and has called Bob Mould to guest with them which is pretty fantastic. They also asked Caribou to come and play – they are taking a year off and they are getting together and they are going to do a “Vibration Ensemble” where they do re-workings of old tracks with some new stuff.

Looking back at all of the past ATP lineups, it feels like you used to mix of styles more – especially with electronic music. But the lineups feel like they’ve become more straight-ahead rock in the past few years.

ATP is not noted for being an electronic festival. We’ve had electronic acts on and to be honest, the electronic music of the past few years has not been very exciting. We wouldn’t rule it out, we’d love to have some of those acts on. it’s a question of whether they are available but also it’s up to the curators what they want to pick and what they’re listening to at that time. But that’s not to say we wouldn’t have something for next year.

You are very adamant about there being no corporate sponsorship at ATP. Why is that so important for you?

It’s just about them changing what the event is about, it starts becoming about money. And then you get thick heads in Evian tracksuits walking around like “Hey you must put this band on or that band on, and the walls are not right, and this temperature” and that shit and it doesn’t become about the music. That’s one thing about ATP: we have good sound, we have good lineups, and it’s not about what’s trendy and what’s not. Corporate sponsorship gets in the way. You get some company, someone massive, like Geico or Budweiser and they’ll probably say, “we’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars but you must have music that reflects what our client base is about.” That sort of thing. That sort of shit does come up, because I’ve seen contracts where people have had to compromise, where certain things couldn’t be put on. I think I’d rather give up than have some bloated corporation tell us what we can and can’t do with the music. That’s the good thing with the curator, they’re making a mix tape and they’re not having some douchebag at some corporation saying “Hey you must work with these bands only.” That kinda thing does happen and that’s what we want to avoid and we’ve resisted it for 10 years. If some people don’t like it maybe ATP isn’t for them. We’re trying to keep it going and be true to the concept for what we started to do.

I don’t think anybody is demanding to have corporate sponsorship there. But it’s almost expected at this point…

It might be expected, but we survived without it and we’re not willing to compromise. People offer us money all the time. But I just want people to come and enjoy the festival and they can get the free program/brochure that we’ve made ourselves and we give away a souvenir, and they come to see the bands, and they don’t have the whole place tarnished in horrible logos and they can just walk away from it thinking “that was a great music experience” instead of being bombarded with things that cheapen the event, to be honest. Look at all those events that started out that you liked years ago and they’ve all fallen by the wayside by being affected by sponsorship. It changes all of them and anyone who says that’s not the case, that’s not true. I’ve seen it happen to so many different festivals, to promoters and venues, and it seems to be sponsorship trying to take over everywhere and I’m just thinking that if we can resist the Ticketmasters and the Live Nation and the sponsorship in this world then that’s a better place. We’re just offering an alternative.

On one hand, you look at the New York ATP lineup and look at the number of bands and look at the ticket price and could say its a really good deal. On the other hand, when you add in the hotel and the gas and food, it starts getting up to a place where it is almost exclusionary. It’s not a free festival or a 30 dollar ticket. On the one hand it is boutique and for a smaller number of people, but do you think its gotten away from the spirit of where a lot of the bands started? How do you balance out making that something that doesn’t exclude people?

I know exactly what you’re asking. The thing is even with doing kind of a bare-boned concert and stuff it’s pretty expensive to put on.

I don’t think there’s any suggestion that it is unfairly priced. It’s just more of a matter, you know, by choosing to do it outside of cities, that it requires travel, overnight stays, that in some ways, it becomes a bit of a club.

No, I understand that. The thing is you’ve got to accommodate that issue with offering day tickets. For example, if you wanted to see Sufjan Stevens or Panda Bear, you could in theory, if you lived in Brooklyn or Manhattan or surrounding states, you could drive over, see the show, and then leave, and drive and go home. I do appreciate it’s not the cheapest thing and we’re not trying to exclude anyone—I wish it could be cheaper as well…the only way to do that is to make it go to a bigger venue where we can have a bigger capacity and then we can bring the ticket price down. But as yet we haven’t found a spot. I know you could compare it to things like seeing The Jesus Lizard at Pitchfork—you could see them at ATP, and the difference there. But the thing is they’ve got nearly 20,000 people and I’ve only got 2,800. That is something that plays in the back of our minds and we won’t just sit there and go “hey fuck ‘em, just take it or don’t come.” It’s a case of we’re always looking for ways get more for your money for the audience. At the end of the day, they’re the people that keep the event alive and if we forget that, then it’s time to give up.

At the festivals in England have you always done things like the Steve Albini poker room and the cinema, and doing things in addition to the music?

Right, well funny enough, the poker room that’s actually an exclusive thing to the New York edition and we have had cinemas yes—not at the earliest one because the venue didn’t have a cinema, we kind of made a makeshift one. But the new venue that we do it in Minehead where we’ve been for three years, they’ve actually got a proper cinema there so that’s part of it. But there’s different things in the UK, you get like every chalet has a television and there’s one channel that’s programmed by the curator for 72 hours and then there’s another channel that’s curated by ATP for 72 hours. It can be anything from TV programs—I remember when Mogwai did it they showed a documentary about some kids that have Tourette’s Syndrome, which probably sounds cruel, but it was actually kind of funny. There was a football match where England got beat by Scotland like 2–1 and it was a big thing because Scotland’s not the greatest at football – so they kind of showed it on repeat. As well as great films, from “The Year That Punk Broke” to “Apocalypse Now.” It’s a really good thing because you know when the music gets too much for you, you can go back to your chalet or apartment and just watch TV and hang out. I wish we kind of had that at Kutsher’s but we don’t.

But at Kutsher’s you have a lake…

There’s a beach actually at the one in the UK, so each one kind of has its own merits. The ski resort that we do in Australia has got a view to die for. So I think each event has got its nucleus of the event and the music, but it has it’s own little additions that are kind of unique to that particular region, which is good. I like the thing just having Albini’s poker room there, and the comedy stage at Kutsher’s which is good. It kind of keeps it unique as well in a way.

ATP Minehead, May 2009

What about your experience in Los Angeles? If I remember correctly it wasn’t even at a place where you would stay overnight, right?

Well you could if, where we originally did it, we did it at UCLA and yes you’re right, we didn’t have accommodation factored into that. And it was kind of good but the venues didn’t really gel together enough. But the music was great and Sonic Youth did a killer job. But I think we all struggled with the venues. Then we moved it the following year, and we did it at the Queen Mary ship in Long Beach. There was one stage in the hull. The ship is kind of stationary in the water like a museum, and we did one stage inside the ship in the hull of the ship and there was another stage outside in the marina. It’s a pretty cool ship—got dolphins bouncing about in the water and like palm trees and stuff. It was a pretty nice setting, and there was a hotel within the ship. Some of the bands stayed there and some didn’t.

Funny enough, that hotel is haunted. I saw things moving in my room and I saw a person in my room that wasn’t there and so did Isaac from Modest Mouse—he’s adamant he’ll never go back there because he got freaked out. They do ghost tours as well. It was good but, you know what, it was kind of like, you know when you’re always looking for something better? It just never felt right. I didn’t really enjoy it when we did it [in LA] because I think too many people were trying to say that it was like a mini-Coachella and we did it with Goldenvoice. As good as their intentions were, they kind of, they have a more commercial mindset than we have. I felt like if we could try and find somewhere similar to the UK one then we’ll do that, develop it. I think as time goes on when it starts to sort of sell on its own accord, I think you’ll see the lineups become more experimental. There probably will be more electronic stuff and there will probably be more rap and that sort of thing. It’s a case of we’re-treading-carefully because, you know, the market’s tough out there. There’s a lot of festivals falling on their ass and promoters struggling.

Is your plan to continue to find new places, to find new cities, to find new countries to do ATP festivals?

Well it’s funny you should say that, you know, it was actually Steve Albini who said to me a few days ago – because he’s always been really supportive of ATP – we call Shellac the house band because they’ve played so many times. We’re happy for them to play every single event. We love them as people and musicians and everything. But Steve is always like, he was talking to me about Bob Weston, “Hey why don’t you try to do it on a cruise and we can get all these bands that they’ve worked with and are friends with, and we can seek them out and we can go across the Mediterranean or somewhere, or even do it in America.” And I’ve been intrigued to do it, I think it would be great. It’s just a question of, is it cost effective? Does our audience want to pay up to a thousand bucks to go on a cruise with Steve Albini? I don’t know? It sounds great to me but it’s not the sort of thing that’s a cheap option. But if you can make something like that work that would be amazing. And asking us if we would want to do it in other locations, yeah, of course. It would be really great if we could find another spot say on the West Coast or even in the Midwest.

Are you excited about the direction music is heading in? Do you feel like you’re always gonna have new bands to book?

There’s quite a lot of new bands out there that I like, bands that we work with. This year we’ve seen some good records by the likes of people like Grizzly Bear and Deerhunter and stuff like that. There’s always a lot of good stuff out there – and there’s also like bands on our label like Fuck Buttons- they’ve got a new record that we’re releasing in October which I have to say, not just because we’re putting it out, I’m pretty cynical – it’s amazing. And you being a fan of electronica, I think it will be right up your street. Yeah, there’s a lot of exciting stuff out there. I think a lot of the stuff that’s really good though is kind of pretty underground and I think you just have to go out there and shuffle around and you’ll find stuff. But is music going in a good direction? I don’t know…I’m finding a lot of good, new stuff that I’m enjoying but I also listen to a lot of older stuff too.

In some ways I feel if you look over the last ten years of ATP lineups, you can really tell what Barry Hogan considers to be the canon of rock music from the 80s and 90s. And isn’t that the point? You know, you get to see all of your favorite bands?

The thing with ATP is, it’s like making a film and the curator is sort of like the star of the film and we’re helping them direct it and we’re just trying to guide them along and say this is what we think should work. Obviously if someone puts down something tragic like Coldplay or something like that, then we’re gonna try to steer them on the better course. But you do get kind of the odd weird thing that gets put on the curator’s list but you also get for that one weird thing 99 magical things. So when I look back through the lineups, it’s like, “Wow, we’ve worked with some really great things.” And the tenth anniversary is coming up starting from December into next year, and one of the things, we’re approaching all the curators who have curated for ATP to perform—and I can’t, because we get so immersed and so busy with it, I didn’t realize how many great acts we’ve worked with from the likes of Nick Cave, Portishead, and I just think we’ve been really fortunate. I hope it can continue for another ten years and if so, make sure the next ten years (if we actually go that long) is as musically rich as it has been for the last ten years.