By Mary Williams
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
If it had been up to Barry Hogan, creator and promoter of All
Tomorrow’s Parties, festival-goers at UCLA this weekend would
be invading on-campus housing for the four days they will be
attending the concert.
“I really wanted to potentially use the accommodation of
student dorms, but I was quickly informed that I had more chance of
getting blood out of a stone. We decided to not worry about
that,” Hogan said.
The reason those residence halls actually looked appealing to
Hogan ties into the festival’s history. In England the
weekend-long concert takes place at a resort, where everyone who
attends gets accommodations in a chalet as well as a wristband to
all the stages.
“In a lot of people’s eyes the English one is
probably the better one. I treat each one individually. I see them
as just two projects,” Hogan said.
The fact that the UCLA version of the festival is less of a
“party,” since those who attend have to leave every
night, does change the nature of the concert. UCLA Performing Arts
Director David Sefton said he doesn’t think that the change
is a cause for concern.
“The chalet thing, it’s a good idea. It’s
definitely preferable to tents and mud. It’s a lot more
civilized,” Sefton said. “Because (at UCLA) it’s
all day every day, and there are going to be people hanging out for
a very long time in the same place, I’m not sure whether
it’s a loss but it’s unquestionably a
difference.”
Sefton is the reason the festival has migrated across the
Atlantic to make its first appearance in the United States. He
worked with Hogan several times as a concert promoter in England
before coming to UCLA 18 months ago to take over the Performing
Arts program.
“Without him it wouldn’t be here and it
wouldn’t be happening,” Hogan said. “I think
he’s a godsend for L.A.”
The festival, which features rock, hip-hop, electronic, jazz and
spoken word performances, may not seem to fit in Royce Hall, one of
the concert’s three stages. Royce is, after all, often
associated with classical performances.
Sefton said that his UCLA Live program this year, though, has
incorporated many rock bands, such as Tortoise and Artist in
Residence Elvis Costello, and that this festival fits in with that
lineup. Also, Royce is only one of three stages; the other two are
Ackerman Grand Ballroom and Kerckhoff Grand Salon.
“We know it can work. Clearly people like the Boredoms are
going into Ackerman because it’s more appropriate for them to
be in a standing space, but Eddie Vedder doing a solo acoustic set,
there’s no reason that shouldn’t be in Royce Hall.
Ackerman is much more of a rock “˜n’ roll space anyway.
There’s a logic to the program,” he said.
Holding a four-day music festival on a college campus may lead
to problems that the promoters have not had to deal with at a
resort.
“UCLA has it’s own bureaucracy to deal with so they
might be a little worried and overly officious about what’s
going on with all these freaks coming out,” said Thurston
Moore, the singer for Sonic Youth, the curating band for the
festival.
While this is the first time ATP had made it to America, the
concert has been running since 2000 in England. The first was
curated by Mogwai, and the second, in 2001, by Tortoise. According
to Sefton, it is based on Meltdown, a festival he started in 1994,
which also incorporated a curating band.
There is also an ATP scheduled for April in England, and another
in the works at UCLA for the summer of 2003. Details about that
concert have not yet been released.
“I’m not at liberty to say who the curator is
because it’s not 100 percent confirmed, but whoever they are
will surprise a lot of people,” Hogan said.
The band that curates each year, chosen by the promoter, comes
up with a wish list of groups to play the festival.
“When you ask for a wish list, you always get one
that’s way too long, and there’s dead people on there,
people they’d love to see,” Hogan said.
The list is divided up into an A list and a B list, and from
there the curators and promoter begin to determine who is available
to play.
The band’s own influences, likes and dislikes shape the
festival. The concert becomes something Hogan likened to the
curating band’s record collection onstage.
The lineup, of course, also affects who comes to the show.
“I think there’s a sort of core audience that buys
the same records as the bands we put on,” Hogan said.
“I do think this festival in particular might attract an
older audience because acts like Television are playing, and
there’s people that will probably know them from the first
time around, and will probably won’t believe that
they’re actually playing again. We’re not into
demographics of who comes because, well, we’d be
fascists.”
A goal of the band selection process for ATP is to keep the
lineups changing from one year to the next, to avoid
repetition.
“I think the idea is just to keep it fresh each time
because when it starts to become the same old thing every year, the
same bands, it’s just going to turn into something like
Coachella,” Hogan said. “Coachella’s probably a
really good festival. I’ve never been, but I’ve noticed
the same bands from certain years keep appearing on the same bill.
We try to advise these curators, “˜Look, these bands have
played in 2000 or 2001. Try not to pick them again because
we’d like to have different people.'”
There was an additional complication this year in the booking of
the acts, as the festival was originally set for October, but had
to be pushed back after Sept. 11. Getting all the bands to fit the
date change into their schedule was difficult, and some
replacements had to be found.
Even considering the problems that this particular festival has
had, with the move to America and the effects of Sept. 11, Hogan
said ATP continues to improve.
“I think it’s getting better every year. For
example, just like everything it’s a learning curve, from
working to production to working with the artists. The first year
when we did it, it was kind of indie guitar orientated, it was kind
of one-dimensional, but last year when we had Tortoise they had a
different approach to it and we had a lot of electronic, jazz, just
different artists.”
This focus on the future is something that ties into the
festival’s name, All Tomorrow’s Parties. Based on a
Velvet Underground song, Hogan said the title, when used for the
festival, applies to the future of the music played there.
“The music that we’re working in, the bands, I see
them as stuff that people will listen to in 10, 20 years’
time and look back and say, “˜That was great.’ The name
represents the music of the future,” Hogan said. “I
don’t want to sound pompous or anything, but with the
reference of tomorrow, it’s also based on down the line,
people will look back, maybe on the festival, and say that was a
great event.”