• Jabberwocky Festival cancelled

    All Tomorrow’s Parties have announced that Jabberwocky festival, set to take place this weekend, has been cancelled. Neutral Milk Hotel (above) James Blake, Darkside, Caribou and more were set to perform at the two-day London event. In a post on their Facebook page, ATP founder Barry Hogan wrote “It is with deep sadness we regret to inform everyone that as of today Tuesday 12th August 2014, ATP is being forced into cancelling this weekend’s Jabberwocky festival. Refunds will be available to all customers at the point of purchase. We have put everything into promoting Jabberwocky, and despite healthy ticket sales;…

  • All Tomorrow’s Parties: End of an Era Part 2

    All Tomorrow’s Parties is a festival that’s had a place close to my heart across the past four years of my life, since my first foray, lured by a reformation gig by underground heroes Sleep. So perhaps I should have had a sense of sorrow looming over me as I sat on a minibus toiling along a motorway in the south of England, for I was on my way to the final ATP festival, at least in its classic form in an English holiday camp. Truth be told, the mixture of familiarity (not limited to buying three times as much…

  • The End of an Era? How a Generation Got Beat Pt. 2

    Over the years, ATP has become a watchword for a certain kind of classicism, an “accepted history” of what ‘good’ music is over the last 30 years. In this version of events, punk is good, rock is largely bad, unless it doesn’t take itself seriously, although “new” metal is ok. Electronica is generally given a by ball. Bands like Mission of Burma, Yo La Tengo (below), and The Flaming Lips are regarded as in the same way Mojo readers regard The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton, and many of the younger people there are aware they’re seeing something…

  • The End of an Era? How a Generation Got Beat Pt. 1

    I looked down at my wrist. I held the scissors in my other hand, almost trembling with excitement. Or was it fear? I couldn’t say. Closing my eyes, I felt the pressure in my fingers, and heard the gentle sound of metal slicing through ribbon. After three years of wearing my ATP 2011 wristband, I removed it, like a surgeon operating on a tumour. I still hadn’t slept properly since The End of an Era Part 1, the first half of the festival’s great farewell, but the magic had been broken. If this was the end, then it was a…