arthur magazine festival

http://importantrecords.com/jacobs/

But as for SJ vs. this, let's not fite. Let's all go to both weekends. So many pretty hipsters and empanadas and aguas frescas and moon bounces.

I am so psyched to see Comets on Fire live.

Sunset Junction hasn't announced who's playing yet, right?

They haven't announced any of the "indie" acts yet, which is part of what prompted my curiosity here. There are a few of the other acts listed at the moment.

Looks fun! I'd go if I hadn't seen about 80% of the bands I like on the lineup already.

scott, explain, I went there.

I must consider this fest more and more. Hmm.

Oh I heard about that! Unfortunately, I was out of town that weekend.

* BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT
* BRAD LANER (ELECTRIC COMPANY, MEDICINE)
* MODEY LEMON

to the lineup, with a bunch more to come.

Two-day passes are now on sale; info at arthurmag.com

DAY ONE: SUNDAY, SEPT. 4
Sonic Youth
Sleater-Kinney
The Black Keys
T-Model Ford
Sunburned Hand of the Man
Wolfmother
Six Organs of Admittance
Growing
Magik Markers
Josephine Foster
Radar Bros.
Earth
Brightblack Morning Light
Lavender Diamond
Fatso Jetson
Viking Moses
Winter Flowers
Residual Echoes

DAY TWO: MONDAY, SEPT. 5
JUST ADDED: Yoko Ono
JUST ADDED: Spoon
Cat Power
The Juan Maclean
Comets On Fire
Olivia Tremor Control
Dead Meadow
Merzbow
Sunn 0)))
Vetiver
Marissa Nadler
Jack Rose
Brad Laner (Electric Company, Medicine)
Future Pigeon
Nora Keyes (Centimeters)
Modey Lemon
Geronimo
with ADDITIONAL SURPRISE GUESTS to be announced

ArthurFest will also feature rare film screenings (more info on this in two weeks), a special appearance by the legendary Henry Jacobs (co-creator of the Vortex dome happenings in the '50s/'60s), food stands from neighborhood eateries, a Karl Rove Appreciation Tent, a special workshop led by the New Energy collective, an information booth featuring 82-year old bluesman T-Model Ford (the star of Arthur's popular "T-Model Knows Better" advice column) and other attractions to be announced.

other highlights for me were dos, circle, merzbow, earth, and brad laner.

A pisser -- sounds like Growing's problems affected them too. Or maybe both bands were just too loud!

'twas nice to see ya ned, nice savage republic tee : )

And also would have been nice to have a piano there for Steve.

I feel awkward speaking for Jay but I hope he doesn't mind my saying this for now (and please correct me if I'm wrong when you see this!) -- in talking with him about things briefly yesterday, he noted that one reason why the bands in the gallery theatre were there was becase so many were going to be using heavy constant bass tones and drones and etc., which would have caused some problems about noise complaints or worse had they been in the Pine stage location instead. I had overheard someone wondering on the first day why the Pine stage folks weren't in the theatre -- controlled environment and better for the 'quieter' bands -- but perhaps this was the best that could be managed, per Jay's description.

Perhaps that slightly lower location near where the staircases for general entry ended would be better for Pine-stage style bands, being further away and more isolated for sound? Monday morning quarterbacking, I realize, but the Park's such a nice location that if it happens again I'd love to see a repeat of the setting. The flipside is that makes the fest more spread out from the central booth/food zone. Just thinking out loud!

Some of the bands playing in the theater could have and should have been playing for much bigger audiences and at first it seemed strange to me to have a lot of the loud bands in there. On the other hand I thought the theater had the best sound of all three stages and most of the acts in there benefitted from the darkened environment, stage lighting and intimate atmosphere. If the room didn't have seats and more people could have packed in it would have been ideal.

I think all three stages could have been bigger for the crowds that were there, but quite an accomplishment anyway, Jay. How is the video shot during it going to be used?

Cat Power freak out on stage? Why that's as likely as Thurston Moore playing a guitar with a baseball cap!

No, he just took one from a photographer instead. ;-)

The way I see it, ArthurFest took on a general model from get-togethers like Terrastock and ended up making it broader than its various sources of inspiration -- much as I love the Terrastocks, for instance, there's no way the Juan Maclean would have ever been on one of the bills for them. That deserves much credit, and frankly I'd love to see what could happen in going even broader still -- but I am not one of the organizers. ;-)

I was told the next day that I had a VIP pass and could come and go as I pleased... d'oh!!

Easily the best festival I've ever been to, and would probably be the best american rock festival of the last five years if they would just get some hip-hop. (Seriously, Subtitle was probably just working at Amoeba all day)

Kudos to Jay and the Arthur gang. Seeing Sunn0))) and Yoko in an hour was totally life-affirming.

-Earth ruled since they sound like Neurosis Dude Ranch now.
-Nora Keyes spooked everyone out like Cruella DeVille.
-Young Jazz Giants were all three.
-Merzbow was hella loud and i got to imagine I was riding a train.
-My girlfriend won't talk to me anymore after making her sit through Sunn0)))

*cries with envy*

Earth ruled since they sound like Neurosis Dude Ranch now.

Hahahah, how perfectly accurate!

oh yes: i saw a couple of these bands in Austin at that excellent Arthur mag party and they blew me away. No chance to have the next Arthurfest here in Italy, eh? :(

HirakeMike2@aol.com

ArthurFest yields an eclectic and bountiful crop, with Yoko Ono particularly vibrant.

By Steve Hochman, Special to The Los Angeles Times

There are a lot of awkward names being tossed around for the various intersecting spheres of the music underground these days: post-rock, weird folk, wyrd folk, weird Americana. Well, the beautiful Barnsdall Art Park on an East Hollywood hilltop was Weird World Headquarters over the weekend.

That was the site of the inaugural ArthurFest, a two-day event featuring some of the artists most prized by fans of these evolving sub-genres, as championed by the Los Angeles-based monthly Arthur magazine.

How weird? Some people waited in line Sunday for as long as a couple of hours to watch Japanese sound manipulator Merzbow sit stone-faced at a table creating sheets of tonality-free white noise from two laptop computers.

How wyrd? Quaint singer-songwriter Josephine Foster's set took on a Renaissance Faire quality when several fans were invited on stage to dance à la a May Day fete.

How post? Sonic Youth, once the poster figures of rock's most avant-garde edges, sounded positively conservative in the context of its Sunday headlining appearance on the largest of the event's three stages.

But the ultimate validation of ArthurFest's assemblage of such contrasting and distinctively non-mainstream scenes came with the very last piece of the very last performance, when Monday's headliner, Yoko Ono, chose her encore slot to be the first time she has performed her quintessential "Don't Worry, Kyoko" since 1972.

The song, written in 1969 as a raw, anguished cry from the soul to Ono's young daughter, who had been taken into hiding by Ono's ex-husband, was Monday turned into a guttural ode to survival. The bleats and squalls for which Ono became famous/infamous were now expressions of a wide range of emotions as her band, led by her son Sean Lennon, pounded out primal art-blues.

The pure, unfiltered quality was even more profound coming just minutes after her performance of "Walking on Thin Ice," the song she and John Lennon had been recording the night he was murdered. During the song, Ono suddenly screamed, "You killed my man, you bastard!" Appearing shaken, she turned first away from the audience and then back to face it, as fans started blinking small flashlights that had been handed out, in a code that had been explained in a film before the set: one blink for "I," two for "love" and three for "you" … i-ii-iii … i-ii-iii … i-ii-iii ….

"Thank you, I feel much better," said Ono, 72, who has given music performances only rarely in recent years.

It was a perfect demonstration of the underlying nature of Ono's public persona, one that can be summed up as "Be your art." That could well serve as the motto for ArthurFest itself, one lived out thoroughly by the most striking of the 42 musical acts spread out over Sunday and Monday. It was a roster encompassing rousing blues (Mississippi octogenarian T-Model Ford), neo-hippie folk-pop (a joyous performance by Devandra Banhart), buoyantly melodic rock (Spoon), fragile confessions (Cat Power) and various approaches to noise assaults (the psychedelic freakouts of Comets on Fire, the glacial chording of Earth).

Barefoot hippies, arty bohemians and grizzled post-punkers alike (with capacity attendance of 2,000 each day) moved from the genteel folkiness of Foster of Marissa Nadler to the stun-level garage blues of Modey Lemon without blinking an eye.

Arthur founder and editor Jay Babcock sported a look of equal parts delight, disbelieving wonder and utter exhaustion as he moved from stage to stage on the grounds of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed center. There were a few glitches (perpetually long lines to get into the small theater and at the food concessions), but nothing that spoiled the overall experience.

Among the Sunday highlights: On the indoor Gallery Theatre stage, Six Organs of Admittance (a.k.a. guitarist Ben Chasny) showed that delicate folk-blues beauty can share space with harrowing dissonance. On the outdoor Lawn Stage, the Black Keys crafted earthy garage blues, followed by the trio Sleater-Kinney, whose mix of stinging guitars and humanist declamations has toughened into one of the most bracing sounds in rock today.

Monday's most notable sets included Jack Rose's John Fahey-inspired folk-blues guitar work on the outdoor Pine Stage, Modey Lemon's Hendrix-and-beyond blast in the Gallery Theatre and Comets on Fire's Fillmore-meets-free-jazz explosions on the Lawn Stage.

And one more highlight: Before walking off stage, Ono cheerily said, "So, I'll see you next year."

see article for pictures

SEPTEMBER 9 - 15, 2005

Live in L.A.

Arthurfest
by JOHN PAYNE

(Photos by Wild Don Lewis)

ARTHURFEST
at Barnsdall Park, September 4-5

Well, well, well, looks like we’ve got an instant, de rigueur classic
on our hands. The swelling throngs at last weekend’s two-day Arthurfest
at Barnsdall Park proved a major point: For many progressive (i.e.,
uncomplacent and independently minded) L.A. music and art lovers,
there’ve been huge gaps unfilled by the plethora of rockbiz-as-usual
events guided by the now ludicrously corporate mainstream media’s
strictly enforced separation between the spheres of electronic dance,
filigreed new folk, deep-listening laptop noise, authentic Delta blues,
ultra-black metal and the avant-garde poets and filmmakers that mirror
the exploratory leanings of all of the above.

Yet Arthurfest, the brainchild of Jay Babcock, brazenly idiosyncratic
music and culture mag Arthur editor/founder, brought it all together
with resounding success at Barnsdall Park, high on a hill in the middle
of Hollywood. In a sort of very broad form of Arthur-style
narrowcasting, the ingeniously conceived lineup featured a chaotic and
very punky Sonic Youth, hindered unfortunately by a booming, mid-rangey
sound mix that obliterated the many fine points the band was making
with its essentially microtonal rock — though, as usual, a humorously
humorless Thurston Moore (dumping water on himself and pulling agonized
art-suffering faces) and the icily beautiful bassist Kim Gordon at
least made them fun to watch. Politically direct thrash courtesy the
newly psychedelicized Sleater-Kinney also suffered a bit from sound-mix
blahs, but not enough to prevent the crowds from pumping their fists;
Electric Ladyland–type slide blues from the Black Keys had the hairy
old rockers in attendance grinning and shaking their jowls; the
gut-churning low frequencies of Berlin’s Pole and the brain-shearing
highs of Japanese noise kingpin Merzbow’s laptop ruminations were
enthusiastically received. (Merzbow’s incredibly focused and
near-physically painful locomotions through an industrial landscape —
at once exhilarating and the most extreme and demanding music heard at
the fest — also produced the only standing ovation I witnessed, which
says a lot.)

Aside from the sight of a 75-year-old woman with purple hair flashing
the devil’s sign at the severely thumping electro of a peaking Juan
Maclean, other highlights (for at least substantial portions of the
attendees) included a buncha Hawkwindy neck-vein bulging from a rabid
Comets on Fire; somber musings from a reticent, beer-sipping Cat Power,
tension-soaked indie-pop stylings courtesy Spoon and a tuba- and
saw-enhanced set by a re-formed Olivia Tremor Control; trance-blues
kingpin T-Model Ford and his almost absurdly true-grooving drummer
provided real sweaty heat and a lotta connecting musical DNA. There was
extremely radical sonic Sabbathery from SUNN O))); Six Organs of
Admittance, a Devendra Banhart–aided Vetiver, Marissa Nadier & Jack
Rose and Winter Flowers provided a post-post-hippie-post-irony-whatever
heartfeltness with their forthright acoustical strains. Other acts
included an inspired, potent solo set by Medicine/Electric Company
laptop/guitarist/videomaker Brad Laner, Josephine Foster, Sunburned
Hand of the Man, Wolfmother, Circle, Radar Bros., Earth, Magik Markers,
Future Pigeon, Becky Stark & the Lavender Diamond. The second day’s
events were capped by a good-humored and lovingly received Yoko Ono,
who distributed flashlights among the crowd for their participation in
Onochord, wherein all concerned dared signal in visual Morse code “I –
LOVE – YOU” at any and all of our fellow well-wishers. Yes, her son
Sean was there, leading her young, tough band, and, yes, he’s the
spittin’ image...

About 2,000 (are you listening, media “tastemakers”?) apparently very
happy people also enjoyed screenings of little-seen art films, and
booths offering food, drinks both alcoholic and healthful, clothing,
jewelry, super-underground indie records and mags, and Arthur columnist
T-Model Ford’s own booth, where he dispensed “wisdom and kisses, for a
small price.” No one in attendance seemed to think that this weird
jumble of events was anything other than the way things ought to be,
and are. Sorta makes you think, doesn’t it?

Lance Bangs made a feature length film on ArthurFest. Sadly, 10 years after the event, the film remains unreleased, but Lance is planning to screen 70 minutes of footage from the film this Sunday at Cinefamily in LA. Here's the teaser he put together:
https://vimeo.com/138262254

Comets on Fire's 37-minute ArthurFest afternoon outdoor set as filmed by John Moloney (!). Sound improves with 2nd song. Ferocious, grand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8st_Li5glpI

nice

Thirteen years ago, what a weird feeling.