All Tomorrow's Parties, Minehead

The Butlins Holiday camp in Minehead reminds me of my childhood. We always had family holidays these places , hectares of family chalets or caravans clustered around an all-weather “entertainment” hub rammed with one-armed bandits where depressed mothers and fathers tried to keep their sugar-stoked children occupied as the chill rain poured interminably down. Looking for an alternative to this led to the invention of the Costa Brava and the fall of Franco .
Which means that ATP have found the perfect site for a May festival in England. Today, of course, it’s pissing down, but the punters have somewhere dry to sleep and party and mooch about in between shows. What’s unusual about ATP is that it’s a music festival for people who actually love music ; and the curators of this weekend’s shows , The Breeders, have done well. A lot of fun is being had, the Brechtian delights of the complex are surely not being overlooked, the lineup is interesting, the production is good, they’ve read our rider and there’s a bottle opener , too. Sensational!
Gill & me have an hour long interview for a Franco-GermanTV series on post-punk that will be broadcast next year. The interviewer asks surprisingly interesting questions . This is too much. I have nothing to moan about. Even our management is doing a good job. It's not right.

We’re on stage for an hour & the fine audience - aficionados , all - get right into the cracked drama of Army – in which I don't drop playing on the four - and to Andy’s improvised genius guitar on Anthrax & to What We All Want , which funks out magnificently , drums’n’bass locked together in a devilish embrace. the rhythm section do good. Damaged Goods is the final song; we don't have time for To Hell With Poverty. Another day. We are born across the grave, there is a brief flash of light, and then all is dark.