The people at the All Tomorrow’s Parties organization used to put on some of the best music festivals in the world. If they could get their shit together, maybe they’d do it again. But the company has been disappointing fans for a few years now, canceling events like London’s 2014 Jabberwocky Festival three days before it was supposed to happen, making it tough for fans to get their discounts. And now it’s happened again. This weekend, ATP was planning to throw a festival curated by American post-hardcore legends Drive Like Jehu. It won’t be happening.

The cancelation isn’t exactly a surprise. ATP moved the festival from Wales to Manchester last month, under what seemed to be shady circumstances. More recently, former Velvet Underground member John Cale, scheduled to headline one night, cancelled his appearance, writing that organizers “let us all down.” And this morning, ATP organizers officially cancelled the show, writing, “we have had to accept defeat due to its lack of financial viability.” Auxiliary shows featuring bands who were slated to play the festival — one with Soulside, another with the Gories and the Monkeywrench — have also been cancelled. But ATP claims that fans will be able to get refunds this time and that they’ll even pay people back for non-refundable hotel reservations.
Meanwhile, the members of Drive Like Jehu are pissed. On their Facebook page, they’ve posted the above photo, along with the following statement:

After 4 months of a long and bumpy ride, the wheels finally fell off the wagon and crashed and burned. A search party was sent to Monkey Island to scan the wreckage for survivors and only found Barry Hogan/ATP collecting bits of luggage and body parts for his next show “ATP 3.0 The 90’s Deconstructed”. Tickets on sale now at Gofundme.com

It’s a uniquely cruel hoax to appeal to Drive Like Jehu’s ego and ask us to create a program based on personally inviting the bands and musicians that have inspired us and changed the way we hear music and then subject them and their supporters to this. We really wanted this show to happen more than anything. It had all the makings of a legendary weekend. We were so committed to seeing this through that we remained hopeful ( blind in retrospect) amongst the ritualistic turmoil and crisis and trusted their solutions that would ensure that the show would definitely go on and the attendees would be treated fairly and the bands would be respected and celebrated.

I realize people want answers. I have found out about most of the information involving the problems that plagued this from the start the same way as everyone else. And although the internet is hardly a reliable source for fact, this whole mess has the extra sting of this not being an isolated incident.

48 hours ago word started to trickle in that Barry hadn’t honored his agreement with many of the bands. These bands were not canceling, but rather did not have the promised means to attend. It was only then revealed that ATP was unable to honor the agreement with the ticket holders that purchased accommodation. ATP is out of funds. ATP offered to postpone the event until November as a solution. No thanks. We looked into trying to salvage the weekend by putting on our own free show in Manchester. But at this late date, no suitable venue is available.

This affects the Swami John Reis & The Blind Shake shows that were to follow ATP as well. We are unable to come over at this time.

To all the bands and ticket holders, i couldn’t feel more terrible that the fest isn’t happening. We were willing to come over under any circumstance even if it meant we would not get paid, just to see this show happen. I wish i could give you more answers at this point and advice what to do next.

The fest was slated to feature Drive Like Jehu, associated acts like Rocket From The Crypt and Hot Snakes, and bands like Wire, Mission Of Burma, the Ex, Diamanda Galas, and the Flamin Groovies. It would’ve been awesome if they’d been able to pull it off.