Foals- YMSS- ATP festival.

Foals are a band, originating from Oxford.
The five members have been friends for a while, Jimmy and Walter, the bassist and one of the guitarists, were at school together and had a previous band together. Jack and Yannis were in the band 'The Edmund Fitzgerald', when Jack met Walter at Oxford Brookes University, where they both did their Art foundation together (I studied my Art Foundation at Oxford Brookes the following year and met Walter there, as he studied his first year of a BA hons in Fine art at Brookes), and Edwin, studied at Oxford university, with Yannis, which is where they met, after Foals were formed. Edwin joined the band as the 'one that plays the synth/ the one with the gay moustache/ the one with the young gentleman outfits'. He joined, Andrew, who was the singer for a while, left and Yannis took on the role of lead vocals, and guitar.

Andrew left Foals to concentrate on his other band Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies- another Oxford band, who were formed in 2002, and have created quite a stir, possibly not so much as Foals though. I'm not sure if you can compare their successes. I know neither band would really like that very much.

Their Myspace can be found at http://www.myspace.com/youthmovies, from it I found the following which I found interesting:

'To date they have released two mini-albums, three singles and three limited edition tour-only CDRs.
Amongst others Youthmovies have toured with iForward, Russia!, 65daysofstatic, Hope of the States, Oxes, Redjetson, Adam Gnade and Blood Red Shoes... Played shows with the likes of Mission of Burma, Biffy Clyro, Bloc Party, Death Cab for Cutie, Trans Am and Cursive... As well as playing both improvised and regular sets at Leeds (as Saul Williams backing band), Reading, Bestival, All Tomorrows Parties, Truck and Latitude festivals, earning them a reputation as one of Britains most exciting live bands.
Youthmovies are currently writing their full-length debut, to be recorded in April and released in late 2007. '

Al, the bands guitarist has his own record label; Try Harder Records (http://www.myspace.com/tryharderrecords), releases on the label include:
Foals, Blood red shoes, Red Jetson, Tired Irie and Jonquil.

Al and Ham from the band are quite involved with the festival ATP (All tomorrows Parties), which is a music festival which happens 3/4 times a year. Youthmovies played after headliner Yoko Ono before, and are playing the fesitval this May, alongside Patti Smith, Echo and the bunnymen, Mogwai and Explosions in the sky. The festival takes place at a Butlins/ Pontins and is a lot of fun. I've been to the festival three times. 'The nightmare before Christmas in December of 2005 which is where I infact spoke to Walter and Jimmy (Foals) for the first time. The time after this I went in the Summer of 2006 and the December of 2006.

ATP also put on gigs, mainly in London. On the 23rd May they have Modest Mouse playing, with support from Billy Childish.

Here, we can see that there is quite a link between artists, playing for ATP as musicians, this is something I'm interested in looking at. It seems that a lot of artists are infact involved, or strongly passionate about music and vice versa.
A lot of musicians infact do the art work for their records themselves, this includes Patrick Wolf, I think nearly all of his releases have contained drawings which he has done himself.
Devandra Banhart, a folk musician who has played ATP, had his work in the exhibition 'uncertain states of america' at The Serpentine Galley.

I'm going to continue writing about this in another entry, as I don't like the confusion of too many things happening in one blog- for ease of finding entries, etcetera.