As previously reported, ATP UK Curated by Jeff Mangum, set to go down at Butlins Holiday Centre in Minehead, UK, has been postponed from December 2011 to March 9-11th, 2012. As a result, there are a few changes to the previously announced lineup, which the festival revealed today.

To start, Panda Bear, Tinariwen, Superchunk, Group Inerane, The Mountain Goats, and Colin Stetson are all unable to play the new date and have been removed from the bill. What’s more, the festival is still speaking to Fleet Foxes, Sun Ra Arkestra, and Micachu And The Shapes and hopes to confirm their participation soon.

As for who’s still confirmed, Jeff Mangum, Joanna Newsom, Boredoms, Sebadoh, Low, Thurston Moore, Scratch Acid, The Raincoats performing their self-titled debut, and Robyn Hitchock performing I Often Dream Of Trains are among some of the more notable acts. Also, to replace those lost, the festival has added The Magnetic Fields, Versus, Elephant 6-affiliated group The Music Tapes, Group Doueh, and Mike Watt & George Hurle, who will perform the songs of the Minutemen. You can see the entire lineup at our Festival Outlook.

Tickets have been automatically be transfered to the new dates, though refunds are available at the point of purchase. The festival has also re-opened new ticket requests through its website.

This year – 2011, if you forgot – marks the 20^th anniversary of the release of Nirvana’s Nevermind. As with all such moments, reissues, tributes, and all kinds of analysis and discussion will spring from the well. I don’t recall this much fuss when The White Album turned 20.

I am not here to fellate Kurt Cobain, Nirvana, or their legacy, nor am I here to kick them in the balls. Let me say for the record that I do like Nirvana. I was just never one of those kids who obsessed over them. I was almost 21 when the band released its second album, so I was very much aware of the state of music and the effect that Nirvana had – much more so than say when punk broke. (I was only six.) I don’t even own a copy of Nevermind. I never needed to. Almost every person I have lived with since the album dropped has owned a copy. I believed in 1991 and am still convinced that if it wasn’t Nirvana, it would have been the Pixies.

Yes, Nirvana was a good band, and there is no denying the impact the band had on the medium and the industry. Cobain’s principle strength was not in his guitar playing but his songwriting, exposing his soul to his audience in ways few rock stars (or any celebrity) would feel comfortable doing. His rawness and honesty were embraced by fans who in turn trusted him. Cobain’s celebrity, commercial success as an artist, and perhaps even a genuine likability enabled him to champion other artists, often lost to time, overlooked by the industry, or as with the Jesus Lizard or William Burroughs, perhaps just a bit too far off the familiar path. In my opinion, this is one of Cobain’s greatest contributions to music.

The Vaselines

His promotion of artists like The Raincoats and The Vaselines not only revived the careers of these bands but also exposed them to a far greater audience than they ever would have reached on their own. He managed to get The Vaselines to briefly re-form and open for Nirvana when the band came through Edinburgh in 1990 – before Nevermind. In 1992, Cobain managed to convince his former label Sub Pop to release The Vaselines’ entire catalog on The Way of the Vaselines. Nirvana would eventually cover three Vaselines songs: “Son of a Gun”, “Molly’s Lips”, and “Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam”, which Cobain retitled “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For a Sunbeam” for the famed Unplugged performance.

The Raincoats

In late 1993, he did the same thing for one of his personal favorite bands, The Raincoats, getting DGC and Rough Trade to release The Raincoats’ first three albums – complete with Cobain and Kim Gordon-penned liner notes. Cobain’s love of The Raincoats and an encounter with band founder Ana da Silva in a London antique shop were documented in his liner notes for the Incesticide album. The success of the reissues prompted The Raincoats to re-form in celebration. After recording a session for John Peel on BBC1, Cobain asked them to play on tour with Nirvana as the band toured the UK in April of 1994. A week before the tour was to begin, Cobain died.

William S. Burroughs

Between Nevermind and the release of its follow-up, In Utero, Cobain collaborated with poet and author William S. Burroughs on the author’s piece “The ‘Priest’ They Called Him”. Recorded separately in two sessions in the fall of ’92, Cobain played dissonant guitar overdubbed on Burroughs reading. Not only does the collaboration lead one to pause, but upon researching what Cobain is playing, a whole new appreciation for the artist may be warranted. His music is based off elements of “Silent Night” and a theme called “To Anacreon in Heaven”, parts of which were used to write the “Star-Spangled Banner” – a far cry from smelling of teen spirit.

The Jesus Lizard

Other than what may have been played on college radio, my first exposure to the Jesus Lizard came when Nirvana put out the split cd single “Puss / Oh, the Guilt” in February 1993. The pairing made sense because both bands have similar sonic elements and abrasive styles, and it showed Cobain and Nirvana putting out music with artists whom they wanted to work with and not because they could simply use a “team up” as a means to sell a lot of records.

Leadbelly & The Meat Puppets

This whole attitude and approach to playing music and exposing music to people was successfully put to the test when Nirvana recorded MTV Unplugged in New York in November 1993. Dave Grohl said, “We’d seen other Unpluggeds and didn’t like many of them. [Bands] would play their hits like it was Madison Square Garden, except with acoustic guitars.” Wanting to create something different, the band approached their performance using Mark Lanegan’s solo debut, The Winding Sheet, as inspiration (itself a departure from Lanegan’s Screaming Trees sound).

During this set of mostly non-hits, Nirvana included cover songs by David Bowie, The Vaselines, Leadbelly, and the Meat Puppets, the latter of whom also appeared as special guests, to the dismay of MTV producers who had foolishly hoped for a big name like Eddie Vedder. Of all the covers performed, perhaps the most surprising at the time was ending with “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” by Leadbelly. Cobain discovered Leadbelly through an interview with Burroughs, where the author chimed, “These new rock ‘n roll kids should just throw away their guitars and listen to something with real soul, like Leadbelly.” Cobain took that as a call to discover Leadbelly, who would go on to become Cobain’s “absolute favorite of all time in music.”

So, at this time, as the world celebrates Nirvana’s Nevermind and Cobain’s effect on the music world, I would just like to say, “Thank you Kurt.” Thank you for turning me on to The Vaselines. Thank you for saying, “Fuck You” to MTV and putting the Meat Puppets on the air. And thank you for sharing with us the music you made and the music that made you.

The rest of the bill includes names like Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, Chromeo, Peter Hook, The Raincoats, Liam Finn, Yuck, Japandroids, Girls, tUnE-yArDs, Bass Drum of Death, Liturgy, Moonface, Purity Ring, and Quest For Fire. Additional acts will be announced in the weeks ahead, and you can stay up to date by constantly refreshing our Festival Outlook.

As for tickets, which are required to see everyone not named Arcade Fire, a limited number of Super Passes are now available via the festival’s website. Individual show tickets are also available.

They join the some other bands that Pavement likes: Enablers, Endless Boogie, The Fall, Faust, and Quasi.

Find all Pavement’s favorites here. Then, head here to buy tickets where you’ll be greeted by lots of “sold out”‘s.

All Tomorrow’s Weekend #2 goes down May 14-16 at Butlins Holiday Centre in Minehead, U.K. Weekend #1, curated by Matt Groening, takes place one weekend prior (May 7-9) at the same place.

A few months and a plane ride across the Atlantic later, ATP’s New York incarnation, ATP New York, will return to Monticello, NY for its third edition. This year’s festivities will go down from September 3-5 (Labor Day Weekend!) and, as we learned today, will include the four following acts performing the four following albums:

The recently reunited Iggy & the Stooges performing Raw Power, Mudhoney performing Superfuzz Bigmuff, Scientists performing Blood Red River, and the also recently reunited Sleep performing Holy Mountain.

Of course, plenty acts for both events are still forthcoming. Tickets for All Tomorrow’s Parties are on sale here. Tickets for ATP New York, priced at $250 + booking fee, are on pre-sale now via Paypal direct to ATP. To buy tickets email feedback@atpfestival.com with NEW YORK TICKET BUY in the subject line and specifying how many tickets you would like to purchase. Got it? Good.