From: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org (idealcopy-digest) To: idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Subject: idealcopy-digest V5 #165 Reply-To: idealcopy@smoe.org Sender: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk idealcopy-digest Saturday, May 25 2002 Volume 05 : Number 165 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [idealcopy] OT - Guardian/music reviews ["Keith Knight" ] [idealcopy] Chanting a Curse whilst Religiously Spitting! ["Bill Hick" ] Re: [idealcopy] He Lost Airplanes! [RLynn9@aol.com] [idealcopy] NME RADIO ["Keith Astbury" ] Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO [Andrew Walkingshaw ] Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO [Andrew Walkingshaw ] Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO ["Keith Astbury" ] Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO ["Keith Astbury" ] [idealcopy] guess who? ["Keith Astbury" ] Re: [idealcopy] guess who? [MarkBursa@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 09:52:56 +0100 From: "Keith Knight" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] OT - Guardian/music reviews Yeah, I was surprised by that too - perhaps it's been re-released? Must go back to that album. I was a bit disappointed with it after buying it on the back of the wondrous 7 inch 'New Slang', as it was a bit too languorous for me (this, admittedly, from someone who goes to Lambchop gigs!). Did NME 'discover' them? I first heard 'New Slang' on Peel while washing up one evening - one of those moments when you just stop what you're doing and listen intently to the radio. another the Keith - ----- Original Message ----- From: ian.s. jackson To: Sent: Friday, May 24, 2002 8:47 PM Subject: [idealcopy] OT - Guardian/music reviews > ...and they've finally 'discovered' the joys of The Shins' 'Oh, Inverted > World' after the NME 'discovered' them...just less than 12 months after the > LP's release...better later than never...? > > ian.s.j. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 02:04:45 -0700 (PDT) From: eric719@webtv.net (Eric Strang) Subject: Re: [idealcopy] OT - Guardian/music reviews ... one of those moments when you just stop what you're doing and listen intently to the radio. >> Like the first time I ever heard Wire. Eric ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 14:26:55 +0100 From: "Bill Hick" Subject: [idealcopy] ReTouching the Display This guy Wilson Zorn who Graham Lewis & I met at ATP has done a Wire cover... >>>I have a site of my own music (*) at http://www.asterick.com , recent, more experimental, stuff at http://www.asterick.com/polylogue_clips.htm and some older stuff at http://www.asterick.com/theft_clips.htm - anyway I did a cover of "A Touching Display" mixed with the Monkees' "Girl I Knew Somewhere" (Nesmith), and it's directly at http://artists2.iuma.com/site-bin/streammp3.m3u?217481 Cracked Machine Highly Irregular Cyberzine http://www.webinfo.co.uk/crackedmachine > > * Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 14:24:25 +0100 From: "Bill Hick" Subject: [idealcopy] Chanting a Curse whilst Religiously Spitting! >Even the style mag (Flux) which I write reviews for has become politicised >due to the encroaching police state. Andrew commented in his interesting and well thought out post that this should come as no surprise. I wasn't surprised by this so much as welcoming it as a positive move that has resulted in the magazine becoming much more interesting, and something I'm happy to be involved with in some small way. Vicar's son spat out blood of Christ >Thats the biggest laugh I've had all week. This has caused me to spit wine all over my monitor! What a boring life you must lead! >What a f**king joke. I hope you never have to live in a *real* police state. So do I. Which is why I used the word 'encroaching.' Or should that be encr***hing? If you can't see that more laws are being passed that cut ever more into basic personal freedoms in UK then you must have your head right up your arse. Sorry, ar*e. (It's approaching, 600 lb gas & flesh) >No actually I hope you do then you'll really have something to complain about! We live in the same country. So you are hoping doom and iron prison state upon yourself too! I hope for Tonka Toy Synthesisers and free bees! (Now we fly the flag of obedience) Pot calls kettle black. Tim's always got something trivial to bitch about. Were pop groups on TV crap? (revolution will not be televised) And may the Badly Drawn Boy follow you around everywhere you go, talking loud about coke stashed in his tea cosey. >Any attempts to subvert authority should start by eliminating all Control >lines in ones own life. >Oh right then. I'd like to subvert authority please. Would you also like someone to come round and change your nappy? >So could you arrange to have my mortgage and all my other debts paid off? I could pointlessly advise you not to have run up such debts in the first. But if you did want to avoid paying you could always try leaving the country for a few years and changing your name. Or just don't pay and see if the police end up locking you away for a bit... How would paying off a mortgage subvert anything at all? >Also I belong to one of those wretched 'nuclear families' that 'behave'. I feel so ashamed. Bitch, Bitch, Whine, Whine, Spit! Spit! >Perhaps you could help me kill them all because they really aren't f**king subversive enough. Why? Will your inheritance pay off the debts that seem to worry you? >Authority needs control or it ceases to authorise. Any action to cut control >lines is a positive one. >So does that mean you don't mind if some smack-heads come round to your house and rob all your CDs? It means nothing of the sort. But this has indeed happened to me in the past and authority did not prevent it. I did find some of the CDs in a shop and got them back for free as the owner told me he could tell I was being honest with him... What led thieves to vie for attention? >At least they are cutting control lines? Not really. At best they're just having a laugh, at worst feeding a metabolic addiction, ie. Control. Control takes many forms. >You don't mind if some twat nicks my car and rams it into a wall and kills someone? How will authority prevent it from ever happening? Prison seems to be no deterrent. If its some fascist that gets splatted then hats off to the exploits of the tw*t! I just hope ypou were an honest lad who kept up to date with your insurance payments! >This version of Anarchy A rather blinkered and seemingly ignorant interpretation of Anarchism in its political manifestation at least? I was talking about avoiding and subverting Control, which is not necessarily the same thing as Anarchy. >would be all very well if everyone is was a good natured, articulate Wire fan from Salisbury. I'm not good natured! I'm an amoral hooligan with no standards!!! I really believe everything I say to you. It's just that none of it is true. >You're missing one small fact, as wonderfully expressed by the late Sid Vicious: "I've met the man in the street and he's a C**T'!" Is this really a fact or a funny joke with a grain of truth? Its OK, most of us can deal with swear words, even in the company of the eloquent Sid, who always seemed such a great philosopher. I met a man in the street and he asked me for a fag. However, I don't smoke. Drug addiction is one of the most insidious forms of Control. This is avoidable but for most of us Biologic Control isn't. The next step in the human race into space is likely to be a drastic mutation of our bodily prisons, or perhaps the complete discarding of these flesh bone shells. Buddhist masters were said to be able to shape shift at will. Even if Sid's streetman resembles a female organ of reproduction, why did he end up that way and not resembling perhaps a heart, intestine, bile duct or jawbone? "Big A, Little a, Bouncing bee... The system might've got you but it won't get me 1, 2, 3, 4!" (Crass) NP Spider Monkey - Grey Horizons CD-R (www.spidermonkey.org.uk) Cracked Machine Highly Irregular Cyberzine http://www.webinfo.co.uk/crackedmachine > > * St. Paul cavorted to Christianity. He preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 14:19:39 +0100 From: "Bill Hick" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] He Lost Airplanes! - ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Cc: Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 7:06 PM Subject: Re: [idealcopy] He Lost Airplanes! > << Do you have any Merzbow recordings?<< > > Well I got the nice people in These Records to play me some a while back but > was underwhelmed, though I guess it needs lots of volume..... > Not necessarily, but usually his Cds are usually mastered so loud its unavoidable. Merzbow has actually done quite a wide range of different approaches to noise, however there's a myth amongst folk who haven't heard much of it that it all sounds the same. A good entry point might be the Blast First 'Scumtron' remixes which is worth hearing for the Pan Sonic remix alone. > Does anyone else have good noisy 'sound effects' albums? > > >>I ahve a few of them. BBC Sound Effects of Death & Horror is one of the > best ones. Lots of hot pokers inserted into cabbages (ouch!) I also have the > sci-fi one which has lots of horrible Radiophonic Workshop clips from Blake's > Seven....<< > I'd completely forgotten the teleport noise and the sound of that crap little computer getting unplugged. Good noises. I like the 2 Dr Who 60s / 70s Cds the BBC put out not that long ago, especially the eerie mix of sound effects from Tom Baker time. Then the 80s come in, the theme gets reworked badly and cheesy synth presets spoil it all. Luckily they only included 2 bits of incidental music from the 80s, but these are far & away the least interesting tracks. Some of that Radiophonic Workshop stuff is certainly the most evocative and haunting noise I've heard. NP Main - Tau www.kraak.net > > * One of the opossums was St. Matthew who was also a taximan. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 10:23:16 EDT From: RLynn9@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] He Lost Airplanes! In a message dated 5/25/02 8:44:35 AM Central Daylight Time, umur_ot@hotmail.com writes: > I'd completely forgotten the teleport noise and the sound of that crap > little computer getting unplugged. Good noises. > I like the 2 Dr Who 60s / 70s Cds the BBC put out not that long ago, > especially the eerie mix of sound effects from Tom Baker time. Then the 80s > come in, the theme gets reworked badly and cheesy synth presets spoil it > all. Luckily they only included 2 bits of incidental music from the 80s, > but > these are far & away the least interesting tracks. Some of that Radiophonic > Workshop stuff is certainly the most evocative and haunting noise I've > heard. > Graeme, How many BBC Radiophonic Workshop compilations are there? and which ones seem to be the best in your opinion? ....Have you ever heard Louis and Bebe Baron's soundtrack to the film "Forbidden Planet" ?? Robert Lynn ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 18:13:25 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: [idealcopy] NME RADIO Gave NME radio an extended listen last night. Not impressed whatsoever. Can you imagine if the NME had had their own radio station 10,20,30 yrs ago? It would surely have been a pretty cool place to be - playing the best stuff around (along with the inevitable crap 'new thing' admittedly!). In 1977, you would have had Nick Kent insisting on another round of 'Marquee Moon'. Now you get Muse and lots of nu-metal type shite. There's lot of new acts out there I want to hear/hear more of - The Liars, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Rapture (I'd even like to hear the much maligned Mooney Suzuki for myself), but other than an At The Drive-in oldie, the best thing I heard last night was, wait for it, 'Paranoid'! Keith ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 18:39:41 +0100 From: Andrew Walkingshaw Subject: Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO On Sat, May 25, 2002 at 06:13:25PM +0100, Keith Astbury wrote: > Gave NME radio an extended listen last night. Not impressed whatsoever. I've been reading the NME for about six years now: it's definitely going downhill, and their efforts to branch out into so-called new media haven't seemed to be particularly successful. As I see it, the problem they've got is on the one hand, they were caught on the hop by acid house, and all of a sudden they weren't covering the sound of the day; now, they've been squeezed on the other side by the rise of nu-metal (noting that Kerrang! is the world's biggest selling music weekly now), Q et al have taken away a large part of their "more mature" audience (so to speak), more fringe publications and webzines (The Wire, et al) have taken away some of their avant-garde fans, and they've been left as the Journal of Indie, having nailed their flag to the mast during the Britpop resurgence, trading on their past glories. This has resulted in a desperate search for the next Big Thing, down to trying to create it, but the realisation hasn't dawned that the next big thing is nowadays usually not involving guitars. So, they try and cover dance, rap and R&B; but their hearts aren't in it, and it alienates their core market of 14-25 year old white males into indie guitar music - so they cop abuse from both their core market and the new market they're trying to cover. In addition to this, their writing has become a cliche: you have identikit reporters, a few intelligent pieces from people like Keith Cameron, and Stephen "One Idea" Wells. Then they set up a website, which is the same content as the paper issue, plus a *truly* awful backend which makes it very hard to find past reviews, plus some of the most consistently irritating adverts on the entire Web: and they set up a radio station which is aimed squarely at their core post-Britpop audience, and no-one listens because XFM, Virgin Radio, 6 Music, even Radio 1 at times, do the job so much more conveniently. I still read the NME, but sometimes I'm not sure for how much longer: for goodness' sake, even *computer games* journalism exists now which is consistently of a higher standard (Future Network's "Edge", in particular). It just feels like the people behind the NME are *desperate*. :( Andrew - -- "Hey, wait, I've got a real complaint; forever in debt to your priceless advice." - Nirvana, "Heart-Shaped Box" ('In Utero') adw27@cam.ac.uk (academic) | http://www.lexical.org.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 13:46:04 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO Andrew, An excellent analysis. Now imagine you've been reading it for 25 years! Mark, who continues to have the NME delivered every week because he feels cancelling it would be an admission of getting old. And the gig guide is quite useful. << > Gave NME radio an extended listen last night. Not impressed whatsoever. I've been reading the NME for about six years now: it's definitely going downhill, and their efforts to branch out into so-called new media haven't seemed to be particularly successful. As I see it, the problem they've got is on the one hand, they were caught on the hop by acid house, and all of a sudden they weren't covering the sound of the day; now, they've been squeezed on the other side by the rise of nu-metal (noting that Kerrang! is the world's biggest selling music weekly now), Q et al have taken away a large part of their "more mature" audience (so to speak), more fringe publications and webzines (The Wire, et al) have taken away some of their avant-garde fans, and they've been left as the Journal of Indie, having nailed their flag to the mast during the Britpop resurgence, trading on their past glories. This has resulted in a desperate search for the next Big Thing, down to trying to create it, but the realisation hasn't dawned that the next big thing is nowadays usually not involving guitars. So, they try and cover dance, rap and R&B; but their hearts aren't in it, and it alienates their core market of 14-25 year old white males into indie guitar music - so they cop abuse from both their core market and the new market they're trying to cover. In addition to this, their writing has become a cliche: you have identikit reporters, a few intelligent pieces from people like Keith Cameron, and Stephen "One Idea" Wells. Then they set up a website, which is the same content as the paper issue, plus a *truly* awful backend which makes it very hard to find past reviews, plus some of the most consistently irritating adverts on the entire Web: and they set up a radio station which is aimed squarely at their core post-Britpop audience, and no-one listens because XFM, Virgin Radio, 6 Music, even Radio 1 at times, do the job so much more conveniently. I still read the NME, but sometimes I'm not sure for how much longer: for goodness' sake, even *computer games* journalism exists now which is consistently of a higher standard (Future Network's "Edge", in particular). It just feels like the people behind the NME are *desperate*. :( >> ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 14:25:56 EDT From: Rain19c@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] [OT]Andrew McKenzie robert: >>was the esteemed Dr. Edward Moolenbeek a real person? in an interview with Mckenzie in option magazine he said moolenbeek was a psychoacoustic researcher who was the editor of a science journal in the 1930s.... ~michael np - "dream on" - junkboy's greatest hits :) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 14:38:05 EDT From: PaulRabjohn@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO In a message dated 25/05/02 18:08:58 GMT Daylight Time, keith.astbury10@virgin.net writes: > Gave NME radio an extended listen last night. Not impressed whatsoever. ////well it can't be any worse than "NME TV" which lasted about 3 weeks a year or so ago. bizarrely it was shown on bravo (usually a tit n bum channel) and seemed to concentrate on r & b (not read & burn...) acts. as andrew said , they seem totally unsure who they're aiming at or why. there must be a niche for them , but i guess they need to find it pretty quick. p ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 20:27:47 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO > Andrew, > An excellent analysis. yes it was. >Now imagine you've been reading it for 25 years! > > Mark, who continues to have the NME delivered every week because he feels > cancelling it would be an admission of getting old. And the gig guide is > quite useful. i've put up with the 'are you still getting that' comments for some years, cos pop music is obviously a young man's game and once you reach 30 (let alone 40!), you should obviously get your pipe and slippers and settle down to tibetan monk chants or nice orchestral arrangements of your favourite beatles songs. but...i've loved the nme for so long and it upsets me to see the way it's gone of late. i would happily cancel my subscription if the new music it was advocating was so wild, so new, that an old fart like me felt threatened, and just didn't understand what was happening. but nu-metal isn't 'nu'. it's just the old speeded up slightly. nickleback mightn't be any worse than iron maidon, but it's pushing it to say they're much better. in fact, my real gripe it's not so much about the musical content (or lack of it - still no review of 'read and burn' btw) - after all, i seem to be one of the few IC-ers who likes the Strokes (although the album was slightly disappointing, 'the modern age' was my fave single of last year. sorry...). no, what i despise is the new spangly comic look, where everything is about look and not content. the nicely arranged album review section that means there's virtually no room to say anything about the records. the singles being reviewed individually, instead of someone bothering to write a whole page which gives an insight into that particular critic. what people have as ringtones. an 'all tomorrows parties' review that didn't tell us anything about wire's set. etc. etc. if someone had said even 6 months ago, that i would be cancelling my nme, i wouldn't have believed it. but a warped sense of loyalty and what i suspect is a misguided streak of optimism (hey it MIGHT get better!) is all that's stopping me cancelling my order now. keith ps the gig guide in saturdays guardian is almost as good as the nme's, mark. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 21:24:00 +0100 From: Andrew Walkingshaw Subject: Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO On Sat, May 25, 2002 at 08:27:47PM +0100, Keith Astbury wrote: > > Andrew, > > An excellent analysis. > > yes it was. Thanks. I'm flattered. It was written when I couldn't face reading about any more zirconolites for 10 minutes. :) [...] > but...i've loved the nme for so long and it upsets me to see the way it's > gone of late. i would happily cancel my subscription if the new music it was > advocating was so wild, so new, that an old fart like me felt threatened, > and just didn't understand what was happening. This is what strikes me. I like the Strokes, but pretending they're anything other than new-wave revivalist is a bit of a joke; they're not innovative, particularly, they're just doing a style of music I derive pleasure from particularly well and with plenty of spirit. > but nu-metal isn't 'nu'. it's just the old speeded up slightly. ... and some might argue, without any of the complexity which made old-metal more interesting - the muso appeal, if you like. I may not want to listen to Metallica, but at least I could have a modicum of *respect* for it. You sanitise nu-metal, and what you get is a form of music which, originally, was simplified (just as punk was simplified rock'n'roll riffs, at heart) to become more visceral, more immediate - and then that immediacy is removed, because it's threatening. So, unexciting, unvisceral, simplified playschool rock for the disgruntled teenager in you. I'd rather just cut to the chase and go and listen to the original hardcore, myself. The NME have realised this, which is why they're pushing emo ("emotional hardcore": basically what happens to members of Minor Threat when they decide that booze and sex *are* interesting), and while the emo scene is responsible for one of my favourite "pop" records of the year (Rival Schools - "United by Fate"), it's about as revolutionary as a genre rapidly approaching power-pop ever is :) > nickleback mightn't be any worse than iron > maidon, but it's pushing it to say they're much better. > I'd say they're substantially worse; I keep hearing these bands and thinking 'Pearl Jam, except *worse*' ... [...] > no, what i despise is the new spangly comic look, where everything is about > look and not content. the nicely arranged album review section that means > there's virtually no room to say anything about the records. the singles > being reviewed individually, instead of someone bothering to write a whole > page which gives an insight into that particular critic. what people have as > ringtones. an 'all tomorrows parties' review that didn't tell us anything > about wire's set. etc. etc. Style is good. I like style, but style is *not* content; they should work together, but neither can replace the other. (The KLF are an object lesson in this, if you ask me: the music on its own is classic pop, but it's only the entire package which had the full effect...) The nub of the problem seems to be that the NME is *trying too hard* - they're panicking, and frankly the music coming out of the mainstream _isn't good enough_ to hold peoples' attention for long enough, so they're trying to replace the content which isn't there (and which was there at the height of Britpop: music was the zeitgeist, and as such people wanted to know about it) with baubles and glitter. Meanwhile, you can see the desperation with which the NME is trying to create bandwagons: the Strokes, the White Stripes, the Cooper Temple Clause, Fischerspooner, -anything- which might break big so that they can say that they were there first - that they're in some way culturally relevant again. It isn't working for me. > if someone had said even 6 months ago, that i would be cancelling my nme, i > wouldn't have believed it. but a warped sense of loyalty and what i suspect > is a misguided streak of optimism (hey it MIGHT get better!) is all that's > stopping me cancelling my order now. They still occasionally point me to records I wouldn't otherwise have bought: they're better than nothing, but how much better is a very moot point at the moment. Andrew - -- "Dissect a trillion sighs away - well, you got this letter, Jagged pulse slicing my veins; I write to remember." - At the Drive-In, "One Armed Scissor" ('Relationship of Command') adw27@cam.ac.uk (academic) | http://www.lexical.org.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 21:31:40 +0100 From: Andrew Walkingshaw Subject: Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO On Sat, May 25, 2002 at 02:38:05PM -0400, PaulRabjohn@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 25/05/02 18:08:58 GMT Daylight Time, > keith.astbury10@virgin.net writes: > > > > Gave NME radio an extended listen last night. Not impressed whatsoever. > > ////well it can't be any worse than "NME TV" which lasted about 3 weeks a > year or so ago. bizarrely it was shown on bravo (usually a tit n bum channel) > and seemed to concentrate on r & b (not read & burn...) acts. as andrew said > , they seem totally unsure who they're aiming at or why. there must be a > niche for them , but i guess they need to find it pretty quick. p The thing is, I don't think the NME realise they're a niche publisher: they're still deluded that they're culturally central, as they were for the twelve months of Britpop, or as they were in the Sixties. Hence, their protestations on the letters page every week that they "cover all new and interesting music", when blatantly they don't - they cover the new music which is liked by the demographics they're trying to attract, plus some other parts (token dance, hiphop, r'n'b, pop, nu-metal) to try and extract some extra readership from outside that demographic. However, the Britpop demographic is now merrily buying Stereophonics and Travis records _regardless_ of what the NME says; they know what they like, and they're not buying *any* music paper to tell them about it - whereas the new music obsessives, the people who care enough to read about music rather than just listen to the radio, seem mostly to be coming in from dance (cue Ministry, DJ, Muzik et al) or nu-metal (post-rebranding Kerrang), while the older part of the NME readership progressively defects to Q and so forth (hence NME Classics). They're caught in a classic squeeze: declining older readership and no-one to replace them - and they have no idea how to make themselves relevant again, so they pretend that they are and carry on regardless. Andrew - -- "While you make pretty speeches, I'm being cut to shreds." - - Radiohead, "Like Spinning Plates" ('I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings') adw27@cam.ac.uk (academic) | http://www.lexical.org.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 18:36:29 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO Keith, This post is pretty much like reading my own thoughts... Perhaps you could extend this concept to save me from having to think at all ;-) Even nearly agree with you on the Strokes. Modern Age was a pretty decent debut single (I wouldn't elevate it quite so highly as best of the year....) but the album is so one-dimensional as to be completely forgettable. But better than the Hives. Or the Vines. Mark << i've put up with the 'are you still getting that' comments for some years, cos pop music is obviously a young man's game and once you reach 30 (let alone 40!), you should obviously get your pipe and slippers and settle down to tibetan monk chants or nice orchestral arrangements of your favourite beatles songs. but...i've loved the nme for so long and it upsets me to see the way it's gone of late. i would happily cancel my subscription if the new music it was advocating was so wild, so new, that an old fart like me felt threatened, and just didn't understand what was happening. but nu-metal isn't 'nu'. it's just the old speeded up slightly. nickleback mightn't be any worse than iron maidon, but it's pushing it to say they're much better. in fact, my real gripe it's not so much about the musical content (or lack of it - still no review of 'read and burn' btw) - after all, i seem to be one of the few IC-ers who likes the Strokes (although the album was slightly disappointing, 'the modern age' was my fave single of last year. sorry...). no, what i despise is the new spangly comic look, where everything is about look and not content. the nicely arranged album review section that means there's virtually no room to say anything about the records. the singles being reviewed individually, instead of someone bothering to write a whole page which gives an insight into that particular critic. what people have as ringtones. an 'all tomorrows parties' review that didn't tell us anything about wire's set. etc. etc. if someone had said even 6 months ago, that i would be cancelling my nme, i wouldn't have believed it. but a warped sense of loyalty and what i suspect is a misguided streak of optimism (hey it MIGHT get better!) is all that's stopping me cancelling my order now. keith ps the gig guide in saturdays guardian is almost as good as the nme's, mark. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 18:51:25 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO Andrew, << The nub of the problem seems to be that the NME is *trying too hard* - they're panicking, and frankly the music coming out of the mainstream _isn't good enough_ to hold peoples' attention for long enough, so they're trying to replace the content which isn't there (and which was there at the height of Britpop: music was the zeitgeist, and as such people wanted to know about it) with baubles and glitter. Meanwhile, you can see the desperation with which the NME is trying to create bandwagons: the Strokes, the White Stripes, the Cooper Temple Clause, Fischerspooner, -anything- which might break big so that they can say that they were there first - that they're in some way culturally relevant again. >> I think it runs deeper than that. There is no "accessible underground" any more. There is an underground, but peopled by artists on the margins, whose work may be of artistic value but will never break out of a limited audience. In the late 70s it was possible for local scenes to flourish in provincial Britain and develop along their own lines before being hailed as the "next big thing". Whereas now there are so many more media outlets, and physical distance means so little, that artists are seized upon in their creative infancy and thrust into positions of fame & fortune before they have found their own voice. They are then over-marketed by eager press offices to lazy NME hacks who gleefully swallow hyped rubbish like Andrew WK, and whose publishing bosses are quite happy for them to do as the record company is spending a fortune on adverts with WK's bloody nose on them. Add to that the fear of going the same way as Sounds & Melody Maker and the NME doesn't have the courage to risk losing the business by not buying into the Andrew WK concept - though the risk of getting it wrong (ie hyping something that is so patently shite even the most acquiescent ringtone-obsessed teen can see through it) is a potentially greater risk - that of looking out of touch. Mark ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 00:10:31 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO > The thing is, I don't think the NME realise they're a niche publisher: > they're still deluded that they're culturally central, as they were for > the twelve months of Britpop, or as they were in the Sixties. although i seem to recall that it was 'sounds' (as opposed to the nme) who covered 'punk' first, i would still say that the nme was 'culterally central' circa '77. it certainly felt like it, though maybe in a 'select' or 'superior' kind of way. > they cover the > new music which is liked by the demographics they're trying to attract, > plus some other parts (token dance, hiphop, r'n'b, pop, nu-metal) to try > and extract some extra readership from outside that demographic. and this is something the nme never seemed to care about. whilst 'sounds' for instance championed the NWOBHM (that's 'the new wave of british heavy metal' for our younger readers and those lucky folk who have managed to forget it) during the late 70's and early 80's, there is no way that the nme would have found ANYTHING good to say about saxon/samson/iron maidon/tygers of pan tang or any of those extremely sad but successful bands of their day - no matter how many records they sold... the nme might have had the odd feature on these acts, but it clung to it's own (warped?) ideals - and slagged them off. sure it went off too far in certain directions - i might have liked the odd kid creole 45 circa 1982, but i didn't particularly want to read a whole newspaper about him - but i'd prefer that old british attitude of build them up and knock them down, to their current attempt at trying to grab anything that's popular. it's almost as if touching these peoples success will somehow rub off on their ailing rag. going off at a tangent here, maybe we need more interesting pop stars as well as critics. at the risk of sounding like someone's grandad, how many of todays stars give good interviews - jarvis cocker apart . obviously - 'in my day' - i wanted to read the latest julian cope/morrissey/mark e. smith/kevin rowland interview because i liked their music - the fact that they were such great interviewees was an added bonus. mind you, i absolutely hated marillion, but i'd still read a fish interview because he generally had something interesting/entertaining to say. has anyone anywhere EVER read kelly jones saying anything remotely interesting? (thought to be fair, how many current artists get the chance of a decent interview. all the articles seem to be of the 'on the road with the strokes' type where the writer is more interested in how trashed julian casablancas is than anything he might have to say) > However, the Britpop demographic is now merrily buying Stereophonics and > Travis records i don't much like travis, but they don't deserve lumping with the stereophonics! > They're caught in a classic squeeze: declining older readership and > no-one to replace them - and they have no idea how to make themselves > relevant again, so they pretend that they are and carry on regardless. > Andrew yeah. that's the hub of the matter. maybe they shouldn't want success so much. i just think that chasing the crowd is the wrong thing to do - 'select' mag never recovered after britpop floundered and it eventually went under. i honestly do not want that to happen with the nme. i want a contrary if at times smug paper that points me in the right direction of the new INTERESTING acts of today. keith ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 00:20:18 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO > In the late 70s it was possible for local scenes to flourish in provincial > Britain and develop along their own lines before being hailed as the "next > big thing". Whereas now there are so many more media outlets, and physical > distance means so little, that artists are seized upon in their creative > infancy and thrust into positions of fame & fortune before they have found > their own voice. and what good does it do them in the long term? i liked one gay dad single ('joy' - phew! that took some admitting!) but i doubt their career will ever recover from all that hype and over-exposure that the nme heaped upon them - whatever the quality of anything they might release in the future. i can't help thinking that that andrew wk and his crap synthesised bon jovi riffs will surely be the gay dad of the future. keith ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 00:32:13 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] NME RADIO > > no, what i despise is the new spangly comic look, where everything is about > > look and not content. > > Style is good. I like style, but style is *not* content; they should > work together, but neither can replace the other. (The KLF are an object > lesson in this, if you ask me: the music on its own is classic pop, but > it's only the entire package which had the full effect...) KLF are a great example, but then bill drummond is a pretty clever bloke. totp2 showed the mighty 'justified and ancient' totp performance recently. it was an absolutely unforgettable performance - a stage full of singers, supposed african natives on bongos and ice creams. and lets not forget the video of a country and western legend, tammi wynette, singing in the background. honestly, i take my hat off to the KLF - and that's before we even get round to discussing the merits of what is, IMO, a real pop gem. talking of drummond, anyone out there like his '33' LP? as a julian cope fan I love his 'julian cope is dead' track. it creases me up. keith n.p. 'humble african' - culture 'julian cope is dead i shot him in the head' (bill drummond). ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 02:03:08 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: [idealcopy] guess who? here's one for you... i was just surfing the net and found this. Influences (according to themselves but also other people, so you may not agree with everything) The Cardiacs, The Kinks, The Who, Adam and The Ants, The Jam, The Specials, Madness, David Bowie, The Smiths, The Human League, The Pretty Things, Nick Drake, Keith Moon, My Bloody Valentine, The Small Faces, Pink Floyd, Vaughan Williams, The Pixies, Allen Klein, The Stone Roses, The Wedding Present, Dinosaur Jr, The Pastels, Chapterhouse, Julian Cope, Marc Bolan, Weill and Brecht's 'Die Drei Groschen Oper' (The Threepenny Opera), Beck, Tortoise, Neu, Pavement, Sonic Youth, Sebadoh, Soft machine, Mott the Hoople, Ian Hunter, Bob Dylan, Can, bob hund, The Fall, The Staples Singers, Wire, Augustus Pablo, The Stranglers. which band are allegedly influenced by all these acts??? keith ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 21:08:07 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] guess who? That has to be a Damon Albarn list. So it must be Blur, though Coxin obviously didn't contribute as Mission of Burma would have been top of the list.... Mark << The Cardiacs, The Kinks, The Who, Adam and The Ants, The Jam, The Specials, Madness, David Bowie, The Smiths, The Human League, The Pretty Things, Nick Drake, Keith Moon, My Bloody Valentine, The Small Faces, Pink Floyd, Vaughan Williams, The Pixies, Allen Klein, The Stone Roses, The Wedding Present, Dinosaur Jr, The Pastels, Chapterhouse, Julian Cope, Marc Bolan, Weill and Brecht's 'Die Drei Groschen Oper' (The Threepenny Opera), Beck, Tortoise, Neu, Pavement, Sonic Youth, Sebadoh, Soft machine, Mott the Hoople, Ian Hunter, Bob Dylan, Can, bob hund, The Fall, The Staples Singers, Wire, Augustus Pablo, The Stranglers. which band are allegedly influenced by all these acts??? ------------------------------ End of idealcopy-digest V5 #165 *******************************