The Weekly DiScussion: indie-rock ethnic cleansing, who's first against the wall?
- Artists:
- The Twang »
Hove Festival 2007: the DiS review
The recent cancellation of last week’s London Easter treat – The Insomniacs Ball – was for unspecified reasons; an apology was issued (click here), but it wasn’t exactly clear. Many speculated that the all-nighter was cancelled due to the lack of ticket sales. A more specific, and interesting suggestion, was that it was down entirely to the presence of The Twang.
It’s an interesting idea: can one band really alienate enough kids as to take down an entire indoor mini-festival? In the case of the Birmingham scally-swagger rockers, possibly so.
Not for some time – despite the presence of The View, Babyshambles and The Fratellis in the charts – has a band been so divisive in the popular indie pantheon. From the top of the music industry to the bottom – that's us consumers, sadly – everyone has a view on The Twang, and a strong one at that. The levels of hatred aimed at five men and their music is almost a tad unsettling, considering they’re yet to release more than a single.
And is it deserved? And, as wider question, is this the beginning of the end? The final chapter in a five-year diary of lads, bands and cheap guitar riffs? There are large sections of music fandom who are practically begging for the demise of a slew of sound-alike indie acts, the raft of lad-rock reprobates playing shows of a size beyond what their abilities suggest. An easy but salient comparison to make would be with ten year's previous and the end of what they called Britpop. If Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys are this generation's Blur and Oasis, then The Twang are probably the stinking effluence from scene n'er do wells like Kula Shakur or Geneva (Hey, I liked Geneva – Ed). Not musically, of course, although there are comparisons to be made in terms of meritocracy.
So, seemingly it's time for a cull, the cull. The kids are rising up, ready to overthrow the major-label lad-rock hegemony. Or at least, it seems high time to.
The best thing to come out of the end of Britpop (aside from no more Shed Seven) was a series of undeniably important, groundbreaking records by Spiritualized (Ladies And Gentleman, We Are Floating In Space), Radiohead (OK Computer) and Massive Attack (Mezzanine). Later, but only just, similarly must-have albums emerged from Mercury Rev (Deserter's Songs) and The Flaming Lips (The Soft Bulletin).
So what's going to come next, after the lad-rock bubble pops for good? It's the billion dollar question, and one that you'd be doing very well to proffer an answer for. You could argue that lad-rock has been overtaken, already, by all things emo – your MCRs, Panics and Fall Outs – but I suspect there's something more to come (and besides, NME already went nuts for emo back in 2002). Bets are off that it will have 'rave' in its not-so-newfangled sub-genre title. It should be an undefined, non-pigeonholed selection of records and bands, emerging over a period of time, which will hopefully redefine popular and critical ‘alternative’ music from what it depressingly is at present.
Probably first out the door are Arcade Fire, but there's more to come: Foals may well do something exceptional, and the world continues to wait for Bloc Party to fulfil their promise. Radiohead might have had their day – the follow-up to Hail To The Thief will need to be special – but maybe there's brilliance to come from more unusual angles: Hot Chip or Midlake could well break through properly with their next long-players. And, more importantly, who do we cut from the current roster of column-inches-grabbing so-so makeweights of mainstream indie rock? Deep breath, please…
The Twang, The Automatic, The Kooks, The View, Dirty Pretty Things, Babyshambles, Reverend & The Makers, Thee Unstrung, Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, The Feeling, Pigeon Detectives, Little Man Tate, Fratellis, Razorlight, Holloways, The Zutons, The Paddingtons, Milburn, The Harrisons, Switches, Humanzi, Kharma 45, Larrikin Love…?
DiScuss: Has alternative music, whether you apostrophise the term or not, become so utterly homogenised that it’s impossible to find merit in any of the new breed of indie rockers or, worse still, lad-rockers? Are The Stone Roses directly to blame for bands like Kasabian and The Twang, or does what goes around always come back around? Likewise, if it wasn’t for the success of Arctic Monkeys, would we really be tolerating Little Man Tate, The Harrisons and the recently dropped Milburn on our radio waves? What acts, new or returning, have the ability to break the hold of The Twang and their evil ilk and make indie exciting again?
- Spotifriday #24: This Week on DiS as a Playlist
- This Week's Singles: 12/10/2009
- The Twang - Jewellery Quarter
- The Twang - Jewellery Quarter
- Chart Round-Up: brought to you by ACME
- Twang: McClaren a 'twat'
- Xfm announces 'Best New Album' prize shortlist
- Chart round-up: just one falsetto, give it to me...
The Twang
You insult Shed Seven, you insult ME
Fuck you Dobson. FUCK YOU.
come on bamos
you should believe in being brave, babababaaaa
you forgot to mention...
the others.
no they were bad!
Isn't that
Menswear?
There's only one band there that doesn't deserve shooting
Fantastic article though Gareth, if I'm allowed a bit of cohort circle-jerkery. The best discussion for a while, I reckon.
There are far too many bands around today.
Is that Twang single out?
Where did it get in 'the charts'?
Good article Gareth
that list was a cracker, a whole bunch of shite bands that are actually very popular.
I think the problem is that Gareth and folk like me likes music, the people who like those bands couldn't give a fuck about music ( although they would argue the opposite ) because all those bands do is distract the shallow minded from their woes - a quick fix - without leaving any sustenance ( or should that be substance ? )
I predict a punk revival
Real punk...like
Gallows / Desperado / Ghost of a Thousand
exactly
i have no problem with their being loads of good bands about.
does anyone remember rnb/hiphop? ok, not long ago but it ended up where you just needed black skin and some bird warbling over your single to get top 5. now all you need is white skin and a guitar.
15
which considering the ridiculouse hype and coverage from nme is pretty well....
shit.
it goes even further than this...
what about the dumbing down of Electro? Electro Indie *shudder*
Or the complete disgrace to Drum N Bass that is Pendulum.
It goes out far and wide. It's a crime against art and modern alternative culture. A slap in the face for the music lover.
title is in poor taste.....
why not explore other genres? I find indie ultra boring at the moment. It's not just the over exposed like this lot that are incredibly dull. Name one newish indie band that really excite you?
yes
similarly shite though
er
"look around..
everybody's 'avin it."
apparently.
no
they ruled.
I can't :(
The intro to that first Arctic Monkeys single was quite exciting until it became the music of choice for 'exciting' TV adverts.
yes
it's the antidote to Ladyfest.
15 isn't that good a chart position.
they probably only sold a few thousand copies.
maybe
all new bands should have a logan's run style limit on their life automatically with the style pundits and interweb types asigning a number of months to each. Oh, they already do that? Fair enough. Lumping together Kasabian & The Twang is a tad lazy if not short sighted. Kasabian are Primal Scream circa 97 & The Twang Flowered Up circa 91 with the Edge form The U2 on guitar. Get it right you experts. Please, if there is a cull, start with Bloc Party who are Bloc Party circa 03 without the skills.
Good article
Kinda hits the nail on the head, so to speak.
'Indie' at the moment is shite, at least the homegrown popular stuff is. You could say that this is the result of the release of Definitely maybe, a generation influenced by Oasis and all those who followed. However then you would be discounting the ones who don't sound like they're in a band just to 'ave it.
So the logical question is where next? Surely if The Twag represent a critical and popular nadir, then the only way is up, surely? Music follows fashion and fashion follows music, consequently they go round in circles. At the moment 'Indie' is the in thing, from The Strokes, to Franz Ferdinand, to the Arctic Monkeys, the cool kids have seemingly been wearing guitars. I'm too young to be able to remember the path that its all taken over the past however many decades. Once Britpop died, didn't all the dance music coming from Ibiza and American R'n'B come next? Like you said, a lot of great albums came next, and with any luck we can hope for the same now.
Are we going to be in the same situation in another 10-15 years, only its not Oasis and definitely maybe, but The Arctic Monkeys and... their first album? Or, god forbid, The Kooks?
We the record buying public...
...make our own beds by pouring more adulation on bands like the Arctic Monkeys than they really merit. This only encourages the likes of NME who then force the search for the next Arctic Monkeys (along the way claiming they discovered the latest "scene"). This in turn makes the majors think we want another Arctic Monkeys (we don't). The sheep then run for the nearest sticky floored venue waving their checkbooks. And so the cycle continues. We have no one to blame for The Twang but ourselves... as a recent prophet said "The Arctic Monkeys, just a band"...
By the way, as you've mentioned it, Midlake are indeed fantastic. It's impossible for Bella Union to sign a bad band.
the alternative
Its fair to say that the current guitar music in the charts is in no way a reflection of current beauty that is 'indie' music, not when you look at the great underground acts hovering around the Radar at the moment:
Popular Workshop, William, Xerox Teens, The Official Secrets Act, Kalev, Akira, Twentysixfeet, Nebraska, Bolt Action Five, Shut Your Eyes And You'll Burst Into Flames, This Et Al, Buttonhead, Goodbooks, Untitled Musical Project, The Rank Deluxe, Neils Children, Strange Idols...........and thats just off the top of my head.
hmmm..
the thing is, mainstream indie has always been fairly crappy (in my experience). You would get the occasional crossover from indie-scene to mainstream success which was actually good or wasn't watered down for mass consumption, but they were few and far between. And it still happens nowadays, the Arcade Fire topping the album charts etc.
but the sort of 'indie' music which has got airplay from Radio 1 and local stations is usually the sort of 3 minute riff/chorus based bands which you mention in the list above. I'd definitely lay it at the door of Oasis, who were pretty much the only indie staple of lowbrow radio a few years back. But i guess after you've played Wonderwall a million billion times it begins to lose impact. So now the fresh breed of similiar indie-rockers who play 'pop' guitar music and don't have 'gay' lyrics have been put forward. Radio stations are always looking for this because a lot of people enjoy such shit. And now the deepest, most barren furrows of indiedom have been mined, mainly due to exposure brought on by certain high-profile crossover acts in recent years.
So basically, the public mentality is to cause for this. The want to listen to insipid indie pop, so thats what they get. You could blame the Arctic Monkeys for making indie-rock profitable, or you could blame Oasis for starting the trend, but in the end you have to blame the British public.
And to be fair, it doesn't really show that indie itself is in peril, as numerous alternative bands are still making great music, just as always. It just shows that indie and rock are the genre du jour, and so we're just massively inundated with them.
I've been smezzer, good night
I agree wholheartedly
with you there. The recent rise of, even if they are shite, Enter Shikari, and the amount of press coverage that Gallows have been receving recently, suggests to me that a punk renaissance is imminnent and I, for one, can't wait.
ikara colt
had the right idea...
after 5 years every band should be dragged out and shot...
the twang get national recognition and bands like forward russia and kubichek get fuck all except for a loyal fanbase.... criminal
and also
the longcut were playin at that gig...
another criminally underlooked band compared to the shit that pollutes the nations airwaves and earholes...
airwaves and earholes... is that not the guy from stink182's new band ?
craigx aka cs009d4735
It's always been the way
that bands would emerge, dragged along on the coat-tails of whatever the current 'scene' happened to be.
Eventually people do grow tired of it.
Without The Libertines, would we ever have had bands like The Fratellis and The View? Probably not.
As far as I can tell, the bubble around The View in particular is already bursting.
Just goes to show that there does come a time where people grow sufficiently tired of things that some bands are over before they've even started.
As ever, the cream will rise to the top; the wheat will be separated from the chaff, etc.
The good stuff will last, regardless of fashions.
Midlake = The eagles
MoR boring rubbish, I have to say having seen them live in SXSW
This could be
the beggining of the end for "mainstream indie", which isn't necessarily a bad thing considering some of the rubbish around, apart from it meaning there'll be nothing even acceptable to listen to on the radio. Most good stuff sells hardly anything anyway. I reckon it will be emo (or nu-nu-metal) to take over as the new staple for mainstream music and that really is all rubbish.
Since When Has Good Music Sold Records Anyway?
All the really good shit is sadly ignored. We do live in a time of musical stunting.
Mind you, thanks to the internet, people have access to loads of good bands who would be unmentioned otherwise. I would prefer emo to take over form indie, its waaaaaaayyy more easy to take the piss outta it.
what is it with Gallows?
they're fucking awful. I'm from Watford, I love punk music, but I'm sorry, Gallows are shite. The lead singer's a cunt, Laurent the guitarist used to be in a much better band (My Dad Joe, anyone?), and their whole ethos can basically be summarised with 'angry is cool'. Captain Everything! are a much, MUCH better punk band (from Watford also), as are Howards Alias, Capdown, The Steal, etc.
btw, what do Enter Shikari have to do with punk?!
i agree wholheartedly
with the Pendulum comment. Fucking Zane Lowe and his drum'n'bass ignorance has made them everybody's club favourite.
I'd like to add
Dartz!, The Maccabees (who are somehow managing to stay just on the right side of amount of press coverage), and Frank Turner to that list.
oasis to be tried in an indie war crimes tribuneral
for crimes against music and progress
Enter Shikari have everything to do with punk
which is nothing.
I hate the word Punk, it contains the least punk bands around
Gallows put on a good show, angry is cool is probably better than bands who exert the feeling of 'lazy and drunk is cool'
I hate enter shikari
just like you, but my point was that their sudden rise to fame indicates that the British public may finally be after something heavier, and I know that Enter Shikar aren't the answer, but they could be a stepping stone for people to get into punk music. As for gallows relationship with anger, one of the main cornerstones, is channelled aggression, its not what punk is about completely, but its a ventilation for anger, and like Frank Carter says himself, anger seems to be the only thing people answer to these days. The Sex Pistols used anger to get their statement across, and so have many punk bands before.
cornerstones of punk
i meant to say
Well
It's not like this should be a surprise to anyone, it's the organic nature of popular music since way back in the 1950s. It generally goes:
A few actually alright first few bands > Lots of imitators get influenced and start to appear > Suddenly the market is saturated and people want something else > a few actually alright first bands in a different genre come along > and so on...
Not like this is anything new, really, but it's kind of predictable. Of that list at the end of the article a couple of those bands are actually alright, but then the rest are just cheap derivative knock-offs.
My money's one a dance revival. Since punk things seem to go either guitar-based to electronic to guitar again (roughly), so I'm betting on some electrical gubbins coming back into fashion.
Don't
be fooled by that rocks that he's got.
*the
(dammit)
well put
the cycle needs to be broken
try this - www.myspace.com/desperado
for me they've channeled their aggression into something that is still fun but doesn't lose that "edge"
Saw them live last year - they were incredible
yes
it did make me wretch but I forgive you, Dogs are truly awful
This Et Al
criminally underlooked - deserve far better than they are getting
oh the fickleness of youth scenes !
On a different note..
that dude from the Twang sho is ugly!
go for the
spokes.
hopefully...
there is an imminent tech revival, Battles are the 'breakthrough band'.
Just you wait.
By the way, nice article big man.
and...
spazzy rock like this band myspace.com/safetywordmusic
the same could in theory be said for Glasgow
or Oxford or Leeds or Southend or North East or a whole bunch of places before the industry and media gaze became fixed on the area, buzzing up false hopes and picking holes in bands just starting out and making any second album or wave successes seem old before-their-time, sometimes before they've even released a single. Like it's weird to think how many people already know the Pidgeon Dectives but saw them playing with Kaisers and Forward Russia a few years back, so would, in indie snob theory, consider them old, despite the fact their debut album isn't out. It's a very strange dicotomy.
So what I'm saying is the root is often as rotten as what's flourishing above ground.
If only the world became less about NEW MUSIC and more about GOOD MUSIC. It doesn't take a genius to work out that when certain artistes are given the exposure through adverts or movies or through concentrated word of mouth online, that their profile, then fanbases grow and sales grow significantly. It shouldn't take re-releasing a single with the right profile for media to take a good song seriously enough to playlist it or upgrade the band to level worthy of getting a feature. Just because a few thousand people are buying something so that it charts it's very often not representative of what the music world or even the nation wants... but this is a whole other debate.
everything is a reaction to something else
all these bands who sound like pavement/prog, strokes/70s rock and/or coldplay/u2 is what's driven me to listening to loads of Daft Punk inspired stuff. Sure it's my taste changing (I never thought I'd drink neat Whisky or Guinness!) but so often one musical movement is the result of another being dull and boring.
Like Klaxons and Test-Icicles have made me not want to listen to the Faint anymore.
...
was last weeks release not download only with a physical release next week? isn't that how it's done these days.
...
I dunno how it happens but I keep falling for all the hype generated by the NME et al. about new bands. I seems that everyone wants to be riding the cusp of a great musical revolution all the time. They wouldn't be revolutions if they happened all the time, so you gotta waait 5 years or so for a new band to come along and shake things up a bit.
I've lost count of how many time I've been wetting myself over a release, then when it finally arrives, listen to it a few times, then back to the old favourites. The Twang got me really excited when I saw them in Proud last year, and the tunes we're great, but now I just can't be arsed. It seems when a band comes along there debut has to be a corker. Whatever happened to building things up. Best feeling in the world is when you find a band and realise they have a whole catalogue (well at least 2 albums) that have been out, and jsut gone unnoticed. Shamefully the last time this happened to me was with Weezer. Friend put on Maladroit, (actually not a great album but had something about it I liked) I'd always known about Weezer never really cared, went out bought the entire back catalogue, thought they were amazing.
Remember when White Blood Cells came out, how many people went out and bought De Stjil and White Stripes the next week, thats what I love. Falling fro the hype on a band with just one single means you're eventually going to get very bored it very quickly. My little brother, whose only 12, just got into the Dirty Pretty Things. Had to take him to one side and stick on Up The Bracket, and all the B-sides from round that time and I envied his innocence. Maybe I'm just getting old.
who the fuck
are the twang? have i missed something?
Me's missing the point here
I just skimmed the article, and as well written as it seemed to be it was sorta pessamistic about today's stuff. Que no?
Erm, WTF? As much as I loved Bowie's 70s, the Bunnymen in the 80s, Blur in the 90s ....today's stuff is mindblowing! (Just gotta look for it...er, like here! fer chrissakes!!) I thought perhaps Limp Bizkut/Linkin Park might kill my love for music in the late 90s but Interpol, The Libertines, British Sea Power, saved me from giving up completely. I see more bands now than when I was 24. OK, that's not true, but still, you get the point.
I don't post on here very often
But stuff like this reminds me why I should.
I think much of the problem is that, yes, popular music has generally been very poor, but, except for Britpop, 'indie' or 'alternative' music has never been paticularly popular. Punk wasn't. Honest.
And its now that its 'our' music that is being bastardised by cretins like the Kooks and the Fratellis that it pains us so much.
It pains us to go to an 'indie' night and hear Fall Out At The Disco or whatever they're called. It pains us to say we like indie and hear some simpleton reply by gushing over the 'genius' of Milburn. And it pains me personally for people to decide I musn't like any music, because they assume I'm an 'indie kid', but then find it unfathomable that I despise Kasabian and Razorlight.
The bubble has to pop for the Indie Heat lads at NME. I can only hope that the straw-clutching flat-packed scene of 'Nu Rave' (cos it rhymes with New Wave, innit?) is its eventual downfall. I think them and the trendsetters at TopShop may have taken one it one focus group too far.
There won't be a punk revival. There won't be a revolution. There's no revolution anymore, see?
It'll just be that skinny jeans are replaced by combats again, and we can return to not being annoyed by the charts because it doesn't contain guitars.
And as for The Twang and The Enemy, I've become so disillusioned with 'indie' as such that I've never heard anything by them, based purely on their name and how they look. I wish I couldn't bring myself to do this, but the Kooks have left me no choice.
See, I never post for donkeys, then I cram a dozen or so into one big diatribe. And it was more than likely shite.
I think the
problem with trying to posit any type of indie continuum, or music continuum for that matter, is that the best bands of any period nearly always get overlooked during their lifetime. The progression of music is always charted after whatever waves or leaps forward have been made. Therefore, it wont be surprising for people to talk of this period in the years to come as being incredibly healthy musically despite the shit thats around at the moment. If we were to take what was on the radio in the 80s or the 90s as what was really going on in music at that period we'd always say it was shit, because the mainstream and great music have only ever coincided with each other at rare points in the last forty years. That whole slew of bands mentioned in the article are all the music industry's attempts to try and control and predict the way music "should" be going, and such contrived measures really add up to nothing in the long term. Of course there will be a few who will get to see some amazing bands produce some amazing music at the peak of their powers, but our appreciation only ever seems to gain elevation retrospectively.
I've just listened to
Desperado's fehu and broken hearts broke, and they're pretty damn good. If bands like that start getting more recognition, and twats like the twang are forgotten, that can only be a good thing.
I think inevitably it will
go round in circles. I thought originally this 'indie' scene in Britain was an alternative to the David Gray singer songwriter generation, it just so happens, they're both crap. Still, i think Dis is too quick to lump all these bands in the same category. Arctic Monkeys are far superior to the twang, and I beleive will last beyond the lad rock phenomenom. Plus bands like the Libertines were never about 'avin it' but instead about literature, and underground gigs. It's shite like the twang, and kaiser chiefs that are runing it, and besmirching a good band like Arctic Monkeys name
Heavy Stereo
Bluetones
Sleeper
Powder
all = Poo.
Shed Seven
Marion
Menswear
all = Ace.
"Deep breath, please...
The Twang, The Automatic, The Kooks, The View, Dirty Pretty Things, Babyshambles, Reverend & The Makers, Thee Unstrung, Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, The Feeling, Pigeon Detectives, Little Man Tate, Fratellis, Razorlight, Holloways, The Zutons, The Paddingtons, Milburn, The Harrisons, Switches, Humanzi, Kharma 45, Larrikin Love…?"
Yes. All of them. ALL OF THEM. MUST DIE.
Actually,
looking at it the other way, if I had to save one of those bands, it'd probably be Kasabian. This a) highlights how highly I regard everyone else on the list, b) causes me to make comparisons between Kasabian and the band who were (arguably) their equivalents in the similarly none-more-stale post-Britpop indie scene of ten(ish) years ago: Mansun. I was never a particular fan of Mansun either, but the fact that they blatantly didn't give a fuck what anyone else thought and weren't concerned with any ideas of what a guitar band "should" do meant I at least respected them enough to buy their weirder records (although I've yet to feel the urge to buy a Kasabian record through solidarity - more than enough people buy their records already).
I realise that this may be a dangerous comparison to make on these boards, considering some of the Mansun-lovin' that goes on... but all I mean is, in terms of bands who get/got lots of attention during their respective halcyon days, both bands are comparatively interesting compared to everything else that is/was going on at the time.
I have no opinion on the twang.
Infact I haven't even heard them, to my knowledge.
I pretty much just tune out as soon as I hear a band name starting with 'The' these days.
HEY
what's all this Bluetones bashing.
let's not forget that "Blood Bubble" is used in THAT Spaced episode, and the little song that is called "Marblehead Johnson", the first single I ever bought. Special place in my heart. Never got Shed Seven though......
well
said.
I'm shocked...
....that there's no Hard-Fi on this list.
I blame....
....the Beatles
Glad you appreciated that tipoff
those tracks haven't been released yet over here but they do sound great - their album "beauty is the first victim" is really good, got mine at HMV
definitely agree
last paragraph especially hits the button
sadly
there's hundreds and hundreds of bands doing the same kind of things just waiting to get signed. If the Twang makes it big, it will incire record companies to sign another batch of these...
And since there's no big alternative to the NME, I think it'll happen !
There are
small alternatives to the NME though - Artrocker, DiS, Playlouder and Popmatters to name a few! We just need some kind of revolution. Beheadings even! Que Pirate noises! Arrrr.
dont really agree on larakkin love
but on The Twang, it reminds me of a post on the board about bands deserving recognition cos of how much they've been touring and playing.
all of the twang cept the young one have been playin under different monikers for nearly ten years apparently, so unlike the rest of those bands they are hardly flash-in-the-pan.
still shit tho
anyone else find the use of the term 'ethnic cleansing' in this article just a wee bit unnnecessary/
I'm sure there is another way of saying what you mean without appearing to make light of genocide.
Too late
I just murdered 6 million people on my way to the shops. Damn you, Drownedinsound.com, for making light of genocide!
everyone
who feels like this should just form a band. Focussed on being the antithesis of all of this bland, soulless, generic MOR drivel - I'd rather listen to almost anything than the bands listed here, if you're that passionate, well, lay that passion down on a record = people might buy it, start you're own revolution yeah? whose with me, good
please
no-one pick me up for the you're // your confusion
not agreeing with the NME
just saying they don't have any mainstream counterbalance at the moment. Which is a big problem. Yes, a certain amount of people will find other ways to 'new' music. But for the silent majority ?
MMMMMM
thanks. Everyone needs a bit of spazcore in their life.
...
there is certainly a lot of toss out there. what's always interested me is that I'm relatively young but sentimental about music from the past like the greats... bowie, prince etc... but I'd always like to know if music was the same then, that there was loads and loads of toss bands and the greats kind of shined through and then improved with retrospect.
surely the nice thing about having so much poor generic music about is that when you find something a bit special it's a lot more enjoyable for the discerning listener? not talking about indie snobbery...just that it's nice to feel a bit of ownership about music you know the masses will never really "get".
I suppose the worst thing about the bands mentioned
is that they're normally trading off one good or passable single. rather than being given time to develop, or at least develop the courage to do their own thing.
please stop this gibberish
Insomniac was cancelled because of the lack of funds and because of supposed clashing w/ Easter bank hols
Still, the Twank are shit
the twang
saw em on TV the other day... what a joke... sounds like two drunken gobby rappers sluring over a U2 backing band. its self evidently dog-shit.
to be fair
i've witnessed some good pendulum dj sessions.
but the album...
but...
The difference between me and the people in those shoddy bands is that i know i have no musical talent.
If i jopined in, i'd just make things worse.
lots of toss back in the day
ie. Cilla Black
who really is John Lennon's fault.
and other that we probably can't blame on dead Beatles such as Lonnie Donegan, Bobby Darin or Status Quo...
I blame the record companies
After all they are signing this drivel. Also does a new act have any real chance of any real exposure thats not stage managed by PR in a labour party stylee.
I play in a small alternative band and theres no way any of the majors would touch us in a million years. Because we'd be a significant risk. But I feel the rejection by them is almost a sign of the quality of what we do.
I laughed out lous when I saw the twang, they were such a Oasis/U2/Simple Minds style ladrock car crash they had to be invented by someone or heavily told how to sound by someone in the marketing dept of a major label.
...
you're all gay.
im embarrased now
it wont let me delete that post haha
DiS joins the Music Alliance Pact + May 2013's global MAP compilation
Drowned in Bristol #12
DiS Does Singles 13.05.13: Swim Deep, These New Puritans, The National
Darkstar, Ed Harcourt, Halls, Wall +more for 3 DiS-curated nights at Great Escape 2013
Interview: Frank Turner on The Olympics, The Backlash, Thatcher and Black Flag
Drowned in Nottingham #14
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