A&R men get busy: bands signed, champagne is drunk

Dead Fly are a good band.....

Worst web site in the world......

although The GLC one is poopy too!

Only really heard of Special Needs, who I thought were a bit boring. Bo.

Let's get this straight, Poptones have signed another load of nobodies... however, Poptones do have The Glitterati on the books and the bio reads: "They are here to bring the sleaze back into rock’n’roll."

All well and good, but when there's a band such as King Adora doing it a million times and better *and* they're unsigned... what the hell are they playing at signing up all these bloody scenesters? :S

still around.... going strong by the looks of it, deal or no deal...

x
gen

I've seen King Adora four times this year, all on their April / May tour. This was over 20 dates long and most dates were sold out or nearly sold out... live they're stronger than ever and better than the wealth of other bands I've seen this year that get repeatedly bum-fucked by all the music weeklies...

They also released a new album this March which is excellent despite the poor production. However, it was on a one-off album deal and they are without a label again...

wow
call your band the koreans, get carted off to seoul.
im gonna form a band called
i dunno
The Brazilians?
AND it has vaguely sexual connotations...

Oh, Maximo Park are good! Er...good to see them signing to a decent label er....

alan mcgee is responsible for all that is shit in british music.
from the mary chain through oasis to the libs, he champions pathetic and antiquated ideas of what RockNRoll is.
and hes a cunt.

over him being a cunt?

rock and roll is bullshit.
anyone that advocates it unironically needs a fucking slap.

what r u saying?

i do diagree with him being, as you say, "a cunt".

oh, mind your language!

because by the sounds of it, it would be highly libellous.

completely ignoring personal slander, talking only about his effect on british music.

i know
and thats why id do it with a wee incentive.

I like the manifesto on their website - from the sound of that and the fact that they've signed to Warp, I deduce that they must be good. What they like, MM?

Well I think we're great.

Just out of curiousity, what bands do the people who think that we are shit actually like, so we can get an idea of what we're up against.
Or do you like bands at all. Some of the earlier comments suggest otherwise.

Thanks,

Zachery, Special Needs

PS: Maximo Park are the best band I know.

Perhaps they've progressed in the past few years?
Like, y'know, bands can change almost completely in their drive and mission over the course of weeks, let alone years.
Don't see the point of your post.

Will check em when I get home from work (no sound on net here)

good point, but their influence on the average "rock fan" is damn near negligable. and is all the choice in music between rock and roll fakery "constipated american rock" and the dreaded, inexcusabe "diginoodles"?

He is behind the Hives stuff too aint he? not very british.
The choice is further and wider, but McGee works with what he likes.
What would you want him be doing? Do you not think without Primal Scream, Jesus and Mary Chain, MBV, Mew, Hives, Boxer Rebellion, The Others, Libs, etc, etc, anyone would know or care who he is? He'd just be some guy who used to run a fanzine putting out obscure records like what he started out doing (Everett Trues, Legend! stuff and the Raincoats, etc...).

Some people will never be satisfied unless they're putting the knife into those few who've given their life up for music, rather than the cashmoney.

You could argue the world would be a better place if Simon Williams (Fierce Panda) didnt discover Coldplay and Keane, non? Everyone has their sins, and without those few less than interesting bits which glide into the mainstream and excite the masses (incl. £50 man), how can people out out Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies or blow tens of thousands to let Kevin Shields take as long as he needs to make a record?

You're damned if you do and insignificant if you don't. Infact, why do you believe your opinion on Alan McGee is so important?

its at the bear in clerkenwell - it was at the duke of clarence but that place has mysteriously 'closed down'

It wasn't aimed at you in particular Dale. Just someone said 'rock n roll is shit' which to a large extent I agree with.
There's so much bollocks attached to it that sometimes I despair.
I know Alan McGee's track record has been hit and miss over the years but the man comes across to us as someone who really cares about doing something good.
Everyone's idea of what that is differs but the vitriol in some of these messages is staggering. In my opinion, Hitler was a cunt, Ian Huntley was a cunt. Someone who releases music you don't particularly like doesn't really fall into that category.
This is our lives though. Or perhaps lack of them. Give us a chance to prove our substance and we'll endeavour not to disappoint.

Zac xxx

and could i just appear to back pedal a wee and make clear that im really not trying to start an argument or be up myself here.

alan mcgee seems to represent the blind promotion of the rock and roll that we, thankfully agree on as being A Bad Thing.

i wasnt commenting in the slightest on any of the recent glut of signings. i ahvent heard special needs. my mates in mystery jets played with you (i think) in brighton. and i havent heard lefthand, but my mate played bass for them for a while recently.


hitler cared about doing something that (to him) was good.
my "beef" (speech-marked co i think its a funny term)with mcgee stems not from just putting out bad records (and certainly he has put out some fine ones. or one that i can really think of) but from the bad ones influence in propagating the rock and roll myth.

Are The Others this year's Terris - assuming that the singer of Terris came from a wealty foundary owning family in Wells in Somerset

are you serious?
seriously serious?
do tell. im tempted to believe you.
and whats a foundry?

A foundary is where 'poor' people work isn't it - well 'poor' people with politics degrees from the University of London

There's a lot of dull bands out there - quite how it took me til now to realise that - I suppose being on one you get to notice how many there are

Are Razorlight the new Gay Dad?

You're all* stupid.
It only seems to be the London bands getting bitched about here.
Even DFB got mentioned about this on Jockrock - which is a board notorious for its bitchiness - and all they've had on there is positive comments.


*most of

http://www.network54.com/Forum/thread?forumid=188020&messageid=1090579586&lp=1090594135

:-)

it's all such madness.

people should prove themselves before getting signed.

such a waste of money to sign bands who aren't ready. it's also unfair on the bands themselves, who are given a push they aren't prepared for then spend the rest of their lives in misery as they complain about how the industry screwed them.

i never will understand gay and r.

Dead fly have an album deal with beggars.
heard thier cd, its gonna shake things up a bit!

Well done to Dead Fly, supposed to be playing with them in September, looking forward to it. Great to see a band doing so well. Jockrock is full of wankers, they* all HATE my band and it's a regular subject of tirdsome bouts of senseless put-downs.

No-one on there likes to see anyone do well but DFB are a well liked bunch. Good on them, I hope they are well recieved when the album comes out.

* again, most of

alan mcgee...

ping pong bitches

i rest my case...

Nice to hear from you Dripfeed. Hope you're well.

Our drummer Neil is a mysterious chap. The substance was probably toxic or a bodily fluid.

hate to pull out ye olde "indies can work without putting out stuff that they dont love" argument, but: dischord? fugazi?


And how many bands have Dischord ever broke? And by breaking, I mean that the bands could afford to give up their 9-5s and start creating and sculpting their music full-time? That the staff at the label could afford to live outside of poverty. It's AN example, but one of very, very, few good examples out of billions which have lead to great bands breaking up and going to work on checkouts.

And isn't subverting the mainstream also important? Pleasing 20 indie snobs in the backroom of a pub is all well and good, but is it an acheivement? Isn't the point of being in a band or releasing a record, to bring joy, entertainment and inspiration to others, whilst not bankcrupting eachother at the same time?

i have no idea how many dischord act have been able to live off record sales. i'd guess its in the single figures. but i never thought that was what making music was about. as long as you cover your costs and get to take your music to some people, why should it be about any more?

and in terms of rhetoric, your attmempt at grafting negative connotations to playing wee gigs by describing the audience as "snobs" backfires when you add the "is it an achievement". snobs are, like, hard to please.

is subverting the mainstream important? not really. its impressive, it can be fun and it gives "indie snobs" something to giggle about.

regardless of whether you agree or not with his taste in music (because, like everyone's, it can go either way), i find it laughable that people here would knock Alan McGee the 'effect that he's had on british music'.

he's done more to save British music than anyone else here ever will (with the possible exception of the future Sean DiS, who is a mogul in waiting. - how's that for arselicking Sean? :-) ).

the music industry gets filthier by the day, and it take smarts just to navigate it relatively unscathed.. never mind stay near the top of it for so long.

in an age where 'marketing' an artist consists merely of splattering London with bright posters and getting sponsorship from Coke, Alan is a genius of the old dark arts of media manipulation and hype by stealth.. whilst everyone else is banging down the front door of the NME, he's sneaking in the back door and having away with the silverware.
the business needs pirates, otherwise it it'd be a very boring business indeed.

some of us are happy spending our time releasing records that we love for the fun of it, with no thoughts of changing anything... and that's more than enough for us.

others like to throw themselves into the thick of it and make a nuicance of themselves for the sheer thrill of rattling cages, and they should be admired for it, not knocked...

there's room for both.

I am amused at the reaction towards this guy. As an American I grew up praising the Mary chain, Telescopes, Slowdive, Swervedriver, and a lot of bands on Creation. Besides Galaxy 500 and The Pixies American music was pretty much rubbish in the late eighties/ early nineties.

If it was on Creation, it's bound to be quality! ; )

packing out the rock city basement, eh??

wow. that's a level of success most bands can never dream of!!

Add Kyuss & The Jesus Lizard to those many..

The Koreans are really good. I love the song When You Leave Me

Just to add my opinion on Alan McGee...the man is clearly legendary and he knows how to exploit the media all the fuckin way...it doesn't matter if the bands he signs are shit or ace he just always captures the zeitgeist with his output......he knows he can get his acts column inches...right now there's a horrible London scene being fabricated by the NME round babyshambles and several talentless but arty punky bands from some borough or other.....after all why would the NME want to have to fuckin travel out into the regions to find something to write about that would involve time and money yuch!!..... These bands mount up to one horrible little clique of wankers with the collective talents of one of the queens of noise Djs, ie nothing. But it don't matter to McGee cos he'll just ride with it while its there and i guess in two years maybe one of them will still mean shit...and at that point McGee will be championing somebody else as the next Sex Pistols (remember that NME ad for Three Colours Red anyone?) because he knows how to make a statement....
Its just a big game to him and so far he's doing very nicely indeed thank you very much from his libs, oasises hives etc...(and if you've read the creation story he does probably actually fuckin deserve his wealth for being such a maverick)
If only the NME was as liberal as McGee we'd have a british music scene to be proud of instead of one dominated by a couple of big PR firms, a couple of big management companies and a couple of clueless journalists in high places desperate to climb the slippery career ladder and flailing around wildly trying to decide who to actually like (cos they don't really like music that much do they otherwise they would realise selfish cunt is rubbish, just plain rubbish and the queens of tunes are talentless hanger's on and average indie DJs to boot..)