soapy

and just trying to copy something from the game and cram it into a film with no regard for the fact that the two mediums have different conventions and tropes.

Mortal Kombat is the right side of the line, Doom's FPS section the wrong.

a slightly hokey mix from tropes from 70s martial arts films and hints of fantasy and classical influences but as iffy as some aspects are, it looks solid, the plot is as coherent as you could possibly hope and it captures the spirit of the game whilst being something you could probably watch without knowing the games beforehand.

!!

http://www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2013/01/hmv-rings-death-knell/

If HMV goes Newcastle will be left with 4 independent record shops (RPM, Windows, Beatdown and Reflex) each catering to slightly different but equally dedicated audiences.
Durham will be left with no record or dvd sellers other than WHSmith, Tesco and a punk distro.

Ace Bushy Striptease, Middle Ones, Martha, and (from America) Good Luck

who'd based his entire life on trying to be Connor Oberst?

the Franz Nicoli (ex-hold steady) show there was fantastic. A few people did stand in the middle taking pictures of each other and shouting over him for a bit but the guy is such a pro that he managed to keep the good vibes going and they shut up after some disapproving glares. They didn't seem to be the sort who go to many small shows / where probably the sort who review gigs for university newspapers.

http://waskerleyway.bandcamp.com/

Field Music approved and loved by all who meet him - his first release was referenced on hipster run-off(!) as being a potential song of the year if ariel pink had released it - the latest outing is the soundtrack to a fictional RPG that is being released both digitally (bandcamp/soundcloud) and as a poster which features the world map of the game and qr codes to the tracks and video clips.

Great news that O'Messy Life have recovered from Dave more or less slicing his thumb off.

and don't forget that there is some punk rock happening thanks to the charmers at Music For Lovers:
12th November - Fellow Project/The Marine Electric + more
28th November - Unfun/Pure Graft + more
1st December - CHRISTMAS PARTY! - The Cut Ups + More. The Northumberland Arms
11th December - Crazy Arm/Lessons + More
venues and prices TBC (but probably somewhere like The Central)

Franz Nicolay (ex-Hold Steady) with ONSIND and Daniel vs the World
August 24th Central Gateshead

and

Defiance, Ohio with Martha and Some Sort of Threat
August 25 Alington House Durham

I thought this was going to be about Ceremony

no one will be listening to this album by the end of the summer

Around the Fur is probably the most Kerrang of their albums. Not that it isn't excellent.

to great acclaim

Thumbs up for Waskerley Way, Lets Buy Happiness and the return of the Bubble Project too

Jack Sprats, Heaton Perk or Sky Apple Cafe in the food recommendations?!

no flash in the pan sub-libertines/razorlit flash in the pan bullshit.

that said, Vertigo of Bliss is still the one that does it for me.

but puts in the boot into something like Owl City who are no more guilty of the same crime.

This chump is actually even more blatant than that was. EVEN IS FUCKING REAL NAME IS ALMOST THE SSAME

Just look at him!!

come on diver. fucks sake.

that realises that New Noize isn't the only song on the album

for Eros?

i figured that might be pretty important to explaining how some of these songs ended up like they have

or just lists?

Heaven & Hell and Mob Rules are both better than Sabotage.

just for the title track and the cover

but it's always good to see them branching out.

Can I mention how stoked I am for the Jawbreaker Unfun reissue next week in this section?
not really genre at all but ... daaaamn it's good (and a neat replacement for the copy i leant out and next got back

i like

Lemuria ... not really but sort of .. but dead good

mainly just headline acts like sunn0))) but there's no reason for it not to dedicate an issue of this column to what we've got going on

to consider the cluny-headofsteam axis the life and soul of music on tyneside and something like narc its wouldbe definitive voice?

just that it in relation to this column its somewhat parochial nature would mean it a mistake to think that its coverage is the authoritive endnote on the newcastle scene.

i'd agree with you that they cover too many national bands - but thats something they'd need to do to get people to pick it up, whose going to grab a magazine with dressed in wires on the cover and think this is going to be a great casual read?*

since you ask my friends who are most involved with music have been putting on and playing shows with fairly notable artists like chuck ragan from hot water music as well as bands like dillinger four, leatherface, lemuria, defiance ohio, and bridge & tunnel over the last year or so. so no, not some no mark grey student indie like i think you where slyly hinting at.

this column should be great and i only started this to say that i hope the writer doesn't fall into the easy (and lazy) trap of thinking that something like Narc and its bands are the be all and end all of the exciting interesting stuff that's happening up here and just writing about that bands it regularly covers.

as mentioned above theres been some great extreme metal, doom and grindcore type stuff too but thats even more at the fringes most of the time.

*dressed in wires did play some pretty cool shows though

if she doesn't hurry up and get her album done sometimes i worry that she'll be over taken by some kind of laura marling inspired wave of twee-female singer songwriters and get lost in the crowd.
which would be a shame because she's one of the more promising 'indie' acts around town.

and my friends bands rarely get Narc coverage, not that i think that bothers them, because like it or not there really does seem to be Narc bands and not Narc bands.
Not necessarily a bad thing, some narc bands are actually alright, but it's a bit off to pretend that there isn't a something of a divide.

mainly i was trolling a bit with my last post.
think of it as constructive criticism:)

If you've got shit writers don't hide behind the 'volunteer' blanket, if they're shit (and there have been some awful ones) and they don't know what they're talking about then stop accepting their submissions.

And it's usually fairly obvious from whats been written whether someone watched the bands or not. Writers tend to go overboard one way or the other, or just talk about things related to said band but not their actual performance. I remember a good few reviews that might as well have just been of myspace profiles back in the day.

while i have basically given up on it covering stuff i'm really interested in regularly, it isn't quite as bad as it used to be.*

*although, we're the best if thats not good enough f-u is a bit of a high horse scene elite tone to be taking yourself y'know ;)

the nepotistic way friends always get good reviews, often ill-informed pieces, poorly written. and it looks really ugly too, all that blank space and tiny print.
the guy who had a column where he just ranted about stuff was fun but that just felt like it was the occasional blog entry taken directly from his blogspot and printed in the zine.

oh, and printing reviews of gigs/bands when the writer wasn't even present. I can remember that happening fairly often back in the day.

y'knwo next week Drowned in Leeds
and so on

and if you're talking about bands who people from outside the city pay attention to you forgot bands like Lavotchkin.

but hey, this wasn't quite the horrible Narc. piece i thought it might be so that's okay.

eeesh

they should put that out too

i am a bit apprehensive about the whole double album thing. even the best tend to get pretty bloated and would usually have made for one killer single disc (except use your illusion because part one only had about 2 good songs on it whereas part two was pretty much all great).

and it was fantastic