MOOD: Not so bad.
LISTENING TO: Hanoi Rocks
Not a bad weekend all told. Kept my spending down to a reasonable level, had a good band practice on Saturday and been for a walk today which has left me feeling better for getting some exercise and fresh air.
The band's coming along well - as of next week we will officially be moving from rehearsing in our bass player's attic to a rehearsal studio proper. Set so far looks like being a good mix of our own stuff plus a couple of covers (though our planned version of "Speed Demon" by Keel has been nixed as, according to our vocalist, "there's no fuckin' way I'm gonna be able to sing that without tying a rubber band round me nads!").
Dealing with the other side of my musical talents (such as they are), I've decided to send some reviews off to another fanzine. To be honest, I've kind of lost faith in the one I currently write for - it's just gone for total indie kid overkill lately.
It's a bit strange being a bloke whose two main musical loves are glam-metal and old-skool punk living in Leeds - this city's probably got one of the best "alternative" music scenes in the country, generally because the consensus here seems to be "do what the fuck you want" (why d'you think the NME high-tailed it out of here asap when they realised that we don't generally welcome outsiders trying to stereotype and patronise us?). The trouble is that, for such a big scene, it's also blighted largely with a crippling lack of genuine individuality with most bands playing either unlistenable art-school indie (the shadow of the massively over-rated but unfortunately one of the biggest bands ever to hail from this area Gang of Four still hangs heavy here sad to say) or sixteen-year-olds with Phil Oakey haircuts playing uninspired emo music (funny ways to piss emo kids off number 37 - go to a gig and shout "Play 'Together In Electric Dreams'!"
).
It's been a bit weird because I've been doing fanzine work in Leeds for just under four years now and I've found precious little to champion - whenever a half-decent glam or punk band does come along they just get sneered at by the indie kid cognoscenti who want everything to sound like (spit!) the Arctic Monkeys or similar. There are, thankfully, some damn good bands still kicking up against the status quo round here - go look up the likes of Phluid, Vicious Cabaret or, of course, the Dead Pets (now with a record deal in the can at last!) if you want proof, but for every great band like that you'll get a zillion and one uninspired bands content to just reflect the banality of everyday existence around them when they could be transcending it, living the rockstar life to the hilt and making some damn fine life-affirming music.
The worst thing is that this sort of negativity feeds down the ladder as well. I started off writing for "Sandman" magazine and left there because it basically merged with its three other branches, in my opinion to its detriment as most of the articles I submitted just stopped getting published (a good example being a Quireboys live review which was turned down despite the mag asking me two days previously if I had anything spare I'd like to submit). Then I moved to my current employers whose name I won't mention as despite everything I don't bear 'em any personal malice - for all our musical differences, most of the other writers are genuinely nice people, it's just I have next to nothing in common with them in terms of music taste. When people start sending you hate e-mails for the apparently heinous crime of espousing the view that actually no, Arctic Monkeys are not very good, you really start to think you're working in the wrong place. So I'm sending some reviews off to another fanzine down south who seem to specialise more in the sort of music I like. Wish me luck folks.
Even better, no work tomorrow! For the first time in a long time I feel rested. It's a good feeling.
So how are you lot then? C'mon peeps, I wanna hear what you've been up to.
Yorkie
PS - Bleedin' typical, ain't it? Just as I'm about to give up on her, she gets in touch, tells me she's just been busy and wants to go for a drink with me! (see last entry) Please excuse me - I'm just off to do a lap of honour of the room.
LISTENING TO: Hanoi Rocks
Not a bad weekend all told. Kept my spending down to a reasonable level, had a good band practice on Saturday and been for a walk today which has left me feeling better for getting some exercise and fresh air.
The band's coming along well - as of next week we will officially be moving from rehearsing in our bass player's attic to a rehearsal studio proper. Set so far looks like being a good mix of our own stuff plus a couple of covers (though our planned version of "Speed Demon" by Keel has been nixed as, according to our vocalist, "there's no fuckin' way I'm gonna be able to sing that without tying a rubber band round me nads!").
Dealing with the other side of my musical talents (such as they are), I've decided to send some reviews off to another fanzine. To be honest, I've kind of lost faith in the one I currently write for - it's just gone for total indie kid overkill lately.
It's a bit strange being a bloke whose two main musical loves are glam-metal and old-skool punk living in Leeds - this city's probably got one of the best "alternative" music scenes in the country, generally because the consensus here seems to be "do what the fuck you want" (why d'you think the NME high-tailed it out of here asap when they realised that we don't generally welcome outsiders trying to stereotype and patronise us?). The trouble is that, for such a big scene, it's also blighted largely with a crippling lack of genuine individuality with most bands playing either unlistenable art-school indie (the shadow of the massively over-rated but unfortunately one of the biggest bands ever to hail from this area Gang of Four still hangs heavy here sad to say) or sixteen-year-olds with Phil Oakey haircuts playing uninspired emo music (funny ways to piss emo kids off number 37 - go to a gig and shout "Play 'Together In Electric Dreams'!"
).It's been a bit weird because I've been doing fanzine work in Leeds for just under four years now and I've found precious little to champion - whenever a half-decent glam or punk band does come along they just get sneered at by the indie kid cognoscenti who want everything to sound like (spit!) the Arctic Monkeys or similar. There are, thankfully, some damn good bands still kicking up against the status quo round here - go look up the likes of Phluid, Vicious Cabaret or, of course, the Dead Pets (now with a record deal in the can at last!) if you want proof, but for every great band like that you'll get a zillion and one uninspired bands content to just reflect the banality of everyday existence around them when they could be transcending it, living the rockstar life to the hilt and making some damn fine life-affirming music.
The worst thing is that this sort of negativity feeds down the ladder as well. I started off writing for "Sandman" magazine and left there because it basically merged with its three other branches, in my opinion to its detriment as most of the articles I submitted just stopped getting published (a good example being a Quireboys live review which was turned down despite the mag asking me two days previously if I had anything spare I'd like to submit). Then I moved to my current employers whose name I won't mention as despite everything I don't bear 'em any personal malice - for all our musical differences, most of the other writers are genuinely nice people, it's just I have next to nothing in common with them in terms of music taste. When people start sending you hate e-mails for the apparently heinous crime of espousing the view that actually no, Arctic Monkeys are not very good, you really start to think you're working in the wrong place. So I'm sending some reviews off to another fanzine down south who seem to specialise more in the sort of music I like. Wish me luck folks.
Even better, no work tomorrow! For the first time in a long time I feel rested. It's a good feeling.
So how are you lot then? C'mon peeps, I wanna hear what you've been up to.
Yorkie
PS - Bleedin' typical, ain't it? Just as I'm about to give up on her, she gets in touch, tells me she's just been busy and wants to go for a drink with me! (see last entry) Please excuse me - I'm just off to do a lap of honour of the room.
VIEW 18 of 18 COMMENTS
vicky:
Wow, that's a happy photo! Thanks for the congrats
johnnyforeigner:
And handsome new profile pic 