(Grade A bellyaching follows unfulfilled wanted ad)
Bass Player
Percussionist
for "experimental" "rock" "band". Based in Cardiff, UK.
Influences PiL / Birthday Party / Big Black / Wire / 23 Skidoo / Sonic Youth / Talking Heads / Swans / The Fall / Pere Ubu
Ability, image, brain, vehicle & driving licence desirable.
Apply within. And by within, I mean send me a fucking message, obviously. Or comment below.
- - -
Does anyone care about the music? At all? I keep hearing how the record industry is on it's ass. I saw BP Fallon describe beautifully how the majors have only ever sold the medium, with the music little more than a better or worse reason to buy that medium. I hear a lot about how the audience is now more in control than ever before. I don't trust the audience. I trust the audience less than the majors. The audience is still under the spell of decades of mass-marketing, blind acceptance of the lowest-common-denominator. If it were up to the audience, things would probably not look a whole lot different - the majority of commercially successful bands would still be crap. Bollock-less diluted rubbish, no challenge, no interest, no point. Garbage for Johnny 9-to-5 to tap a foot to while doing the washing up or, more likely, sitting in traffic on the way to/from work. So I hear "the web" is the new power, the salvation for the true artist, get your music out there, exploit (a dirty word) all this great new technology and cut the majors out of the picture altogether. Stick it to the man. It's not like there's a bottleneck at all, of course. Have you seen how many fucking bands there are nowadays? And aren't most of them shite? Technology has made it easy alright. It's made it easier for half-chancers with no ideas to get on board and weigh down the balloon. So much flotsam and jetsam, diluting the talent pool. What is seen by some as a liberation is to me an affront. Digital music is second rate. Call me an elitist but I like my waveforms pure and my frequency range true. Vinyl still can't be beat. But technology implores people to download their music collection, listen to lossy, compressed mp3's on tinny fucking headphones on your iPod on the way to the office. Raw Power, I can fucking feel it. This is not emancipation. Music is becoming disposable. Nobody is even listening anymore. Bands are interchangeable. One bunch of fucking haircuts to the next. I hear a band makes it's living these days from playing live and selling merchandise. Which may be true, but it's a joke nonetheless. First, live audiences are in decline, largely because the prevalence of so many crap bands has made the average gig a bore. How many crap nights in dingy bars can the average consumer handle? These are people who grind their whole lives away doing jobs they probably hate. They want some excitement on their weekend at least, something worthwhile to waste their paycheck on. Too many shit bands, and now there's not enough audience to go round. No interest, no passion. Just the usual friends-of-friends, busloads from the Valleys, and lazy fucking promoters who don't actually promote but instead ask a band to not only play a gig for no money but to bring a full house at the same time. MySpace started out, so I've been told, as a community to help bands more than anything else. Now there's an "ignore requests from bands" button. What's that tell you? That bands are the pop-up ad's of recent times? Lets' be blissfully ignorant for a few moments and pretend the average joe gives a fuck about bands anymore, and there actually is an audience. First off, it's unlikely the band get paid very well at all for the show, and when you factor in the expense, there's never very much left. So that leaves the merchandise. I already tried to run a t-shirt business before. It died on it's ass because I'm not a businessman. Turns out being in a band is really just being a covert businessman after all. Buy our t-shirts, buy our tote bags, buy our jewellery. Like I said, does anyone care about the music anymore? What about buy our album? I don't want to push corny fucking merchandise at people. I wouldn't wear it myself, what do I want to sell it to you for? That's my definition of integrity, and it's also the reason I'm still broke. I don't want to be a fucking marketing manager. I don't want to be a salesman. I would wear a suit and join the rest of the fuckers if I did. I'd be pulling in a steady income, not half starving to make music. Whatever happened to rock-n-roll? I don't think Iggy Pop for one fucking second ever cared about putting stooges logos on cigarette lighters. Most of the old guard got shafted by the countless Carnaby street pirates who put the logos on everything themselves and make a fortune without paying the band a penny. I'm not saying there's not cash to be had, but I'm not in a band to be a retail clerk. I once quit being a retail clerk to be in a band. The times they are a 'changing, huh? If the record industry is on it's ass, then the bands and the music are right there with it. Does anyone care about the music? At all? Tapping your foot while doing the dishes isn't caring, by the way. At the risk of sounding trite and corny in equal measure, music saved my life. More than once. It's always been more than a commodity or a fashion accessory to me. So, yeah, fuck merchandise, fuck the internet, fuck myspace, fuck you and most of all, apparently, fuck me.
Bass Player
Percussionist
for "experimental" "rock" "band". Based in Cardiff, UK.
Influences PiL / Birthday Party / Big Black / Wire / 23 Skidoo / Sonic Youth / Talking Heads / Swans / The Fall / Pere Ubu
Ability, image, brain, vehicle & driving licence desirable.
Apply within. And by within, I mean send me a fucking message, obviously. Or comment below.
- - -
Does anyone care about the music? At all? I keep hearing how the record industry is on it's ass. I saw BP Fallon describe beautifully how the majors have only ever sold the medium, with the music little more than a better or worse reason to buy that medium. I hear a lot about how the audience is now more in control than ever before. I don't trust the audience. I trust the audience less than the majors. The audience is still under the spell of decades of mass-marketing, blind acceptance of the lowest-common-denominator. If it were up to the audience, things would probably not look a whole lot different - the majority of commercially successful bands would still be crap. Bollock-less diluted rubbish, no challenge, no interest, no point. Garbage for Johnny 9-to-5 to tap a foot to while doing the washing up or, more likely, sitting in traffic on the way to/from work. So I hear "the web" is the new power, the salvation for the true artist, get your music out there, exploit (a dirty word) all this great new technology and cut the majors out of the picture altogether. Stick it to the man. It's not like there's a bottleneck at all, of course. Have you seen how many fucking bands there are nowadays? And aren't most of them shite? Technology has made it easy alright. It's made it easier for half-chancers with no ideas to get on board and weigh down the balloon. So much flotsam and jetsam, diluting the talent pool. What is seen by some as a liberation is to me an affront. Digital music is second rate. Call me an elitist but I like my waveforms pure and my frequency range true. Vinyl still can't be beat. But technology implores people to download their music collection, listen to lossy, compressed mp3's on tinny fucking headphones on your iPod on the way to the office. Raw Power, I can fucking feel it. This is not emancipation. Music is becoming disposable. Nobody is even listening anymore. Bands are interchangeable. One bunch of fucking haircuts to the next. I hear a band makes it's living these days from playing live and selling merchandise. Which may be true, but it's a joke nonetheless. First, live audiences are in decline, largely because the prevalence of so many crap bands has made the average gig a bore. How many crap nights in dingy bars can the average consumer handle? These are people who grind their whole lives away doing jobs they probably hate. They want some excitement on their weekend at least, something worthwhile to waste their paycheck on. Too many shit bands, and now there's not enough audience to go round. No interest, no passion. Just the usual friends-of-friends, busloads from the Valleys, and lazy fucking promoters who don't actually promote but instead ask a band to not only play a gig for no money but to bring a full house at the same time. MySpace started out, so I've been told, as a community to help bands more than anything else. Now there's an "ignore requests from bands" button. What's that tell you? That bands are the pop-up ad's of recent times? Lets' be blissfully ignorant for a few moments and pretend the average joe gives a fuck about bands anymore, and there actually is an audience. First off, it's unlikely the band get paid very well at all for the show, and when you factor in the expense, there's never very much left. So that leaves the merchandise. I already tried to run a t-shirt business before. It died on it's ass because I'm not a businessman. Turns out being in a band is really just being a covert businessman after all. Buy our t-shirts, buy our tote bags, buy our jewellery. Like I said, does anyone care about the music anymore? What about buy our album? I don't want to push corny fucking merchandise at people. I wouldn't wear it myself, what do I want to sell it to you for? That's my definition of integrity, and it's also the reason I'm still broke. I don't want to be a fucking marketing manager. I don't want to be a salesman. I would wear a suit and join the rest of the fuckers if I did. I'd be pulling in a steady income, not half starving to make music. Whatever happened to rock-n-roll? I don't think Iggy Pop for one fucking second ever cared about putting stooges logos on cigarette lighters. Most of the old guard got shafted by the countless Carnaby street pirates who put the logos on everything themselves and make a fortune without paying the band a penny. I'm not saying there's not cash to be had, but I'm not in a band to be a retail clerk. I once quit being a retail clerk to be in a band. The times they are a 'changing, huh? If the record industry is on it's ass, then the bands and the music are right there with it. Does anyone care about the music? At all? Tapping your foot while doing the dishes isn't caring, by the way. At the risk of sounding trite and corny in equal measure, music saved my life. More than once. It's always been more than a commodity or a fashion accessory to me. So, yeah, fuck merchandise, fuck the internet, fuck myspace, fuck you and most of all, apparently, fuck me.