Bang! (Another new music mag thread)

They have stolen my ideas !

Mistake: monthly bad idea. Should have gone for a fortnightly. Something more frequent than a monthly, something with high quality control than the weekly.

my idea of music mag DOES NOT include The White Stripes on the front cover !

i am not at all optimistic that it will end up any better than the existing high st newsagent monthlies, none of which i like much, but i can't really articulate any reasons not to be optimistic beyond the vileness of the press release, so maybe...

(and what a horrible name, though i can't think of a music magazine which doesn't have a name that sounds horrible on first hearing)

Some of the people involved have talent and self-belief. (Obviously. They offered Steve Gullick - my other half at CTCL - a full-time job a couple of months ago, which would have meant the effective immediate closure of Careless Talk if he'd accepted.)

Let the pushy London media types do what they have to do.

"Indie is a bit big again!"

"Great!! Let's start a new music mag!"

looks thoroughly dull, aimed at 30 + professional men into movies, books and music. "Badly Drawn Bo(y)-ring" are on the front of the first issue, on sale soon.

the website's quite fun tho - you get to give them your tuppence worth and they stick it online. kinda like ILM, only not nearly as good. hmmm.

1 quid

Bang
http://www.bangmagazine.co.uk/?page=home

Admittedly the music industry needs a final solution. But not these shits hanging off the ass hairs. SIGH. Futurenet and another third rate copy of NME and Careless Talk. 'Nuff said.

so how come we are still here?

They have not even worked out that The Strokes are the new Oasis to hate. And The Darkness are a London Media Joke. OH well. Enough said. Any publicity including bad publicity is a good thing.

Which made it a less than good week to write the godawful piece of dreck that was my BBR live review.

It's not brilliant, but compared to the other mainstream music mags it's got potential at least. The problem is, everything in it is too short --- just as you're getting into something, it finishes, so you can have an even bigger swoontastic colour picture of that 50 year old bloke out of The Darkness or someone. It has the feel of people with talent being held back by business people, or idiots who think that you have to keep everything short and snappy, and it's far too focussed on guitar stuff. The features are mostly well written and look good, it's the little sections and subsections that are so irritating and bitty and superficial, and the reviews all read like they've been subbed and edited badly. If they get the balance right, it could become a good mag (unlike X-Ray, which never will, or NME which never will again).

Why can't England get it together with their rock'n'roll magazines. Why does it have to be all snidey snipes? It's baawwrrriiing.

Haircut 1: Dude. You are like so good.
Me: Yeah.
Haircut 2: You know Sonny I was thinking on how the star and review system should be like changed.
Me: How so?
Haircut 2: Like, instead of stars, we should have a Ringo head for a one star album, a George head for a two star album, a Paul head for a three star album, a John head for a four star album and a Paul and John hybrid head for a five star album.
Me: *Bursts out laughing* That is so rubbish. Are you testing me?
Haircut 2: *looks defensive* No. Of course not. We think it's a really good idea.
Me: Man that is so rubbish. And everyone knows that five stars would be the Yoko head.

O.k., that was bad of me to relate that. I'm going to stop now. The whole evening was like that. And with me getting further and further into depression on what a charisma free zone BANG was and is. I really wanted something exciting. I really did. BANG was not what I was looking for. So I played a few games to keep myself amused until freelance work in America started to pick up and I forgot about it all. Then those gawdawful posters started to show up when I was getting the fear about the war. But I've got some stuff for deadline and I have wasted enough time with BANG. Though it was so k-rub it was interesting.

If not, how many exclamation marks do you feel would need to be added to the end of BANG for your opinion of it to be improved?

However, when I was talking to the Warlocks - three people from the band shook my head with their comments on my review of their first album. They had it pined up to the computer. 'Cause I was the first and only journalist to really get what they were trying to do. One of them said: 'I can't believe I am talking to the guy who wrote that review'. I was VERY chuffed. That was my first experience of having 'touched' someone with my writing.

If you look at the message board it is full of people who write for Bang having a go at NME. Sad fucks. Gives me hope that if you mediocre in London you will thrive! Hooray!

"I looked at Bang thinking it looked pretty sexy, my favourite groups, ok....

But not just that, you've dug out the best music journalists ever to disappear off the face of the earth! I thought Simon Price, Taylor Parkes and Neil Kulkarni were never going to turn up in the music press again. Parkes's article on Ladytron is fucking beautiful! And Steven Wells too - are you sneakily rounding up all the best journos left in Britain? May I suggest you also chase Paul Morley, Chris Roberts, Johnny Cigarettes or Tom Ewing? They'd fit in a treat."

Hehe.

http://www.onetouchfootball.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000731;p=3

Check all their groupies!

You don't think this thread is funny?? I do. I also think it's brilliant, but whatever. Internet does its thing. It's cool. Samson - only a joke, hepcat.

If more of you people were prepared to write for the unpopular press, it might not be so unpopular. It's not like working for Murdoch or something. I can't comment on whether the Bang people are dicks, cos I don't know them well enough. But I do know that, unlike most mag eds, they are looking for good writing - how much of that they can get their hands on is down to people like you. Ya cottage-industry car boot salesmen.

And I would rather die than even try to become another imitation of christ rock'n'roll writer. Fuck that. I want to liiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeee WHY WON'T YOU LET ME LIVE!
When all I have is my spell and grammar check disabled. Oh no. OH NO WOE IS ME. THE SHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEE.... I am banning hypens in my new world order you re....

Oh well, as Beyonce said: 'I won't diss you on the internet because my mama taught me better than that'.

C'Ya.

1) Conscription article - brilliant idea - non-music articles in a music mag - all for it - totally - I'm not sure that this one is such a brilliant article - but more of them say I.

2) Why so much space for so little?

There are a raft of long articles in Bang, loads of space to go meandering over whatever you want, to actually analyse and say something interesting about the band, to try say something more than just description, whatever. I'm not totally sure that that space has been optimised. CTCL has exactly the same problem: we moan for longer articles and then when we get them, it's *urgh*.

3) When will rock stop being the paradigm form of popular music?

This isn't a specialist magazine from what I understand. OK, it's tag is "It's Only Rock N Roll" and I think mine is a wider concern: is rock still the paradigm form of popular music? (Popular music in its loosest, not-jazz, not-classical, definition). If so, why aren't there movements to displace it?

4) The capsule reviews are no better than UCUNT's or Mojo's or CTCL's. Which are all equal. Maybe this says something about capsule reviews more than Bang.

5) I like the paper quality of the cover. It's like EDGE.

6) Steven Wells' review of Sonic Youth good enough to run?

7) I think CTCL is dreadful too, so this isn't some sort of spirited attack from within their barricades (I'm not too sure ILM has so much of a connection to CTCL. Some of its writers are from there, sure.

8) Give Tom Ewing a job.

9) You said, it's there upthread from the memo, this mag is to "analyse" - now ILM is over-analytical sometimes (in the sense that it analyses everything and it analyses them rabidly) - but I don't think you (Bang) should be scared to analyse, don't try and play Ed Casual all the time. Write about music in terms different from it's used to. Take pop seriously and joke around about Rock for example. (This is one of Kogan's lessons).

I don't want to hate it. It is dreadful, currently, I think. But it's a chance, you know. Take it, an' that.

I'd just like to endorse this.

I don't write for unpopular press. I write for KICK ARSE press. Oh you know, confidentially, I just happen to have 'issues', Taylor. PLEASE HELP ME .... oh on OH NO..... Rupert, no, put down that whip and ladyboy....

Anyway, it's been a blast.

Whoa, hold them back!

And if it was my call, I *would* give Tom Ewing a job. As it happens, the people whose call it is probably would as well. That's what I'm getting at. Mind you, I'd give ol' sunny Sonny a job too, and damn the sub-editors.

Also, if I thought every Bang would be like issue 1, I wouldn't defend it so much. Capsule reviews I don't like either. Too much rock, I agree. But yeah, it's a chance. That's the point. It's got a chance of becoming a brilliant magazine, because it's not run according to the strict corporate strategy that castrated the NME. You might not like my Ladytron feature, but Bang published it (almost) uncut, which no other music magazine would have done(with the possible exception of CTCL). So there's the opportunity to go further.

1. England's rock'n'roll writers have their fair share of groupies. To be honest I never read rock'n'roll beyond two magazines and this board. My imitation of christ line means: LESTER BANGS IS DEAD. THERE IS ONLY ONE LESTER. HALF THE TIME HE WROTE ABSOLUTE SUB-BURROUGHS GIBBERISH. THE OTHER HALF? HE WAS A STAR, OBVIOUSLY. But too name a magazine after a dead man? Errr. I dunno. Are you not asking for that 'imitation of christ' line?

2. My spelling, grammer and structure is dreadful on the internet. But hell, I always thought graffiti was the internet on the street. Thus, when I post, it's sort of a rule to do it as quickly and without much effort as possible. Thus, I went on and on and on and on with this thread. 'Cause I really don't care that much about BANG. I.E. I'm whiling my hours away when I should be finishing my Beachbuggy article. HOWEVER, I did see some phrases that I'm stealing so not a wasted effort. HOORAY.

3. Kudos to Taylor for responding to this mess. Hell, I would just look at it and think - that guy's been swimming around in some sort of Jungian archetype of rock'n'roll for far too long. But HEY it's passion. And hell, if Taylor is passionate about this 'effort' - I will not complain. Thanks for the muck about!

I knew it. He is a feeder.

interesting that TP is still smarting from my STFU comment from days of yore. it wasn't personal.

Sigh. They don't like me. Hell, like I care. They are way too busy stroking each other's egos and doing what ever other parts they want to stroke. Jim, it's next to impossible to take the music industry seriously. Especially these chumps.

Nishlord
Member
Member # 97

posted 31-03-2003 01:24
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Ooh, and now they've linked back to here and taking the piss out of us for going to public school and being 'Mid life crisis RETARDS'.

It's like Grange Hill v Rodney Bennett. But with music spods.

They don't really get what made the early '77 NME great. They fear it. Oh well. The great unwashed and all... England has always been full of wet freaks like that.

Yeah, CTCL has its problems and it makes me so angry that I want to spit most of the time, but you know what? At least I see my gender and my gender's interests and writing/criticism styles represented in its bylines. Yeah, who cares if it's just Everett True's fetishisation of Punque Roque Girlies, if that's what it takes to get us in the door, then that's what it takes.

I don't have the FAINTEST interest in reading the next Lester Bangs. I *DO* have an interest in reading the next Julie Burchill or Sylvia Patterson or Suzan Colon or Kitty Empire.

When you get around to addressing that issue, maybe I can drag myself to take an interest. Until you do, fuck off, you might as well be Q putting Christina Aguilera on the cover.

Trends like this make me want to turn my back on music and the music press forever.

Perhaps, in that case, the editor of Bang! might wish to respond to the email I sent him some two months ago, offering my services (and a link to CoM). Quite clearly he can't be that desperate for good writing.

And Kate that's never going to happen with Bang. It's a public school lad's club.

very, very true.

Kate, it's very, very difficult to set up magazines. Finding good writers is probably the easiest thing of all to do! If it's to be a commercial venture you're looking at a spend of at least 500k, and that's with everyone working for shit money. Even then you're still going to be blagging favours. As to the next Sassy or whatever, I had a *very* clear shot at trying to set one up in the mid-'90s and the major bugbear was trying to find someone experienced enough to do the bloody advertising that you could also trust further than throwing distance. Ultimately we couldn't find anyone who knew both a) what they were doing and b) what we wanted.

posted 31-03-2003 14:45
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I can't be arsed to register to that other board, but I'd like to point out that the only reason early '77 NME was so good was because the scene of the time was so interesting, and the music press was pretty much dragged along in the wake of bands' pre-packaged manifestos.

Mix in the fact that the mainstream press didn't understand it at all and wasn't the entertainment-embracing, desperate-to-be-cool behemoth it is today, and the scene was so miniscule and London-based that kids from the sticks relied totally on the music press for dispatches from the front line, and the NME basically had it on a plate.

I would have loved to have been on the NME in 1977, as it must have been the ultimate doss job. All you had to do was roll up to see the Clash or the Pistols or whoever, switch on the dictaphone, let them relay what Malcolm or Bernie had told them to say that morning, add a bit of colour about grimy tower blocks and whatnot, and job done.

Actually, when I got hold of that recent NME compilation of the Punk era - which I'd always been led to believe was the Holy Grail of music journalism - I was taken aback to discover that vast chunks of it was piss-poor hackery. Especially that Lester Bangs trilogy on The Clash, he just sounded like an old get who didn't know what the fuck was going on.

Don't you just love passionate public school boys who DON'T REALLY GET IT? I do.

SOMETHING IS HAPPENING HERE AND YOU DON'T QUITE UNDERSTAND DO YOU MR JONES?

The thing is rubbish.

Hahaha. Bang Bus. You are a star, Suzy. I agree with what you have to say but that quip is rather good.

My new resolution is that I am giving up the music press. That's it. I'm no longer reading it, and I'm no longer contributing to it. It's finally happened. I don't care any more. And it's because of cunts like that. :-(

The real reason to have been NME class of '77 is whatever your talent/lack thereof, you'd be rolling in the cash by '97. Or just rolling.

(Metaquestion: are Julie Burchill's boyfriends FEEDERS?)

To be fair to the (not-very-public-school) Bangers, the people they're covering went to more expensive schools than they did.

Jim??????? YOU LEAVE JULIE ALONE.

Ronan? What's a fucking job? The bang bus?

: - )))

There's something a little dirty and sinister about that comment.

Thing is... on the Girl thing... yeah, there are so many women on ILX who are interested in music, yet are totally turned off by the Boys Club attitude of music magazines. Music is part of a whole... I hate to use the word Lifestyle, cause it's got such a bad connotation. Women treat music and their obsession with it in a different way. Why is it that you read a lads style magazine, and it's got cool stuff about music in it. But you read a girls style magazine, and it's not (apart from Vogue's occasional Lollies namechecking.) There needs to be a music mag which allows women to get in touch with their inner 15 year old music geek in the way that these horrible Mojo/Hornby types do.

(Suzy - do you know Ellie Cr0mpton? [C0mpton?]) She was on Ricardo and Judy - kinda cute.) I don't know why I'm asking.

2. Smarting from STFU comment? Nah, just baffled as to where it came from. Kind of made me not want to post on ILM anymore, if that was going to be the level of debate.

3. Julie Burchill is a fucking pox on journalism. And Sylvia Patterson was (I heard) rejected as a Bang writer, because she's shit and shallow and unfunny. Also (unconnected), she once libelled me, in an interview with an ex-girlfriend of mine (I couldn't sue, cos she wisely didn't print my name, but it was obvious to anyone who knew me). As far as I'm concerned, printing malicious Popbitch lie-gossip as fact, especially when you don't raise the issue with the interviewee themselves (who is then mortified on reading the piece), is just bad, bad journalism, and not the kind of bad journalism that's good. No fucker needs (more of) that.

4. But as to the issue of women and the press generally...first of all, who 'abstracts' women? I mean, specifically on Bang. I know all about the NME, Q etc. You're just assuming - ok, it's based on music press form, but it's still a stupid assumption. On the Bang contributors list, 6 of the 21 names are female, for what it's worth. But it'll never be the place for "women to get in touch with their inner 15 year old music geek in the way that these horrible Mojo/Hornby types do", I hope. The Mojo/Hornby geeks are not welcome, so people looking for a female equivalent will also have to go elsewhere.

5. Anyway, I'm not cheerleading. I don't give a fuck whether anyone likes or dislikes Bang, it's not my baby, I just write in it. But it looks kind of shit when so many music obsessives and potential *good* writers are so delighted to hate a new magazine. You either care about the press - in which case you bloody well add your shoulder to the wheel and make it better, if you know damn well you could. Or you don't care about the press at all, in which case, why even think about it? Unusually, my point is as dad-like as that.

I am truly sorry that my not knowing you didn't have to register on this board to make posts has somehow forced you to turn your back on music journalism.

But the guy above me is not? Geez.

As to (4) another way of appealing to women - and 6 of 21 contributors is *getting there* - is not to put Flaming Lips on the cover. Their man-boobs are making us ALL jealous.

Oh, and while it's nice to see your writing again, you could have done SO MUCH MORE with Ladytron.

The more pertinent question is: Is Miffy the victim of a FEEDER?

Well, the problem there is although you may devalue the approach of the Hornbies (and one does, through examining the origins of a Hornby), the writing of women about the memories and associations they take from 'their' music is even more grossly devalued by the subculture of music geeks *and* society at large. Which isn't right, surely?

Most women who are really into music - and there are a lot more of us than demographer types would believe - have *much* better adventures because of it.

Still, I suck satans cock in hell, clearly. Fucking hell, get some perspective and try to find some way to demise other than in an endless spiral of painful superiority and solipsist hatred. You'll get more action that way.

ALl of my writing is tender and true and the idea that the magazine is heartless is wrong wrong wrong. I think it's the most honest thing on the shelves and I feel like I've come home.

Oh, and for all you london public school boys who hate Bang cos it's written by london public school boys, I'm from Coventry (as if that matters: listen to your Rakim y'sad saps).

Goodbye smellies. You are all precisely the reason I never moved to London.
Alex in NYC I love you.
NK

Neil, i'm still in college and haven't even started embarking on any "journalistic career" as such. i may never. i never attempted to be a writer in Bang. i had forgotten Bang was coming out til i saw it on the shelves. i bought it, read it, and thought it was a pile of arse. end of story. others like it i'm sure, good for them, i found it to be poorly-written, uninteresting risible drivel.

you're not seriously talking about Bang here, are you Neil?

2) Ignore or diminish a target audience that is MUCH LARGER than your current demographic. Yes, that is a FINE way to increase readership in a shrinking magazine genre.

3) The artwork and design is TERRIBLE. It is dated mid-90s ugliness. And to make matters worse, I cannot tell the difference between the ads and the lead album reviews. That's really worrying.

As many people have stated on this thread, this is NOT the magazine that I have been waiting for. I didn't even apply to write for it (despite getting TWO mails soliciting contributions) because I didn't like the attitude of the soliciting mails. (Lester Bangs is a blot upon music journalism, as far as I'm concerned)

Other magazines have been discussed on this board. I *DO* have to give props to ET and especially Stevie Chick because instead of the blatant "If you don't like it, you're wrong" patronising tone of the Bang writers that have posted here, Stevie has taken the time to ask and discuss "What don't you like about it, what would you change, and what would *you* like to see?" even going so far as to solicit pitches from and even commission articles from h4terz. *That* is the attitude that endears CTCL to me more than any meaningless punque roque posturing.

If we think that you are part of the problem, then asking us to BECOME part of the solution is far more effective than the sort of defensive invective on this thread.

erm, I'm not writing for it cos I'm not a writer and wouldn't want to be (excepet maybe for free records).

I've read bits of it now, and I was right, it looks rubbish (apart from the nice paper quality) and it's pretty awful.

Kulkarni also needs a reality checker: it is never for the writer to give self props about 'honesty' and 'truth, or even 'talent' - people who do this are usually lying about something. Others will note talent, even in ungenerous old media-wanker London, and if he's lucky, he might get poached away from writing TV reviews for Time Out (I'd be mortified if I had to do that for a living). Besides, people who do this are usually lying about something. And he may write well, but knows FUCK ALL about art direction (that's okay, neither does Bang's AD and despite all the 'come home' MM nostalgie, neither did the MM/all of IPC).

Also, does *anyone* ever like the launch issue of ANYTHING? No, not if it's a music magazine. Bang could yet save itself from looking like mid-90s VOX by taking on the kind of criticism (seen here) companies like Future pay THOUSANDS for: ABC1 style leaders, slight male bias. If you do not believe me, TALK TO THE SUITS (they're wearing combats but they're still SUITS). Get smart, take your lumps - most of this advice is friendly.

10. Have more Neil Kulkarni.

Neil – what’s different between Bang & CTCL? I mean, I think there are differences, and I hope you come back at least to help make more mess from the mess you just spilt, or to maybe help clear your mess a little. I don’t get “we are the ghetto” (I sense this in ILM a lot of the time; one of its worse impulses [I suspect this is what you mean from ‘painful superiority’]) from Bang but I don’t see anything radically different from CTCL / Ucunt / Bang.

11. I think the supposed panoptic ‘Hornby-isation’ of rock.crit is a chimera. And everybody should agree with me

I’m not really fucked off, and I guess a lot of what you said was aimed at me (and the other folk upthread) because I did chime in with some criticism of Bang. I mean, I was a lot more even handed than the others but I’m willing to take the snipes as aimed at me. So I guess I should respond. Yeah, I’m not really fucked off and I would gladly write for Bang magazine for several reasons: a) I don’t want to be in a little smug ghetto; b) I want money; c) I believe in on-paper rock.crit (so much sometimes it hurts).

A common criticism that is leveled at ILM (and I think it’s valid to some extent but not to the extent that people who throw it think) is that everyone wants 10,000 word “thinkpieces” (god, how I’ve grown to hate this term – it makes me think IDM). It’s just not true. There is a general hate of capsule reviews but the opposite of capsules isn’t theses. The ‘opposite’ of sorts are the articles that are already there: it’s the type of articles that are smack bang in the middle of Bang (Taylor’s “Ladytron”, Simon’s “Flaming Lips”). And in CTCL, actually (your excellent column on Metal being a good example of how it’s done well < /arse-lick>). It’s why I was asking ‘what are puff-pieces?’ upthread, jokily suggesting that the Bang things were puffy.

There are different ways of SAYING WHAT YOU THINK. And sometimes, if you’re trying to make a point then you need to use a trope. To make the point more effective. Everything’s usable. People should say what they think.

12. Outright hatred of solipsism is not on.

2. You're fucked off cos you think Bang can only justify it's existence by committing commercial suicide

I don’t understand what this means.

Editing is definitely NOT a crime. NOT a crime. And I don’t think anyone would disagree with you. You only need to read through, say, ‘Carburetor Dung’, Lester’s mind painfully turning itself inside out, flitting back on its points from one paragraph to the next to see that SEVERAL DRAFTS GOOD, EDITING GOOD.

(I dunno if you’d ever find someone on ILM saying ooh aren’t we, or isn’t our writing, ‘valid’ or ‘brave’, but this isn’t supposed to be a defence of ILM, because most of the time, I’d like to see it torn down too, the other half I think it’s the greatest place for discussion of music in the world and totally precludes the need for print magazines.)

Alex in NYC I love you too.

Neil Kulkarni roxx I am all gay..

> But it looks kind of shit when so many music obsessives and
> potential *good* writers are so delighted to hate a new magazine.

Maybe that's more a criticism of the quality of the magazine, rather than a reflection of the "goodness" of the writers (potential and otherwise) here. Worth a thought?

yeah when i saw that on sunday I immediately thought of you. I knew you'd hate this.

The section about 'sucking satans cock' is not very entertaining or even half as clever as it thinks it is with a lot of dull euphemisms for penis. And i don't even like the manics or the beach boys. Now we know who the inspiration for that section was.

Just bought Bang 'cause it was only a quid and you were all talking about it.

So far I don't particularly like all the photos where (mostly) guys pretend to be disinterested or cool or whatever it is they think they're looking like but wouldn't do it in public because they'd be rightly laughed at.

The apparant emphasis on boring tradish rock or 'respected' artists I could do without.

I like the slagging they gave to Sonic Youth's Dirty. I'll probably get it anyway because I haven't got it already. It's great when someone says what they really think about something. I have a suspicion he was exagerating how much he (or she, don't remember) dislikes it just to be contrary, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Probably won't get it again as i rarely buy mags anyway and the next one has a yawnsome cover CD and will be full price.

I think I prefer CTCL. At least that has some great photos and it's printed on lush paper. And there's an end in sight.

Don't know if this is contra ILM but I'm not too interested in longer pieces unless they're interviews or maybe histories of some scene/genre i know nothing about.

For musical _discussion_ there's the interenet, friends etc. and if I want to know something about a band over and above the basic facts then I'd prefer interviews with as little editing as possible and preferably as little of the interviewer's personality interposed as possible. I don't buy magazines etc. to listen to what _any_ writer has to tell me about what they think of a band/act. Their opinion is unimportant compared to my own (and for each of you, your own of course).

It's easy enough to dig up hundreds of web pages of info/interviews on most bands.
In the last few days I've wanted to know more about The White Stripes so i've read maybe ten interviews spread over their career, found guitar tab and even scans of old magazine articles, like here
http://www.whitestripes.host.sk/news/
where there's plenty of stuff from Q, newspapers, NME etc.

Few of the journalists that wrote those articles got paid for me reading them. They're all 'pirate' versions like the MP3s on SLSK. Difference is I don't really want to keep the articles, just read them so I can downlaod/view then discard them. I went into Our Price today and actually _bought_ a White Stripes CD. Could have got that from Soulseek too, but I want to keep that in it's proper case.

I'm so OT now I'd better start another thread, but I'll just finish by saying that journalists will lose out more than print journalists because of the internet. The enemy has a section called 'Burn It'. Well no, but I will just read non-sanctioned dupes of yr articles on the internet and buy the CD.

Answerable criticisms abound:

1) The artwork is ugly bordering on illegible. This might be excused if it was groundbreaking or innovative, but it's not. It simply looks bad.

2) Preponderance of male opinion over female. Yes, you can trumpet that you have 6 out of 21 female staff, but are they writing features or are they just writing reviews?

3) Ditch the "if you like this, you'll like..." crap in the album reviews, they are an insulting and patronising Q-ism I'd like to see banned. Having the artist list ten albums that have changed their life is nice, but having some journo make assumptions about your musical taste based on one album they know little to nothing about is just ridiculous.

4) "Good" writing = subjective. I'd like to see a variety of opinions and tastes represented as well as just people who conform to your particular hivemind of what "good" writing entails.

There are TONS of suggestions on this board about what would make writing better. Like Suzy said, you are getting FREE MARKET RESEARCH HERE. We *ARE* your target audience, get that into your head. You can make the magazine that seems perfect to your editors and your writers but if *we* - the music fans - don't like it, you're screwed. No, you can't run a magazine by democracy, but better that you listen to *us* than to have your content dictated by your advertisers or the Time/Warner/AOL/Halliburton Group that buys you out.

It's been set up on the premise that 'The music press doesn't sell anymore because the writing has deteriorated'. And while it would be nice if that was the case, this simply isn't true. The music press doesn't sell because it's not the only fount of information about music anymore - it has to compete with digital TV, indie-savvy radio, blogs, Kazaa, etc, etc, etc. It's not an anachronism, but its audience is severely depleted.

CTCL has neatly filled the leftfield niche abandoned by NME in its drift towards casual readers and the populist mainstream, and I think this is fine. Like them or loathe them, both those magazines appear to fill a niche. But Bang appears to stand for nothing except for slightly above-average writing. It is ignorant of the few types of music begging for informed, accessible discourse in this country (electronica, UK Garage). It covers ground already well covered. It just feels like such a waste of time.

Same for X-Ray, but at least that comes with a free CD.

Actually, this is so urgent and key and blindingly obvious that I forgot to actually mention it in my posts. But yes. I agree. I saw only *one* feature in Bang that wasn't on a band which had already been discussed ad nauseum by the NME. There are other bands out there, it would be nice if a new music magazine could actually inform about new music, as well as just regurgitate "good" writing about already established bands.

As to 'talent' if you're one of the six per cent of folks who write making a living from writing, you've got some.

Oh and NME are SHITTING themselves over Bang. There's an edict from initials SS (funny how old Union Jackboots has the perfect acronym for my crit) that artists covered in Bang will be rubbished/blackballed by NME if their PRs don't make offers to IPC first. I'd love this magazine to be good and when I heard SP was involved, it gave me some hope. Just will someone from Bang please reassure me and others that NEVER will we see some marketing spod with a Bang clipboard at a gig, asking us who we like so s/he can tell the suits. HOTHOUSING = bad.

i hate Jockey Slut for a variety of reasons. mainly due to the fact that the writing is truly abysmal, the (non)critical decisions are trite and predictable, springing from middle-of-the-road, middle-class white boys' club mentality. two examples: in the beginning they avoided jungle like the plague, refusing to cover it, then did a massive u-turn... you'd have thought they'd have learned from this but no... they did the self same thing with UK Garage and even more unforgiveably when they had changed locations to London's pirate radio heartland (at least jungle/d&b could have passed them by because they were in Manchester, where its effects were not being felt to the same extent as London). this is shocking for a publication that places itself at the cutting edge of british electronic music and culture (for fuck's sake XLR8R and URB were covering UKG before them and they're in California!!!) i find it jumped up, clueless, moronic and turgid beyond belief. most of all, it puts itself across as discriminating and "an arbiter of taste" (which is always a bad sign) yet manages to consistently miss the most important things occuring within it chosen field. plus chris blue writes for it... incidentally, two very good friends of mine work for it (this criticism doesn't apply to them) as did i once...

This is a criticism of CTCL as much as anyone else - how can you claim to be about "Outsider Music" when you write about the same five bands issue after issue?

Find new ways to write about music, sure. But find some bloody NEW MUSIC as well, or you might as well be Mojo.

I agree with you (!!!), cause I agree with this, to an extent (I mean I'm not sure I agree with Nick battering on about a New Brutalism, but I agree that it is worthwile to be tender; it's also worthwhile to be prissy, brash, coy, cunting, stupid, and clever, dancing, slovenly, and deft, though):

Nick said: "The world -- let alone the world of music -- is changing. I detect a new Brutalism, a sense that Liberalism is dead and an individual life doesn't mean much, emerging. And it seems clear that the art this Brutalism will bring with it will be a) MTV-Darwinian body art (I am young, I am hot, I flash my teeth to show I'm fit) and b) the flipside, nihilistic body horror art like that on display in last night's Channel 4 documentary about young Chinese artists, who use dead babies etc in their work.

As for 'the world of music', it will continue, I think, to go in several (related but opposing) directions at the same time. Rock will take refuge in the liberalism / hedonism of the past (60s values as the new, if impotent, orthodoxy, hedonism as the new conformity), pop will head in the direction of body fascism (MTV music as mating ritual), indie will become ever more marginal, microscopic and formalist as it tries to make sense of the remaining fragments of the digital / drug / globalist Utopian optimism of the 90s...

Personally, I feel that the toughest thing to be now (and I mean tough in both senses; difficult and admirably abrasive) is tender-minded. In the face of the new brutalism, tender-minded is the thing to be. During the ascendency of marketeers, imperialists, brutalists and fascists, we have the luxury of our utter marginality. We should use it for research, young Montag."

Heh, it's unfair to call you a whiny baby because you know you're a whiny baby? whatever, i apologise regardless, and i'm glad you came back to face the criticism.

"The problem with Bang is not the writing. The problem is that it's full of the same old bands that fill the NME. It's no alternative at all."

This is my main problem with Bang if you must know (and i do think the standard of writing leaves a little to be desired sometimes, but ok, it is better written than the NME). I can but echo Kate : FIND SOME NEW ARTISTS TO WRITE ABOUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

the presence of steven wells is extremely off-putting too - his schtick became tiresome a gazillion years ago, get some proper writers who haven't passed their sell-by-date yonks ago, please. but ok, thats just my personal dislike. also, the tone of your first post seriously called to mind the NME letters page's stupid overly-defensive attitude anytime someone dared to make reasonable, well-thought-out criticisms of the mag. i dunno if there's a letters page in Bang, but i seriously hope your first post doesn't reflect what the tone will be.

i WILL be reading the next few issues of Bang because, hey, ill read any music mag, and i hope to see improvements.

But I still hate you all! Hooray!

ps. I hate that - yer a good writer bullying nonsense. There is, uh, one trillion magazines out in the world. Just cause you've got ink on yer hands does not mean yer a murderer. Fuck that. I am a young writer on the music scene with a year's experience and hell I fucking sucked at first. I came from publishing short stories in anthologies to music journalism. But I am a humble fan worshipping at the alter of a very good pop song. And just cause you say you hate it does not automatically EQUATE 'Oh, yer jealous'. No, man, I just hate it. But I hate you all! Hooray!

pps. I come frm Harmony Korrine's America. So, uh, no, not necessarily exclusively schooled. Though was uh, socially catatonic for eons and was at one point sponsered by ye ole english teacher to go to a more exclusive schoool. So I know welfare moms, crack addicts, socialites and incredibly wealthy people. Hooray! I am the social equaliser!

ppps. American media is cooler. 'Cause there is none of this 'Oooh-errr Missus I've got this'n'that magazine under my belt'. None. America is far too large too support ye olde english media tradtions. Sometimes England really does feel like an island. And this is one of them. Hooray. (That was sort of a sad hooray).

pppps. Don't take the music industry seriously. I never do! Hooray!

ppppps. Is is not ironic that this thread reads like the uncut version of Steven Wells SY review?

I still hate you all! Hooray!

I was discussing this matter (thread) with a friend via email. He basically wrote back - are you not too busy too be dealing with this? (I am an obsessive freak). Yes. Yes. Yer right. So last word from me! Hooray!

C'ya.

PS. As Patricia O'Neal in Breakfast at Tiffany's once said 'I am a very stylish boy (girl). So errr, uhhh, UP YERS. : - D

I can't remember if it's here or on the linked-to-board's thread that someone mentioned the Gloom Brothers founded Circuit. They also seem to have nicked at least two of Bang's articles right off of it as well, namely The Strokes' guide to New York and the 'Fatal Fashions' bit - the issue of Circuit that I bought had Gram Parsons instead of Jeff Buckley, but I digress - and I suppose they're within their rights to do so, but it just seems a bit unoriginal.

I haven't read it too thoroughly thus far, but there's already a couple of things sticking in the craw, and they are pretty much design-related. The news section is... well, horrible. It's like the one in Q or Uncut or Word or whatever, but with too much going on, no focus, nothing to grab the attention - Kate's point about the difficulty distinguishing between adverts and actual articles holds very true, especially in the case of Harry and the Wayne Coyne column. It all looks sort of the same, and just not that interesting.

The second, possibly more important one - the pull-out quotes. Now, I've not really read the articles as such, but the pull-out quotes are presumably the things that are meant to make you want to read the article, and those Warlocks quotes - "We're total fucking outcasts... everyone hates us... we could be just about to kill each other" - now, the hating that this mag has for the NME seems all fair and just and that, but these things are the same things every single band ever comes out with. When I look at the Warlocks I see yet more slightly scuzzed up white Americans with guitars shot entirely in black and white, like pretty much... well, every single band ever. There's nothing that makes me give two shits about them, never mind want to read the article. The same, but possibly even moreso, with The Darkness - "How many unsigned bands have made it into the top 40 with a song that features the word motherfucker eight times?" What? Is that all you've got to say for yourself? I mean... uhh.

It may well be tender, it may well mean it, but first impressions do count, and the first impression that Bang's launch issue seems to give is one of style quite aggressively outflanking content - the heart might be good, but I just dunno who's gonna be prepared to dig past all the quotes like "If they don't turn you on, baby, you ain't got switches" to find it.

Post-Script:

I'd love for Bang to do well, if only cos I don't want to have to fucking touch Q ever again. Plus which, any magazine what gives The Aislers Set 4/5 deserves at least some bigging up.

I am ex-public school, so feel free to hate on me for that.

The thing I like about Bang is the bit when damon goes "rumble under neath my FEET!"

I like the fact that's it's a quid.

I like the photo of the girl's belly on pg 128.

I like that the photos are big and richly colored, but most of them are cliched pose.

I liked the pun on the cover/cover photo when i finally got it.

I liked the slag of SY.

Maybe more later.

But really - this thread is the greatest. Meta, spiteful, brainy and absurd.

It's one thing to say "you should have more girls writing for Bang." But which girls? *Any* girls? Simon Price has actually been complaining to me that too many of the writers are male, but quite rightly he's only going to hire someone if they're good enough to write a feature. Well obviously there are plenty of female writers good enough to write features - but if none of their copy is on his desk, what's he gonna do? If women keep turning down solicitations (see above) because they "don't like the tone of the e-mail", then it'll never change. Most music writers are male - a much higher proportion than is the case with music listeners and readers. As a result, right-thinking editors are desperate to balance it up. Until then, it's me writing about Northern State next month. This shouldn't inspire female writers to moan. It should perhaps suggest to them that avenues are open. Bang = male, because most Bang writers = male. So we either ask the girl in reception to write features for us and hope for the best, or some of the good women writers that exist already decide to sully their purity and join parts of the 'male-dominated' music press that would welcome them.

I'm aware of the fact that you sometimes mix up ads and editorial. It was my first comment when I looked at the magazine. Same goes for other people. So I'd be pretty certain that the designers have been made aware of it too. That's why magazines *have* a first issue. They could have made a dummy, like the big corporate mags do, but as I understand it, they were just desperate to get a fucking magazine out, and fuck dummies and focus groups (that stuff at the top of the thread that aroused the original ire may have been artlessly phrased - because it was a press release - but it *was* for real).

Another thing that happens in issue one of most mags is that people write tentatively, not wanting to go too far in one direction before they know what the magazine's going to be like. It's not about courage of convictions, it's out of fear of the sub editor's twitchy finger. Hand in a *really* outre piece to the wrong magazine, and what comes out in the end will just embarrass you: a sub's shite with your name on it. And it'll be worse than if you held back a bit and got your piece through uncut. This will have changed by issue 3, I'd estimate.

I've heard all about NME's panic. I thought it was just silly rumour, but it now appears to be true. Compare the two strategies. Magazine 1: will not write about any band that appears in magazine 2. Magazine 2: will happily write about bands that appear in magazine 1, and others. Is this a five-year-plan? It was the same when I was at MM - our editorial meetings involved poring over the new issue of the Maker, arguing, suggesting, taking the piss, etc. We never mentioned NME. A friend at the NME told me that most of *their* editorial meetings involved poring over the new issue of the Maker, discussing how to 'combat' it (this reached a predictable peak during Romo). I guess you either act or you react. This attitude of NME's is connected to their fundamental corporate-commercialism. Steve Sutherland is the Donald Rumsfeld of rock publishing, and history will judge him as a fool.

I think every writer at Bang is about to start lobbying for the removal of capsule reviews - or at least, more lead reviews and less capsules. Rather than sitting back and moaning that there are too many capsule reviews, or leaving the magazine because there are too many capsule reviews. Like I say, you can act or react.

As for featuring more bands who aren't already press favourites, that's something I'm going to *have* to do, because if I was only going to write about bands that have already been in NME, I wouldn't enjoy it much. I don't really like many of them. Then again, if the IPC hawks have their way, I won't have much choice, obviously.

Sutherland: "Syria is next."

I tried..lord knows I tried.

Hooray! I hate you all!

Kerrist yer an arsehole.

How dare they want to write something different!

(yes, yes, I know, it probably will be just another alt magazine/hype machine.)

I hate you all! Hooray!

Until then, it's me writing about Northern State

So you write for Bang? Well what's that comment supposed to mean?
Do you think that really women should be writing about bands with women in? Why?

Does that also mean that only men should be allowed to write about bands with men in?

Really, are you going to find all these non-secretary great writers who are women and get them to write about female music because their hormones make them better at it?

This is NOT a dig, it's a question.

So we either ask the girl in reception to write features for us and hope for the best

That's a GREAT idea. I bet she'd have some unique points of view and express them in her own unique way. Assuming she really just wanted a receptionist job, not a toe-in. Go on, commision her for a piece.

Why do publishing companies launch magazines about music that doesn't sell more often than they launch magazines about music which does sell? I'm puzzled.

Taylor and Bang are sexist fools!

I think it's a shame that the first issue of Bang isn't very good because there are some fine writers on board. But I'd like to see all on board have the opportunity to indulge themselves more. Neil, nothing you've got in the magazine ranks up there with the columns you've done in Careless Talk. I couldn't believe that the choice of features were so drab and predictable with Princess Price at the helm. Swells is great when he's let off the leash and venting, but here he just trots out the same Sonic Youth-h8ing he did in NME five years ago (All true, but I don't need Swells to tell me that, esp not in 2003).

Reading back, I see Taylor suggests people write "tentatively" on the first issue, for fear of being subbed out of existence. I guess this is the problem. But it's one to tackle immediately, because right now Bang is looking irrelevant.

Taylor - you mention the 'capsule reviews' - it's not so much them that are the problem, but those main reviews in which you take smaller bands (e.g. The Red Thread, Mellowdrone, Magas) and then give them one or two out of five. If it's a band of their stature that Bang feels needs elevating (and flitting through there's quite a few of those, e.g. Postal Service, Mew, Monade), surely it's them that should get the big picture as opposed to a band most people haven't heard of and, according to their review, shouldn't worry about so doing?

I really ought to email the editor, though.

Mei - something similar to the girl-on-reception idea was tried at MM. It did NOT work. Do you not think that Northern State are *exactly* the kind of group that might benefit from a female perspective before a male one? The stuff about 'do I think only men should write about groups with men in' is just silliness.

A different perspective:

I have not read or even seen Bang or X-Ray (and to be honest, I've only flicked cursorily through CTCL, a year ago, and was more impressed with the smell and layout of it than with the writing. But I digress already) because I'm currently living in Sydney and such things take a while to arrive down here.

Since I arrived here, I've all-but given up on reading music magazines altogether. ILM is hugely useful to me, because at its best it's hugely passionate, very well informed, just cynical enough and extremely funny. That's what I want from the music writing I read: basically, I want the words to drip with the love of the thing they're describing, or the love of hating the thing they're describing.

What a lot of people don't know, is that even though NME is struggling to retain the last tiny shred of credibility it once enjoyed in the UK, here in Australia things are different. No matter how shit the writing is, no matter how short the reviews get, no matter how much informed and passionate and relentless opinion is sidelined in favour of "girls who rock!" pieces and ringtone charts, NME is fucking GOSPEL here. Its brand is so strong that the "alternative" fraternity (and yeah, sorority) believe all of it: "Did NME like it? Then I'll buy it". LITERALLY.

Now this is what I don't get. I started reading Melody Maker in 1989, and it wasn't long before I'd homed in on the writers who spoke to me - there were distinct voices throughout the paper, from ET to Reynolds to, yes, NK and TP and especially SP (for me at least). Like many people did/do with Swells, I knew that if ET loved something I'd probably think it was noisy drivel; and if SP raved I'd most likely be dancing round the bedroom like a fool in no time to the same drum.

So why, good people of ILM, are you so intent on battering the life out of Bang and X-Ray and even CTCL (a bit), when they're all so very young they haven't had the chance to find their voices? I for one am

A different perspective:

I have not read or even seen Bang or X-Ray (and to be honest, I've only flicked cursorily through CTCL, a year ago, and was more impressed with the smell and layout of it than with the writing. But I digress already) because I'm currently living in Sydney and such things take a while to arrive down here.

Since I arrived here, I've all-but given up on reading music magazines altogether. ILM is hugely useful to me, because at its best it's hugely passionate, very well informed, just cynical enough and extremely funny. That's what I want from the music writing I read: basically, I want the words to drip with the love of the thing they're describing, or the love of hating the thing they're describing.

Australia has no national music magazine that's anything but PRd up puffy nonsense; the local "street" press is written mainly by people saying "they ROCK, man!" or "they ROCK cos they're AUSSIE, man!" and it drives me mental. So everyone relies on the UK press - NME, Mixmag, Uncut, Jockey Slut if you're lucky - for their info, much as they favour Heineken over their own fantastic beer "cos it's European and thus sophosticated" or some other such shit. And I retreat to ILM wailing "ignore them! ignore them all! get thee to SLSK and listen!" to anyone who'll listen, which is nobody.

What a lot of people don't know, is that even though NME is struggling to retain the last tiny shred of credibility it once enjoyed in the UK, here in Australia things are different. No matter how shit the writing is, no matter how short the reviews get, no matter how much informed and passionate and relentless opinion is sidelined in favour of "girls who rock!" pieces and ringtone charts, NME is fucking GOSPEL here. Its brand is so strong that the "alternative" fraternity (and yeah, sorority) believe all of it: "Did NME like it? Then I'll buy it". LITERALLY.

Now this is what I don't get. I started reading Melody Maker in 1989, and it wasn't long before I'd homed in on the writers who spoke to me - there were distinct voices throughout the paper, from ET to Reynolds to, yes, NK and TP and especially SP (for me at least). Like many people did/do with Swells, I knew that if ET loved something I'd probably think it was noisy drivel; and if SP raved I'd most likely be dancing round the bedroom like a fool in no time to the same drum.

So why, good people of ILM, are you so intent on battering the life out of Bang and X-Ray and even CTCL (a bit), when they're all so very young they haven't had the chance to find their voices? I for one am REALLY FUCKING EXCITED that the UK has not one, not two but THREE new music magazines - anything to get the fuck away from the Q and NME hegemony.

Don't hate publishers - they have to make money, hence the simple principle of putting big acts on the cover and dealing with smaller acts inside. Sadly, that's how it works. Chuffed as I was to hear that The Flaming Lips are on the first Bang cover, I can imagine they won't be the reason it sells; let's face it, the one quid cover price and the fact that it's the first issue will see to that.

I can't comment on the design of Bang obviously, having not seen it, but since people here's main gripe is "where's the good writing in music mags", let's not put the cart before the horse. As Taylor said, it's the first issue! Let it settle down, let the reactions come in (and they will - the board on the Bang site is already filling up nicely) and then see what's going on in six months.

And this is the most obvious thing to say, I know, but: If you don't like the writing, do some yourself! Or stick to blogs and ILM. Or consciensciously object in some other way. But don't piss and moan about a baby not being able to hang-glide.

-- Taylor Parkes (agai...), April 1st, 2003.

Any idea (anyone) where I can get my hands on some receptionist/MM pieces, I really would like to see them.

No I don't think Northern State would benefit from a 'female perspective'. Perhaps someone should agree on what that is. The lyrics of theirs that are clearly about something are about things that _men_ do and that only men can stop doing. So maybe they should be speaking to men and I think it's patronising them to think they can only communicate with women. That said, there's nothing wrong with a woman interviewing/writing about them if she's the best man for the job.

The stuff about 'do I think only men should write about groups with men in' _is_ silliness but it's the logical upshot of yr comments.

Yeah, OK, so it's me, as a woman, that has to change *my* attitude in order to combat sexism, not The Man.

The problem is, that this twisted anti-logic *almost* makes sense.

Um. Steven Wells slagging Sonic Youth with absolutely no thought whatsoever. Now, I don't particularly like SY, and though I own Dirty it's more by accident than by design; I was offended by this autopilot slagging of an obvious sacred horse, esp.when today's big sacred horse get's fellated yet again (White Stripes). Um, I've no problem with anyone slagging anyone, but at least tell us why in real terms rather than just do the whole "art... not pop... no wit... pretentious..." thing without actually quantifying it at all by talking about, you know, the music.

As ever, I'm with kilian in believing that any new music magazine is a good thing, cos I've got a short attention span and can't deal with books no more and I likes music so it's good like whatsit to be able to read stuffness about it like you know? But why another magazine by and for middle-aged ex-punks desperate to recapture their youth? Why the sub-title "It's only rock n roll" on the cover? Is that a selling point? I want a magazine that covers not "only rock n roll"! I want a magazine that covers everything! Ignore the top band on the cover, and ALL the other bands mentioned begin with 'The' (White Stripes, Flaming Lips, Polyphonic Spree, Darkness, Faint, Strokes). What's that all about? I'm bored of rock n roll. Why not do features on Manitoba or Corker Conboy, seeing as they have good, positive reviews (admittedly which say bugger all about the music contained within - boomkat's newsletter made me much more inclined to check out CC than Bang have done, cos they said what it sounded like).

And what the fuck is that Jeff Buckley article about? "Each month Bang celebrates the fashion of a deceased rock icon and retraces in clothes and pictures their final moments..."???!!! Is that an April Fool article? I've never seen anything quite so mentalist and ill-conceived in all my life! It'd be genius if it wasn't so fucking distasteful and crap and ironic-student-fashion-mag in it's tone.

Anyway. Yes. Less rock n roll! More music! And liek kate said, put writer's names at the bottom of reviews, not initials. And get rid of the line-through-headline-words thing too, it's crap. And make it more obvious that pictures of band's in the review section aren't advertisments. Yes. Just make it clearer what's going on. And don't talk about rock n roll so bloody much. Talk about all kinds of weird wibbly electronica and funky dance music and hip hop and stuffness and jazz and all sorts. Yes yes yes.

Anyway, that's my pound'sworth. I imagine it'll be more next month, so you can expect about four pound'sworths then, aye.

I'm not even gonna bother to pick this up!

''Neil, Taylor etc. please read Cozen's comments and respond to them at least once. Stop limiting yr answers to people you want to have fights with.''

THIS IS URGENT AND KEY!

Have I missed summat Julio? I've only had the mag ten minutes and have a nasty headcold = brain not up to speed.

Anything that can point people towards Manitoba and The Shins is fine by me.

And yeah, I accept a little more hip-hop etc wouldn't go amiss. I'm gonna be endeavouring to sort that out in the coming issues (with the full encouragement of the Bang editors I might add - they certainly want more hip-hop in there).

Still can't figure out what people hate about the look though. I mean, I've read all your comments - s'just I think it looks mightyfine. See? I just don't belong here.

Anyway, what really, really disturbed me in this thread was Carlin saying that "Despite Reynolds telling me he'd been given "Elephant" to review (and slagged it off), I see a 5-star review of same with the initials "SP" appended. Tells me all I need to know." I guess this is probably not the best place to ask to clarify this, and it's not up to Bang's contributors to do it but... What the fuck is this?

I like the idea of 'blind' reviews even better.

Just give the reviewer a CDR with nothing written on it and a piece of paper with titles etc.

Don't tell them who the album's by.

If they guess, well that's unavoidable, but i'd like to see just who trust their own judgement enough to say how good something is without knowing what everyone else's opinoins are.

I think the look is fine too.

Glossy and bright and even when text is overlaid on photos it's easy to read.

This, I actually think, is a *very* fine idea, and would result in some interesting results...

Reviews without names attached = MAJOR DUD!!! There is no such thing as an objective reviewer. The trick is to learn what critics have similar tastes and concerns to your own, and to judge the review *by* the reviewer. A lambasting from Stephen Wells is as good a reccomendation for me to want to buy something as a good review from someone else...

What's wrong with the design? Jeez... honey, if you have to ask... OK, it's personal taste. I *hate* the constant crossing-out of band titles and the stupid random highlighting of pull-quotes. The images/text interplay looks amateurish and "wheee!!! I can make Quark look just like a cut-out zine!" to me. The colours used are garish - yellow, black and pink? Puh-lease! And the design is boxy and confusing and breaks up the page in really disconcerting - not to mention visually unpleasing - ways.

When does lent start again? I think I shall give up the music press. It upsets me too much. I don't want to be a music critic, I want to be a music *fan*. But you just get to the point where you want to scream "Bloody hell, *I* can do better than this!"

< MAGAZINE X > WANTS YOUR ASS!

Or more correctly, the arse of one of your artists! Photocopied. Or scanned. Or faxed, if you have a fancy fax machine they can sit on. No, it's not for our own dark desires, but for our fabulous new backpage feature "Show Us Your Bum", which will be appearing every month on the prized back page space. It's the perfect opportunity to plug your band/artist, as, alongside your star's posterior, the monthly slot will include some text telling our readership [now at 45000 and rising] all about who the bum belongs to, what new releases they have out, etc etc

For the plan to work, we need bums. Famous bums! Hairy bums! Smooth bums! Over 18 bums only, preferably! So get recruiting! Find us bums!

Yes, this is an ACTUAL solitictation forwarded to us by our PR. Needless to say, we declined.

Yet when people say that the quality of British music journalism is a load of ARSE!!! some people are taking that literally. I'm scared. Very scared.

And I don't like pull quotes at all. I've bough the mag, they're in the body text so why waste all that space/paper by saying it twice!

Reviews MUST be by an identifiable reviewer. Because as Kate said:
The trick is to learn what critics have similar tastes and concerns to your own, and to judge the review *by* the reviewer.

Who is MAGAZINE X???

I wouldn't trust a random off the street's judgement, I want to know what other stuff they like, build up a picture.

Perhaps each month one reviwer could have a page dedicated to them and the records they like best (ever, not just at the moment) so we could filter out the bias from their words more effectively. I'm sure the writers would relish the chance to extol.

Dammit, I should have mine OWN music mag where I get to do stuff like this...

I did stop writing about music for ages, mostly because of the whole hating of corporate PR campaign thinking - there's nothing worse than feeling like a badly paid adjunct to someone else's marketing department. But other creative industries are not any better: last night when my houseguest and I were heading out the door to Korean food, some film PR called from LA *out of the blue* to say her charge had a 'window' in 30 minutes and could I do the phoner then? AS IF.

Kate, credits are there primarily so some poor schmuck in accounts can figure out who did what and how much they're owed. Since the latter isn't a concern at CTCL, maybe the Uncredited Plan would work there ;-).

They do this already in computer game mags and I think it works. They don't give say, FIFA 2003, to someone who hates soccer games. They have little cartoons instead of photos.
The quality of videogames is far less open to personal taste though, but even so they take the opinions of many people into account.

Maybe there could be a Music version of Edge? For all it's faults it does genuinely pick the best computer/video games every month, regardless of genre or format.

And if there's nothing great that month, SAY SO!

why not just print their zodiac signs too
Probably not that relevant usually. Their tastes in music are, because they're writing about music!

Unlikely, but that's the way taste works. Worth the risk.

or if somebody altered their review before it got printed
Fire the person who altered it or insist they make clear what they changed.

or if they were just lying sacks of shit
Fire them.

or they were the type of person who thought having tastes made them interesting and special

Fire immediately. Do not pass go. Just chuck them out the window.

I'm now going to go and buy Bang. I almost certainly wouldn't have bothered if it hadn't been for this thread.

Perhaps he wrote for them as a giant FUCKYOOOOOOOU to Union Jackboots. Why else?

Also all this constant shite about belonging here or my vibe not being connected to your wavelength, I didn't realise Sonny had so many Chers out there. Is there anyone writing for any of these magazines that speaks like a human being?

Because the makers of the mag are PR slaves.

They get sent soon-come albums a couple of weeks before so they review those then they think hey, if they've got a new alb then they should be written about and interview them. Mostly.

Magazine journalism is just one tentacle of the PR machine, only their wage doesn't come _directly_ from the record company. Mostly.

I don't think Bang's particularly bad.

Mei, you're filling up the board with farm-punk talk (read Head On by Julian Cope if you need my definition, as it's his too). Look, myself and other writers are about as much a part of a PR machine as you are the British Gas machine when you call up BG and ask them to send you a form or send a man 'round. Some PRs are great and do the job because they know they're no artist, but they know they can help people with an art have success. Many of them work for free if they think the unsigned, boutique-indie group they like is going to bring attention to their firm. Others are the suckers of Satan's cock. Why do we write about artists who are releasing things in a particular month? Not because we're only interested in groups for a month. Generally speaking, it's because the groups who *sell* magazines like Bang only make themselves available to press etc. at certain times, eg. in the run-up to release of their record.

If editors are still chasing a group for press three months down the line, they're *really* popular or something newslike has happened.

Mei is expressing ways that magazines could make things more interesting, just tossing ideas out and brainstorming, and The Industry could use a good deal more of "Farm Punk" idealism and less of cynicism, thanks.

Suzy, I'm not having a dig at you or anyone in particular.
Don't think PR is necessarily bad either.

Suzy said: "it's because the groups who *sell* magazines like Bang only make themselves available to press etc. at certain times, eg. in the run-up to release of their record."

So you cover bands when the bands (or their PRs) make themselves available to you. When _they_ want the coverage in other words.

Just in time for the release of new product. How do journalists find out when a band is due a new release. I bet most often it's when they get an email off the band (or their PR).

Do they ever think, hey I wonder what so and so is up to, haven't heard from them in a while? Let's call them and find out.

I think I'm talking about reviews mostly here, although features are also usually tied in to a release or some big concert.

I'd like more investigative journalism rather than just passing on the accepted word.

I don't have experience of actually _using_ PRs though, so that's the bit I'm missing out. Come on, tell me how it works, I want to know how it all works!

1. I don’t have a clue what Ronan just said means, but I’m sure it’s right. (Got CM4 yet, Ronan? Aw MAN!)

2. More italics. This may seem petty and silly and insignificant but I read through the reviews section (whaddya know there’s no music out this month that I want to buy) and there were know italics. What’s up with that?

3. One of the few things I still like about The Wire is their changing layouts/artistic design every month. Surely can’t be too expensive if The Wire can afford to do it. Plausible?

4. I’d, personally, like someone to learn from FT and engage with Pop. Not in it’s loosest, non-jazz, non-classical sense because that lets you just get away with covering rockrockrock. (I think this is me saying this for the first time, Taylor misinterpreted me up there what I meant by “is rock the paradigm form of popular music”). t.A.T.u. – ferchrissakes – an easy option, a nice big lead article on them. (I don’t mind band history etc articles but not ones that have been done before and before and before – that type of thing done on, say, Daniel Bedingfield would be really interesting because it’s not the way he’s normally approached, even by say pop-savvy VV or FT).

5. I like the first letter on the Post page – the kind of thing Spizzazz does really well – faux-naïve funny intelligence – a real joy.

6. Re: CTCL & Bang comparison disdain – OH COME ON!

7. I never read MM, so I don’t know most of these people, and to be true I only know Kulkarni from here (occasionally) and CTCL, so a lot of these people are new to me but they’re not new. And I’m glad they’re writing again because people whose tastes I respect like them so they must have some worth. But I’d really like to see you blood a lot of new writers. Young writers. (I would nominate, and am nominating, seriously, their e-mail address are on this thread, and if you’re watching SP or TP, maybe you could ask them, just ask them, I don’t think I’m stepping on your or their toes by imploring you to ask them to write something for you: Tim F and Ronan F. I’d read any magazine with them in it. On dance, pop, hip-hop, music, whatever.)

Right, CM4.

heh, how do you know he doesn't genuinely hate them (I like SY and setevn wells)?

I know he interviewed them and all but he apparently thought they were arrogant twats (I've got the issue where he said this somewhere).

My two cents:It's cheap, smarmy, patronising SHIT. They got Devendra Banhart in there, though. That was nice to see.

So you cover bands when the bands (or their PRs) make themselves available to you. When _they_ want the coverage in other words.

Well, yes. Really big bands or C. Love try to shout odds by demanding things like photo or copy approval but any sane editor would tell them to blow it out the other hole. Most really successful bands have really busy schedules as a result, and press is just one of the things they've got to do within a very limited time frame. PRs also know who's been calling them up for ages asking for time with a group, which journalists really like which acts on their rosters and the good ones try to honor those requests. Some others will just mail everyone in their database or do a mailout of the CD or something. Also upthread, photographers are much better at being matey with groups than most writers and will often shoot a group on the sly or 'for art' and THEN the editor will be all 'nyah, we've got pix from Snapper X of your artist, they're good, interview please?'

If you're in the loop at a magazine you're always talking about what can go in and when it comes out. The office will have a copy of Music Week and a thing called Media Hounds which has provisional releases in it for months in advance, contacts for PRs from Max Clifford to Stone Immaculate (a really good independent PR) in the listings. When 100,000 records are released in any given year, you have to prioritise somehow and inform journalistic contacts as widely as possible.

I'd like more investigative journalism rather than just passing on the accepted word

Me too. There is a lot of Advertiser Appeasement going on in the media of today...but it can't last.

Julio, I know SW had a bad interview experience with SY but then I've also known Swells since 1990 and worked on things with him (inc. during the time SY asked my permission to use an article I wrote about stage school brats for a song - YAY - I share writing credit with Kim on it, Swells was like 'wow, cool').

I've got so many Chers cause I don't caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeee. Caring is bawring!

ok so do editors, well, ask writers to hate things for them or whatever...I mean, it's diff to believe the editor could have just told him to do a negative write up on SY and that swells actually did it.

Then why is he writing stuff in theGrauniad about how funny it is to throw things at footballers, cos it ain't.

Ha, as I was writing this post, EXHIBIT A ladies and gents, sonny's post above Julio's.

ps:any sympathy for that swells stuff is not funny unless you have some major insecurities about your place in everyday social scenarios.

"are you being sarcastic?"

"dude I don't even know anymore"

oh please. its toilet humour. I'd say beneath the trashy humour he is concerned abt music. I definetely got that.

I wasn't comparing jess with swells if you read the post, heaven forbid.

(and right now I'm being exactly what you want me to be)

''Who the fuck is this Sonny guy anyway? Is he a writer? A music journalist?''

oh he's a music journo. a failed and bitter music journo ;-)

I'M READY FOR MY CLOSE UP, JULIO!

I like how ronan reads something in the paper or, say, a thread and then starts whining abt the state of humanity (at least it sounds like it). its really funny. keep it up.

When someone says "Thanks, Kate" after that post, I'd say yeah, Mei was feeling condescended to. Behave yourself, Suzy, is all I'm saying. It wouldn't KILL you to be occasionally as nice to people on a bulletin board as you would be to them in person.

drawing conclusions abt someone's 'lack of social skills' from their postings on an interweb message board: dud or motherfucking dud.

and sorry that i'm not a writer like you ronan.

Considering as how Vikernes was an extreme-right-wing shitbag who killed someone and went round burning churches with no regard for whether or not anyone was going to be killed or maimed as a result of his actions, I would perhaps say he was a bigger prick than whichever Steve wrote that particular piece. Solely based on the murdering aspect, I'd have to say that if not the most dangerous man in rock, he'd have to at least rank up there as one of them!

oh come on ronan lighten up! all i said was that I liked yr posts.

(this bit in brackets makes it a two line post)

Not usually - I find it lazy and egocentric to write a hatefile on some group when it springs in part from treatment at the hands of a group or artist who's being a bit stuck-up. Like, SURPRISE? Though this is the place where I get to say that the biggest prick in the whole world, ever, in terms of being up themselves at an interview, was Flea. He could just give up music, stick his head up his arse, and live until the end as a Venice Beach freakshow ourboros. This is also the place where I say that in the world of books, editors will give rev copies to critics with massive axes to grind, often about ex-friends or lovers who happen to be the authors. Which is great if you're one of the 500 in on the joke, but pretty pathetic in general.

However, if a whole office full of people LOVE a record or a film or something, and the reviewer commissioned clearly does not, it will get spiked in favour of something else which reflects majority opinion in the office. Though honestly in over 10 years of writing I have only ever been asked by an editor to do this twice. Once because our film reviewer HATED Trainspotting, which I liked, and because everyone but this guy liked the film, we changed it. Next and last time was last month - art editor wrote para of shite about Vanessa Beecroft and because I know and like her work, was asked to make corrections and remove aspersions.

and i don't know anybody on this thread 'cept for three. it's much more fun to see you try to decry my inhumanity when you don't know me...!!!

I'm no careers counsellor.

Ronan - howsaboutthis for being sincere. Right, I'm going to paint you a picture. I want to write. Hell I am writing. London is very expensive. I do temporary work at an arts agency at the moment. I have to make contact with all of my editors (all three) at work. Now, I set up some gigs to do and an interview that all has to get done by Monday. But no, see, I also took on court reporting. I need to get this done in two weeks. It involves summarising and transcribing. As most things to. And really, I just want to write my novel in peace. But my blue-collar work ethnic kicks in. See, someone has given me an opportunity to do some high profile writing on a website. This is very sweet. I say yes. Someone else has given me an opportunity to make some cash by doing a press release. I say yes. At the same time, I have to actually make these things happen (interview, live review, article, press release), do the court reporting, work full time during the day and still find time to go to ikea for a long promised shopping trip. And yet, I have to, as well, write my book. So, I stay up until one in the morning and I get up at six. I don't start work until ten, so I sit in a dodgy cafe in Hackney writing for a couple of hours. Lunch is a half hour, I get home by six. So, I chill out, by ranting on ilx. So, I have to do the court reporting. This is a big project and is going to take five hours a day, at least. Weekends are devoted to writing. Whole weekends. My girl has her course and full-time work. I'm so fucking bamboozled by the end of these intense work periods. That I don't fucking know if I even know my fucking name much less if I am sincere or not.

But I fucking love it.

There.

Now let's get back on topic. Why is Bang so friggin' retarded! : - )

Read my screed above. It's the honest truth. And I'm not adding in all the gory work - PRs (some who rock and some who don't), constant pitching and constantly finding new bands to write about.

And I'm not even that arsed about BANG, hell, the only time I get the fear is when I read a Johnson novel and worry if it's not as good as the last one.

So fuck y'all, I'm taking my ball and playing with people who are fun (obviously not meaning people that I'm friends with on this thread).

Suzy, my opinion might be wrong (I'm not just saying that, I really believe I might be wrong) but it's not knee-jerk or cynical.

I don't mind being called a farm punk or even being codescended to particularly, which is what you were doing. I think you've had people have a go at you before over something like this and you're assuming my opinions are the same as or similar to theirs. I am _not_ a Punk Planet/Fracture style independent missionary who only buys records from small labels/distros and wants to be totally DIY. I do not think bug business is evil.
Big business made CDs possible, and Nintendo and the lovely fresh strawberries I am eating.

You and other writers are however part of the 'PR machine' - even if you don't think so or won't acknowledge it. I don't have a picture in my head of some evil horned PR monster machine polluting young minds with their propoganda.

Bands themselves, their agents, record companies, PR companies, radio, television, magazines all play a part in introducing fans to music. That's not a bad thing. Friends tell each other about great music all the time, same sort of thing.

Your british Gas analogy works if all you use a PR for is to get info/cds at your request. If they ever call you and tell you about this great new band... or if they _give_ you a CD you would otherwise have to pay for, or if you use one of their press releases it goes beyond that. They are using you. Not in a nasty way, but they are.
I don't know who you are, I'll go and check later, but I'll assume you work for a magazine and talk to PR people.
Do you think most of them would send you free stuff just because they liked you, even if they knew there was no way that could help them? They think you can do something for them.

Suzy:Generally speaking, it's because the groups who *sell* magazines like Bang only make themselves available to press etc. at certain times, eg. in the run-up to release of their record.

So you're covering them when they want it, not necessarily when you do. You do see that?

Suzy:PRs also know who's been calling them up for ages asking for time with a group, which journalists really like which acts on their rosters and the good ones try to honor those requests.

So the PRs help the mags who are going to give their acts the most coverage, if they've been ringing for ages it's probably going to be positive coverage. And the PRs help the journalists who really like their acts and will consequently write nice things about them.

So to recap:

- the PRs fit all the interviews/access to acts into a small time frame making them a scarce resource so the media have to compete for attention;

- they concentrate on the mags who want to do (probably) more positive things

- they can't choose what an individual writer will say (journalistic integrity I believe in) so instead they choose who gets to write.

All of that is really natural and nothing to get worked up about. For many reasons it makes sense, here's a good reason you gave yourself: Most really successful bands have really busy schedules as a result, and press is just one of the things they've got to do within a very limited time frame.

Just be aware of your place in the 'grand scheme' or 'system' or 'natural order' if you really don't like the word machine.

Thanks for this next bit, I want to know more:

If you're in the loop at a magazine you're always talking about what can go in and when it comes out. The office will have a copy of Music Week and a thing called Media Hounds which has provisional releases in it for months in advance, contacts for PRs from Max Clifford to Stone Immaculate (a really good independent PR) in the listings. When 100,000 records are released in any given year, you have to prioritise somehow and inform journalistic contacts as widely as possible.

I think I've read a few Music Weeks, they're really large paper like A3 maybe? Free to people in the industry, probably paid for by advertising? I've seen the toy industry and video game industry equivalents too.

I'd love to read an in-depth article explaining their role.

How do yopu prioritize? I think that's at the heart of everything.

I'd like more investigative journalism rather than just passing on the accepted word
Me too. There is a lot of Advertiser Appeasement going on in the media of today...but it can't last.

Maybe we should have a thread on this.

Mei, a farm punk isn't the worst thing to be (and you're wrong about what that means, which is rubbish considering I told you exactly where I swiped the term from). If you feel condescended to, I'm sorry, but I'm the world's most impatient person and it isn't personal or intentional. You either get me or you don't, and you don't.

Nobody pays me to teach Music Press 101 so until that HAPPY day...the magazines we're talking about are CONSUMER magazines; ergo they're all about what's new and available to consume that month. Editorial priorities are thus that way inclined. The idea(l) is to get an 'exclusive' with a group, ask difficult questions, get answers, have good pictures, and write about the group in a way that connects somehow with people who read your magazine, and will enhance sales that month.

However, I don't have time for any more questions from you. Apols.

Another tip is this: Become intimate with failure. It's your enemy and it's your best friend. And stop whinging on about sincerity. If I did that I would never have any fucking writing jobs. So again, give up your life and devote it too writing. Otherwise leave me the fuck alone so I can get on with things.

ha! since i study there we can have a luchtime beer (or somefink?) ;-)

I am tired of those comments about me. He wanted it. He got it.

Julio, my girl works at UCL! I have probably seen you. But yeah, as soon as I get that sorted and get the application completed and funding. (I just went to the The Arts Council seminar today).

well there's your problem right there.

well if you do wnat a beer email me and all heh.

And you've posted to this thread how many times?

Brilliant! Have I just been chastised for not owning a nine year old Julain Cope autobiography?

...the magazines we're talking about are CONSUMER magazines; ergo they're all about what's new and available to consume that month. Editorial priorities are thus that way inclined.

That doesn't mean you can't aspire to better things.

However, I don't have time for any more questions from you. Apols.

Okay thanks for what you've said, perhaps we've both learned something.

No, just for the usual crime of Poster X has not read Poster Y's post properly.

But everyone should read Head-On at least once (it's been re-released by HarperCollins so it ain't exactly obscure). It's one of the most brilliant, hysterical books about coming to music and being in bands EVER. Julian Cope = experience, and on the side of the (acid) angels to boot.

Kate, credits are there primarily so some poor schmuck in accounts can figure out who did what and how much they're owed. Since the latter isn't a concern at CTCL, maybe the Uncredited Plan would work there ;-).
-- suzy (theartskooldisk...), April 2nd, 2003.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

No, I *HATE* the uncredited idea. WTF? What we were saying was that NAMED critics should review albums without being told what they are. Read what I post, Suzy.
-- kate (masonicboo...), April 2nd, 2003.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry, Kate: MIGRAINE.
-- suzy (theartskooldisk...), April 2nd, 2003.

To:

Have I just been chastised for not owning a nine year old Julain Cope autobiography?

No, just for the usual crime of Poster X has not read Poster Y's post properly.
-- suzy (theartskooldisk...), April 3rd, 2003.

But... I hate when threads which are general discussions and open brainstorming sessions about how to make the music press in general better turn into pissing competitions about who knows more about and more members of the Media Establishment. Hence why the "bored now".

Sonny/Samson is Doomie, right? Same hectoring, self-important rot.

Yes, the insider tittle-tattle is boring and depressing.

I namechecked Doomie upthread... I was under the impression it was so blindingly obvious that everyone knew who he was. Apologies if this wasn't the case.

Anyway, here's a thing - I just popped to the Bang website and due to some cock-up or other, instead of the homepage I got what I believe is known as their "tag" list (sorry, not that savvy when it comes to making web pages.

It's higly illuminating reading, especially with regards "target markets" and suchlike. But crucially, it doesn't make me not want to read it; in fact, I'm still as EXCITED as I was upthredd.

So...shall I post it?

That would certainly shut up idealistic twunts who pretend they neither know nor care about demographics or target audiences or the like...

"Keywords" content="BANG magazine bangmagazine.co.uk new music site website news blog reviews album single CD rock n roll rock'n'roll rock n'roll alt indie country alternative hip hop rap dance techno metal audio UK England London journalism guitar revolution monthly exciting passion photos photography gallery exclusive celebrate thrill gig live concert show Lester Bangs dedicated obsessive fan visionary Circuit Hunter Thompson film books style vision wit incendiary media glamo

It seems to peter out in the middle of what I presume is "glamour" or "glamor"...or maybe it's just "glamo", some hot! new! subsubmetagenre we've not heard about yet...

Anyway.

Most of it's fairly standard music site fare, but may I draw attention to the hopeful (and I reckon cruelly misleading) inclusion of the words blog, thrill, lester, bangs, hunter, thompson and, er, incendiary...

I'll leave it up to the rest of you vultures to pick this apart (don't forget - THIS IS NORMAL. ALL SITES DO IT OTHERWISE THEY GET NO HITS...)

G'night, all.

Kate, I apologised for not thoroughly reading your posts, so stop bloody dredging (K thinks I am the apex of the Bossy Older Sister, and she'd be right).

I believe in TRANSPARENCY around media issues, which is why I try to tell people what happens behind the scenes because TONS of the people who work in the industry are totally precious and secretive about the *stupidest* things. If you think it's just namedropping and point scoring, you're missing the point/it says more about you than me etc (and I'm only telling you about a small precentage of interactions anyway for discretion's sake). And on the other hand, TONS of people on the outside of said industry/the consumers/The Kids just trot out the same tired sub-Manics arguments about systems and machines without bothering to challenge their assumptions in any significant way.

I've been doing my job for 12 years now and well, DUH, I'm going to know lots of people (and it doesn't help that I have a good memory for what X said to me at party in 1999 or whatever). I'm not a frustrated wannabe rock star who takes up the pen because the guitar/laptop ain't working (having MUSICAL talent - I have none - on top of all the other ones would be too much; I don't know how Kate manages it all!). Because I don't approach my job in quite the same way as a 'normal' music journalist, ie. not always going through PR companies and the like, having various creative outlets/politics which bring me into contact with other artistes as peers, I'm going to have a bond with some of the people I meet, and they're going to find me interesting too. I really *like* bringing people here a little bit closer to that world, to show them what it's like, that you don't have to be a wanker to be in it to win it. But if you can't accept things I post at face value the way I do with your posts, I think you're holding me to a different set of rules and I'm not happy about that.

It doesn't seem that bad - far removed, in fact, from this mad and overheated thread. For instance, the inside doesn't look so bad - though, yes, the front cover is ugly.

Nonetheless, it's not really for me. Two reasons:

1. the emphasis on 'new music', 'happening bands'. I find that I can't muster much enthusiasm for these things anymore.

2. the idea that all features must be organized around a face-to-face encounter with said new, happening bands. In other words, the primacy (or ubiquity) of the Interview. I don't think I want to see so many Interviews (mumbled statements, hyped to significance). I think I want to see more Writing (daring adventures with the sentence).

In this, possibly, I am merely repeating the ILM consensus, assuming it exists. As usual, probably, I agree with the Nipper.

(And Ronan of course I wasn't citing you, it was a general grumble - you've been in magazine offices, I think you know the score)

1. I don’t think the writing should be tied to promo-schedules (I’ve said this elsewhere but I’ll say it again) because I think it denigrates both the writing and the artist being written about. They both become tools used against and for each other.

2. I don’t mind (I LOVE) articles on new bands (I don’t want it to go the way of Ucunt – oh NO! MORE dead media!) but I’d like to see, if possible, reviews of old records just thrown in the review section. What’s it supposed to be? A buyer’s guide to this month’s new music or something?

3. I agree about Interviews as well. Interviews tend to be dull for several reasons: a) the band are dull when they talk; b) the interviewer doesn’t really challenge the band (I mean not nastily or vigorously “oh ho-ho Sonic Youth, it’s all just art-wank, non?” but just in the same sense as you would when arguing with friends, nudging their thoughts in different directions) c) there is no focus and the usual lame-o questions are asked (“when did you start writing songs?”) We want to hear the answers to questions like “why do you think dinosaurs are so popular?” The mixture of serious and silly you find ILE is really good at.

4. More questions about social etiquette, just cause I like them (I LOVE Seinfeld, see?)

5. Daring adventures with the sentence!!!

this is so, so, so incredibly wrong I don't even know where to begin disagreeing. people want good music writing, people are fucking crying out for it... it just aint being done and that's why people like me and a good many others on this list probably feel like they're battering their heads against brick walls... who says people don't want well-written reviews and pieces about musical movements/scenes/shifts... yes dare i say it THEORY... that may lead them to even more stuff they like. putting a Q-style "you'll like these" on a review aint enough, you have to tell people why they'll like it or sould at least give it a try... i spend a lot of time thinking about music - far, far, far too much in fact and a 100 word record review just aint enough to do it justice... that's the argument for Heat-magazine-style journalism... why not give people the choice and let the sales figures show what people want instead of everyone following the same tired formulae...

I don't think the interview has much potential, I mean they can be fun if the band say something completely twattish but even the technique "I'm sitting in a room with Alvin Stardust, his cold radar eyes penetrating my being." is fucking totally hackneyed and boring, the constant REVELATION of "although you thought alvin was a hellraiser, in person he's more of a pioneer" is just tiresome and also feels like a kick in the face in an "i know better cos i met these people" sort of way.

Emo bandname number 2342.

(the above was said with the 13-17 yr old age range that I think NME and bang! go for)

why does uncut no longer publish penman and morley (last time i checked anyway)? why hasn't q mag gone bust?

*******************************************************************

Ok - my answer would be: NME has allowed itself to be more and more defined - by IPC- as simply a consumer guide for the indie world - ie, students and ex-students. And a lot of the answers on this thread are kind of saying "well - it should be a better consumer guide, by covering x, y and z".

If I had just taken up the job, I would have try and convince the IPC budget holder that this is a dead end - the internet has unlimited space and a million monkeys typing at a million typewriters, and If what you are after is simply news, release dates, cursory q&as then you are going to find it a much better source of information. If you really wanted to strengthen the NME brand you have to make it stand for something more than this - which means playing to the strengths of a printed magazine: you have a proper budget so you can afford to hire more skilful and imaginative writers, and you have readers who are prepared to read at length, so you can run more interesting types of story. A lot of people think that the problem with the NME is that it frivolously invents scenes - I think this is its strength!, or at least its unique selling point, and it should do more of this - not less So this means hiring the sort of people who are imaginative enough to do this, and giving them the proper space in which to fantasize.

why does uncut no longer publish penman and morley (last time i checked anyway)? why hasn't q mag gone bust?"

Believe it or not but I don't think Penman and Morley are allowed to be published in Ucunt.... I don't think Band is going for the 13-17 age group at all... they'd be doing stuff about More Fire Crew, Mis-Teeq (please more pieces on Mis-Teeq!) and more hip hop if they were...

In other news my girlfriend has just bought me a copy of "Bang". I see the mid nineties Select / Vox comparisons on first glance, mind you I've not been big on the music press since then. It doesn't look too bad sylewise, a lot of the more garish bits are where an advert is next to an article. Although the Flaming Lips article looks like a smackheads early morning lungflush.

The reviews seem like reviews. There's nothing new about them, neither are they dreadful. The interviews read like interviews, the features like features. The Sonic Youth thing is just pointless.

Overall it seems nothing out of the ordinary but nothing too bad. It doesn't cover much that I'm into, nothing really does at the moment, but it at least I get the feeling it has the potential to not be shit.

NME and Bang! seem to be writing abt the same sort of bands. I think NME does aim for that sort of age range.

there should more pieces on mis-teeq. I like their current single.

Signed,

The lovely Pariah. Teehee.

Suzy said “And on the other hand, TONS of people on the outside of said industry/the consumers/The Kids just trot out the same tired sub-Manics arguments about systems and machines without bothering to challenge their assumptions in any significant way.”

Yes! I agree so totally with that – I am not one of these ‘Kids’. When I said ‘machine’ it was not as an insult. It’s just a word.

Kate said “On the whole, any ILX thread that reaches over 100 posts, printed out and read, would probably be better than any issue of ANY of the current UK music press. Or maybe even press in general!”

Mind reader. I’ve just done that and re-read it all in the sunshine of the park. I think I’ve read all of Suzy’s posts properly (again) and I still don’t know what it is I’m misunderstanding.
There are about 3 or 4 separate conversations interweaving here and it’s hard to follow, but fun to try.

Suzy said “I reallly, really agree with the Pinefox, esp. point 2 which is why whenever I am faced with the Interview Situation, I want REAL answers in the LEAST mediated way possible, eg. not with some overprotective PR sitting in like a bad smell or 'monitoring' me on a three-way phone call …”

I’d really like this too but I’d also like less of the journalist (not just the PR) in there and more of the musicians if that’s possible. I appreciate there is great skill in getting into the subjects mind.

I think that most interviews that appear in print are hugely cut down from what was said at the time. Questions are re-ordered so it reads better, eg most interviews end on some punchy quote which probably didn’t end the real conversation. Other information is also inserted in between bits of conversation (where it’s most relevant) which can change what everything means. Look how everyone’s quoting each other here.

It’s like film directing. The resulting interviews are as much fiction as fact but probably better for it.

I’m glad you’re sticking around on this thread Suzy because you’re saying some very interesting things. Plus I quite like you.

Please take me at face value, I’m not often sarcastic or ironic and I usually ask questions to get answers not make a point.

I think I will read the Julian Cope book, they’ve not got it in the college library but next time I’m somewhere there’s a big book shop I’ll try to get it in paperback.
I’m sure I saw it in a library a few years back and maybe I should have read it then. I know he uses double neck guitars on occasion because they’re physically heavier so they sound ‘heavier’ and that should be all I need to know to like him.

Just go to http://www.bangmagazine.co.uk/ and look at the source code of the page. In IE go to the ‘view menu and choose ‘source’.

The things that we’re interested in are meta-tags, ‘meta’ because they’re data about other data.

Random computer dictioanary website says:

A meta tag is a tag (that is, a coding statement) in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) that describes some aspect of the contents of a Web page. The information that you provide in a meta tag is used by search engines to index a page so that someone searching for the kind of information the page contains will be able to find it. The meta tag is placed near the top of the HTML in a Web page as part of the heading.

Here’s the whole thing from bang’s site:

meta name="Description" content="Providing passionate discussions, unseen photography, breaking news, exclusive competitions and definitive reviews from BANG magazine - a celebration of the music you love: setting the agenda, championing the best new music around and bringing you the definitive stories on the greatest inspirational artists, every month."

meta name="Keywords" content="BANG magazine bangmagazine.co.uk new music site website news blog reviews album single CD rock n roll rock'n'roll rock n'roll alt indie country alternative hip hop rap dance techno metal audio UK England London journalism guitar revolution monthly exciting passion photos photography gallery exclusive celebrate thrill gig live concert show Lester Bangs dedicated obsessive fan visionary Circuit Hunter Thompson film books style vision wit incendiary media glamour excess volatile sleazy tribal allegiance agenda recording champion happening White Stripes Polyphonic Spree Godspeed You Black Emperor Flaming Lips Darkness Interpol Ladytron Devendra Banheart Faint Warlocks Harry Yeah Yeah Yeahs Strokes Shins Buck 65 Joyzipper Autechre Evan Dando Aphex Twin Dave Eggers Jem Cohen Jeff Buckley Har Mar Superstar Peaches Gonzales t.A.T.u. Radiohead Dandy Warhols Donnas Cardigans Blur Marilyn Manson Hives Courtney Love Hole Nirvana"

This isn't a bad thing... I don't see what the problem is at all...

Two ideas to help fix the music press, one vague, one specific.

1) Don't simply cover an artist because they have a new record out. Look for good stories, look for good angles, not for the latest hype down the pipe (I hate using the h**e word cause it's almost meaningless at this point, but still...). Focusing on Tha New over everything else causes too many features about, say, dull modern-rock band, dull rapper, dull country singer, dull pop star who have nothing to say (hence all cliches or pieces that just say nothing) and are generally written by people with little investment or insight into the artist. There have to be ways to make features interesting again, but I'm having my doubts. Maybe have one person who likes the artist interview them and have someone who hates them write the piece? Straight Q&As can have their moments, but by and large it's just the writer showing off with wordy questions or by transcribing the thing to make themselves look smarter or make it feel as if there was more of a vibe in the room than there really was (I'm guilty of this). But maybe the biggest fault of features is the nature that they have devolved into: Fluff, promo pieces where the artist gets to say whatever he/she/they want without any critical questioning by the writer in the piece itself. I love to see a writer contradict what the piece's subject has just said; to see the writer's voice come pouring out suddenly and unexpectedly (the ARE Weapons piece in the latest Fader does this -- after an appropriately glowing piece in the last graf the writer states that despite all of this they still suck live, they have many faults and they have bad songs but it doesn't really matter. And the writer is completely right and it immediately gives the piece much more credence).

2) Ira Robbins and I have had many long talks about what a new magazine would need, and the No. 1 thing he would want to do is establish close relationships with his writers and his readers. To do this, he wanted to hire five or six record reviewers and give them each a page or two of the mag each month, allowing them to write about whatever they wanted, but stressing that he would like to see them write about things they like, don't like and should be written about. By having the same people each month, the hope is that readers will have an emotional investment in the writers, and thus care more about their opinions and eventually creating some sort of give and take between the two. I think this is a great idea, provided of course that the writers ARE interesting and do have something to say, which is the hard part. Still, finding five people on ILX alone who could do this would not be hard at all...

Kate, that's EXACTLY what I was saying earlier about the Q-style "you'll like this" on recviews not being anywhere near enough and, fuck, who am I to tell people what the WILL and WON'T like anyway? All I can do is offer a few guides and hopefully, if they like me and the sorts of things I try to cover, then they may like other stuff I do, too. To do this you've got to have the space to give reasons, hypothesise, theorise, WRITE!!

Were any ideas expressed in Bang? If so, what were they?

Ha, I don't mind really, that's a good question and probably quite an acid-test too.

revolution monthly exciting passion photos photography gallery exclusive celebrate thrill gig live concert show Lester Bangs dedicated obsessive fan visionary Circuit

when there are things to do outside in the springtime, yes.

when there's an internet, yes.

when i live in america and not england, yes.

I hope you don't think my previous post was supposed to be a serious answer to your interesting question.

cozen, it's not that i don't understand "what bang is", it's just that in america it would be abother mid-line glossy zine among many and i can't imagine it taking on the same impossible gravitas or portent it seems to have in this thread.

Yancy - why is the cult of the new a bad thing. tonight i'm off to review a new band, hell, that is one of the perks of the job - getting coverage of new acts. Why is that necesarily dull? Serious, question, y'all.

BANG - What do you *really* think?
We know how opinionated our readers are about music but we'd like to know exactly what you think of BANG itself: what you love about the mag, what drove you crazy, the bands that you'd love to see in future issues, the issues that you like to see in future... every last detail of what you think about it.

And we'd like to repay your kindness - everyone who takes the time to contact
bang.research@futurenet.co.uk
with their comments before May 23rd will be entered into a prize draw to win a Yamaha TSX20 CD player (www.yamaha-audio.co.uk)

If you'd also be willing to take part in future BANG research, please let us know.

Thank you!

But Yancy - the majority of these music magazines are consumer based. I.E. The band is trying to sell product. Does Mojo, Careless Talk cover similar ground as discussed on this thread?

And I'm totally complicit in it: I write about the NEW NEW NEW as well, for the most part.

Just saw yr second post... Yes, it's the writer's job to make a dollar out of 10 cents, but if a writer knows that a mag will run it anyway, where's the motivation?

I'm a bit of a reference-head so I love talking to people in groups about their aesthetic, how that relates to things like upbringing and life experience, kind of putting it on a map that will interest and possibly inspire the reader to look further: why did that Logan's Run idea appeal to you so much, Mira form Ladytron? NB you go through Taylor's article and you don't know/find out/would ever guess this girl is doing Human Genetics doctorate at Oxford and knows EVERY FILM EVER; in ways like this that's how Bang failed me, especially considering TP and SP are the closest thing to aesthetes in music journalism.

Why did the magazines and papers we liked so much resonate with us? Why did we think culty 80s pop stars were so much more intelligent, as well as intelligent or intellectually provocative in their nihilism, than those of today? It's because they were encouraged in an aesthetic, they were auto-didacts and they were culture-pushers; their rules of 'engagement' were not limited to how good it was to be in the eww-kay, how many models they'd shagged and how much they didn't like their privacy being compromised by proles including 'the media' (exception: Duran Duran, but you could still talk Barbarella with 'em). The last time that happened: Britpop-era Select. You got the whole lifestyle manual, but it was intelligent (which you need if you're a teenager who will attend art college in three years, TRUST ME) and it felt peer-to-peer.

Also, the style fascist in me says no artistes covered in better photo shoots can be less pretty than Dan Gloom (rowr).

Did you falsely make them appear interesting, or make their boringness interesting?

I guess - if something 'cited me - then I GET OFF by knowing that people will be reading that and thinking 'fuckin' hell' i need that. I *need* that.

The acts that Bang covered on the first issue were by'n'large cult of the new by numbers. Big alternative band. Check. Small alternative band. Check. Electroclash band. Check. Ironic shite metal band. Check. That is when the cult of the new goes awry.

And Mei - the Warhol aesthete in me says: All boring things are good. It's the electric energy of waiting for something to happen and it never does. It makes people uncomfortable and nervous. Boredom is the preferred emotion for me.

And Suzy, Dan Gloom is one of a thousand pretty boys in London.

Well, I'm off to review this band in Brixton. C'ya.

The problem is, NME/Bang/etc doesn't seem to take as much pride in brains as it should: gossip-type info first a la Heat is the order of the day at the NME, and Bang should push to be smarter and more comprehensive in engaging with its subjects, because otherwise we won't know the reasons they're special beyond newness, their LP is out and it's a new direction from their last one and Supermodel X is stalking them.

And a note to my haterz - make the Courtney Love of ILX. You know I secretly and neurotically in love with it.

Cozen, sorry, but this is not dada. And if the music is good why do a hatchet job? that is fucking pointless. And why waste the space?

If you were going to ask them personal stuff, it was out, or they were coached not to tell you anything real. They'd just sit there telling you what a private person they were.

Music journalists are like anyone else: treat them like a jerk BEFORE THE FACT and they'll wonder why, resenting you doubly because they're being treated like a rank amateur, usually by someone who can barely string a sentence together and has some weird oppressor-love going where identification is with censorious boss, bottom line and not Art.
And they'll be upset because they feel they're honest people being treated like a thief. And sooner or later the tipping point will be reached, and this control freakery will turn writers into total jerks because they're fed up with the hoops some halfwit decides they have to jump through. People will get sick of reading bland interviews and hatathons and blingathons and someone's going to have to EASE UP A BIT in Head Office before it changes, because it KILLS THE DIALOGUE. Guys, if you want to give your artists long life, don't be quite so hermetic.

Dave, rule A is don't ask about drugs. C Love tries to make people sign a very non-civil-libertarian piece of paper which covers what I might ask her, if I were to sign (fuck that, she can take it on trust or blow it out her other hole). Irony being she always brings up the subject anyway. I get a much better response by waiting for people to bring certain things into a conversation, because I didn't force an issue. Pursuing it once raised, however, is another matter entirely.

-- dave q (scrape10...), April 3rd, 2003 8:08 AM." - haha! you know this happened right?

anyhow for a longass thread this fucker ain't no Christgau nevamind Jay-Z/Nas, but it's still better than that Bang! thread - you got people bragging about being professional proofreaders on that thing, jeezus christ why doncha just fess up to raping chickens while you're atit?

I was kind of fascinated by the way that these two genius writers were demonstrably among the two shittest writers in this place.

I was kind of fascinated that tbese two people were, AT THE SAME TIME, the people who wrote with the least grace, the least insight, the least, and this is a WORD, talent, in this shithole.

But it's the same person. So there's no science involved. There's not two. There's one. One fuckwit. It means nothing.

Jess' comments re just how relevant the brit music press is are i suspect quite profoundly otm

B-b-bb-but Norman the NME have singlehandedly invented the Nu-Rock Revolution and love that or loathe that there is no denying that their hype machine has had a very real practical importance to a lot of people (their readership, the listeners of these bands, hell these bands themselves). It's one really pointed example of how the NME has been extremely relevant over the past two years.

There's maybe an argument for saying that Uncut did the same, or similar, with alt.country, although not to the same extent (eg, its actual genesis lies elsewhere.)

(Even conceding that though, instinctually I would tend to veer towards Jess' stance, including "yo, guys there's a war on" in tow.)

Computer magazines are largely out of date and useless by the time they hit the newsstand and I've concluded that music magazines follow the same pattern.

However, the design is fucking ugly, half of the headlines are practically illegible and its clumsily laid-out and proportioned in a way that pretty much entirely fails to please the eye. It's a shame as a lot of the photography is great.

The thing is, it IS covering pretty much exactly the same bands as the NME, the Polyphonic Spree spread is utterly pointless, as it the Jeff Buckley piece, most of the interviews are dull with the bands in question saying absolutely nothing of interest... which if you're setting yourself up as some kind of edgy, thoughtful new alternative to the NME really isn't good enough.

I'm off to be sick somewhere.

(((demonic cackling)))

simon price has resigned

future publishing not happy with gloom brothers

freelancers complaining

... apparently BANG's future is on the ropes !

just recycling what is NME and Q !

Bang's editors and visionaries are The Gloom brothers (Crispin Parry and Danny Ford). They have previously created the highly regarded independent magazine Circuit, album covers, photo archives, reviews and design for the music industry and several other projects in the underground UK recording and live music scene. They are also part-time members of the Polyphonic Spree choir.

"Based on their experiences, Crispin and Danny approached Future with the idea of creating a truly new and relevant music magazine that would at last satisfy the needs of a currently disenfranchised market." Jim Douglas, Publisher of Bang comments. "Our cumulative expertise means that we are able to create a magazine the market has been crying out for. It's a really exciting project."

Joining Crispin and Danny to complete the team, and to be announced shortly, are some major names in music journalism.

Bang will benefit from a major promotional campaign, including an extensive outdoor, ambient, national press and event sponsorship campaign, as well as news stand promotion and cross-promotion with other Future titles.

The print run for launch (on sale in March) will be 150,000 copies with the aim of a settle down circulation of 50,000. The cover price is £3.30.

I mean, it would be a shame if the only decent "forum for
individualistic expression, intelligent analysis, and nonconformist viewpoints" of the "last five years" went belly up, right?

Incidentally, two other writers have since had features pulled after they were written, laid out etc. One of them is Neil Kulkarni, so I think we see a pattern emerging. What the GBs don't seem to understand is that PRs will respond to this, quite rightly. Apparently, those madcap Glooms currently furious that Bang has been refused access to Billy Corgan's new band (ha!) and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers (ha!). They don't understand that this is a direct result of fucking up that record company's press schedule by pulling my article on one of their other acts, without explanation or notice. I mean how dim can you fucking get?

I just looked in the Guardian Guide. Full page advert: "GET BANG FOR £1" Things are getting desperate. I heard the sales figures for issue 3, and of course I couldn't possibly divulge that information. Except that it sold more than 13,000 copies but less than 15,000. Ha.

things are getting desperate! maybe having polyphonic spree on the over twice in three issues isnt going to be working????

what articles did they pull of neils?

Next up, Federico.

It wasn't upto much right from the off IMHO, now with key people bailing out, content/artists covered that is similar to existing mags [NME, X-Ray, and Q] and offering nothing distinctive - it looks like BANG is about to explode to a publishing DEATH.

obviously with advance publishing cycles there will be a next issue, but after that I can't see Future Publishing willing to carry on mag with such dismal sales.

Anyone read
http://bigcheesemagazineshop.com/images/vive-le-rock-2-big.jpg

It actually made it to issue 2. Never heard of it until I saw it in smiths today while i was looking for the wire

http://vivelerock.net/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

You have been watching Eugene Big Cheese, Hugh Gadjit, SImon Nott, Ian Chaddock, Jim Sharples, Miles Hackett, KNOX, John Robb and a cast of 1000's!!!!

totally subscribing

We Dig

Music
The Clash, Stooges, Sex Pistols, Gene Vincent,Devo, The Damned, The Ruts,Jesse Hector,The Misfits,The Adverts, Penetration, Cro-Mags, X-Ray Spex, Killing Joke, Siouxsie and the Banshees,Iggy Pop, PIL, Agnostic Front, New York Dolls, Dr Feelgood,Heartbreakers,Bad Brains, Richard Hell,, MC5, Ramones, Crime, X,Elvis Cosello, Gun Club, XTC, Dead Boys, UK Subs, Skids, Buzzcocks, Magazine,Bow Wow Wow, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Psychedelic Furs,Saints

Movies
Rude Boy, The Harder They Come, Westway to the World, Quadrophenia,Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle, If, Texas Chainsaw Massacre,Scum,Get Carter, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Deliverance, Fistful of Dollars, New York Doll
Television TOTP2

Books
Please Kill Me, The Dark Stuff, England's Dreaming, Poison Heart.

Heroes
Joe Strummer, Eddie Cochran, Paul 'Foxy' Fox, Gene Vincent

Looks like its from the people behind that truly awful Big Cheese Magazine

looks like its going for the middle ground between mojo & classic rock. cant see this mag lasting at all. also lol john robb

http://www.bigcheesemagazine.com/ if you need reminding of what that shit mag was about (used to be nu-metal & skatepunk)

http://vivelerock.net/images/main_sid.jpg

£15.99 t shirt

Issue one and they're already printing a white flag on the cover.

5 months pass...
Bang folds after 10 issues
― j0e (j0e), Monday, December 15, 2003 10:18 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
7 years pass...

Guess ilxors just stopped caring, then.

DROPKICK MURPHYS & STOOGES LIVE REVIEWS
Vive Le Rock checks out two of the most exciting live punk bands around!

and I thought all the exciting punk was well in the past, thank fuck there's this cutting-edge new magazine to show me the new blood

ugh

http://www.bigcheesemagazine.com/images/uploads/issue131cover300.jpg

panic at the disco and children of bodom are celtic rock now? i look forward to children of bodoms cover of Loch Lomond.

was bang the last attempt at a big music magazine in the uk?

I have no memory of it at all

i remember this thread from the time but not the magazine, hah.

scrolled up, lol'd

Sutherland: "Syria is next."

― Taylor Parkes, Tuesday, April 1, 2003 6:44 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark

Any images of covers of anything? Might jog my memory...

http://www.elvis4uk.co.uk/Bangcover.jpg

not holding my breath for someone to scan them in

Nah, still don't remember it

Tom is buying the celtic rock issue of Big Cheese though. He loves him some Runrig.

'S all about Company Policy

Tom you missed out on a celtic metal band to conquer the world. You have a brother who is in a band right? You could have formed a metal version of runrig and been a multi-millionaire by now.

I know a guy that works with Runrig - I think he might even have played with them - so it's closer than you think

Hope he wasn't the canadian one :)

so glad The Quietus came along so i can read Taylor Parkes' stuff. also anyone hear that he's been on Jarvis Cocker's radio show a couple of times? he's good on it too.

i have all the issues of Bang! up in the attac (i think i missed out on #11 though, or indeed that Darkness one!).

i meant attic of course

When did Vox fold?

Bang was put out by the same publishers who did Metal Hammer and Classic Rock. At the time I wrote a lot for the former and a little for the latter and always tried to pitch Bang but they never even responded to me, even to say "stop it, we don't want you."

And that is all I can say about Bang.

So... Dud. :)

Big Cheese is even worse than Metal(lets drop metal from the name in the 90s) Hammer.

NYCNative: For what it's worth, there was so much insane mismanagement, skullduggery and downright fuckwittedness going on at that magazine that they did you a favour by not getting back to you. I emailed back to all potential news writers, as I still do at The Quietus. My experience at that magazine was so bad that my entire beard fell out for a year.

After the first three issues, I entirely share everyone else's view of this magazine... it fucked UK music mag launches beyond repair but was, for selfish reasons, essential to me: I met my future gf there, I met a good quarter of my best writers now and I learned exactly how not to run a music publication.

AG: That's a good story about Metal Hammer but you know, it kinda sounds a bit like Marc Almond getting his stomach pumped for 6 pints of semen. I.e. it just doesn't stand up to any scrutiny.

No one would call a magazine: Hammer. It doesn't make any sense. I get that you don't like the mag but come on...

well ,i told you this before John, that is the story that was told at the time.

and you know what? It's less ridiculous than a metal magazine like RAW turning into a Britpop magazine, and that really did happen. People really though metal was dying in the days of altrock & britpop

You have not met the people involved. Nobody is holding them back. They are k-rub baby media types with pre-requisite cell phones.

h8 cell phones

Yeah, but Metal Hammer didn't drop the Metal and it covered metal and it still covers metal. People say all kinds of things about music magazines... only some of them are true... in this case, you'd kind of need more than 'My mate down the pub told me that...' imho. There's only one British magazine that picks up and drops metal whenever it feels like and that's Kerrang!

Like I said, having worked on a few magazines and having had the displeasure of having to deal with marketing departments, I bet all kinds of terrible things were suggested by wankers of all stripes back on the day.

But this is just par for the course: these things are discussed on every single magazine in existence that isn't among the top percentile in sales.

As we speak now, some bright spark in senior management at IPC is drawing up a powerpoint proposal for the New Miniature-golf Express. It doesn't mean that the editor's thinking the same thing.

It's less ridiculous than a metal magazine like RAW turning into a Britpop magazine,

was going to say, possibly that was what made the confusion...

maybe they had the same publishers

xp does Golf Punk magazine still exist?

xpost I'm sure the suggestion "drop the "New"" was made often.

I still wish it was the "New Musical Express" or even the NME (with the name in each of the letters) as opposed to the NME

Golf Punk publisher folds after failing to leverage debts15 Nov 2010 ... JF Media, the publisher of sports magazines Football Punk and Golf Punk, has folded after being crippled by debts of more than £1 million.
www.mediaweek.co.uk/.../Golf-Punk-publisher-folds-failing-leverage-debts/ - Cached

Mark have you bought Vive Le Rock?

Do your kids read/buy music mags?

No.

As I say, I don't buy the NME with regularity anymore (maybe once in three months or so), except Christmas issues for a sense of "this is what the year was like", although last christmas' one was a waste of time.

My kids do not buy music mags.

"Vive Le Rock" looks like the sort of thing I could flip through and find very little I didn't already know.

Having said that (xpost), if Smash Hits existed, Alice would most likely get it, she's often downloading lyrics for songs she likes to sing to, to get the words right (it matters to her)

I was hoping this was about the early 70s proto metal band Bang.

The Smash Hits 'brand' gets revived for nice looking one off mags. There's a Smash Hits special on Gaga at the moment.

I thought I remembered Bang magazine but on looking at the cover I realised I was thinking of X-Ray, which started (and presumably folded) at around the same time iirc.

Did the first issue have Wayne Coyne bleeding on the front cover? Bunch of ex-MM writers? Or am I thinking of Word magazine? I had high-ish hopes for whatever that magazine was which were not really met by the first issue, so I didn't buy any more.

does word mag still exist?

I think so. I bought one last year for the first time since it was new. I enjoyed it more than I expected but mainly the non-music parts, to be honest.

yeah it's still going. think it's one with a pretty dedicated readership. It has some good writers IIRC.

One issue did have Wayne Coyne bleeding on the cover, yes ms spacecadet, I remember that one. I don't think it had many ex-MM writers, but could be wrong as it's a long time ago now.

I still have the CD I did this type-as-you-listen thing on:

"this shit is immortal" they say

...The Ladytron tack is good and also different to the album version. the only reason I remember the zina at all is because of this thread and doomie's entertaining posts.

doomie was on fire

if Smash Hits existed, Alice would most likely get it, she's often downloading lyrics for songs she likes to sing to, to get the words right (it matters to her)

<3

But why would she buy a magazine for them when she can get them for free on the internet?

Nice pics, up and coming new popstars, the archive page where she gets the lyrics to "Take the skinheads bowling" etc?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Bang-magazine-issue-1-Flaming-Lips-White-Stripes-/350443442559?pt=UK_Magazines&hash=item51980e917f

more Here

I used to like "Jockey Slut" mag, particularly the All Seeing I freebie CD, which I still dig out to play every so often.

I bought that & muzik (and mixmag) a lot back in the day.

lol

that's funny?

jockey slut was ace but i only really discovered it about a year or so before it folded.

what year did it fold?

Any of you guys remember Cutting Edge Magazine?

Jerry Ewing did that in between stints at Metal Forces (whatever is Bernard Doe up to these days anyway?) and Metal Hammer. I don't know how many issues he did but it wasn't many.

was that the mag that only had 2 issues one had zappa on the cover and ratm on the other?

(cuz i bought them)

I believe that you are correct, Al! Still have 'em?

Mine are in the basement. I am about to embark on digitizing a pile of magazines and newspapers in my basement, but I have this one thing I did for that magazine scanned in as for some reason I had it on my website:

Porno For Pyros Live Review

There is no other mention of the magazine online that I found other than an interview with Jerry.

That interview link is bad but you can see the interview i the Google Cache of the page, if you are so inclined.

(God, that review is overwrought... I sure bought into the Perry mythos hook, line and sinker.)

I think they got flung out by my parents along with old NME/MM/Kerrang/Raw etc to clear out the loft. Only got the Muziks/Mixmags/Mojos left (god knows where in the loft)

NYCNative: You must be Neil Daniels right?

i would subscribe to vive le rock if alex in nyc was the editor in chief.

Not Neil Daniels. My name is Brian O'Neill.

Ah, sorry, mistook you for someone else. Apologies.

Unless you owe him money, in which case yes, I am Neil Daniels...

Mark have you bought Vive Le Rock?

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Thursday, 3 March 2011 17:21 (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Ah, I have now seen a copy.

See, I remember those days clear enough, it was well documented at the time.

This one is probably going to die a death...

i think so too (except classic rock proves there's a market for those who have no interest in non-mojo canon music or new music who wants to read about actual old music they like) I cant see people wanting to read about adam ant.

About 25,000 people read the interview we ran with him last Summer.

And now there's another one.

To be fair, I'd lay money it won't be as good as ours.

well you just never know who might still be popular I suppose