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?

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