why is the music i.n.d.u.s.t.r.y. the why it is and why won't they realise that it's full of crap?

I blame Krist Novoselic. He's 6 foot 8, you know?

d.p. yr not honestly saying that business people are solely responsible for cack music and cack musical practices?

(unless of course you're considering all major label - and most indie label - artists businessmen.)

the businessheads are responsible for the corrupted shitty side of it all jess. there are a few exceptions, alan mcgee, mike alway, some smaller independant labels in north america, but the majority of people, seem to be intent on making it a jaded bitched out scene. that is my experience. i tend to stay far away and thus people are seemingly hating me for it. odd, that.

if you love music and play the game like you don't care...you are fine, but if you really honestly care about industry games, you are fucked. though, i suppose it is a business and like any business you are going to get fuckheads. i've had my full. but then you meet some geniunely honest people who are in it cause they love music. and that makes you want to stay in the game...but there is alot of ego coming from people that are not even the artists!

Yes, Alan McGee! Alan McGee's here to save music by not signing any band that's ever heard a single release post 1968 and signing El Vez. If there's one musician who isn't crap, it's El Vez. In fact, Poptones is so full of talent, I want to vomit. To say the only single talented fucker on Poptones is the Bellrays vocallist would be a big lie. Honest.

see, it's sort of like the post above. today i was victim to something akin to that. an unprovoked attack. what difference does it make? it's just bullyboy games.

I support bullyboy tactics. If someone would have bullied El Vez as a child, perhaps he'd have committed suicide, and we'd be spared his existence today. And then there's Mishko, or whatever his bloody name was. Yeeesh.

bullyboy tactics are a direct result of jealousy and a mental defect.

i mean, it's strange, i'm writing for all of these magazines now and i'm not really caring about the music i.n.d.u.s.t.r.y. but people are reacting very oddly to me.

for me, all i want to do is write about the music that i love.

all i want to do is improve my writing chops by doing some mag writing.

london is odd. london is people on cellphones desperate to impress others on cellphones. it's sad.

ken stringfellow's album on poptones was lovely. and the hives rock, too... and mishka was signed to creation, not poptones. and alan might not exclusively sign your favourite new bands, but he's got a fuck of a lot more spirit, honesty and blind love for music than most in this industry, and i've got a lot of respect for him and his actions.

yeah. i agree with stevie. i've met so many fucked up people in the london music industry and alan is a rarity. so is mike alway, the secretly canadian folks.

there are some small bitter fucked up folks in that industry. i steer clear. i'm tired of people attacking me or my friends. like i said, i'm just learning a new skill. i'm writing my book and working on some other projects. i've got an outsiders view of it and it's ego led and fucked up. i got called a fake a and r guy from this one fucktwit just cause i was talking about bands. you can't love music, it seems.

for me, all i want to do is write about the music that i love.

Start a blog.

no, it's more of a challenge writing for magazines. editing. and it's exciting seeing my name in the papers. makes me feel like i'm doing something whilst my projects are going through the various stages.

There are wankers and angels in every business in the world, why is the music industry so fucking special that people get upset about it? None of us REALLY believe that music's gonna save us all and bring us love, equality and harmony, do we? It's not, it's just music.

None of us REALLY believe that music's gonna save us all and bring us love, equality and harmony, do we? It's not, it's just music.

I do. I like being perfectly flawed that way.

Fair enough. Maybe I'm just not as idealistic as I was, I don't know. I don't think anyone's gonna write that song or record that album that's gonna make everyone in the world smile and fall in love anymore, though I used to. I dunno, it's late.

that's sort of sad, nick. but then again you would go far in the music industry.

fuck, this montgolfiers album is beautiful.

Music industry? Me? Nah. I've totally sold out and gone into marketting instead. Give me 12 weeks and I'll be running an office somewhere. What do I really want to do? Run a pub, an arts centre, a venue, a decent nightclub, a record store, a book shop, write my book, write anything, make a film, not marketting.

who says you can't do it. it just takes more stamina, guts and courage. and alot of understanding from people. just do it. it took me two years of practise and learning before i attempted it.

and alot of disappointment from former friends when you reach a small level of success.

Oh aye, I know full well I can do it. I've just gotta sort my shit out first, get myself the space and time to actually do things. If I didn't have a hideously complicated relationship to sort out I'd be doing something about it now.

no you won't nick. let's just be honest. and that's cool. see, if you really wanted to do it you would be doing it. but i'm not getting down on you.

it's just the way that it happens.

I already have 50,000 words on the hard-disk of my other PC.

and what are you doing with them?

Fuck all at the moment!

now here it is:

do you feel like an addict wondering around the streets in seven sisters?

if you do - your a writer. you would be fucking around with those words until they are beautiful. and then showing them off.

if you don't. that's cool.

see?

see, if I don't write, Nick, I feel sick, I feel lost, I feel fucked up, I need the fix, daily, and when my muse is about I fuck her to death.

i'm in love with my book. my articles are little whores, though. i send them out to get fucked and i just try to learn as much as i can from them.

I didn't write. I locked myself away and I bled. And I was drinking way too heavily at the time which I think was part of my 'muse', if you will. I need to start again, I have the ideas stacked up, I just know that as soon as I do I'm gonna lose a month, two months, three months, and I can't spare that right now because I've got someone more important than myself to look after. And when I'm not busy doing that I'm getting distracted by stuff like this...

I feel sick, lost and fucked-up when I do write.

you have to make the sacrifices.

you have to be as honest as you possibly can.

you have to deal with yourself as honestly as you possibly can.

you have to have a relationship whereas people know that is just what and who you are about.

you have to understand that you will fail.

you have to understand you will be successful.

my wife is amazing. very cool that way.

and understand that people will hate you. rip into you. despise you. take every opportunity to kill yer character. when all you want is to bring beautiful things in the world.

least that is what i think will happen.

sorry. shit like this has been playing on my head and i took the opportunity to turn the conversation. i'm going to bed.

and understand that people will hate you.

Just because one is a writer? I don't see it that way.

i have to know why is doomie so boring

could be the self-help like posts

could be thinking that poptones is a good label

could be that he posts too many threads about stuff i dont know

WHY?WHY??WHY???

Just because one is a writer? I don't see it that way.

Well you wouldn't, would you Ned? It's about time you realized that your good nature and surfeit of pals are the only things standing between you and literary genius. That and your unfortunate ability to string a sentence together in english.

Uh, thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

;-) In case it wasn't implied, Ned.

I haven't quite adjusted to using the winky face yet.

Ah, thanks! Sometimes I just worry too much. ;-)

"I don't think anyone's gonna write that song or record that album that's gonna make everyone in the world smile and fall in love" The Wyld Staylns will. Rufus told me. (www.allmusic.com/cg/ amg.dll?p=amg&sql=B2fmsa9ygy23g)

That's suppose to be a like to the allmusic guide Dogstar entry.

I thnk almost all (print) music jouralists are more destructive to the production of good music that almost any corporate suit. Don't be fooled kids, just because Mr Writer wears the hip threads.

One day there will be no professional music journalists, no more writing ego fuelling swill dismissing other peoples hard work and there will be much more and much better music in the world.

Hey kids if you ever find yourself wanting to be a music journalist - kill yourself. Or at least do something useful like marketing instead.

see, you are just another bully on the corporate music scene. i'm not trying to fool anyone. i'm just trying to learn to write in a tight magazine style.

but being bully you would not really get that, would you? bullies operate on the weak - they push and fuck people around and other people are afraid to go against them. it's all a sense of false security.

and your posts are nothing like the unprovoked attacks that i've come across myself already. i used to get upset by people like you, then, i realised, in england, there are thousands of you, and you are hardly unique or thought provoking. you are a migraine, sir.

ps. im not a music industry writer. i'm a novelist trying to learn how to write in a magazine style. i'm repeating myself because you don't seem to get it.

interesting question doomie, although i'm probably not best qualified to answer! i don't come into contact with this side of music at all, so i don't really know what its like. i'm not sure i've even thought about it before.

but i do recognise some of the things you mention, because i see it in the IT industry as well. it is strange i agree! i wonder if this is something common to all industries where there is some notion of either money or status involved? also, hierarchies?

i wonder if it is these very career oriented people that get ahead, get noticed, loom large, at the expense of other people who work in these industries that aren't so noticeable because they haven't got that urge.

i think people identify themselevs with their job too much, to be honest, and our society puts to much emphasis on what you do for a living. i think this is a shame because many peoples best qualities lie outside what they actually do. eg. being a kind or a caring person doesn't count for much when money/status is at stake, and i can't say i like this much...

without wishing to seem overly cynical, this thread has rapidly become laughable, with all the demonisation of the scary MUSIC INDUSTRY!!! and evil MUSIC JOURNALISTS decrying the HARD WORK of SACRED MUSICIANS!!!! the same demons are within you all, and you know it. have you never slagged off a record you bought and disliked? what's the difference betwen that and a music journalist doing it? the music business is a business, eaten whole with the same back- biting and two-facedness as any other industry i've ever worked in. sure, perhaps there's more vanity there, but there's also more po- faced self-righteousness too. perhaps the two balance each other out.

the funnniest thing about threads like this is the extent to which contributors will paint everyone and all about them as horrifically childish stereotypes. shades of grey, people. shades of grey.

this is not a diss of doomie, btw.

agreed stevie. i'm not sure how people in the music industry are any different to any people in any other industry (ie IT)

also, i don't really see how perceiving your personal situation in terms of 'bullies' and 'the weak' could be anything but destructive towards your final aims. you shouldn't see yourself as 'weak', just as you shouldn't see those who frustrate your ambitions as being wholly negative/vindictive.

and you shouldn't see the stasis of your magazine writing career in terms of some invisible evil deity frustrating your dreams, because you'll never get anywhere with that attitude (it probably better suits a novelist). i don't know, before i started getting paid to write, i always felt like i should be doing it for a living, but i never felt the magazine industry owed me a career, and knew that a large amount of luck would be involved in my getting anywhere. its dangerous to invest everything of yourself in such an elusive (and often ultimately unsatisfying) goal.

and if you perceive the discursive and sarcastic responses here in terms of unprovoked attacks on your person, then you probably shouldn't get involved in magazine journalism, because its almost a career prerequisite to be able to withstand the sarcasm, jibes and snipes of all you work with. you need to develop a thicker skin and a more realistic (dare i say sympathetic) perception of events, otherwise you're just going to end up frustrated and bitter.

i've invested my life in my book. and it is going someplace. the magazine writing is new and different. will discuss later. but thanks for the advice. i was a bit blown away by what i had read about myself on saturday.

but your advice is spot on.

magazine writing? it can go away tomorrow and i shan't be bothered.

ie. i have the attitude that if the mags stop ringing me i'm cool with that.

that's fine. but isn't it a tad hypocritical to be lambasting the music BUSINESS people for treating the art of rock'n'roll as nothing more than a means for making money, when you yourself seem to be treating magazine writing the very same way, ie as a lesser pursuit than writing your novel, a way to make some shekels? i could be humungously misinterpreting your impulses here...

on an unrelated note, anyone noticed how smoothly the yeah yeah yeahs ep and the liliput compilation play into one another?

Doomie, assuming that you are Paul Brownell (and I have reason to believe you are), I'd give up music journalism pronto. You are to journalism as Jake Shillingford was to indie.

And, hey, the industry. Here's an analogy. My dad works on a production line, putting the roofs (or rooves, depending) on John Deere cabs. Now, he gets paid the same if he does one cab a day or fifty cabs a day. However, because he was brought up to believe in the value of hard work, he works as well as he can. Some other guy there does as little as possible, because he knows he's getting paid just the same. Now, that's not the evil evil industry's fault, is it now?

I want to be a music journalist because I want to make people, even a small number of people, see what I see in a given song. Even having just started my blog, I'm excited about just having any kind of platform. I have no problem with a journalist slating something, it's the sort of aloof weary schtick that irritates me. Either find something you are going to get enthusiastic about and animated about or fuck off. You'd swear a genuine human reaction was a crime, reading most music publications.

nah. it's different, stevie, i'm not really treating it as something beneath me and just something different.

and whatever judd nelson, am i'm supposed to really take you seriously?

Stevie, it's not exactly money, is it? you know what freelance writers get. It's the experience of writing that intrigues me. Magazine writing...god, no, it's not the money!!! : - D What money? It would have to be the free cds and the ability to translate a sound and working with editors and seeing how the finished product comes out...

It's trying to get ideas across in a limited amount of space.

It's difficult and curiously enough the hardest writing is when you don't like the band. I never end up hating stuff that I see. Just the bands where you don't feel anything.

and Ronan I agree with you about wanting inspirational writing....the could not care less writing is boring. It's actually good fun if you are really into the band or music ...

i have decided that snipes and bitches, all the better, cause it means you are doing something right!

and Ronan, music journalism can be good fun.

and I think it's not really about the journalism, it was something else that I was alluding to. the journalism has nothing to do with it. there are other reasons why people seem to find me so upsetting! but it's cool, i'm over and out of it....

Yes! It is good fun. After about 6 months of trying to write about rock music which I did like but wasn't captivated by per se I might have wondered whether music journalism was something I wanted to do.

But following my dance epiphany I can't think of anything I'd rather do.

i say keep on doing it ronan, the pay is shite, if you freelance...be forewarned.

I'll marry rich.

Remember to use the phrase 'life-affirming' at every opportunity, and you'll go far.

hey! that was my plan. my one friend who is a journalist got fed up and just said, I will just prostitute my body out to older rich gay americans.

until i reminded him that he was 25. 5 years too late.

the music journalism is fun. but i somehow got unwittingly involved with the music industry. and they ripped me apart on another internet board. i'm over it but it was shocking how bitter and mean people can get....but steer clear of that ronan, and it's really good fun. that's what i do, usually.

the book is more important to me and the screenplay for the short film....it's characters, character writing, music writing presents an unique set of problems, how to describe a sound, without referencing bands, in a short space of words.

Ha 'life affirming'. I'd say you get a 200 pound bonus in NME every time you fit it in. Yeah I mean I thought I was dead until I heard that new fucking Ed Harcourt cd!!!!

hahaha..

i liked the ed harcourt ep. not the album much....

I only heard the song that said something about "apples" in the title and it did nothing for me.

In Hot Press, the Irish answer to NME you substitute "remarkable". For a band who have been around as long as REM, it's REMARKABLE that their music still remains remarkably IMPORTANT.

hahahaha....

THIS WILL BE YOUR FAVOURITE NEW BAND.

Life Affirming makes it sound like NME hacks are a bunch of monks who sit around lighting candles to the new acoustic movement all day.

And overuse of remarkable suggests a bunch of scientists in white coats watching bands play in the cruelty of the fucking jungle or something, bloody ridiculous.

I'm dying to use the words Jazz Odysessy.

it can be difficult. especially when you have two hundreds and you have to think of many different ways to say: this band sounds exactly like pavement.

ah. but the majority of the times you are a monkey on the typewriter. but it is a cool buzz when it's ONE OF YOUR FAVOURITE NEW BANDS, with a REMARKABLE and LIFE-AFFIRMING album, taking you on a JAZZ ODYESSEY.

I've been trying to fit SICKENING meaning good into something for ages. Frankly the synth loop is nothing short of SICKENING.

i've been trying to fit in and not get edited the following:

crack cocaine knives bare knuckled punch in the face whore oh no OH NO (mark s.'s phrase) zoloft

it usually gets edited out.

Why is the river the way it is, and why won't they realise that it's full of carp?

sadly i have yet to see a meme i actually myself started on ilx get into the "for-real = they-pay-you-for-it" press (except i got "wuv" into sight and sound yay me!! but of course i didn't start that...)

haha in ten years from now, THE TIMES frontpage headline will be "BLAIR RETIREz = ROxOr wtf!!¡¡¿¿??"

I thnk almost all (print) music jouralists are more destructive to the production of good music that almost any corporate suit.

Please explain how this happens. Music history is full of albums and genres that sold in the millions even as the critics uniformly ranted against these works.

oops i just realised my times headline might read like a crack at alexander blair => i wuz of course referring to our prime minister of 2012, linda blair

"I thnk almost all (print) music jouralists are more destructive to the production of good music that almost any corporate suit."

I wouldn't worry... these are the words of a man who has been buying NME and other publications for at least twenty year and has publically expressed his admiration for certain music critics in the past anyway.

i figured it all out now....*shrugs shoulders* it's fantastic.