Cheery’o Chaps, Cheery’o Goodbye

Music and fashion, chalk and cheese. They go together so well, like pea’s in a pod. Musicians could be some of the most vainest people you will ever come across, they always wanted to look sharp and on to of the game when it comes to fashion. But every time I think of fashion and music, I think of a few things, mostly with two words in the name.

With outlets such as Top Shop and Urban Outfitters marketing fashion alongside music is the norm of these past eight years. Skinny jeans, tattered converse and long, un-kept hair is the fashion. Going to concerts and festivals are the new boy’s nights out or weekend breaks of the summer.

Some may say some publications and radio stations made this happen. The rise of The Strokes and there British counter parts The Libertines pushed this to the main stream and again we have a commercial scene, and right in the center, keeping this all going is music. Millions are again watching the two-hour television programmes on Friday nights. Gigs maybe at there highest in some years, but albums still aren’t selling what they used to be.

This will always be something that goes hand in hand. Fads fade, like pokemon cards and yo-yos. Music will always be with us, popular or not. It will always find its market. Let’s hope the trilby’s and rosary wearing ‘indie’ boys are one of it’s casualties.

Radio Free Europe

Pirate radio was one of the most important things to ever happen to popular music. When Radio Caroline began broadcasting, very few had heard such a sound. This was the sound of youth culture. Playing everyone from Screamin’ Lord Sucth, The Detours (later on becoming The Who) and Pink Floyd, there is no arguing pirate radio is undeniably a turning point in popular music.

Now you turn on Radio 1 and you hear the same, nostalgic sounds of the current crop of guitar based bands. Alex Turner and Peter Doherty rule the airwaves, the latar being, some may say one of the more important song writers of the twenty first century. We have had The Beatles, we have had Bob Dylan, and we aren’t going to have another act like either of these any time soon. Or do we even need them?
The sound’s we have coming from our radio these days sadly aren’t as exciting as past years. Gone are the days of chart fighting on a Sunday evening whilst eating a roast round you’re grandmothers house.

Step up, whoever you are Music is an evolving sound. We don’t need another Libertines or Kooks. We need a visionary.

No can do

So the punks came, and gave us a fuck you stance to you’re normal ethics of a band. Fast, three chords and a punch in the face. Hardcore kids did the same thing, but added the great fanzine, backyard party and D.I.Y of making your own records and selling them you’re self.

Now days you will find it hard to find a band or a record label that isn’t underground that have these ethics. Sub Pop… maybe, but they probably aren’t the label they were twenty years ago. But that’s the United States, and I live in Britain, with the boom of guitar based bands since the start of the millennium every label wanted there own Libertines or Strokes (depends if you’re label was American or British). Who could forget the bands that came after? The Vines, The Datsuns, Kings of Leon to name a few. With that fad gone, and I hope completely forgotten.

That time is over, the radio sadly is still filled with play lists with all these bands on it at some point of the day and then the new breed such as The Killers or (I know they aren’t new) that band with the bassist from that band Sunny Day Real Estate.

But with every fad, something exciting comes out of it. People are fed up of the shit they hear on the radio and see on MTV2. British bands such as Tubelord, Blakfish and Colour are some of these. All equally interesting, but all with there own sound, and edge to there music. American bands such as Abe Vigoda, HEALTH, No Age (who are signed to the Seattle Sub Pop) and Mika Miko. These bands came from The Smell, a vegan under 21’s club in down town LA. Since they were in high school they have been self-financing tours and singles to get their music out there.

These are the bands that need to be heard, these are the bands that are doing what is right for music.

No Folk For Old Men

There once was a time when folk music was for squares. Tweed wearing hippies, armed with an acoustic guitar and all peace and love. The sound of immigrants and refugee’s, the sound has been with us for hundreds of years. Singing songs of pain, sorrow, loosing the one you loved and hard struggles, it’s a sound that will never go away. The same could be said for jazz and gospel respectively.
London, home of the swinging’ sixties now has it’s own folk scene. Much like the one that was in Greenwich Village. The sound has been evolving from the post Libertines day’s around the west of the City and out to the suburbs that surround it. With the rise of the oddball outfit Mystery Jets in late 2005 to the mass media it was unaware of the party’s they threw on a small, bohemian island in Twickenham. Nearly four years have passed since these gatherings and the sound has gone from strength to strength in the city.
New acts are coming from the west once more, a few even packing there bags and moving to the bright lights of Piccadilly and the buzzing sound that is coming from the East-end of town. Artists such as Mumford & Sons, Eugene McGuinness, Kid Harpoon, Laura Marling (who was nominated for a Mercury Music prize this year) and Johnny Flynn. Gone are the days of middle-aged men singing tales that their elders had once sung to them. Now the sound is new, fresh and exciting. All still very young, but singing the songs that can rival these tales once sung.
Gone are the days where American singer songwriters rule the sounds of our stereos. The British have taken it back, and it seem’s like It won’t be handed to only one else very soon.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again

There were time’s when grabbing some guitars, drum sticks and making music YOU wanted to hear was something called ‘fun’, now days there are people in this world who make what they call music as a way to become rich. Don’t get me wrong, there are stadium rock bands with singer’s or guitarist’s from back in the day who wanted to do the same thing, but there are also some bands now who still have the same DIY ethics as the punk and hardcore kids from Great Britain and the United states around the 70’s and mid 80’s. With the sound dominating the airwaves from bands such as Motley Crue and Aerosmith, there wasn’t a scene the younger generations could relate to. All those band’s sung about getting girls, and driving fast cars. So with Hardcore in the 80’s, kids made there own gigs, tours and scenes. Band’s such as Bad Brains and Minor Threat flew the flag for the underground movement and with this came a whole new power to fight the corporate stadium sounds of Bon Jovi and KISS.

Underground band’s now days aren’t hard to find. They are around use, in every county, city and town, you can hear new and exciting music made by people who are level minded and have the same idea’s as you. With the constant search for ‘the next big thing’ by label’s and industry people it’s hard to come across these bands or artists just before they are picked up by the big music paper or exploited by television shows. But fear not, there are DIY labels and festivals, both British and American that showcase these exciting new talents. Labels such as Oxford based Try Harder records (Youthmovies, Adam Gnade and Jonquil) and Big Scary Monsters (Blakfish, Tubelord, Pulled Apart By Horses). Labels who will only release artists music via old cassette tapes such as Tapeclub Records (Thos Henley, Peter Lyons) in Southampton. And you can never forget the man player in the underground music scene in the states, Sub Pop Records. For just over two decades now this label has had their finger on the pulse of what Is happening under the radar. Bringing bands such as No Age, Fleet Foxes to a wider audience. Any band on the roster of each of these label’s are exciting and new. They are doing the music THEY want to make, not what Simon Cowell or Joe Whiley can make money from and want to hear.

Being in a band is not an easy feat, constant touring, playing disgusting dingy clubs in the middle of nowhere with hardly anyone showing up apart from the local punters and scenters from that town. Never ending plugging you’re shows, releases and new antics via certain music forums. Raising enough money so you can get some studio time together to try and record you’re first seven inch record so you can get some petrol money for more shows so MORE people can hear you’re music, but that is where being in a band wins over many a ‘hobbie’. You’re not working for ‘the man’, you’re not working a shitty supermarket under someone younger than you, you maybe missing some meals here and there in the week, but you’re doing what YOU want to do, making the music YOU want to make. If you’re heart and soul is in what you are doing, be patient, and you’ll get what’s coming.