The Kids Are All Idiots
I assume most of you will by now have some inkling of the latest Big Thing to come out of the US underground scene, Arizona's finest purveyors of emo (i.e. emotional punk), Jimmy Eat World. It seems that after 8 years spent in complete obscurity and three albums (two absolutely brilliant) that fell pretty much on deaf ears, some corporate bigwig decided that their fourth album, Bleed American, was sufficiently watered down in terms of the angst level of its melodies to be made amenable to the collectively insipid predilections of a mass audience. The JEW hype has been building up inexorably over the last few months or so, recently reaching fever pitch with covers in both Kerrang! and the NME. From the perspective of optimizing product promotion in the European market, the band's appearance at the Mean Fiddler on Friday the 25th of January, coming hot on the heels of this swelling of media attention, had all the makings of a coup de grace. I want to relate my experience of that gig, both as a means of venting my frustrations and so as to illuminate some of the deep-rooted afflictions that plague modern punk rock, especially in its relation to the voracious vulture that is mass culture....
Music: Music
The British music scene is in a state of deep malady. It's true. And how do we know this? Because the NME has decided that we need to be told every couple of weeks what the next big thing is. But, for every Andrew WK and White Stripes, there is a Strokes and now it seems, a Haven. You see, you simply can't go round having the NME say things like "People will love Haven as passionately as they do The Smiths and The Stone Roses" and expect to make a favourable impression on anyone bar those poor Travis-and-Coldplay-buying souls who know nothing of the originals, have never even heard of The Velvet Underground and have hit middle age too early. Especially when it's flagrant bollocks....
Music: Going Out
Who wants to bet every school up and down the country has a Headroom? Sulking around in their Sum 41 hoodies, dreaming of blowjobs and playing on the Warped tour, the fifteen-year-old lead singer delivers his unnoteworthy three-chord punk in a sideways baseball cap. And a fake American accent. Their school friends enjoy it; the rest of us cry into our pints. Little Green Leaf, meanwhile, sound like the diseased bastard child of Propagandhi and Lagwagon. Clever lyrics about teenage angst, struggling with authority and dissatisfaction with the world are subtly hidden behind songs like 'Fuck Off Mum, Fuck Off Dad' and a cover - Atomic Kitten, your correspondent is reliably informed. Hmmm. It's no surprise the audience are talking amongst themselves. ...