Fearless Vampire Killers
Fearless Vampire Killers Myspace
Email – kier@fearlessvampirekillers.co.uk
07846724861
Download Fearless Vampire Killers – Track 2
Described by some as “Neo Epic Indie” and others as “something very different”, Fearless Vampire Killers are hitting the London scene hard with their unique blend of pop orientated and emotionally seething rock. Currently with hundreds of live shows and their own club night under their belt (See “Ballet of Teeth”) the boys are working hard to become a pivotal factor in what they hope to be a new era in alternative music.
Music Discussion Forum
Okay so The Music Mag is going to have a music forum of it’s own installed very soon!
Currently we link to a different website, going by the name of corporation x – click the link to have a look. Whilst the forum is very pretty, we’re looking at sorting out a discussion site that’s hosted here.
I’m hoping that we can get a load of unsigned bands and promoters signed up. Allowing people to post gigs, songs, as well as just starting some good discussions.
The forum should be installed later today or tomorrow. So make sure to keep checking back 
Craig.
The Music Mag Creator!
Moscow Drive
Moscow Drive Myspace
Email – moscowdrivemusic@gmail.com
07944490745
Download Moscow Drive – Cincinnati
Visualise this – Picturesque. Bittersweet. Breezy. Uplifting. Soaring. Delicate. This is Moscow Drive, filling the void.
Moscow Drive are a four piece from Bromley, just south of London – a town full of day to day repetitiveness, snobbish girls and Bromley boys.
Their songs are rife with picturesque melodies but without the now assumed obligatory strap-on asinine elements; found in most new bands. They’re off the back of local and national sold out support slots with The Courteeners, Reverend and The Makers, Hockey, The Boxer Rebellion and The Twang.
But they don’t rest on these so called laurels, they just get out in the ramshackle of a van they trudge about in, and play their tunes. At the back end of 2008 they were invited to play the CMJ Festival, and after a recent national tour of the UK, and another in the pipeline for September, to support their debut single release, ‘Colossal’ (out on Hockey Records), Moscow Drive are gaining momentum nicely.
A Look at Media Frenzy
In the 21st century, death sells. From papers to albums to television ratings, death is a much more lucrative money maker than sex was in the 90s. You just have to look at the passing of Michael Jackson to see evidence in action. While the death of Michael Jackson was always going to attract media coverage (what with him being one of the biggest musical icons of all time and that), it was magnifed ten fold because of the timing; on the verge of a huge money-making (and let’s not forget that was precisely the reason for these tours) tour, one final trip around the globe before settling down. It was certainly something to look forward to, even for those who weren’t the biggest Michael Jackson fans since Jackson in his prime, was a stage show and live act to behold; the very best dance routines, inch-perfect pop tunes and pitch-perfect performances rightfully made him a household name and critical darling. But, a week following his death, we have been robbed of what could have been a swansong to remember. Or it could have been an embarrassing pratfall for everyone involved.
Regardless, he passed and left a legacy that is largely untouched by many pop acts. The biggest selling album of all time, revolutionary albums, a fanbase to rival Beatlemania and a media frenzy that makes the Jade Goody outbursts seem tame in comparison. It’s understandable in this case, however. The respect for the music is something very much well deserved (the respect for the man is another case but I won’t drag this down into that mire) but the notion that music lost a shining star rubs me the wrong way.
Ever since the release of ‘Dangerous’ in 1991, Michael Jackson’s musical output wasn’t good. In 2009, he was not the creative force he was 25 years previous and we didn’t lose a creative visionary. We lost a man that had spent the last 15 years of his life, vilified in pop culture at every turn, fighting court cases and building up a debt so large, he had to organise a massive tour and sell his possessions to attempt to pay it off.
As always with the media, it’s the great hypocrisy and irony that, I’d assume, does not go lost on the newspaper editors around the world; Michael Jackson died of a cardiac arrest and some people are pointing to massive stress as a possible contributing factor to it. Has anyone took a step back and realised that the media circus surrounding, a quite clearly mentally unstable man, heaped more stress and unrest on to what was a traumatic period in his life? Let’s just examine the last 10 years or so of his life; the media frenzy surrounding the 2005 trials was almost unreal in the sense it didn’t feel like this was a real man under the microscope. It felt like a character, dreamed up by the New York Post to sell some newspapers then set up to be dragged through the mud. Let’s not forget the same papers that have been hailing him a great man, once pointed the finger of pedophilia toward him. The same papers that have held his name in such high regard, were all too quick to stamp on it years previous. The inherent hypocrisy does not surprise me, or even alarm me anymore; those who were once vilified can be redeemed to sell papers. Especially if they wrote Thriller.
It’s not the media that are creating a faux outrage though; the common public are very much to blame. You know the ones; people who laughed at a Michael Jackson joke before his passing are suddenly standing atop the moral high ground. The ones telling us to respect him while sitting watching an emotionless and frankly digusting and exploitive memorial service and buying tribute issues of OK Magazine. These people are hollow husks, riding a wave of popular opinion, wearing death as the latest accessory piece to go with the hypocrisy handbag and irony sweater and their opinions shouldn’t be counted as valid.
But, those whose opinions, perhaps could be considered valid, need to take a step back and consider the hyperbole. At the memorial service, Al Sharpton said that Michael Jackson had created the environment in which Barack Obama could be elected President; in the immediate aftermath of his death, Michael Jackson has done more for race relations than Martin Luther King. Sharpton, again seemingly unaware of the irony, has lashed out at the media for creating the frenzy around his death, has is one breath, hit out at the circus while, in the other, has contributed to it more than any other; standing at a disrespectful memorial service, talking into the TV cameras about respecting the dead.
As for the revival of his music, that is the one part of this circus I can respect and agree with. It’s sad that it took his death and reinvention as an idol to introduce a whole new generation of people to some of the greatest pop music ever written (and I say that without hyperbole). But, where were those people during 2005, when he needed the support and, arguably, the money? They were disgusted with the notion of listening to his music, disgusted at listening to a man portrayed as a child molestor in the newspapers they were reading. The circus that killed him is keeping his legacy alive.
This whole thing should leave a sickly taste in everyone’s mouth; I was always told to respect the dead and this is exactly the opposite. This is dragging a man’s legacy through the mud, holding his life up to a lens and using it to sell his death as a lifetime-defining event. Maybe we’ll see “Where Were You When MJ Died?” t-shirts on sale in the foyer of the Staples Centre as his family is paraded to mourn for the cameras, as his grieving daughter is wheeled up to cry photogenic tears for the next day’s newspaper. Maybe, it’s just me. Maybe, I’m the only one who finds it disrespectful that you can pay a little bit extra to keep a concert ticket as a “memorial”. Maybe I’m the only one who finds it disrespectful that you could visit a man’s memorial service by putting your name in a lottery. I find it disrespectful that cameras are inside a man’s personal property, only days after he died, to find an insight. I find it disrespectful that the Motown label are releasing and releasing albums to capitalise on a man’s death. I find the whole thing repulsive and not at all how you should respect a man’s passing. We shouldn’t be dolling up his family and friends and pushing them out to mourn, we should be letting them grieve in their own circles. We shouldn’t be laying out a dead man’s personal secrets for the whole world to peek into and more importantly, we shouldn’t be buying the papers that simply lie to us so they can sell us a story. Pay the man some real respect by admiring his art and letting him rest.
Glastonbury 2009 – Unreviewable
For the past four days I’ve been trying to work out how best to write a review for my Glastonbury experience; by day, separate music/everything else sections, ‘hot or not’. but without writing pages of text full of “this was flippin’ ‘awesome” repeating at the end of each sentence, it’s impossible.
So I think it’s generally just going to have to be a quick roundup with a series of ‘moments’, along with a quick breakdown of who stood out musically as well. If you don’t mind sticking around for that, read on.
Here we go…
Everyone may say that Glastonbury is like no other festival out there, and although ‘they’ always seem to say that, they’d be 100% correct; the only way to really know how it goes down is to go there yourself. No amount of irritating BBC presenters (Peel will always be irreplaceable) bringing you highlights will get you nearer to the truth either, although to be fair I have made full use of the highlights since returning.
The first thing is the sheer size of the place. I’m quite amazed that we managed to get around it in whistlestop motion and see most of what was on offer, although next time I’ll be a little more relaxed about where I end up. To give you an idea of the scale of the place, it took us about 1hr30mins to walk from our car park (north-east of the area) to our camp (set in the south). Also there’s about 30+ tents/stages/teepees all showcasing a ridiculous amount of musical genres and performances so that you’ll never be more than 5 mins walk from some action.
In a nutshell, the festival consisted of:
The Healing fields full of sandpits, hammocks, lotus lounges, 24hr organic cafes, palm reading and Buddhist readings. Craft areas where you can make your own lantern, bongo drum, clay pot, pipe, hanging baskets paint murals and glass beads. Arcadia which had motorbikes buried vertically halfway in the ground as makeshift seats, a Mad Max-style distopian circus with a fire-blowing central tower plucked from some future Mega-City One, a tequila bar consisting of just a bar, barman one shot glass and the bottle of plonk, and crumpets served by strumpets. Trash City had a stage laid out as a pinball machine with tables styled as flippers. The Stone Circle providing (perhaps not surprisingly) a miniature Stonehenge, 30ft high wooden dragon sculptures and a hill providing some of the best views of the festival. An area seemingly based on Blade Runner, Shangri-La, had a stage in the middle with alien-like women in white twirling around electrical lit whips while creepy blokes dressed in full black PVC walking on stilts but on all-fours scared the shit out of me.
N.B. An abbreviated paragraph does no justice though.
Moments:
* Not wanting to go to sleep simply because of the fear of missing out on something – it truly is a 24/7 (or 24/5.5 for the cynics) affair
* Saying to my lass how Pendulum have never played Tarantula live when having seen them before, for them to then go ahead and bang it out there and then
* 7am Monday morning and sitting on a swing chair at a cafe blasting out ‘Born To Run’ by Bruce Springsteen. A seriously wide-eyed guy then asking us how much for the chair? Having said it wasn’t ours to sell, we then proceeded to watch him ask another 30 people in the cafe before giving up and leaving
* Lily Allen’s ‘Smile’ with it’s d’n'b and slowed-down ragga portions
* 8am Monday morning and watching a naked bloke ‘high on life’ shout joyously about peace and love while rolling around in the mud while a about 20-25 people videod/took pictures as his embarrassed other half tried to calm him down. So funny, but I felt so sorry for her…
* Deadmau5 playing ‘No Sudden Moves’ by Glenn Morrison and sending me into pure bliss
* Rolf Harris, 79 (I can’t believe that!), battling with his beatboxing mate
* Walking back to the tent from The Park at about 5:30am Saturday and surveying the ‘damage’ from the first full Glasto night
* Howard Marks‘ story about when he pulled a whitey
* Wandering through a narrow Blade Runner-esq Shangri-La backstreet, turning a corner and walking through a small doorway to a small 15×15 foot room playing some of the dirtiest funky electro house I’ve ever heard
* Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. He and Deadmau5 made my summer
* Tom Middleton’s set in The Snug, a miniscule two-teepee venue, listening to Underworld, Groove Armada, Janis Joplin remixes and afro-beats
* Falling asleep for a nice 30min nap in the baking sun up above the teepee fields with views of the sunset across the entire site
* After Prodigy on the Sunday night, encouraging an up-for-it guy to space-hop his way back to the tent. We kept him company for fifteen minutes, and I hope he made it. He deserved to triumph for the enthusiasm alone
The music:
Nick Cave (enthralling), Glasvegas (path to the top), Deadmau5 (blew my head), Lily Allen (set up the main stage), Tom Middleton (danced my booty away) and Rolf Harris (79 and still the man) all impressed.
Lady Gaga (lip-synch extraordinaire), Spinal Tap (something missing) and Prodigy (very short set) didn’t.
In summary:
Enchanting, manic, soothing, ballistic, euphoric. The one thing I had to constantly remind myself about is to not get used to the surprises. Fucking incredible.
Joy and Love x
A Rendition of Writer’s Block
For two weeks, I guess I’ve had writer’s block. I’ve sat down to write something a few times and got up ten minutes later because I know it would be shit and I’d just end up mocking someone and being mean. Then I decided that this was the best way to get out of Writer’s Block so here is my Top 5 Worst Artists Alive!
5. Soulja Boy
I mean, look at this pathetic excuse of a rapper. In the 80s, rap was the sound of revolution, the sound of a disillusioned and angry youth, rebelling against the standards of their lives and racism. In the 2000s, it’s become watered down and killed. I mean, it started in the 90s but our generation killed it with shit like this. “Crank dat OOOOOO” bullshit permeated my ears for way too long like the world’s most annoying teenager was hammering my ear drums with a mallet and clacking chewing gum and now I see that he has a second album out? No, let’s just take a step back and reevaluate our tastes for a second. This is not music. This is a catchphrase put over the sound of two drums being banged, possibly by a brain-dead monkey and looped for what seems like an eternity. Songs full of chanting and inanity and retarded lyrics. Actually, they’re not even lyrics, it’s just this generation’s retarded youth slang put on display for anyone with a brain to scoff at and anyone without a brain to buy. Beats that could be made by just stamping your feet in basic time and lyrics so inane, so juvenile and disgusting, that I am wondering if I should even put him on a list of “artists”. This man is just a torture artist under another name and what’s worse is that people lap this shit up. They should be killed, possibly to a Soulja Boy song.
4. Britney Spears
Vacuous, boring, isn’t sexy anymore, has dance moves straight out of a strip club and is fooling nobody with her craziness. I can’t even be bothered to expand.
3. The Black Eyed Peas
OK, Will.I.Am might get a pass for punching out Perez Hilton but then I realise his name is fucking WILL.I.AM. What a pretentious fucking douchebag this guy is. I give Prince a pass for renaming himself into a goddamn symbol because “Raspberry Beret” is such a good song but what has this guy ever done to give himself such a mastubatory name? Released that song that was 90% Dick Dale and 10% bullshit? Rapped badly over “Where Is The Love?” After punching out Perez Hilton, maybe he could call himself “Crash Fistfight” or something appropiate. Fergie is just sort of there but she doesn’t get a pass at all. Oh no, as the figurehead of this crushingly boring group, she deserves all the scorn she gets. Recycling ideas that were cliche back in 1985 does not a good song make. This is forgetting the holocaust of music that was “My Lumps” which was a song so depressingly bad and putrid, that it made me want to get a sex change so I could beat her to death without feeling guilty about it. Their latest album is just as bad; it sounds like it’s been produced in a Pringles can, the lyrics range from ‘awful’ to awful’ and I’ve seen more original ideas come from Hollywood than I have Fergie’s annoying, stupid mouth.
2. Eminem
After the return of the rapper that nobody wanted to see again after The Eminem Show, I had to put him here. Relapse is depressing listening. Pop culture references over turgid and uninspired production has totally killed what (little) edge this man had and his flow has deteriorated like the polar ice caps. I’ve seen bargain basement rap battles that have better lines than this. There is nothing this man does that should be remotely successful and you’d think after beating his wife and generally being awful since 2001, the general public would have soured but no, we’re nothing if not fickle and we can all be turned around with a catchy hook or two. Which, to be fair, Relapse has but it’s almost always destroyed as soon as he opens his childish, stupid little mouth, spouting lines like that stupid kid at school who called everyone gay and spat in every girl’s mouth. His accent jumps from authentic to ZZZ-Movie texan fodder and jumps out at you like a million bad horror movie scares, only twice as disturbing; you get the feeling that Relapse is an album so bad that your outlook on life might change by simply listening to it. Your cup is half-empty, the sky is always cloudy, love is replaced by hate and everyone you like secretly hates you. Eminem is now so bad that I can imagine a 16 year old popping this on his iPod, listening to the lazy flow, boring pop culture references and frankly embarrassing production and instantly turning into a serial killer.
1. N-Dubz
If anyone American is reading this, oh, be thankful, you haven’t heard this lot. First, look at them;
JUST FUCKING LOOK AT THEM. What the fuck is up with that one guy’s hat? It’s like he’s fell head first into his Grandmother’s washing basket, got out with a tea towel on his head, looked in some weird reality altering mirror where he didn’t look like a total fucking twat and decided to keep it on. And what is up with that stupid hand-signal? Is he telling me things are A-OK? Is it a gangland symbol for “Ignore me, I’m a boring fuckwit”. It’s not an N, so is it a ‘Dubz’? I get it, it must be like a Westside hand gesture that was all the rage in the mid 90s except this guy is probably from a council estate in Oxford. Now, I get it.
May as well ignore the black guy since the rest of the band does anyway.
The girl is probably the stupidest person in the band and that’s saying something. She probably has Twilight as her top movie, she probably tAlKs LiKe ThIs oN FaCeBoOk and her opinion on world views could probably be summed up in a flirtatious giggle. I mean, there is nothing AT ALL interesting about her. Her hair is boring, her face is boring, her sense of style is boring, her voice is boring, her piercing is boring and if she has a personality, I’m guessing it’s boring as well. Forgetting for the minute that she’s just dressed like a slutty gang banger from Saint’s Row 2, she brings nothing to the band that could even be described as eye-candy. That’s the intention of course, bring out the tits and eventually the teenage boys will follow but if I was a teenage boy again, I’d sooner strangle my pets than look at her, I’d sooner headbutt a bed of nails than speak with her and I’ve seen teenage chavs on my street corner, smoking crack, drinking cider from their child’s sippy cup that are more appealing because they have something in their head other than puppies, clothes and air.
I don’t even have to mention the music because quite frankly, if you have any kind of motor functions at all, you can guess what it sounds like and how shit it truly is. Like being locked in a room with a nest full of facehuggers. In fact, I’d rather have acid poured down my throat by an alien than listen to this music. The sound of a society slowing dragging itself into a cesspool full of shit.
I mean, he’s a rapper and he wears GLASSES, for fuck’s sake!
The 10 Best Post Rock Bands
10/ This Will Destroy You
An American Instrumental band formed in 2005. This Will Destroy You has released an EP, Young Mountain, which was originally supposed to be the band’s demo. The EP has received favorable reviews and they then went on to release their self titled album.
9/ World’s End Girlfriend
His work blends elements of electronica and post-rock to create a unique style. The Collaboration they did with Mono called ‘Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain’ – quoted as possibly the great post rock album ever made – means they deserve to be on this list.
8/ Tortoise
Tortoise is an instrumental post-rock group hailing from Chicago. The group is comprised of six members, and the band started off their career in 1994 – possibly at, or near, the front of post rock. Their style of music, being dark, moody, and atmospheric, Tortoise combine various genres into their music such as funk, jazz, dub, electronica, and krautrock. In result you get something extremely jazzy and accessible, yet the music remains soft and mellow, somewhat ambient.
7/ Kayo Dot
‘Choirs of the Eye’ is easily one of the most evocative and genuinely experimental albums to come out in quite some time, and the small amount of buzz the band has generated recently is beyond inadequate. Soaringly melodic and undeniably evil in the way parents and religious groups could never understand, Choirs of the Eye is as moving as it is hideous and hedonistic.
6/65daysofstatic
Ahhh, an English post-rock band! From Sheffield, so even better! Formed in 2001, they have released three full-length albums, the latest of which was 2007’s ‘The Destruction of Small Ideas’. They recently toured with The Cure!
5/ Yndi Halda
Their name means “enjoy eternal bliss” in Icelandic, are a group of English folks who have been playing together for around four years, but have only recently released their first EP. Drawing heavily upon Post Rock giants that came before them, such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky, et cetera, yndi halda create a unique hybrid that is their own sound, as well as incredibly impacting and emotional.
4/ Mogwai
Everything about them is based on their ability to build up a song from nothing but 2 or 3 notes, and by the end, make it feel like an orchestra and their families had joined in. Each song sets a story for the listener to piece together from what images the flowing riffs and beats conjure up. They don’t spoil it with a vocalist portraying their own ideas over the top, and that’s what gives them a definite edge.
3/ Explosions in the Sky
With the ability to entrance their listeners with simple melodies and instrumentation, Explosions in the Sky have become one of the most well known post rock bands to emerge from the genre. From subtle build-ups to epic crescendos, the band have carved their niche through albums such as “How Strange, Innocence” and “The Rescue”.
2/ Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Often praised as one of the greatest Post-Rock bands, Godspeed You Black Emperor formed in Montreal in 1994. The band began with three members, but usually has 8 or 9, and has contained as many as 15. The group’s unique and volatile sound is a mix of classical, avant-garde, and progressive, with most of their songs broken up into symphonic movements.
1/ Mono
A Japanese post-rock band. Their instrumentals focus on textures of layered guitar melodies along with various string arrangements and pianos.Their music has a very elegant vibe at times, to huge crashes and breakdowns. Their album with World’s End Girlfriend, as mentioned earlier, is possibly the best post-rock album of all time (it’s also very hard to get a copy of!). Their albums such as ‘Are You There’ are must listens.
Have your say on who should be number 1 on our poll:
Poll: The Best Michael Jackson Song
RIP Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009
A legend that everyone in the world knows the name of, from 90 year old grandfathers to 6 year old children. He will be remembered as a Music God and his songs will go down in history.
There have been many media related incidents, many accusations (true or false), but at the end of the day, lets remember him for his music. Therefore The Music Mag have compiled a list of selected Michael Jackson songs and we’d like you to vote for The Best Michael Jackson Song.
What is the Best Michael Jackson Song?
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Upcoming Bands: Music Documentary
Two years ago three others and myself made a documentary, following a band called Amanacer (now known as Moscow Drive), looking at what it takes to make an impact in the business.
We interviewed a couple of very knowledgeable people in the industry, including John Kennedy from XFM (recorded in the studio) and a well respected local band promoter, Carl 2Bob.
The documentary searches out what it takes for a small band to become big in the industry. Enjoy!
