Gig review - Every Time I Die - Cockpit, Leeds (03/11/12)

Here is an old review I did for journalism coursework around a year and a half ago.

This one is a definite highlight to me as I was able to access a lot of interesting and unique information that encouraged tackling it from an interesting and unique perspective.

The fact that this was a rare set to see from this band made this a fascinating review to write: Starting off with two songs that are extremely rare to witness live (especially in the UK) along with it being their 4th Leeds performance in the space of a year (a pleasure that was given to that City alone), allowed me to write a review that wasn't of a band playing a gig cloned for a whole tour, but of a truly unique experience.

Every Time I Die - Cockpit, Leeds (03/11/12)

Very rarely would a band be able to start a set with two songs from their first and least famous album to be greeted with such a welcoming reaction, but Buffalo, New York’s Every Time I Die manage just that. 
Being a band of fourteen years, they quickly show they are still able to captivate and surprise an audience and appealing to the old fans with songs now rarely seen live is a great way to do just that, especially considering it’s their fourth Leeds gig in the space of a year. 
Although it’s not just the old songs that get the crowd going. Varying between each of their six albums’ very different sounds gives them the ability to keep their set fresh at all times; from the fast and thrashy songs of their oldest albums to their Southern Rock inspired hardcore riffs of their later works, ETID really allow the crowd to lose themselves to an extensive discography. 
Buffalo’s own relished in this and definitely managed to keep a rapid pace and give off a presence that told everyone they were hell bent on putting on a show to remember, which can’t be the easiest thing to do with The Cockpit’s crowd running amok on the stage throughout. 
The show ended up an hour long onslaught of raucous riffs and brutal breakdowns as the five hardcore veterans energetically showed that they had not grown tired of the city’s company with the city showing the same right back.

Mouses Cover Story

Teesside’s irregularly named ‘Mouses’ have been crawling around the local scenes of the North East for very little time, but as a band that only began with the year 2014, their D.I.Y., Lo-Fi sound has managed to gather up a lot of active experience in the young year of their birth. Regularly slotted gigs, radio airtime and a 5 track E.P. (not to mention their soon-to-be-released music video) are all things that new bands expect to only begin having a year or so down the line, but somehow these two and their stripped back, grungy sound have found ways to get noticed in less than half the time.

I got to sit down with the bands two members Ste Bardgett and Nathan Duff on a Sunday morning after perhaps their biggest slot yet at Teesside’s own Stockton calling, to talk about the success of their unique sound.

“It’s kind of like a cross between distorted lo-fi and early 90’s punk rock,” Ste explained with certainty - almost as though the band’s irregular distortions had been asked of an explanation a lot in its young life. “A cross between Weezer and distorted noise.”

With the bands newly found experience, their approach towards all aspects of work are what he believes may have led to its success. So much so that it managed to get them a slot over in one of Newcastle’s biggest Indie festivals.

“We’ve got a slot at Evolution Emerging this year and I was talking to someone in one of the bands that played yesterday that have been playing for a couple of years and they were saying ‘how did you manage to get that? We’ve been trying to get it for the past two years.’ We sent a track in and there was like 600 tracks that they had to listen through and they picked 40 to play out of that and we got in.”

Still seeming baffled by the thought of getting on to such a festival, Ste attempts to explain what the thought may have been for the those who were to decide Mouses should make it more than hundreds of others:

“I think if you were the person who had to listen to those 600 tracks I feel like our sound would stand out just because it sounds so different to how a recording should sound. It would probably stand out because it’s the only one that’s so distorted and badly recorded. When they’d get to our track; whether it’s for a good reason or a bad reason, it would stand out.”

It seems obvious that Mouses members have formed the band on the premise that the sound would be approached in this way. Both Ste and Nathan have a lot of experience not only with the playing of their instruments, but have also been able to use production experience and apply that to the recording of their sound. Taking a very D.I.Y. approach to the making of their E.P.; recording each instrument in a rehearsal room with one microphone wouldn’t be expected to find its way into sounding like it would truly capture a bands performance, with Mouses though, it undeniably works.

And as you could imagine, the benefits of knowing and being able to tackle every task you would need go through to get noticed has great benefits for a new band.

“It’s good being able to record really easily. We don’t think about having to pay to go into a studio. We can just record what we have straight away. “ Ste explains, being able to look at how quickly they brought out their E.P. ”A year from now, if we have about 50 songs then we just let the good ones progress to be released.”

            Nathan follows that by clueing me in to another, more simplistic reason that they’ve been able to do so much in so little time: “It’s easy rehearsing too, because there’s only two of us, so it doesn’t seem to take long to write the songs.”

            With this, Ste explains to us how the work they put in eventually leads to much more work in the long term. “Yeah, I just need to stop writing so many songs. It seems like we’re behind the actual releases. We’re already starting to play and write new things but we haven’t even released the first [songs] properly. So that’s going to be another month and then the new songs we wrote a month ago will be a few months after that but we’ve already played them a lot.”

            This approach to D.I.Y. doesn’t only apply to their making of the music. The amount of gigs they’ve been receiving recently is a lot to do with them also. They’re being proactive when it comes to booking themselves and advertising their name around and that is a thing that has led to many opportunies as much as their sound has.

“We want other people to listen to it, because we get a buzz of that. If people are going to your gigs and liking it then obviously you’d be happy to see that they’re enjoying your music but we’re not making it to get noticed, it’s just nice when we do.”

It seems that at the moment, starting out the band are going through the regular cycle. Write, Rehearse, Perform, Repeat. And with so much focus already applied by both of the band members, it’s not a surprise that they’ve gotten so many opportunities as their reward. With new material not far away and new gigs less so, the bands efforts seem to work as a testament of what you can achieve in a short amount of time. When you are focused on what you want and you know how to get it, the opportunities are there for you to take.

Revisiting Refused's 'The Shape of Punk to Come'

Refused’s 1998 Post-Hardcore classic ‘The Shape of Punk to Come: A Chimerical Bombination in 12 Bursts’ seems to be portrayed as a distant legend by its followers. One that has lived on to become possibly the most respected and celebrated musical failures of the late 90’s.

The plan was to break into America and change the repetitive and capitalistic nature of society and the music industry, with both artistic originality and far left-winged text.

Unfortunately for them, its success was pretty much nil at the time of its release. In their home country of Sweden, people missed the message of the album. When its only single ‘New Noise’ said “And how can we expect anyone to listen if we are using the same old voice?” The fans longed for the old Hardcore sound that they were accustomed to and when Refused expected to be awarded with appraisal for their bravery in change, they received criticism from many of their old followers.

In their 2006 documentary of their failed attempts; ‘Refused Are Fucking Dead’, it truly shows how bad it can be for a band to work so hard to get nothing but hate. And when they went west in an attempt to conquer America, their plans revolved around breaking into its music scene with unquestionable success. Unfortunately, all that waited for them was disappointingly low turnouts and an in band combustion that led them to play the second half of the tour one guitarist short.

Now, when I first listened to this album as a youngster I was also part of the crowd that completely missed the point. Not in a way that I felt betrayed by their change. The first I heard of this band was the song New Noise as a thirteen-year-old kid, and this was years after the albums release. But to me, at the time where my immaturity in rock allowed semi-intense loudness and fake major-label anarchy as the only option, the techno and electronic elements that the band used to break from the norm seemed to only break my interest. I wasn’t listening because they weren’t using the old voice.

Years later, revisiting this album I feel ashamed for shunning it. Now, as an adult who doesn’t only find his music through what plays on Kerrang’s T.V. channel and who can differentiate originality from tact, I see this album as a masterpiece of its time. From the Hardcore fusions with Jazz in ‘The Deadly Rhythm’ to the intricate violin lines that build up with the band in ‘Tannhäuser/Derivè’. The album is formed with the intention of being a classic from start to finish. And if you know where to look, you’ll notice how that’s the case.

This final album and the group that’s hopes destroyed as its result are often talked of now as a legend that was born in to the wrong era of music. The die hard fans seem to believe that Refused would be more appreciated if they somehow travelled through time into the present and tried to conquer America today rather than 16 years ago. It is spoken of as if the majority of people who claim to be appreciators of music are now somehow different to how they were back in the day.

It would be easy to see this possibility with todays Internet generation. The access everyone has to find new and original material and share it around has allowed more original music to be filtered through in a way that it has never been before. Gone are the days where you were scared to buy something new just in case £10 was put to waste on something that just wasn’t good.

However, there are two linking sides to why I believe Refused and ‘The Shape of Punk to Come’ would not break into America and the new generation of listeners today if they tried:

1.     There are still many people today who cling to mainstream Rock/Metal music scenes so tightly that, while some of the album would fit into todays sound, it would only break the norm so much for people to say that it was trying too hard.

2.     It just isn’t as original by today’s standards. Many of today’s bands have fused in other genres much like Refused but have delved further into many other musical aspects of technical originality. Compared to these people, the album would just sound like a cheap attempt at breaking from the mainstream.

As much as the people who cling onto this record with regret would like to hope that they could see this idealistic parallel reality where Refused takes home the cup and gets the girl, unfortunately it’s just a sad impossible dream.

What this album has been able to become however, is much greater in the long run than was ever intended in the short. It’s a historical look back at how things were before the new connected generation could make a difference and it’s hope that maybe the world doesn’t have to be how it always was. With its impact, it will be recognised for failing in the right way, rather than succeeding in the wrong.

Protest the Hero Review (6/2/14)

As a band that have been known for their contrasting attitudes between fierce performance and cheery presence, I wondered if Protest the Hero would favour one side over the other when it came to their Manchester Headliner. With such a successful year - what with the fundraising and the release for their new album exceeding everyone’s expectations, many bands would just relax and expect everything that follows to work out no matter what. Not this band. The Canadian five piece, with their new drummer Mike Ieradi are more prepared than ever to keep their light-hearted grins clean and fresh whilst dishing out some technical speedy math-metal around today.

From the start, they blasted off with their new Star-Trek inspired single ‘Clarity’ and the entire room began to erupt. In my attempt to look for a nook or a cranny where they could slip up from what comes through as fast and flawless through my speakers back home. They just wouldn’t nudge. Rody Walkers vocals could still reach as high as a Soprano, Arif Mirabdolbaghi’s basslines were still as slick as a baby seal and Luke Hoskins and Tim Millar’s hands – despite my belief that they were going to set the necks of their guitars on fire during the first song – managed to stay in tact throughout the duration. This isn’t even to mention the fact that new member Mike Ieradi managed to keep all limbs beating the right motions and managed to follow up on both Lamb of God drummer Chris Adler’s performance on the new record and Moe Carlson’s 12 year Protest run with flying colours.

What makes Protest the Hero unique, not only with their intense over the top technical performances however, are their ability to seem laid back at the same time. Taking time to tell stories of the tour so far and to nominate the ‘hunk of the day’ from the audience with comic timing that you wouldn’t expect from such any music performance is very refreshing. They’re not trying to boast or make themselves out to be God’s. They’re just a bunch of friends enjoying themselves. This gig is just a stop in a long travelling vacation that they earned for themselves and while they’re out enjoying themselves, they can get serious when they need to.

Opinion Piece on Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding, has made an apparent rise in the last five years, especially in the music industry. The way it works is by allowing people to pay for the making of a project before it is made. This allows small time artists to get funding and freedom that the executives in the major music industry may not provide, and thereby allowing their musical project to get out there when it may otherwise have not. With this opportunity of showcasing yourself for future release, it has been common in some cases for bonus products can be applied by the paying demand of the funders. When applied to the situation, it allows audiences to, for example; fund a record for a price and if it is funded further, receive products such as custom merchandise, art and even the ability to be heard on the album.

This doesn’t just appeal to musicians trying to get their product out in the market. An entrepreneur who has any creation can put it out there. Some of them have been obviously practical objects that serve a newly found purpose such as 3D Printers, others have a certain novelty to them such as a Pi-Shaped Pie Tin but others, like the Bug-A-Salt salt gun are too crazy to get your head around.

Much like any practical (or impractical) business product, the main reason that an artist would require a kickstarter is because they don’t have the money to do the album themselves. Regardless, the kickstarter allows a platform for them to achieve their goals providing they get enough donators.

On the surface it would seem that the risk of donators not collectively raising enough money would deter a pledge in the first place as to avoid giving an artist money for what could turn out to be nothing. It seems people are more eager to put more of their money towards these uncertain products. This is most likely because the added bonuses and their personal contribution to the making of the album allow them to get more out of being a musician’s fan. They are not only paying just for the bonuses, they are paying for the ability to prove their dedication.

With this dedication being directly to the artist, Crowdfunding in itself seems to be a middle finger to music’s major labels. Letting the people control what becomes a success and what doesn’t is completely against the major marketing strategists that make an acts hit song become popular by forcing it to be heard everywhere by everyone. Many music fans of any genre are against music being broadcast by a solely business standpoint and with that some musicians have gained popularity in their crowdfunding because of the fact that they are verbally going against this major label mentality.

Last year, Canadian metal band Protest The Hero gained roughly $200,000 more than their requirement when they allowed users to pledge to their fourth album on the site Indiegogo. They produced an explanatory video to go with their products explaining how the major labels left them with no money and didn’t focus their attention on them as a band. This mistreatment made them turn to crowdsourcing in spite of these labels and with that they were able to enable their fans to financially support their band through the process of creating of that album. There is no way of knowing exactly how much of the money pledged was done in part because of the fact that they went against a major label or with that. The fact that the fans would trust the band to do the right thing with their money as much or even more than any big label can be accounted for proves that the product is the most important thing in the end. These crowdfunders show that what matters is what the music sounds like, not where you heard it.

So how much has this put a crack in the previous sculpture of the mainstream music industry? So far only enough to bring attention to the possibility of a fan involved in an admired bands production. It’s uncertain at this stage whether crowfunding will be a flash in the pan or a sun blaring down on the major music executives but even if it somehow became unfashionable tomorrow, at least some decent musicians got a break the big labels wouldn’t have given them.

Daily Newspaper Factual Article

The music industry has had its ups and downs over the years but with piracy being the main culprit in the line up of its major financial turmoil, how is possible for artists and producers to fight back against a foe that could be costing them their future seats in the music industry. One solution that seems to be making an impact recently is that of crowdsourcing.

Crowdsourcing is the ability for any persons with rights to an intellectual property to be able to sell their product before its manufacture.

This platform also allows for further merchandising on top, such as t-shirts, bags or limited edition diaries that follow the creation of the musical product can be added as bonus items. This allows for packaged expansions that would not be as easily marketed through the standard approach. These aspects all encourage the crowd to fund its creation but with the expected long wait time between purchase and release of said crowdfunded item, the artist can avoid unwise investments into their merchandise before knowing how many will purchase it.

In the most famous cases of successful crowdsourcing, acts with an already large fan base such as Canadian Metal band Protest the Hero and their fourth studio album have found that their fans are loyal and continuing to help them when they need it, raising $341,146 dollars from their expected $125,000. And even though it would appear that only the largest of artists would find success, the crowdsourcing website PledgeMusic have claimed to have a 90% success rate with an average of 140% of the required donations an act requires being made through a public that wants to see and experience the result of their pledges.

In a music industry that’s history consists of performers receiving notoriety from their personal marketability as much as their performances on a large worldwide scale, is the publics direct ability to be given the ability to control success the beginning of the end for major label musical property? On one hand, Since the internets birth the music industry has been adjusted many times over due to the fans newly found ease of access, but on the other the major acts still stand in the 1%, achieving the same notoriety that their predecessors had done thirty or forty years ago. Will this new crowdfunding audience have changed that years down the line or will things continue through the same motions they followed through the 20^th Century?