I was very pissed...... piccies....

None the less I like this one!

Love it or loathe it, by your culture you are priveleged Londonites. The NME outside your parochial little circle is valuable- think of the villages, the poor ghettos, it's their link to the outside world.

It matters. If you aren't in the NME, you aren't anyone. Idealism is fuck all.

Jim, thought you had loads of photos?

I'd agree with that on the whole living in Wales, I know for a fact that the NME drives alot of popular indie opinion round here, or it seems that way anyway.
Although like I said you can do it on your own terms(it is hard) so that hopefully when they come to you, you may in a stronger position.

He's only got the six by the looks of it, review to come tomorrow, its a pearler just like this thread.

I didn't mean it like that! I just couldn't work out how it would be a good thing to be ignored by something that would tell lots of people about the label & bands. But what would I know? I live in Australia and I've never even read the NME. Ignore me.

Hey red dream......I TOOK loads of photos but most of them were totally shit becuase of the state that I was in....Could blame shit light in the metro or cheap camera but trueth is an afternoon in the sameul smith pub in oxford circus with Monkey Arran, pedros and co followed by an Idou gig then down to the metro just took its toll, I am sure paul maps took some bettre shots than me!

Okay Jim, ya big pisshead!

The NME holds FAR too much power. It's supremely depressing because the standard of NME journalism is appalling. Any artistic merit their journalists had seemed to disappear up their arses when their heads did. How can these illiterate, egotistical tossers hold so much power, where they can destroy a promising band in their infancy because they don't like someone in it?

The NME operates on a policy of you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. The only bands championed by them are bands which suck their cocks, either literally or metophorically.

The thrills and spills of rock and roll aren't just how many drugs they take or what fashionable indie toilet they play, nor is it their haircuts, nor it is some fucking empty, pointless scene which was created by the press, not the fans. It's about passion, love, energy, change and it should be important. When did it stop being important? How can a fucking rag like the NME which reviews bands as "fucking ace" or "fucking shit" decide what's important? The only standard they set is who's the heaviest drinker, who's the biggest junkie, conducting an interview around a bar table, discussing someone's tits.

The NME are the Default Men of the music press and it's horrifying. They're the snobby cunts who laugh at chavs yet idolise a junkie, fucked up thieving cunt. Because if you sling a guitar around your neck you're a hero of the middle classes.

The general slide of culture now is of the visceral and the meaningless. And when bands come along who threaten that- because it's so easy and fuck me, isn't it so edgy?- they're crushed. It's the same with broadcasting- intelligent programmes are not being made, or if they are, they're on the cable channels- while terrestrial flounders in a sea of Balls of Steel, The Friday Night Project and the like- Lads' Telly or the ultra-ultra ironic Slags Telly.

In the NME, Luxembourg don't stand a chance. Too synthy for the NME, who just want their straight-laced guitar bollocks background music. What music could be has ceased to matter because nothing has a future. Bands come and go now on an interchangeable treadmill- identikit "repeat repeat" chorus, identical chords, identical haircuts.

The reason that intelligent debate has shut down in the music press ("they're fucking ace! they're fucking shit!") is because intelligent music is dying.

Luxembourg have an openly gay frontman, who also happens to be Asian. Horror of horrors, he doesn't try to be butch about it, and can actually sing. He is openly disrespectful of the NME, thus not indulging in the group cocksucking neccessary for them. They also have a pouting, sneery, posing guitarist- all the hallmarks of the Great Guitarist- but who isn't six stone and six foot tall, who has the audacity to wear t-shirts when he wants to, to have a man's chest and man's muscular arms- more of your Unfashionable Bruce Springstein than the Anorexic Indie Fetish. (And who I happen to think is the most beautiful man in the world). Then there's your ambigious keyboardist who provides the dreaded synth- and isn't synth the refuge of the novelty acts, or the girl bands? And let's face it, in the press girl bands are simply novelty acts, and will never be taken seriously. Your quiet bassist and then your bald but slim drummer (bald and butch is fine, innnit, it's such a threat, it's so Anti, innit, but bald and slim, that's just genetic evidence, and that's a fucking crime, mate, and what's more, it ain't fashionable).

They do biting guitar, beautiful ballads, energetic pop and they obviously deserve an arena, not a garage. Therein is the problem- trying to redefine everything means going back to the roots, and Luxembourg don't, they specialise in the lush and well-produced.

In this climate of meaningless fucking music, identikit bands and the liberal right (the edgy, the ironic with little respect for any human being or even respect for art itself because in its clumsy attempts to redefine it, they have destroyed it), Luxembourg don't stand a chance.

And that is not fair.

So I'm looking forward to the compliation which Dogbox are bringing out, and for the album because no band works harder than them and whatever the fuck, they should be proud of the band they are, because they're exceptional. If the NME didn't hold so much power, they'd be smoking cigarettes on the top of the world by now.

But things will change.

Aaaah, that will explain why The Long Blondes are supposedly the Best Unsigned Band in Britain at the moment...

But they have FEISTY GIRLS!

It's by no means the be all end all rule, it's just a general trend I've noticed. And The Long Blondes are ace. Fact remains, though, they're still unsigned. Another point is that a shitload of mediocre bands are signed and successful while a handful of fantastic ones aren't, but there's nothing new there.

Stands up and Applauds!

Can I publish that I love it?

Bring on the revolution!

http://www.giittv.hypnotisingsilence.net/r...yfriendslux.htm

Lovely review there, Bill! Although I'm a little wary of this Luxembourg Versus The Boyfriends angle that's emerged- the bands are friends and the Boyfs are on the Dogbox compiliation!

Are there any more photos anywhere from that gig? The only ones I've seen apart from Jim's were some dude's who I think is my friend Sara's fella.

EDIT: Yeah, of course Bill, do what you like with it.

EDIT EDIT: I can't spell.

I can't really speak for the reviewer as I didn't write it.


But Yeah I don't like it when music is turned into some kind of boxing match, after all they are friends and quite different bands.

Haha Jim! What ginormous photos!

Re: the NME and power over the music biz...
Wasn't part of the whole thing about the Arctic Monkeys that they did it all through the internet?
So success without the NME can be done!

I wonder with the NME. They are owned by IPC which is owned by AOL Time Warner, who also own record labels etc... so would that not make them a promotional pamphlet for those labels?
Anyway, the whole thing with the biz now is that there is much less money than there was ten years ago. Everyone is downloading stuff and getting their music journalism off the web. This means that labels and publications like the NME have to go more mainstream, as there is much less money about, they can't 'waste' funding or column space on projects that aren't definitely going to sell.
But this isn't necessarily a bad thing, cos it means that bands can get known in new ways! When I was a young 'un, the only way of finding out about bands was from the NME, Melody Maker and maybe people's fanzines, which they would photocopy a couple of hundred of, whereas now everyone has a website and you can find out all this stuff just by sitting on your arse in front of a computer!

It's sweet and stuff- people do find out about bands from other means now, but it doesn't make a jot of difference to bands getting signed. The bands will still not sell enough to continue. Half the time they won't even be able to release an album.

It's a lovely thing, power to the people and that, but people miss that if the big players like the NME take against you, no matter how many websites love you, you're still a bit fucked.

Two words - The Darkness!