Room with a Review

Here's a fad for you - from about March 2009 to February 2010 I wanted to be a music journalist, reviewing and writing about (heavy) metal. I started by interviewing a band from Aberdeen who were actually very good and doing well for themselves (considering their location) called "My Mind's Weapon". I produced a piece that was heartily approved and encouraged by the Writer's Bureau, of whom I gave £300 to for a complete writing course that I never ever submitted anything else for. I went on to do 100 word reviews for various websites like Shazam.com (proof: http://www.shazam.com/music/web/track?id=234975) where I built up a bit of a folio and even got some shit free CD's from the arrangement. Then eventually I started writing at least four good-sized reviews a month for a rather reputable and well run outfit called Metal Review (proof: http://www.metalreview.com/reviews/browse/ross-main) which was brilliant at the time as it exposed and gave me access to the music of a lot of really cool bands that I would never have found otherwise.

I also had stuff published in The Skinny (proof: http://www.theskinny.co.uk/article/38811-mastodon-glasgow-abc-7-mar) but eventually gave up trying after unsuccessfully trying to get anything remotely coherent or useful out of their spastic music editor. Also, I didn't fit in because my reviews were probably too literal, ie; mentioned the music.

Meanwhile, I was constantly e-mailing the major metal magazines (Metal Hammer, Terrorizer, Zero Tolerance etc) with my latest work and reminding them that I wanted to work for them. I took it very seriously. I first met the lady who is now my ladyfriend at this time, and she has since admitted that I was somewhat intense and totally humourless when the subject of my amateur musical journalism first came up.

A lot of it had to do with having a shit job and not much else going on in my life. I was in Aberdeen and it would take me 35 minutes to drive to work, so I had plenty of time to listen to new stuff and I spent my lunches in Tesco car park making notes. In actual fact, the decision to move to Glasgow was heavily influenced by me wanting to be closer to live gigs and hopefully making some useful contacts to get a writing job, but something else happened.

I simply ran out of synonyms for "brutal".

I had always considered my "work" to be quite creative and funny at times, but I simply ran out of ways to describe how good a riff was, or how mental the drumming was, or how ferocious the vocals were. Everyone on the website already knew the latest news and history of every metal band ever, so all I could do was make funnys about the bands name or members, than when it came to trying to convey what the bloody music was like I'd just have to say it sounded like X mixed with Y, partaking in Z. Where X was usually Black Sabbath, Y was a kudos-gaining underground group of nobodies, and Z was murder.

Eventually the whole thing became a chore and I had totally lost sight of why writing about music was important. Because it's not, is it? Trying to tell someone about a subjective audio art form, in writing, is never going to work properly. All you can hope to do is give some interesting background to the record, say weather it's good or not and hope someone holds your opinion in high enough stead to take your word for it. Afterall, listening to samples online yourself would take longer - and require the engagement of your own judgement.

I think music reviewers are essentially people with a taste of their own who find some sort of value in listening to heaps of music, then filtering out the crap for everyone else. In this day and age of instant music access I think the book reviewer is saving more of our time.

But live music reviews are probably the tip of the shit. Let me take this for example, it's the first thing on the first page on The Skinny website just now and is a very recent review of Badly Drawn Boy playing in Glasgow.

“Not exactly playing the hits am I?” notes Badly Drawn Boy after airing tracks from 1997’s EP1. That’s not quite accurate – in tonight’s mammoth set, a patchily-scattered Fruitmarket audience is treated to the Santana-cheese riff of Disillusion, Silent Sigh (given added guitar and oomph), and an opening run performed solo and acoustically that includes cuts both early (The Shining) and more recent (last year’s Is There Nothing We Could Do?).

Damon is on affable form, though the self-deprecating banter is in full flow (he introduces ex-ad track All Possibilities by apologising to “anyone who bought a shit product from Comet”). Later, he teases by alternating between intros for You Were Right and Once Around the Block but is forgiven since both get played eventually, while mixed-bag tracks from his recent seventh album are received politely. But while offering value, his lengthy set could survive pruning – with an odd karaoke Thunder Road finale the first for the shears. 

I'd have started that with "Not exactly going to say anything useful am I?", but excluded the speech marks. This basically just tells you half his set list - in ten times as many words. Who needs this? People who were there know already. People who weren't there don't want to know - because they weren't fucking there. It's like an Eastenders fan who religiously follows the show through newspaper synopses (correct plural). Nobody sends in reviews of what they were doing at the time when everybody else was at Badly Drawn Boy.

“Me and Carol were too skint to buy tickets, so she made dinner. It somewhat lacked the rawness of her dinner-making debut and rather lazily had some similar elements to the last dinner she produced. Her self-depracting banter was in full flow though and she later teased me by not saying what was for dessert until it was infront of me"

This is probably why I don't watch the news, and pity people who waste hours of their own day reading about what's going on in other places.

But looking back at my own live review for The Skinny, I'm glad I at least tried to make it an enjoyable read and characterise the setlist a little, but to be honest, anyone who gives a shit about the band Mastodon knows exactly what they are like live. Anyone who doesn't like Mastodon just wants to make a "cut your hair" comment and get back to masturbating over the latest Glasgow band who sing with an over emphasised lochy accent.



footnote:
What really jogged my memory about all of this was when I got a spammy virus spyware thing in my email account last month that hijacked my address book and sent out a bunch of links offering medical sex products to everyone I have ever emailed in the last five years. I noticed the editors of a fair few magazines were in there, but was delighted when I got an e-mail back from Alex of the Writer's Bureau saying

"Hi Ross, I no longer accepts writing submissions to this email address."

I know Alex, that's why I used it tell you how to get 20% of InstaErect.

A Text Message From 02

Dear Customer, we've checked your mobile usage to see which of our tariffs is best for you. And the good news is that you're already on it. However, the bad news is we detected a sadness in the tone of your girlfriends voice that only increased every call you failed to tell her you loved her. We analysed a 27% drop in calls made to your father John and your mother Christine since 2009. They aren't going to be about forever Ross, make the most of the time you have. Stop being selective about which friends you will answer when they call. Communicate with the people around you, Ross - reach out to those who are important or you're going to end up alone. You don't want that – and neither do we.

Keep tabs on your bill any time at 02.co.uk/my02.

Boy Story

What has everyone been up to this week? Working hard ...or hardly working!? Oh, what are you like?. Myself, well I've been sitting at home eating impatiently microwaved baked potatoes and trying to decide who is best - Johnny Depp or Leonardo DiCaprio.

Before I embark on this, let's just lay down some ground rules. I suspect this will come down to raw acting skills, so I just want to check with everyone; being good at acting is directly proportional to how many accents you can do. Right? Yes.

Here's some background information for those who are ill-informed.

Despite the gift of almost eternal youth on both parts, and an eleven year difference in age, both of these talented men started their acting careers in the 1950's just before colour film became usable for commercial photography for publication.

The 50's gave both notoriety early, their almost featureless good looks and Britney-mic hair-dos striking a strong chord with the styles and fashions of the times. Depp first achievement notability in Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1951), a character study based on the the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 1800's/early 1900's, but it was DiCaprio who caused the biggest stir, rocketing to fame one year later in James Cameron's Titanic (1952), an epic retelling of the infamously tragic vessel-sinkage, distastefully released a mere forty years after the event, much to the protest of the survivors who in reality needed another 47 years to all die off.

From there, the staring roles kept coming for both. Before becoming a total typecast victim of Tim Burton, Depp enjoyed a blockbusting run as Captain Keith Richards, in the top-grossing Pirates of the Carribean franchise. Meanwhile, DiCaprio bit his teeth into the world of character acting, which is different from normal acting, portraying a number of infamous real life personalities like international imposter-come-fraudster Frank Abagnale in Catch Me If You Can and unstable visionary Howard Hughes in The Aviator. Here we see DiCaprio on set, standing behind a jet engine.

 

I jest of course, but there is definitely that Michael McIntyre "hint of Asian" going on there.

But seriously, the best thing about Leo and Johnny D is that they are worldwide heart throbs - and the reason I like this, is because they have worse facial hair growth than even me. All I have ever wanted to do with my life is grow an awesome beard, and can't, but I get a warm sense of comfort and shallow victory watching these two try and do it.

I get that bald bit under my nose in the centre as well, but you two are a couple of patchy sons of bitches. I've cast them in my 2012 screen-writing debut Four Pubes and a Prit Stick, the story of Felix Flannél (Depp) and Jackeriah Wordsworthy (DiCaprio), two middle aged men trying to get summer jobs as wrestling lumber-jacks.

Woeful. But as much as this is becoming about why I think I am better than them (better beard growth, better blog, better Scottish accent, better at Halo, have an iPhone etc) I did originally ask who we should favour between them.

But, I have lost momentum on this one and don't care anymore.

Hell, make it DiCaprio - he's not been an associated friend of Oasis and his name sounds like juice.