The Futureproof Cuddling Pop Blog By Paul Pious James Deman Giovanni £rd...: PAUL GIOVANNI VS THE MUSIC PRESS

Current mood: WORDY
Category: WORDY Music

So, the music press...

What's it all about? What do I like? Which magazines are worth the entrance fee?? And what mags play ball??

The simple answer to this is that I don't read much in the way of music journalism other than my own and I therefore don't have much knowledge of who does what and whether there are any mags worth paying for, or special writers worth reading.

I often pick up copies of freebies in record shops:

One Week To Live (Mostly dull, doesn't pay it's writers even though it apparently makes money)

Stool Pigeon (Can be very good and has been responsible for introducing me to some class acts. Innovative format etc, free: One of the better ones)

FACT (More like an art and graphics mag than a music one - style over content, little exciting writing, but some OK art)

There's others, in fact there seems to be a nevrending supply of free music, style and lifestyle mags that make it to 2 or 3 issues and then dissapear. I pick up everything that's free or stealable and put it in a pile and then flick through when the pile gets out of hand - most of it is lifelessly written and more or less formulaic..

As for the pay for mags?? Well like I said I don't really read 'em. I check The NME out about once a month. I read it in the library. It rarely covers anything really interesting and the writing is nothing to get excited over...

Artrocker, well I can't get past the title of this one

Artrocker:

I mean you might as well call your mag Cuntrocker.

Hales Organic farm juice will outsell Coke before I buy a copy of what is essentially a more poncey and snotty version of The NME. In fact, I doubt this one'll last much longer than a year or two before there's somekind of almighty power struggle and it dies on it's feet - though I might be wrong...

(I might add that this opinion has nothing to do with last weeks spat with the McGee clans love pet shop boy band Hatcham Social. I formed this opinion the very first time I saw the title)

Q is mostly too boring for words..

I never read Rolling Stone

I saw a copy of Plan B about 5 years ago. It bored me, and I haven't been back since. It could be a good one, but i take a dim view of rags who can't even be bothered to write a quick No Thanks now Fuck Off!! when you send in ideas and offers of pieces of work..

Volume: I've yet to see this, but liked the sound of it and sent them my best and only ever poem. They didn't get back to me. When they launched I asked them if they'd used my shit and they didn't reply.I then offered to so something again. No fucking reply. I don't care how fucking busy or special you are, that's just Plane Jane rude...

Here's another Plane Jane rude mag. It's called Fault and they put out an appeal for features. I said I'd do whatever they wanted and they never wrote back. A few days later they put out the same appeal. I replied again telling them I've already made the offer. No Reply. So fuck that and fuck them. The whole set up appears to be some kind of rough shit bag rag that's based on a rock 'n' roll set of cliches rather than any real love of sound..

As for the rest ...

I'd certainly welcome suggestions for both blogs (particularly blogs) mags and other writers who are good enough to make me feel insecure/and or worth submitting material too.

For now, I know I get more readers and mroe love than many other writers by doing and networking this blog and my duplicate blogger blog. (2200+ reads last week and I'm still only doing my practice laps) A myspace blog doesn't however pay the bills...

The thing is, I don't think paper mags have much of a future. With blogs you not only have more versatility and freedom in content, it's also easy to embed and add miulti-media content of all types as well as offer the reader immediate access to your sources and the bands and acts you're covering....

I also like the closeness of a blog - how anyone and everyone who wants to can wade in with an opinion straight to the writer and all his/her readers. It makes for good and honest entertainment...

I'm sure Mags will roll along for a few more years yet, but nowadays, I'm too old, stubborn and mean to given anything to any of them unless they either pay, ask very nicely, allow me a completely free reign or prefably offer all three...

Currently listening :
Speed Garage Anthems

22:50 - 6 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Clinker

I have had a shit experience of Stool Pigeon club this week. I will be writing about it this week (maybe today) in my Blog. I picked up the newspaper though on the way out and it does seem better than my experience of the club. An article on Devo, a band who NME seem to have ignored bar a review of their Meltdown performance. I'm flicking through it as a toilet read.

I do still read NME, though it is becoming more like a cross between a comic and mags like Heat. Still manage to read between the bullshit and find great music. It's a long way off it's heyday, but I still think we need it, even as a necessary evil.

Artrocker....get beyond the name Paul. They offer free gigs every tuesday to members (and its free to join). Also you won't hear bands with mundane music. It's always at least interesting. One of my favourite gigs this year has been there, Ill Ease. It's a one woman band who manages to do it all live, drums, guitar, bass and sing. To understand how thats possible you can check it out on line, but you really need to see it live. The people who run Artrocker, you may be surprised to learn, aren't pretentious at all. They have a genuine love for decent music and have (unless my memory is more fucked than I reaised) given your beloved (and yes...I love them too!) They Came From the Stars, I Saw them a big thumbs up. Reading it back it sounds like i'm pissed off. Rest assured i'm not....Anyway if it was called Cuntrocker...well it sounds like fun to me, haha. The magazines a good read but only takes a couple of (er hmm) sittings in the morning to get thru.

Posted by Clinker on Monday, August 06, 2007 at 16:31
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: THE FUTUREPROOF MUSIC BLOG BY PIOUS GIOVANNI :

Yeah, well I've only ever browsed Artrocker a few times in record shops and nothing leapt out to me with it, so i've never got any further with it than that...

I'll pick up a copy and take a closer look. If it's good, I'll change MY name to cuntrocker, chop my little finger off and give them some more respect...

I think the thing is I'm more into good pop music than anything else and i don't get the impression there's much going on in that rag. It strikes me as being into obscure and clever music - you know a bit too much like The Wire is. I also found the quality of the writing in the bits i read to be very iffy...

But on your recomendation i'll certainly give it a go and I definately want to see this one woman band...

What's the link???

pg)

Posted by : THE FUTUREPROOF MUSIC BLOG BY PIOUS GIOVANNI : on Monday, August 06, 2007 at 16:39
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