Two Bullets: Spookyland

SpookyLand - Killin' One Bird With Two Stones (EP) by showoffservices

Remember that kid in high school who had no friends and spent all of their time learning how to play Bob Dylan songs in a vain effort to try and impress people into liking them? While I can't say with any certainty that Spookyland was that kid, I'm pretty confident that statement doesn't fall far from the mark.

Let me first say that Spookyland is a solo project. A nineteen year old named Marcus Gordon writes and performs everything himself, and honestly shows quite a talent for crafting pretty pop songs. Aside from the highly derivative nature of the music, the naive lyrics and his painfully whiny signing voice, Gordon obviously has talent. The sad fact is though that having lacked a band to bounce ideas off what he has delivered is a sort of worst of both worlds EP that manages to be both incredibly self-indulgent and pathetically subservient to popular trends.

Titled the Killin' One Bird With Two Stones EP, Spookyland's debut offering is yet another worrying blemish on the rash covered and diseased flesh of modern music. Much like contemporaries such as Operator Please or Tom Ugly (about whom the less is said the better) there is an abundance of talent unfortunately caught up in a lack of taste. It just sounds like someone eager for fame and attention who mastered standard pop and blues structures and never looked back. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, look at Jack White, what makes it bad in this case is that there is a marked lack of conviction in the songs, a sense that everything is being dressed up to seem more interesting and edgy while lacking any substance under the clothes, glitter and face-paint.

Everything sounds too washed out and drenched in reverb, which matched with how overly obtuse the lyrics are at times makes it all sounds pretty fucking pathetic. When he's not spouting some nonsense along the line's of 'her eyes are like the spinning bodies of a world celestial, and I alone, anxious and fear prone gather my power bestial' (note: I just made that up) he's way too literal, singing about winning a girl a toy at the fair or throwing rocks at her window. These last lyrics are later proven to be all part of a cunning attempt at leading you to think one way, before Gordon twists your perspective at the end, an interesting choice that is unfortunately carried out with the subtlety of a back alley abortion. Like everything on this album, there are good ideas, they are all just executed poorly.

To cap it all off though his voice is just so annoying. It sounds like a year or two of making 16 year old girls croon with his whiny nonsense has led him to believe sounding like Bob Dylan before his testicles descended is a good vocal style. In reality it's both unoriginal and self harm inducingly difficult to listen to.

His press release which you can read here is full of overly literary and facile bullshit. It reads like the opening chapter of some bad choose your own adventure fantasy serial, and doesn't tell you anything about the artist other than he must be a pretentious cunt if he thought this sort of nonsense was a good way to present himself as an artist.

Really Gordon just needs a few more years to experiment, after all at 19 years of age, it's understandable his music lacks the sense of complexity it pretends to hold. The fault here doesn't land with Gordon in the end, at least not all of it, but at the feet of those predatory industry types who have heard his music, thought 'yeah young girls will cream their panties over this,' and then signed him. I don't mean to say it's intentional on their part either, they probably generally like the music, as I'm sure many others will. What's happened here is what happens all too often in the industry nowadays. An artist, with all the right influences and the right look has been picked as a cash cow. There may be some short lived fame in store for him, and if he puts his head down and really works on expanding his musical vocabulary maybe even some degree of longevity, but in the long run his music will be tossed amongst the already towering pile of disposable indie-pop that clogs up our airwaves and web pages, another slice of crap lacking any meaning after the first few listens.

It's a shame to see another semi-talented artist get sucked into the ego stroking and mythology rife industry of manufacturing indie-pop idols, but it's their own fault. If it's fame you seek, it will be fame you will find, but for how long and on what terms is decided by each artists willingness to put in the hard work rather than outsource it to the ravenous wolves of the music industry.

Two Bullets to the back of the head for Gordon and those cruelly ignorant industry fools who have built him up for an inevitable fall.

Bloated Corpse: Parasites & The Music Industry

He really says it all.

Working in the music industry, the first thing I was struck by was the sheer amount of parasites, ahem, people in the employ of artists. Trying to get in contact with bands I found myself wading through an industry swamp, seething with managers, agents, publicists and booking agents, all this on top of label reps, A&R staff and whoever else had managed to leech of their creativity.

I understand artists often don't want to have to deal with the business side of things, but these small armies of industry types, none of them in possession of anything other than a fat email contacts list to justify their fees, seemed not only unnecessary but essentially damaging and counter-active for the artist. Like Albini pointed out, these people have a vested interest in the artist getting paid, not in their music being appreciated or their image being protected. The best of them might approach bands with the idea of promoting them as a whole. More often than not though, if faced with an opportunity which pays well or one that will see the band gain exposure playing to a friendly audience, these people only think about the revenue. Just think about how many times you've seen upcoming local bands playing rubbish festival slots to no one?

What this has then led to is on one hand the proliferation of these types of people, but also the proliferation of disposable, fame hungry artists to feed the industry's need for flesh on which to leech off. For every successful band there are 9 unsuccessful ones, and for each of those 9 bands there is a small swarm of people who lined their pockets out of what little success the bands had. These people don't care if you fail, by the time that's happened they've moved on, hungrily exploiting the next lot of bands eager to succeed and naive in believing that these people have their best interests at heart.

I do understand that for some bands, doing everything yourself isn't going to work. Whether because the band aren't good with business or just that they're too lazy to handle it, not every band is cut out to have to deal with the crushing grind of the music industry. Still in such cases doesn't it make more sense to employ one person who handles all of your business as an artist. If your agent, manager, publicist and booking agent are all the same person, and they work for you and you alone they only have your interests in mind, because you and you alone are their source of income. This is pretty much the 360 music management model and it has worked wonders for artists. Building such a mutually dependent partnership is far more effective than employing the services of a company which deals with a whole roster of different acts. Just think about Jerry McGuire.

If you're not one of a company's highest earning act, most of the work they do for you will be an afterthought, as these companies tend to work with quite large rosters of artists. Getting you an interview in the street press, securing you a slot on the side stage of some mid range festival, these companies are very well practiced at keeping a long list of artists happy by doing the bare minimum.

There are certain examples where working with an outside company can be beneficial I'll admit. If you were making post-punk music in the early 80s, getting picked up by Factory Records would have grabbed you a whole bunch of fans you might not have otherwise found, and it's hard to imagine The Beatles having gotten as far as they did with Brian Epstein and NEMS Enterprises behind them, but these are rare examples where a bands artistic objectives match up with the approach of the companies, and most companies nowadays don't conduct their business in the same way. All they look at is the bottom line.

While getting some tour supports or media exposure might be hard without these people on your payroll, the fact of the matter is that the music will speak for itself and it's only the most artistically bankrupt of bands who have to rely on such industry professionals to maintain their popularity. It is because of such professionals that so much sonic tripe is made popular in the first place. Management companies and booking agents can make a lot more money in the short term promoting several mediocre bands than they can by nurturing a few very talented artists, and with the industry now collapsing under the weight of it's own bloated parasite riddled corpse, the short term is all these companies can afford to think of.

Like Albini points out, it's almost pure mathematics. These company's don't have the interests of the artists at heart, all they care about is how much money the band can get, regardless of how that money will be made. Consider how many bands have been convinced to have their songs used in advertising or bad television shows. Sure Jet getting on the iPod ad made them, or should I say their managers, agents and record labels some money, but in the long run does anyone care about Jet anymore? I think not.

I don't mean to say that no bands can succeed under this model, bands have in the past, and I'm sure they will continue to do so in the future, but for the vast majority of bands being fed through the system their limited success will only serve to further propagate the exploitation of other musicians. It's time those musicians who are serious about their music, and want a career with longevity realise you are better off working with individuals or organisations who believe in your music and not just your profitability.

Kirin J Callinan

She (edit) by KirinJCallinan

Photo by Mclean Stephenson

This music makes me happy.

Something about the way he sings, matched with his inhuman mastery of guitar effects literally send shivers down my spine, and while I understand how some people might not get the music, perhaps finding it too odd for their liking, his debut single She, in my mind, is one of the most important Australian release in a long time, and one of the most thrilling songs I have heard this year.

Too often artists seem intent on referencing old artists or appropriating genres from the past, but with Kirin there is this sense of freshness and danger in what he's doing. Not to say the music is without influence, but it somehow it dodges even the most obvious of comparisons. What he does he makes his own in a way that shows a surprising maturity for such a young artists' first release.

There isn't a shred of compromise in his music. This unrestrained sense of experimentation underlies it, Kirin standing bare before the audience, his own creativity the only thing standing between him and the audience rather than having built up a wall of hip touchstones of familiarity to shield himself and appeal to hsi audience. While there are other artists who achieve a similar sense of indivuality, it's the obvious attention to detail and an intense level of scrutiny applied to his songs that set him apart from other artists who seem so intent on being different they lose the sense of craft in what they're doing. Kirin has standards of songwriting that he is clearly dedicated to, and the result is that the music, while having a freewheeling feel of discovery and innovation, still sounds cohesive and mature. Nowhere do you feel like you're being led through hallways of improvised sonic indulgence, everything has a purpose and everything is in it's right place.

While his MySpace showcases other earlier and skeletal works, mostly recorded at his home, She is very much his coming out. With every sound on the single being made with his guitar, as well as a few little splashes of drum machines and live drums here and there, the song takes the convention of a singer/songwriter playing with nothing but a guitar into a strange new world. With his highly musical and melodic use of guitar effects, he really shows how they can be used as instruments unto themselves, yet he doesn't allow them to overpower the music and turn it into art noise, the songs all coming back to his powerful vocals, walls of noise giving way to sparse and open arrangements leaving ample space for his voice to shine.

It's just such a joy to see an artist with ethics, and to whom such ethics mean more than commercial success. When too many artists seem pre-occupied with playing up to the expectations of their increasingly fickle audiences, Kirin, who played guitar in Mercy Arms and plays with Jack Ladder, refuses to conform to the what those fans from either project would expect him to sound like. While you might call him stupid or stubborn for not exploiting such an opportunity, of not playing the old game of get famous first and then make the art, in the end such concerns should never encroach on creativity and it's great to find an artist who doesn't let them.

There is true courage in this music, true courage and true expression, two things that are becoming very difficult to find in music today.

Sick Marionette: How Corruption In The Music Media Has Destroyed Our Appreciation Of Music

It's pretty apparent to most people with even a vague understanding of the music media in this country that it is all run by commercial interest, using an iron fist of advertising money to enforce a policy of silence when it comes to real criticism.

Having worked in almost every facet of the music media, I couldn't tell you how many times my articles have been edited and rejigged to cast a more favourable light on a band because their label is threatening to pull ad spend. I also couldn't tell you how often I have written glowing articles of rubbish bands purely because in this industry it's hard to get ahead and have a well formed sense of ethics. Principles and poverty pretty much go hand in hand.

Again this is probably unsurprising to you. It's plainly obvious that most of the content in Drum Media or on FasterLouder is heavily motivated by keeping the labels, venues or promoter's happy. The Brag pretty much won't give you a second glance as a band unless you can afford to buy ads, and sites like Music Feeds or Throwshapes can only exist due to patronage from places like World Bar in exchange for blindly positive editorial.

From a business perspective this makes lots of sense. How can a publication or website afford to bite the hand that feeds? I agree. From my experience in the industry I know the editors of these sites would much rather work with creative and critical freedom to cover what they want how they wanted, but the commercial concerns get in the way of the journalism. the reason for this is the massive conflict of interest inherent in a music publication getting most of it's revenue from record labels or promotions companies and venues buying ads. I mean you don't see the liberal party sponsoring The Australian do you? At least not openly.

It gets worse though. When it comes to the really big acts, the one's where there is a lot at stake in getting the media coverage on message and in line, the record labels will actually conduct interviews themselves, paying an in-house writer over 10 times what the publication would pay a writer to write a glowing article that is then printed verbatim.

This is the music media equivalent of Fox News.

If any outlet raises an eyebrow at this the touring company or record label will then pull thousands of dollars of advertising, leaving the publication crippled and infirm. In my time in the industry I have seen Sony pull almost 200,000 dollars of ads, just because a certain publication didn't include some of their artists in an end of year best off list. They didn't even say anything negative, they just didn't bend over the barrel fast enough.

The real question is, why does the music media let it happen. Surely with the amount of readers these publications and sites reach they could find advertisers such as alcohol companies and clothing brands who would present no conflict of interest, whose ample pockets could keep them afloat while affording them the freedom to actually say something? The problem is that with this lack of opinion, this lack of principles, most people have lost interest in such media, and now their livelihood depends on suckling at the industry's diseased teet because it's the only industry out of touch enough with the public to patronise them.

With strength of principles comes faith and loyalty from readers, and no where does this now exist other than sites like Polaroids Of Androids, which are free from any advertising, existing purely out love for music. It seems that to make a living by offering honest and incise criticism of music is impossible today. I hope I'm wrong. I hope that one day this blog can somehow turn a profit, that my ramblings and ranting strikes enough of a chord to earn some remuneration, but I sincerely doubt it. For every blog out there, like this one, Polaroids of Androids, or The Au Review, for every blog that attempts to deal with music on as honest and critical a level as is possible (a goal I often fail to reach), there are hundreds of others trading in fashion and trends. With the death of the music media we have seen the birth of an even more menacing creature; fan critics. Uneducated and fashion obsessed teens with nothing better to do than rant on about how amazing Animal Collective's new b-side is or to discuss how cool Tame Impala's clothes are. Regardless of how sad this is though, it is somewhat fitting as it truly reflects the way most people appreciate music today.

It's very difficult these days to find a review that actually engages with the craft of the music, instead they all trade in hamfisted and whimsical description, myself included more often than not.

Where with literary and film criticism, critics understand the craft of the art-form, considering factors such as structure, plot, and character development to piece together a verdict on how well a film or book has achieved it's goals, its seems that in music we have all forgotten how to speak the language and are only left with nondescript hand signals and grunts to make ourselves understood. Even if a reviewer can discuss the music intelligently, the readers usually lack the education to understand the commentary.

Classical music and jazz aside, as well as certain exemplars such as Radiohead or The Drones amongst others, so much of today's music ignores the artistry of music, preferring to trade on an image of being artistic. The music media's bowing to commercial interest has played a big part in this, their lack of critical rigour resulting in a generation lacking the tools to appreciate the art of music, and that's exactly what the industry wanted. They wanted to destroy people's ability to objectively judge music as good or bad, hence giving them the power to tell the public what is good through their puppets the music media, and it's the journalists who let this happen.

When studying journalism you learn about Edmund Burke's description of the news media acting as a Fourth Estate of Government, meant to act as an impartial body holding the government accountable for it's actions. This is a view that is unpopular and uncommon today even in the news media, and one that never really took hold in the music media, but it is an idea that we would do well to take up, lest we allow the commercial interests of a few companies smother the most human and evocative of human art-forms, turning it's corpse into a sick marionette that dances awkwardly to entertain the masses as the world crumbles around us.

Two Bullets: Squarepusher

It's a sad day when you're teenage idols go the way of your mid life crisis addled parents, trading in their own style for some pale imitation of what they think is young and trendy. Sadly it seems Squarepusher is the latest musician to go the way of Ed Hardy jackets and phallic sports cars as he embraces a live band/electro sound with latest project Shobaleader One.

If I'm honest though I think this has to be some sort of either piss-take, or piss-weak attempt at cashing in. Megazine (above) sounds like a poor man's Daft Punk, delivering a repetetive and cheesy fuzzed out bassline under laughable vocoded vocals.

This is a live band though, no programming or backing tracks, and part of the idea behind the project might be to show that a live band can make electro and not sound like a bunch of pathetic bullshit munchers like The Klaxxons or something, but regardless of that, the music is still an unimaginative appropriation of a genre that has long passed it's used by date.

It really does sound like it's a joke though, the vocals especially sounding like they could be taken from one of those South Park 'now you're a mayong' songs.

The single, Cryptic Motion



isn't much better, delivering a sort of spacey RnB vibe, that also sounds cheap and tawdry. None of these songs have any depth, they just sound like shallow exercises in borrowing aesthetics, with no emphasis on composition.

Having stated in an interview that "the basic premise at the outset was 'space pop' - a Utopian pop music hallucination. It's a stand against the affectation of knowing indifference in urban life and its corollary in music. I've always wanted to sabotage coolness as for me music is about laughing and crying, not about standing around smoking cigarettes," I can sort of see how the music's ended up where it is, but it's still sad to see one of the most challenging artists of modern times fielding such nonsense, instead of focusing on what he does best.

At best the music reminds me a bit of this blog, an artist's pathetic attempt to undermine what offends him.

Two Bullets, to the back of the head, and mine.

A Festival Of Tired Ideas: Fuck The Big Day Out

Fuck The Big Day Out.

Seriously ever year it gets worse and even if this years line-up is one of the strongest in recent memory, most of the acts have played before, a lot of them very recently. One of the major problems with the festival is that no matter how good some of the bands are there is always more shit than quality. There is always some point in the day where there is nothing good on, and you're left to pick through the refuse of what's been put on the side stages (or god forbid watch Birds Of Tokyo), when there are so many quality local acts who would kill to be on the bill and who would deliver much more interesting material. I mean sure Bridezilla played Lilyworld a few years ago, but that local produce stage they have is usually fucking rubbish.

What quality there is is then usually ruined by poor sound or drowned out by a sea of fuckwits more concerned about 'getting their mosh on' than anything else. Bjork being booed off stage in 2008 pretty much sums it up.

While this year's line up is a vast improvement on last years yawn-fest with Grinderman, Die Antwoord and Primal Scream breathing some life into the festival, for the most part the line-up is a case of leftovers from past line-ups. Sure Rammstein and Iggy & The Stooges are great leftovers, leftovers I would eat out of a dog bowl using a used cricket cup as a utensil and leftovers I am thankful to have a chance to taste having missed them in previous years, but they are rare birds next to pigeons like Lupe Fiasco who was out here only a few months ago for Playground Weekender, while Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77 were also here not too long ago. And Tool as headliners again, I'm sorry but repeating a headliner that quickly can only amount to laziness. This is a festival of tired ideas.

Add to this LCD Soundsystem, Booka Shade and CSS, and The Big Day Out seems like a refuge for every band out there that are whoring themselves on the festival scene. I mean who gives a shit about Booka Shade, they've played here so often they may as well get Southern Cross tattoos. Why aren't we seeing more headliners like Neil Young, something that challenges the increasingly Channel V appearance of the festival.

Meanwhile people are buying more and more tickets each year despite the line-ups growing staler, everyone caught up in the experience of The Big Day Out, an expereince which realistically amounts to not much more than getting sunburned while waiting in long lines for overprices beer after almost dieing in an oven of a train car and having to run the gauntlet of sniffer dogs only to watch a series of bands you've probably seen before play mediocre sets with poor sound while a frothing horde of mindless drunks drown out the band as they holler at the stage as if they're part of some twisted pagan ritual. Really that's all the Big Day Out has become, it's a ritual for those people who's lives are so empty they have turned to worshiping musicians rather than Jesus.

Whenever I go, I feel afraid of what might happen considering the amount of aggression and lack of responsibility exhibited by most of the punters. There is a palpable sense of danger and blood-lust in that crowd, everyone so eager to get to the front to see some band, which will somehow give their life more meaning. It's idol worship in it's most frightening form. Even Hillsong pales in comparison, no ones ever been crushed to death at one of their services.

However I think it is this very cult like nature of the festival that makes is so popular. People go to let go of social inhibitions and release their inner animal, to essentially act like adolescents again. No matter what piss-poor line-up they throw at us we seem to lap it up like a starved cat does vomit, because we are so eager for an excuse to escape our pointless and soul crushing lives of tedium and mediocrity. The musicians serve as Dionysian priests, presiding over this primitive celebration of intoxication and conformity.

Now I believe letting go of social inhibitions every now and again is a very good thing, but The Big Day Out seems to bring out a darker and more aggressive side than is healthy, while at the same time inundating these empty vessels with the talismans of commercial culture. Rather than channeling people's need for release into such mass marketed and mass produced avenue, which favours giving money to big name international acts over supporting up coming local talent (unless you play one of those joke Unearthed slots to no one at 11am on some V branded side stage), the promoters would do well to find a way to promote a calmer and less aggressive atmosphere, as well as focusing on delivering a better live experience, better sound, better lighting, a broader range of bands on offer. To bring it back to the music rather than the ritual.

"But where are they supposed to get the money" I hear you say? The backstage area. Having been backstage on numerous occasions over the years I can tel you that a lot of money goes into keeping the artists happy. Not only does each band have their own air conditioned trailer, rider and ridiculous demands (for instance lat year Lily Allen had a beach made of sand, a palm or two and a kiddie pool constructed in front of her trailer, even though she spent almost no time there), but they also have a games section, a swimming pool, a free Tiki Bar, an open buffet with fresh seafood, multiple jumping castles and even fucking dodgem cars. Considering how much pay for your ticket you might expect some of this decadence to be swung your way, but alas all the punters are usually left with is Lilyworld, which is getting more and more pathetic with each year.

But who cares, the punters keep coming anyway. The music seems almost secondary, the bands serving as bait to get the wild animals into the cage to spend all their cash on alcohol, cheap merchandise and terrible food. You can't really blame the promoters though, they're just businessmen out to make a buck, no more. We should demand more from them, we should choose to patronise other festivals like All Tomorrow Parties or Days Like This that go out of their way to offer a mixture of big name headliners and quality lesser known acts, but we don't. The truth is, as a culture, we want the cheap thrill. We want the porn star over the homegrown beauty. We want the fast food over the well cooked steak. We like going to the supermarket rather than the farmers market because it's easy, and even if we're getting ripped off for sub par products we don't care. That's what Big Day Out has become, a fucking musical supermarket.

When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong: How Mystikal Became A Registered Sex Offender

Lot's of rappers talk shit about being gangsta, but few really follow through with their claims.

Mystikal on the other hand keeps shit well real, choosing to rape a woman, even though with his money and success one would assume he could either pay for it or at least get a groupie to service his needs.

Read on for an account on how keeping it real went oh so wrong for him.

Quoted from Wikipedia

"On June 26, 2003,[1] Michael "Mystikal" Tyler pleaded guilty to sexual battery and extortion. On January 15, 2004, Tyler was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to forcing his hairstylist to perform sex acts. He also admitted to extortion. The rapper and two bodyguards forced the woman to perform oral sex, have sex with them, and accused her of stealing $80,000 in cheques. Tyler initially held firm that the incident was consensual. A videotape of the incident was found at his home shortly after the charges were initially made. Negotiations during the trial held the videotape from being entered as evidence and Tyler agreed to the plea bargain offered by the prosecution, avoiding the mandatory life sentence for sexual assault in Louisiana and expecting to receive probation. The case took a twist when the judge viewed the videotape at the sentencing, took into account Tyler's two prior arrests (for drug and gun possession) and had him remanded into custody to begin serving a six-year sentence immediately. Bodyguards Leland "Pokie" Ellis and Vercy "V" Carter also pleaded guilty to sexual battery.[2]

In August 2005, while incarcerated on the state sexual battery and extortion charges, Mystikal was charged federally with two misdemeanor counts of failing to file tax returns for 1998 and 1999. On January 12, 2006, he was convicted in federal court of the tax offenses, but was allowed to serve the one-year federal sentence concurrent with his six-year state sentence.[6]

Mystikal was incarcerated at Louisiana's Elayn Hunt Correctional Center. On January 19, 2006, Mystikal was denied parole at a parole board hearing.[7]

On January 11, 2007, Mystikal was released from custody on the federal misdemeanor tax convictions (as his one-year sentence had expired), but he remained in custody on the six-year sentence for the Louisiana state felony convictions. The news of his release caused confusion among fans who heard the news and mistakenly thought he had been released on parole.[8]

He was released January 14, 2010.[9] After his release Mystikal said:
“ I was gone so long, all the things I achieved, all the accolades I attained, it felt like it was a dream. It felt like I'd never done that stuff. But watch how I shake this world up now — I want reparations.[9] ”

After his release, Mystikal registered as a sex offender."

Circle Jerk : Why The ARIA Charts Are Fucking Meaningless

I heard today that Denis Handlin, Chairman & CEO, Sony Music Entertainment Australia & New Zealand and a man responsible for clogging this nation's airwaves with meaningless bullshit for two decades now (who I will begrudgingly admit also does donate a lot to charity), has been elected as Chairman of ARIA. This seems fitting that a man who has profited off irrelevant and mostly terrible music be chosen to head such an obsolete organisation.

Before I go on to discuss the inherently corrupt and conflicted framework of ARIA, let me say a few words about Mr Handlin, (other than the fact that if you change the first letter of his name to 'P' you get a pretty good illustration of his role in the Australian music industry.) This is the man who brought us Men At Work, Midnight Oil, Daryl Braithwaite, Silverchair, Delta Goodrem, Tina Arena, Human Nature, Pete Murray, Rogue Traders, Guy Sebastian, Jessica Mauboy, Shannon Noll and Natalie Bassingthwaighte, and while this should be enough to have him hung drawn and quartered for subjecting us to such insidious sonic torture, he was actually awarded the title of Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in recognition of his “service to the music industry, particularly through the promotion of Australian musicians, to professional organisations, and to the community through fundraising for charitable organisations.”

Now I want to be fair, he has done a lot of charitable work, but recognise him for that, he has done nothing to further Australian music, if anything he has popularised the idea that we are a) a bunch of listless bogans or mildly articulate cry babies, or b) completely lacking in any original identity and have to pathetically imitate the worst bullshit that filters down for the US. It's a well known fact in the industry that under his guidance, Sony Music hasn't been able to sell an artist to Sony US in years, while bands like The Drones, Bridezilla, PVT and The Dirty Three have to go overseas to get a decent record deal. Admittedly this is probably for the best as I would never wish that these artists sign to Sony, but so far as promoting Australian music, Handlin has done this nation's a massive disservice by promoting musicians who can only be popular domestically because of their lack of originality or innovation making them seem stale as part of a global scene, with their domestic success mainly facilitated the iron grip the majors have over the music media here.

Which brings me to my main point. The record labels control the ARIA Charts. Apart from the fact that a lot of the people who make up ARIA are from record labels, the way the chart works is by tracking distribution not record sales. This means that if a record label wants to give the impression one of their shit eating pop stars is wildly popular they can flood the retail market with copies, the album being awarded Gold or Platinum Status regardless of whether 99% of them were returned to the record label. This is also how the ARIA Awards are determined for the most part.

In an era where most people get their music from sources outside the traditional retail industry, ARIA is completely irrelevant and essentially no more than a tool the music industry use give each other self serving praise and to promote their vacant wares, eclipsing what little exposure genuine artists can achieve. It's a big shiny blindfold they wrap around your eyes before gang raping you like the inbred hicks they are. So the next time you see some pointless pop star receiving an ARIA award remember that is was bought and paid for by some bloated industry cunt high on their own sense of self importance and corrupt influence.

Rock Stars Have Killed The Music Industry

I was at a show last week and I ran into one of those lamentable excuses for music journalists, or even human beings, that most people know as Channel V presenters. This guy was a real fuckwit. I can't remember what boring and bland conversation led us to discussing The Rolling Stones, but when we got to that point I informed him calmly that they were not only one of the most irrelevant bands to ever walk the earth, but they are also nothing more than a bunch of white English kids who got rich and famous while the black musicians they stole all their ideas from suffered in relative obscurity and objective poverty.

He went on to dismiss this claim, offering a series of stories that ran along the lines, "so 'member x' was real fucked up and 'committed selfish and ego driven act,' I mean how rock is that?" Not once did he mention their music, understandably considering how fucking un-inventive it all is and how seemingly uneducated he was, but for him the reason why The Stones are such important figures in the history of music is that they were a bunch of drunk and drug fucked assholes who treated the rest of the world like they owed them something.

I disengaged myself from this scruffy haired waste of life that would have been better placed as a period or miscarriage but I couldn't help shake the notion that it's this very attitude that has ruined the music industry.

Back when being a musician was more blue collar, when being in a band meant a life of constant touring, struggling to get by and a general lack of recognition most musicians went into the business not expecting to be paid large amounts of money to act like a bunch of fuckwits, but instead to be paid a modest amount of money for the chance to express themselves and to pursue their love of music.

Nowadays though every side fringe wearing douche bag, or Television t-shirt sporting cunt wants to be a musician, and the few of them that do end up forming bands of any note feel they somehow all deserve to be rock stars.

What this has set up is a dangerous precedent where the mythology of rock and roll is valued more than the actual craft of music, where as long as you fit the right template and have all the right talismans people with often consider you a musician. Circle Pit, case in point. I mean how often to you see people with a Debussy or Mozart poster on their wall? The truly great figures in the history of music have been pushed into obscurity in favour of facile totems of fashion and trends who strut upon the stage like peacocks desperate to be fucked because it's not seen as cool and because we as a people no longer have the education to understand the craft and theory of music. This ignorance is what has led to the rampant proliferation of crap, as well as generally robbing music of any value because we no longer posses the skills with which to evaluate it's worth, with music essentially becoming homogenous in it's lack of meaning or relevance. Each band is a product no different to the next other than how's it's packaged and how it's marketed. Kisschassy or Birds Of Tokyo? Coke or Pepsi?

There are of course exception to this, bands who have wandered out of the barren wastelend that is the trend driven world of popular music into the shining citadel of true artistic expression, but nevertheless this rampant commodification of music has saturated the market to the point where for the most part people music no longer really matters to anyone.

'Oh I love music, it's my life!' you might say. But think about it, when was the last time you put on a record and listened to it without doing anything else? Music today is often becoming background noise to other activities, more often than not listened to on an iPod as we travel between whatever meaningless tasks occupy our bland and dreary lives.

To the younger generations the music video has surpassed the CD as the dominant medium, just as Television superseded radio, with image and the mythology a band erects around themselves serving to form the foundation of their appeal much more so than their music does.

Now image has been a factor ever since the days of Elvis and even before that with artists like Mozart or Wagner, but nowadays it seems to eclipse almost everything else. No cares what these artists have to say, which in a lot of cases is a good thing as they really have nothing to say that is of any importance. Look at a band like Animal Collective for instance, can you think of one meaningful sentiment expressed in their songs other than 'go out and buy a sampler.'They trade off an image of being out there creatives, their recent moving into film a fitting direction to take their pointlessly fashionable music in.

Music, and by music I mean notes on a page no longer matters to the large part of the populace, and it's no wonder the record industry has taken so long to collapse in on itself. You can blame downloading and the rise of dance music and hip hop as much you want, but it's this obsession with rock stardom that has done it. The idea that an industry can be maintained by rampant ego worship, devoid of any real cause or feeling has led to this current ambivalence as people can no longer hear the music for all the bullshit noise going on around them.

The music industry died when Elvis first swiveled his hips. He is the archetype that led to Lady Gaga, stealing the music of others and wrapping it up in a sexy little bow, and it is those of us who worshiped such false idols that led to heart, soul and meaning of music being ripped out of it by the hands of this adolescent urge toward hedonism, and even that model has collapsed as people have tired of idolising rock stars and now just try to live like them, living vacuous lives and appearing as sad parodies of the equally vacant stars they look to as gods.

Old Men Of Moss Mountain

http://www.myspace.com/oldmenofmossmountain

Let's face it, by and large Aussie hip hop is pretty fucking shit. The so called leaders of the genre Hilltop Hoods and Bliss N Eso's music amounts to nothing much other than mediocrity, the music lacking any real sense of relevance, and it usually being rather fucking tasteless. The Herd and Urthboy go all political with the raps, but still who fucking cares, nothing their saying is exactly shocking, it's usually just a regurgitated Greens manifesto, rapped with little flair over a generic beat stolen from 90s US hip hop.

Looking at the fans of the genre, the sort of hoody sporting cretins you'd expect to see hanging out in shopping malls or watching rugby league over a schooner or carlton in some horribly refitted RSL, it's no wonder why the genre has become such a boring and stale form of expression, but then again look at Australia in general and you could say the music's lack of innovation, excitement or meaningful contributions to 21st Century society is really a reflection of it's context.

Of course there are exceptions to this rule, most notably in my mind bands like True Vibenation, or Diafrix who manage to at least do it with style, avoiding the sort of colonial clumsiness of most of their contemporaries. Also I have to say that listening to The Tongue's most recent album, Alternative Energy has given me a small feeling of hope that the genre might actually develop some taste (mind you even this album falls into the trap of cheesy choruses and poorly thought out lyricism), but still we don't seem to have any artists in this country really pushing the boundaries of what Australian hip hop could be. That is no one other than Old Men Of Moss Mountain.

In the same way that artists like PVT, Seekae, Ghoul and Danimals, have found ways to innovate within their genre, producing work of a truly international quality,doing so with an accomplished sense of professionalism and maturity lacking in many of the contemporaries, so too have Old Men Of Moss Mountain found a way of to offer something that is different compared to artists all over the world rather than just in our backyard.

They're by no means producing masterpieces, yet, but they are offering music that is original and interesting, and considering how hip hop seems to be growing stale the world over at the moment, with only a few handful of artists trying to make something new, I for one feel proud that Australia has finally cast it's hat into the ring of forward thinking rap.

http://www.myspace.com/oldmenofmossmountain