Entertainment For Lively Minds
And this is supposed to be good, is it?
This just in. Another extract from our PR postbag.
The Twilight Sad step up a gear towards the release of their sophomore ‘Forget The Night Ahead’ album with the release of a brand new single ‘I Became Prostitute’ - the first frormatted release from the new record - on August 3rd. It’s backed with non-album track ‘In The Blackout’. The band previewed new songs on both sides of the Atlantic back in May with US dates supporting Mogwai, and UK headline dates including heart-stoppingly intense – and intensely loud - performances at three Stag & Dagger events, and two Great Escape appearances.
Why does anyone put out a single called "I Became Prostitute"? To get on the Radio One playlist? To pick up a bit of casual purchase in HMV? And if someone played a show that was so intense that it stopped your heart, wouldn't you be cross? Particularly if it was "intensely loud" as well.
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Why does anyone...
release singles at all, nowadays? They must virtually all be a loss leader in the name of album/tour publicity, unless it's an X-Factor winner. Besides, fat chance of a "casual purchase in HMV" of a single by anyone so obscure in my local two branches.
Just be thankful it wasn't a release by the Norwich band F**k Dress.
Saw a feature
on the teletext site 'Planet Sound', talking about physical single sales. And they are shockingly poor, we are talking 100s of singles sold for top ten singles.
Incidently 'Planet Sound' on the C4 teletext is apparently due to finish at the end of the year, i, for one, will be sad to see the end of this useful site
I wonder if PR people
have a kind of "Pseud's Corner" competition to see who can release a piece of such cringe-worthy tosh it gets picked up by the Hepmeister and duly cited? E-mails are currently whizzing back and forth in the PR community celebrating this week's winner...
Great idea...
...for a regular Word column.
Do it
How long before they (record company PR depts) get the message?
Oh dear...
No definite article, straight in the bin, David.
If you're in the mood for some punishment
you can find lots more like this, and worse, here:
http://lostintheshowbiz.blogspot.com/
How many albums called "Forget The Night Ahead"..
...were they planning to release altogether?
The Twilight Sad
were a standout for me at the BBC introducing stage at T in the Park..
It's post rock so ,you know, not everyone is going to like it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/tinthepark/2009/artist/the_twilight_sad/
they are no "godspeed
you black emperor"!
Well spotted
they're not Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, This will Destroy you, Low etc. either... but they drink from the same trough.
Just thought i'd speak up a bit for them before they were assasinated before being heard.
Can't get past the
video stamping all over Bogie and Bacall I'm afraid...
It's a strange one isn't it.
Fans do the strangest things ... at least it wasn't a Manga cartoon.
They're shite
I'll give them that.
Gosh!
They appear to be everything I despise in music condensed in one handy group.
Yeah, I don't think they aim to please
I could wake up one morning and this would be the last thing I'd listen to ...other days it hits a spot.
It's anti pop ... which has it's place, occasionally, when faced with wave after wave of 'Communications provider advert bands'.
It whiffs of pretention...but let's face it...don't we all sometimes?
“I don’t think they aim to please”
Maybe they picked the wrong line of business then.
If they don't aim to please
Why release a single? Bands seem to do this out of nothing more than habit nowadays.
What I mean is
I'm not sure whether they're concerned whether you like them or not...it's a democracy.
I'm sure they'd be disappointed to hear the level of vitriol spewed out on this page but I suspect they'd lose little sleep over it.
Some people make music for purely commercial reasons others like making a noise that pleases them...if others like their noise then that's a bonus.
I personally liked the noise they made when I saw them live... that was out of my control.
Mr. Hepworth is completely correct when he says it's everything he hates in a band.
I'm just glad he got to hear the music before reaching that decision and was not just basing his opinion on some industry blurb.
Actually
just realised I didn't answer your question..
Why a single?
Maybe it's in their record contract?
Maybe, being young and excited [ can we remember that?]they think it would be really cool to have their own 7" single that years down the line when they're in their retirement village they can look back at and smile?
Are they aiming for chart domination? I doubt it...
Don't worry Lady Gaga is safe..
Well, yes but -
I wonder if they couldn't get the same effect by just sticking their music online, developing a really good website, and communicating directly with their fans? I guess the pleasure of a tangible object rather than a virtual one.
Young and excited! Ah yes, I think I was once, on an October evening in 1981... (;-)
Oh, and I find Lady Gaga monumentally dull. Is it just me?
Apparently
there is a tradition [however short the timeline may be] within especially Glaswegian Indie bands for producingg vinyl releases because it's their best exposure via small chains like Avalanche recoeds etc. and the avant-garde arty student crowd....
I attended an event in my home town with Mr Eamon Forde [ who did a comprehensive if not spirited guide to self promotion for bands ]
Also present was Mr. Kreosote and Stevie Jackson frae Belle and Seb.
Pretty sure Stevie said they owed a lot of their success to independant record shop vinyl releases.
Arty kids love that sort of thing...DJ's want Arty girl muff ...suddenly things get played on ver radio
no mystey really
Arty Girl Muff
(Sometimes a phrase just slaps you viciously in the chops!)
Actually, that makes a kind of sense. Apart from the economics, I suspect indie kids, with their general obsession with anything - however mannered - which smacks of "authenticity", prefer the genial aroma of vinyl to the harsh stench of the internet... ?
Although I'm being rather mean, I can see some aesthetic sense in that.
BTW, is "King Creosote" overeating a bit these days? Perhaps sir would like a waffer thin mint?
(*runs away and leaps over some plants, peers nervously out and awaits... *)
Must...
try
harder.
I would advise the members of this band to try to earn their crust through some vocation other than music, such as disinfecting toilets or sticking labels on marmalade bottles.
Marmalade comes in jars
Unless that's some kind of Italian variation. They'd probably see it as 'subversive'. A decent mortgage round their necks and their songs will gain focus.
For once
the PR puff may be less pretentious than the band. They're first single appears to have been called "That Summer, at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy".
That may be true
but it's an absolute cracker of a song
It's ok
and I can see why people (by people, I think I mean young people) will like it. But it just sounds like a slightly ploddy Idlewild with a shouty singer. It has been done better before, by others.
Brilliant
They are actually a fantastic band - best I've seen this year.
I often wonder...
...how groups like that decide who sings. Is it the last one to turn up to rehearsal?
I know you can't tell if it's a boy
or a girl it's all just noise......
Rehearsal?
You don't think they rehearse do you?
Sophomore - does anyone really use this word in real life?
"Sophomore is a term used in the United States to describe a student in the 2nd year of study (generally referring to high school or university study).[1][2] The word is also sometimes used in the United States as jargon for the second album released by a musician or group, the second movie of a director, or the second season of a professional athlete".
Can't they just say "the second album"? Are they an American band?
Here's an interesting test
Take the press communication above and imagine you had to communicate the things it said via the medium of speech. Not *a* speech. Just speech.
I think you'd find
it would contain lots of use of the words 'blah' and 'meh', together with the 'BELM' gesture, formed by forcing one's tongue quite forcefully against the lower lip and pushing outwards, accompanied by 'uh' noises, rather as one would make when straining.
It lost me at sophomore too. not only is it record company bollcks, it's record company bollocks written by someone in the US, where the word is certainly used a lot more.
I have a funny feeling I'd like the song if I heard it (haven't had chance yet), but this turgid, colon-inspecting arschsoße hasn't done it any favours.
Don’t know about “real life”
But it crops up in the Beach Boys song Pom Pom Playgirl, all about a cheerleader who’s fussy about whom she “dates”: “with a freshman or a sophomore she wouldn’t be seen”. Suggests it was commonplace in the teenage vernacular of early ’60s California.
This song also boasts one of the much-maligned Mike Love’s greatest lines: “She’s a doll, and she knows it, and she thinks her face; Will get her anybody, anything and any place”. Not very PC, I suppose, but we’ve all known girls like that. It also has what can only be described as a “percussion solo”. And all this within the first 50 seconds - no fat on Beach Boys records.
(Do I get a prize for nerdiest posting ever.)
Your rather proving Retro Man's point
as in the aforementioned song the Help Me Rhonda Hitmakers actually use the word in it's proper context, that of the American educational system. Use it anywhere else and you start to look like a bit of a tool.
Wasn’t really disputing Retro Man’s point
Just saying it’s one of those words that’s more commonplace in the US than here. Interesting how it‘s filtered down into a 2009 UK press release: I think through “hip” rock jargon in which American words and phrases are “cool” - you can imagine Bob Harris using it on Whistle test in 1974, which is how it’s ended up here. It’s no weirder a word, or concept, than say “debut” which we wouldn’t blink an eye at.
Sophomore
It's up there with "do the math".
Everett True would use "sophomore" when writing for "Melody
Maker" during the grunge years, over fifteen years ago. He peppered his prose with Americanisms. Either he went native or he was copying it from Seattle's small press.
I believe I was one of the first record-buyers in the UK to own a copy of Slint's "Spiderland". I was a fan of post-rock before Simon Reynolds named it in Wire. All my favourite bands gathered in one article. There wasn't much competition at the time. I liked this stuff when it was fresh and different. I'm sure it's fine but, you know, I've sort of heard it already.
Having said that, are there any young bands making space-pop?
I don't mind this at all
And to be fair to the band, I imagine they have zero expectation of ever being on the Radio One playlist, just as they probably expect to sell most of their CDs through Rough Trade rather than HMV. Having been a fan of Swans/Sonic Youth/Big Black/Butthole Surfers/Slint etc in the 80s, I can vouch for the fact that for some men of a certain age (and it is mostly men), there's very little that's more satisfying than a certain kind of noise, even better if it's LOUD. Sometimes it's not about the song.
Ah, Slint....
....why didn't you say? Slint. Of course.
Derision seeps from those words...
in an unforgettable manner.
In Slint's defense
This is from Wikipedia, referring to Slint's second album:
Hmmm. I'm probably not doing myself any favours here, am I?
Bonus Slint fact: the cover photograph for this album was taken by Will Oldham aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy.
This thread is “Bollocks”
I remember some time in the late 80s/ early 90s, someone like David Quantick or Stuart Maconie was let loose on the newsy/bitsy section of the NME and decided to play it mostly for laughs. One of the regular strands was “Bollocks” in which a current press release was simply printed verbatim. It went without saying that it was an object of ridicule. Mind you, you can’t help feeling sorry for the people who had to knock this stuff out.
One of the most painful experiences of my life...
involved my time working in PR. I had sent out a Bernie Tormé CD to various journalists and then had to make follow up calls. No more detail is required... use your imagination.
What do
PR people make of Mr Hepworth?
At least he's...
honest!
Whether they have any opinion about me...
...and whether I'm honest is neither here nor there. The reason I occasionally post extracts from these press releases is to pose a more fundamental question; who is this piece of communication for? If it's supposed to impress me then it has manifestly failed. But then I'm a miserable old scrote who was binning press releases long before most of the people writing them today were born.
Is it supposed to impress you? Well, OK, let's not go to the trouble of rewriting it in the style of the publication concerned. Let's just set it before the readers. Which I've done. I get the impression that your reactions to it fall into two groups: those who are as miserable and cynical as me and those who think we should give the group the benefit of the doubt and not hold it against them that they were represented by a press release written by their American (*wrong!*) record company (*wrongity wrong!!*)
The press release used to arrive on a piece of paper, was re-typed and then published on another piece of paper some weeks later. In the days of the interweb it is a wholly redundant exercise and is done largely for the benefit of the person who paid for it. I don't know why PRs bother. If I was a PR I would be posting stuff directly on to this site. If it was any good people would read it.
Is the direct posting you
describe dh allowed not sure i fancy loads of puff pieces all over the place etc?
Make mine a single
Although releasing singles seems to make no financial (or indeed promotional) sense, it's still a big thing with the indie kids. Maybe because it's considered "alternative" or something.
The Twilight Sad are actually a pretty good band....on record. If you listen to their first album, you can hear layer upon layer of delicately constructed textures. There's a lovely mixture of keyboard, accordion and delayed guitar. The problem comes when they attempt to replicate this sound live.
I've seen them play twice now, and both times have been in venues with decent sound systems. The limitations of live sound (coupled with the high volume at which the band like to play) result in the afore-mentioned textured soundscapes coming across as a continuous slab of overpowering guitar noise, making it difficult to even tell the songs apart. So, for me, they're best experienced on record.
Grump grump snuffle snuffle
Shite though it is, I bet your kids like it and that your teenaged daughters want to shag them.
And therein lies the rub.
No it isn't
If I could get any of my daughters out of bed this early they would be laughing like drains.
What does 'frormatted' mean?
Couldn't they bother checking their spelling? Or is this just a joke on squares like me who find that kind of thing annoying?
it's a cool internet term
the young people use, like pwn. It means not only am I illiterate, but I think that the wavy red line underneath the word makes it look groovy
I've been locked out ...
Couldn't log in all weekend and so had to sit there mute whilst people let rip at one of my current favourite bands.
And now everyone will have left this thread behind, I've calmed down (I was hungover when reading all this on Sunday) and the lengthy rant I had planned out in my head has been forgotten in another hellish Monday in the office.
Bugger!
Anyway thanks to Fraser for sorting my password issue out.
Wow
I love this music - I find it very uplifting. If it hadn't been for that dumb press release I'd probably have never heard of them.
I hope that wasn't their cunning plan all along!
Brilliant.
The Fourteen Autumn and Fifteen Winters mini album is the best place to start. Very Scottish.
Off to see in a week. In a 100 capacity room under a cinema in York.
Ur-text
Wha'? I've been waiting on somebody else asking what this means but it looks like it's going to be me.(eek,maybe everyone knows!)Ur-text,I think that was the stuff on the bathroom walls in my first flat.
Twilight Sad.... Shit Sad!
I am still laughing... they had me at the intro and then that bloke started singing! This the worst example of indie landfill out there, surely?
Why oh why oh why couldn't they have at least called it
"This week I Are Mostly Prostitute". I would even have given up filesharing to buy that..
Another classic piece of PR crap
From 4AD's recent email newsletter:
"We were able to announce the signing of Tune-Yards, the singular musical project of New England native Merrill Garbus, who manages to marry a coarse folk ingenuity with the bold pop sensibility of an R&B siren."
And in English that means?
Despite being a native English speaker...
I have absolutely no idea.
God I'm glad I gave up PR.
There's so much crap in the world
I really don't think I can take it anymore. And I don't mean the music.
The Howard Beale moment approaches...
"I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this any more"
...if that's alright with everyone.
They sound like Interpol
They sound like Interpol with a Scottish accent; I quite like them.