Oh God, NME Tries To Start Yet Another New Movement ..... SHROOMADELICA - The music movement that will 'weird up your head',

I hate stoners.

X-post Jim OTM re. Clientele.

the memory band, etc etc.

and i know that ilx sometimes comes from a dark place. but i'm o.k. with that.

Do you reckon my time with Uncut might be coming to an end?...I'm now on the payroll of Time Out, and John Lewis seems to be a million times more open to my ideas. So I'll probably take my Earlies rave review there.

x-post, oh dear lord...

marcello, don't stress and have fun. that's the advice. otherwise 'comes from a dark place'

Actually Kate, d'you fancy doing the Rollers review? I've tried my best with them but even I can't rehabilitate every doe-eyed bubbleboy from the '70s!

You agreed with me when we discussed this IRL.

1) All of the above is nice when it's in regard to music that you love and actually want to rave about. But 90% of the music that you will be asked to write about is boring, souless, vapid stuff that inspires no passion, either way. I just can't fake passion I don't feel.

2) It's the "when what you love becomes your job" dilemma that I've suffered with regards to music for quite a while. When it's something fun that you do every now and then for the sheer enjoyment of it, it's great. When your fun-thing hobby becomes your WORK with all the pressures and strains that that entails, what do you have left to kick back and enjoy yourself?

so so so so so so so so wrong... am hearing a couple of new records a day, at the moment, that are blowing my mind.

But 90% of the music that you will be asked to write about is boring, souless, vapid stuff that inspires no passion, either way. I just can't fake passion I don't feel.

if you pitch for ideas as opposed to being offered them, this isn't the case. i write *a lot*, and i still only really write about the stuff i like, unless its a singles review. i don't really enjoy writing lukewarm/negative reviews - if i dislike something, it goes in the To Sell bin and i move on.

yeah, wot stevie said.

This is a lovely ideal, but the reality is that no matter what you actually end up writing about, you still have to wade through a gigantic fucking shitpile of mediocre demos, CDs and (this is the clincher) awful awful dull gigs to get through to the good stuff - that's the thing that constantly threatens to kill the love for me, and that's what I think Kate's referring to in her first point.

Also, Doomie you're spot-on - Kathryn Williams album's magnificent...

it just seems to me, *any* job will get boring, if you let it. for me, as a freelancer, every day is different, every piece is a fucking *challenge* to be better than my last, to achieve some impossible goal of perfection. and i still really really really enjoy writing, and music. i don't think i'll ever tire of either, so to be working with both is a treat.

doomie otm.

This is a lovely ideal, but the reality is that no matter what you actually end up writing about, you still have to wade through a gigantic fucking shitpile of mediocre demos, CDs and (this is the clincher) awful awful dull gigs to get through to the good stuff - that's the thing that constantly threatens to kill the love for me, and that's what I think Kate's referring to in her first point.

charlie sorta otm, too... (and it was great to finally meet you at ATP, when my girlfriend was whupping my ass at airhockey)... i mean, listening to wave after wave of crap can be pretty disheartening, but i fight against that by slamming something 100% assuredly GREAT after listening to lotsa crap (MC5's '66 Breakout' or Duke Ellington's 'Money Train' or anything by the Posies seems to do that at the moment). I mean, being confronted with crap is a downer in any sphere, be it watching movies, reading books, listening to the radio. you just can't let it dowse your essential enthusiasm. i mean, i know that's a danger, but you just *can't*.

I'm just *not* a music journalist, it's not my calling, I've never wanted to be one, yet loads of other people have consistently told me (for over ten years now) that I should be one. It's irritating feeling like I have to justify not being one.

Anyway, back on topic... shroomadelica. It's really kind of a cop-out isn't it? Cause, like, Shrooms are the "legal loophole" psychedelic for those too scared to take hardcore, illegal psychedelics.

(I mean, that's not even getting into the stupidity of glamourising hardcore, illegal drug use, but that's another story...)

It perfectly encapsulates the NME mentality, doesn't it? Let's peddle a nice, safe, watered-down, legal version of an already exisiting genre. Sigh.

i love psychedelia.

i love illegal drugs.

hey. tailor made!

am listening to kw right now.

x-post - captain beefheart!

Bods have often said "hey mark, you should have been a journo for a music mag", all said bods not being writers (or even readers) of music mags. Its no put down, but as far as writing about stuff (check my "Laugh I almost bought one" marissa marchant piece/thread here, my critical facilities run only as far as "It's interesting/I like", "It's a bit dull/It's OK" and "Its Rubbish/I don't get it". I just can't quite get into florid hyperbolae. I can write around things, but to hit it directly...

I did write 'audition' pieces back in the day, of the Primitives second album. I finished it, read it, and realised I'd written a rave review of an album I didn't think was that great. (never played it again anyhow. The first album I think is still a classic, but that's by the way)...

This is going to be so xpost, it's not true... (xpost, yup!)

Can't we have a Proper Daft Clever Pop revival now? Saw David Devant last night, fucking brilliant.

Music recorded by people actually on psychedelic drugs sounds more like the Grateful Dead, i.e. terribly dull and tedious for anyone *not* on psychedelics.

Chop-chop!

So many of the people I've known who made really psychedelic music were the way they were a long time before they ever took drugs.

i'm almost 100% sure Zappa didn't take any drugs aside from nicotine and caffeine.

wayne coyne took acid as a kid, a couple of times, but hated it. there have been drug problems within Flaming Lips, but not psychedelics-related. as far very-real insanity, however, the answer is, sadly, yes.

King Tubby made some brain-smashing dub records, while never touching marijuana, or even booze.

That's what I thought, though I didn't know for certain.

It just irritates me when these sort of people are held up as examples of "wow, kids, this is psychedelic music, this is what will happen to you when you take drugs" in a glamourisation sense, when the truth is, drugs had little to do with that music.

But I suppose it's the same as the glamourisation of mental illness with regard to you when people hold up Brian Wilson or Syd Barrett and say "wow, kids". Irritating.

i don't know... i agree about psychedelics, etc. but what about the influence of a drug like heroin? maybe its more that the psyche of a junkie is more likely to influence their art than the junk itself? and someone experimenting with psychedelics is less likely to be making a conscious life decision as someone who chooses (jesus, i feel like a tory minister saying this) to become a junkie.

Richard Pinhas released an album earlier this year, Tranzition. An astonishing intoxicating mixture of electronics and kaleidoscope guitar sounds.
http://cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/pinhas.html

This is far superior to the weak radio friendly bands it labels as psychedelic.

The difference is more that heroin is physically addictive while psychedelics are only psychologically addictive. So maybe being a pscyhedelic-using hippie is a lifestyle in that you *can* wake up one day and decide you've had enough of, while being a heroin-using junkie is a *life* in that it's a far harder thing to give up once you've got into it.

Different drugs attract different personality types. Any user - either an artist but more likely a fan - is going to be drawn to the ones that tick their particular brain-chemistry/personality boxes.

Drugs in Music:

1) Jazz / heroin = Environment
2) Sixties bands: Bands who experiment with music more likely to experiment with drugs. The drugs experience informs the music. Bands who do not experiment with either, settle for a comfortable 'ballroom' existance (freddie and the dreamers worked their five hits and various well known tracks for 40 years afterwards).
3) the notion drugs = good music was born. Erroneously.
4) Anyone with a ready and plentiful supply was supposedly a musical genius. Terrible music was made.
5) Suddenly, everyone got abstemious/took other drugs/drank instead. Music more accessible, but not neccesarily better.
6) Anyone with a pocket of blow gets stoned and writes drone anthems aout their girlfriend's beautiful eyes. But does not notice girl has gone home. Then does. And writes another song about girlfriends eyes. From a photograph.
7) Now the drugs experience is well documented. You don't actually have to do them to make good music. You just have to know your shit.
8) if 6 was none?

Especially number 7. These days, people are attracted to artists who appear to be documenting the drugs they wish they were taking...

(or is it just me?)

I lost my post I just made, rats: summary was:

Noel Gallagher: Taking Drugs is the same as a cup of tea,
he never said a more true thing.
So who would write a song where dgs appear as an incidental rather than 'what the song is about' or 'what the drug is a metaphor for' or vice versa.

(The original lost posting was much better btw)

I'd have to agree here.

Just tap them on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and say "NO!" in a loud, commanding voice.

i'm almost 100% sure Zappa didn't take any drugs aside from nicotine and caffeine."

Beefheart has often claimed not have done so - however everyone I've ever spoken to who actually knows / knew the man tells me that this is utter bollocks.

It's slightly easier to believe that Zappa didn't because of his evidently rampant OCD - but only slightly

That is hilarious and so dead-on.

i must hear this! please!

er. um. i don't quite know what to say about this......

New drug euphemism?

... and the Lips (hi Wayne, remember the Foolkiller!) were from Norman, OK, a college town within doable gig distance. there was a midwest local tour curcuit - columbia, MO, Norman OK, Lawrence, KS, Topeka, KS, Lincoln NB and it was very cooperative, low key and close knit. Close knit enough for me to have lots of stories i won't tell you.

For as long as I can remember loads of people I know have used the term 'shit NME bands' for any of those boring, middle of the road indie rock bands that they trumpet, presumably because they're too scared not to (I give them the credit of not actually liking that pap).

I'm not being facetious, if someone I know said to me "oh, such-and-such are one of those shit NME bands..." I'd know exactly what they sound like and probably how they look and act too.

BTW a band doesn't actually have to be in NME to be a 'shit NME band', they just have to be the sort.

Recently though Kerrang! has got a lot more diverse so it's not so useful.

isn't this just a new version of "Steve Lamacq approved bands"?

Shit NME music
Shilola NME music
shoe shine nme bands
shoe shnme bands
shoegazer bands

So I bought the album (which turned out to be The Delays) and exactly three songs sound like that. And the rest of it is Doomie-bait sub-Byrdsian La's style jingle jangle. Sigh.

(If there were a style of music I could be said to hate, it would be Lame Kerrang Bands. There was an interview with the bloke what runs it in the Camden New Journal a few weeks ago, coz apparently Kerrang is run out of Camden and I wanted to stick a pencil in his eye by the end of it.)

I don't think they're the greatest anything ever, and I'd never start a movement around them, but their singer's voice is really nice. He sounds like a GURL and that is the highest compliment I can give someone.

not true, but the current editor 4shl3y B1rd lives right near the tube.

Also, Delays* are lovely and mmm. Singer sounds like Geneva's Andrew Montgomery, which is a bit of a bind for Andrew Montgomery who apparently now has a new band.

*there is no "The". There was never a "The". The band apparently spend half their time runnung around like Lynn Truss, armed with scissors, marker pens and Tippex, altering posters...

Delays are definitely Summer Sunshine Pop, but psychedelic? As psychedelic as milk!

x-post with Chuck... oh. I assumed Kerrang was run out of Camden, but if he lives in Camden, that makes him a "famous Camdenite". Apparently. I mean, the CNJ can't just go on running endless features about the Bloomsbury Movement, can they, but still! Kerrang? Fuck off!

OK, that's it, I'm writing to the CNJ to complain about Kerrang's inclusion when they should be covered only in the Southark Shite Journal or some such rag. THIS IS A LOCAL PAPER FOR LOCAL PEOPLE, NOW KEEP THAT NASTY BOYROCK OUT OF IT!!!

(I heart the CNJ, it is the best local paper ever, so much better than that pseudo-socialist Islington nonsense I read on the 19 the other day.)

Except I think I'd run a girlband rather than a boyband. So then I wouldn't run the risk of actually sleeping with any of them and getting arrested or the like...

Or is it South of Oxford Street and therefore not in the weird aberration area of Camden at all?

I know! I've been thinking that since I first heard them, then I learned otherwise the other week and my head hurt.

Graham's production is I think the secret to their success at their best. It's not him making them sound like BP or anything, more like he's got a great ear for teasing out some unexpectedly strong arrangements.

(Have low hopes from bands, then you'll never be disappointed.)

What does it mean when someone says "xpost", though? I mean, obviously they're saying "cross post" but I can't figure out what they mean by that. I would think this might be explained in the FAQ, but no luck, there.

I'm sure the Bees have been making records for as long as i've been a hack too.

They're gonna keep running with this Shroomadelica pish aren't they?

I eagerly anticipate the arrival of the entire Bees album, although come to think of it, they probably have more than one. Thank you Stevie for turning me on to them.

Alright, which one of you sarc barsts wrote in?

the bees have done nothing for me. dunno why?

though that pure reason revolution single is really growing on me as well...!

(x post)

dundas is a village connection to my hometown - hamilton. i would recommend neither for a visit. hamilton is a mean-as-fuck crack-eyes faded steeltown.

jesus, this was one of the most horrific shows i've seen all year... like a bunch of hoxton hairdresser born-again christians rocking through the soundtrack of Hair while pulling painful Radiohead faces. one of the guitarists wore the band's own tee shirt too. Icksville, Tennessee...

ha ha ha! cross that with a pop-prog monkees and you've got it. rocking!

They are? I hadn't noticed (which is quite possible)

me too.

doomie was from Hamilton?

I think this was the worst 'scene' that NME ever tried to create. ESOJ OTM upthread

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/mar/17/romo-skunk-rock-shroomadelica-music-genres

yeah yeah.

i will defend regular fries no matter what micro-genre they get lumped in with.

they were connected, the records were really well produced, had some amazing remixes by the top names of the day, and made tripped out psych-funk-hip hop-rock records.

if, you had no idea re their NME connection, i would suggest that in 10 years you would be hailing them as classics CS

I heard them at the time and thought they were crap.
Also I dont remember the term 'skunk rock' they got called in that above article.

i genuinely believe that if you heard the fries debut without any prior knowledge you would enjoy ..

but i heard them on the evening session before i read about them. I think i got a 12" of theirs for 50p in Impulse Records in Hamilton when it came out.

There was an attempted NME scene called 'stool' possibly late 90s. Don't think it ever caught on cos it's a shit title.
Despite the crap pun that is true. Think it was singer-songwriter plus band stuff.

was that the taking the piss out of noel rock thing?

yeah, stoolrock was Noely G-based

also Lo-Fis were great, Regular Fries were good, and if the first Campag album stopped after 45 minutes it'd be a lot better

despite the ILM consensus 'sic' tells the truth.

also, the second campag velocet album is a lot better than it should have been ..