What ever happened to Gay Dad?

Actually I take it all back and I hope the Strokes become megabig because I bought their RT 7" and I could use the beer money at some future date. Sorry Kate.

Yeah, I should confess that I also own the vinyl copy as well.

They don't fit on U.S. radio and they are too polished for most U.S. indie fans. In the future the Strokes will be...the Dandy Warhols.

Oh, Scott, I loved you until you said that!!!

Actually, the difference between the Strokes and the Dandys is that they Dandys have the actual secret weapon that is Peter Holmstrom (only member with actual *talent* as opposed to looks, 'Tood and nudity).

Me and my boy actually did both buy the single, for the same reason as you two did. ;-) See, that's the secret reason I'm bad-mouthing them so much. There are hundreds of bands I really loathe. I just want to give them the bad press so the disc will be worth something in a year...

But, to bring the thread full circle, what are the chances that The Strokes will be the next Gay Dad in a year?

proves my theory, this should be called 'i hate music'...

signing off..

paul.

This is very strange. Maybe The Strokes want massive exposure so that everybody will *hate* them and then buy their records !

thank god that i am not cool. i would hate to be like you.

Hey, I thought we went full circle with the media's premature embrace of the band through dubious connections (cliff jones as a former music journalist and such).

Patrick: Yeah, that's the ultimate irony in a thread in which I called a band "hypocrites." I bought the record early thanks to all of the kudos, and then furrowed my brow after the unanimous praise and got a bit curious.

Masonic Boom: Yeah, sorry, the Dandys aren't my favorites, but I meant to say that's the sort of level of fame the Strokes will get. (probably a big crossover in fan base as well, at least here where the Dandys get approval from the indiepoppers and Britpop kids)

I think the Strokes have the capacity to be bigger than the Dandys, if only cause they've just sold out a tour in about 30 minutes and I the dandys have never done that here (much as I'd love them too so they could mesmerise audiences with incredibly long and fun versions of white gold :)

I think the Strokes have the capacity to be bigger than the Dandys, if only cause they've just sold out a tour in about 30 minutes and I the dandys have never done that here (much as I'd love them too so they could mesmerise audiences with incredibly long and fun versions of white gold :) I too bought the debut EP, and I keep checking NME (yes, I read it regularly, for all my sins) and keep checking the sister ray ad to see if it's sold out, it hasn't, dammit. I actually really liked it at first, but then went off it totally, for some reason, it sounded amazing on first radio hearing, but then dissapointing afterwards. interestingly enough, NME seem not to mind that casablancas is the singer's father. maybe they think it adds cool style which they seem obsessed with sometimes. maybe it's american glamour. if they were british they would have been shot down in flames as public school boys or the like by now. (art school students seems to be a particular favourite) BTW, anyone heard of Sit and Spin, another girl band from NYC in vaguely the same vein. Peel played them years ago, described someone as calling them 'the best new girl band in NYC', but I haven't heard anything since, so...?

Bill

Sit and Spin?!?!?

Holy shit, I think I auditioned for them in about 1995/6. From what I remember, they were excellent garage/surf sort of stuff. However, this was five years ago. Didn't know they were still around. And Peelie played them? Will have to look them up and see if they're around.

Dammit, if *we* were American, Peel would love us. Sigh. Oh, wait... ::grins::

It's actually worse than you even thing, because not only have I bought the single cause I think it might be worth something, I've never even played it.

"I Hate Music" was taken, sadly.

Never heard of Sit and Spin, but it apparently makes for an interesting google search. Will have to make a smutless inquiry later.

Hey! Who would have guessed a Gay Dad thread would get upwards of 75 posts?

Given A Certain Contributor, I'm not in the least surprised.

I'll thank you not to mock my extreme devotion to Gay Dad, Mr. Raggett.

Are you implying that mentioning A Certain Band in public is automatically going to generate 22k of ranting? You wound me!

See, other people hate them too. Humph. And now I have substantiated *reason* to dislike them, well, what, apart from their lack of talent and all.

I do have to note that though the boy did not want to go out tonight, claims to loathe Pooptones with a passion, hates schmoozing, etc. etc. etc, it is now midnight and he's not back yet. Humph.

I can't decide whether I was too overt or too subtle, so I'll say nothing more.

Ned, point taken. I will now proceed to posting all of my thoughts on Gay Dad in the "Why Scott dislikes the Strokes" thread.

I never realised so many people would post. A bloody lot more than did for my "Stevie Ray Vaughn " post. :(

Well, what a lot of people do not know about Stevie Ray Vaughn is that he was working on a folktronic record when he died. His excitement over the project led to spontaneous combustion.

Holy shit! He really did burn breifly and brightly then! Peopl e always worship him like a fallen hero but wasn't he just kind of Hendrix tribute performer?

Well, what a lot of people do not know about Stevie Ray Vaughn is that he was working on a folktronic record when he died

Are there any of Stevie Ray's ideas that Momus hasn't pilfered?

As far as I know Momus hasn't half-inched Stevie's natty sartorial style. His hat was very ahead of it's time.

so 'masonic boom' you loathe poptones? guess who they signed?

FRENCH KICKS.

two fingers to you and the industry music spawned.

by the way, don't see much about yer band. wonder why? cause yer crap, maybe and have no soul?

hmmmm....maybe.

yes.

anyways, I love the strokes, but still listening to new poptones signings, french kicks, the bellrays and well.......................

the last one will be a surprise.

poptones loathes you masonic boom. so don't worry.

Yeah, I wouldn't be the least bit worried if Poptones hated me.

I was about to say. Isn't that a badge of honor these days?

y'know, doom/paul/whatever, darling, for one who is all about soul, feeling it, whatever, and against too much verbiage abt music, you don't 'alf spout off a lot. Shouldn't you be spending time writing yer meisterwerk? (I hope U got a good sub-ed, BTW Mr punctuation)

Poptones is to the best of my knowledge, completely unaware of my very existence!, and seeing as how I put heart and soul into writing prog rock on a komputer using synthesisers I'm not expecting that to change anytime soon. Not that I give a shiznitch, or anything.

WTF, if poptones were as KaY-WRaD as doom paul seems to think, they'd have signed ars nova if they were looking for a mad & r0x0ring all grrl band (are you bothering with this thread momus - ars nova are from your current part of the world!), and not those embarrasing losers ping pong biznitches.

perhaps the board admins could start a special thread for DooMPauL! Call it BBBY GLLSP 'as no SouL, or something!

Oh, gay dad. I though they were OK-ish. Will that do?

kiss kiss

Actually, you know what? I know that Pooptones signed French Kicks, cause my boyfriend was out drinking with their manager last night at Radio4. Since you don't know the whole story, I'd suggest you shut up.

And have you EVER heard of maybe CONSOLIDATING your posts, punk? Maybe then people would actually listen to you.

McGee signed French Kicks and The Bellrays? My prediction is that next he will offer large sums of money to The White Stripes. Aren't the French Kicks on My Pal God?

and i suggest you get a real band darhling. I do write. Pop in for my dose of vitrol now and again......................................

no....keep going with your band. there is nothing better than watching a aging scenster do their thing on stage and pretending that the world actually cares........................................

ps. the bellrays are the soul punk revolutionaries....the next big thing? what is this band that you are referring to o you with the strange lettering?

pps. i like it when the world doesnt listen. you got the scene but i've got the soul.

i am the weakest link. goodbye.

*paul mysteriously vanishing in a cloud of smoke and 13th floor elevators 'your going to miss me'*

(by the way am a obsessive compulsive, if you don't want me around don't mention any of postings...this is a hint to make me go away....just trying to be helpful...bye bye)

A couple more points:

1) You have OCD then? What's the compulsion, being obnoxious? Very odd. Most OCD sufferers do stuff supposedly to *avoid* bad things...you invite derision and ridicule.

2) Pardon me if I missed something, but what is the connection between 'Paul' and 'Masonic Boom'?

please...if you don't want him to post, don't respond. ps. it's hard being an incredibly angry young man and having ocd.

; - )

Yeah but can we get back to this "2 pints of sperm" thing?
(a coincidence - i was just thinking about that before i came here this a.m. & was wondering who else you all had heard that story about...oddly , i 1st heard it about Rod Stewart, about whom i've never heard any other stories about him being gay or anything)

WHy would you need your stomach pumped? Is sperm toxic? Who's sperm was it? Mick Jagger? Maybe it was toxic then.

i think when you get up over the 1st pint it can be pretty dangerous.

I work in New York City, live across the Hudson from Manhattan, go the Lower East Side and the East Village sometimes, and until I read this thread I'd never even heard of the Strokes.

Read into that whatever you will. And based on the foregoing, it seems like a blessing for me.

Without listening to them?

Despite all the flaming and reaction-mongering going on with this thread, it did actually provoke me to start thinking about the far more basic issue of "does hype actually help or harm bands, the 'scene', the industry, and music in general?"

Both of these bands we've been discussing, Gay Dad and The Strokes have had huge hype machines behind them. Obviously, this has affected our perception of them, and their music.

In the chartpop world, clearly hype does no harm- the whole Popstars/Hear'Say phenomenon, which many hoped would finally blow the roof off and expose the wires and smokes and mirrors behind the chartpop svengali world, seemed to have quite the opposite, and many call it "the world's longest advert for a single."

The Strokes, much hyped as you've seen from clear explanations from Scott P., have provoked an extreme disgust reaction in many people, including me. I didn't like them the first time I heard them (in a dingy little club on the Lower East Side) - but honestly, I see many bands live, and hear hundreds of promo CDs every month that commit far greater offenses against my tastes in music, but they've not provoked the same dislike.

And that got me thinking about Gay Dad. Initially I did *like* their first single. But the surrounding hype (and it really was the first time I'd seen hype from the inside. Their rise to fame coincided with my moving to London, experiencing the poster and press deluge, being friends with music journalists who got the press releases and promos) quickly drove me to go from "Oh well, good first single, couldn't live up to it" to dismisssing the entire thing as a media stunt.

If hype has such a negative, backfiring effect on bands, why do bands, their labels, their Pluggers and their publicists continue to rely so heavily on it? Can you think of a situation where hype has had a *positive* influence on a band?

Is anti-hype the answer? Radiohead, in their refusal to do press, do interviews, do singles, videos, promos, etc. seemed to be making anti- hype a hype in itself. Is there a middle ground between Thom Yorke, and that cover of Melody Maker "we are the best band in the world" bollocks so common in the 90s?

I mean, what can we/they (fans? bands? press? record industry as a whole?) do about this?

On the other hand, if it wasn't for the alleged hype, maybe I would never have heard of them and their EP wouldn't be on my record-buying list (and you and Tom and Scott might never have bought the thing). If we're talking about a new band like the Strokes, then almost any exposure is good exposure - it makes people aware that you exist. It might annoy a few people in the know, people who read a lot about music or people like you and Scott who are in a position to know what's making the hype happen, but that's clearly a minority. Most people aren't that concerned with not being fooled by hype, and neither am I - if I end up enjoying that Strokes record, I certainly won't care about the process in which it was brought to my attention. Huge mainstream Frankie Goes To Hollywood-size hype might be another story, though, but right off the bat, I can't think of an instance in which lack of success (or a sudden decrease in success) was mostly attributable to hype. Those things are kinda hard to measure.

"Them" being The Strokes and "you" being Kate.

hype doesnt matter. if you like the music, you like the music. bands are hyped all of the time. but to hype them you have to have belief in them. big deal if there is hype? music is music.

music is never just music. if only it were that simple! music is all tied up with image, context etc - even rejection of the above is a stance in itself ("i'm above all that nonsense").

hype definitely works, at least in the short term, although in the long term it seems to work out less beneficial as people seem to grow to reject the band (esp in indie, where 'authenticity' and 'integrity' seem so important to people) as bands like sleeper and gay dad have found.

tp is right, to hype a band you must have belief. but is the belief in the band itself, or what *you* get out of it. ie record company execs, labels, journalists, shops and the band all get quite a bit out of it, but as an ordinary person who much benefit do you get out of hyping something. and as an ordinary person with no industry connections how can i hype anything anyway?

i think we probably all fall for some levels of hype somewhere along the line (esp anti-hype, which works better in the long run), but somwhere we seem to think, ahh thats too far, and decry the hype.

the popstars thing is fascinating, i think it proves that we're a) much more media aware these days and like to see all the machinations and that b) its much more difficult to portray yrself as 'credible', 'honest' etc. all the bands are in it for something more than the music aren't they? otherwise why bother to even releawe anything, just leave it on yo' hard drive/DAT/D90... aphex seems to have hyped himself and got away with it, but then aphex can do pretty much anything.

hmm, don't know where there aphex thing popped in from!

Been monitoring this for the past little while and just a question to the lollies girl:

If you can criticize bands, why can't people criticize your band? If you put yourself in the arena, I mean. Most of the critics, bear grudges, why is it that guy's criticism something no one could stomach?

Just wondering.

Q: "why is it that guy's criticism something no one could stomach?"

A: "larvae always attaches onto beauty"

I can take criticism of my band. Obviously, I have taken a lot of criticism, negative and positive, in the music press. What I objected to in the preceding thread (which you may not have read all of, as some of it has thankfully been deleted by the moderators) was personal insults against *me* as a human being. Very little, in fact almost nothing, was said about out music. It was all one person's (laughable incorrect) assumptions about me.

I have been around long enough to be able to tell the difference between negative criticism and personal attack.

As I said many times in the Courtney Love thread, if you don't like the music, well, fine, stick to the music. Tell me why you do or don't like the music. (or the image, or the hype, or the anything objective.) I can take negative criticism- if you don't like the music, fine. But personal attack is not on- you may insult my music, you may not insult *me*.

I would really like to put this whole thing behind us. Enough already.

Seemed the same dished, served cold twice! Oh well.