My Chemical Romance – Live At The Apollo, Manchester

9 Comments
October 25, 2010 – 11:12 pm

The gig is a sell out, the band on the other hand are not…

My Chemical Romance are getting bigger by the year and now, with the release of Danger Days, they are set to go astronomical. The band had some trouble after The Black Parade with the departure of drummer Bob Bryar, an entire album scrapped, and about two years away from touring everything could have been a bit of a disaster for them. Luckily for them they know what they’re doing.

Storming on stage to riotous applause they waste no time and get straight into new single ‘Na Na Na’ out of the four or so new songs they play, which are all tinged with electro, this sounds the most polished and is a rowdy opener to get people going.

When you see My Chem you go to see a show rather than just a band, yet this was more of a minimal affair with little in the way of crowd-banter or showmanship. This new low-key style fit perfectly with their set which consisted of songs mainly from Three Cheers. This was a band embracing their roots with some ballsy pseudo-aggressive rock. Gerard stalked the stage like he was genuinely pissed off and even invited one lucky crowd member on stage to help sing ‘Honey This Mirror Aint Big Enough for the Two of Us’ from debut album Bullets. He was greeted on stage to “If you dare ask for fucking photo you’re gone” and then proceeded to miss the song queue three times. Fans eh?

With only the one song from Bullets played some of the older fans were inevitably disappointed. Though with a very young crowd (parents were involved for under 14’s) that went nuts for singles like ‘Teenagers’ this wasn’t much of a problem. That wasn’t the only problem with the evening. The Apollo is a great venue because you can see no matter where you are and it’s a pretty perfect size for a band of their stature to seem like it’s still intimate, but the sound quality just wasn’t good enough. This was more likely a problem with the band, who had slightly adapted some intro’s the fit with the ‘space music’ in-between songs, but they never seemed to pick up the pace again ‘Ghost of You’ was a particular low-point.

Despite all this the songs they do play well ‘You know what they do to guys like us in prison’, ‘Dead!’, ‘Give em’ Hell Kid’ etc…have thousands of people screaming the words and sound flawless. When they get it right there is nothing like it.

My Chemical Romance has a lot to offer and if you’re a fan of the albums then the raw energy of seeing them live is a must.

By rockyasocksoff Posted in Features, Reviews Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

The Five Types Of Musician On Facebook

8 Comments
May 21, 2010 – 1:43 pm

fb0Facebook has allowed us to connect to our friends, communicate like never before and allow big business access to our private data. It’s a wonderland. It has also allowed us to become close personal non-friends to musicians. I have helpfully grouped these Internet dwelling musos into useful groups so you can spot them in the wild…

1. The Whiney Little Bitch

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Nothing is good enough for this miserable fucker. Their entire existence, to them at least is constant torment. Their only ray of light in their self perceived crapsack life is their own favorite highly unpopular sub sub sub genre, which of course, their band and very few other bands play. Between moaning about their home town scene, or lack of it, more popular bands and how they suck and the mundanity of their hopeless little life, occasionally they will link to their own musical output. Don’t bother clicking on it though. They’re miserable for a reason.

2. Sir Linksalot

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Walk away from Facebook for even a few minutes  and your news feed is filled with links. Most likely to YouTube videos of bands that have influenced them. Often accompanied by misspelt comments explaining that the band in said clip is a LEGEND!!11! or that the music in question is a Fuckin CHOONN! How they get any music written between the day long link sessions is beyond me.

3. The Constant Inviter

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Despite the fact that Facebook allows you to show your location, this enthusiastic type will persist in inviting you to whatever gig they are playing. I may well be ensconced in my London pad, as it says on my profile and latest status update, but that will not put them off inviting me to a gig someone in Scandinavia. And they won’t just invite me once. Oh no. Poking, status updates and all the rest all trying to their their friends to gigs in faraway lands. Give up.

4. Rehearsal Room Reporter

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Bands don’t practice in front of fans for a reason. Rehearsals are usually quite dull, full of miscommunication and arsing about. If fans could see their favourite bands locked in the rehearsal room their opinions of their musical gods may change. Especially if the singer is trying to explain his idea

“Yeah, a sort of chugga chugga riff, but, like, not dull, you know, like maybe in like 5/4 time or something”

So reporting on these goings on will reveal the dullness of being in a band to all and sundry. But some feel compelled to do it. We do not need to know about how you nailed that solo, or worked out a great drum pattern. And for the love of god, we don’t need to hear your shitty lyrics

5. Failed Musician Turned Blogger

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So you couldn’t cut it as a musician for whatever reason. Probably because you were a talentless sucker. So you do what hundereds of you kind have done. Slag other bands off on the internet. And instead of keeping it to the confines of your shitty blog, you feel compelled to spread your half thought out ideas on ’social media channels’ because a ‘guru’ told you to. Unfortunately one of those ’social media channels’ is Facebook, so the rest of us have to put up with links to godawful reviews and opinion.

Yes, this is me.

By Von Posted in Features, Lists Tagged , , , ,

The Record Player@Concrete – 1979

0 Comments
May 17, 2010 – 4:51 pm

recordplayer

Normally here on DT we avoid clubs and stick to real, actual live music, but it’s Saturday night in London Town’s most self-consciously hip district, which usually means cocktails in a former bomb shelter surrounded by pencil ‘tashed hipsters. But despite the lure of Deep House and hen parties at nearby Axis, we’ve managed to get ourselves down to Shoreditch High Street, avoided trying to sneak into Shoreditch house, and made it into Concrete for a night of retro thrills courtesy of new concern The Record Player….

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By Interceptor Posted in Features, Reviews Tagged , , , , ,

mFlow – Is It Any Good?

3 Comments
April 16, 2010 – 1:30 pm

mflow

The new way of discovering music through people. – Where music comes recommended. -Sit back and listen in full as your friends, dj’s and artists flow you the tunes they really rate flow music to your own friends and followers and earn 20% of the price when they buy.

mFlow. Uh. Yeah. So it’s Spotify plus Twitter with some way to make some money if people buy what you recommend to them. It’s quite confusing.

So lets see if it’s any good. I’m downloading it now.

Setup is utterly painless. Not sure why it wants my whole name but hey. To them my name is Optimus Motherfucker. The login screen also looks like a laynyard. That’s a nice touch.

Lets see how it works. Nicely done tutorial – no  video. Just some screens. OK, so I have to follow people to get ‘flows.’ That’s the music I can listen to. I refuse to make a joke about ‘flow’. I’m above it. Really. If I ‘flow’ music and someone buys it I get a few pence.

Ok. So who can I follow?

Fuck. Zane Lowe. I hate that guy. NME? Bah. I’m not sure they fit my taste. Bit too, well, NME. Popjustice? Love the man’s writing, but can’t say I agree with what he says is AMAZING.

I’ve heard Metal Hammer is on here, so I might as well take a punt and follow them . How do I find them? Ah, they’re featured. If they weren’t I’d have no idea.

Followd. They’ve flowed some Bon Jovi. Way metal guys. But I can take a listen to the track. To be honest nothing they flowed is ‘new music’ though. Anyone who has even stood close to a metalhead knows the bands they’re recommending.

Let’s recommend something. Clutch? Clutch. More people need to know about them.

Search Clutch. One song. From The Crobar album. Strange. Let’s listen to it first so I know what I’m talking about.

Also, 90% of searches came up bad. Not much choice. Yes, the service is new so I’m going to be uncharacteristic nice and forgive them – but they better get a shit-ton of songs in there soon.

I only get a 30 second sample. Well, that blows.

What do I do with 30 second samples? I send them to people so they can hear the whole song. I’m comfused. And a bit angry. This makes no sense.

Can someone explain this to me? I want to listen to music, but I can’t. I’m going back to Spotify and Grooveshark until someone explains why this is a good idea. I like listening to whole songs. I like listening to new songs. I don’t like having to wait til someone sends me something so I can listen.

So, yeah, if you like your music taste dictated to you – go for it!

By Von Posted in Features, Reviews Tagged , , ,

Mystery Jets @ Chevrolet Spark Unscheduled – Vinyl Factory 9/4/10

1 Comments
April 13, 2010 – 5:47 pm

chevrolet

Reviewing this gig could be a problem. In fact, I’m not sure if I’m even reviewing it on the right blog. Yes, it was a gig, but it was also the launch of a new car, and featured some pretty kickass tech, so perhaps it should be over at Electric Spectre.

(So It’s there now too.)

So Chevrolet are launching a new car. If it was something like a Camero or a Nova we might expect their launch party to be held in a strip bar and feature entertainment from Monster Magnet, the Drive By Truckers, the Dallas Cowboy’s cheerleaders and a fountain of Malt Liquor. Unfortunately we don’t live in a cartoon version of the 70s. Cars are now economical, safe and don’t come with bucket seats, four tracks and NOS as standard. Shame really. So instead we  have The Mystery Jets, Nick Grimshaw and a nail bar.

The Mystery Jets, to me, are another identikit, landfill indie band, and Nick Grimshaw can fall on a spike for all I care. But for some reason, I had a really good time. Why? Free booze, fun toys to play with a good organisation.

Some bright Spark (Eh? See what I did there.) had set up a life size screen displaying the Spark  and a ‘virtual’ spraycan. This was coupled with a nice, easy to use graffiti program allowing us to spray paint the car. The cool thing was that this was projected onto a real Spark.

This meant me and Interceptor spent far too much time trying to recreate the Mirthmobile from Wayne’s World, the Batmobile and Ecto One as well as some very obscure 2000AD referencing graffiti.

We then decided to crash a photo of some models being taken in the car by getting in the back and asking how much it was for “South of the River”. We’re dicks. Sorry.

The DJ booth was pretty cool too – a Spark on it’s side with it’s wheels being used as the turntables.

So – I’m sure the Mystery Jets fulfilled their contractual obligations and played their music, and Grimshaw played some records. But I wasn’t looking.

You can check out pictures from the gig here – including some car graffiti – You can probably spot ours….

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By Von Posted in Features, Reviews Tagged , , ,
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