Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Radio & Music >

New Music Mag: BANG [and the music press in general]

14:45 / 28.03.03

A thread for discussing music mags, zines and online thingumies.

What do you think of the current crop?

The latest on the monthlies front is called Bang

Quotes from the above link:

"Bang is the rock'n'roll bible for a new generation of music fans turned on by exciting new groups like The White Stripes, The Strokes and The Darkness but left cold by the magazines currently on offer." [snip]

"Incendiary new rock music is re-energising the market. This sector now accounts for 28% of all album sales and the BPI forecast 11% growth over the next five years. This market “ and Bang's readers “ comprises the notoriously elusive 16 “ 24 males who are dedicated and obsessive about music, demonstrating their allegiances like badges of honour, through the music they buy, the T-shirts they wear, and the magazines they read."

"Bang's editors and visionaries are The Gloom brothers (Crispin Parry and Danny Ford). [snip] They are also part-time members of the Polyphonic Spree choir."

Fans of the old Melody Maker (ie old farts well beyond the target audience age) will be pleased to see that Simon Price is listed as features editor, and that Neil Kulkarni (*slurp*), Andrew Mueller (*spit*) and Taylor Parkes are listed as editorial contributors. As is Steven Wells.

The launch issue is a quid, so I risked it. Not had a chance to look at it properly, but initial observations:

- feels odd that there's no editorial, especially in issue 1
- apart from that, got all the usual stuff
- made-up letters in the Post section are piss poor
- use of strikethrough font in headings is f***ing annoying

Apart from that, looks okay.

17:18 / 29.03.03

i've seen it advertised around brighton and think that it's either going to be a good alternative nme or it's going to be a dumb, boy-centric disappointment. (looking at the writers, i get the feeling it's the latter).
but, nevertheless i'm going to check it out.

18:47 / 29.03.03

Yeah, it looks good to me. I was confused by the lack of editorial too. Cashing in on the New Rock Revolution a bit too much, so I'll be curious to see what happens to it when the scene fades away...

According to scurrilous rumour on their website's message board (www.bangmagazine.co.uk) NME are demanding interviews from bands telling them that "they can either be an NME band, or a BANG band, but not both."

But NME is just tabloid wank anyway, so any alternative is good, and Bang is less drippy-indie than Q and less stuck in the 70s than Mojo. Careless Talk Costs Lives is still the king, but it's quarterly so this fills a gap in the market for *moi*.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

19:27 / 29.03.03

"Bang is the rock'n'roll bible for a new generation of music fans turned on by exciting new groups like The White Stripes, The Strokes and The Darkness but left cold by the magazines currently on offer." [snip]

This sums up why I will never ever read this rag.

08:34 / 30.03.03

yeah.

"Bang is the rock'n'roll bible for a new generation of music fans turned on by exciting new groups like The White Stripes, The Strokes and The Darkness but left cold by the magazines currently on offer."

ding!ding! (that's alarm bells ringing)

This sector now accounts for 28% of all album sales and the BPI forecast 11% growth over the next five years. This market “ and Bang's readers “ comprises the notoriously elusive 16 “ 24 males

they're actually putting this kind of crap in their press blurb?? what the hell are they like?

ding!ding!

They are also part-time members of the Polyphonic Spree choir."

srike three and yr.out!

(Am I being too dismissive? Neil Kulkarni's always worth reading..)

10:36 / 30.03.03

What's yr problem with the Polyphonic Spree, boy-o??

But this would be the Neil of Metal: A Column, right? He's prewtty good with that, but I've not read anything that else ('cept things in CTCL that I've not paid enough attention to the author of, obviously).

I know I'm going to pick up Bang simply on the grounds that Look! A magazine! I like magazines! Or at least I would if it existed on the island...

It's a very shitty press release tho. And a shitty webpage. Very We Are A Business- Let Us Sell You Things...

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:26 / 30.03.03

The blurb that Sav's quoting from sounds like standard industry press release wank - even the best bands/artists in the world have these sent out to journos, and they are without exception quite, quite dreadful - so while it does make the mag sound terrible, I wouldn't pre-judge it on that basis alone.

The fact that the golden troika of Price, Parkes and Kulkarni are involved is a very, very promising sign - now if only they could track down Jamie T Conway too. Flaming Lips have never really excited me so putting them on the cover doesn't either - yes, yes, classic psychedlic rock, blah blah - but then CTCL lives had Mogwai on their first cover, so fuck it. The next one's the Donnas, which is a good sign. And there's a fantastic two pages of photography from a Yeah Yeah Yeahs/Har Mar Superstar gig - Har Mar in his posing pouch juxtaposed with Karen O with some kind of veil over her face - feel the sexheat!

Best thing about it, though - and this has pretty much sold me, so that I'll be off down to the shop in an hour and buying it - there's a full-page picture of the White Stripes drawn by Paul Pope. Paul fucking Pope! Haven't been able to find it online yet - needless to say it's beautiful, with Meg and Jack all in white, standing in front of a huge red elephant (cos their new album is... yeah). What is it with Pope and elephants? Is it just that he's too cool to be into monkeys like normal comics guys? I guess.

17:09 / 30.03.03

If I ever find it, I'll buy it. I just won't go to the cinema this week (not that I would have anyone, but sometimes it's nice to pretend like I have friends to do these things with... )

18:28 / 30.03.03

I dunno... my personal alarm bells went off with the mention of Swells. Still, shouldn't damn it before I actually read the thing.

18:50 / 30.03.03

I quite like Swells. Maybe I should set my sights higher then this. I only started reading the NME when it was shit.

It is the least rock and roll website for a magazine ever tho, isn't it??

Regrettable Juvenilia

21:43 / 30.03.03

- made-up letters in the Post section are piss poor

Aw, I thought the Dr Dre, Busted and Avril Levigne ones were quite funny...

06:48 / 31.03.03

The next one's the Donnas, which is a good sign.

I change my mind! All is forgiven! This is clearly a wonderful publication and I know feel happy about giving them my money.

there's a full-page picture of the White Stripes drawn by Paul Pope.

fucking ditto!

08:18 / 31.03.03

Ta to Flyboy for explaining the press release thing, I should have said in my original post that it wasn't the mag's own site. I was in a rush and it was the first thing I found that gave an idea of the mag's content (too lazy to explain it myself, see, blah blah blah...)

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:46 / 31.03.03

I'm almost certainly talking out of my blowhole but from my experience the music press is at it's best when it lives close to a music scene. Whatever you think of Britpop, it really helped NME, MM and Select (amongst others) that they were writing just around the corner from most of it. Now we have a fragmented music scene, made up of mainly American bands, who come over here to tour and then go back to the States. Result? Select and MM fold and NME resort to desperate 'Top 100 albums/most shaggable stars/pop star pets' articles to fill space. In another few issues there'll be another article about how Pink really is RAWK!!

What's the name of that mag that Everett True does in Brighton? What's the content in that and is it any good?

12:03 / 01.04.03

Careless Talk Costs Lives.
The content is everything that's worth listening to*, and the quality is generally excellent except when it occasionally goes completely off the deep-end into gross self indulgence.

But then I'm a bit biased so you might want to canvas some other opinions.

*or everything white-indie-fan acceptable that's worth listening to anyway.

lord nuneaton savage

10:39 / 02.04.03

Oh God Bang is pooor...expected so much more from the MM's hallowed three (I mean I disagreed with them all the time but at least they were saying SOMETHING). The journalism is right from the "what did you have for tea" school, but all the acts are the same as you can read about anywhere else so maybe they just could'nt think of any new questions? Looks shit as well.

Goodness Gracious Meme

11:24 / 02.04.03

i've seen it advertised around brighton and think that it's either going to be a good alternative nme or it's going to be a dumb, boy-centric disappointment. (looking at the writers, i get the feeling it's the latter).
but, nevertheless i'm going to check it out.

what she said, really. wanna go halves in case it's the latter?

my own personal rant is that its all so segregated by genre, there are no good general music mags...

20:12 / 07.04.03

The first issue should come with a free bullet...to put in your fuckin brain