"UK GARAGE, MY ARSE!" '50 Ways The Alternative Nation is Fighting Back' 13th anniversary POLL

jesus no wonder i rejected the UK music press wholesale when i was growing up

― lex pretend,

Lex what is really sad is that up until britpop MM was GREAT

well, white supremacist in a different way, anyhow

http://i.imgur.com/3bZUVt6.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4CWyB3r.jpg

and not long after the final issue came
http://i.imgur.com/gAT4Eit.jpg

well, white supremacist in a different way, anyhow

― You don’t get that at your local UK Garage club (Noodle Vague),

http://everything2.com/title/Melody+Maker

OMG how have I never seen this before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeGA7sA8HDw

NAPSTER- Music for free! Nuff said

This list is giving me so much joy.

That CD makes The Alternative Nation look like the Steve Lamacq of Neo-Nazi parties.

is that even more unforgivable than a fascist salute?

xxps

have to go with number 8 here. unless we're voting 'funniest' rather than actual best thing in the list.

"best thing"

THE CARLING WEEKEND READING AND LEEDS- The best festival ever

Hahahahahahaha

Incredible thread.

Mark Sutherland ‏@msutherlanduk
6. Everyone who works in the music biz should be made to walk from Reading Station to the festival site & feel the pulse of the alt nation
Collapse Reply Retweet Favorite More
1 FAVORITE
4:43 PM - 23 Aug 13 · Details

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>6. Everyone who works in the music biz should be made to walk from Reading Station to the festival site & feel the pulse of the alt nation</p>— Mark Sutherland (@msutherlanduk) <a href="https://twitter.com/msutherlanduk/statuses/371055201496891392";>August 23, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Your search - "feel the poos of the alt nation" - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

Make sure that all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.

did this list seem as weird at the time? i've no recollection of seeing it. i'd bought every issue from about 1990 until 97ish when things got sketchy. the whole transforming-it-into-a-mag-to-look-more-like-Kerrang idea was insanity clearly. are the people who had that idea still in work? where had they come from when they took the paper over? and where did they go? i think we should be told.

and where did they go?

Mark Sutherland ‏@msutherlanduk
6. Everyone who works in the music biz should be made to walk from Reading Station to the festival site & feel the pulse of the alt nation
Collapse Reply Retweet Favorite More
1 FAVORITE
4:43 PM - 23 Aug 13 · Details

Mark Sutherland
@msutherlanduk
Wordmonger for Kerrang!, Q, Rolling Stone, Telegraph mag & more. Albums guy for @whymusicmatters. Ex-6 Music, Billboard, MM, NME, Smash Hits etc. Views my own.
London

This was my youth. My youth was rubbish.

Actually good things: Chemikal Underground, errr Wichita and the stoner rock revival had some OK moments I guess, I was going to say At the Drive-In's hair but white 00s indie kids' preoccupation with said hair was pretty questionable, uh...

Bobby G making politics sexy.

Didn't work for his dad in 1988

You look back over this and realise quite why the music press wet themselves so much over the Strokes.

I know a lot of good people lost their jobs but it really isn't surprising IPC euthanised this shit if this was the best they could come up with.

This was roughly the same era when the NME were telling us that Tiger and Terris were going to rule the world.

This list is like a mixtape covered in glittery nail varnish stamping on a human face forever.

Actual best = stoner rock probably or maybe Napster
Funniest = King Adora or the Dum Dums.

Voting King Adora.

34. MOSHING/CROWD-SURFING/LIVE CHAOS- You don’t get that at your local UK Garage club.

I'm just popping over to my local UK Garage club if anyone wants anything.

tbh it's completely understandable that a weekly music publication pitched at young-ish readers shd need to form a constituency and to define itself partly with a spurious oppositional stance.

what's odd/sad/funny about the last days of MM and the NME is

a) the constituency was shattering so fast and so far apart that this attempt to cobble together an Alt Nation looks archaic and hilarious already - Toploader and undie Hip Hop? yum yum, two great tastes etc

b) when i was a hipster teen reading the music press i felt like i was sitting in at the grown-ups table. obv there's a lot of subjectivity here but its hard to believe that kids reading crap like this didn't feel pandered to

c) in short: so desperate, so pathetic, and the shoutiness cranks up to cover this the more desperate it gets. this is Hip Teacher cobblers of the worst order

42. XFM- It’s getting better and better. But we’re still keeping an eye on you…

cheeseburger, I'd like some moshing and some live chaos please- OH WAIT

b) when i was a hipster teen reading the music press i felt like i was sitting in at the grown-ups table. obv there's a lot of subjectivity here but its hard to believe that kids reading crap like this didn't feel pandered to

This is the thing. I never read Kerrang! regularly but it never seemed to patronise its audience in quite the same way.

That said IPC did deliberately try and lower the age of MM's readership to differentiate from the NME, from what I can remember it was disastrous.

BADLY DRAWN BOY’S ‘THE HOUR OF THE BEWILDERBEAST’ WINNING MERCURY MUSIC PRIZE- The triumph of intelligence, talent, individualty! And, lest we forget, that woollen hat too! Gawd bless yer, Damon.

Hey, I can feel myself getting younger, demographically, even looking at 38.

b) when i was a hipster teen reading the music press i felt like i was sitting in at the grown-ups table. obv there's a lot of subjectivity here but its hard to believe that kids reading crap like this didn't feel pandered to

I was 15 when this came out and this is very, very OTM.
I think I was genuinely indignant about this stuff at the time, but I can't help feeling a sort of nostalgic affection at this point, even for the Dum Dums.

"get hard’n’heavy on our asses" is way too overlooked itt.

I remember that around this time they published a Mark Sutherland penned five star review of Limp Bizkit's 'Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water' that was even more desperate/pathetic/shouty, but it doesn't seem to be online.
From memory there was a section that went something like: "the next track is 'My Generation'- no, not a cover of the Who classic, but likely to have the same incendiary impact that song had in 1965, except without the 'why don't you all f-f-fade away' cop out, of course. Nah, in 2013 Durst tells it like it is: 'we don't, we don't give a fuck and we won't, we won't give a fuck until, you, you give a fuck about me, and my generation'. Maiden aunts are politely requested to leave the room."

also, "hard’n’heavy on our asses" vs. "UK GARAGE, MY ARSE!". I don't know much about journalism, but editorially, shouldn't they have been aiming for consistency between spellings?

mark s, you're not Mark Sutherland, are you?
― Johnathan, Wednesday, April 11, 2001 1:00 AM (12 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel another spasm building.
― mark s, Wednesday, April 11, 2001 1:00 AM (12 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^apparently asked in earnest

hahaha

50. YOU LOT

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Time_youcover01.jpg

Anyone want to explain 36. THE CROCKETTS’ ARMY BUS ?

not a cover of the Who classic, but likely to have the same incendiary impact that song had in 1965, except without the 'why don't you all f-f-fade away' cop out, of course. Nah, in 2013 Durst tells it like it is: 'we don't, we don't give a fuck and we won't, we won't give a fuck until, you, you give a fuck about me, and my generation'

Thinking about it, as this was 2000 Melody Maker it would have actually been 'we don't, we don't give a f*** and we won't, we won't give a f*** until, you, you give a f*** about me, and my generation'.

had to star it to protect your maiden aunt

tbh it's completely understandable that a weekly music publication pitched at young-ish readers shd need to form a constituency and to define itself partly with a spurious oppositional stance.

was thinking about this the evening before last while waiting for a train iirc - can't really think of a solid example of the newsstand music press trying to do this since then. the NME (Kerrang too I think) has had various punchbag bands that have arisen because they've become uncool and/or they've had some pissy argument with them, but nothing that really comes close to having ~wider cultural implications~ or whatever. I guess because they increasingly need to hedge their bets as much as possible and not alienate large swathes of a would-be readership, also maybe cos kids don't define their music taste by genre as much as they used to (ymmv)

I think it was not too long after this that the NME published it's 'Moshers v Scallies' piece? I think there was an extent to which this was tapping into a real 'thing', in the worst possible, cack-handed way of course.
Some Mosher v Scally stuff written by people who weren't in their 30s can be found here, though it's from about 5 years after the Maker folded:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mosher

Moshers: feel no need to justify themselves to others,generally loving and friendly but have a tendancy to hate chavs and townies(can ya blame em?), wear the clothes they want 2 wear, not what others percieve as fashion or "cool", like badges alot. listen to a mixture of punk,rock and metal. as they name suggests they mosh to their music and have mosh pits at concerts (dnt get involved unless u r prepared to get injured). in short moshers are the coolest people on earth and i am honord to be friends with them.
mosher 1:*hug* hey wat r u listening 2
mosher 2: slipknot, want an ear?
*listens 2 mp3 player*mosh*get dirty look from a chav*
mosher 1: god i hate chavs
mosher 2: my neck is killing me *rubs neck*shrugs*moshes more*

don't remember 'moshers v scallies' at all. google brings up two results, respectively from thelibertines.org and an ILM thread with three posts

there's not many meatmarket clubs per se round here, late pub opening has blurred the lines and the old school clubs are gone - maybe a couple just the other side of the river - but the few functioning nightclubs are catering to a studentish crowd on the whole. also the line between students and any young people in the 18-25 bracket is v. blurry except at the extreme end of the underclasses

on the other hand, the last time i passed thru Wakefield it was like a National Trust heritage site for the 80s

also i probably wasn't clear about the crushing repetition of the playlists - i got no ish with the pop/dance/r'n'b nights, it's the more studenty "another chance to hear the indie canon from 1980 on" shite that crushes the soul

i don't really care, i dunno why i'm dissecting this, everything is tawdry and horrible

dunno that the big cities are really that much different on that front, e.g. through unfortunate empirical research i've discovered that pretty much every indie pop club night across the country is basically the same, london just has a bunch of them. but then i don't know how much that particular kind of homogeneity is really the concern. i'd go to your club though, promise i'll bring at least two friends too.

i mean i don't suppose anyone cares about indie pop nights specifically, but rather that for the most part there are a small number of template for club nights in general and in bigger cities it's just that the number of clubs fitting each template is multiplied.

i struggle(d) to find places that were good to carry on drinking but where the music wasn't interminable was the main thing i think

that and judging people because they like things i don't

i dunno why i'm dissecting this, everything is tawdry and horrible

New board description.

my arse

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

How many MM writers pre 95 were still there in 2000?

Or had they all completely buggered off to Uncut/Mojo etc

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

yesssssssssssss

UK Garage...in my arse?

50. YOU LOT 1

http://www.newmediaandmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/what-hi.png