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

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
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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>
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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
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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

i remember the discussion a lot on ch4 teletext except it was townies (or neds from scottish readers) vs moshers not chavs as it wasn't in usage then.

didn't conor mcnicholas post on ilm once?

We had trendies vs casuals, with similar meanings (except trendies were a bit more indie than moshers). Granted this was about twelve years before the article.

Haha no, my bad. About two years before. Time is becoming hazy.

i remember in the 80s casuals loved the who and pink floyd. then madchester and rave came along.

The Minds, man

only knob ends liked simple minds!

what did the hardmen in schools listen to in the 70s?

grebos vs ravers at my school (music taste played a huge part of how you were defined and what groups of friends you belonged to when i was growing up. hated it, but often yielded to peer pressure)

neither side were grebos or ravers btw.

People at your school actually self-identified as 'grebos'?

no it's what each side called each other.

i think it was deliberately inaccurate. the ravers weren't into raving/dance music (necessarily - mostly listened to chart pop and r'n'b) and the grebos, well, this was some time after New Model Army

The lines were blurred in sixth form when loads of the trendies started getting into ecstasy and dance music.