What the pop papers say: Legacy and stances

In a week when it's been announced that the entire NME readership is lower than the average home gate at Portsmouth, it's time to take one of our semi-regular dips into the magazine.

This week, it's another backward-looking issue - 20th anniversary of the Holy Bible, which is covered in depth, and actually feels like there's something still to say about a record. It helps when the LP has some depth to it. And as a one-off, irregular thing, why shouldn't you mark two decades since a band released something so rich?

Trouble is, they're trailing that next week will be a 20th anniversary issue again. This time of Oasis. The trailer line for that is a quote from Noel in 1994 saying that the album would be what will be remembered in 20 years' time, "not incidents on ferries or drug busts or whatever". Yeah, good luck with that, Noel out of Wibbling Rivalry.

It's not just the Manics' legacy that the issue has explored. There were other questions of history to be addressed, not least the NME's cover this week:

That @NME @Manics cover? That photo of Richey was a MELODY MAKER photo by Tom Sheehan. I was there. My idea. Fucking history-stealing fucks.

— Simon Price (@simon_price01) August 16, 2014

Price - understandably - was upset that there wasn't even mention of the Melody Maker's contribution to the history the one-time rival was rifling. He suggested a though experiment:

I'll never forget the time Richey cut 4 REAL into his arm in front of me as I was interviewing him for Melody Maker. How do like THAT, @NME?

— Simon Price (@simon_price01) August 16, 2014

A point well made, although... not everyone seemed to grasp it.

@David_C_Lewis @simon_price01 Doesn't Steve Lamacq also claim he was interviewing him when he did that? Said in a BBC doc on the Manics.

— Craig Brown (@sloan1874) August 16, 2014

Who knew, though, that the MM-NME war would still be raging this long after one of the flags was lowered for the last time? Even British communists would be surprised at the longevity of ill-will emanating from IPC veterans.

With this week's ABC figures suggesting that the print edition of NME might be reaching an event horizon, you'd have thought the team on the magazine would be taking more care about how they look after the work of former associates, lest one day an NME.com team thinks it's okay to, say, pass off the Brett Anderson and David Bowie photo as their legacy.

Elsewhere, there's good things for readers to explore - Laura Snapes uses a response in Sounding Off to raise the question of why Radio 1 didn't playlist La Roux on grounds that there's a lot of "female-fronted pop acts" competing for airtime. Yeah, 2014, and apparently there's still a quota for women to get onto formidable One FM.

Equally strong is Dan Stubbs call for Insane Clown Posse to either own or condemn the Juggalos:

If Juggalos behave like a gang, then Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope are their de facto leaders, whether they like it or not. And if violent crimes are being committed not just in their name, but in their honour, they need to issue a decree to the faithful telling them that it's simply not cool.

There's also a great piece on Howling Owl and how they've worked round a ban from Bristol venues. I'd have liked some more around how The Louisiana had ended up on the wrong side of scrappy pop history, but otherwise Hazel Sheffield had delivered a celebration of DIY culture that could have graced Maximum Rock & Roll. Or Punk Planet, at least.

There's a lot of heart and vibrancy in the NME at the moment, even though it's starting to get lost again in a sea of Uncut-lite jubilee articles. If they can channel that voice, and find a way to celebrate the past without just getting a Google alert that it's 20 years since X and choosing a cover based on that, there's a magazine worth fighting for there.

CPS says copyright violations 'civil, not criminal'

It came a little late in the process, but the Crown Prosecution Service have dropped a case against two men accused of running a film 'piracy' website in Bristol. The Telegraph says:

The Crown Prosecution Service told Bristol Crown Court today it would not proceed with the trial following legal advice that the alleged copyright infringements were a civil rather than a criminal matter, a spokeswoman for Avon and Somerset Police said. Not guilty verdicts were recorded.

It appears the CPS had not really bothered to do much research into the case, relying instead on "facts" given to them by FACT, the Federation Against Copyright "Theft"; when they eventually looked closely they realised that criminal action was "neither necessary nor appropriate."

No word yet on how much public money has been wasted on a case designed to protect a few private interests; hopefully, though, this will be the last case of its sort.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Wales and the West

You know how the PRS insists that everything it does is for the benefit of the its members? Somehow, they've stretched the definition of this to producing a pointless survey:

The Performing Rights Society used its 65,000-strong database to locate the birthplaces of its membership and work out Britain’s most musical cities.

Wales Online is quite excited at Cardiff coming, erm, second:

CARDIFF has beaten the birthplace of The Beatles and the home of Oasis to become the UK’s second “most musical city”.

The birthplace of Dame Shirley Bassey was named ahead of Liverpool and Manchester but lost out on the top spot to Bristol, home of Massive Attack.

The flawed nature of this survey is probably shown by how excited the Cardiff team are at coming higher than Manchester or Liverpool, which more or less concedes that, when thinking of musical cities, it's not Bristol that springs to mind first.

Still, with Cardiff celebrating, who to turn to but town-centrist expert Gennaro Castaldo, of the HMV people. Can he explain the musicaliscature of Carddif?

HMV pop guru Gennaro Castaldo said Cardiff’s place in the music world should be celebrated.

He said: “People think of Liverpool and Manchester as being the musical cities, and Cardiff is often forgotten. They forget the amazing contributions of Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey, the male voice choirs, when somewhere like Liverpool is living off the history of one type of music and hasn’t produced any outstanding musicians since then.”

Now, I might sometimes be critical of Liverpool for living off the Beatles myth, but a man who is lauded as a pop guru casually writing off the Bunnymen, Wylie, Cope, OMD, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the people who coagulated around Cream seems a little intemperate.

Hats off the Wales Online, by the way, for having a report which contradicts itself but doesn't seem in the least bothered:

Radio One DJ Bethan Elfyn said the region’s music scene centred on the city.

“It’s so exciting at the moment with loads of pubs and clubs putting on gigs,” said the Cardiff-born DJ.

“In the city there are four or five venues showcasing live music every night, all the way up to the Coal Exchange, and even the Millennium Stadium. The best thing is we have so many different types of music on offer.”
[...]
Carol White, a tutor at Grassroots City Centre Youth Project, which gives young bands and performers a chance to record and rehearse without spending a fortune, said she was not surprised at Cardiff’s position in the table.

But she said musicians were not given the opportunity to showcase their talents due to the closing down of many of the city’s venues.

She said: “Compared to Bristol, which has loads of great small venues that up-and-coming bands can play at, Cardiff has hardly any.

“We’ve already lost the Point, the Globe has been trying to soundproof so it’s not closed.

“Why can’t the local authorities help them out so we’ve got plenty of venues? The bands just don’t get any support.”

A city simultaneously packed with loads and loads of great venues, busy night after night, and suffering from a terrible shortage of venues. I'd imagine one of those would have to be right.

Embed and breakfast man: Secret Shine

Secret Shine are knocking together a new album, but - to make you moist and ready - they're sharing this new song. Touching Nothing was recorded at at the Big Pink Cake weekender in Bristol, earlier this year.



Now, that's the way to start a morning.

Secret (Shine) gig

Good news from Bristol: The Secret Shine will be setting up their instruments and going 'two... two... two' at the Cube Cinema in the city on February 21st.

They're going to do a proper gig. Not just the soundcheck.

Portishead go home

Portishead, oh blessed place of memory: it was to Portishead where you would send your stamped, self-addressed envelope to get Radio One information packs in the days before the internet. It's also where Portishead come from, and, indeed, where they went back to last December.

They played a gig at Geoff's old school, and they've made a half-hour special feature out of it.

Secret dancing

Secret Shine are going to do some djing (or, as they put it, "play[ing] records in a ‘Dave Lee Travis kind of way’", at Big Pink Cake at The Crown, Bristol, February 6th. It's three quid in.

The cake has a MySpace

Blunt bounced by Bristol

Bristol University's meeting when they drew up the list of glittering alumni must have been fun, as they brainstormed ideas until someone blurted out "what about James Blunt? Wasn't he one of ours?"

After much staring at the table, and mutterings of "didn't he go to UWE?", they decided to leave him off.

Or, just maybe, he's so dull the university forgot he'd been there.

Even the subs don't read Bizarre

Poor Victoria Newton - she had a big lovely scoop, revealing yet another "one-off" Sex Pistols reunion comeback at the Brixton Academy.

Unfortunately...

Queen, storms, off

The Ashton Court Festival in Bristol was forced to pull its second day because of heavy rain:

The festival site is unsafe for the public due to the treacherous ground conditions, which have made it impossible to guarantee emergency services on-site.

"After taking advice from health and safety officials, emergency services and licensing authorities at a meeting this morning, the organisers took the difficult decision to cut short the event."

Today's headline delight was to have been the Good, the Bad and the Queen.

Put the blame on you

It's nice to be able to write about a clubnight which isn't in London, so welcome back to Lipstick on Your Collar, returning to The Hatchet on Frogmore Street in Bristol this Saturday.

The music? It's total girl-powered frenzeticness.
The cost? A measly four quid.