Downloadable: Katrina And The Waves

Not actually Katrina And The Waves, of course: Brooklyn Vegan have an ep of covers of Katrina stuff. Fucked Up do Walking On Sunshine, as does Sam Amidon (to be fair, it's not the largest back catalogue to plunder). Sun Street is covered by Deer Tick, and the splendid Tuneyards do I Really Taught Me To Watusi.

[You might also like the Tuneyards weekend]

The economics of SXSW

Lovely piece on the economics of SXSW from Fucked Up's perspective:

A festival pass can cost almost $800 a person. A band gets either wristbands or $250, which is enough to buy enough gas to get your van maybe 15 hours away from Austin, one way. Most bands are from outside that radius, and are well within the range of losing a shit ton of money by coming. In exchange, sxsw gets access to the best bands in the world, every club in Austin, and sponsorship money from all the coolest companies on earth. One of the more creatively heinous examples of branding I learned about this year was the Green Label Sound record label, which is a branding exercise of Mountain Dew soda. When my friend was offered to do a record with Green Label Sound for many thousands of dollars, I was happy to concede that it was a great deal for his specific band. Then I saw the giant 4 panel billboard for Green Label Sound right next to Stubbs on Red River St. Great for Chromeo, Neon Indian and the two other bands on the advert I forget ("great" in the sincere and non-facetious sense) and realized how maybe it was a bit more of a serious issue than I'd thought. Think of all the bands that had to blow their wallets apart to get to their one sxsw showcase, and all the partiers who had to pay to fly or hitchhike from Greenpoint or Plymouth to get to Austin in order to create the cultural critical mass that allowed Mountain Dew to greenlight a giant billboard in the epicenter of American indie rock. Think of why there is so much free beer and cigarettes and energy drinks at sxsw, and why every year there is even more, and why every year there are a dozen more huge shows presented by even bigger companies than last year. It's because you paid your money to go there and see these ads.

The whole thing is worth a read - it's placed somewhere between a whinge and a shrug, but the conclusion is that Wrigleys probably do better from SXSW than any band manages.

Xiu Xiu Camel suit stubbed

Back at the end of 2007, Rolling Stone ran a piece about indie bands which looked oddly like a Camel cigarettes advert. There was an angry letter at the time, but Xiu Xiu and Fucked Up decided to take it further by launching a class action lawsuit.

Somewhat surprisingly, the case has been dismissed by Justice Robert Dondero on the grounds that he's apparently never heard of advertorials:

The justices found no evidence that R.J. Reynolds, Camel's parent company, influenced Rolling Stone's editorial content or decisions. What's more, the justices wrote, Rolling Stone's main purpose is publishing a magazine -- noncommercial speech -- not selling cigarettes.

"Simply put, there is no legal precedent for converting noncommercial speech into commercial speech merely based on its proximity to the latter," Justice Robert Dondero wrote. "There is also no precedent for converting a noncommercial speaker into a commercial speaker in the absence of any direct interest in the product or service being sold."

So, legally and in the US at least, slapping a load of text in a heavily-sponsored stand alone pull-out isn't meant to use the value of the subjects of the "non-commercial" text to add lustre to the sponsor.

Presumably, Justice Dondero would therefore be incredibly laid-back if someone ran a magazine about him sponsored entirely by massage parlours and escort agencies.

The complaint, surely, wasn't about 'being near some ads', it was about 'being in a sponsored section'; the judge seems to have failed to grasp the difference.

Still, it's handy for Rolling Stone to be reminded that its main purpose is the articles it runs, and not the adverts it carries. Let's hope that news gets back to Rolling Stone.

Well tonight, thank god, it's them instead of you-know-who

Band Aid. Band Aid II. Band Aid 20. And now... Do They Know It's Christmas is going to have a fourth incarnation - organised by Fucked Up.

Yes, it's going to be sort-of-all-star:

Talking to Vulture, [Pink Eyes] listed off some of the people involved: "David Cross, members of Vampire Weekend, TV on the Radio, Broken Social Scene, the GZA, Bob Mould, No Age, and Yo La Tengo are all confirmed. I'm still waiting on confirmation from Feist, Jarvis Cocker, and M.I.A. We wanted the biggest people we could get. If we could get a Jonas Brother on this, I would get a Jonas Brother."

Yes, it going to be doing a lot of good work for charity:

"[T]he single will benefit "a few different organizations, like Justice for the Missing, that are affiliated with the 500 missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada. That number is an old official statistic that the government uses, but the number is probably closer to 3,000. It’s not like cancer or AIDS. Those are worthy causes but they have big fund-raising machines. This is an undocumented, underreported crime that’s been going on for years. And while this is for Canadian organizations, the same sort of thing is going on at the U.S.-Mexico border, with Mexican women going missing, and in Australia, with aboriginal women there."

The whole thing is being funded with the cash Fucked Up won when they scooped the Polaris prize earlier this year.

You're wondering why, aren't you?

"I liked the idea of somewhat marginalized indie rockers coming together for a marginalized cause ... There's a kind of cavalier colonialism to the original, like the West has to go in and help this poor Third World country. But the charities that we're trying to help are exactly a product of this colonial history. People who have been subjugated and oppressed for so many years are going missing. So there's an irony to using the song."

It's fair enough, although it's not entirely clear that there's very much difference between Midge Ure helping the starving of Ethiopa and one of Vampire Weekend assisting the brutalised of North America in terms of colonial descendants assisting those who lost out in colonisation, apart perhaps from a bit of self-awareness. And even then, suggesting that being on an indie distro gives you some sort of common cause - even with a gentle tongue-in-cheek - might wipe out whatever self-awareness there might be.

Mystery Jets won't take 'go' for an answer

The Leeds Festival managed to trip over its running times earlier today, winding up with the Mystery Jets ordered off stage after five songs.

The band weren't pleased, and scrapped with roadies as they tried to take their equipment down while they were still playing. Not effectively enough, though, as they still ended having their set cut pointlessly short.

More tributes to the organisational skills of Reading-Leeds: the main stage at Reading has had poor sound quality all weekend, which was 'beyond their control', reckons Melvin Benn:

"The levels on site are almost entirely dictated by the levels offsite," he explained. "The [local] council set levels by which noise, sound can't be above a certain decibel level on certain residential properties nearby [the site].

"They've set exactly the same level that they always set, but the atmospheric conditions [this year] has meant that the sound is staying low and hitting those decibel readings much, much earlier than normal. So we have to turn our levels down."

Oddly, Benn says he has a solution for next year - just one he hadn't bothered to put in place for this year, for some reason.

Meanwhile, when a fire broke out for the second day running at the Reading campsite, the fire engine trying to put it out got stuck in the mud - luckily, another engine was on hand to deal with the fire.

And - try not to picture this - Pink Eyes from Fucked Up stripped naked at Leeds. A brave NME reporter filed this report after peering through smoked glass:

During 'Vivian Girls', taken from the band's 2006 debut 'Hidden World', Pink Eyes, already stripped to the waist, took down his shorts and boxer shorts, tucked his genitals between his legs and faced the audience.

The singer then showed his naked buttocks to the cheering crowd.

They might want to leave the tickets for 2009 off the market for long enough to allow people to forget.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet

Alexis Petridis takes a corner of G2 to tell bands who think calling themselves 'fuck' something to, well, fuck off and die:

Cower before our fearless individuality and unique disregard for conventional mores! Look on in awe as we épater la bourgeoisie with our sweary name! Alas, if the idea was to strike a unique note, you have to say it falls a bit flat. Said three bands join a burgeoning list of artists who seem to have had exactly the same idea about fearless individuality, cocking a snook at herd-like mentalities etc: Fuck, Fuckbomb, Fuckpony, Fuckhead, Fuckface, Fuckmouth, FuckEmos, Fuck Vegas, Fuck on the Beach, Fuck the Facts, Mister Fuck, Swamp Fuck, the Fucking Champs, the Fucking Wrath, the Fuckmasters, the Fuckerettes, the Fuck You Ups, the Exploding Fuck Dolls, the Fuckin' Shit Biscuits and - a personal favourite - the Guadeloupe-based rapper who clearly couldn't decide whether he wanted to sound shocking or sweetly endearing and attempted to split the difference by calling himself Fuckly.

They say riot, we say morons

We're a bit bemused as to why people gathering to dance at a gig is being described as a riot, exactly.

Certainly, getting 1000 people onto a bridge and then making them jump up and down is - perhaps - one of the most calamitously stupid ideas we've heard for a long time, but this doesn't mean it was a riot, does it?

The band, by the way, was Fucked Up; the bridge Lemar Pedestrian Bridge in Austin:

Mike Haliechuck, Fucked Up's guitarist, said he feared the bridge was going to collapse.

"I could feel the bridge going up and down - it was crazy. The police couldn’t do anything, so they just had to wait."

Maybe I'm just getting old, but this sounds like the most pointlessly dangerous thing to occur in rock in a long time. Isn't there some law against endangering lives in Texas?

Indies smack Stone over puffers puff piece

Cigarette advertising. It's a touchy subject, even in those countries where it's still legal to push fags, like America. Rolling Stone is finding this out the hard way - where the phrase "hard way" refers to "not having thought through the consequences of certain actions". An apparent attempt to link indie rock and Camel cigarettes through a pull-out special section in the magazine has received threats of legal action from nine states of the Union and this angry letter from labels representing the acts who were bounced into endorsing lung cancer:

"An Open Letter to Rolling Stone"

We, the undersigned independent record labels, wish to share our indignation regarding Rolling Stone's November 15th pull out editorial, which featured the names of our artists in conjunction with an ad for Camel cigarettes. This editorial cartoon gives every impression of being part and parcel of the advertisement wrapped around it.

The use of an artist's name to promote a brand or product should be done only with the artist's explicit consent, something that was neither solicited nor obtained from the labels or bands.

When questioned, Rolling Stone has referred to the "Indie Rock Universe" pull out section as an "editorial", but it hardly seems accidental that this editorial content is wrapped in a giant ad from R.J. Reynolds announcing their support for independent artists and labels. The idea that this was a coincidence in any way seems dubious at best. There are two other pull out sections in this same issue of Rolling Stone. Both are wrapped in advertising, but neither of these ads could be construed as part of the editorial content within.

Many of the bands named, and the labels that represent them, are very unhappy with the implication that they have any involvement with R.J. Reynolds and Camel cigarettes. We ask that Rolling Stone apologize for blurring the line between editorial and advertisement, and in doing so, implying that the bands named support the product being advertised.

Sincerely,

Kill Rock Stars, Touch and Go, Skin Graft, Lovepump United, Lucky Madison, 5RC, Audio Dregs, and Fryk Beat.

Some of the bands who feature in the pull-out are also less than thrilled at having their name linked with ciggies. Fucked Up, for example:

It was definetely a "wtf" moment. We were confused because we had seen the pullout online a few weeks prior and just thought it was some Rolling Stone article, because the online version isn't connected to any advertisment. We got an email from our friends AIDS WOLF a few days ago saying that all these bands were in a Camel ad but that no smoke cigarettes one knew what it looked like. It took a bit of searching to figure out that the pullout was the ad. We didn't think it was exciting, just lame. I mean its hard to explain how you react to something like this - I wasn't so much angry, just bummed out. It's just so typical that this would happen, and there is nothing you can really do about it. I know that Camel is being sued now by US states, but ours is a different issue and almost has nothing to do with Camel - there are so many levels that things like this happen through, its hard to even figure out who to be mad at.

Of course, the co-option of bands into advertising materials is dubious regardless of what the product is; you just think that with cigarettes, they'd be a little more careful than usual.