Faceless Music - Radio is the way forward

I’ve come to the conclusion that most mainstream indie bands want me to hate them despite trying as hard as I have to like them.

Whilst staring daily into Microsoft Word’s frighteningly white screen, I habitually listen to BBC 6Music hoping for a flash of inspiration but usually have to satisfy myself with bobbing my head to the latest indie hits and the occaisional obscure gem of a record (These beauties are in plentiful supply on Stuart Mackonie’s Freak Zone, 6pm Sundays). The nature of the radio playlist leads the catchier numbers to stick in your head and the quality songs to eventually win you over and become cherished tunes. With stations such as this, the playlist is one of it’s greatest assets, but with others it becomes their greatest burden. This of course is a simple matter of personal taste.

Recently I’ve introduced a new distraction to my morning routine, the double bill sitcoms on the Paramount Comedy Channel. Slap bang it’s 9 am, there I am watching Two and a Half Men, relishing the innuendo and the stolen guffaws from the forbidden low-brow humour. But alas, their ad breaks are lengthy and plentiful and one can only make so many cups of coffee and smoke so many cigarettes in the period of an hour. Whatever is a boy to do?

The answer comes to me as I recall my channel hopping infested, early teenhood amd gadzooks! How could I forget the default starting position for the short attenion span endowed - the music channels!

Right, so the canned laughter has subsided and some weasly geezer-prick is trying to sell me cheaper insurance for my imaginary car, let the flicking commence before starving child deserving of my money forces me to send him money monthly from my imaginary bank account. Ooh, I know this one, it’s got that clicky drum beat and ace bass riff! Cor, the drummer looks like a bit of a plonker with that silly scarf and horrible hair, though I suppose it’s a drummer’s perogative to be a bit kooky, how else are they going to get noticed? Saying that, Christ, look at the singer - why’s he moving like that? Ohh, this must be the band I heard someone talking about with the singer with the muscles disease or the spazzy nerves or something. Look, there are guys doing it in the audience too and women are actually dancing with them! Hang on a minute, perhaps it’s been too long since I’ve been to an indie club and this is what they do now. The answer to that one is no, it hasn’t been too long, I don’t think I could handle being surrounded by this level of twatishness.

After an hour of ad breaks this inner monologue turns from the surprised whelping seen above to the silent raging and ranting that until now I had reserved for the Sunday Mail.

Oh mainstream indie, why do you do this to me? Just as I was about to embrace you once more as something fun and enjoyable you show me what you really are. It’s like meeting that fittie off Myspace that you’ve been exchanging dirty messages and pictures with for months and finding out that she’s not hot, just a wizard with photoshop. Watch out for those photos taken from above fellas (Yes, I do enjoy being a shallow git, hating makes the days seem shorter).

But as with internet dating, it’s all my own fault really and I know it. I know I’m a pretentious, judgemental prick and I also know that the mainstream indie is based on image as much as talent, yet I let myself mix the two together and now it’s just turned into something hateful and dirty, like punishment wanking in your sister’s bed.

While I’m not going to completely immerse myself in bands who’ve barely had a photograph taken of them, let alone a record pressed I do feel like I should go skulking back off to the weblogs to find something obscure and faceless, I know I’ll miss the banter and the intimacy of the radio.

So I just have to take away with me this lesson that I thought I had learnt in 2002 : Do not watch music channels and do not read popular music magazines, music should be heard and not seen. Oh, with the exception of being at a gig of course. Or a recording. Or unless you’re reading it off a sheet in order to play it. Hmm, I think I should’ve made the last half of that rule broader.

Regardless, I’m sure I’ll have forgotten this again in another 5 years time, but with any luck I’ll just stick to Kerrang!TV, I can handle Linkin Park looking like wallies and sounding like the weedy kid in the Under 14s Football Club.

radio recommendation

I’ve found a new favourite for Sunday morning listening to assist the nursing of a hangover with a nice cup of tea, comedian Ruseell Howard’s 6 Music show.

Howard, of Mock the Week fame, is joined by sidekick Jon for some gigglicious banter that this week encompassed car crashes, valentine’s day and Parisian restaurants. It’s far more entertaining than it sounds, particuarly Jon’s seemingly eternal misery and moaning. They also spin some enjoyable songs, but as with the best Sunday morning radio the focus is on rambling conversation. Thank you lads, I now have something better than Hollyoaks to ease my Sunday morning hangovers.