Foggy Notions

BrianD

Anybody know anything about the new magazine - Foggy Notions - that is supposed to be coming out soon? Leagues is purported to be the man behind it. Could it give the jaded HP a run for their money and put a real music magazine back on the shelves.

roxy

I welcome this idea. With all my love.

soma

If there's ANYTHING irish to rival Hotpress I'd buy it. The amount of coverage for up and coming Irish acts is a shambles, there's the 'homework' column (a third of a page) and then usually half a page given over to an interview.

In a whole magazine???

Whereas this month Samantha mumba gets pages & pages.

Great to see the cover pic + piece on gemma hayes/glen hansaard/mundy et al but they are (at least to some degree) established on the scene.

Raggamuffin

whatever happened to the PH magazine.?

id unno music magazines i've always felt can be a bit boring.

unless they have pieces on bands explaining where they came from, guitars used, short interview...... likes dislikes...

Uncut did a great piece on the replacements....

rolling stone is truly awful

NME is a rag.

i feel the internet is the best and cheapest way to get good gig reviews and interviews.

Glowingmind

It'll be out pretty soon, can't wait to see it, probably to coincide with the last post/chalets/neosupervital tour that they're helping out with.

Raggamuffin

did'nt the chalets sign their souls to the Devil, oops i meant Sony.

BrianD

pH Magazine does still exist but its in "temporary storage". Unfortunately, it was hard work getting enough writers to keep it up to date plus the webmastery that goes with it. A project we hope to revive in the future.

Raggamuffin, its a big bad world out there. At some stage you "have to sell your soul to the devil" to take your life forward. Alternatively, you can whinge about everybody else selling their soul and do nothing at all yourself.

polarbelly

back to the topic

ie. the magazine

is it just gonna be one those back scratchers for the "dublin music scene" the like s of the jimmy cake, rednecks, dudley corpo etc.

nothing against all of those bands, i really like the jimmy cake and the dudley corp. (dont know many others to tell ya the truth)
but their "scene" is a bit head wreckin.. to my eyes it seems very we'll compliment your album if you do ours... i'm sure the_corpo will enlighten me

probably diggin myself into some sort of hole cos i'm in a band that isnt in the "clique" but i'm sure other people agree with me

again not meant to start any bad blood just calling it the way i see it

mick

Arch

One thing about this magazine - it may only have one issue. I bought a Leagues-associated magazine back in the summer, which included a nice free CD, interviews, crazy cover shot of a woman covered in nose-blood etc. But I never saw another issue on the stands.

They may have only planned to have one edition, but it certainly worked well, because the CD was a good intro to a lot of those off-centre bands. There was some big sponsor involved as well... Pepsi or something.

So we may not be talking about a publication which will compete with Hot Press, every couple of weeks. I could be wrong though!

soma

Polar - Man I know exactly what you mean about that scene being head-wrecking. There are some very good & entertaining bands amongst them but it's the crowd that at those gigs that gets me..

These are people who if a great band (Turn, Frames, Blotooth, Melaton) got up in front of them they'd mock them. But if some twat who's a member of the 'clique' gets up and repeatedly plucks his A-String while barely-audibly mumbling into his mic they'll act (i think that word is acurrate) captivated and as if God himself was performing.

I'm not taking a swipe at those acts, each to their own and I hate when people attack each others music, but those scene people have this real "holier than thou" attitude that everything outside their clique is derivative ****e.

Ed

"One thing about this magazine - it may only have one issue. I bought a Leagues-associated magazine back in the summer, which included a nice free CD, interviews, crazy cover shot of a woman covered in nose-blood etc. But I never saw another issue on the stands."

-That magazine was Homage, it's been a round for a couple of years but doesn't get seen very often, tower and road stock it usually, i'm not sure whether it's monthy or bi-monthly or what.

"is it just gonna be one those back scratchers for the "dublin music scene" the like s of the jimmy cake, rednecks, dudley corpo etc."

It's gonna be a magazine that writes about music, it's bound to get accused of back slapping unfortunately, but that's just dublin moaning for ya. It's gonna be focused on good music most likely, not just irish stuff, i'm not sure of the format, it's probably not going to be devoted purely to music but the majority of it will be.

"These are people who if a great band (Turn, Frames, Blotooth, Melaton) got up in front of them they'd mock them. But if some twat who's a member of the 'clique' gets up and repeatedly plucks his A-String while barely-audibly mumbling into his mic they'll act (i think that word is acurrate) captivated and as if God himself was performing."

-That's just your opinion, my opinion is that the bands you've listed are all fairly decent bands but shouldn't be considered "great", they're quite average and are making fairly bland music. You complain about a 'clique' in reference(i'm assuming) to the likes of the jimmy cake, dudleys etc, but it's not as if there's only one clique, there's a pop clique(self explanatory), a mor clique(people like 2fm and fm 104 who only play middle of the road stuff like travis or the stereophonics that's neither inventive nor inspiring). There's the Phantom clique, the type of folks who can't seem to look past the likes of the frames and the other guitar bands you've listed, and there's nothing wrong with that. I happen to think the stuff you've listed is incredibly boring but it doesn't make me right, it doesn't make my opinion any more valid than yours. In the same way the people who are part of the 'clique'(i assume you mean the likes of the rednecks,corpo,jimmy cake etc.) are entitled to like that kind of music, it doesn't mean their opinion is any more valid than yours, it just means they have a different outlook as to what's good music.

I happen to think The Last Post have made the best Irish album released in the last few years, some people think decals most recent album is amazing, and some people think the frames' albums are amazing, that's just a fact of life - people like different stuff.

joss

From what I know, the first Foggy Notions should be out in a couple of weeks. It's being put together by Leagues with Myles Claffey who publishes Homage (the mag that had a free CD).
If anyone is in a good position to start a music mag it's probably Leagues at this stage, considering No Disco gives him handy publicity.
There should be more Homage mags next year too, I think.
Reason I know this is cos my girlfriend and I have a Sigur Ros interview in the FN issue.

Re: clique, you're probably right. It just happens when there's a few likeminded-ish bands about. They make friends & play gigs together. I'm not sure it's a bad thing, but I also reckon it's not quite as enclosed as you think.
So how to change that perception?
Not speak to your friends in other bands?
Try to like the Frames and Melaton?

bandit

Originally posted by soma

These are people who if a great band (Turn, Frames, Blotooth, Melaton) got up in front of them they'd mock them. But if some twat who's a member of the 'clique' gets up and repeatedly plucks his A-String while barely-audibly mumbling into his mic they'll act (i think that word is acurrate) captivated and as if God himself was performing.

I'm not taking a swipe at those acts, each to their own and I hate when people attack each others music, but those scene people have this real "holier than thou" attitude that everything outside their clique is derivative ****e.

This has nothing to do with foggy notions and the topic has been covered many times on the board BUT i just thought i'd say that while i agree completly with the points on the jimmy cake , c4o , etc clique the frames have the exact same thing going on with the likes of mundy , rice, bell end 1 , etc , who all support each other , play on stage with each other, and even appear on c.u.n.t.i.n.g hot press covers

polarbelly

joss i appreciate your reply.

and bandit, yeah you're right bout the frames etc clique

but

i can see where soma is coming from with the "holier than thou" air about the shall we say 'thumped' bands...

just want to reiterate that i like some of these bands and dont know the most of them so i'm not just stabbing pointlessly or anything... i think some of their music is really class

and ed...as regards to "dublin moaning for ya" is it just moaning or is it a justified statement, to say that the magazine will just cover bands like jimmy cake, dudley corp, c4o, rednecks etc... i cant see a band like blotooth getting into it or melaton, or, any of the "boring" bands that you mentioned
personally, imo, i think thats the problem with the 'thumped' scene in that they are very 'themselves and themselves alone' where i think members of any of the other scenes listed are much more willing to branch out and appreciate other scenes if ya get me... ie. me , i suppose i would be a member of some scene yet i appreciate the music of the 'thumped scene'

thats it for now

mick

joss

Hmm. I don't really see this holier than thou thing.
Can you explain it to me? Not being facetious.
The Corpo have never got a gig with the Jimmy Cake or Rednecks other than the Sabbath.
This year we've played with Boa Morte, Weevil, Waiting Room, Desert Hearts, Deputy Fuzz and a ton of bands that don't frequent thumped.
It just happens that my two of my three favourites at the moment - The Tycho Brahe, Large Mound and The Last Post - do post there.
I thought the advent of thingsyouremissing.com from there was fairly anti-elitist. Anyone can go to a meeting, after all.

I do think Thumped and Pete are great though.
More bands should submit mp3s to the music page.

polarbelly

firstly i'm just saying 'thumped' to represent what i mean...

the bands i mean are the ones i've listed , add in the folk who play the ballroom of romance, and the guinness storehouse things... i think they kinda represent that independent scene

this may be a bad example but when people who arent known on thumped post there its not unusual for them to get slated... like a band advertisement or whatever... surely you'll remember the slaggings of syb "good charlotte girl" or whatever her name on the board was... it seemed she was being jeered for posting about something she liked

i know this doesnt represent the musical end of things and i dont think myself or soma meant the bands within the 'scene' but maybe more their followings as soma said...

another example was recently i was on thumped on was reading a post that just slated turn for seemingly no reason... personally i like turn but i dont mind people not liking them its just unfair to slate them with no back up, ya know?

i'll try to find the post and then hopefully you'll get what i mean

about the things that you're missing, i think thats a great idea, very useful... but honestly would/could you expect me or our band who fit into ed's "boring" category to come along to one of these meetings? even if everyone was nice as pie you wouldnt be able to sit there and not feel an outsider

Ed

"and ed...as regards to "dublin moaning for ya" is it just moaning or is it a justified statement, to say that the magazine will just cover bands like jimmy cake, dudley corp, c4o, rednecks etc... i cant see a band like blotooth getting into it or melaton"

I don't know what the magazine is gonna cover, my guess would be bands who are making good music. I doubt it'll focus purely on the 'thumped' bands because it'd run out of material pretty quickly. There's this horrible paranoia that there's some mad conspiracy going on in dublin, not all the 'thumped' bands like eachother, not all the people who post on thumped like a lot of the bands, in the same way that i'm pretty sure you don't like all the bands that are praised on this board, some are good, some are bad. It's the same on thumped too. I very much doubt that the people behind foggy notions are gonna decide straight off what bands will get coverage and which ones won't based on what clique they may be attributed to. More than likelt they'll rely on the bands to give them a reason to write about them. The fact is a lot of the bands that are assosciated with thumped or the likes of the bands you mentioned will get coverage according to the journalists, if a journalist gets cd he likes, it's very probable that he or she will say that s/he likes it whatever clique they're from

Ed

Originally posted by polarbelly


about the things that you're missing, i think thats a great idea, very useful... but honestly would/could you expect me or our band who fit into ed's "boring" category to come along to one of these meetings? even if everyone was nice as pie you wouldnt be able to sit there and not feel an outsider

My 'Boring' comment only applies to my opinion, there's plenty of dull bands associated with thumped too. Again that's only my opinion. Just because i'm not wild on a particular band means nothing in the grand scheme of things, i'm sure there's plenty of folks who love bands i'm not into and vice versa.
On the subject of people getting slagged off when they post on thumped, i'm afraid that's just bull****, if people get abused then they probably deserve a lot of it(not all) I started posting on thumped a while back, i didn't know any of the people who posted there, it's only in the last week that i've actually met any of them.
If i went onto the board initially and started spouting off random stuff about some band that i thought were great i'm sure i would have been abused, that's just the internet, it's full of opinionated/ misguided music fans(like me)

horsekick

i can see were your coming from Mick, the bands mentioned above always seem to pop up together in the likes of Hotpress etc. it's fairly frustrating to see the same names turning up each fortnight. As you said yourself, im not in any way having a dig at these bands, perhaps they put a lot of time and effort into gettin the press coverage that they have recieved, but when you go to read the rediculously small section in Hotpress dedicated to underground acts and see the same names turning up each time, it does begin to frustrate. Im not having a whinge because "my band doesn't get into hotpress" i just think we need a magazine that will open its eyes a bit more and perhaps try to write interesting articles about bands who work hard and just dont have the same contacts / previous press coverage that other bands do.
Hopefully this magazine will cater a bit more for the Dublin music scene. As someone said in a thread a couple of weeks ago "there are 436 (ish) bands in Dublin at the moment"

lets hope more than 10 or 20 of them get a bit of exposure in the future.

polarbelly

Originally posted by Ed
My 'Boring' comment only applies to my opinion, there's plenty of dull bands associated with thumped too. Again that's only my opinion. Just because i'm not wild on a particular band means nothing in the grand scheme of things, i'm sure there's plenty of folks who love bands i'm not into and vice versa.
On the subject of people getting slagged off when they post on thumped, i'm afraid that's just bull****, if people get abused then they probably deserve a lot of it(not all) I started posting on thumped a while back, i didn't know any of the people who posted there, it's only in the last week that i've actually met any of them.
If i went onto the board initially and started spouting off random stuff about some band that i thought were great i'm sure i would have been abused, that's just the internet, it's full of opinionated/ misguided music fans(like me)

i reckon that if you asked any of the thingsthatyourmissing crew they would have similar opinions on what is boring...

thus, i guess at the end of the day its a matter of taste

people dont get slagged off for no reason on this board, or cluas, or hotpress, so i dont see how it should/would be different on any other board ie. thumped

if the posters dont like gig plugs they could either let the post drop naturally or set up a gig listings forum whatever not just lash into people cos their tastes arent the same as yours, thats how i feel about the syb thing specifically... i dont like the band she was promoting but hey no point slagging her because of it

i suppose myself and yourself have diff. expectations of message boards

Originally posted by Ed
I don't know what the magazine is gonna cover, my guess would be bands who are making good music. I doubt it'll focus purely on the 'thumped' bands because it'd run out of material pretty quickly. There's this horrible paranoia that there's some mad conspiracy going on in dublin, not all the 'thumped' bands like eachother, not all the people who post on thumped like a lot of the bands, in the same way that i'm pretty sure you don't like all the bands that are praised on this board, some are good, some are bad. It's the same on thumped too. I very much doubt that the people behind foggy notions are gonna decide straight off what bands will get coverage and which ones won't based on what clique they may be attributed to. More than likelt they'll rely on the bands to give them a reason to write about them. The fact is a lot of the bands that are assosciated with thumped or the likes of the bands you mentioned will get coverage according to the journalists, if a journalist gets cd he likes, it's very probable that he or she will say that s/he likes it whatever clique they're from

if its leagues running it you know well who'll be covered, and i dont think they dont deserve it, but you know who will be covered.

and i hope that this doesnt come across as a my band arent getting it, its so unfair kinda thing, cos thats not what i'm trying to get at at all

infact most of what has been said by either yourself or joss has been fairly enlightening and i thank you, despite that i still dont agree with alot of it

polarbelly

http://209.204.240.222/bbs/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=3740

that thread hopefully the link works is one of the threads that creates this "holier than thou" buzz

read treelo's post

and what ron from I U replies is often the way that the 'thumped' scene is looked upon, even though this is obviously a v hot headed post if you take out the expletives you can get the jist of what he's saying

mick

Ed

Originally posted by polarbelly

if its leagues running it you know well who'll be covered, and i dont think they dont deserve it, but you know who will be covered.

I think that's a really unfair view to take, if bands make music that people will like then it's gonna get covered somewhere. You shouldn't assume that it'll be Leagues' taste in music that will dictate the content of the magazine. I'm sure he'll make suggestions, but unless he's writing it on his own which he's not it'll come down to the tastes of a lot of different people, so even if he may not be into a particular band, there may be other people in foggy notions who would be and would want to write about them.

polarbelly

thats fair enough

it being crimbo time and all i will say though, that the proof is in the pudding... i suppose we'll just have to wait and see what comes out of it

Ed

i'd say give it an issue or two before you make any decisions

knobbles

Originally posted by soma
If there's ANYTHING irish to rival Hotpress I'd buy it. The amount of coverage for up and coming Irish acts is a shambles, there's the 'homework' column (a third of a page) and then usually half a page given over to an interview.

Great to see the cover pic + piece on gemma hayes/glen hansaard/mundy et al but they are (at least to some degree) established on the scene.

...they're sell outs for covering Westlife and Mumba in the past who are just show-business acts but hotpress's coverage of irish music is fair...not too little but they don't over do it.

The reason mundy & co. are established is because they're worthy - they're brilliant writers - and hotpress have certainly helped many of them get established.

The mag would be very bland if it mirrored itself on the local scene. The majority of people who'd be interested in a magazine that gives a lot of coverage to local talent is the local bands themselves....

Originally posted by horsekick
"there are 436 (ish) bands in Dublin at the moment"

....these bands wouldn't find it hard to get into hotpress if they were truley good.....but the fact is most of them won't find interest after their friends and their peers.
66e were one of these "463" a few months ago and they've had a couple of nice reviews the last month. Fair play to 66e; fair play to hotpress.
Most musicheads don't want to know about every up and coming local band but if there's great irish music out there they do and hotpress does champion those great irish artists - see the latest cover

pete

why doesn't anyone ever tell me about these things?

deadly.

I've.... I've created.... a monster!

Hope y'all come down to the christmas party in doyles next wednesday plug plug plug.... should be the fun.

mumblin deaf ro

Ok, waitaminute.

Just so you all know I post on thumped and am involved with thingsyouremissing. Also, I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything, I'm just giving my view (too many threads go off the point by people trying to 'win' the argument)

I'm not going to argue you with you, but most of the bands involved are trying to get their music released by themselves and the principle (behind thingsyouremissing anyway) is that people who've done this share info with those about to do it. Anyone interested should check out the resources on the site.

Ron from IU actually attended the meeting referred to in the thread you've attached above. Treelo's comment was taken in good spirits by both her and Ron; we had a good discussion where we all talked about what we could do to make life easier for bands.

Thumped also has excellent recording advice from a guy called 'Dubh from Seattle' on the home recording board. There's also lots of other interesting stuff, and yes, the general board has people with a wicked sense of humour. It's ok mostly; people don't take it very seriously and it's not life or death.

Finally, I think people are paranoid about cliques (there are many) - get out there, give you cd or demo to bands you like and ask them for a support slot. Maybe they won't like your cd, but you shouldn't whinge, just keep handing it around. Or else put on gigs and invite bands you like to play with you. That's how every band (including those you've complained about) organise gigs.

Anyway, that's my longest ever post - I'm off to bed.

mumblin deaf ro

Originally posted by polarbelly
http://209.204.240.222/bbs/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=3740

that thread hopefully the link works is one of the threads that creates this "holier than thou" buzz

read treelo's post

and what ron from I U replies is often the way that the 'thumped' scene is looked upon, even though this is obviously a v hot headed post if you take out the expletives you can get the jist of what he's saying

mick

..by the way, do agree with his view?

Raggamuffin

nah i think the thumped forum can go over my head sometimes but i read away and i try to go along to as many gigs as i can.

just play your music and try and practice as much as you can.
and when you think" yeh i'm good enough and i'm not ripping off anybody blind" then give your cd up to bands hehe

i'm all on my own playing bass guitar and electric... witha stupid drum machine....
all it gets me is a shoddy cover of lovecats, gouge away, and this is the day.
bad v.bad

Morn

I agree with Mr. Deaf Ro (tho he wasn't trying to convince me, only inform ;-) Thingsyouremissing.com is a great resource for anyone considering producing or recording their own music. A public service is provided for no charge - you can hardly ask for better than that!

And polarbelly - you mentioned that gig announcements can get a slating on thumped - you gotta remember that not everyone is interested in your gig announcements - I'm not saying don't post them - I know I do - but to people who aren't interested they have the same status as junkmail. So don't worry too much if you get a negative response - it's the price you pay for your advertising space.

soma

Well bottom line for me is I will be buying this magazine for a few issues at the very least - like I said I will try *any* rival to hotpress.

Someone was saying that hotpress couldn't possibly model themselves after mainly the local scene - that is of course true. But there are ONE HUNDRED pages in the current issue of hotpress, would a 2 page spread on up-and-coming bands in the republic be too much to ask? apparently so..