The National @ Riverstage

On my way to see The National at Riverstage last night I mentally reflected on their long catalogue of music and tried to come to a steady conclusion on what kind of band The National were – what kind of band they had become after a good couple of decades in the music business.

It immediately became apparent to me just how far The National had come. They were a completely different band on classic early tracks like ‘Beautiful Head’ and ‘American Mary’; alt-country as opposed to…well, whatever it is that they are now.  If I had to slap a label on a band like The National I wouldn’t denote their music to merely being ‘indie’ or ‘hipster’, as it is often called now. Although they have changed and grown since the vulnerable rawness of ‘The National’ in 2001, the roots of their music remain deeply embedded in an Americana ethos and aesthetic, with their early songs recalling images of heartache in the sprawling Americana cross-country. Whilst their more recent tunes have matured into a darker and edgier vision, this is a perspective that correlates to a darker Americana. 

The National may have lost some of the natural rawness of their early tunes, but that sense of vulnerability that makes them relatable is still there. The bittersweet mood their songs evoke brings Riverstage to life, even though it’s a Tuesday night and their tunes are not the most cheerful. The National are as vibrant as ever. Every time I see a major international band play a gig on a crappy day in little Brisbane town I am super pleased if they put in a lot of effort to make it a good show, which they probably should be doing considering it’s their job. But a lot of bands do not, which is understandable when you take into account the two-three hour time-frame on stage, the monotony of performing the same show ten times in ten day, the jet lag and the busy tour schedules.

So when a band is phenomenal on stage despite all these mitigating factors I earn a lot of respect for them not as just as musicians, but as professional musicians.  Especially when I think of a lot of smaller local bands who might play a show every couple of months down the road from where they live and yet robotically perform their back catalogue with cooler than thou expressions of boredom. Yes, it sucks being a small band, not making any money, lugging heavy equipment around Brisbane, and then not even having much of an audience at a gig, but for those handful of people who made the effort to come to your gig, show them why more people should be with them.

But getting back to The National. What really makes their live shows special and their live performance touching as opposed to contrived, is the right balance between optimistic energy and intensity that characterises most of their songs. And hey, some pretty crazy strobe lights attacking audience members at the most poignant parts of their songs helps too. The National are at their best with songs like ‘Terrible Love’, ‘Sorrow’ and ‘England’, all songs that find this delicate balance, whilst some of their less emotive and interesting songs fall flat in the shadow of better songs with stronger arcs.

The band uses a similar formula for most of their songs, which is essentially structuring their tracks in a rising arc that reaches a climax and then gradually plateaus (think ‘Afraid of Everyone’). This is a structure that inevitably captures the listener’s attention with pacing that slowly builds intensity. It’s a clever technique that seduces you like a good novel with rising action, climax and denouement.  After about halfway through the set the formula feels a bit stale, but short and sweet outliers like ‘Anyone’s Ghost’ and ‘Squalor Victoria’, with its kick-ass drumbeat, keep things interesting. What albums like ‘High Violet’ and ‘Boxer’ prove both in their recorded version, but even more so in the band’s live shows, is that The National are really at their best when they don’t play it safe, but unfortunately, they tend to play it safe a bit too often, relying on a formulaic sudden increase in energy to elevate a mediocre song.

One of the highlights of the night proves to be the inevitable encore. Once the crowd is at the point of frenzied begging for the band to return The National come back stage, showered by a spider-web of flashing white lights as they begin ‘Humiliation’, a great track that uses a motoring pace to build momentum. I am not a fan of bloated of encores or really, encores at all, but ‘Humiliation’ was an explosive finale, ending with a complete blackout once the final chords were played. And that’s when the show should have ended, with the audience craving more. Instead, however, the band stays on stage and plays crowd pleasers ‘Mr November’, ‘Terrible Love’ and ‘Vanderlyle Crybaby Creeks’.

Things get pretty rock n roll with Matt Berninger jumping into the audience and attempting crowd surfing that turns out more like crowd climbing. I am impressed by Matt Berninger’s persistence at attempting to continue the song, despite being groped by eager fans who try to ‘help’ him out with the song when Berninger is at his most vulnerable. Of course the song is fan favourite ‘Terrible Love’, a predictable, but effective encore. In its shadow, ‘Vanderlyle Crybaby Creeks’ leaves a little to be desired.

Published by AAA Backstage.

Wire @ The Zoo

Because of their eclectic discography Wire are that kind of special band that brings people together: hard rock fans, new wavers and punk rockers alike. When a conversation about Wire beings between two music nerds, no matter how much their tastes differ otherwise, the two will be united by their love for Wire.

This is more than evident when I arrive at The Zoo on February 20 to see the band play live, nearly half a century after they first started. There’s only a splatter of people around to see support acts Multiple Man and Per Purpose, but a growing amount of bald, tough looking middle aged men in Wire T-shirts gradually join the young people who got here early. These men are no doubt old school punk rockers from the seventies who haven’t quite moved on from their relationship with Wire.

Opening the show is the aptly named doppelganger duo Multiple Man. There isn’t much to Multiple Man, just a synthesizer and a drum machine, but the impact of this seemingly simple set up is immense. The two commence their set without any words of introduction as making chit-chat with the crowd would tarnish their cool and collected energy, in sync with their mechanical sound. Slow and steady beats lure you into an eerie electronic world, a hypnotic effect that does not lose its effectiveness until the final strokes of synthesizer resonate. It’s difficult to tell when one song ends and one begins, but that’s okay; that’s kind of the point.

Following Multiple Man’s exceptional set is Per Purpose, a sort of neo-nineties garage group. Although frontman Glen Schenau puts more frenetic energy into his performance, resulting in a broken guitar string, Per Purpose’s stage presence is not nearly as intoxicating as Multiple Man’s dead-still stance, but I guess it’s kind of like comparing apples to oranges. Although Per Purpose’s sound feels a little stale, their stage antics are amusing, especially when Schenau produces a ball of string seemingly out of nowhere to fix his guitar as band members and Zoo employees scramble about to fix the string. I guess this must be regular occurrence for Per Purpose. The screaming vocals get kind of boring after awhile, especially because it’s clear at times that Schenau has a pretty good voice, but I guess singing in tune is not rock n roll enough. There’s certainly good stuff here, but it’s undermined by the band’s roughness, which adds little charm to the final product.

Wire take a good few minutes to assemble on stage, with an off-stage ambient synth introduction building up anticipation for the already giddy audience. Once the lights come on everybody goes crazy as the band slowly takes their places on stage, beginning with a moody tune from their second album, ‘Marooned’. With middle-aged bands who were once punk legends, it’s always a gamble as to whether they can summon the energy of their youths for a killer show. It is instantly clear that Wire is more than up for the challenge: they look the part and they sound the part too.

The band follows their enticing opener with the contrastingly punky ‘Twenty-Three Years Too Late’, in which bassist Graham Lewis and regular vocalist Colin Newman share vocals. Lewis talk-sings the slowly paced verses, whilst Newman sings the fast-paced punk chorus. The end result is a fantastic clash of opposing forces of energy, an effortless combination of theatrics with punk rock. Lewis has music sheets on a stand for the first couple of songs, but in true punk rock style after ‘Twenty-three’, he ditches the sheet music.

They follow ‘Twenty Three’ with pulsating tune ‘Drill’, a song from their first eighties album ‘The Ideal Copy’. As the title suggests, the song features a consistent drill-like beat that steadily builds up momentum. The mood yet again seamlessly transitions into the heavier and more lingering melodic styles of hard rock with ‘Doubles and Trebles’, a new song from their 2013 album ‘Change Becomes Us’. It’s four songs in and it’s a little disappointing that we haven’t heard anything off their legendary first album ‘Pink Flag’, and we still don’t after ‘Doubles and Trebles’ finishes.

It’s not until their twelfth song, ‘Map Ref’ that we finally hear a song from one of their first three albums after a slew of new songs from their latest release. In what is a major disappointment this is the last song from any of the classic albums Wire plays, with the rest of the set being compromised of songs from 2003 to now. When the majority of your audience is middle aged and grew up with these first three albums, it’s probably a smart move to play some of the classic songs. It’s not like Wire are The Rolling Stones or anything, and have had to play these key tracks a million times over.

The fans holler for songs like ‘Three Girl Rhumba’, whilst waiting for the band to return for their inevitable encore, but once Wire return, they don’t take the bait and instead wow audiences with slow-burning psychedelic hard rock tune ‘Harpooned’. The song proves to be a powerful and affecting encore that drags on and on, only building intensity, whilst negating much need for the band to play any of their two-minute punk classics.

By this point my head is vibrating from the sheer impact of the sound, which was horrifically mixed. Although Wire’s sound relies on heavy bass, the bass was far too loud and the overall result was that I felt like I was about pass out (not in a good way) and still have hearing loss, and ears ringing the day after the show. Punk rock bands are meant to be loud and in your face, but when the sound is deafening and ear splitting to the point of being unbearable, you have a big problem, especially when it overwhelms the songs.

Although it was disappointing that Wire did not play the hits they certainly proved how strong they still are as musicians, with many new songs holding up just as well, if not better, than some of the classics, with ‘Twenty Three’ and ‘Harpooned’ being the key songs of the night, striking just the right balance of punk zest and slow burning energy. The magic of Wire is that they cannot simply be demoted to a mere three-chord paint-by-numbers punk group. Wire continue to do what not many bands have attempted and certainly not in a recent years; blending classic Brit-punk with eighties new wave synthesizers and hard rock, infused with tidbits of psychedelia, and they do it all with a true punk ethos.

Published by 4zzz.

The Big Day Out Festival Faux Pas

Whilst Australia’s festival scene flounders, with all the recent Big Day Out press confirming the worst, overseas festivals have never been doing better. 

Just yesterday The Austin Psych Fest announced a phenomenal second artist announcement that included classic rival bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warholes, as well as The War On Drugs, Loop, Bardo Pond, Mikal Cronin and Temples. They are joining a line up that is already shaping up to be spectacular, including Austin psych favourites The Black Angels, legendary sixties garage rockers The Zombies, The Horrors, of Montreal and Black Lips, all for the dirt cheap price of $157 for a weekend ticket (plus heaps of other amazing bands nobody has heard of). Meanwhile, our festivals are suffering more than ever from mediocrity and inflated prices. This year Big Day Out’s headliners included Pearl Jam, Arcade Fire, Snoop Lion, Major Lazer, The Hives, Beady Eye and Flume – hardly the makings of Big Day Out history. The price? $185 for a one-day event. And I haven’t even covered the drink costs yet, plus the personal costs of suffering in the Gold Coast heat amongst thousands of irritating people on a cocktail of VBs, steroids and methamphetamine-laced E’s (or so, Campbell Newman would have us believe).

Just last week The Groovin The Moo line-up was announced, which is usually a pretty good indication of who might play our biggest festival, Splendour In The Grass. Needless to say, it was a huge disappointment. Disclosure, Parkway Drive, Dizzee Rascal, The Jezebels, Robert Delong, Architecture In Helsinki, Illy, The Jungle Giants, Karnivool, Thundamentals, Loon Lake, Kingswood, The Kite String Tangle, The Naked and Famous, The Presets and Violent Soho. What do all of these bands have in common? They’re all pretty mediocre, but that’s not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that they all seem to be appearing on every festival line up ever.

The Naked and Famous, Loon Lake, Kingswood, Violent Soho and The Jungle Giants all played Big Day Out just a few weeks ago.  Flume, (who played Big Day Out) The Presets, Robert Delong, The Jungle Giants, Violent Soho, Architecture In Helsinki all played Splendour In The Grass. 

Lorde, The Growl, The Jezebels, Cloud Control, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Vance Joy, Jagwar Ma, Daughter and Haim all played Laneway and all played Splendour In The Grass last year too. 

Meanwhile Chet Faker and Flight Facilities, who both played Splendour, plus Violent Soho and Thundamentals on the Groovin The Moo line-up, were all on the Falls line-up.

Seeing a pattern here?

Not only are the ticket prices going up, but we are effectively paying for the same festival experience, simply branded differently. This wouldn’t be so bad if the prices weren’t so over the top, but we are paying $185 for Big Day Out and $350 for Splendour, which doesn’t include the costs of camping and travel (add on another $300 for all that, plus a few more hundred dollars for inflated drink prices and inevitable illegal drugs to get you through the weekend).

Groovin The Moo is slightly more affordable at $99, but the line-up is miniscule and it takes place at locations that are hardly as picturesque as Byron Bay. Laneway is $123, which seems fair, but it is probably the best festival available to Queenslanders at the moment, and one of the more successful ones. 

The worst offender of the lot? Falls Festivals, which was $378, even more expensive than Splendour, a festival that featured about three-fold more acts than Falls. Falls-advocates will argue that Falls is ‘about the experience, man’. My response? That’s what the festival organisers want you to say. That $378 is for someone’s hefty wage, not your special snowflake Falls experience. 

As for the other big three-day festivals? Well, Coachella is $375 for a three day pass, but the line-up is about six times Falls size. With Beck, Bryan Ferry, Fayboy Slim, Outkast, The Replacements, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Queens of the Stone Age, Pharrell Williams, Lana Del Ray, Skrillex, Muse, Afghan Talk, Ty Segall, Mogwai, The Knife, Girl Talk and Flosstradamus, you can’t really compare it, even if most of these bands aren’t exactly my cup of tea. You’ve also got nearly all of the big headliners for the various Australian festivals playing Coachella – pretty much all of them, and for the same price. Arcade Fire, Beady Eye, Chvrches (played Laneway), Disclosure, Flume, Grouplove (played Big Day Out), Haim, Jagwar Ma, Flight Facilities, Lorde, Daughter, MGMT (played Falls), The Naked and Famous, and Warpaint (played Laneway) are all playing Coachella.

Meanwhile, the Glastonbury line-up is ridiculously good.  I can’t even be bothered to type it out because it’s so long. Just understand that is has pretty much anybody in the music business who you would probably ever want to see live, apart from unknown underground acts. Ticket prices are 210 pounds, which I guess would equate to being just a little more expensive than Falls. 

Just a little more expensive than Falls. 

So why are we paying more for something that is nowhere near as good? The answer – we’re not. Australian touring Mogul AJ Maddah, who joined the Big Day Out team last year confirmed in a recent interview with triple j that Big Day Out would be suffering between 8 – 15 million dollar losses, and that they had falsely inflated attendance figures.  On top of audience members jumping ship, so are bands. Blur's cancellation of their Big Day Out spot was obviously the most talked about case, but Soundwave is shaping up just as badly with Megadeath and Sevendust both cancelling. 

When asked about the inflated prices for Big Day Out during his tell-all interview with triple j, this is what Maddah had to say:

“The price  - $185 was ridiculous. But, as I said, you know, that was not long before I came in this year. It's just insane. Look, you know, if you go to a specialty festival where, you know, there are 20 bands that you want to see that's one thing. You know, Soundwave has something like 97 bands this year and 12 stages, and, you know, if you're into any kind of guitar music, there is a full days programming for you. Big Day Out is more about the experience, it's more about the day. You know, there are 3 or 4 bands everyone wants to see throughout the programming hopefully. And, you know, it's a day of wandering round, doing the markets, doing the bands, doing everything else. And for that - $185 is absolutely unreasonable.”

As for the drink prices? Well, that’s something out of the festival organizer’s hands. You have the government to blame for that, who on their never-ending quest to destroy live music in Australia, have made ridiculous alcohol and venue regulations that mean you pay $10 for a mid-strength beer that tastes like bacteria-infested water. You also have the Australian government to thank for the entire pound of sniffer dogs greeting you at festival gates. 

“We have a situation in Australia where everyone is presumed, as far as music events go, everybody is presumed guilty until innocent and the fact that certain states they put 30,000 people in drinking cages just on the off chance someone might pass a beer to a 17 year-old it’s ridiculous, it’s insane and the other situation is of course that most of the bars and most of the food and beverage operators are operated by venues and there’s certainly a certain amount of gouging that goes on and sadly we’re limited by the venues we can use in a city like this and we have to put up or not have the events.”

On top of all this, Maddah also recently announced the cancellation of the Perth leg of Big Day Out, with Adelaide next in line for the guillotine. 

“I love the city, some of my favourite cake shops are there,” says Maddah on Perth. “But look, at the end of the day when you look through the financial history of most of the national festivals, especially a rock festival, the east coast has to subsidise Perth, that’s another reason for BDO’s higher ticket prices this year is generally you lose money in Perth. You’ve got two days to get there, three days to get back, all the trucking all the production, things in Perth because of the mining boom have been really difficult in recent years. A hotel room that you would pay $180 in Sydney is $320 a night in Perth in the same hotel chain. Everything, the price of hiring everything is ridiculous over there, security is two and a half times the rate of the east coast so it becomes a situation where people struggle to go to Perth. Combine that will dropping public support for festivals over there and attendance figures and then for all your trouble you get a kicking from the local government and state government. It just got to a point where it’s become unbearable.”

So it’s clear that with bands cancelling festival slots, attendance figures dropping and huge losses occurring, something’s got to give. Maddah covers this in his interview with triple j, explaining that prices are expected to go down, but this doesn’t cover the issue of mediocre line-ups. Maddah explains that they are targeting an older crowd with their line-ups, as older people have more money, I guess. This approach might work if Big Day Out had actually acquired Blur on their line-up, but they didn’t  - instead we got Beady Eye and The Hives, hardly adequate replacements. It might also be more effective if the festival organisers knew who they were targeting. Blur fans are hardly going to get excited about Pearl Jam, even if they are from the same era.

I guess what it all boils down to is money. Australia is a small country and it is very far away from all the other major Western countries. This means that it requires a lot of money to get big artists here. And if nobody is here to watch them, then how do we pay them? The answer – we don’t. The result? 

Big Day Off. 

I imagine it’s a lot cheaper to ship big acts between America and Europe for festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury, possibly reducing the costs of hiring these acts. So a big international-filled line up festival is probably not going to happen any time soon and not for a cheap price. But nothing great will happen at all if people don’t go to festivals.

I do not believe it’s as simple as the prices being too high. I personally don’t think all that many people are interested in festivals, possibly after years of disappointing line-ups and experiences at Big Day Out and Splendor. It was rumored last year that The Black Angels were considering bringing The Austin Psych Fest to Brisbane, as a smaller and less popular city. However, this never happened and will probably never happen. When The Black Angels performed in Brisbane last year at The Tivoli it must have a wake up call for the band, as the show was nowhere near a sell-out, a good indication of what would happen if there actually was an awesome festival like the Psych Fest in Brisbane – nobody would go. Indeed, Japanese band Kikagaku Moyo attempted a mini psych fest in Brisbane last year at The Beetle Bar with Brisbane’s best psych outfit Dreamtime. Nobody went. Not even people who like psych music went (I know this, because they’re my friends). Why? It certainly wasn’t the price, as it was $25. The line-up? Possibly, but if you were into that type of music the line-up featured a pretty good spread of Australian psych bands and of course, Kikagaku Moyo, who are exceptional (and playing Austin). 

There seems to be a wider problem here – a kind of indifference toward live music that is immediately obvious if you spend a few weeks attending live shows in Brisbane, as most of the time the room is half full. So promoters and festival organizers are pretty much guaranteed to operate at a rate of loss in the current live music climate. Even Laneway, which featured a pretty stellar line-up, didn’t sell out this year, not even with festival goldmine Lorde.

There are a few different ways the festival crisis could be resolved. Neither may be effective, but it’s something we haven’t tried. If the costs of hiring and negotiating with international artists cannot be recouped in the current festival market, then perhaps it would be better to focus on a solid Australian line-up that would be cheaper to hire. Therefore prices could be cheaper and festival organizers could focus on making the experience more fun; better vibes, a two-day festival permit and cheaper drinks. Big Aussie acts like Courtney Barnett, Jagwar Ma, The Preatures, Lorde (uh…kind of) are all playing Coachella, whilst Tame Impala are playing Glastonbury. Get some big Australian talent on the bill and then supplement the costs of hiring them with cheaper local bands. Better yet, put the event on Australia Day (okay, don’t do that…that’s a terrible idea. Just ask AJ Maddah). 

Or go all out. Get a line up together that is bloody amazing if you’re charging $400 for a mere ticket. Who cares about ‘the festival experience’ – the festival experience is seeing amazing music live. Sacrifice all the party and art crap Falls and Splendour put on for some awesome international artists. Forget after-festival DJs and 'clubs', nobody even hangs around for that shit. Hire less bands and spread them out more, most people end up missing bands because they’re in line for the bathroom or at the alcohol tents, so it wouldn’t be a huge sacrifice if festival organizers cut about ten bands off the line-ups of major festivals. Less days, less money, less crap and better bands. 

That’s a festival I’d go to.


Published by AAA Backstage.

Journalists Are Not The Enemy

Like any industry where artists put their personal work out in the public domain for criticism, the music industry is a dog-eat-dog world.

Not only because it is highly competitive, but because music is such a personal thing for the artists putting their work out there, as well as being more than just business to the industry professionals behind the scenes. What should be evident in any professional industry, however, is a certain level of professional respect, even if it isn’t always an easy industry to work in. Is this evident in the music industry? Certainly not. 

There is a strange and severely out-dated perception some musicians seem to have that supports an ‘us against them’ mentality, where artists view journalists as dim-witted predatory scum. In reality, the people working behind the scenes are the people supporting the music industry the most. And believe me, they’re not there because they want to make money; they’re there because they are your biggest fans. Most people tend to form their opinions based on what popular culture tells them and I guess some bands must have seen Almost Famous a few too many times. In the film Cameron Crowe’s roman à clef music journalist character, William, is labelled ‘the enemy’ by the fictional band Stillwater and refused entry into the gig he is meant to review. When William demonstrates his knowledge of the band’s discography, Stillwater’s egos are decently satiated, William is no longer deemed a threat and he is allowed into the gig. A journalist might like your music, but that doesn't mean they want be a band's friend and they should've have to suck up to musicians to feel welcome.

So where does this ridiculous attitude stem from that positions journalists like William as the enemy? Of course bands are instantly antsy around journalists as they have the power to point out the flaws of the band to a wide audience, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We all know how important it is for bands to be able to take on criticism from reviewers, even if the reviewers themselves are not musicians with as much as in-depth knowledge about music production as the musicians themselves. A reviewer’s opinion is still important because they represent the audience a band is targeting – the fans. And guess what? The fans are usually not musicians either and these are the majority of the people buying your records. And if the fans don’t like it, then yeah, their opinion is kind of valid, even if they don’t fully understand the music as much as the artist feels they should. Fans and reviewers really don’t owe artists anything, except having an open-mind to their work. In any case, sometimes journalists are musicians with as much music knowledge as the bands they are writing about, if not more. Sometimes they are not trained musicians, but still have a hefty music background and ample knowledge that could compete with any band. Positioning the person on the sidelines as inferior is unjustified and reflects an uninformed perspective.

Inevitably, William’s acceptance into the Stillwater circle does not last long when he points out the internal struggles of the band in his Rolling Stone article. William is once again deemed the enemy, even though he just did the band a huge favour by writing an honest and uncompromising piece of writing that landed the band the cover of Rolling Stone. But this really isn’t the point. The point is that reviewers and other people working in the music industry should not be considered the enemy and regarded with caution, or even worse, instantly judged as being vindictive and inferior, and worst of all, labelled an outsider. A music community should not be founded on isolation and marginalisation of the people who support the music.  We should be helping each other out instead of supporting uninformed attitudes and beliefs that form a wedge between musicians and the people supporting the industry - the fans.

All of these points are even more important to take note of when you consider the challenging circumstances of a journalist’s job. Most of the time, music reviewers are not paid at all for their job, instead being paid with free tickets to gigs; there is not even any transport money given and no drink tickets. The most you will see for freelance writing is around $100, more commonly $25 per piece (usually for interviews as opposed to reviews). Music reviewers are there because they like the music. Which brings me to my second point: music reviewers are rarely given designated gigs by publications to review. Reviewers put up their hand for bands they want to see and are allocated media passes. So the age-old idea of the music reviewer who gives a bad review because they know nothing about the band is completely uninformed. They are a fan of your band. So making them feel like the enemy really just turns you into the enemy. Thirdly, reviewers have little time to write their reviews, with most publications expecting the review to be posted the next morning. So it’s difficult to bypass typos and grammar mistakes, especially when most publications expect reviewers to do independent self-editing.

Restrictive word counts also make it difficult for reviewers to express their views as eloquently and as in-depth as they might prefer. Most publications designate 500 words for a live review, with 800 typically being the maximum. Expect 200 words for print publications. With anything from two to ten bands on a line-up, reviewing everybody is simply not always an option. And giving bands a song-by-song analysis? That is simply impossible because of these meagre word counts and also because of the nature of live reviews. Perhaps with an album review or EP review a thoughtful song-by-song analysis is possible, but with a live review it is very difficult to scribble down that many notes. Especially with other people giving you dirty looks all night for being on your phone during a gig, wrongly assuming you’re texting. Moreover, although a band might like to read an insightful analysis of their performance, most readers unfortunately do not. Reviews should be written like stories that make the reader feel like they’re there – not pander to the bands’ egos so that when they read it they are reminded of how awesome they are. Journalists are writing reviews for other fans as opposed to writing reviews solely for the musician’s benefit.

We also need to remember that journalists are people too and they have their day jobs to go to; reviewing is often a minor hobby. Even if you work for a music publication during the week, you are usually busy handling social media, interviewing artists, writing news articles and writing press releases; refining reviews and feature articles all day long is simply not an option. A lot of journalists are also university students furiously studying during their spare time or trying to edit a 15,000 word thesis or 90,000 word PhD. It doesn’t give bands a good reputation to nit-pick at reviewers doing their best in a challenging work environment and to the point of being rude and abrasive, and it certainly isn’t going to change industry standards for music articles. Even if journalists are critical they are rarely tactless and mean-spirited.

Artists should be supporting artists and writing is a form of art, too. Just like viciously slamming a band for making a small mistake during their set or having a mediocre filler song on their album is uncalled for, so is slamming a writer for a small typo or a rushed article. In an industry that needs as much support as it can get, this is exactly what we should all be doing: those of us on stage and those of us off stage. But I guess if we were all nice to each other all the time that wouldn’t be very rock ‘n’ roll, would it? I still believe that reviewers need to be honest and uncompromising, even if someone’s ego gets a little deflated, and I also believe that bands should not suck up to journalists to get some nice words written about them. At the end of the day, rock ‘n’ roll should be about the music, not the egos.

Most Interesting Wardrobe Choices In Film: Christiane F

I just finished reading Christiane F's memoir 'We Children of Banhoof Zoo' and it inspired me to re-watch the exquisite film, in which there are countless amazing wardrobe changes for seemingly impoverished Christiane on the streets in dismal 1970s Berlin, working as a baby prostitute to support her heroin addiction. Hence, it inspired me to think about some of the most interesting wardrobe choices in film history. I'm not going to talk about it all in one post as it would take me a lot of words to get through this topic, but I will revisit this topic again soon with another film.

Christiane F

I will start with the film that inspired this post, also because I just watched it and have it in my head. The fashion choices in Christiane F are positively unique - if you research 1970s fashion you will find it difficult to come across the kind of clothes featured in the movie, believe me, I tried. Christiane's fashion was something kind of unique to Berlin in the 70s - the first breed of heroin chic that ever existed. Indeed, after her epic memoir of misery was published, detailing the numerous relapses and horror stories that was Christiane F's life at age 12 - 15, Christiane was ironically catapulted into celebrity status, with young girls copying her style all over Berlin, which is kind of creepy considering her heroin chic style was, well, partly attributed to heroin use.

Firstly, because her lack of money meant she had to share clothes with her boyfriend Detlef, so her clothes have a very masculine feel to them. Secondly, because she was malnourished as a result of not having enough money to eat and so her pencil thin jeans are incredibly tight and tiny because she was very sick and unhealthy (she was the master of altering jeans to make them tighter). Thirdly, at the time the tight jeans and high-heeled platform boots pairing identified Christiane as a prostitute if she was hanging around the prostitute areas in Berlin (Banhoof Zoo being the main one). So yeah, her undeniably chic style was a result of something that is certainly not chic - poverty, addiction, prostitution and sickliness. But god does she look damn good in that Bowie jacket.

There's something effortless about how Christiane is styled, but what makes it interesting is all the small touches. The stripy socks paired with high heels borrowed from her mother in the beginning of the film. The plain black leather jacket. The cute little scarves fellow prostitute and friend Babsi wears with all her outfits (pictured above, inspecting Christiane's Bowie jacket).

What is most interesting about the fashion, however, is how well the fourteen year old actress who plays Christiane pulls it off. This looks like the fashion of a much older woman, at least in her early twenties, yet baby-faced Christiane pulls off the feminine does masculine look better than women twice her age. The fashion doesn't age her, either, in fact, it kind of makes her young age even more apparent, especially when you see how tiny her legs are in those tight jeans. She also makes it look more fashionable than similarly styled celebrities of the same time. For instance 15 year old Cherie Currie of The Runaways had a kind of similar look, also being massively influenced by David Bowie, as Christiane obviously was (well, in the movie). Check out her awesome Bowie belt.

The Runaways were all about jeans, tight shirts and platforms, yet unlike Christiane they appear more butch and less chic. The reason? Christiane swaps tight shirts for loose masculine shirts tucked into super tight jeans with no flares and topped off with pointy boots as opposed to giant platforms.

Instead of emphasising her bust, Christiane's style focuses on her legs, with a more refined style as opposed to the larger than life approach of The Runaways. And for some reason this comes off looking more feminine than The Runaways' focus on their breasts and hips. Go figure.

If you watch the film as closely as I did (not many people do and I don't blame them) you'll also quickly realise Christiane's style gets more bland towards the end and during her downfall.

Nevertheless, her outfits are incredibly well-styled and the minimalist look really works. (well, you know, if you ignore the miserable look of desperation in her sunken dead eyes).

Perhaps it is this desperation that makes the look kind of interesting. Not just the originating factors of her look, which as I explained earlier, all derive from her number one predicament (heroin), but the aura of desperation. Because when you have nothing to lose that makes you dangerous. And that part of Christiane's character is reflected in the masculine does feminine look - the towering high-heeled boots, heavy jackets and second skin jeans. She doesn't just look like a little girl in a cute little dress. She looks dangerous. She has to, if she wants to survive in this world.

How else could you pull off double denim in a grimy toilet stall with a tourniquet ready to go?