Tuesday, July 21, 2009

ive just read this awful review of us

i mean, its not awful, the guy totally bums my guitar playing and appreciates our music FOR WHAT ITS WORTH LIKE. and he enjoyed our set, which is obviously THE POINT
but
(its about the free show we did at the flowerpot)

says he saw us "mincing around looking nervous cos noone was there" then we get a "rent-a-crowd" then "agree to go on when there audience is an acceptable size"

and at the end, i apparently have a guitar-trashing temper tantrum which is filmed for the feels like summer video. WHAT EXCUSE ME? as far as me and my guitar and the guy who made our video WHO WE DIDNT EVEN KNOW HAD BROUGHT HIS CAMERAHH this is all spurious lies that make us look like some poxy music biz band.

which is so much bullshit. like we could afford rent-a-crowds. or even tell the promotors when were going on. but really, the guy namedrops talking to me, like, whatafuckinghonor, and i feel like i was conned. i remember him, i think, i was drunk assss, and he seemed like a nice guy. apart from this wierdly cynical overimagination i'm sure he is.

i dunno, im all for people writing shit on the internet cos its ONLY THE INTERNET and other peoples opinions dont really bother us. especially when they're wrong. but that hideous style of writing, like, mock-cynical i-know-all-the-tricks really REALLY depressess me. one of the UNIQUE SELLING POINTS YOU CUNT of our band is we all have this stupidly naive attitude that people who like our band also like other bands we like, and therefore each show is a whole room full of potential friends. which is a super-flouncy faux punk statement worthy of jonah mantra, but probably the last bastition of anti-cynicism id stand by. we're not like, popstars, we're just as skint and sorry as everyone else, we weat the same tshirts, were on the same fucking side and we'd like to swap mix cds, we just happen to write good songs and weve had some good luck. simple.

anyway it was nice to be able to mince around YR OWN FUCKING SHOW without feeling like yr making a negative impact on yr press. where else are you supposed to mince round? the mincing rooms? god i have this image of him when i went to see if anja or gavin had arrived, or got a drink, or god forbid actually talk to people who like my band, staring at my back thinking "he looks nervous, he's a nervous mincer"

igsrhnvrahrevre

i only clicked on it cos there was a link for a review of feels like summer that said it started with a guitar riff that was stolen from a feeder song. and mentioned the t word. (twee. cos we're twee. HOW THE FUCK ARE WE TWEE YOU FUCKING IDIOTS. ARE YOU NOT SUPPOSED TO LEARN THE MEANING OF A WORD BEFORE USING IT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST PLEASE SOMEONE EITHER EXPLAIN HOW WE ARE TWEE OR LET US EXECUTE EVERY SELF PROCLAIMED MUSIC WRITER WHO DENOUCES US AS SUCH THANKS GOD. anyway she didnt like it, its a rubbish twee song, not as good as los camp, greaty, and thats good yeh? thats the sides i was ranting about before. doesnt like us but doesnt "get" us, so the actual opinions dont bother us. if we wrote music for everyone to get, then, we'd be rich. i mean, rubbish, not us doing what we love doing at getting paid for it. and, apart from rants like this, doing what the fuck we want has done us pretty well, and we know who our friends are k thx.

But, this mince-proclaimer, he likes us. i think. i mean, he's theoretically on our side, he liked the show, he likes our songs, i daresay we share loads of the same records. and that totally bums me out. im never talking to anyone ever again, goodbye forever.

(apart from the internet)
(or if you do the secret knock on our mincing room door)
(and on stage)
(im not really im just moaning, sorry if you thought this was going to be fun. bye)
(apologies are twee. FUCK YOU, everyone)

xlex

18 comments:

Simon said...

You haven't seen the Truck site's preview of Sky Larkin, then?

"Sky Larkin clearly move in the same musical circles as contemporaries such as Johnny Foreigner, Los Campesinos! And Dananananaykroyd, though – not being quite so twee - I dare say there are far fewer butterflies and a lot more fire in their bellies."

Twee Dananananaykroyd! All glockenspiels and apologetic cardigan wearing, them.

johnny foreigner said...

omgsss really? jesus. like, i didn't have the time to listen to all these bands, but i sure checked out their top friends on myspace.
Maybe the music industry changed th meaning of the word and forgot to tell us..

Veee said...

"rent-a-crowd". I find that one funny (but it's only cause I'm not a native english speaker).
I like how writers/journalists/whatevers build lazy bridges sometimes. Some french webzine once wrote that JoFo was "Help she Can't Swim, but more 'mainstream'".
I'm still trying to find the mainstream in you.
x

Cameron said...

http://musicfansmic.com/2009/07/20/ep-review-johnny-foreigner-feels-like-summer/

i read this just after and couldn't resist ctrl+f 'twee', but no such luck. this review is full of compliments!

Unknown said...

Five thumbs up, maybe ten, for the line "or if you do the secret knock on our mincing room door."

Samson said...

lol.. twee id the very last word I would think of when listening to your band.. sexylent rant one of the best I read/heard all year..

I guess this would be wrong time to request a interview for a magazine?

err! I think i will contact your label :)

Love "feels like summer" alot!

peace

gareth said...

Well said Lex.

I wanted to write about music for a long time but then realised I was shit at it, so had to start a band instead.

re: twee. I have a looooong blog post in me about the misuse of the word and how it's become the ultimate in lazy journalism re: us, and how I have never called myself "twee" and always been offended by it and how anyone who goes out of their way to be 'twee' (unless, often, they're a really cute girl) is an utter cunt, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to break so many hearts yet.

My favourite is when blogs say one of our bands is shit and the other is great like that's going to mean ANYTHING to us.

Basically, what I'm saying, is Blog Amnesty, and thank you for making this post and please link me to the blog so if I ever meet them I can be a twat to them. Cheers. G

gareth said...

Found it.
That webzine's consistently hilariously off the mark.

I've as little self restraint as you have Alexei. I've commented and hopefully they'll have enough faith in their writers to grant a response.

G

jonlowndes said...

oh lex that was fucking hilarious, second what simon says, how the fuck are danana twee! or you or Los Camp! for that matter.

The author is quite clearly struggling to think of ways to be a pretentious twat and so decided that calling you to "twee" was the best way to go about it.

Gareth O'Malley said...

@Cameron: Because the EP is fucking incredible. Album will follow suit, absolutely no doubt in my mind.

Gareth O'Malley said...

Oh yeah, Los Camp! and JoFo are so un-twee, it's not even funny - not that I know exactly how to define a band as twee or not.

And as for Dananana being twee...

Wow.

Just... wow.

(doyouseewhatIdidthere?)

johnny foreigner said...

gareth its totally yr fault for getting fummus with a song that had twee in the title.

right, all our clique of bands, yeh, we're all friends IRL, we swap merch and share records and trainers and harcuts, we promote each others music, we're all anti-rockstar.

its totally punk.

if you'd have called it, international punkxcore,
none of this would have happened.

i really like them reviews tho. we're a crap too noisy version of youse, and yr a crap too pop version of us. i look at other stuff they've done, and its always 5 stars for some old thing ive never heard of, and i feel smug in my ignorance.

can we change awesome pals name to ctrl f 'twee'? most of th summer reviews have been dead good. and the ones that dont tend to moan about how many times we say summer, (28!) which is totally worth it for the image of someone getting increasingly annoyed sitting next to the pause button keeping a tally.

samson, yeh thas fine, theres no need to go thru anyone if you just want to do a mailer. else, mail gareth@fearandrecords and he'll set up something.

everyone else thanks for flattering my moans. i *think we're more fummus than the site im mincing about so it seems kinda unfair, but if it means next time someone's entertaining delusions of our supposed grandeur, they'll ask us about it before they print it like the real journalists have to. and we'll explain and become friends and all live happily ever after. in japan.

xlex

gareth said...

Thing is though. Tweexcore was only ever meant to be a pisstake. At people's willingness to pigeonhole everything and for the music press' desire to have every band assigned to a particularly excruciating genre title.

So (and bearing in mind I wrote TxC before anybody really gave a shit about us), I wondered if I could manipulate that, and it turns out I could and now I REGRET IT BIG TIME.

Don't much like that song, anyways.

I've never heard a single bit of twee in your music and our next record is 100% twee-free, so *hopefully* blog writers of the world will give the music a listen before shitting out their reviews next time.

(that sounds harsh, there are SO MANY good blogs and music writers that I read (a lot of which don't like LC!; fair play to them), but too many people who've set up a wordpress and highly elevated their opinion of themselves.

Trung said...

I like txc, love the riff, but yeh, you guys don't merit the twee label (shit, wrong word probly. you get me though)

this is funny because a friend wanted my opinion on a bandname that wouldn't pigeonhole the band. we couldn't think of anything and decided that he'd have to name it "band" in order to have the most artistic freedom possible.

it is inevitable that you be labelled shit that makes no sense. this, coupled with some writers' propensity to bullshit in the name of reader interest makes a real big fuck up the arse.

but really, whats the internet but a harbour of egotism?

moto said...

I really enjoyed your live in SUMMER SONIC 2008.

Your 1st Album is hyper cool record!
Pop and noisy and happy and sentient and more....
I enjoying this record all the time.

I understanded this blog's sentence so.
But it's not perfect,sorry...

Well.

I'm looking forward to JoFo's 2nd album.
And your live in Japan!

See you from JAPAN.

Thanx.

kellybelly said...

you are such a mincing tweebag lex.

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