David Gerard

Industrial reviews: Psy’Aviah, Gamma 10, L.O.T.I.O.N.

14 July, 201621 September, 2016 Industrial, Punk, Record 0

Floaty EBM, instrumental EBM, industrial punk.

Suggest a new theme for Rocknerd!

14 July, 201619 August, 2016 Rocknerd 1

Rocknerd uses Kubrick, the most tediously basic WordPress theme that was all the rage in 2008. It’s possible we could do with an update.

So! I would welcome your valued suggestions on how to make the site look more like an interesting and perspicacious music magazine. Free themes by preference, we’re not big on budget resources around here …

Industry links: YouTube, RIAA mathematics, Jay-Z’s Tidal.

13 July, 20166 May, 2017 Industry, Links 0

YouTube, record company accounting, Tidal.

Reviews: nTTx, Foot Spa, Kites With Lights, Stars Crusaders, Kepler.

12 July, 201614 October, 2016 Indie, Industrial, Pop, Post-Punk, Record 0

Two industrial, one post-punk, one synthpop, one indiest indie.

A nice interview with Alan Rankine of the Associates.

10 July, 201625 August, 2016 Pop 0

I named my old fanzine Party Fears after the hit single by the Associates, so I’ve always had a soft spot for them.

Links: Opinionated record nerds on Ringo Starr, Frank Zappa and Record Store Day.

9 July, 201624 September, 2016 Links, Writing 0

Ringo Starr, Frank Zappa and Record Store Day evaluated.

Links: The lows and highs of the history of disco.

8 July, 20164 September, 2016 Dance, Links 0

The Beach Boys’ worst record, the disco record that beats it, and when disco got good again with Jimmy Cauty and the KLF.

The cookie monster vocal explained.

7 July, 20164 September, 2016 Metal 0

Will York, in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, helpfully explains for us the cookie monster vocal in death metal.

Hey, sign up for the emails!

6 July, 201628 August, 2016 Rocknerd 0

See that box at the right of the page saying “Subscribe to Rocknerd via email”? It does what it says. Sign up and you’ll never miss a post. Good, huh.

Reviews: Növö, Stop The Wheel, Binaural Silence (2016).

6 July, 201628 August, 2016 Indie 0

The new release pile on Bandcamp is more work than it looks.

An ’80s Australian indie rock band you should have heard of: the Arctic Circles.

5 July, 20164 October, 2016 Indie 0

Australian ‘80s indie rock band the Arctic Circles never made a huge impact and remain mired in obscurity, but their two records (the single “Angel” in 1985, the mini-LP Time in 1987 featuring “Wasp”) were well-received, did okay on an indie level and you couldn’t get away from them on public radio. The style is the ‘60s garage punk stuff popular in Australia at the time. Still sounds pretty fresh in 2016.

“They’re explaining how a record sounds better when Tiesto plays it.”

4 July, 201620 October, 2016 Dance 1

Beware the dangers of trance and the cult of the DJ. Don’t fall for … the trance cracker. An informative tract that you can give your friends copies of!

Alixandrea Corvyn makes her deserved bid for fame.

3 July, 201625 August, 2016 Drugs, Goth 1

This is Alixandrea Corvyn, of Last July and Rhombus and various previous bands. It’s a cover of “White Rabbit”, but with this grasp of imagery she’s on the right track. This video is just made to be cut up into stills and GIFs and reassembled into viral Tumblr posts.

Synth Britannia: the synthpop surge in ’70s Britain.

2 July, 201625 August, 2016 Pop 2

A wonderful 2010 documentary from BBC Four, covering the late ’70s synthesizer bands. Interviews with the (original) Human League, Depeche Mode, Orchestral Manoeuvres, Vince Clarke, Gary Numan, New Order and the Pet Shop Boys.

A random riff generator, on the Web.

1 July, 20164 September, 2016 Musician 0

Quite a lot of music software comes with a random riff generator. This stuff isn’t hard. But now it’s convenient as well.

Links: Nirvana, fanzines, music as violence.

30 June, 201624 August, 2016 Punk, Writing 0

Apropos to sociological conditions in the early 1990s, here’s Nirvana just after Nevermind hit big.

Bandcamp synthpop: Tentacles, Mimus, Bestman (2016).

29 June, 201626 August, 2016 Indie, Pop, Record 1

Scooped from the new releases pile on Bandcamp, where independent music seems to happen these days. Go on, spend five quid.

Severed Heads, Boxcar, Single Gun Theory and the Volition Records package tour.

28 June, 201625 August, 2016 Industrial, Live 2

I’ve seen Severed Heads three times. First time was Perth in late ‘91 on the Volition Records “An Intro To Techno” package tour. At this point “techno” still specifically referred to original Detroit techno; the pounding four-on-the-floor stuff the KLF were topping the charts with was various hyphenations of “-house”. Volition almost certainly meant something a bit more like “industrial”, but for some reason people then seemed reluctant to say that word with a straight face.

Scattered Order are alive and well.

27 June, 20165 May, 2017 Industrial, Live 0

Scattered Order are an Australian noise band who are probably “industrial”, but you never see them in any lists of industrial bands, and that’s just wrong. They have never been popular in any sense. They remain good and important, however, and have persisted. Modulo a decade’s break here and there.

The Laughing Clowns “Holy Joe” (1980).

26 June, 201626 August, 2016 Post-Punk, Record 0

An old favourite, the first track from the Laughing Clowns’ first album, just after Ed Kuepper split the original Saints.

Whatever happened to all the sociologists, anyway? Not like the ones we had in the ’90s.

24 June, 20166 May, 2017 Opinion, Writing 0

Back in the ‘90s, sociologists and students seemed desperate to find anything resembling a subculture to write about. I ran a fanzine, remember, and was fending off calls regularly. They were a plague. This was just before Nirvana hit big. It was blindingly obvious to everyone in indie rock that someone was going to hit super-big at some point.

Where little synths come from.

23 June, 20166 May, 2017 Musician 0

No time for a proper post today, so have a silly meme image.

Print your own violin!

22 June, 201625 August, 2016 Classical, Musician 0

Kaitlyn and Matt Hova have put up the files to 3D-print your own violin. Or you can buy parts or a fully-printed example from them. It’s still at the stage of doing it because you can, but it’s actually not terrible.

Don’t forget the existence of My Dad Is Dead.

21 June, 201614 October, 2016 Post-Punk 3

Back in The Day™ (1989), everyone compared My Dad Is Dead to Joy Division. Really, every review. Like they couldn’t think of anything else to say.

J. G. Eccarius: The Last Days of Christ the Vampire (1988).

20 June, 201618 February, 2017 Opinion, Writing 0

If you’re going to suffer unresolved literary trauma, you should get it from a title like that, which you will be unsurprised to hear is far and away the best thing about the book.

Electric Dreams: The Giorgio Moroder Story on BBC Radio 2, 2013.

19 June, 201620 May, 2017 Dance, Radio 0

A marvellous BBC radio documentary in two one-hour parts on disco king Giorgio Moroder, focusing on his work in the late ’70s and early to mid-’80s.

Reviews: Amy’s Arms, Foster Body, Uranium Club (2016).

18 June, 201623 June, 2017 Goth, Indie, Punk, Record 0

Today we hit the Bandcamp for various recommendations of mates’ mates’ bands. Send yours in! At worst it’ll be ignored.

The enduring popularity of bishonen: the Wraeththu Trilogies by Storm Constantine.

17 June, 201610 May, 2018 Goth, Opinion, Writing 0

I have unresolved literary trauma, so you can have some too. These books are “sexy gender-ambiguous goth boys ahoy” porn from Storm Constantine as early ‘80s goth girl. (Note the cover star’s hand stapled to his forehead.) Apparently originating in a short story she wrote in 1973 at age 17, so David Bowie’s in there too.