Rocknerd

Links: cultural markets in late capitalism, Patricia Morrison, the 1938 synthesizer.

24 July, 201621 August, 2016 Goth, Links, Musician, Opinion, Writing 0

Consumer markets, a nice Patricia Morrison interview and the 1938 Novachord.

The worst video you will see today: “Winaloto” by Tommy Cash.

22 July, 201621 August, 2016 Drugs, R'n'B 1

Estonian rap. The genre is “trap-pop”, apparently. The video itself is probably not worksafe, though technically within YouTube rules.

Strap On Halo: Altar of Interim EP, Prayers for the Living CD (2016).

21 July, 201615 September, 2016 Goth, Opinion, Record 0

Strap On Halo are a goth rock band from the goth scene. This is unfortunate, insofar as not even current goths are interested in current goth music — it’s a subculture of new clothes and old music.

Industrial reviews: Shiny Darkness, Psychicold, Alexander Fetuekow/2AF (2016).

19 July, 201628 August, 2016 Industrial, Record 0

Depeche Modeish EBM, sp00ky goth EBM, instrumental EBM.

The guy who called his band Suicide dies of old age.

18 July, 20165 September, 2016 Punk 0

Alan Vega has died at 78.

(78, not 68. He lied about his birth date for decades.)

Useful signage for the turntable.

17 July, 20166 May, 2017 Record 0

Origin unknown.

Viv Albertine corrects British Library exhibition on punk.

16 July, 20166 May, 2017 Punk 0

Why does the history of punk rock seem so relentlessly white and male, when that’s nothing like how it happened? Well, you know why. And so does Viv Albertine of the Slits.

65daysofstatic: No Man’s Sky (2016).

15 July, 201631 March, 2017 Games, Prog, Record 0

Averaging one studio album every three years, the classic math rockers, 65daysofstatic are right on time with their latest release, the official soundtrack to the video game No Man’s Sky.

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.