VICE CA - NOISEYRSS feed for https://www.vice.com/en/topic/noiseyhttps://www.vice.com/en%2Ftopic%2Fnoisey%3Flocale%3Den_caenThu, 27 Aug 2020 13:39:28 GMT<![CDATA[The Top 50 Greatest Landfill Indie Songs of All Time]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/bv8a8w/the-top-50-greatest-landfill-indie-songs-of-all-timeThu, 27 Aug 2020 13:39:28 GMTSomewhere between the “indie rock revival” of the early-2000s and the emergence of “poptimism” in the early-2010s, the UK charts were dominated by a procession of homogenous bands making a type of music that has come to be referred to as: “Landfill Indie”.

Both beloved and despised, Landfill Indie is basically “indie rock revival” afterbirth. The music industry, upon seeing the meteoric rise of The Strokes, Bloc Party and The Libertines, fanned out across these United Kingdoms in search of white boys with weak jawlines, playing in bands with names like a problematic flavour of Walkers Sensations (hello to Bombay Bicycle Club and Cajun Dance Party).

Dozens upon dozens of identikit “The Somethings” bands were plucked from the pavements of regional towns and dropped onto Radio 1 playlists overnight. From the pages of NME to all-ages club nights to the “Shirts” section at Topman, their presence was inescapable. By the end of the decade, The Kooks’ debut would outsell most albums by The Beatles in the UK, Scouting For Girls had a slew of Top 10 hits, and a band called “The Ordinary Boys” became so notable they ended up with a song on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

The mass-produced nature of Landfill meant there was a surplus of artists but a dearth of originality, which in turn bred contempt. In 2008, Andrew Harrison of The Word magazine coined the term “Landfill Indie”, essentially turning the entire sub-genre into a critical punching bag. In a 2009 essay partly attributing the appetite for electro-pop icons like Lady Gaga, Little Boots and La Roux to Winklepicker fatigue, Peter Robinson recalls the time he visited the Sony HQ off Kensington High Street and wrote “SCOUTING FOR GIRLS = SHIT” on a chalkboard. “All these bands!” Simon Reynolds similarly reflected in The Guardian in 2010. “Where did they come from? Why did they bother? Couldn't they tell they were shit?”

In many ways, though, the flack levelled at some of these bands was unwarranted. As Razorlight’s Johnny Borrell noted in a 2016 VICE interview: “Bands weren’t allowed to develop on their own before they were swept up in the machine.” And, for all its faults, the Landfill era was probably the last time any national outlet regularly published phrases like “the Chingford trio”, before the knock-on effects of the 2008 financial crisis clustered the entire industry around the M25. The scene booted open the door for people from outside London to become full-time musicians by singing about what they knew, which is what most British people know: that their their post-industrial hometown or middle-class suburbia was and is shit, that youth is precious and fleeting, and that the most reliable modes of escape are romance and drinking.

Creatively, Landfill Indie remains one of the least exciting things to happen to music this century. The 2000s birthed grime – one of the most significant British musical developments in decades; the mainstream success of emo bands in the US paved the way for countless thriving local scenes; the initial indie boom peeled off into more experimental, diverse and ultimately short-lived subcultures, like nu rave and electroclash.

All of this was far more exciting and influential than Landfill Indie, which hasn’t gone down in British music history as much as it’s been absorbed into British life by osmosis. At some point, these overwhelmingly white, trilby-doffed men singing about local boozers, university girlfriends and World War II became our cultural ground zero, speaking to something so uniquely pedestrian about the British experience that it became eternally relevant. You can still see bastions of its popularity today, with The Wombats drawing one of the largest crowds at Reading Festival 2019 and The Kooks and Bombay Bicycle Club billed to headline separate days of this year’s now-cancelled All Points East (arguably, the true spirit of Landfill Indie lives on through singer-songwriters like Ed Sheeran and Sam Fender).

All of which is to say: those of us who grew up with Landfill Indie have decided to unpack its enduring emotional appeal by ranking the 50 greatest most average songs of all time. For the sake of this list, we’ve defined the “Landfill” era as beginning when Pete Doherty was banned from playing with The Libertines due to substance abuse problems (mid-2003) and ending the day Spector released “Chevy Thunder” (early 2012). We’re focusing on British bands only – so, while Black Kids’ “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You” and We Are Scientists’ “This Scene Is Dead” may be worthy soldiers for the cause, they are American and therefore too unique to be included in this homogenous group of Isle of Wight Festival fodder. Similarly, we have taken all folk-leaning (Kate Nash, Jamie T), pop-infused (The Ting Tings, Lily Allen), garage rock (The Subways), art rock (Franz Ferdinand) and throwback (The Pipettes) bands out of the running for being too innovative, and therefore not True Landfill.

True Landfill is a family caravan holiday in August: kind of shit, kind of a laugh, largely unremarkable. At both its zenith and nadir, it’s “Dry Your Eyes” for couples who have fights at Tiger Tiger; ska for men who drink bottled lager in polo shirts. It’s observational comedy about funerals, a viral video of a fight in a kebab shop, a wooden sign on a mantlepiece that says “Today is a perfect day to start living your dreams.” We have no choice but to embrace it, because it’s always there, floundering between waves of nostalgia and indifference: The Great British High Street of chart music.

– Emma Garland

50: “Mr Understanding” – Pete and the Pirates

These lads are from Reading, where I was born, which is probably the main reason they’ve snuck onto this list. I was the only one on the team who voted for them. Stand up tall, RG crew! – Ryan Bassil

49: “Local Boy” – The Rifles

Considering this is basically like one of Uncle Albert’s sobering monologues from Only Fools and Horses gained sentience and started pinning mod badges to its hat, “Local Boy” goes off. It has a riff that would make Pete Doherty well up, a chorus melody straight out of The Buzzcocks playbook and a video that looks like it was set designed for an episode of Eastenders.

With their most recent album charting at 26 in the UK in 2016, The Rifles are arguably the finest example of Landfill bands fading into cultural obscurity while still doing better on paper than most of your favourite artists ever will. – Emma Garland

48: “House Party At Boothy’s” – Little Man Tate

Another one voted for only by me, Ryan, from Reading. Huge song about going out and getting trashed at some local party, with a questionable music video. Welcome to Landfill. – Ryan Bassil

47: “Annie, Let’s Not Wait” – Guillemots

On the artier side of Landfill were Guillemots, or as they preferred it to be stylised, “gUiLLeMoTs”. Bigged up by publications like NME as a sort of British answer to Arcade Fire, the band’s biggest track “Annie Let’s Not Wait” is a pretty, poppy love song backed by weirdo synths; the sort of music you’d have listened to while staring out of the sixth form common room window, thinking about your crush in the year above and pretending to be in a film.

A wistful and necessary counterpoint to its more lairy bedfellows on this list, the track does still offer the crucial Impactful Indie Chorus, made for throwing your arms around your friends to – because what is Landfill Indie without that? Tis nothing, reader. Tis nothing. – Lauren O’Neill

46: “How It All Went Wrong” – Les Incompétents

Wrap your ears around this and tell me you’re not immediately transported to an unusually hot afternoon at a British music festival anywhere between 2007 and 2011, supping a lukewarm Tuborg and watching a chorus line of lads in straw hats and UV face paint approach whatever tent James Bay is playing in next. – Emma Garland

45: “The Photos On My Wall” – Good Shoes

I don’t want to berate the taste of anyone else at VICE UK, but the fact Good Shoes only have [no spoiler] songs on our list is near scandalous. Not gonna mention which ones didn’t make the cut, but please know I would have voted in more. I remember watching them play an underage show in Highbury in 2007. I wore a retro adidas sweatshirt. I remember. Them. Good Shoes. Anyway, this is a fun banger by a good band with bad cardigans. – Ryan Bassil

44: “Amylase” – Cajun Dance Party

The notable thing about this song by the horrendously named Cajun Dance Party (former members of which went on to form Yuck) is just how many Landfill tropes it manages to pack into its sub-four minute runtime. There is a “1,2,3,4” count-in, shouted by a group, over-enunciated, southern English-accented vocals, that sort of weirdly angular style of guitar that is particularly characteristic of Landfill Indie (the one that sounds like an elastic band being enthusiastically twanged), and a repetitive end section where the singer says one line of the chorus over and over in an increasingly impassioned way. It makes this list, therefore, through sheer determination. – Lauren O’Neill

43: “Second Minute or Hour” – Jack Peñate

With a skiffle-inspired guitar reminiscent of The Housemartins, “Second, Minute or Hour” is a dizzying swirl of a track that is certain to transport you to Shoreditch pre-Brewdog and graffiti tours. It’s also accompanied by an equally memorable music video, in which Peñate puts those of us who have struggled to get past week three on Couch to 5k to shame, running the length of Brighton Beach promenade with ease.

That catchy guitar riff made pretty much every A&R in the country cream their pants, leading to a bidding war for our Jack the Lad. Ultimately, though, he fell foul to the hype train when he didn’t live up to frankly unrealistic expectations of intergalactic superstardom. The track itself is fun and energetic enough to escape being classed as quintessential Landfill, but Peñate’s “jeans and a shit shirt” aesthetic helps carry it over the line. – Jumi Akinfenwa

42: “Gone Up In Flames” – Morning Runner

It’s literally the theme song for The Inbetweeners, what more do you need to know. – Emma Garland

41: “Panic Attack” – The Paddingtons

More men with guitars, this time from Hull. Sonically, “Panic Attack” has as much in common with emo and modern punk as it does Landfill indie, but a band with a name like “The Paddingtons” was always going to find itself on this list.

The second single from the band’s debut album is the most memorable, for being about a man in crisis. Over a driving guitar line, lead singer Tom Atkin witnesses his own mood from the centre of a depressive episode as he rasps and howls towards some sort of conclusion: that he doesn’t want to die. – Hannah Ewens

40: “Romantic Type” – The Pigeon Detectives

The Pigeon Detectives are nothing if not reliable: loud drums, fast guitars and somewhat repetitive shouting. This sort of makes them Landfill Indie royalty, in that, in their early incarnation at least, they totally embodied the sub-genre, providing endless music for montages on Match of The Day (no disrespect: the sync fees are nothing to be sniffed at).

“Romantic Type” in particular leans into all of the band’s – and Landfill Indie’s – usual devices so much so that, if I were to shut my eyes and dare to imagine a wall of death in a Barfly circa 2006, populated by boys wearing those three-button Topman T-shirts, it is this song that would be playing. – Lauren O’Neill

39: “Our Velocity” – Maximo Park

This song does about four pivots in under four minutes, each one a banger. Whatever you think of Maximo Park, that is genuinely impressive.

The bad: lead singer Paul Smith’s omnipresent hat screams “I will corner you at a party and talk about why we shouldn’t judge Morrissey for being a racist.” The good: the first verse shows a rare level of indie fuckboy self-awareness (“I buy books I never read / And then I'll tell you some more about me”). – Helen Thomas

38: “Hounds Of Love” – The Futureheads

This song answers the eternal question: “What if Kate Bush, but guitars?”

Is it kind of tragic that the Sunderland quartet’s biggest hit is a cover of a song recorded 15 years before the band was even formed? Maybe. But if you don’t feel a jolt in your chest the second you hear the first five seconds of barbershop hollering, did you really live through the 2000s? – Zing Tsjeng

37: “Munich” – Editors

Editors are basically an Interpol tribute band, but that doesn’t mean they’re not entertaining. Like many other Landfillers, they cannot be credited with creating or popularising any new sound in British music. That said, the climactic “Munich” chorus is brilliant. Acknowledging human fragility in a track this anthemic is a powerful move, and lead singer Tom Smith’s vocal skills definitely stand up.

Fun fact: in 2014, Smith was announced as having the largest vocal range of any British singer, beating Freddie Mercury and Elton John. He did, however, once try to charity auction a pair of Converse All Stars that made only £52. You win some, you lose some. – Helen Thomas

36: “Killamangiro” – Babyshambles

What do you get when you cross jangly, deceptively intricate guitars and mid-2000s Pete Doherty wailing like the ghost of a young Victorian boy? The answer, of course, is Babyshambles.

Doherty’s post-Libertines project saw him past his musical prime, but still able to crack out a rousing guitar or two when the mood took him (see: “Killamangiro”). Mostly notable for coming on at parties and making everyone involuntarily go “Ohh, ohh, oh, oh, oh!!!!!” really loudly before not knowing any of the rest of the words, at this song’s best moments – the melancholic turn pre-chorus, the heavy-booted kick drum during it – it almost sounds as good as anything Doherty ever did between the years 2001 and 2003. Almost. – Lauren O’Neill

35: “Somewhere Else” – Razorlight

There’s lots to say about Johnny Borrell. His penchant for white jeans and egotistical comments (like when he compared himself to Bob Dylan, saying, “If you’re comparing our debuts, Dylan’s making chips and I’m drinking champagne”) both stand out.

But Borrell wouldn’t have got to where he is today – a rocker who still racks up column inches every time he speaks – without the songs. And what a song “Somewhere Else” is. It swells and booms; it’s riddled with arrogance, alienation, desire, and it nails the early 2010s biting point between ennui and acclaim. Now, though, it has sadly been relegated (or elevated?) to a BBC Radio 2 break-up tune. – Ryan Bassil

34: “She’s Attracted To” – Young Knives

“Who are these people? They are too stupid to be your real parents!” is one of the greatest opening lines 2000s indie has to offer. Hailing from an English market town called Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Young Knives wore corduroy and tweed, and sounded like they were fronted by Mark Corrigan, with all the yelped, frenzied rage and performed politeness that might suggest.

The culmination of that came in this song, with its narrative about meeting a partner’s parents for the first time and it going… very poorly (it has the visceral refrain, “You were screaming at your mum and I was punching your dad”). There are also some sly observations about middle-class, suburban British life ("we were fighting in the drive under the security lights").

Mercury-nominated and beloved by Artrocker magazine, I will stand by Young Knives being Actually Good on this album. – Tara Joshi

33: “Stan Bowles” – The Others

“When I first met you / You were wearing, wearing a tunic” has to be one of the laziest opening lyrics of 2000s indie, and also all time. It doesn’t get much better from there, with references to Voltaire, Ginsburg, Cambridge Heath Road and “smoking bone” sprinkled throughout a song that is for some reason named after a “maverick” footballer (of course it is).

That said, it has a sick driving bass line reminiscent of early Bloc Party, and some very satisfying drumming, so in the right environment – i.e. a packed regional club night in 2009 – this would go off: fingers in the air, VK sloshing all over your Toms. But it really is much better as an instrumental. Apologies to Dominic Masters. – Emma Garland

32: “What You Know” – Two Door Cinema Club

Two Door Cinema Club remind me of the best era of softboi bubblegum indie, when owning a cardigan and a guitar was enough to make you a “rock star”. As a teen, I was very attracted to these non-threatening men, who played their instruments with their feet inverted. Is there any correlation between that and my bisexual sexual orientation? I couldn’t say.

Metrosexual slurs aside, this poppy guitar riff is irresistible and will live on forever as transition music during BBC festival coverage. – Helen Thomas

31: “Passchendaele” – GoodBooks

If there’s anything Landfill Indie loves more than themes of masculinity and loss, it is the ultimate combination of the two: The War. Taken from GoodBooks’ first and only album, this song tells the story of a young soldier who died at the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917.

Though its bright chorus and use of horns take more cues from American bands like Death Cab For Cutie or The Shins, this plainly-worded and softly-sung critique of the horrors of war could only have come from some boys who met at a private school in Kent.

Listening to this gives me the same sense of ambient dread as watching one of those feel-good independent films that airs on Channel 5 around Christmas, featuring Penelope Wilton or someone from The History Boys, but I can appreciate a good melody when I hear one. – Emma Garland

30: “Woolley Bridge” – Bromheads Jacket

An ode to “Surrey girls” in all their supposedly waxed and tight-jeaned glory (as with emo, Landfill Indie had more than its fair share of sexism, ranging from “awestruck and not quite sure what to do with the concept of women” – which is where I feel this track falls – and “actually genuinely malevolent”), “Woolley Bridge” was one of the singles from Bromheads Jacket’s 2006 record Dits from the Commuter Belt.

Sonically, it’s Landfill with all the trimmings: crunchy guitars, rumbling drums and a vocal that sort of sounds like someone you’d overhear outside a pub in London Fields. – Lauren O’Neill

29: “Monster” – The Automatic

Curiously family-friendly, this CBBC-ass anthem has kept spirits high on car journeys from Margate to The Valleys. In actual fact, it’s a song about ketamine, so not really family-friendly at all – but fair play to our Welsh representatives for this simply huge song, which pissed off everyone, remains wildly fun to sing and refuses to die. – Hannah Ewens

28: “Daddy’s Gone” – Glasvegas

Glasvegas are what I like to refer to as “dart board indie”. That is, the more matured and heavy-hearted corner of Landfill specifically reserved for blokes who are out of shape but in touch with their feelings (see also: Elbow, Athlete and Escapology-era Robbie Williams).

Glasvegas generally have more bite to them, but “Daddy’s Gone” is a prime example of this particular sub-category. A rare Scottish entry to the Landfill canon, it was received overwhelmingly positively by rock journalists in 2007 because it struck upon a formula guaranteed to win the heart of any British man: down-to-earth lyrics about parental loss, shimmering post-rock guitars and a bloke bellowing his heart out about how all he wanted was “a kick about in the park” with his da. Absolutely fair play. – Emma Garland

27: “Moving To New York” – The Wombats

A song that everyone hates but will still inspire you to grab a friend and start jumping around frantically whenever it comes on in a bar? That is what we call: Iconic Landfill. A simply huge moment in both the history of modern Britain and the formation of Dark Fruits lad culture. I can’t imagine life without it. – Helen Thomas

26: “For Lovers” – Wolfman ft. Pete Doherty

Slathered with lines about Reebok Classics and gin and teacups and all those other couplets about Arcadia but via Camden, “Albion” may have been the better Pete Doherty choice here. I say might. Love him or hate him, The Libertines and Babyshambles frontman is a brilliant songwriter, and “For Lovers” is probably the best attempt he’s ever thrown toward the UK charts.

Soft, delicate – just like the beautiful boy before and beneath the drugs – it feels more like a classic British love song, in the vein of Ronan Keating or Gary Barlow, but by someone who mostly sang about romance and getting loaded on bugle – and is, therefore, cooler. Got nominated for an Ivor Novello award, too. – Ryan Bassil

25: “Lucio Starts Fires” – Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong

Possessing hands down the worst band name since bands began, Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong were a bit like an indie version of the 2012 Mayan Calendar conspiracy, in that they made a lot of noise in the press, promising something terrible that was thankfully never delivered.

In JLJJJ’s case, that “something” was their much-hyped self-titled debut album, which promised to bring back real rock ‘n’ roll with a sound that hadn’t been heard since the halcyon days of Razorlight a few years earlier. Curiously, the album never actually materialised, despite being sent out to music critics, reviewed in the NME and then bizarrely retracted as it “didn’t represent their current sound”. – Jack Cummings

24: “Send in the Boys” – Milburn

As a Sheffield band, Milburn were condemned to languish in the shadows of Arctic Monkeys, but they knew (and indeed know – they reformed in 2016 after an eight-year split) their way around a brawny-as-fuck banger. “Send In The Boys” is my favourite example of that nouse.

The track gallops in with the energy of an Olympic sprinter who’s drunk at least four pints and a Jagerbomb, as noisy drums give way to a “Teddy Picker”–style guitar line, before such a thing was even a twinkle in Alex Turner’s eye. – Lauren O’Neill

23: “Face for the Radio” – The View

“Face for the Radio” is “Wonderwall” for the Bebo generation, released during that brief period when saying your poseur enemy looks like he watches Trainspotting “15 times a week” was the ultimate dunk.

A beautiful ditty about the virtues of being ugly – and perhaps even a mild criticism of the hopeless, cyclical nature of capitalism (“Wages on a Friday / Spent on Saturday!”) – I can only recall this song with a full whiplash spinal-cringe. – Hannah Ewens

22: “We’ll Live and Die in These Towns” – The Enemy

Here, we start getting into territory that is essentially “Oasis, but after people stopped paying for music”. An impassioned track about the societal consequences of regional deprivation, it’s hard to work out if this song is supposed to encourage you to become accepting of your background or aspirational for more. Either way, it makes me think of pints. – Helen Thomas

21: “Apply Some Pressure” – Maximo Park

Maximo Park always occupied a weird hinterland in indie – a bit intellectual, but not enough to be Art Brut; a bit arty, but not enough to be Franz Ferdinand; catchy riffs, but not catchy enough to break America.

I think they probably knew all this and slightly hated themselves for it, but that’s why “Apply Some Pressure” works – it’s two minutes, 42 seconds of steroid-fuelled guitars, under a weedy Billingham boy negging himself, talking about how ashamed he is of fancying a girl, but it’s actually fine, mum, he’s fine, because he’s not having a breakdown, he’s just jumping around to loud guitars!!!

I can only imagine the number of straight teenage boys who listened to this during sixth form, obsessing over a girl they liked with the kind of pounding heart and abject self-hatred that only straight teenage boys can summon. It’s top marks from me. – Zing Tsjeng

20: “She’s Got You High” – Mumm-Ra

This is surely an archetype for “overly-earnest, pining white boy looking for a manic pixie dream girl” kind of music. It was on the soundtracks for both (500) Days of Summer and The Inbetweeners, which is much more revealing than anything I could add by way of description, but I’ll give it a go.

Mumm-Ra were from Bexhill-on-Sea, they were MySpace darlings and, for reasons that are retrospectively unclear, they had a toy duck as a mascot. It would be easy to make fun of such an unashamedly sincere and twee band and song, but “She’s Got You High” has guitars that float like a dream, and it does a solid job of conjuring up that warm, fantasy feeling of being loved-up. – Tara Joshi

19: “See You at the Lights” – 1990s

A relentlessly hooky song, and possibly the only entry to seriously interrogate the sonic possibilities of jingle bells (and hand claps!), “See You at the Lights” is one of the best tracks by the very underrated Glasgow three-piece 1990s.

Defined by straight line riffs, an enjoyably Bobby Gillespie-like vocal performance from singer Jackie McKeown and, obviously, the bit that goes “ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba-da-da-da”, “See You at the Lights” remains on the cooler side of the late-2000s Carling Academy sound, and stands up today as an impressive slab of Landfill Indie that has earned its considerable swagger. – Lauren O’Neill

18: “Two Doors Down” – Mystery Jets

Was it this music video that popularised the “indie cindy” look – plum coloured tights, bangs, playing the drums – or was it merely a reflection of the era? Regardless, this 80s-inspired banger is joyful, cutesy and fun. I have absolutely no shame in admitting that I once queued up to get a signature from the Mystery Jets, that “Two Doors Down” was a big part of my teenage soundtrack, and that lead singer Blaine Harrison is an accessibility activist hero who had his hairstyles jacked by Matty Healy. – Helen Thomas

17: “Men’s Needs” – The Cribs

Once considered to be West Yorkshire’s answer to The Strokes, The Cribs are truly the alternative darlings of Landfill Indie. Once hailed “The biggest cult band in the UK" by Q Magazine, “Men’s Needs” pushed them right into the mainstream – arguably to the detriment of their previously permanent position on NME’s Cool List.

Their edginess was evidenced in their decision to open this track with a strike of a snare drum that almost feels accidental. Or was it intentional? We’re simply not cool enough to know.

With a jangly guitar riff that borders on ear-worm territory, coupled with lead singer Ryan Jarman’s unmistakable Wakefield drawl, “Men’s Needs” is that track that was certain to grab the attention of the pretentious yet irresistible guy who managed to squeeze himself into his older sister’s Kate Moss for Topshop jeans. – Jumi Akinfenwa

16: “Valerie” – The Zutons

That yearning ripple of guitar in the intro, the zig-zag sax riffs, that epic chorus – it’s a shame this will forever be relegated to lists like “12 times the cover version was better than the original”, because it’s such a sweet, euphoric little song from the Zutons. The Liverpool band made blues-y kind of indie, replete with colourful, chaotic instrumentation, and they were kind of silly but ultimately a lot of fun? Remember, the kind of fun where you didn’t care how you looked? (Just kidding, I have always been painfully self-aware.)

Anyway, compared to the slick swing of the Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse cover, there’s something that feels a bit quaint and sexless about this now – but isn’t that low-key what most British indie was all about? These were unabashedly tender songs sung by people in bad jeans, fumbling over very sincere emotions rather than, you know, shagging, and we were all here for it. – Tara Joshi

15: “Sofa Song” – The Kooks

You know that thing about guilty pleasures not actually being guilty pleasures, because once you climb past your ego and get over yourself they’re actually quite good, and nothing to feel guilty about? That’s basically 75 percent of The Kooks’ Inside In/Inside Out.

This is one of the best tracks on that album. Everyone who shopped at Topman in the late-2000s would no doubt pick “Naive” or “She Moves in Her Own Way” as the best Kooks tune, but real Landfill Indie heads – those who shopped for suits at Beyond Retro – would whisper to you that they liked this tune the best, while sucking on a liquorice paper cigarette. And if they didn’t fess up to liking it, there’s a strong chance they were lying and listened to it in secret. God, growing up is awful. – Ryan Bassil

14: “About Your Dress” – The Maccabees

If you didn’t have “You stood out like a sore thumb, the most beautiful sore thumb I’d ever seen” in your MSN name in 2007, can you really call yourself a Landfill Indie enthusiast?

“About Your Dress” is realistically the peak of The Maccabees’ particular brand of Landfill – noisy, sharp-cornered guitars that feel like the soundtrack to the inner monologue of a 17-year-old, pained but polite lyrics sung in Orlando Weeks’ signature quiver, and a gentle strain of masculinity that united football lads with boys who carried around copies of The Catcher in the Rye like Birkin bags, making sure everyone saw.

A genuinely great song by Britain’s Poshest Band. – Lauren O’Neill

13: “If You Wanna” – The Vaccines

I have a genuine fondness for “If You Wanna” – a breakup song that is neither “good riddance” nor “I’m so sad, maybe I should chop my dick off”. The protagonist respects his ex’s decision to leave, but wants to make sure she knows that he is always, always an option to her. So much so that the phrase “you wanna come back” is repeated 16 times in this timeless beta anthem. – Helen Thomas

12: “Always Like This” – Bombay Bicycle Club

I’ll start with the caveat that I was a giant Bombay Bicycle Club fangirl – as in, I made MySpace friends through a mutual love of the band (shout out Mia, Tom, Jacob, hope you’re well) – so this entry might be a bit biased.

Named after an Indian restaurant for reasons that were probably funny when they formed (they were, in fairness, teenagers at the time), this north London band started out making guitar songs about house parties, Hampstead Heath, being too scared to make a move on romantic interests (mood!) and even titled a track “Emergency Contraception Blues”.

Their influences were maybe a little more ~Serious than some of their peers (they would namecheck Pavement, Slint, Mogwai), front-person Jack Steadman’s tremulous voice had a Marmite appeal, and they had an engaging youthful vitality (it was a classic hallmark of their shows to have the stage invaded).

IMO, this is the song that showed their ability to reach beyond the Landfill Indie confines: the relaxed, ambient synth loop at the beginning and that delicious little riff would set them up for some of their best work, blending taut instrumentation, catchy hooks and dreamy electro. – Tara Joshi

11: “Boys Will Be Boys” – The Ordinary Boys

Armed with a wardrobe full of Burton Menswear cardigans, The Ordinary Boys came along looking to infuse a bit of “oi oi saveloy” into the UK Charts of 2005. All credit to them, “Boys Will Be Boys” is undeniably catchy and, despite reinforcing a rhetoric that could simply never run today, its knowing cheekiness is what gives it its charm.

The Ordinary Boys were never going to be the next Rolling Stones – or even Madness, if we’re sticking to the realm of “dad approved ska” – but lead singer Preston’s stint on Celebrity Big Brother and subsequent Never Mind the Buzzcocks appearance suggested that he was anything but “ordinary”. His marriage to former Paris Hilton impersonator Chantelle Houghton might have given off a “Pete Doherty and Kate Moss” feel in their eyes, when in fact they were more, well, Preston and Chantelle.

While career-defining for him (using the term very loosely), this ultimately served as the downfall for The Ordinary Boys in the court of public opinion. Resigned to Soccer AM highlight reels, this song is truly a reminder of what was a much simpler time. – Jumi Akinfenwa

10: “Bang Bang You’re Dead” – Dirty Pretty Things

Blessed with the clout of being a Libertines offshoot, Dirty Pretty Things were a group that genuine music nerds, Skins fans and Jack Wills models could all agree on for a while. They didn’t outstay their welcome, folding after a couple of albums, and in all honesty it was for the best.

With its mocking barbs (“Oh tell me what did you expect / Oh you’re so easily led”), “Bang Bang You’re Dead” is part-ironic death march, part laughing match. It’s widely believed to be about Pete Doherty, which Carl Barat has denied, but to whom else would he have given the “midas touch” (the only phrase to appear as many times in Landfill Indie as in the Bible) only for it to be thrown back in his face? – Hannah Ewens

9: “22 Grand Job” – The Rakes

“Twenty-two grand job? I’ll be having some of that, please” – is what I told myself when I was 13, doing a paper round for a tenner a week, and this song was released. When I eventually hit that titular wage bracket, I was in my early twenties, living in London, and realised, much like everyone else, that 22-grand a year isn’t much to get by on.

While Hard Fi’s “Living For The Weekend” was a song about what happened after the working week ended – echoing what rave culture had done years earlier, but to a shit tune – “22 Grand Job” communicated the experience of being mildly satisfied with the life you were able to live on a meagre pay cheque.

It’s not great, but it’s alright. That was how post-university life felt before the global economy went to shit and this song became a relic, along with homeownership and back-combing your hair. – Ryan Bassil

8: “Mardy Bum” – Arctic Monkeys

It is important to note here that while the Arctic Monkeys are not a Landfill Indie band, “Mardy Bum” is a Landfill Indie song. We know this because it sounds like something you would hear during a scene transition on an episode of The Inbetweeners.

As one of the most successful British acts of this century, it’s safe to say that Arctic Monkeys themselves have transcended the Landfill label – that nail was smashed into the coffin the moment they released an album set on a fictional space station – though it probably never applied to them in the first place, considering that even their first record, the honest-to-God rhapsodic Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, felt as genuinely exciting as guitar music by four white boys can.

It’s fair to say, however, that the band were some of the main instigators of Landfill Indie, inspiring many copycat acts (lots of whom are featured in this list) who attempted to replicate their success, and inevitably did so in a less surprising and dynamic way.

“Mardy Bum” – with its singable riff (a very important quality around these parts), relatableLAD lyrics about a moody girlfriend and down-to-earth northern-ness – was like rocket fuel to the fire of the Landfill genre we’ve come to know, enjoy and tolerate. We celebrate its contribution, not least because it brought the word “reyt” into common parlance. – Lauren O’Neill

7: “Hey Scenesters” – The Cribs

Imagine trying to explain the term “scenesters” to a Gen Z teen: “Like hipsters, but this very specific cultural moment in the 2000s that your now tragically uncool millennial relatives thought would last forever?”

Anyway, “Hey Scenesters” will be one of the artefacts that future musical anthropologists will pore over in the centuries to come as the perfect distillation of the Landfill era. Angular guitar riff? Check. Poorly communicated turn-of-the-millennium ennui? Check. Sneering use of the word “darling” in a “come on sweetheart, we’re all post-Nuts magazine here” way? Go on then.

If you want to know the true legacy of this track, the last time I heard it played was to a crowd of very enthusiastic ageing hipsters at a wedding party where the cake was a pile of artisanal cheeses. Everyone went mad for it, including me, which says it all, really. – Zing Tsjeng

6: “Not Nineteen Forever” – The Courteeners

I was 16 when this dropped and remember thinking a) that it was good, and b) that I had at least three years to go before reaching the age when everything would change. Somewhere in my early twenties I dug the song out on an old iPod and mentally accosted both The Courteeners and my teenage self: ‘What the fuck were they talking about? Being 19 was shit.’

Now, the song strikes a different chord. I’m 28; 19 feels far away – far enough to listen to a song I was too embarrassed to say I liked when I was in my early twenties, and to properly enjoy it. I guess that’s one thing getting old does to you: you enjoy things without worrying whether or not you should.

The lyrics go, “I know it seems strange, things they change.” When I was younger, that sentiment seemed good. I wanted to go forward to the better life, but as an adult it’s more complex. I miss being young. I really miss loads about it, and it’s never coming back, and “Not Nineteen Forever” makes me feel those feelings all at once, in a way some of my favourite songs just don’t. The jury’s out on whether I’ll feel the same about any other Courteeners song by the time I’m 80, but “Not Nineteen Forever” is immortal. – Ryan Bassil

5: “Six Queens” – Larrikin Love

Babbling about tragedy, morals, lipstick and bloody murder like Russell Brand after a gram of speed, vocalist Edward “Larrikin” Leeson seems to use Catherine Parr – Henry VIII’s sixth and only surviving wife, who was allowed to keep the Queen's jewels and dresses after his death – as some sort of metaphor for gender identity.

“I'm the sixth queen / I'm the wrong queen / I've got mascara running through my bloodstream” go the opening lyrics. Later on: “I was a boy who yearned to be a cover girl.” It’s hammy, and loaded with stereotypes, and isn’t really about anything other than quixotic English boys’ obsession with “societal underbellies” they’ve never experienced, but it does literally sound like a wine-drunk classics student reciting a poem down Regent’s Canal at 2AM – and for that it ranks high.

Larrikin Love were basically the bridge between The Libertines and Patrick Wolf – a jagged, folk-inspired indie outfit with a thespian flair (by which I mean they cited Arthur Rimbaud as an influence and had a violin player). “Six Queens” is confrontational and feminine, perfectly embodying indie’s short-lived era where every man desperately wanted to be both a rugged Irish traveller and a 19th-century poet with a billowing white shirt and chlamydia. – Emma Garland

4: “Naïve” – The Kooks

Fourteen long years after the release of “Naïve”, I challenge you not to feel something as you listen back and hear Luke Kook’s raspy vocals come in over the second loop of that choppy staccato guitar. Yes, this is pure Landfill-by-numbers, but it was painted by the Michelangelos of the genre. The way it builds from a soft and restrained stutter – with vocals growing ever more frantic into a swirling chorus of youthful energy and GCSE English-level lyrics – make it one of the least forgettable songs on this list.

Despite being titled “Naïve”, it remains the most sophisticated song The Kooks ever wrote, launching them into the relative immortality of soundtracking 17 Again and a singular episode of One Tree Hill. It’s just a shame The Kooks never brought out another song half as good as this; plus, its memory will forever be tainted by the fact their debut album, Inside In/Inside Out, also contained a song named “Jackie Big Tits”.

In perhaps the same way people from the south had no idea what Alex Turner was on about in "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor", I’ve sung along to this 1,000 times but still had to look up the lyrics to the bit when Luke Kook warbles “fond of asking”. Comprehension issues aside, to me, “Naïve” will forever represent the innocence of summer, oversized sky blue plastic sunglasses and the generous v-neck selection at Topman. – Jack Cummings

3: “Don’t Go Back To Dalston” – Razorlight

If there’s one man who defined, embodied and lived Landfill Indie, it is Johnny Borrell. Having spent his early career in the disorderly orbit of the The Libertines – whose place in rock history was cemented by a desperate kinetic energy, mythologised love-hate dynamic and vision of a dilapidated Britain animated by romance and narcotics – Borrell went on to form the spectacularly middle-of-the-road Razorlight.

Alongside “Golden Touch,” “Don’t Go Back to Dalston” formed the centrepiece of Razorlight’s 2004 debut album Up All Night – though to hear it now, it feels like a dirge to its genre and the scene it generated, sung by a man who personified both. “Don’t go back to Dalston,” Borrell near-hums. “Don’t go up the junction.”

The song feels like a psychic sealing off of a time that listeners will never have again, “Dalston” a symbol for all the places associated with that early 21st century London indie boom. Over three minutes, the track builds rowdily, soundtracking a supercut of memories from a time when girls dressed like Jenny from The Chase and everything sort of smelled like mephedrone; a time that, for many, coincided with youth and freedom.

In 2020, the track’s pained repetition of “Come back to me” sounds less like Borrell appealing to a lover to return home, and more like an articulation of our weird relationships with nostalgia and the past. In everything it evokes – winklepickers and hair you couldn’t get a comb through if you tried, and, fundamentally, a younger version of yourself that you will never get back to again – “Don’t Go Back to Dalston” is a distillation of the reasons why Landfill Indie still appeals emotionally, despite the fact it is sometimes not actually very good. – Lauren O’Neill

2: “Fuck Forever” – Babyshambles

Anyone worth their salt knows “fuck” is the best word in the English language, so following it with the next best word – “forever” – is the zenith of all statements. It’s not hate. It’s not love. It’s two fingers toward the idea that anything, whether good or bad, could last more than the precise amount of time in which you feel that things, which it cannot.

It’s a song about happiness, but a happiness that’s trying to be upbeat in spite of whatever else life has thrown at you.

“New Labour or Tory.” “Death and glory.” The choices here seem stark and wild, so why not take the hedonistic route away from everything and “fuck forever, if you don’t mind?” That’s how Pete Doherty has always seen things. He toured Russia as a teenage poet, thanks to a grant from the British Council, was in one of two British bands to “break” America since the days of Blur and Oasis (the other being the Arctic Monkeys), then slowly succumbed to what seems (per quotes from him) to be a life of opioid daydreams, away from everything.

Like everything else by The Libertines and Babyshambles, the feeling within “Fuck Forever” can be tooled toward whatever you want. That’s the beauty of Pete Doherty’s music. He gives you the words, you live whatever you want through them. – Ryan Bassil

1: “Chelsea Dagger” – The Fratellis

The Fratellis have described this song as a “double-edged sword” – the thing that made them and killed them. But I’m sure everyone who’s written a stone cold masterpiece has felt that way.

“Chelsea Dagger” is the song you write when you’re taking a shot at rock superstardom. In an interview with The Guardian, Jon Fratelli recalled that magic moment: “I found the notebook with the lyrics the other night. It came to me really quickly,” he said. “I was going [sings the familiar refrain] ‘Do-do-do-do-do-do,’ and it was so easy to write that I couldn’t believe nobody had ever used [the melody] before.”

Neither could the people of Britain. “Chelsea Dagger” demands the listener tear off their top, tits akimbo, and howl into the night. With that rolling drop, stomp and slap, it has more pomp than a travelling circus, more pizzazz than a Bugsy Malone number and, with almost alchemical precision, the exact degree of stupidity as people who still yell “Gary” at festivals. By the final chorus, crowds will yield to its power, hand-in-hand in with enemies, weeping and screaming.

The Fratellis reached the very peak of what Landfill Indie could achieve when they charmed a nation and cemented their place in football matches, pubs, karaoke booths, weddings and summer barbecues for at least another couple of centuries.

“Chelsea Dagger” is the sound of COVID-19 being over, your friends and family safe, as you steam towards your favourite people at the pub. “Chelsea Dagger” is the sound of it being fucking On. – Hannah Ewens

Words by: @jumiaa, @ryanbassil, @jackcummings92, @hannahrosewens, @emmaggarland, @tara_dwmd, @misszing, @hiyalauren and @iamhelenthomas

If you feel strangely compelled to revisit all these songs again, we’ve put the full playlist on the VICE UK Spotify:

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

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bv8a8wVICE StaffJumi AkinfenwaTara JoshiJamie CliftonChrista JarroldMusiclandfill indieListsNoiseyindie
<![CDATA[Grime MC Solo 45 Sentenced to 29 Years for Multiple Counts of Horrific Abuse]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/v7gpwa/grime-mc-rapper-solo-45-sentenced-29-years-rapeFri, 31 Jul 2020 16:14:28 GMTAndy Anokye is the former member of grime crew Boy Better Know that no one wants to talk about.

Known publicly as the musician Solo 45, he lived the extravagant life many UK rappers dream of when he broke through with his single “Feed ‘Em To The Lions” in 2015. A climbing star among grime’s second wave, he joined BBK when they headlined Wireless Festival in 2016 and he racked up studio time with Stormzy, culminating in the two pairing up on 2017 single “5ive”.

From the outside, Anokye was a musical triumph – a major label star cruising off a hugely successful viral single. But behind closed doors, that same success was used to meet and groom young women, some of whom had been fans of his music. He waterboarded women, beating them and holding them against their will. One victim said Anokye put a gun to her head, then raped her. Another said he used her phone to hit her over her head, leaving her hair matted with blood. He filmed these women crying in pain.

On Thursday, Anokye was sentenced to 29 years in jail, having been found guilty of raping four women and holding them against their will. he was unanimously convicted of 30 charges: 21 rapes, five counts of false imprisonment, two counts of assault by penetration and two of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, all of which occurred over a two year period.

Anokye, 33 – who appeared via video link from HMP Long Lartin – seemed to grin, perhaps smiling at someone off camera, as the sentence was given. He will serve 24 years in jail, minus the time already spent in prison awaiting sentencing, with the remaining five years spent on licence. The conditions also mean Anokye will be eligible for parole in 16 years, giving each individual rape charge little more than a nine month sentence.

The details of Anokye’s case are horrific and disturbing (tw: rape and abuse) and were covered extensively in Bristol Post court reporting from the trial. Consenting relationships with each of the four women very quickly turned abusive, as Anokye enacted an abhorrent reign of terror and control. He used a butterfly knife to cut his victims and in one case, he poured bleach into a victim’s mouth. One woman said Anokye “spat on her multiple times” and threatened to “bury her” if she went to the police.

Anokye maintained his innocence throughout the trial, saying the claims being made against him were “sus” and “crazy”. He said interactions between him and his victims were consensual, relying on what has colloquially become known as the “rough sex defence” – where men state that any violent injury, death or rape was a consensual sex game gone wrong. Anokye’s case is one of many instances of young men claiming their violence as innocent and consensual, when taken to trial.

British campaign group We Can’t Consent To This have conducted research into the number of women and girls who have been killed or injured in violence that is claimed to be consensual. They found at least 60 cases since 1972 where men who had killed women claimed it was a sex game gone wrong. The New Zealand man found guilty of murdering British backpacker Grace Milane in December 2018 employed this defence, claiming she died accidentally during sex after asking to be strangled.

We Can’t Consent To This say that the “rough sex defence” was successful in seven of the 17 killings of a woman that reached trial in the last five years, with the man either being found not guilty or receiving a manslaughter conviction. It’s a defence that can blur the lines of justice, helping men walk away from violent crimes with reduced or nonexistent sentences.

One example is Natalie Connolly’s killer John Broadhurst, who was initially charged with murder and grievous bodily harm with intent, but is only serving three years and eight months in prison after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) accepted his guilty plea to a lesser manslaughter charge.

Connolly, a 26-year-old mother of one, suffered 40 separate injuries from Broadhurst, including a fractured eye socket and serious internal bleeding. At the time, Broadhurst claimed he only hurt Connolly “within the boundaries of her masochistic desires” and that they were in the habit of having BDSM sex.

“It’s a compelling parallel between classic domestic violence murders and stuff that’s dressed up as a sex game gone wrong,” says Louise Perry of We Can’t Consent To This. “But we know that’s not what’s going on. It’s just male violence.”

Broadhurst’s defence is similar to Anokye’s, who said throughout the trial that “my sex is just weird”.

Anokye was arrested in 2017 after one of the four victims reported him to the police. Evidence was then found on Anokye’s phone that led police to the other three victims. During the trial, it was said Anokye had a tendency to film his sexual encounters – of which some were consensual and others were not.

“My sex is on the verge of rape. I fuck you when you don’t want to be fucked. That is technically rape,” said Anokye in video footage shown at the trial. In that same clip, one of the victims replied: “I don’t like it.”

It was alleged that Anokye derived sexual pleasure from having power over his victims, and police discovered searches on his internet history for “dacryphilia” – sexual arousal from another’s fear. Though Anokye had been in consensual sexual relationships with all four women in the trial, he continually violated their boundaries and their consent. One woman said she feared would die.

In statements read out during sentencing, one woman had said Anokye’s actions had meant she was too unwell physically and emotionally to return to work, and she ended up in life-altering debt as a result.

Another said social situations were now impossible. “It has ruined my life. I don’t think I’ll ever be ok again. I’m left feeling lifeless, like I’m dead. I used to be the confident one in my social group, but now I feel silent and my confidence is totally gone.”

She said she fears for the day she sees Anokye again. “I can no longer see the future or make future plans. I am simply surviving now.”

A third says that Anokye took advantage of her. “I believed we were in love. I adapted to his behaviour until he took complete advantage. It became more sinister. He had turned into something else – a monster.” To this day she says is triggered by cold water due to the abuse she suffered at the hands of Anokye, who waterboarded his victims. Daily showers or baths are torture for her.

The campaign of violence committed by Anokye is disturbing, but what’s unusual, compared to some more high profile cases such as Grace Milane and Natalie Connolly, is that all four of his victims survived. Perry believes there are countless more rough sex cases like Anokye’s that haven’t reached the court.

“We’ve heard loads of anecdotal cases of women who have reported these things – similar to Solo 45 – they go to police and it never makes it to court for various reasons. Because relying on this [rough sex] defence seems to stop the prosecution in its tracks – and we never hear about it, it’s never in the news.”

So why is the defence used?

“Some of it may be because juries have a lot of power in cases, which is how the jury system is designed because there’s public accountability – that’s the function of the jury – so there may be cases where the jury is more sympathetic toward the defendant. In other cases, it’s more to do with the Crown Prosecution Service not pursuing cases when they ought to or getting cold feet.”

“It’s complicated. There’s not one single change that can solve this problem once and for all.”

Some progress is happening. On 6th July, around three and a half weeks before Anokye’s sentencing, MPs voted for provisions against the “rough sex defence” to be included in the new Domestic Abuse Bill. The bill will now go to the House of Lords, where it will hopefully pass and rule out “consent for sexual gratification” to be used as a defence for causing serious harm to a person.

Whether it’s helping perpetrators justify their actions or receiving a lesser sentence in the court of law, Anokye’s case is the latest shocking example of how rough sex can be used as a legal guise to cover up systems of abuse. The rapper held a position of power over his victims due to his growing success and celebrity – things that he used for abhorrent personal gain.

“The force of his character and growing celebrity as a music artist – despite the ordeal each [victim] underwent – [and] the way he was able to dominate their otherwise strong personalities showed how dominant he was,” said Judge William Hart in the moments before sentencing. “You exerted so much control over them that they believed they were to blame for what they suffered.”

“You were part of a well known collective and fellow artists from that collective had achieved great success. None of those artists dedicated to their craft knew of your dark side. They were in no way tainted by your deeds which were carried out in a private way.”

“Your convictions have deprived you of your career. Those convictions are the fault of your own.”

Recent data from the CPS show most rape isn’t charged or prosecuted, making this case one exception. Avon and Somerset Deputy Chief Constable Sarah Crew – who is the National Police Chief’s Council lead for rape and serious sexual offences – said she hopes this case will “reassure the public and and give confidence to victims to report their experiences to police”.

Solo 45 will spend a minimum of 16 years in jail, by which point the rough sex defence will have been debated in the House of Lords and likely passed. But with such minimal sentencing per each crime, is it enough?

@ryanbassil

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

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v7gpwaRyan BassilZing TsjengNoiseyMusicsolo 45Rough Sex DefenceworldnewsCrimerapeBoy Better KnowGrime
<![CDATA[Matty Healy Isn't Shutting Up, Ever]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/wjwbam/matty-healy-1975-interview-noisey-cover-autumn-2019Thu, 24 Oct 2019 19:18:44 GMTIf you can mentally conjure the centre of a Venn diagram labelled “millennial Bond villain’s lair” on one side, and “sexy monastery” on the other, the resulting image is probably not far from Matty Healy’s London home.

When I arrive at the front door (wooden; more ‘garden shed’ than ‘dwelling of the frontman of internationally acclaimed pop-rock act The 1975’), I’m quickly shown inside, and down a winding staircase. I lightly trace its bare, grey concrete walls with my fingers as I go through to the living area where Healy is waiting, wearing a faded black Fugazi t-shirt, pristinely pressed cream flares and a necklace that looks like a bike chain. Silver rings adorn his hands and his wavy hair is pushed artfully back from his face. As he greets me, I’m struck by how he seems to match the decor around him – grey, cream, gleamingly clean. He seems as influenced by his surroundings in practice as he is in his music.

I’m turning up at a fairly pivotal moment for Healy. For one, today “People,” the second track from The 1975’s delayed fourth album Notes on a Conditional Form, has come out (the first, featuring climate activist Greta Thunberg dropped in July, fittingly on the hottest day of the year; the album is due in February 2020). For another, it’s also the day before he and his bandmates, George Daniel, Ross MacDonald and Adam Hann will bring their slick, everything-inflected pop-rock to headline Reading and Leeds Festivals, hallowed rites-of-passage for British 16- and 17-year-olds thirsty for booze and sunburn. For a band who grew up attending the festivals every year (Healy says he “slept at the train station, went ten years in a row”) it will be their biggest set of shows to date – if not in physical size then certainly in emotional stature.

Right now, though, he’s trying not to get in his head about what’s about to unfold. It’s a hot day at the end of August, but the house is cool, and its straight lines and arched doorways feel directly opposed to the close, clammy heat outside. He pours me a glass of water (sparkling) and self-awarely jokes that he’s “keeping it real” as he serves it to me in an aggressively tasteful ceramic cup with a watercolour pattern painted around the sides.

This “keeping it real” quip probably isn’t as throwaway it might seem: Healy is used to talking to journalists, and it’s highly possible that he feels a need to play up his famous candour. Indeed, his willingness to talk about his life and views extremely transparently has meant that he has been profiled to within an inch of his life in the last year or so, by publications ranging from Billboard to The Fader to The Guardian.

Matty Healy 1975 Noisey cover

I’m initially interested in whether the relentless synthesis of his character by writers has affected him, and how. Healy sits back – we’ve moved to an enormous cream sofa with various Kinfolk-esque fluffy and woolly blankets by the side of it – rolling the question over in his brain a few times, before opening the floodgates (Healy, he would be the first to admit, is medically unable to shut up once he gets going). “I’d have to say yes. In the same way that our relationship with our fans has become almost like, this creative dialogue, because the internet is so inherently aesthetic and creative, I learn a lot from there. The internet works in real time, and I’ve had a lot of explaining to do."

Healy sometimes comes under fire for certain actions (though he’s also known for being totally willing to apologise when he thinks it necessary), and he’s courting controversy right now, in fact. Not long before our interview, at a show in Dubai, he kissed a male audience member, defying laws in the UAE against homosexuality. He was criticised online by conservatives, as well as left-wingers who worried he’d endangered a queer person (videos of the incident were circulated). But he maintains that, as the audience member remains safe, he did the right thing.

“I’ve spent five years on stage, looking at exponentially queerer queerer, and more open young people. If you do that every night, you can’t ignore those kids’ faces."

Ever-forthright, he brings the issue up himself. “I believe that if you are a young person and you’re not representative of your government – if you’re a left-leaning person in an oppressive place – the only common understanding you’re going to get is through art and culture. And if I kiss someone in Dubai or whatever, I have to stand up for ideas that promote equality, and that’s sometimes going to get me in trouble a little bit.”

He has no choice but to act on the big issues, he continues, because if he doesn’t, then none of the other pop stars of his ilk will either. “Shawn Mendes, Harry Styles, whatever. They’re great pop stars, but they – on purpose – don’t say anything. They purposefully don’t stand for things apart from you know, ‘Oh, masculinity: no.’ Or ‘racism: no’ – d’you know what I mean? In a world where people want answers immediately, I’m behaving a lot of the time in ways that contradict certain people’s beliefs, or normally conservative beliefs. So I’m fine with it. I’ll never compromise my values.”

Matty Healy the 1975 Noisey interview

He also feels he owes it to his fans to talk publicly about what affects them. “I’ve spent five years on stage, looking at exponentially queerer and queerer and more open young people,” he explains. “If you do that every night, you can’t ignore those kids’ faces. You know, when people reach at a gig, what are they reaching for? They’re not trying to touch you, they’re trying to connect with this idea that’s bigger than them.”

I think that Healy understands his fans and what they want from him better than the people he “culturally sits alongside”, like Mendes and Styles, because he used to be a teenage fan himself. While the other artists he namechecks became very famous very young, Healy’s formative years involved loving The Get Up Kids and watching metalcore bands like Poison the Well at the now-shuttered Jabez Clegg in Manchester. “I just love music. I love the culture of music, it’s where all of my interests are,” he says.

He’s not joking. Though the walls of the room we’re sat in are bare, there is evidence of music everywhere. In one corner there’s a small Wurlitzer piano; on the floor are three different guitars so shiny that I can see my face in them. There’s another room in the house where he keeps his collection of vintage band t-shirts (among their enormous number are an original Minor Threat Out of Step shirt, and his current favourite, a vintage Mazzy Star top that brings tears of jealousy to my eyes). And though his place stands fairly compact, the ceilings are tall, giving it a cavernous vibe that is acoustically perfect. Sound bounces off that grey concrete like a basketball, and when I listen back to my recordings of this interview, they are crisp and sharp.

"Shawn Mendes, Harry Styles, whatever. They’re great pop stars, but they – on purpose – don’t say anything. They purposefully don’t stand for things apart from you know, ‘Oh, masculinity: no.’ Or ‘racism: no’ – d’you know what I mean?"

Even talking to Healy about music feels like speaking to one of the friends I’d chat shit about bands with for nights on end growing up – only one who’s actually met all the musicians we’re discussing. When he tells me that he’s Twitter pals with Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo and that he DMs with Walter Schreifels from Youth of Today and Gorilla Biscuits, his tone is one of partial disbelief. “I remember one of our shows in 2014,” he laughs. “I was talking to this guy backstage, and he was like, ‘Oh I used to be in a band, yeah I played drums.’ And I was like, ‘Cool, what was your band called?’ and he was like, ‘Thursday.’” His face contorts in delight at the memory (“I’d seen Thursday a bunch of times!”).

At one point, he refers to himself as “somebody from Manchester who’s a bit embarrassed about the fact that they’re big”, and it follows that his serious music fan credentials might make him self-conscious of his mainstream position. Equally, though, there’s nobody better suited to headlining Reading and Leeds in front of thousands of British teens than someone who – having spent the 2000s drinking in queues outside grotty Carling Academies, and playing community centres, for mates who’d exchanged crumpled fivers for Xs on the backs of their hands – gets them so entirely.

Matty Healy interview 1975

Reading is a university town in southern England. It probably dates back to the 6th century, and was largely affected by the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution. Neither, however, hold a candle to the carnage now seen on its streets every year over the last weekend in August, when the music festival takes place just outside the town centre.

I get off the train in a gaggle of glitter-adorned teens already hopped up on lager and lack of parents, and check my phone. On Twitter, a video of young 1975 fans in the Reading campsite listening to “People,” which hasn’t even been out for a day yet, catches my attention. Later that night, when the band charge into their set with the track – a Britpop-by-way-of-“The Beautiful People” rabble rouser – the kids down the front already know the words. “Girls, food, gear,” they scream along with Healy’s accusatory sneer. “I don’t like going outside so bring me everything here.” Moshpit ad infinitum.

On stage, the diversity of The 1975’s catalogue means that Healy can freely embrace all of the corners of himself, by turns raucous, mischievous, and earnest. On the sexy, wry second album single “Love Me,” he’s giving it Prince-meets-Posh Spice, gyrating so hard it’s a wonder he doesn’t put his back out. During “A Change of Heart”, the Wedding Reception In a Pub vibe of his untucked-shirt-and-fag-in-hand gait underlines the song’s unfussy sentimentality of the song (from the side of the stage where I’m stood, I see an assistant bringing him regularly timed cigarettes, which: you would if you could).

Unsurprisingly, he also momentarily steps into a more political register, to mention Dubai. “I really liked that boy, and I’m pretty sure he liked that kiss, so it’s not me that needs to change, it’s the world that needs to change. It can fuck off,” he blusters. The mood on stage fizzes with defiance, then, as the band launch into “Loving Someone” in front of a projection of the LGBTQ pride flag. Healy – unburdened now he’s said his piece – shuts his eyes.

Matty Healy The 1975 interview Noisey 2019

“I’ve been getting the shit kicked out of me all morning.” It’s October and Healy is cheerily informing me that he has taken up jiu jitsu. We’re sitting around a dining table in the living area of the Northamptonshire recording complex where The 1975 worked on their last two records, and are now starting the final stage of recording for Notes on a Conditional Form. He’s centring himself while having a soup.

Beatings like the one he received earlier will now be standard for Healy, who, following Reading, Leeds, and an Australian tour, is assuming a more structured existence for the next two months, while he and his bandmates finish the album: “I get up at 9AM, then jiu jitsu 10AM until 11AM, and then we should have a plan for the day that we try and execute, and that goes on until about 10PM, and then we’ll stop, then we go to bed, and we do that again.”

When it comes to places to focus, he could do worse than his current spot, which is the polar opposite to his compact London enclave. It’s massive, for one, and tucked away in the countryside (a pair of ponies graze happily on my way in). It’s also much more like an ordinary family home, with its widescreen telly and lived-in mess. Again, Healy has styled himself for his environment, dressed down today in a big Glassjaw t-shirt, long floral skirt, and red Converse.

Coming off the adrenalin rush of tour, his energy hangs slightly lower today than when we last met. He seems worried by the prospect of finishing the record, especially in the shadow of Reading and Leeds. I ask if the festivals felt like a last hurrah for A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships and he tells me: “It didn’t feel like the end of something, it felt like the start of something, which I think is even more intimidating.”

Despite the precipice that both headline shows represented, however, Healy thinks they went well, even though he was struck down by a “panic attack, super migraine – whatever it was” on the day of the Reading gig. “I told everyone, ‘Listen, I’m just gonna have to like, lie down.’ Like a 50s nan. I was having a proper funny turn,” he recalls, laughing now. “Reading just felt really important for us, in the build up, in the execution, and then after it.” Leeds, the festival he attended most as a teenager, was “one of the most ‘full circle’ moments of my life”.

The 1975 interview Noisey 2019 Australia tour

Now that particular circle is complete, the only way to go is forward. And so we come to Notes on a Conditional Form, which is, by both Healy’s account and mine, having heard a bit of it, not really the world agenda-tackling thing people are expecting. Healy explains: “We’ve made it our probably least self-aware record, that’s what freaks me out about it. Because there’s like a bunch of love songs on it. And people are like, ‘The record’s pretty inward, then? Because we thought it was gonna be, like, outward.’” I ask whether he means that listeners have been expecting a record about the climate crisis. “Yeah, climate record. And I’m like, ‘Fuck off.’ Why would I make a record about the environment? I’ll make an album that’s about everything that I care about, and that’s one of the primary things. But I’m never gonna make a record that’s one dynamic.”

Instead, the album, like all the band’s others, feels like a living documentation of Healy’s many current preoccupations. Certainly the environment figures, on its first track and in references throughout, but there are also nods to phenomena from the cultural (“Birthday Party”) to the personal (“Frail State of Mind” – the album’s third single, which sounds a bit like a sad analogue to The 1975’s 2018 track “TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME”), and frequently both at once. The song about the fact that “we live our lives every day knowing that we’re all going to die, but we pretend that we don’t know that” is probably the album’s most straightforward banger.

The 1975, as music nerds with a deep pool of influences, have both plenty to say and seemingly infinite ways to do so, and their methods of expression will continue to include Healy’s outspokenness. “I’m sick of having to pretend I’m not a person. So now I act how I would act in real life all the time. I just try and be honest,” he reasons. He really is the rare open book pop star, willing to talk about whatever you happen to feel like discussing that day. It’s in his music that fans hear this become a truly incendiary quality.

When it’s time for me to leave, Healy says goodbye and asks if I really like the new music, or if I was just saying I did. I didn’t tell him at the time, but I think it’s probably their best material yet – what could confirm The 1975 as the prophetic band many heard on A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships. I turn around to wave to him before I walk out of the room, but he’s already sat at the table with a guitar – noodling away at something new, finding voice for something else he has to say.

Matty Healy the 1975

The 1975 were photographed by Jordan Curtis Hughes in September 2019, in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia.

@hiyalauren / @jordhughesphoto

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

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wjwbamLauren O'NeillTshepo MokoenaJordan Curtis HughesNoisey Cover StoryNoiseymusic interviewThe 1975matt healymatty healy
<![CDATA[The Jonas Brothers Are Getting Used to Being Interviewed Again]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/pangm8/jonas-brothers-2019-interview-nick-kevin-joe-happiness-beginsMon, 10 Jun 2019 11:27:28 GMT The Jonas Brothers don’t know where to sit. We’re standing in a cordoned-off area in the sort of central London bar that resembles the results of a greenhouse and fancy department store’s brief fling. The three siblings eye up four identical green, lip-shaped couches in each corner of the room. “Maybe we should take one each and just shout at each other,” Joe says with a grin.

I laugh nervously, hoping he’s not serious, before suggesting that he and his older brother, Kevin, plop themselves on one sofa, while Nick, wearing a very noisy jacket made of plastic, makes himself comfortable on a red stool. Kevin settles in first, but not before moving four slightly lukewarm coffees onto a low table.

Joe seems buoyant; the other two not so much. “I got some good rest last night, so I'm doing pretty good,” he says, picking up a cup and taking a sip. “I don't know if they got the most amount of sleep. But I had a massage at the hotel and it just put me in a deep, deep sleep.” When I glance at Nick, his face is blank. He doesn’t seem as impressed with his brother’s gentle gloating.

Still, six years ago you might’ve thought that the Jonas Brothers wouldn’t ever trade brotherly jibes with each other in front of a music journalist again. But here they are, promoting their first album in ten years, Happiness Begins. In the US, its lead single, “Sucker” became not only their first Billboard Hot 100 number 1, but the first from a boyband in the US since B2K's "Bump, Bump, Bump" in 2003 ("Sucker" peaked at 4 on the UK charts). They’ve also announced a world tour, done the requisite carpool karaoke – they’re back back.

A newer band might be climbing the walls with excitement at such success. The JoBros, however, have been through this rigmarole of travel, promo, album, tour before. Not that they’re fully jaded – they tell me how happy they are that people still give shit about them – but, rather, they’re reserved. And given what they’ve been through over the past decade, I get it. Happiness might now be beginning, but it’s been difficult to find. A little hesitation is natural.

Now, for the story every super-fan already knows. After starting small, as a teen pop punk act in 2005, the band signed to Disney’s Hollywood Records in 2006 and immediately blew up. In the US, they were the teen pop phenomenon of the late 00s, starring in sitcoms, movies and selling millions of records. But slogging it as poster boys for Disney purity for seven years can leave you in pop purgatory, unable to evolve. In 2013, when they released “Pom Poms”, it was clear that the band had failed to mature with their fans. The song stalled at number 60 on the Hot 100, while its follow up, “First Time”, failed to chart in the UK overall.

Not that they seemed that bothered by that commercial plummet. What they had was broken and when I ask if they were disappointed that the rest of that material never got released, Joe and Kevin both give off something between a huff and a grim laugh. “Truth is, we weren't really happy with the material and didn't feel like we were artistically in sync,” Nick says quickly, his jacket crinkling as he sits forward on his stool. “It’s one of the reasons the group ended. And we were isolating ourselves and limiting our creative potential because we didn't know if we could really progress.”

"I think we were all in such different places,” Joe adds. “Kevin was starting his life with [his wife] Danielle. Nick and I were in and out of relationships. We'd get in the studio and we couldn't land on anything lyrically. I wasn't as inspired to be in there. It kind of felt like I was just going through the motions and I knew that the music would be created” no matter what, with or without passion. “So I'd come in when I was needed. I just wasn't connecting with what we were creating.”

Why not get new writers, you might ask? Well, the Jonas Brothers’ involvement in the writing process felt, to them, fundamental. Sure, their breakthrough hit was a cover of a Busted song, but “Burning Up”, “SOS”, “Love Bug” and “A Little Bit Longer” were legitimately strong pop songs, and their own. Anyway, their lack of musical progression had incubated a fear of rejection. “Knowing that things were on the decline,” Nick says, “I was afraid that we would ask to work with someone and they would say no.” Panicked, he called a meeting and in 2013, mid-way through recording a new record, he broke up the band.

The next bit is well-trodden. Nick buffed up, posed in his underwear and released one of the greatest post-boyband pop songs of all time, “Jealous”. Joe joined dance pop group DNCE. Kevin retreated into family life. He had two children, Alena in 2014 and Valentina two years later. It wasn’t that simple, though. “I didn't even know if I wanted to do music again,” Joe says now. The air isn’t tense but sombre and Nick’s eyes are cast to the floor. “I had to find my own place. I went on and worked on different projects, but it took time to get inspired. Nick had that all figured out. I just didn’t.”

Jonas Brothers trio press photo 2019

Meanwhile, Kevin says that he was hurt. Joe and Nick had performed as the Jonas Brothers at a final gig without him and, after the birth of his first child, he felt like he didn’t have his best friends. “It's not that I said that I didn't want to do music anymore, but I think, looking back at it, there was some pain there. So I wanted to look at some other passions of my own and see what else was out there.”

As they talk, each brother is careful to allow the other to share their piece. Nick especially is quiet, often faced away from his brothers examining something off in another corner of the room. They’re respectful, almost detached, as if they’ve plodded through that murky period with the wounds, scars and wariness to prove it. The last six years, the brothers tell me, was about rediscovering their relationships as a family. Once Kevin's kids brought them together, “We made time where we could just rebuild as friends," Joe says," not even bring up anything music-related. We didn't really dive into that stuff. We just said, 'Let's just move on.'” Moving on, in this case, involved making 90-minute documentary, Chasing Happiness.

“It seems like a jump,” Joe agrees when I put it to him, before Nick cuts him off for the first time.

“We were made aware of some offers that were coming in for a Jonas Brothers reunion,” he says, carefully. “There was one at that point which could have made sense. Kevin flew out to LA and we talked through it but not everyone was on board.” He eyes Joe. “But it opened up a dialogue about what we could do together, to touch on that period of our lives.” Nick and Kevin flew to go and meet Joe while he was acting as a coach on The Voice Australia. Aside from a dinner in London a year prior, that meeting was the first chunk of time the three brothers had together, just as a trio. Nick, though, hankered after a reunion. And so, like any responsible adults, they decided a play a game where they got drunk and aired out their grievances to figure out their shit. It worked.

After ironing out the details, the Jonas Brothers were soon recording music as a group again, pulling in pop producer and writer names with the weight of a few tonnes: Max Martin, Shellback, Justin Tranter, Greg Kurstin and Ryan Tedder (Tedder executive produced the album). For Kevin, though, it was a learning curve. In the six years he’d been out of the game, a lot had changed. Session writing, streaming and the way that digital communication has opened up the songwriting process has altered not only how people make music, but how they consume it. “There's been so many times where I've asked them, 'Is this a good metric to look at?'” he says, almost sheepishly, “Streaming wasn't really a thing. The way, dynamically, you work with your label, to pretty much all of it has changed.”

Thankfully, the music on Happiness Begins is really good. “I Believe”, which Nick wrote with Kurstin, sits between “Jealous” and the slick romance of “Hold On We’re Going Home”, while “Every Single Time”, a reggae-lite bop produced by Tedder, could easily have belonged to DNCE. And unlike a lot of current pop, you really can’t imagine anyone else singing a song like “Only Human”, a wonky horn-filled track that, when pushed, could be described as baby’s first foray into ska, or lead single “Sucker”, that grabs those Jonas power chords and drags them into 2019. It’s the Jonas Brothers on a molecular level.

I catch their publicist waving at me to wrap things up. The band have a photoshoot next and then they’re playing an intimate gig for fans. But as we all stand up and exchange pleasantries, I tell them I’m glad that they’ll finally be able to spend a holiday like Thanksgiving together as friends. They all pause and look at each other awkwardly. “We do have a day off and we'll be in the New Jersey area,” Kevin says. “We could go to your house?” Nick asks. I turn to Joe. “Oh, we have no idea,” he shrugs. “We're still bandmates at the end of the day. We're just trying to figure it all out.” And with that they file out of the room.

@alimkheraj

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

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pangm8Alim KherajNoiseyMusicJonas BrothersThe Jonas BrothersInterviewsboybands
<![CDATA[For K-Pop Fans, Devotion Can Come at a High Price]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/597wya/k-pop-fans-merch-cost-expensive-lightsticksFri, 31 May 2019 13:21:42 GMT Welcome! This is a column where I’ll be talking about the many sides of K-pop and its fandom, from the perspective of both a writer and a long-time fan. Thanks for reading, and see you again soon, when the idols have next released an unspeakable number of new official things and we’ve responded with 1,000 niche memes.

If you were to sit down, while feeling particularly organised, and map out how much you spend on your favourite bands, where do you think you’d end up? A few quid a month on Spotify? Maybe £80 per month, for one gig involving tedious queuing plus a tee for your Insta stories at the merch stand?

Now, think about it in relation to just one genre. “It's probably close to $350-400 a month on average,” writes K-pop reddit thread user. Another one chimes in: “Right now it's $150, but if my bias has a comeback I will spend more.” Another one: “I would guess I average about $325 a month.” When it comes to Korea’s ever-growing pop landscape, any number below three figures feels like a myth.

Obviously money plays a part in stanning artists from all genres (you could probably fill a house with Fenty Beauty or Yeezy products alone). But in the world of K-pop, it’s especially acute. In a feature for MTV last month, journalist Cat Kelley wrote about the US-based fans literally spending thousands on flights, concert tickets and multiple-day K-pop conventions – with many working two or more jobs to make it happen.

But what makes K-pop in particular so money-orientated? As Kelley points out, “It’s common knowledge that many Korean acts do not make much money if they haven’t attained the rarified stature of a top-selling group like BTS.” In other words, K-pop acts generally have to make it huge, or they don’t make it at all. This can feed into the idea that spending money on merch and tickets etc isn’t just for your own enjoyment – it’s also keeping your fave K-pop act afloat. That in turn affects the culture around spending in general.

And then, of course, there’s so much stuff to choose from. Unlike other pop bands who might release a few calendars or hoodies, the K-pop content wheel is endless: There are group-specific lightsticks, hair dyes and even cars. Every time a K-pop act makes a comeback – as often as once every handful of months – intricate booklets, posters and collectable photocards come as part of the release package, often with (very high) shipping costs. Basically, if you’ve got enough cash, you can exist in a colourful K-pop utopia of your own making.

But what if you can’t afford that? So much of fandom culture works itself out online. Where and how you choose to spend your cash is often out in public, ready to face the judgment of spectators. That’s where things get messy. Because for some, having a more extensive merch collection, or being seen attending a lot of gigs, can seem like the marker of a “better” or more dedicated fan. Failing to buy the latest release can open you up to being shamed – even in jest – as lack of commitment. All of this tosses together questions of consumerism, micro-generational difference and the line between loyalty and self-conscious stunting. It’s complex, but ultimately fan culture runs deeper than the raw numbers of how much you spend.

Again, this isn’t exclusive to K-pop – money feeds into all fandoms, obviously – but “merch-shaming” in K-pop is a very real thing. Take earlier this year, for example, when young stans were discussing the validity of “older” BTS fans online, who then hit back with some variation of ‘yeah, but we have money’. As one user put it: “We cry into our newly bought BTS merch, we cry listening to our newly bought albums in our new Palisade as we drive to BTS concerts where we buy more merch…” to the tune of 24k likes. This week, BTS fans snaked through huge queues to nab merch from the group's London pop-up shop, before they play Wembley this weekend.

Magda, a 22-year-old BTS, BlackPink and Sunmi fan from Russia, has seen a more extreme type of shaming behaviour encouraged by the admins of an unnamed K-pop page on Russian social network VK. Their online community holds about 10,000 followers most of whom, she says, are young teenagers. “These admins are pushing the inherently classist agenda that those buying off-brand merch and not owning physical albums are less valuable as fans,” she tells me over Twitter, after clarifying how getting official merch in Russia is often quite difficult due to extortionate shipping costs.

According to Magda, the attitude that ‘money equals real dedication’ is also spreading to certain parts of the Russian K-pop fandom on Twitter. “You got two goddamn months to save up and order the freaking lightstick – don’t you dare lie [sic] if you found the money for the gig, then you'd find it for the lightstick during this time,” reads one since-deleted Tweet, translated by Magda, the user responding to some fans’ decision to buy an unofficial NCT lightstick, rather than the more expensive version sold by SM.

“It's how I sleep at night knowing that if my faves disband it wasn't my fault,” a Reddit user wrote two years ago, when asked why they buy K-pop albums. “I eye-roll so hard when there's an outcry of people blaming companies for disbanding groups and for flopping [when] they spend $0 on them,” they added. On Twitter, a curiouscat question sent to one user last year reads: “You call yourself a fan and you have ONE BTS album? (that you probably stole from your local target LOL) broke bitch”.

Obviously, a very ~online~ sense of humour runs through thee tone of those posts. But it manifests in darker ways IRL too, even unintentionally. K-pop fansigns, for example – an events where fans get to meet their idols face to face – usually work on a lottery system, meaning that those who've bought multiple albums have a higher chance of getting in. Some stans end up buying more than 40 copies for the vague possibility of being chosen. Fans themselves can then come to internalise the pressure to own everything, believing that not being able to afford merch equals missing out on a fundamental part of the fan experience.

“I think younger fans especially feel a lot of pressure to ‘protect’ and support their faves by constantly engaging – be it with buying merch or tweeting and streaming,” says Bora, a 31-year-old K-pop fan from the UK. “Pace yourselves a bit. You don’t have to do everything, watch everything or buy everything. Do as much as you can – to be a true fan or to love them doesn’t mean you have to give up yourself.”

Despite this pressure, K-pop stans can regularly find ways to get around the high costs of merch. Some make their own, while voluntary community managers organise bulk orders so that shipping costs are lowered. Fans with multiple copies of albums have been known to do Twitter giveaways (mostly genuine, sometimes not), or share paid streaming accounts with friends and resell tickets at face value.

Plus, as is the case with anyone who’s into music, you can find ways to experience gigs without actually being there – even more so when your favourite groups hardly ever perform where you live. For example, 33-year-old, American K-pop fan Tiffany Marie live-tweeted her first BTS concert back in 2015. “I felt like I had to tweet the concert when it was my turn because I remembered all those ARMYs [the name given to BTS fans] who did that for me,” she tells me now. “That was the thing which carried me through not being able to experience it for myself.”

Spending money on your favourite K-pop act can be fun if you’re able to – but it is definitely not what makes a fan. It’s easy to get swept up in the whirlwind of stan Twitter and endless content, but the fundamental thing to remember is that being a fan should be whatever you want it to be – a time to bond with other people over your favourite artists’ weird trouser choice, or insanely choreographed new video. It shouldn’t be a source of financial stress or bullying – because honestly, where’s the fun in that?

“If your support means being able to stream on YouTube, that’s just as amazing as someone being able to buy an album,” says Tiffany. “Honestly – would Namjoon say ‘You’re not a real BTS fan if you haven’t bought every single one of our albums’? No he wouldn’t – he’d say ‘go to sleep, do your homework. You should support us in the way that doesn’t do you any sort of harm.’”

@bijubelinky / @LordIzxy

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

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597wyaBiju BelinkyDaisy JonesInto The K-Pop WorldMusicNoiseyVICE K-Pop fandomMerchandise
<![CDATA['Rocketman' Nails the Link Between Childhood Trauma and Addiction]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/vb9ym3/rocketman-elton-john-childhood-trauma-addictionThu, 30 May 2019 13:26:23 GMTElton John has done loads of drugs: whole extended train rails and billowing clouds of them. He says as much in new film Rocketman – or at least his character played by Taron Egerton does, when, at an AA meeting, he opens with: “I'm Elton Hercules John and I’m an alcoholic, cocaine addict, sex addict, bulimic, shopaholic…” and so the list goes on, referencing weed, psychedelics and benzos.

This AA meeting is where the film kicks off, where it ends, and how it’s anchored, returned to again and again as Egerton brings us onto the fast-paced merry-go-round-ride that is our John’s life. And by telling the story in such a way, going from pivotal life moment and then back to AA room, director Dexter Fletcher gives us an insight into how childhood and early life trauma can lead to addiction, and how one of the first steps toward recovery is to love and accept your younger self. Hearing from a therapist, and reading work by a childhood development physician beyond the film itself, I learn of a complex portrait that doesn't offer any easy answers on the link between early life and later addiction. But Rocketman still deftly portrays Fletcher (and, to an extent, John's) chosen narrative.

'Rocketman' film still
Taron Egerton as Elton John in 'Rocketman' from Paramount Pictures (Photo: David Appleby)

Dr Gabor Maté, author of the bestselling book In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction, defines addiction as “any behaviour that a person craves, finds temporary relief or pleasure in but suffers negative consequences as a result of, and yet has difficulty giving up.” That could be cocaine, abusive relationships, chocolate biscuits, sleep, sex, love, more cocaine – it doesn’t matter. The cycle is the same: craving, relief, pleasure, then suffering, on repeat.

For both the fictional and real Elton John, the addictive behaviour manifested in drinking copious amounts of alcohol, snorting coke, having sex and all the rest of it. In an interview with Variety earlier this month, John said: “There were times I was having chest pains or staying up for three days at a time. I used to have spasms and be found on the floor and they’d put me back to bed and half an hour later I’d be doing the same. It’s crazy.” See: craving, relief, pleasure, suffering, repeat.

As for what potentially causes addiction, Dr Maté writes: “Childhood trauma is the template for addiction – any addiction. All addictions are attempts to escape the deep pain of the hurt child, attempts temporarily soothing but ultimately futile. This is no less true of the socially successful workaholic, such as I have been, than of the inveterate shopper, sexual rover, gambler, abject street-bound substance user or stay-at-home mom and user of opioids.”

Rocketman film still
Taron Egerton as Elton John in 'Rocketman' from Paramount Pictures (Photo: David Appleby)

Though Rocketman doesn’t explicitly offer the same viewpoint – there’s no singular moment where Egerton stands up and says “I am addicted to x because of x” – it does go some way to suggesting a similar link: that of the hurt child and the need to escape. The film doesn’t shy away from John’s upbringing: the abuse he suffered from his dad, his parents’ divorce, the lack of a relationship he had with either of them. He also told Variety: “I’ve come to understand – as you get older you understand – the circumstances they went through. I’m not angry or bitter about that whatsoever, but it did leave a scar and that scar took a long time to heal – and maybe it will never heal totally.”

A climactic scene arrives with John’s performance at the Royal Albert Hall. Then dating his manager John Reid (played by Richard Madden), who sits alongside him in the car, John asks that they pull over, as he’s desperate to make a phone call. From discussions with Reid, who wants their relationship to remain private, it’s clear John’s been longing to come out to his family, that it’s been eating away inside of him, and so he runs to a phone box and calls up his mother.

But she ruthlessly tells him through seething teeth that he’ll never be loved, and he breaks down; then moments later Reid appears and punches John in the face, telling him to never pull a stunt like that again, especially not before a show. Though there’s no evidence to suggest it’s anything but a fictionalised account – John and Reid split up in the late 90s, for example, long after the events in the film claim – we do see the effect of these tragic events on the fictional John.

From then on, where before he was looking for love, Egerton’s Elton John is an antagonistic whirlwind who’ll hoover and drink up anything. He smashes pints of vodka for breakfast and blacks out for several days at a time. Coming so soon after the previous scenes, it’s easy for viewers to surmise his antics as a response to trauma and a way to momentarily escape its pain; to forget the hurt of coming out, then being told he’ll be alone, and then being greeted with a punch from his-then boyfriend-and-manager, who later makes it clear he’s less a lover and more a business partner.

'Rocketman' film still 2019
Taron Egerton as Elton John in 'Rocketman' from Paramount Pictures (Photo: David Appleby)

As these and other moments of great pain are told through the medium of the AA meeting, Egerton strips down – starting at first in one of John's infamous on-stage outfits (pictured above); next: glumly taking off the devil ears; and toward the end, plainly dressed, perhaps as Reggie Dwight (John’s birth name). It’s as if shedding those layers is symbiotic with John understanding the root pain behind his addictions. Then, as ghost-like apparitions of his mum, dad and nan appear, and then his younger self, who he hugs, it’s suggested that acceptance is the first step to moving forward. That through the process of loving what Maté calls “the hurt child”, you can start to heal.

John has been sober now for close to 30 years. The film isn’t a strict re-telling of his life: as well as the bits involving John Reid, he plays his first show in Los Angeles and through various music and dance numbers it’s accepted that there’s a strong element of fantasy – people don’t fly through the air. But from Fletcher’s direction, we do get a sense of the link between past pain and present addiction. It's worth mentioning, though, things aren't black and white – London-based therapist Jessie Higney tells me over email that "a traumatic childhood is not equal to later addiction or disruptive behaviour"; one does not automatically create the other. She goes on to say that acceptance also "needs to be understood as a process and not a destination". Basically: it's an on-going undertaking, and not something solved in a single AA-meeting, as the film seems to show.

Still, as it goes, Rocketman's approach to addiction is one of its greatest triumphs, and what sets it apart from other music biopics. On one hand it’s sensationalised, like a lot of music films; yet on the other, it’s honest to an experience anyone can have – celebrity, school teacher, teenager or rockstar.

@ryanbassil

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

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vb9ym3Ryan BassilNoiseyMusicElton JohnbiopicRocketmanFilm reviews
<![CDATA[The Guide to Getting into PJ Harvey, Grunge’s Apocalyptic Godmother]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/wjvdy4/noisey-guide-getting-into-pj-harvey-discographyWed, 29 May 2019 14:53:46 GMT“I can’t believe life’s so complex / When I just want to sit here, and watch you undress.” So sings PJ Harvey on her 2000 track “This is Love”. She’s wearing a whipped cream-coloured suit jacket in the video, tassels dangling off her sleeves, arms cradling an electric guitar. Then she turns to the camera, eyelids cloudy with gold dust, and drawls: “This is love, this is love, that I’m feeling.” It's the sort of thing that makes you want to whisper "what a powerful way to enter the millennium," to yourself.

PJ Harvey—real name Polly Jean—has always occupied a strange place in the music conversation. On the one hand, her influence can be felt everywhere. You can hear her bleak, grey-blue tones in bands like Bat For Lashes and Warpaint. You can see her slash of red lip and low slung guitar in St Vincent and Anna Calvi. Her dark, lyrical style and heavy riffs ripple throughout so many artists' sounds, from Sharon Van Etten to The Kills and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

But she’s also never been fully embedded within the mainstream. Sure, she’s accumulated a long line of award nominations—seven Grammys, eight BRITS, the only artist to receive the Mercury Music Prize twice. She’s even been appointed an MBE. But you’re not about to see her throwing out gags on 8 Out of Ten Cats, or showing up in the showbiz section of the Mail Online. Her tracks don’t often scrape the top 40, and she’s had one chart-topping album. In that way, she’s neither an obscure/cult figure, nor globally recognized. She sits somewhere in between. She’s timeless, her own force.

Taking a trip through PJ Harvey’s nine studio albums (11 if you count her collabs) is like wading through a black lake at night, if that lake lived inside your soul. She sings relentlessly of water and drowning, of sex and romance, of cities and seasides and nature. Her guitar lines are open and lush; sometimes grungy and pummelling, other times so held back you can barely hear them. Like a poet, PJ Harvey knows how to work with space and tension. “You shoplifted as a child / I had a model's smile...” she sings softly and deadpan in “We Float,” before the whole thing blooms and transforms completely, a new song within a song.

It can be difficult to know where to begin with PJ. She’s been releasing music for years, and inhabited many lives. Before she was PJ Harvey the solo artist, she was PJ Harvey the trio (alongside Rob Ellis and Steve Vaughan), and before that, she was in a band for three years called Automatic Dlamini with now-longtime collaborator John Parish. Even so, listening to her music is less about the individual records, and more about the world she’s created within them; one that was born from the long dewy grass of Somerset, the murky chaos of London and the twinkling high rises of New York. It’s a world that can be playful and darkly unsettling, often at the same time.

Most recently, PJ Harvey contributed two songs (“The Moth” and “Descending”) to the Ivo van Hove stage production All About Eve, which came to an end this month. Last week, she also released track "The Crowded Cell," off her score for Channel 4's well-received Shane Meadows show The Virtues. To mark both occasions—but also just as a tenuous excuse to revisit her back catalog in detail—here is the only guide you need to getting into Polly Jean Harvey.

So you want to get into: Heavy lo-fi grunge PJ Harvey?

In 1995, Alanis Morissette released one of her most well-known tracks “You Oughta Know”, in which she switched up the narrative that women must always be self-contained and leave quietly after facing rejection. Two years before that, however, PJ Harvey released “Rid Of Me” – a dirtier, grungier, angrier version of this exact sentiment. “You’re not rid of me / You're not rid of me,” she sings faux-sweetly over a simple, chugging riff. And then the drums crash in and she’s almost-shouting: “Don’t you wish you never, never met her? / Don’t you wish you never, never met her?”

Some of PJ’s most potent, affecting work is also her heaviest and most lo-fi. There’s a rawness to her earlier albums—especially debut Dry and its followup Rid of Me, released in 1992 and 1993 respectively—that make her music feel as if she just grabbed her guitar in an impulsive rage. At the time, critics tried to shove her under the riot grrrl umbrella—probably because she’s a woman with a guitar who sings about gender sometimes—but PJ never belonged to any scene, and she certainly doesn’t owe much to hardcore punk in America. Her thick, sludgy guitar and loud-quiet dynamics were, and are, more in line with grunge / rock bands like The Pixies, Sonic Youth, and The Breeders if anyone.

By the time PJ released her third album, 1995's To Bring You My Love, she'd parted ways with bandmates Rob Ellis and Steve Vaughan to become a solo act. The album, and its follow up Is This Desire?, sees PJ lean away slightly from those thick and heavy guitar riffs, embracing a subtler sound and inviting electronics into the mix. Not completely of course; this is PJ Harvey. “You ought to hear my long snake moan / You ought to see me from my throne” she sing-screams on one of her heaviest, most rock 'n' roll tracks to date, “Long Snake Moan”, her gravelly voice buried between walls of thick reverb, drums pounding until the end.

Playlist: "O My Lover" / "Dress" / "Happy and Bleeding" / "Rid of Me" / "Man Size" / "Missed" / "To Bring You My Love" / “Long Snake Moan” / "Is This Desire?" / "A Perfect Day Elise" / "The Sky Lit Up"

So you want to get into: Pop according to PJ Harvey?

Around the release of Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea in 2000, PJ Harvey said this to Q: “Having experimented with some dreadful sounds on Is This Desire? and To Bring You My Love—where I was really looking for dark, unsettling, nauseous-making sounds—Stories From The City... was the reaction. I thought, 'No, I want absolute beauty. I want this album to sing and fly and be full of reverb and lush layers of melody. I want it to be my beautiful, sumptuous, lovely piece of work'."

By “sumptuous and lovely”, PJ didn’t mean she was about to release a bunch of saccharine candy-pop ballads. Rather, in her words, this fifth album is “pop according to PJ Harvey, which is probably as un-pop as you can get to most people’s standards”. The album opens with desolate, stormy guitar while PJ shouts “Look out ahead, I see danger come / I want a pistol, I want a gun” before her voice rises to a melodic falsetto—you can hear that beauty she was speaking about. The tracks throughout this album are maybe more catchy and accessible than her earlier work—“We Float,” for instance, has the most tender, melodic chorus—but they’re still grunge rock. They’re just gorgeous and emotive too.

Later, on Uh Huh Her, PJ Harvey plays every instrument, other than the drums courtesy of former bandmate Rob Ellis. The result is an album she described at the time to Mojo as “very gentle, very loving.” The song “Desperate Kingdom of Love” has the intimacy of something that was supposed to remain a secret, and in “Shame” she sings softly, “I'd jump for you into the fire / I'd jump for you into the flame”, an accordion quietly stretching in the background. None of these are pop songs per se, but a sweetness here permeates even her most vengeful moments.

Playlist: "Big Exit" / "A Place Called Home" / "We Float" / "The Whores Hustle and the Hustler’s Whore" / "This is Love" / "You Said Something" / “Desperate Kingdom if Love” / “Shame”

So you want to get into: PJ Harvey the Poet?

If you cast your eyes across the tracklist for Let England Shake, PJ Harvey’s eighth studio album, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the contents of an anthology of English war poetry. And fair enough. The lyrics were written long before they were put to music – meaning they’re also basically poems. “Blown and shot out beyond belief / Arms and legs were in the trees,” she sings over sweet, jangling autoharp (which she learned for this record especially!) at the beginning of “The Words That Maketh Murder”, the title of which sounds like a Smiths song, but could also feasibly be something plucked from the works of Wilfred Owen.

Some might not be keen on this side of PJ—there are no lo-fi rock anthems a la 1992—but others regard it as some of her greatest work. So much of this 2011 release is unexpected, masterful and rich with imagery. Where PJ once used vivid, apocalyptic lyricism to sing about her own personal wars—in romance, sex and death—this time she swivels the lens outwards, towards actual wars. “The scent of thyme carried on the wind / Stings my face into remembering,” her voice floats, higher than it’s ever been, over folk strums on “On Battleship Hill”. Before the album’s release she told Andrew Marr that her “biggest fear would be to replicate something I've done before.” It’s a fear she needn’t have worried about.

PJ’s literary energy doesn’t just end with the fact this album—which won her a second Mercury Prize, by the way (the first was for Stories From the City...)—follows the longstanding artistic tradition of turning the bleak, bloody sadness of war into words. She also worked closely with photographer and filmmaker Seamus Murphy, who created a dozen short films around this record. In 2015, the pair collaborated again for The Hollow of The Hand, PJ Harvey’s first poetry book, released on Bloomsbury. Like Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave before her, here PJ is an artist just as appreciated for her pen to paper, as her hand to guitar.

Playlist: "Let England Shake" / "The Glorious Land" / "The Words That Maketh Murder" / "On Battleship Hill" / "England" / "In the Dark Places" / “Written on the Forehead” / “The Colour of the Earth”

So you want to get into: Politically-minded PJ Harvey?

When artists reach a certain stage in their decades-long careers, they often go one of two ways. They either switch up their sound in an effort to stay relevant and match whatever the youths are into (“Let’s just say, I was listening to a lot of grime while writing this album”—aging white rock star, five years after grime reached its peak). Or they essentially give no fucks about any of that, and write about the things that matter to them in that moment, utilising their huge platform and an already engaged audience.

PJ Harvey chose the second route, and her most recent album, The Hope Six Demolition Project, released in 2016, sees her lean further into social issues. The album's title is a reference to the HOPE VI projects in Washington DC, where run-down public housing has been demolished to make room for less affordable homes. Elsewhere, she sings about ethnic cleansing in Kosovo (“The Wheel”) and war-torn communities in Afghanistan (“The Ministry of Defence”). The release drew criticism for responding to issues without offering solutions, but in a twist of events, it also became PJ's first UK No. 1 album—more than two decades after she first emerged.

Sonically, this side of PJ Harvey properly embraces American blues, rock and folk. She uses her actual voice less—there’s no screaming, shout-singing or guttural growls like in earlier tracks – and instead pushes her lyricism and instrumentation center stage. Accordions and autoharps, flutes and saxophones, violins and clarinets, whistles and hand claps... The Hope Six Demolition Project is an explosive euphony of sound and movement. If PJ Harvey started out as a kind of impulsive grunge rocker who screamed her mind, this album sees her step into her current form: a thoughtful storyteller—more interested in the world around her, than whatever lies inside.

Playlist: "The Community of Hope" / "The Ministry of Defence" / "Chain of Keys" / "Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln" / "The Orange Monkey" / "The Ministry of Social Affairs" / “The Wheel” / “Dollar, Dollar”

@daisythejones / @_joelbenjamin_

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

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wjvdy4Daisy JonesNoisey UK StaffJoel BenjaminThe Noisey Guide toMusicNoiseyPJ HarveySeamus MurphyninetiesgrungerockGuide to Getting IntoNoisey Guide To
<![CDATA[I Took Eva from Charly Bliss on a Very Fancy Tea Date]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/ywy3xy/i-took-eva-from-charly-bliss-on-a-very-fancy-tea-dateThu, 16 May 2019 16:49:45 GMTVICE U.K. originally published this article.

At The Garage, a live music venue in north London, everything seems in order. The crowd is made up of the usual denim jackets and rolled up t-shirt sleeves, and people standing around drinking pints while a bored-looking dude mans a quiet bar. So far, so Monday night.

But then, the lights go down and the dramatic, despairing 80s pop track “Toy Soldiers” starts thundering over the speaker like a premonition. Three musicians in jeans, white t-shirts, and face glitter take the stage and play an intro. A woman follows them a few seconds later. She is wearing a dress which looks not unlike the head of a sparkly mop. It is extremely silly, totally over-the-top, and quite, quite perfect.

The mop, of course, is Eva Hendricks, the band is the effervescent alt-rock outfit Charly Bliss (rounded out by drummer Sam Hendricks, guitarist Spencer Fox, and bassist Dan Shure), and this show is their album launch party. On Friday 10 May, the New York group released their second album Young Enough, after stealing hearts with their first, 2017’s Guppy. The new record retains much of what made the first so delectable—Hendricks’ voice like sucking on a sour candy, and spiky, gnashing guitars and percussion like the teeth chewing it—but adds dimension with poppy synths and big drums. While Young Enough is darker and more ambitious than Guppy, the songs from the two records go together live like ketchup and mustard, as Hendricks cavorts through the set like a Disney princess, if a Disney princess could shred extremely fucking hard. For their encore, the band plays “Mr. Brightside." The entire night feels like the dictionary definition of "triumphant."

The next day, I head to central London to meet Eva for afternoon tea (what else?). Though she comes dressed slightly less shinily, she’s as fizzy in person as she is on stage and in her music, seeming to approach experiences with the same curiosity, attention, and humor that you’d expect from her songwriting. We talked about bad dates, learning to take yourself seriously, and, uh, the plant from Little Shop of Horrors—while also eating an undisclosed number of tiny cakes. You can read our conversation below.

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VICE: Welcome to our first date Eva!
Eva Hendricks: I love this! We’re falling in love.

If this is our first date, where do we go from here?
How could we top this? We’d either have to lean in further and do something also very fancy, or we would have to do something that’s totally the opposite to get to know each other better. Probably after this date, if it was really going well, we’d go to a dive bar.

Or get really bad takeout.
Exactly. In fact, I would probably be worried if our second date was somewhere fancy.

I’m an order-a-pizza type of person.
Me too!

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What’s your pizza of choice?
My favorite pizza in New York is this place called Speedy Romeo. It’s so good! I used to work at Roberta’s—they’re great but I think Speedy Romeo is one level up. They have this cheese that is native to St. Louis and it’s called Provel, and it’s this very fake cheese, very processed. It shouldn’t be as good as it is but it’s divine.

Did you grow up in New York?
No! All of us in the band grew up about an hour outside of New York. Sam, the drummer, is my older brother, Dan and I started doing musical theater together when we were like, 11, and we dated for a few years. On one of our dates he introduced me to Spencer, who is his friend from camp. And that’s how the band started!

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I think you can really see your interest in musical theater in Charly Bliss’ music though—not just the sound but the storytelling element of the songs seems a little indebted to that.
Absolutely. You know, so many things play into your tastes and sensibilities. I definitely feel with musical theater, the number one thing I came away from that world with is an appreciation for working really hard, and rehearsing, and being open to critique and running it again and again until it’s exactly right. Dan and I came from that world; Spencer is also an actor, and my brother Sam was into classical percussion and really worked hard at that through school. It’s really important to have that kind of work ethic.

What was your favorite musical to be in? Who did you play?
I played Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, loved that. I was Sandy in Grease, I was Maureen in Rent, and Dan was Mark! Oh, and I was in Little Shop of Horrors! I love that musical so much. That was really, really fun.

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How did the plant work?
There was someone in there operating it. My grandma came to see that and she was so upset because I played Audrey, and at the end Audrey gets eaten by the plant, and she was really freaked out by it. It’s so funny because it’s this giant thing made out of foam; it’s so clearly not real but something about it really disturbed my grandma.

Back to dates: What was your first ever date?
My first date was with Danny Fishman, in seventh grade. My mom dropped me off and I went ice skating with him. It was so romantic. We dated for two months, it was a total whirlwind romance. To me, he seemed very exotic because there were two middle schools in our town and he went to the other one. Big deal.

It’s like that classic thing: “I have a boyfriend… he goes to another school,” but you really did!
Yes! He broke up with me right before leaving for summer camp. I was devastated. I didn’t even get to go to camp—I stayed at home and did the musical. It was also right around the time that I started watching The O.C. and I was really getting into my feelings. I’m still a very emotional person, but I love thinking about how emotional I was at that point in my life. When I got a car for the first time, there was this boy I had a huge crush on, and I would just drive around in circles just hoping to see his car on the street. I would cry and listen to songs that he liked, and I would drive past his house. I was a maniac!

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What about bad dates?
When I was a senior in high school, I was single for most of the year. I had it in my head that I wanted to make out with someone randomly, and not have it mean anything. So it was the closing night of my senior year musical, and I was friends with this guy. And I thought, You know what? I’m going to make out with him because why not? He was the worst kisser I’ve ever experienced. But I was like, This is the point of it! I’ve got to give it a chance. So we were making out, and I started to notice that my face was really wet? And I knew he was drooling a lot but it felt really strange. My face was like, soaking. And he pulled away like, “Oh my God.” I said, “What?” And he goes, “I think I just got a nosebleed.” There was blood all over my face, and I ran back down to the party looking like Carrie.

Have you ever done dating apps, like Tinder?
No! I’ve been in two very long-term relationships, and my first one was very on-again-off-again. There was a lot of breaking up and getting back together, and one of the times that we broke up I was like, “You know what? Everyone’s on Tinder; I’ve never been on. I just want to see what this is all about.” So my roommate Rebecca and I both made profiles to look at it, and we were swiping through guys, and—I realize this is going to sound like I’m presenting myself in a very like “higher being” type of way—but I just realized that I’m not someone who is attracted to people so much based off of looks, especially guys. Even if you’re really hot, if I meet you and you have a crappy personality with no sparkle and magic then…

I think that’s true for most people though
Absolutely. But I found it really hard to look at a photo of someone and be like “I’m attracted to you.” So I shut down the account, didn’t even swipe right on anyone. The next day, my brother comes up to me at a show and he’s like, “Are you on Tinder?” and I was like “I just downloaded it for like an hour just to see.” And he said, “Three of my coworkers have come up to me asking if they can take my little sister on a date because they saw you on Tinder!” I was on it for one hour and it got back to my big brother that I was on fucking Tinder.

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So, your new album Young Enough. It has a new sound, as you referenced at your London show. Though I would argue that I don’t think it’s *that* different. How have people responded to it?
It’s definitely a talking point for the record. To us, it felt like a very natural progression—we knew going into making this album that we didn’t want to make the same record twice. We wanted to feel like we had grown and we felt like we had grown, so it felt like we were following along with what felt natural to us. This just felt like we were going further down a path we had already started in on. And also we’re huge pop music fans. The albums we were listening to while we were making this record were like, Melodrama by Lorde, Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen, Bleachers.

I can hear that you’ve been listening to Bleachers. It’s very bombastic—big drums, massive sounds.
We played a couple of shows with them last year, or two years ago. That was so inspiring to us, and has inspired the live set a lot, in the sense that at a Bleachers show they all trade places, they have their different stations for instruments and then they all switch around. And now we have this album that filled with synths, and when we were trying to figure out how we were going to play it live, that was our guiding light.

Have people been on board with the new sound?
Almost across the board. I think at the beginning, there were some people who are really into our first record. But I think that’s the case with any band, right? And you know what else? It also felt to me on this album that we’ve started reaching a wider demographic of people, and specifically we’ve started reaching more women, and that’s felt really gratifying for me. And it’s really wonderful to look out and see so many supportive and cool young women in the audience.

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In guitar music, the audiences are necessarily really male-dominated. So imagine that can feel a bit sad—obviously your music is for everyone, but perhaps women would understand its perspective best?
I really hope that anyone can connect with our music, but it’s wonderful to see more diversity in the crowd.

What was the process of making this record like?
I’d just never had an opportunity in my life to concentrate full-time on music, for the first time we didn’t have day jobs—we were just able to have writing be our full-time jobs. That’s a wonderful thing but it’s also a really crazy thing. I’d literally write from when my boyfriend left for work at seven in the morning until he got home at six. But even that felt really cool—we were totally immersed in the process of making it.

Also, I’ve always had an issue taking myself seriously as a songwriter, and believing in myself in that way. I’ve always thought of it as something I stumbled into. So there was something really gratifying where I really felt like a professional songwriter, a professional musician.

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I think women in creative work worlds can have a problem asserting that they deserve to be there, right?
Absolutely, and also we were coming off of releasing Guppy which was difficult for us to release. And by the time it finally came out, having people respond to it and connect with it forced me to be like, “Eva, shut up. Clearly this is real and you’re good at it, so you should just accept it and stop putting yourself down all the time.” And coming off of that and coming straight into writing Young Enough made me feel really confident writing this record, and allowed us to try new things, to make changes in the sound, and feel OK with the fact that maybe we’d be losing some people doing that. And we knew that the most important thing was making a record that we were proud of. There’s always going to be someone on the internet who doesn’t like it, and that’s OK—that’s totally fine as long I know we made the exact record we wanted to make.

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

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ywy3xyLauren O'NeillNoisey UK StaffBekky LonsdaleFirst DatesMusiccharly blissrockyoung enoughguppyeva hendricksNoisey
<![CDATA[Pete Doherty’s Talent Shines Through, After All These Years]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/d3n3nm/pete-doherty-puta-madres-live-londonTue, 14 May 2019 12:58:15 GMT“One’s too many, and a hundred ain’t enough / Oh come here lordy, give me more of that stuff.” So go the lyrics to “Pipey McGraw”, an unreleased song by Pete Doherty that some could easily presume is about smoking crack cocaine and the cliff-edge drop between sober living and heavy drug use.

Like much of Pete’s post-Libertines work, the song homes in on drugs. He’s often frank about his two loves: both a poetic vision of England; and cruising through that vision as smacked, cracked and gakked up as possible. In a recent Channel 4 interview, when asked if he was concerned about the tragic repercussions of his lifestyle, he paused – wiped away a tear – then said: “There’s just something in me… this mad soldier who never cries, never gets upset, and nothing can kill him.”

See, after a stint in Thai rehab in late 2014, Pete has said he's actively using drugs again. As he told the Guardian last month, he resumed using them pretty much from the moment he landed back in Margate, where he now lives. He leaves fans with room to surmise as much from each piece of press that’s arrived to support his new album Peter Doherty & The Putra Madres. Alongside the aforementioned Channel 4 and Guardian interviews (in the latter he repeatedly tries to sell the journalist his belongings) you can watch an hour-long video chat with NME where he talked about his fascination with drugs (“I love to be around them: I’m fascinated by the language, the clothes and the culture”).

It’s hard not to look at this run of press – Doherty, grey and sweating; giving pull-quote after pull-quote – and not think about Amy Winehouse. The two were pals, loosely part of the same Camden set that involved Russell Brand. Russell has now been sober for 16 years. Amy has, sadly, died – the run-up to her death well documented, in the film Amy, in the multitude of think-pieces asking ‘Shouldn’t we have stopped this earlier?’ Those prone to speculation could easily think to themselves that Pete seems to be a similar end of the scale.

On Sunday night I went to see him play with his new band The Putra Madres (Spanish for motherfuckers, FYI) at London’s Kentish Town Forum. Supported not by a band, but by a magician, I’d initially expected… not so much the worst as at least something resembling a performance at the local fairground. Perhaps – like some of those last performances by Amy Winehouse – he would be in too vulnerable a state for appear 'up to it'; maybe he'd arrive late on stage, etc. And sure enough when he appeared, he seemed to sway around with the legs of a newly birthed calf, almost smashing a roadie in the face with a forcibly chucked guitar.

His recent album is one of his best. “Paradise Is Under Your Nose” is the next in the pantheon of Doherty classics like “Albion”, “For Lovers” and “The Whole World Is Our Playground”; lead single “Who’s Been Having You Over” is full of bite. The further he moves away from The Libertines and their brand of speed-led indie, the closer he gets to writing the Arcadian classics he’s always sought out to stack up in his discography. The Libertines had always presented a Dickensian, post-war image – and they invented the phrasing of “the good ship Albion”, their metaphor for Britain and the collective journey to Arcadia – yet had always done so through a suffocating storm cloud of malaise (Doherty famously robbed bandmate Carl Barât’s flat, and was kicked out multiple times for problem drug use). But here, with the Puta Madres, is a sound that's a lot cleaner, a lot more sharp.

So as Doherty releases one of the brighter albums of his career, it’s strange to see him not just on the wagon but never seemingly off it. It’s sad to witness, and yet he seems to view things romantically. Among many things he said in that interview with NME (“An opiate is one of nature’s greatest gifts to us”, or wishing he’d spoken more about “the incredible positive effects of drugs”), he questioned why people look down on him using instead of asking “why are you combining drug use to create this incredible escape from this grey, tepid, sterile, macho-reality?”

Based on what he's told journalists recently, Pete appears to recognise the severity of his problem drug use; he goes on to say it’s like having a brother (“I can’t really separate myself from him… he’ll always be there”). And yet on stage at Kentish Town forum, he never misses a note, a lyric, a riff: of the handful of times I’ve seen him perform, whether as Libertine, Babyshamble or solo, it’s one of the better shows. And unlike those last gigs from Amy Winehouse, it seems Pete wants to be here – there’s no father pushing him on, no record label (he self-released this album); just a desire to perform or earn money or, let’s be honest, both.

One particularly striking moment comes when he performs new song “Someone Else To Be” (listen above). Toward the end, he references Oasis' “Don’t Look Back In Anger”, singing “please don’t put your life in the hands / of a rock ‘n’ roll band / they’ll throw it all away”. It feels pertinent. 17 years, eight albums, multiple convictions and rehab attempts, fall-outs, break-ups, destruction and several brief glimpses of paradise later, he’s still filling venues, fans hanging on to every word. Doherty mania is no less voracious among his fanbase than it was in his more beautiful heyday.

Yet as time ticks by, the inclusion of that lyric in “Someone Else To Be” feels chilling. It’s on the recorded album version of the song too, and hearing it reminds me of a young teenage Doherty queuing up to buy an Oasis album. Back then he was a budding poet (he won a competition aged 16 and toured Russia, due to funding from the British Council). He’s older now, still a poet, as meaningful to some people as Oasis were to him. So hearing that line on a record of his feels knowingly prescient.

But Pete's still here. You hope that someone will pull him back towards sobriety – he mentions Carl has said to him he won’t be getting The Libertines back together because he doesn’t agree with Pete’s problematic drug use – though he doesn’t seem to be being pushed to do anything he doesn’t want to do. More than that, as he told the Guardian, he's not actually unhappy. Asked then about how outsiders could assume he has a self-destructive death wish, he replied: "I love life. I squeeze everything I can out of the day." As Pete says on that song “Pipey Mcgraw”, about his relationship to skag-and-bone: “we had a real good time, just me and you”. It'll never stop being sorry seeing it all play out.

@ryanbassil

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

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d3n3nmRyan BassilNoiseyMusicpete dohertyKentish Town Forum ReviewPeter Doherty and the Putra MadresBabyshambles
<![CDATA[The Story of the DIY Publication That Kept Bands on the Road for Decades]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/ywyzpm/the-story-of-the-diy-publication-that-kept-bands-on-the-road-for-decadesTue, 07 May 2019 17:09:40 GMTWhen Maximum Rocknroll announced in mid-January that it would cease publication of its print zine following the May issue—ending at #432 to be exact—there was swift public outcry from punks around the world. As expected, plenty of reminiscing ensued online, which is exactly where all future MRR content would be housed from that point forward.

Longtime Maximum Rocknroll devotees praised the zine and its volunteer bean counters for listening to and reviewing every shitty demo cassette they got mailed—especially considering that so many of those reviews represented the first pieces of press for fledgling punk bands. Even more so, they waxed poetic about how MRR and its founder, the late Tim Yohannan, worked to connect underground and under-recognized scenes from one zip code to the next, encouraging the discovery of like-minded (and approachable) musicians, label founders, music writers, and zine nerds.

That last bit is key, of course. Maximum Rocknroll was founded by outsiders, for outsiders, and so much of its mission over the 36 years of its print existence has been to empower the latter group by exposing it to networks of subcultures that adhere to a similar code of defiance. And, in turn, to facilitate relationships between those networks.

In the early 90s, the zine went one step further by converting what it describes as its "relentless enthusiasm for DIY punk and hardcore bands and scenes from every inhabited continent of the globe" into the most crucial guide of touring resources for the touring punk band without any resources whatsoever. Over the next decade, copies of Book Your Own Fuckin' Life could be found in every rickety 80s conversion van coasting through Ohio with a U-Haul in tow and a Minor Threat sticker clinging to its back window. Just ask Beto about it.

The origins of Book Your Own Fuckin' Life can be traced back to the June 1989 issue of Maximum Rocknroll (#73) in which Kamala Parks wrote a column titled, "Book Your Own Fucking Tour." In it, Parks, who was both a regular contributor and "shitworker" for MRR in the 80s, as well as a cofounder of Berkley's 924 Gilman St., a storied all-ages punk venue, went through the tips and processes she used to book tours for Bay Area bands like Operation Ivy, Neurosis, and Crimpshine.

Broken down into seven distinct steps—such as "Step 1: Getting connections with all the happening people in the world of Punk Rock" and "Step 4: Start calling for Chrissakes!"—the column championed etiquette, preparation, and organization by way of "lots and lots" of forms (even though forms are "very unpunky"). At the end, the powers that be at Maximum Rocknroll also included an announcement in which they wondered aloud about running a section in each issue that would list "bookers and their cities and phone numbers, as well as whether it’s a club or not, all-ages or not." Bookers would be encouraged to send in postcards with their pertinent info and to do so each month so that MRR could keep track of turnover. Bands would be encouraged to send in both good and bad comments about those bookers.

The monthly "Book Your Own Fuckin' Tour" section of Maximum Rocknroll grew into a massive undertaking that required its own pressing. Book Your Own Fuckin' Life debuted with its 1992 edition and did more than just offer contact info for bookers. It provided listings of other bands, labels, venues, radio stations, distributors, record and book stores, zines, and other miscellaneous tools—per state, per province, and per country. There were now thousands of real phone numbers to call real humans, and there were real addresses to mail real music to real mailboxes. For the cover price of a buck, your band ostensibly had all it needed to book its own tour.

"I definitely had copies of Book Your Own Fuckin' Life before I had copies of Maximum Rocknroll," remembers Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! and the Devouring Mothers. "It was this holy grail of information, particularly in south Florida. I specifically remember getting the contact for the Legion of Doom in Columbus and thinking 'I have their address now and can send them a tape.' It was how I got ahold of ABC No Rio for the first time. The resource of like, 'There’s the fucking address.'"

"I remember seeing a copy at this record store in Rapid City, South Dakota. At that point, we didn't know anybody, so it was cool just to see an opportunity to book shows in other places," explains Kody Templeman, from Wyoming bands the Lillingtons and Teenage Bottlerocket. "I was stoked on it. When the next issue came out, we put our stuff in there and used that to book pretty much all of the first Lillingtons tour." (Their listing is in the '96 edition.)

"[The members of Chisel] all went to college in Indiana and started making friends in the Chicago punk scene, but as far as touring goes, Book Your Own Fuckin' Life got us out and around the Midwest," explains Ted Leo of Chisel, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, and The Both. "We knew where shows were happening, we just didn’t know who to talk to. The great thing about Book Your Own Fuckin' Life was all the people in it who didn't work at clubs and weren't inundated with demos. They were just invested in having a scene and making things happen."

Some of those people were also volunteering to collect and slog through the mailbags of listings that came in after the zine put out its annual call. While Book Your Own Fuckin' Life was shepherded by Maximum Rocknroll, a collaborator was enlisted every year to help co-present the next issue in return for a little bit of money, some shared distribution, and exposure alongside the MRR anti-brand. The only tricky thing was that "co-present" primarily boiled down to being responsible for piecing the whole thing together in the most digestible and comprehensible way possible—typos be damned.

Minneapolis-based anarcho-punk collective Profane Existence, which exists to this day, took on the unenviable task that first year. They also began the tradition of including a foreword detailing how laborious and painstaking the process of wading through thousands of sometimes-legible postcards truly was. Indeed, looking back at those 65 pages of listings from the '92 edition and finding entries from the likes of Screeching Weasel, Born Against, and Rancid (the last of which includes a home phone number for "Lint," a.k.a. Tim Armstrong), the effort remains very appreciated.

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As one of several laborers who toiled through the '94 edition of Book Your Own Fuckin' Life, Melanie Walski was a privileged recipient of her very own foreword. The fun screed begins, simply, "I didn’t know exactly what the hell I was going to live through when I agreed to work on this thing. It really sucked." She wrote it as a part of Rocco Publishing, a tiny Chicago-based operation that mostly released small runs of zines and 45s and partnered with MRR to work on the third issue of BYOFL. [Full disclosure: the former head of Vice Media’s documentary films unit Jason Mojica was a co-founder of Rocco and the point person while working on the issue.]

"We were all like 20 years old. I was at SIU-Carbondale then and remember being home and picking up just dozens and dozens of postcards that people would send in," says Walski, now a professor of literacy at Northern Illinois University. "We'd enter them into this big old desktop computer that Jason had. No one really had computers. Pretty much anyone who sent in something, as long as they met the criteria—the ethos of the whole thing—they got in."

There are a few legitimate listings from eventual rockstar bands like A.F.I. and Jimmy Eat World. The latter includes the home address of a young Jim Adkins in Mesa, Arizona, accompanied by the excellent description: "Strongly influenced by MTX, Radon, and Horace Pinker, but don't let those fool you." Another particularly bizarre gem from that '94 issue is for Cook County Hospital in Chicago that reads, "If you’re broke, they have to fix you. If you have a Dr. at home to vouch for you, they will give you free meds." The address and phone number were also included.

"There was so much inaccurate or incomplete information," Walski recalls. "Just trying to locate stuff without the internet, a place where you can just type in 'St. Louis zip code'... I don't remember exactly how we did it but I do remember having physical books of zip codes. It was a big job."

The Book Your Own Fuckin' Life Walski worked on with Rocco had doubled in size from the '92 edition that Profane Existence compiled. Containing a total of 137 pages of listings—and several more pages of ads—the '94 guide even today feels like it was a hefty resource for not only the touring bands, but the kids ready and willing to book basements and VFW halls in their own backwoods and unfrequented towns. A quick scan of the "Promoters & Venues" reveals listings for a brick-and-mortar Pizza Express in San Carlos, Arizona ("The only place where cops yell 'Turn It Up!'"), as well as a spot in Shreveport, Louisiana, called "Jeff's Place" that you have to imagine is no more than the place where Jeff lives.

"I remember being surprised at just how many individual kids were putting on shows in houses and basements. That really impressed me," Walski says. "Kids, not adults. Teenagers were taking these chances, saying, 'You can come and stay at my house.' Trusting each other because everyone shared a certain code."

Thanks to Book Your Own Fuckin' Life, that code spread fast—nearly too fast. As more and more bands ventured outside their localized scenes, spider-webbing subcultures together across North America and other parts of the globe, the resulting tours often presented some entertaining hurdles. Or they flat-out resembled varying degrees of hell. It depended on your threshold for pain.

Booking a three-week tour a couple months in advance seems like the perfectly responsible (maybe too responsible!) approach for any punk band, but when you set out to drive across several time zones, all the while relying on ambitious teenagers to secure proper venues with working electricity, things can get hairy.

For Laura Jane Grace, the first month-long Against Me! tour—which she booked entirely through Book Your Own Fuckin' Life and zine and band pen pals—was actually an entertaining sort of ride: "There was an unreliability that brought a sense of adventure to it. Imagine leaving a cell phone inside some punkhouse and whoever happens to pick it up is who you're booking the show through. They might not even live there by the time the tour rolled around. There was a good chance you'd show up and nobody had any idea a show was happening."

"I believe our first out-of-state punkhouse show was at the Pink House in North Carolina. It was set up by Aaron Cometbus and booked through Book Your Own Fuckin' Life. We showed up and it was seven or eight other bands. You played for five or six songs. And I was happy to play those five or six songs."

Kody Templeman laughs about the first Lillingtons tour, recalling his adventure a little differently: "I'm sure there were plenty of people who were just like, 'Fuck yeah, man, I'm going to put a listing in Book Your Own Fuckin' Life so I can book some bands.' A lot of places were Odd Fellows Halls, and a lot of times shows got shut down by the cops. We'd roll up somewhere and it was like, 'Yeah, we got shut down last week.' You had to call in advance to get directions. It was kind of a crapshoot whether someone would even pick up. You spent a lot of time at the gas station on the payphone with your calling card."

With every new 90s edition of Book Your Own Fuckin' Life, the listings continued to balloon as the underground became exponentially more self-aware. The '96 edition featured 138 pages, while the '99 edition topped out at 153 pages. A lot of those extra listings seemed to have come from bands, distributors, or zines located in originally underrepresented states like Wyoming (see Templeman above) or Rhode Island, as well as countries like Yugoslavia and Argentina (there are a load of Argentina listings). Scenes were no doubt being bolstered or even established as copies of BYOFL landed in the hands of enterprising punks.

As each edition grew in size, the high art of compiling it became increasingly difficult. Rich Black, who formerly put out a long-tenured punk zine in Long Island called Under the Volcano, admits he almost apprehensively accepted the gig of co-presenting the 1997 edition of Book Your Own Fuckin' Life (#6 to those keeping track).

"Maybe it was an appeal in Maximum Rocknroll that said, 'Hey, we're still waiting for someone to collaborate.' It was really out of desperation to bring something into the world that I thought should exist," explains Black. "There was somewhere around 4,500 listings, with the majority of them coming through snail mail. It was a shitshow, but a good shitshow."

Aside from keeping the ship afloat, Black, who after working a union gig for nearly 30 years now puts in hours at a friend's area wine shop, says he was constantly putting out small fires. For instance, he used WordPerfect as opposed to a Mac-compatible word processor preferred by Maximum Rocknroll—so sorting the listings became a nightmare ("I thought I'd just be able to press a button and it would be sorted"). At one point an entire mailbag of postcards disappeared, forcing him to request an extension from Tim Yohannan ("He definitely wanted to call me a fucking asshole"). Submissions came in well after the deadline, followed closely by people complaining about not getting into the issue ("You’re not prepared for that. Like, 'Hey, the deadline was four months ago'"). And then, of course, was the never-ending delight of dealing with hateful listings, both from straight-up Nazis and from bands, bookers, and labels who love holding grudges.

As the 90s plowed forward—a decade blissfully unaware of the looming ubiquity of the internet—annual copies of Book Your Own Fuckin' Life began to seem all but guaranteed, thanks in no small part to the tireless efforts of short-term "shitworkers" like Black and Walski. Their gumption, however, was not replicated by anyone on the '98 edition, which was simply never published.

The guide triumphantly returned in 1999, even more flush with listings. Compiled by a collection of Book Your Own Fuckin' Life advocates that deemed itself the Amoeba Collective, it now not only sported a web address—where listings could be added or edited at will—it also resembled a punk directory more than ever before. The immense '99 edition reads like a phone book, one in which every high school punk band felt it a rite of passage to submit its name, address, and phone number so that it could confirm its own existence. Some of the bands that had been using the guide for years began to notice that its stronger connections were being run ragged.

"We shortly realized after that first tour of using Book Your Own Fuckin' Life is that it was sort of a tapped-out resource," Laura Jane Grace says. "Every single contact in there had been hit up by so many people. Some of them were well worn and burnt out."

For the late-90s musicians that had already been touring for years, the most important relationships began to materialize as the ones they had forged over those first few tours. Though admittedly imperfect, Book Your Own Fuckin' Life had provided an initial network for punks and hardcore kids who shared similar ideologies—which is exactly what it set out to do. Bands had been empowered to venture outside of their local scenes and connect with bands and bookers from other scenes. And now many of them could take it from there.

"Years later, when Chisel did our first US tour, I'm pretty sure I was still in touch with people I met through that first Midwest tour. Your network just gradually expands as you meet more people," Ted Leo says. "We got shows outside of using Book Your Own Fuckin' Life by not being afraid to talk to people in bands, give them your number, or slide them a demo. We slipped a demo to Seam from Chicago once, and they called us and were just like, 'We're doing a week around the middle south if you’re interested.'"

Templeman figured that contacting bands in cities The Lillingtons wanted to play was the most effective route to getting a show: "I got to be buddies with Bill [Morrisette] from Scooby Don't who's in Dillinger Four now. I would just call him for shows in Minneapolis. Brian Peterson was a booker for the Fireside in Chicago. We ended up getting to know him pretty well. If Book Your Own Fuckin' Life hadn't been around, who knows how far we would've taken the band."

As Book Your Own Fuckin' Life entered the new millennium and the Internet’s endless booking alternatives came into clearer view, those in charge decided to cut the band listings out of print all together. The edition in 2002, which was again compiled by the Amoeba Collective, features a foreword directing all punks to the BYOFL website. With the band listings migrating online-only, the issue itself slimmed down to 101 pages (with way fewer ads). While Book Your Own Fuckin' Life still contained helpful lists of distributors, promoters, and labels, the fact that you could no longer flip to the South Dakota page to see what punk bands with very bad punk-band names are actually from South Dakota felt antithetical to its mission.

Eventually, the advent of MySpace in 2003, as well as the inevitable deluge of online music message boards spelled the end for the print copies of Book Your Own Fuckin' Life. The guide went totally online before inevitably dying its slow death. The site continued to be updated till 2011, which is exactly where it stayed updated until the www.byofl.org address went kaput altogether. And just like that, BYOFL had become a punk relic of a pre-internet age. But that didn't mean it had lost all of its value.

Hether Fortune—a solo artist who previously played in Wax Idols and White Lung—admits that though Book Your Own Fuckin' Life wasn't so much a part of her generation, she still found inspiration in its mission: "I grew up in rural Michigan—so for context the record store I went to in East Lansing called Flat, Black & Circular was like a 45-minute drive. I used to go there all the time as a teenager. One day there was an issue of Book Your Own Fuckin' Life from the 90s. It was massive. I started looking through it and remember being overwhelmed by how many options there were out there. Even if it was outdated, I was like, 'Oh wow, people really do this stuff. By themselves.'"

"I lived in the middle of nowhere. Actually nowhere. There was nothing to do other than hitch rides to shows two hours away in Detroit or sit on the internet," Fortune explains. "The idea had not yet occurred to me that I could create my own thing until I started seeing those zines and found out it was online. Then I was like, "Oh, that’s what you do. You create your own thing wherever you are, whatever you're doing, and that’s how you build a community.'"

So she booked a show 15 minutes from her house. It was 80s-themed and featured around eight bands. "I had drum-and-bass DJs, metalcore bands, emo bands. It was very ambitious." According to Fortune, it was also a wild success. Kids from her high school came because they were excited to have something to do nearby, and in the same way Laura Jane Grace was perfectly happy to travel to North Carolina to play five songs at the Pink House as one of seven bands on a bill, the bands Fortune booked through MySpace were no doubt equally stoked.

In 2019, the heyday of BYOFL feels far gone. Still, the systematic, almost patient approach with which it was compiled and utilized—whether that involved sifting through mailbags of unreadable postcard after unreadable postcard, or crushing your parents' long-distance bill by calling venue after venue in state after state—was nothing if not do-it-yourself. And that still matters to many.

"I definitely look back with rose-colored glasses at the charm of the pre-internet world and a lot of things that were so fun about discovery and personal connection that seemed to take that little bit of extra effort to make," says Ted Leo. "That world is probably not going to come around again. At the same time we still try to bring a lot of young bands out on tour. I talk to them and know what they’re like as people—and they don’t seem to lack something."

Similarly, Laura Jane Grace supported and embodied the spirit of the squats and punkhouses in her early Against Me! years, once noting in a song that the band’s "arenas are just basements and bookstores across an underground America."

"You'd just end up playing the most random places. Some kid’s house in Des Moines, Iowa. A room above a garage where teenage kids are literally throwing themselves through drywall. Everyone's out of their minds on something." she says. "And you’re like, 'How did we get here? Where are we going tomorrow?' You'd play your show, get to stay there, hang out, and drink malt liquor—then onto the next one. It was the best."

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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