"The taste-makers" and Arctic Monkeys

[LadyDay]

American Apathy

Surely that just adds to their credibilty?

[hulahoops]

I'm going to see them here in Philadelphia next weekend, more out of curiousity about how they do and how they're received here than anything else.   Should be interesting.

[23 Daves]

To be honest, I'm surprised enough Americans are interested enough in "mardy cows", northern accents and such to get the record as far as number 24.

The Jam never did as well as that Stateside, did they?  I don't consider it much of a failure at all.

[hulahoops]

To be honest, I'm surprised enough Americans are interested enough in "mardy cows", northern accents and such to get the record as far as number 24.

The Jam never did as well as that Stateside, did they?  I don't consider it much of a failure at all.

I was really surprised at the speed with which the AM gig here sold out.  They upgraded it to a bigger venue and then it sold out again.  I'm curious to see how many people actually seem to know their music and how many are just there because of the hype.  

Loads of great British bands have never managed to break America, and the ones that do are usually mediocre to crap.  I saw tons of teenagers heading in the direction of the Tower Theater to see James Blunt last night.  We have horrible taste.

[Steve Thompson Dance Mix]

Fuck.

I know a lot of US shows feature British bands to fuck though. I've heard Ian Brown, Faithless, Depeche Mode...(no Cunt, yet thankfully)

[4 arses]

American Apathy

Surely that just adds to their credibilty?

It can be spun either way though, if they fail in America suddenly they become too English (for English read Articulate/ intelligent/ not fake) for the Americans to cope with and therefore more loved over here. If they conquer America then they come back as the unstoppable conquering heroes and as big as the Beatles. Immediate history is written by the journalists.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Bump.

Anyone read this in The Guardian last week?:

I suspect some Arctic Monkey business

Julian Henry
Monday April 24, 2006
The Guardian

I've always had a soft spot for conspiracy theories. In our business, where it is often hard to tell fact from fiction, you need to be able to listen to wild-eyed lunatics as they rant and rave, if only to give yourself enough time to pick up a large object and batter them to the floor before they turn violent. These conspiracy theorists tend to think that everything they read in the tabloids is a PR scam. I have sometimes been accused of arranging an S Club 7 drugs bust that took the band on to the front page of the Sun (Spliff Club 7) and bought them a moment of unlikely rock'n'roll credibility. So it's a disappointment when I reveal that this was not a contrived attempt to generate publicity, but simply a case of three of the boys in the band getting caught with their trousers down by PC Plod.

Thinking about scams, it is interesting to consider the wild acclaim being showered upon the Arctic Monkeys, who release their new EP today, by media folk who are usually rigorous in their analysis of anything that might smell slightly fishy. There are a couple of things that make me scratch my head about this band, and these relate not to their music or the cut of their trousers but to the PR that has followed their swift rise to fame.

The first is the urban myth that has developed around their relationship with myspace.com, the US networking website that was set up a few years ago for sex-obsessed US students to post "dude where's my car" type gibberish on their bulletin boards. Legend has it that the site is somehow responsible not only for breaking the Arctic Monkeys but is also the force behind the upheavals taking place in the music industry. This all sounds logical. But if you quiz music journalists and fans of the band on the chronology of its development you quickly discover that they had built up a large and vibrant following amongst spotty northern teenagers some time before their music found its way on to myspace. Their trick was to ignore the usual paranoia many new bands feel about copyright and theft of original material and to give away their songs to their fans, firstly on free CDs at gigs, and secondly on any swap or file sharing website that would have them.

After a couple of No 1 records I can't help but feel that the poor Arctic Monkeys are being used to make myspace owner Rupert Murdoch lots more money by boosting the value of his brand. Perhaps I am being churlish and hypocritical in pointing this out. Our PR company has, after all, promoted several reality TV shows, and has encouraged millions of people to pick up their phones and vote for people like Michelle McManus. But at least a show like Pop Idol is honest in its presentation. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is.

There are many other points that perplex me about this band. Why isn't Alex Turner listed as their songwriter on their CD? Is it because other people are involved? How come their words remind us all of Dan Treacy and the TV Personalities? And while we're at it, why is it OK for them to endorse American corporate giant Procter & Gamble (sponsor of the NME Awards with their Shockwaves brand), and Rupert Murdoch's myspace, while refusing to play live on poor old Top Of The Pops as a matter of principle?

It makes me wonder then if the Arctic Monkeys are, in fact, an elaborate scam, cooked up by the great media brains of our time, as a means of getting young people to divert their income and their attention towards online music portals and youth brands that are supposed to be cool and underground.

I somehow doubt that the big UK labels are capable of coming up with this kind of devious plot when they are still plainly grappling with more mundane challenges, eg how to stage a half decent TV Awards show once a year without boring everyone to death. But I like the idea that the Arctic Monkeys might be an artificial creation, dreamt up perhaps by a creative outlaw - Laurence Bell of Domino Records for example - who is hell-bent on sabotaging the big labels by buggering up their model for selling music. And as we all spend more and more time being sucked into cyberspace on our computers, I suspect that this kind of hard-to-believe but technically feasible scam may be closer to reality than many sceptics might care to admit.

· Julian Henry is a director of Henry's House PR consultancy. Julian@henryshouse.com

Well, it generated a reply from some NME bod today...although annoyingly, I can't find the letter on the website. He says Arctic Monkeys are definitely 4REAL, and he should know because he's been on tour with them. I didn't like his tone, anyway.

If anyone can find it, please paste it in. I threw out my paper copy.

[The Duck Man]

From Digital Spy:

Arctic Monkeys star Alex Turner was turned away from a trendy bar in his hometown recently.

The singer was unhappy when a doorman at The Cavendish Bar in Sheffield did not recognise him and accused him of being underage.

"Alex is one of the most famous people in pop but he and drummer Matt Helders had to queue," an onlooker told The People. "When they got to the front, the bouncer grabbed Alex and said, 'How old are you, mate?' He told them he was 20 but the bouncer said, 'I don't believe you - you got any ID?'

"Alex said, 'I don't need ID. I'm Alex Turner. I'm the lead singer of the Arctic Monkeys.' The bouncer said, 'I don't give a toss, you don't look 18 and you need ID.' Alex eventually moved on but he wasn't happy."

Assistant manager Jim Bethell explained, "We are strict on everyone when it comes to ID."

If true, it contradicts their "I don't want to be famous" schtick a bit.

[johnfuego]

He got lucky. The Cavendish is awful

[jeffjeff]

I concur. Small article in the student paper this week about it being one of the four worst pubs in Sheffield.

[Peking O]

Backlash ahoy!

[The Arctic Monkeys] give the impression of a band moping around the music industry looking like this is the last thing in the world they want to be doing.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2306167,00.html

Bad News fans might be interested to know that one of The Horrors goes by the name of Spider Webb.

[rudi]

I know it shouldn't matter, but

Rotter, otherwise known as Faris Badwan, is a product of Rugby School. The son of a neuro surgeon, Badwan, 19, hopes to complete his degree course at Central St Martins College of Art and Design, if stardom does not interfere.

playing to

"14-year-old chav kids in Hallowe'en make-up".

?

And

"They look awful and sound terrible — but so did the Sex Pistols," enthused Conor McNicholas, the Editor of NME

clearly knows his stuff.

Hmmm...

[Peking O]

Aye. Can't believe this needs stating but the Sex Pistols looked and sounded amazing. I quite like the Horrors, in a cartoon Birthday Party kinda way. Although use of the words "Sheena is a..." in a song title shouldn't be allowed unless you're the Ramones.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

If true, it contradicts their "I don't want to be famous" schtick a bit.

It's painful to admit but I think I'd probably try the old "Do you know who I am?" under those circumstances. I'd obviously never be stupid enough to go out aged 20 without an ID because everyone who looks under 21 is supposed to be ID'd nowadays.

[23 Daves]

God, if the NME really wanted to champion something modern, ugly and unlistenable, it could have tried harder than this lot...  they cover "Crawdaddy Simone" for fuck's sake!  In your face, daddio!  This is OUR music, I'll bet YOU don't get it!

Bands from Southend playing the Esplanade and making silly garage punky noises and wearing a lot of make-up have been around since I were a nipper and growing up there.  Bands such as Upyrkypr, Snogbeast and Hangdog were just regarded as pub diversions, silly ways to while away an evening.  Yes, glasses got thrown.  Yes, speaker stacks got rocked and sometimes nearly collapsed.  Yes, violent stagediving ensued.  This I admit.  But nobody stuck them on the cover of the NME.  In fact, nobody even gave them space in the local regional music mags, and nobody expected anyone to - isn't this just some sort of joke the rest of the UK isn't getting?

Some people are calling it Shoreditch-on-sea now, aren't they?  Christ save us.  It really is time to leave the UK if the music press think my dull-as-ditchwater hometown is actually "cool".  It's the fucking literal last resort, and that's all.

[Peking O]

The Horrors are great though. Their songs are catchy, they've clearly got a sense of humour about the whole thing, and they're actually making an effort to look like pop stars. I bet Upyrkypr haven't got songs as catchy as "Jack the Ripper."

[23 Daves]

The Horrors are great though. Their songs are catchy, they've clearly got a sense of humour about the whole thing, and they're actually making an effort to look like pop stars. I bet Upyrkypr haven't got songs as catchy as "Jack the Ripper."

No, but they did have a song called "Cheese or Porn?" throughout which a waiter would patrol the audience with offerings of cheddar cheese or pornographic magazines on silver platters.  I'll bet they can't top that.

[Steve Thompson Dance Mix]

Re. The Horrors, I hadn't heard of them till I saw some blokes who looked like Russel Brand staring out at me from the cover of NME. And then I thought, 'oh, just more samey predicatable NME hype.' Then I heard them. Naturally the hype wasn't justified but so little that NME champion these days is.

Neverthless, to be fair, from their perspective they do have a tinge of fun and novelty about them, but this isn't exactley the point. Supergrass are/were a band that had tongue in cheek moments, they were fun, zany at times, but they are fucking serious about what they do, and, although not 100% comparable, are hundreds of leagues higher than the likes of The Horrors, and I wouldn't even consider myself a fan of Supergrass.

Beyond this, I just find the Horrors boring and a bit pointless.  

(Fuck I have just seen one big fuck off spider inches away on the carpet, and there's no fucking cup or anything to trap the bastard before it goes outside)

[Part Chimp]

are fucking serious about what they do

That's the exact reason why I'll always always always love a band like the Horrors over Super-fucking-Grass.

[Steve Thompson Dance Mix]

Good for you.

(I put the spider out by the way)