Rawkstar.net

Posted by Ben on 16th May 2006 in Rant

Firstly, great thanks for everyone at Rawkstar to allow me back to write. I've been on somewhat of a religious mission working on online radio and so forth, but it's nice to be writing again.
(I'm a suck up at heart)
Anyhoo - my question is, what happened to all the great bands of the early 90's? I'm talking about bands like Luscious Jackson, Elastica, Sleeper, Juliana Hatfield, Buffalo Tom... I could go on and on and on. These were bands who dominated a time where the whole 'alternative' scene was cool, that it wasn't bogged down into the scheme of stereotypical genre placement (it all gets so confusing these days as well, especially trying to follow genre's of dance music), who got masses of time on MTV and other sources of music television, and were definitive "college" rock bands (there, I used one of the stereotypes I tried to stray away from". Only today I stuck on "Tree House" by Buffalo Tom and nearly shed a damn tear when next on my iPod came Razorlight. It's not that I hate Razorlight, it's just not the same - the contrasts between music and glamour.

I do, however, count my lucky stars bands like Mudhoney and Sonic Youth are still on the go. I jumped for joy when I heard The Pixies were reforming for a few 'nostalgic' shows. I jumped even more when rumours broke that Smashing Pumpkins might reform. Sadly though, some of these bands seem to have been caught up in the media hype machine. beloved Foo Fighters seems more preoccupied now raising political awareness and telling dick jokes than going back to their rugged, less-than-polished heavy routes (that's coming from a die hard Foo Fighters fan as well... so yeah, I am taken aback by it all), meanwhile Courtney Love is peddling her wares with Steve Coogan, allegedly, of all people.

Oh well, at least we've still Dinosaur Jr.

I'm off to wipe the tears from my eyes :P

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Posted by Andreas on 3rd May 2006 in Quickies

I'd just like to highlight some of the releases I am mostly looking forward to in the coming weeks/months, in the hopes that you, dear reader, will tell me which you are excited about and so we can all relish in the exchange of information. Anyway, here it goes!

- Asobi Seksu: Citrus. New York band that sounds like a swirling dream of wonderfulness. Album out a the end of this month, I do believe.
- This et Al: Sabbatical. We're quite fond of this lot over at rawkstar hq, and their next single and upcoming album should be immense.
- Bloc Party: whatever it is called. Are you excited? I am. Hopefully it'll be less punk-funk, and blog posts assure me this is the case.
- Mean+Flower: Untitled. The return of Europe's best unsigned poprock band?

Now, your turn!

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Posted by Andreas on 5th April 2006 in Random

Is a song by This Et Al. Furthermore, I absolutely love it. From the jarring chords to the sensitive chorus bit, it's all good. Ticking in at under 2 minutes "all you'll ever be..." is terribly short, but my, those 96 seconds are purest gold.

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Posted by Bob on 27th March 2006 in Funny

A hilarious video, watch and enjoy!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfcybanFKjU

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Posted by Bob on 21st March 2006 in Random

I ordered the new Placebo album 'Meds' the other week from HMVs website, at the time I thought £17.99 was a bit much for a CD with a bonus CD. But I ordered it anyway! It's one of my CD buying 'rules', if there is a special edition, I have to get it! This applies even if I'm not a massive fan of the band... Anyway, I'm still not convinced that it was worth £17.99. - Edit: I just found it on Amazon for a whole £7 cheaper! D'oh. Oh well, that'll teach me not to shop around!

Back to the album itself, the packaging looks like a book, the book part has mostly images with the song lyrics, CD/DVD content and the usual credits part in it. The first half of the book is promo pictures of the album artwork, which is basically an almost naked woman, the rest of it contains pictures from the recording of the album, random arty shots of walls and guitars etc.

I will try and get a review up of the music and DVD at some point, but here are a couple of pictures of the packaging taken with my cameraphone (so excuse the poor quality...). Click the thumbnails below to view.

Placebo .Meds (packaging 1)

Placebo .Meds (packaging 2)

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