Sun 17th:
I slept in this morning, I was meant to get up at 8 to fix the van, I got up at 11.  Quick shower and I got on with the van.  I took the passenger side dash to pieces and found the problem.  Somehow the motor for the wipers had broken itself of its mount, me and Johno tried for an hour to remove a screw so we could see if it was fixable.  We couldn’t do it, it was so tight, I was covered in oil, cut my thumb open, pissed off.  However, now we could see the wiper mechanism so if rain came we could move it from inside, instead of having pieces of string out the van.
We got to Zittau and it was weird, we are back over east right on the czech border, the tour routing hasn’t been the best.  No one was around at all, ghost town.
There was a crazy ginger cat in the car park while we were waiting for the promoter, it jumped on the bonnet showing it’s teeth at us.  I was looking for the cat when the promoter knocked on the window and scared the shit out of me.

The venue is amazing, I think they all live here, all awesome dudes, it’s been open since ’93. The first thing they do is give us beers, we load in, run soundcheck then get taken to town at table football by the guys who work there, I cannot believe you can be that good, it is amazing and they say they aint even good players!  The food was again, amazing.
The gig went well, not great attendance but we sold the most merch of the tour!
Oli’s voice was struggling though, hope he is ok.
We drank into the morning and played table football, well got beat at table football.

Mon 18th:
Best thing about this morning was we got breakfast, worst thing was the load out, it’s always shit loading in the morning.
We set off to Berlin just after noon.  Yesterday was an uneventful day, however we had been on the road for just half an hour when we stopped for fuel.  Johno started fueling, shouting about how cheap it was, this was because it wasn’t fucking diesel, but Heizol.  Major fuck up!  Tempers flared a little bit.  Tom and Johno went inside to talk to the lady and explain the situation, she said it would be ok and that it was just like generator diesel.  So we topped up the rest of the tank with proper diesel and we carried on to Berlin.  I sat in the van in a little bit of disbelief at how fucked up and ridiculous the tour had been, surely it couldn’t get worse.
Surprisingly the van got us to Berlin, we had a little walk and grabbed some food, big mistake.  Right after soundcheck we all get rounded up and taken to the restaurant next door where we get fed a massive tofu red curry, it was amazing.  We couldn’t finish it though due to getting food earlier, so Johno took one for the team and ate a bit off everyones plate.
The show was good, we played with Fights And Fires from the UK so it was good to see them, best sound of the tour too.  We played fucking great, we don’t get much better than what we played that night, which was a relief, we hadn’t really played good this tour and I was a bit pissed off at myself.  I was walking through the venue when some guy stopped me to ask if I remembered him, at first I didn’t recognise him because he had glasses on, but it was Roland who drove the New Bruises around Europe.  He is a fucking legend at it was great to see him again, it was a good suprise.  Again, more booze!
Some people had to stay in the van, the rest of us stopped at Joe who run Fond Of Life Records house, showering was good.

Tues 19th:
Me and Johno were still on the wiper fixing mission.  We got up at 9 and set off on a 1.5km walk to a car shop we had seen the previous night.  What we was looking for is Rain-Ex, it’s basically liquid Teflon that you polish on your windscreen.  We get to the shop, ask the guys behind the counter and they point us to another building.  Both of us were hoping they had some, it had forecast rain for the next 4 days!  We walked in and jackpot, so happy.  Not believing our luck we head back and apply the Rain-Ex.
So after a quick Netto stop we headed to Bamberg.  It started to rain as we left Berlin, now was the test for good old Rain-Ex.  It worked a treat, walking into the shop and finding that stuff was one of the best feelings I had on tour, it was like a weight had been lifted off us.
We got through the rain, to Bamberg fine.  Getting the van to the venue was a little harder due to roadworks, I jumped out to sort shit at the venue, the rest turned the van round, it took about 40mins.  When we arrive we have sandwiches and some beers, soundcheck then dinner.  I cannot get over how well we were looked after at all the shows.

There was only about 25 people in the venue, which, held 500!  So I went to the bar and got 25 shots of Jager and took them to the stage with me.  Oli’s channel pedal broke just as we went on,  to rub it in he had ordered a spare for tour 2 weeks beforehand, but it never turned up.  We blasted the first 3 songs out then gave out the shots, I think we instantly made 25 friends.  Everyone had a great time, Oli did a great job with making do with just 1 channel, plus his throat was still fucked and getting worse.  Tom Rob fucked his finger, it didn’t look good, it looked dislocated.
After the gig we drank with the staff, listened to Leatherface and talked about all the awesome British DIY bands, they fucking loved Southport.  We all crashed back in the band flat, more beer was drank, so much for an early night!

Weds 20th:
Everybody was rough as this morning, plus we had to load out.  I got up at 8am, quick shower then went to the van to rebuild the dash board and put some good old Rain-Ex on the windscreen, it was banging it down.
The load out was hard work, the venue was red hot, we were rushing too as we were already late and the drive to Holland was 7 and a bit hours, the promoter gave us a hand, legend.  Gear was in, everyone piled in and the dash to the border was on, could we avoid the German police for one more day.
It was raining real heavy, we had to stop to put the polish on the windscreen again, we hit every bit of traffic at every city we passed in Germany.  Finally we crossed the boarder and cracked a beer.
We got to Cafe Lokaal late, fast load in, again an amazing meal, this time cooked by Jamie Arteries lookalike.
Jort the promoter, who plays in Sweet Empire, really looked after us, good attendance and everyone was into it, good night and the same routine of beer drinking began again, only this time with strong Dutch ales!

Thurs 21st:
We were gonna go to Amsterdam for the day that morning but the drive yesterday took it out of everyone a little bit.  Danny fell ill last night so we thought it was best to rest up and have a day chillin at Jort’s sweet house.

We got moving about 4, the drive should of taken about 1 and half hours, it took 3 due to sat nav fuck up and traffic.  When we arrived at Cafe Alloys we got beers, some great noodles and watched the PSV Eindhoven game.

The place was packed out, we played pretty good, don’t think everyone was into it though.  After the gig we sat at the bar, drank free booze and got wasted and rowdy.
We stayed at a squat just down the road.  This squat was a massive office building which Phillips used to own, it was massive, we stayed in one of the old offices.  The dude who let us stay showed us his room, it was like a city centre apartment and he was paying about 100 euro a month for it, including bills.  It had heating, electricity, very clean shower and toilet, in fact the best shower of the tour, just all round amazing.

Fri 22nd:
We spent most of this day walking around Eindhoven, really nice place.  The highlight was finding a Feebo.  A Feebo is basically a vending machine of hot shitty snacks, that has people behind it cooking more shitty snacks.  You can grab a hot sausage in bread crumb, a mushroom dog, or even hot noodles wrapped in breadcrumbs, I went for the hot brown stew like substance wrapped in bread crumbs.
We went back to the van and watched a film before heading to Geel in Belgium.  The van was parked behind the venue still and when we came to move it we was informed that we were blocked in by some bollards, luckily some dude had a key and let us out.

The night previous, Dan stopped in the van, however, he needed a shit.  So he made a toilet in the van by removing one of the seat tops and attaching a carrier bag, great idea but now we were carrying a bag of poo along with us, nice and smelly.  The thing was, there wasn’t any need for the DIY toilet to even have been made, because in the night someone had managed to place a porta loo, in the tightest gap ever, between the van and a wall, no fucking idea how they managed it.

I really enjoyed Holland, especially Eindhoven, but it was time to roll out to Geel in Belgium.
Once we got to Geel the usual process of loading, eating, playing was once again undertaken.  Not really got much to say about this night apart from it was the worst sound of the tour, it was fucking shocking, something was buzzing so loud.  So afterwards we got shitfaced and danced before driving around 40mins to where we stayed.

Sat 23rd:
The placed we stayed the previous night was a flat on the side of a shop, we had to leave by 11 though and the drive we had was only about an hour.  We decided to drive down the road to Lueven to kill some time.  Tom, Oli, Johno and Matt went for a walk into town, I stayed back at the van with Des and Danny to catch up with sleep.  By the time they came back I couldn’t feel my feet, so cold.
We got to the venue, JK Zomaar, in Itterbeek, all The Daylights boys had been there twice before, they said its ace, it looked ace so I was really looking forward to the show, I was hoping it would sound good after the previous two days.  We got there a few hours ealier so the only thing to do was, drink beer, for free.

We were all freezing in the van so we got out to go in and keep warm, we walked in and the boys behind the bar told us the heating was broke, as if, on  the wettest day of tour, the wipers brake, now on the coldest day of tour, no heating in the venue, we were staying there too.

For the previous 2 days I had been bitching about the sound, especially my bass.  I got set up soon as we loaded so I could figure out what was wrong, after a bit of tinkering and swearing I found a a pickup not to be working.  I gave it a hit and luckily it started working and everything sounded sweet again, stoked.  Just a bit pissed the previous 2 nights shows had suffered due to this.
Just before we went on my bass packs in again, the last 3 days have been nothing but hassle regarding gear for me.  The show was great, everyone went nuts, it just takes a bit of fun out of it when shit starts to break, but I suppose that’s all part of the fun and they’ll be many more nights when shit goes wrong no doubt.
We spent the night drinking Duvell, which is 8.5%, everyone was wasted, my last memory was dropping a cheeseburger on my jeans.

Sun 24th:
Everyone was super rough thanks to the magic of Duvell.  Load out sucked as fif the journey yo Calais.  We spent the whole trip home talking about the events of the tour.
I was glad to be going home but could easily have done longer, I think once you know it’s over you just get it in your head and you wanna be home soon as possible.
It’s is gonna be weird being back in work and not seeing everyone everyday.  In general I think we all got on real well, it can easily turn difficult when you are all tired, hungry, hungover and are constantly in each others space.

Massive thanks to everyone who made it possible for us to do this, everyone who came out, put us, fed us, and housed us and of course thank you to The Living Daylights for looking after us, good good times and good dudes.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Sat 9th:
The van is absolutely fucking rammed with gear, 7am start, everyone was in high spirits.  Unfortunately we have had 2 days cancel on us so we’re going to chill in Paris on the 10th and 11th now instead if we don’t hook anything up.  Downtown Le Harve is pretty nice, the weather is sweet as too.  Everyone drives like a mentalist though, had someone bounce their car off the side of the van, no one gives a fuck!
Tonight’s show was with The Rude Boys, real young, nice as fuck dudes, old school, no nonsense punk rock.  We had free stella, whiskey, home made mojito and Bertraund the promoter made a cake for Tom Rob’s birthday, the Rude Boys got everyone to sing him happy birthday, legends.
The show was red hot, we were wasted but it was a great time, we crashed back at the promoters, oli stood in dogshit, vast amounts of beer was drunk and cocktails were made!

Sun 10th:
Feeling surprisingly ok today.  We have had 2 days cancel so we are setting off to Paris today to chill and drink some red!
So we got to Paris and the squat, when I say squat I mean full on squat, 10 crust punks live there with their 30 dogs! Me and Tom Rob had to run from some dogs earlier cause they are so protective, they were gonna fucking bite us.
It was real scary when we got there too, one of the squatters had lost a dog and he was going mental, punching walls and slamming shit about, shouting in French.  At first we didn’t know what was wrong so we wasn’t sure if he was angry with us.  They didn’t really speak English very well, Des from The Living Daylights asked for a lighter and got given a condom.  We did get fed however and had a banquet of Benji’s famous fries.  You make famous fries by getting some chips, frying them till there is no potato left in them, in oil which resembles engine oil.  To serve, you throw them all onto something that looks like a toilet seat.
However after the little incident, they made us feel super welcome, they had strong lager, a screen printing shop, dark room for photographs, venue, bar and chips!  It was filthy though and there was dogshit on the floor, Johno didn’t believe this so he went and kicked it to confirm.  This may make me sound like a snob but a hotel would be nice.
We had a jam later in the night, played homemade guitars with 1 string and the more we drank the more the language barrier collapsed. LSD was being offered around, however the night was fucked up enough without mind bending drugs!

Mon 11th:
Today we went into Paris on the train, we didn’t really do much, I made some major purchasing errors regarding food.  The worst salami ever and then I got ripped off for a hamburger, Johno bought some peanut crisps which looked (and tasted) like ground bait.

So we went to sit on the grass at the Eiffel Tower and chilled, some gypsy girl asked for some of the peanut crisps, so Johno, being the gent he is, offered, she tried to steal the bag.  After fending off crisp stealing gypsies there was a fucking huge explosion, everyone stood up, quiet looking around wondering what it was, when we got back underneath the tower there was a few policemen and solders around, don’t know what it was though.
I wasn’t in the best frame of mind today and I think I drove everyone a little bit crazy, I have just been a bit worried about the van and our gear back at the squat.  Tonight I’m sleeping in the van bunk,  I just want a little bit of peace and quiet and I don’t really wanna get eaten by one of the dogs.
Being on tour always takes me a few days to get into the swing of things, its a whole array of emotions, one hour you’re on a massive high, the next you can be on a downer.  Not playing for 2 days hasn’t helped one bit.

Tuesday 12th:
This morning was a 6.30am start.  But before we could go, Matt, Danny, Johno, Tom and Oli had to make the perilous dash from squat to van, dodging dogshit and trying not to wake the dogs up.  Danny stole a shirt from the squat, the dirty bastard, Johno got a Rubiks Cube!  Everyone got in the van safely.

Round 2 involved getting out of the squat compound, we had the code for the gate, it was pitch black, Matt, Danny and Tom Rob went to get it open, no fucking way was I getting out the van and getting savaged, could they do it, could they fuck, it was well sketchy.  Luckily one of the squat girls came and opened it for us, everyone piled in door shut, everyone had a big look of releif on their faces.
So, we were on our way to Geneva, 8 hours drive and the first hour and half consisted of getting out of Paris.  Paris traffic is bullshit, everyone drives crazy, Johno did a great job though, I’d of been loosing my mind.
There was a general strike in France today, everyone is so pissed off so they are trying to make a change, I don’t think anything like that could happen in England, everyone seems so wrapped up in their own little worlds to give a fuck about the bigger picture.  Anyway, we got stuck at a roundabout for about half an hour where a group of people are picketing outside a supermarket.  When we got upto the roundabout we see tyres burning, police, people everywhere, they see the GB plates on the van and they all cheer, blow whistles and clap us through and on our way.  The drive through the mountains to Geneva was stunning, however we got stopped by 3 policemen at a roundabout about 60km from Geneva.  They had a quick search of us and the van, it was ok though once they knew we had nothing and they sent us on our way.
We got to Geneva at 5.30pm, still on schedule despite the hold ups, it took till half 6 to go about 10 miles because of the traffic, making us late.
Finally we got to Tiki’s, it was worth the wait, good burgers, beersand flaming shots.

The gig was pretty quiet, the Mad Caddies were in town on their final tour so it hammered our attendance, we sold loads of merch though.  The owner got us a night in a squat, now when I say squat, it is nothing like paris, this place has a bar downstairs and our room is amazing, everything is really clean. Some dudes from Norway came to our room in the squat and they gave everyone potato vodka, however, we had to kill the party because we were getting told off about the noise.

Wed 13th:
Geneva to Freiburg, thankfully today was uneventful, just the usual, loading, driving, waiting.  We got to Freiburg around 6pm, it’s a very nice place.  The venue is amazing, they were telling us about all the great bands who have passed through on tour, Bouncing Souls, Lagwagon, No Use For A Name, they are real good to us.  They load in our gear with us, feed us an amazing meal and give us loads of booze.
The bar upstairs if fucking rammed, however it is freshers week here and they are all on a pub crawl and leave before we play.  We play to pretty much no one, which is always hard work, I didn’t play very well either!  We played with Blank Dogs from Brooklyn, NY, they are indie electro dance shit, not really my cup of tea but they are all good dudes.  Their synth player spends most of the night talking about his old band and how they used to play loads with The Ergs, Lemuria and playing The Fest, he is a really good guy and we have lots in common.
We have a nice room for the night and we take all the rider with us to drink, the drink of choice is the local lager Frieburger.  Everyone gets shitfaced, playing drinking games into the early hours.

Thurs 14th:
Long day in the van, it took 7 hours to get to Chemnitz, it’s right on the Czech border, it’s bloody freezing.  The venue seems pretty cool, looks a pretty sketchy area though.
Tonight went well, plenty of people, everyone gave us fuel donations to help us on our way.  The bar staff were legends, we ate well, got booze and garlic vodka, it honestly did taste better than it sounds. However, despite a lot of people being into it we sell no merch.  We did befriend the local drunk though.

The place we stayed was cool, many a band has passed through there by the looks, took us ages to get in due to “all night” Johnson not knowing how to use a fucking key.  Tom and Johno went back to the bar to drink more booze, they managed to lock themselves out of where we are staying so I have to get up at 4.50am to let them in.

Fri 15th:
Thankfully we are getting away from ridiculous drives now, today took around 4 hours.  Munich is by far the most impressive place we have been by far, I hope we all get up early enough tomorrow to walk around.
The venue is like a social space (clean squat).  We arrive early today and one of the girls who works there arrives just after us, luckily she speaks great English and is very friendly, the rest of the boys went for a walk while I relaxed in the van.
I was telling the girl that we don’t want to be stopped by the German police due to what happened with The Living Daylights last year.  (They were stopped and searched for 3 hours, threatend to have their ipods and laptop taken, plus one of them was taken to the hospital to have a blood test!).  She told me the German police aint very nice, if they see you walking around with patches, badges etc on your clothes they will just assume you have drugs, she said she gets stopped around twice a month, no wonder everywhere in Germany there is ACAB spray painted.

The nights drink of choice is Lagerbier Hell, good name!  Again we drink and eat very very well.
The gig goes great, its pretty busy, our friend Lukas from Austria drives 300km to see us, what a fucking legend!
The Living Daylights are on fire and kill it, we play pretty well, Oli has tour flu and his loosing his voice, bad times.
We get our arse kicked at table football by everyone, I didn’t realise you could be that good, they are fucking amazing, you have to see it to believe it.
We drank the hell lager into the night, a girl who was travelling back from Tel Aviv stayed the night with us.

Sat 16th:
We woke up feeling rough!  We thought we had finally got away from all the ridiculousness but the girl that had stayed with us last night had pissed all over one of the sofas!
The load out was shit, the drive today was longer than we thought, the girl wanted a lift to the train station but we had to tell her no because we were late, felt a little bit bad.
The ridiculous just continued, it was bucketing it down with rain today, the worst thing thing that could of happened, happened, the bloody wipers on the van stopped working.  We stopped on the side of the motorway, I jumped out, got the bonnet up but couldn’t get to where the wiper mechanism was.  The motor was working, we could hear it, but they just wouldn’t work.  We all started to worry about the police turning up and giving us a hard time, we didn’t know what the fuck to do, then I had a brainwave.  We took the curtain rope off the van curtain, burnt it in half, tied a piece on the end of each wiper blade, threaded the rope through the drivers and passenger windows.  Then Matt and Oli pulled it from side to side, basically rowing the wipers while Dan drove, they sat and did this all the way to Erfurt, fucking ridiculous, everybody was worried about being stopped by the police.
So finally we roll into Erfurt, what a place, it’s like the German equivalent of York, so beautiful.  The promoter, Marcus is a fucking dude, he comes to meet us and jumps in our van.  He pisses himself laughing at our wiper system, he takes loads of pictures and films it in action.

Again the hospitality is over the top, we had our own flat, which was clean and warm, plus we have a shower, finally!
The gig attendance was ok, we played ok, still not managed to be on top form yet.
We stayed up drinking till about 4.30pm, it got a little bit messy

Continued…

DbR will be hosting a Summer party this year featuring Cheap Spirits and the return of the glorious BUNNY!! It’s been many years since Bunny took to the stage in Doncaster as they’ve been split up! Such id the power of the DbR party that we’ve dragged them from their retirement chairs and back into action…

Venue and price details to follow shortly… Keep em peeled…

Cheap Spirits myspace page
Bunny Myspace

Summer is well upon us – what has South Yorkshire got to offer this year? Well, Sheffield has Tramlines – (see lineup here) and Doncaster has Doncaster Live…

Although this event attracts scoffs from so-called ‘serious’ musicians who can all run it better, keep people better informed and attract better bands etc etc, they aren’t doing it are they? The fact that Doncaster Alive has attracted some of the biggest names outside of the enormoplex circuit over the years is testament to what can be achieved…

Doncaster Live has seen The Wedding Present, Magic Numbers, The Levellers over recent years with support from some respected local bands too… No line-up details for this year yet but we will keep you posted.

This year’s event takes place on 4th-5th September
Visit the official site: www.doncasterlive.co.uk

Cusworth music festival

Cusworth Hall & Country Park will host a new music event in 2010… bring on Cusworth Music Festival

This first, of what the organisers plan to be an annual addition to the calendar of open air summer festivals, will feature live music from a wide range of acts, and also promises to benefit local cancer patients with all profits donated to the Doncaster based Aurora Centre. Although not the usual DbR fodder this great cause makes this festival worthy of a BIG mention…

Acts performing on the day range from 70′s glam rock legends The Sweet to local rising stars The Wallbirds alongside seasoned pros like Stafford Galli and UV pop

Cusworth Country park is no stranger to live music and provides the ideal arena for this new music festival, and with day tickets at only £10…

Click here for more information and to buy tickets for Cusworth Festival tickets

We’ve been discussing this on the forum since December began but we’d love your opinions too.

The DbR Awards will take place in the New Year with the best Doncaster band having a full feature and a mystery prize! HOW EXCITING!?

RIGHT… a very easy system this year… Just pop your answers in the boxes and hit “Submit answers”… Enjoy! Fill your email in if you’d like to be notified when the awards are due to be announced. VOTE BELOW!

VOTE HERE!

All answers are optional – fill as many / few as you like…

Two BNP Candidates gained seats in the European Parliament in June on the back of low voter turn-out. This doesn’t represent a surge in support, they actually got less votes than in the last Euro-elections in 2004. What it does mean though, is that they now have greatly increased funding to step up their campaign in the run up to the council elections in May 2010.

But they ARE beatable. There is widespread anger and disgust from the vast majority of UK residents who totally reject the BNP’s thinly veiled bigotry and extremism; If we can turn this energy into action, we can show that the BNP do not represent Britain.

May is a long way off, but if we carry on building now, we can only get stronger:

www.hopenothate.org.uk

Sign the ‘Not In My Name’ petition and check the list of local groups to see how you can get involved to keep the BNP out of your area.

Anyone is welcome to add gigs to the calendar but you do need login details – If you need the details, just email us at mp3@destroybeforereading.com and I’ll mail them over, no problem. Alternatively, head over to the forum and make yourself known… (If I leave it open it will surely be vandalised… now I like a bit of free expression but… well.. you know)

Be sure you head over to the forum… Don’t be shy!

Q1. Devin, the subject of your new documentary is a very emotive one for a lot of people and particularly for those of an age that can remember a time before people held their entire collection of music on a hand held device. What inspired you to make this film and what kind of reaction are you receiving to it so far?

I guess my biggest inspiration for Firewall of Sound is just my love of music as a whole. I feel that, for the last fifteen years or so, the music industry has undergone this massive transition, and every aspect, from buying to selling, recording to listening, all of that has been changed. I ultimately want my documentary to act as a sort of snapshot of the independent music scene, to show what it has accomplished, what its current state is, and where it’s destined to go. So far, the reaction from people who I’ve told about the project and who’ve seen the trailer on YouTube has been very positive. I’ve been amazed at the number of people wanting to be interviewed for the film. Everyone wants to weigh in on this topic, and everyone has a different opinion on what the future will hold.

Q2. I have always been a massive admirer of the US underground scene which I believe to be unique to anywhere else on the planet in terms of local and national networking, self sustainability and freedom away from the influence of big business, do you think that if the decline of the independent store continues it will have a negative impact upon the local and national scenes?

As more and more record stores shut their doors, we will soon say goodbye to one of the most cherished retreats of the music lover. I fear it won’t be long before they build a replica of a record store at the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, to show future generations how people used to buy their music, before the advent of iTunes and Myspace. But while that may seem like a negative attitude, I do feel like a lot has been gained. Local bands can now find a much wider audience than ever before. At the same time, fans can seek out an unprecedented amount of music on the web, and frankly, the weirder and more eclectic, the better. Whether its Belgian Satanic freak-folk or Japanese bikini-clad trombone players (both real; the latter played SXSW), I am constantly amazed at the wealth of bands I have found on the Internet, bands I would never have discovered otherwise. So while I am upset at what we are losing to the “digital revolution,” I am hopeful for the future of music.

Q3. I agree that it is now easier to seek out bands than ever before, Music is available on demand via your laptop, cell phone and also through your tv at anytime anywhere, but do you not think that the quicker and more accessible(perhaps even disposable?) music becomes to purchase that it is in danger of being devalued as an art form in the eyes of the consumer?

I totally agree with that statement. As more and more music is made available to the consumer, it has become harder and harder to keep the attention of the public on any one band or album. Even in indie circles, there have been many “next big thing” bands that have turned out less-than-stellar results. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve downloaded a song off a music blog, only to have it collect virtual dust at the bottom of my iTunes library. And while I do think music’s been slowly losing its value as an art form ever since groups of teen heartthrobs got together to pop-and-lock and lip sync in unison, it’s up to the consumer to search out the bands and the songs that he or she finds merit with. Before you chuck that MP3 file in the trash, give it a couple more listens. Revisit albums you haven’t taken off the shelf in a long time. Don’t feel obligated to speed through all of Pitchfork’s Top 100 Albums of the Year. Music only loses its artistic value if we choose to treat it as something less than art.

Q4. What kind of release are you planning for the film and will you be doing the rounds of film festivals around the US and possibly in Europe?

My hope is to premiere the film at the Cucalorus Film Festival in my hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina. From there, I would run the festival circuit here in the U.S., focusing mostly on documentary or music-based fests (SXSW, Full Frame, etc.) I can’t really go into any detail, mainly because I’m still focused on just finishing the film, which I hope to do before the end of 2009. The official website for Firewall of Sound (firewallofsound.com) will have any updates regarding the production and, ultimately, screenings of the film, so keep your eyes peeled.

www.firewallofsound.com

Andy Maddison

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Steve Albini

“Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit.I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed.”

Steve Albini is revered throughout the punk rock world as the antithesis to the corporate, money hungry record ‘industry’… Some think his views are skewed and tainted by his own previous bad experiences, but when it comes down to it, Albini has spent more time than most picking up the pieces of bands left by Major Labels.

The opening quote is taken from Albini’s “The Problem with Music”, originally published in Maximum Rock’n'Roll Magazine and is his humorous but enlightening view of the Major Label industry. It’s a few years old now so doesn’t carry the same resonance in todays climate of MySpace self promotion, but still carries some very valid points. You have been warned!

Here’s the full article: The Problem with Music

Below is the video interview that the post title was taken from – DIY or DIE!