A hiatus

It may have come to a lot of people's attention that our posting became a lot less frequent over the past month and then suddenly, it just stopped. We also realised this but have now all agreed that FIBLAR should go on a hiatus, until exams are over and all the stress has been cleared. Hopefully, we shall be returning in the summer with a new, improved, and better FIBLAR. It's been a fun six months, and we hope it continues. 

FIBLAR 

Is music too convenient?

What sparked this post is reading Steven Ansell (Blood Red Shoes) writing about how bands are under pressure from fans to 'spoon feed' their fans.

I'm going to starting with when people express disappointment about a band they like not coming to their town, and the band complain; fair enough you know you work pretty hard to bring your music to as many places as possible, but why not be just a bit flattered that fans want to experience your music live? We don't want you in our town because we want you too spoon feed us your music, we want you because live music has grown so popular now and it's great to hear a band you like in the flesh. Baring in mind train ticket prices are sickening; to travel 30 miles it's £20 for a one way ticket and takes like 2 hours. Then having to leave halfway through the headline set because you're train leaves in half an hour; it's not something that's appealing at all.

Also, I think I'm allowed to be a bit peed off if a band IS coming near me, but booked an 18+ venue. Like what is the reasoning? I know it's probably cheaper but everyone in there are students or middle aged people who're bored and just out in town looking for a cheap pint and something to do.

 I must admit I have expressed to bands that I'm disappointed they couldn't play near me or whatever, but I'm not being a lazy sod just because I'm a jobless 15 year old with little money.

The next point was about how it's so easy to just listen to music and discover new bands online. I was quite baffled to see how this is a bad thing. Literally everyone by now has a presence on the internet so it is a fantastic way to get known and share experiences and interests. 

I torrent most of my music and my excuse is I just do not have the money to buy every album I want to listen to on the go. However, if I do love an album, I will buy a physical copy. I still value CDs as I love the large album art, lyric sheets and pictures in the inside cover. The average price of a CD is about £10 from HMV, and that's irrelevant to how long the album is or how many tracks are on it. While I know the reasons for the pricing, I just can't justify spending all of my small income on one CD. 

What if we go out to buy an album and it's just plain shit? There's not a feeling like the feeling of 'I've wasted my money, now I have none left and I'm sad'. It's a huge disappointment and I'd be a bit pissed off. So on that note, thank god for online reviews.

As for not 'experiencing' and narrating the music anymore (instead, just reading a track-by-track review), that maybe just with you Steven. I know when I get an album I'll try and listen to it all the way through and experience it all. I barely ever read album reviews, and if I do, it'll be a quick summary and help me make up my mind on it.

So what if we can download music online and have albums delivered? That is a convenience, and it's certainly not a bad thing, Some people don't have the time or money for bus fare and any additional prices of buying it from their local CD store. So what if it's all there ready for us? Do bands honestly appreciate the people buying or listening? Is it truly the fans fault for this 'passive' musical experience?

It's completely your choice to put your album on iTunes, yes, you'd loose out on a bit of money and people may be questioning why it isn't on there, but if you were really that bothered about people easily listening to music online, then do something about it! No one is forcing anyone to 'please the fans', because all in all it's all down to the band or artist, and what they want to do with the music they've created. Yes, it's disappointing as hell if they don't play near to you or don't have an online download, but the fans don't control how the music is distributed.

No one's demanding tour videos and signed CDs, surely that's all done for fun and out of your own enjoyment? We could wait after a show for you to sign our album if we really wanted. I personally don't mind about signed albums; but I find it weird that it's not been signed with you there handing it to them. It seems to be defeating the excitement of someone signing your record because everyone who pre-orders one will have it signed anyway. It's not rare or that exciting if that happens.

I don't request bands to come to Liverpool because I have a sense of 'entitlement' and want everything so easy for me, I want them because it's just great to be at a gig, and have a such a good time that it stays with you for ages. And I'm sure I'm not alone on that.

Comparing everything to what it was like for our parents to grow up, it's great. You'd buy the NME every week to hear about the same bands and decide if you'd spend all your pocket money on some album that may or may not be as good as they described. While that may be a more 'authentic' way of discovering new music, it's just not as relevant anymore due to our advances in technology.

I know what he was trying to say throughout the article but it just seems a really sad way to look at it and I hope not all bands feel this crap towards people that're paying for their clothes and cigarettes. 

Sometimes I'm really aware about the internet's complications of music consumption, but then I cease to care because it's basically all I've ever known and I'm glad it does exist. I'm happy about being able to discover great music that I wouldn't have been able to do without the internet, and I think bands should be happy about people stumbling upon them and liking them; I know I would be.

(Original article here)

(By HOLLY)

St Vincent - St Vincent album review & St Vincent live @ O2 Academy Shepherds Bush 20/02/14 review

St Vincent - St Vincent album review

After collaborating with David Byrne in 2012 for the fantastic Love This Giant, Annie Clark is back with yet another innovative and original effort, spewing with strange lyrics and brilliant guitar riffs. The opener, ‘Rattlesnake’, straight away springs into life, Annie singing AH-AH-AH-AH-AH-OHHH-OHHH as she asks, ‘Am I the only one in the only world?’ before the first guitar riff rips in, a truly great start – she recently spoke about how she stripped naked and ran through the desert in Texas before encountering said ‘Rattlesnake’. ‘Birth in Reverse’, the first single off the album, starts off with ‘oh what an ordinary day, take out the garbage, masturbate’ in true to dystopian St Vincent style as well as ‘remember that time we went and snorted, that piece of the Berlin wall that you’d extorted’ from the almost choir-like backing of ‘Prince Johnny’. The guitar was set aside quite a lot on this album compared to 2011’s ‘Strange Mercy’, not spewing the quirky catchy riffs on there but instead showing off the excellent vocal range Clark possesses, none more evidently so on ‘I Prefer Your Love’. The song could easily pass for one of Lana Del Rey’s as Annie sings about preferring another’s love over that of Jesus’s – a play on the heaving Christian population of the US.

‘Digital Witness’ preaches the nature of constantly imaging one’s life and posting it on social media – ‘what’s the point of even sleeping if I can’t even show it’ she sings mocking the Instagram-obsessed modern generation and the need to show everything that we do. ‘Bring Me Your Loves’ uses lots of drumming and the repeating ‘Bring me your loves all your loves, your loves I wanna’ love them too you know’ to create one of the more catchy songs on the album on a somewhat disappointing second half of the album. Closing song ‘Severed Crossed Fingers’ is somewhat a dull & anticlimactic end to the album, with none of the final four or five songs having the witty lyrics like the first half, instead focusing on much heavier guitar.

St Vincent is definitely not St Vincent’s best album, but definitely second – she yet again shows the music world what a talent she is. She is definitely underrated and not well known about but is starting to become more and more popular as she collaborates with more popular artists such as The National, Kid Cudi and of course David Byrne. Maybe she lacks a catchy anthem that a wider range of people album will know, but there’s no denying that this is another solid, creative and original effort from St Vincent, full of typically-weird lyrics and exceptional guitar playing.       8/10

St Vincent live @ O2 Academy Shepherds Bush 20/02/14 Review

With St Vincent’s new album out on the 24^th, I went off to see her at the O2 Academy Shepherds Bush with high hopes – I’d already listened to the album a few times although still hadn’t listened to her second album, but heard she was good live and that she crowdsurfed (my friend touched her butt on the last tour). After arriving and a 45 minute wait with a pint, on came the support act, Glass Animals. Their songs sounded like a mix between Coldplay’s new couple of songs and Alt-J, a little stripped back and a bit trance/electronic. They were decent I would say, better than other support acts I’ve seen, but their songs seemed to all be on the same tempo without reaching any high points and it was fairly forgettable.

Just after 9 on came St Vincent and her backing band, with Annie doing a little small dance in the opening synth notes of new album opener, ‘Rattlesnake’. Clearly influenced by David Byrne on the tour of their collaboration album, she has learnt a lot from his eccentric and sometimes strange moves and talking inbetween songs. Annie’s hair was puffed up and white like a female version of Isaac Newton and her heels as per usual made her scutter around the stage in small steps, but after opening with ‘Rattlesnake’ & ‘Digital Witness’ from the new album she burst into fan favourite ‘Cruel’ from her previous album, it’s catchy guitar riff and chorus (‘CrueeEEEeEEEeeEeEEl’) being hummed and sung across the venue. She then went onto play more new stuff from the album after, including ‘Birth In Reverse’, ‘Regret’ & ‘I Prefer Your Love’, but with the album not out yet a very still crowd stood and watched as she sung her way through it but with little interaction with the crowd, albeit from comparing herself to the crowd, telling us how we both had once attempted to ‘use a bedsheet as hot air balloon’ – I can confirm that as a child I did not do such a thing.

Throughout the set she continued playing some of her greatest hits, the likes of ‘Surgeon’ & ‘Cheerleader’ from ‘Strange Mercy’ and ‘Laughing with a Mouth Full of Blood’ & Marrow from ‘Actor’ (although she didn’t play my favourite song ‘Now, Now’) and the crowd started to get more & more louder but never too much and the atmosphere was very disappointing. She ended before the encore with Record Store Day release ‘Krokodil’, a song about the cheap but very damaging drug ravaging Eastern Europe – this normally comes with a St Vincent crowd surf but she just ran about the stage disappointingly, but did accept a rose thrown at her.

She finished with an encore of ‘The Bed’ and ‘Your Lips are Red’ but I couldn’t help thinking that she lacks stage presence without David Byrne – she had little interaction with the crowd and it didn’t help that the album hadn’t been released yet with it only being a mini pre-album tour, but even with her more better-known songs the crowd were static. Her guitar playing was as per usual it a brilliant level, the notes crunching through the speakers and the backing band were excellent too, but there was definitely something missing.      7/10

Toy @ EVAC (28/2/14)

The night started with a 99p cheeseburger, a Smarties McFlurry and a ticket for TOY.
Entering East Village Arts Center and climbing up the stairs, I wondered why they'd put this gig in the little room normally where bands that have no or one album to their name play. I could hear the first support act playing as I ascended, and prayed it wasn't one of those shitty local supports whose set would seem to drag on most of the night.

On first look of the band, I recognized them right away from a Deap Vally gig last year. I loved them but I had no idea what they were called till last night. I was disappointed to catch only half their set because they're honestly one of the best local bands I've seen live. The bassist looks a lot like good old Jim Morrison, and they've said one of their influences are The Doors. Sankofa are a psychedlic band, a bit shoegazey. I know them and bands like them, are on the rise in Liverpool.

The second support band were The Proper Ornaments, these have been on the road with Toy for this tour. The lead singer reminded me of Noel Fielding. Whilst the back story to the band is quite interesting, their music however, is nothing you haven't heard before. Not at all bad, just nothing new here. Their melodic pop songs are okay and they were tight live.

Toy were on at 10, and when they came on stage I didn't know what to expect about their stage presence, they took me as quite a dark looking band They came on to Conductor (the first song off their new album), picked up their instruments and got straight into it. The lead, Tom Dougall, had the presence of Harrison Koisser and Pete Doherty combined. He stayed in the shadows until it was his turn to step up to the microphone and tunefully moan out the lyrics.
Some of their songs were lengthened and there were repeated changes to the time signature. The whole room was vibrating with the pure noise being produced onstage. The air felt thick and heavy, fog and flashing lights added to the head crushing instrumentals.
It felt like a really long set because one of the contributing factors has to be the clash of instruments and it all coming together, sounding so great you feel like you need to sit down and catch a breath.
Motoring was probably my favourite song. They had such energy without having to jump around and dance; the head banging and swaying was enough. The fact that they seemed into it, made the crowd follow suit.
Echoing psychedelic/shoegaze is definitely one to witness, and TOY do it fantastically. If you get the chance, I'd take it up.

(By HOLLY)