Bring Me The Horizon.

“I swear, if you have ANY taste in music and you like these washed down cock-slides, you fail TOTALLY at life. First off, Oli Sykes needs to be impaled. Just because your music video has a clear drum set, doesn’t change the fact that your music BLOWS MORE DICK than a 24 hour marathon of gay porn. Can these guys write one song without a breakdown? No. Can these guys write decent riffs? No. Can these guys get a good vocalist for once? No. Because this ENTIRE band sucks. Not ONE good thing about them. Everything sucks. Disagree and your dead to me.

THIS BAND SUCKS.

I’m keeping this short because they are totally talentless”.

The above literary gem can be found on the NYC based music website Skull N Bones. The author, quite evidently is a troubled soul, possibly with learning difficulties and in possession of a latent homosexuality that he has yet to embrace, I bet you would like to impale Mr Sykes, nudge nudge, in your end o, wink wink. The sexual orientation of Chris (I’m assuming the snarly one in the picture) is relevant to my first point only to highlight the reason so many…lets say…traditional metal fans have a problem with BMTH. You see these boys from Rotherham don’t look like a metal band and the fans that turn up to their gigs in the main don’t either, so the uniform is all wrong and that means they must all be gay and not metal at all right? So the music must be without merit right? Well no actually and with the fear of being “dead” to young Chris I have to disagree completely. If he can just open up his tiny little blinkered mind a little he might appreciate that they represent a new but equally justified part of the wider metal fraternity where many sub genres should but unfortunately rarely coexist happily together. They have talent and humour and despite the skinny jeans and plimsolls, crushingly heavy riffs. They are not afraid to experiment, being open to other musical styles (dubstep remixes etc) and if Chris and his ilk were as well (open minded that is) the metal scene might not be so fractured and fragmented as it is at the moment.

Our angry friend finishes his article by stating that BMTH are “talentless” and this brings me on to my second point. Music critics and metal reviewers in particular are dancing on thin ice as soon as they start tapping away on the keyboard, who are these people anyway, are they retired musicians with a wealth of knowledge and experience or are they authors that have a string of best selling novels to their name?. No it would be closer to suggest that the average music reviewer is about the lowest of the low artistically speaking, not being able to play, sing or write well enough to do anything other than comment on other peoples efforts, therefore if this grubby profession is to have any standing within the music community at all the output should be of the highest order. How can Skull N Bones allow a piece like that to be published at all, either there are no standards applied or, and I think this is closer to the truth, the target audience are the same retarded souls that leave obscene comments below most Youtube videos. Surely music which is the highest art form of them all should have a literary movement that at least attempts to aim as high as possible in its chosen craft, and that means the writing should try to be good regardless of the quality of music being discussed. Catering for the lowest common denominator was a phenomenon of the previous decade. Music sites and blogs are everywhere now but the trick for the next ten years will be to match the quality of the writing to the wonderfully diverse music that is it`s subject. This will free up more time for Chris and allow him to concentrate on his own natural talent, that of dribbling.

Words: Ped Shayer

http://www.skullsnbones.com/

http://www.myspace.com/bmth

A monotone delivery announced the fact that Alexander McQueen had died. A dispassionate tone across the radio waves causing a sudden intake of incredulous breath.  Not for the first time sad news presented itself, speaking of a public figure`s untimely demise, before it had been John Peel  and Ian Dury, personalities that had found their way into my affections, becoming dependable friends with constant voices . I had not met either man, their characters filtered through wireless and vinyl but the pain was no less keenly felt for that.

 I knew Alexander McQueen. The first time I met him was at a fabric trade exhibition, it was the last day meaning a waste of time for the companies showing their wares. The semi deserted aisles only occupied by students or so called designers whose first question to the sceptical sales reps was always ”what is your minimum order?” so consigning their swatch order to the bin as soon as the budding Vivienne Westwood had stepped away from the stand. It was in that light that I viewed the pleading request from a young man standing in front of me, “ please can I have a look at your fabric collection, no one will show me anything”.  I was bored and so I reluctantly agreed to show him fine worsted fabrics that had been produced in the dark satanic mills of the north. He asked unusual questions, unusual as they were intelligent and showed a knowledge of textile construction and content that was way beyond the grasp of most St Martin`s students. He asked challenging questions too and his enthusiasm quickly took hold of me as I pondered whether it would be possible to weave his name through the fabric, not at the selvedge which would be perfectly feasible but straight up the centre as his request required.  One for the lab tech boys back at t` mill to consider, but consider they would as this unassuming man had made a profound impression on me.  So began an association that lasted a few seasons (before he was swept up into a different stratosphere) in which period it became abundantly clear to me that I was selling fabric to a man with an extraordinary talent. 

The last time I visited his Hoxton Square Studios it was noticeable how the parasites had taken up residence, the same types that now describe him in columns inches and media quotes as the “enfant terrible of British fashion” were back then buzzing and fussing around a naked stick women being draped in his work for a photo shoot. Ignorance abounds to this day, voices from fashion colleges and magazines talking in cliché to avoid having to display their lack of knowledge about mundane but vitally important things like yarn counts, fabric compositions, pattern cutting etc but that`s the thing, Alexander McQueen was educated in the craft of making garments, he had been trained to recognise the importance of the quality of each component and he knew the techniques needed to put each element together correctly. He was neither extravagant in his design or his nature but he knew his trade and whilst the acquired coterie busied themselves with meaningless tasks it was evident that he was thinking about the next garment oblivious to the maddening noise around him.  

Liberty of Regent Street is the perfect setting for his collections. Walking across the creaking floor timbers of this beautiful building, passing by the brashness of Anglomania and the technicality of Yamamoto you feel that this is the one department store that understands and appreciates the combination of tradition with originality, the buildings listed frame holding within it inspirations expertly executed. Rising above all the superb collections on show are the clothes of Alexander McQueen, tailored for the female form in exquisite fabrics, the simple beauty of these pieces show him to be a master of his profession. Before his death I had become jaundiced with the superficiality of a business that trades reputations for a percentage point on a profit margin, but on reflection people like Alexander McQueen are beacons for others to follow and in my own way that is what I intend to do, holding onto the ideals that are woven into all of his work. At 40 years old it is likely that his best work was still to come and within those un-sewn  garments would have been confirmation that he was this country`s greatest ever fashion designer.