Week Commencing: 30/5/06
By: Toby L, Thomas Hannan
Firstly, sorry.
Secondly, apologies.
Thirdly... forgive us.
We'd love to utter that rockfeedback has been as active online of late as Prescott has after-hours (or even during hours, if certain 'saucy never-before-published' diaries be believed), but it'd be a lie. We left you. For over a month. No word, no letter - just us buggering off and leaving you in the dark without an explanation. It's like the wild and fiery and twisted lover that you always wanted to help and nurture, and having them deserting you - just when you thought they needed you most.
Well, we still need you. Please don't abandon us, the same way we did you.
We're back, and we're going to keep the flow up. It'll be slightly intermittent at first, but will then slowly return to a gradual normality and, beyond that even, you may well find the pace picking up tenfold.
Y'see, since starting rockfeedback.com over five years ago (yes, it's six years in September), many things have happened. Music, somehow, became more important and massive than it's ever been. Mere mortals have formed bands and musical outfits which have soon gone on to become disconcertingly / bafflingly / deservedly huge in what seems just minutes, inadvertently paving the way for a whole raft of talent that's changed the face of the universe, forever.
Coupled with Downloading and the Internet going from being curse words, to buzz words - record-label/media honchos buying Blackberries at a rate of knots in a bid to 'stay with it' - and we're in very exemplary times.
Much of this incredible talent has been unveiled for a first time via rockfeedback in recent history, and we exist to advise you, and support wonderful artists, unbiased, unrelentingly, and supportively. It's about constructivism over slagging, nurture over panning.
Transgressive Records, an offshoot by two of us from the team, has been indicative of the furore. We're been scoring top-40 hits and thousands of album sales from artists we'd have been writing about, if not releasing; one such act - Regina Spektor - is someone we first brought to your attention via this site in 2003. She's since sold out the 2,000-capacity Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, won over the national press and counts Will Young as a fan. And we were lucky enough to put out her last LP, 'Mary Ann Meets The Grave Diggers & Other Short Stories'.
See? It's crazy at the moment. And that's why we've been errant. We've been trying to keep up with ourselves. But suffice to say, our Basement Club will continue for you and us, back in May, line-up details TBA. (The last two episodes have been our best yet - Field Music, Absentee, Dirty Pretty Things, GoodBooks are amongst the best new bands this country has to offer - and they all played for us. Reviews freshly posted - have a gawp).
We'll be back more frequently from now on in. Promise.
Check our documentary-epic 'rockfeedback tv' on Channel 4 this weekend (Sat June 3rd, late night, '4 Music' Zone) - the debut episodes that we aired last summer on MTV2 Europe... Featuring The Shins, Sonic Youth, Dizzee Rascal, Turbonegro, Steve Albini, Fiery Furnaces, and many, many, many more, interviewed and live... To be repeated again later this summer, with a full series to come on both MTV and Channel 4. (The last show went out over the weekend and got a mighty few hundred thousand of you watching, thank you, sandwiched between 'Big Brother' coverage and 'The Album Chart Show': not a bad place to be.)
F**king awesome.
P.S. Kudos to the new editor boy - Tom Hannan is a Godsend... Love him, and email him words of joy.