...[things that make you go AAAAAAARRRRRGGHHHtwat]...

i write for an online music magazine. it's quite a well-known one, pretty good reputation, very well thought of, high standard of writing, etc etc. and very committed writers. there are people on there who submit like 50 articles a month. since i've been there (a good few months) i've submitted 6 articles. eek. and now the editor wants to smarten up the operation a bit. people who don't come up with the goods soon are gonna lose their staff access. i'm in trubble.


but right now there's bloody nothing to write about!!! i whizz through music magazines and nothing inspires me; i see all these articles about all these bands, and i think "how could you be bothered to write that about them? they're so... BORING!" and then it occurs to me - this is what these people get paid for. they're writers, they get paid to write. so write they do. because they have to pay the rent and they have to get the week's food in. and if i want to become a music journalist (as i really really do), is this what i will have to do? produce the goods about bands i don't care about?


i know. i'm a lazy person. i'm a terrible, slothlike, sleep-a-holic waste of creative space. BUT I CAN'T BE BOTHERED!!! every article I've written, i've written because i needed to write it, it was hammering on the walls of my head demanding to be inflicted upon the musically-concerned general public. and there's nothing grabbing me right now, nothing. right now there are two bands that move me. one is my favourite band, my vitriol. i've seen them 15 times. are you honestly expecting me to produce a review for each gig? come on. even the most experimental, defiant band's gigs aren't going to differ THAT much. i *suppose* i could write a review of their recent gig with the manics. but really, it would just end up being like every other my vitriol review i've written - i'd wax lyrical about the "swirling, ethereal clouds of guitar-song" and the "thudding, emotional brilliance of 'ode to the red queen'", and then i'd criticise the unresponsive crowd, and i'd hail my vitriol as one of the best bands to come out of britain in recent years. just like i did in the last 3 reviews i wrote about them.


the other band is the cooper temple clause. another lot to feature on my [bands] page. they're very good. they're more than very good. i've reviewed them twice, to very favourable and positive effect. and their performance, while great, hasn't changed since those last two reviews - not a criticism, because the last two reviews weren't that long ago - just an observation. and i'm not going to review them again until their performance adds something new into the mix, because until then, reviewing them is just pointless ass-kissing.


And that's it. those are the two bands that are REALLY inspiring me at the moment. there are dozens of others i like, but none of them lately have made me think "oh! god! i've gotta put that down on paper, i've gotta find a way of expressing how brilliant that is!!" and on the flipside of the coin, nothing i've heard recently has made me want to kill anyone - anything that did, i've already reviewed [hello stereomoronics]. so now what do i do???


maybe i should review the gig i went to tonight. not got a lot to say about the first band, they made no impression, but they weren't listed on the advertisements for the show anyway, so i won't get yelled at for missing them out. second band - well i suppose i've got a bit to say about them, yeah, i could construct a review. third band - sweet fuck, they were fucking awful - words can't convey how bad they - ooh! yes they can! i can tell everyone JUST how criminally shit they were, and explain exactly why. that just leaves the headline band - ohhhh shit. nope, my mind's a blank. got nothing to say about them whatsoever. think, gen, THINK. hmm. well. they were alright. cheerful enough. certainly seemed to enjoy what they were doing. i guess they're a pretty good band, i enjoyed them last time i saw them. but they didn't really awaken any sort of reaction in me tonight - they were alright. just alright. ARGH! that's not a review!! i can't submit that as a review!! and i can't miss them out, because a] last time i missed out a headline band from a review [again, from sheer apathy] i got berated and b] the headline band this time are probably the only band on the lineup that most of the readers will have heard of. i'm screwed.


do you see my problem?


argh.


wow. do you see what i did? DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID???????? i wrote something!! i managed to conjure up an entire article from my inability to conjure up an article!!!!!


dude, i could SO be a music hack!!!! :)

*afterthought* [shall i submit this to my editor? he wanted more articles from me... shall i stick this in the lifestyle page? hmm. no. probably better not. he'd probably fire me for being cheeky. back to square one then.]

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