Four years have blown by and DiS would like to thank everyone for reading, writing, posting, sharing and being involved. Without you folks there is no point to what we do. And what we do (if it wasn’t clear) is all that we can for the music we love. Yeah, our resources are limited, our ideals often flawed but four years ago no-one was doing what we were bloody-mindedly doing.
So in four years we’ve evolved and like cats’n’window-panes, we’ve learnt our lessons. We accept we’re far from perfect. There’s still so much more we could be doing, but things are starting to develop at the moment. We’ve got an office for starters and the editorship of the site has been passed over to Gareth Dobson. Now, 30,000 or so folks log into DiS every month and we’re racking up an impressive over 2million page impressions a month too, because of this, we’re starting see some opportunities wander our way to do more and expand. But that’s just boring stuff because DiS can continue to run on good will forever more. But the key thing for our fifth year will be to have a serious faultless set-up so that every email gets a reply, that our profiles are extensive and up-to-date, that our listings become definitive, recommendations flawless, user area easier to use, that our news is the most on-it music news source on the web and that our abilities to find, champion and introduce new music to the world are unrivalled. We also want to become more visual with more photos and vids. Have even more downloads. Turn our ratings/recommendations system into phase two. And so much more…
The main changes you’ll be seeing over the next few months is DiS being much less UK-centric (and a billion times less London-centric!) and tackling the WORLDWIDE web in the way it can only truly be approached. We not only want to cover the global music scene, but allow music fans around the world to unite. International music scenes are so similar yet so varied and we believe that the internet should be liberating opinionated fans, bands, collectives, promoters, everyone who’s trying to do their bit for the music they love, from all around the globe!
Having said all that, please use the comments board below to leave any of your problems, questions and suggestions for the site.
We’re celebrating four years of Drowned in Sound in the best way possible, with a party and some shows from some of the finest new bands in the country throughout the month of October (formerly known as Rocktober, but we had too many complaints!). Apologies for the London-centricity of this, but it is where a lotta our crew live…
THURS 7th October
@ 93 Feet East
Drowned in Sound & 93Live Present…
Brave New Ideas #8 :: Favourites of In the City 2004
Doors 7:30pm
Tickets: £5 or mail 3poundguestlist@drownedinsound.com
Sofa Club : Londoners, like Turin Brakes writing tunes with Radiohead. thesofaclub.com
Komakino : Derby lads as seen on tour with Hope of the States, rock it like Cooper Temple Clause spazzing out with Idlewild.
komakino.da.ru
The Research : Two girls, one boy, and a decrepit Casio keyboard.from Wakefield. Nods to Hank Williams, Rick Astley, and Fonda500. turtleloverecords.com
FRIDAY 8th October
@ The Marquee, No.1 Leicester Sq
Drowned in Sound & Plum Promotions Present…
DiS 4th Anniversary: Free Party, Marquee Launch Week
Doors: 7:30pm
SPECIAL GUESTS : To be announced on DrownedinSound.com on October 7th.
DO ME BAD THINGS : Quite possibly the most exciting new band in the country right now. They formed on St. Valentines Day 2003. There’s a stage-filling nine members, with eight possible vocalists. Their list of influences is longer than their rehearsal attendance sheet, mixing Queens Of The Stone Age with Rufus Wainwright, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion with Jellyfish, Steely Dan with Monster Magnet, Turbonegro with Randy Newman... ok, you get the point. They release new single 'Time For Deliverance' through Must Destroy Music/Atlantic Records on October 25. This is the band's second single, following up their dis single of the week debut, 'This Song Rides'.
domewebthings.com / mustdestroymusic.com
DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! : So hot right now band from Southampton! We said "Think of a more likeable Coral fused with Joy Division" and Logo said "True music.. dark, beautiful, melodic harmonies... hard to define... an aura of refreshing style... they'll soon be shuffling into the fast lane. How can they not?". Big things beckon…?
deaddeaddead.co.uk
PEACE BURIAL AT SEA : Gordies, like spiritual Stateside cousins …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead or Slint, Peace Burial At Sea exist on the periphery – of sound, of society, of the imagination. The ghost of cocaine Bowie lingers in their paranoid post-cyber punk, art-dub debut opus ’This Is Such A Quiet Town’ (out now on Captains of Industry), as do Spaceman 3, The Aphex Twin, PiL, Mogwai. The overall effect is like 2001: A Space Odyssey as scored by Ian Curtis, or maybe a post-hardcore ‘Ziggy Stardust’ or…or…or…
peaceburialatsea.co.uk / captainsof.com.
+ DJS: Indie Alumni Special Guests, Pryhha Girls, Drowned in Sound +More!
Plus we're partying through 'til the end of the month (apologies again that these are all in London), including:
Tues 12th Oct @ The Garage: thisGIRL + The Blueprint + Engerica + Days of Worth.
Tues 12th Oct @ White Heat, Infinity: Murder of Rosa Luxemburg + Redjetson + Birds of Paradise
Tues 19th Oct @ Water Rats: DiS Djs @ Whyte Seeds single launch + Dustins Bar Mitzvah + Vincent Vincent & The Villians
Now, all we've gotta do is get sponsored by Jack Daniels and it'll be a near perfect/cheaper year.
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
You should have had someone better to help you celebrate it though!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
x
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
If I could cook I would make you a cake.
But I can't - it would turn out stodgy and be only good for throwing at Ducks.
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Im thinking the only bands which would come to your party are really bad bands with no hope of getting big or even reaching any audience. If you were a web site worth your salt would'nt you get bands that are part of new music but are going to create hype and get big? Could'nt you get a 'duke spirit' or '22-20's', or even a shit band like 'the others'? No, because these bands have better things to do then play around some guy's house for a bunch of no-bodies.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Having said that Do Me Bad Things will be one of the most exciting pop bands of next year... Dead! Dead! Dead! are one of the best new bands in the country and Peace Burial at Sea have made one of the unsung albums of the year. And who knows, maybe our headliner will surprise a few folks...
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Who are you?
Why do you come here?
Can't you go someplace else?
You keep on embarrassing yourself. Please, for your own sake, stop it.
M
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Oh no wait... you wouldn't want to do that cos you obviously don't have anything better to do than sit around being negative do you? What a waste of time!
I don't like everything on DiS but there is sufficient of interest for me here to keep me reading, and anything I don't care about I ignore, because I'm getting a load of interesting news, reviews, tips etc for free. Maybe you could try growing up a bit, and (dare I say it) getting a life?
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
http://www.iblamethecannabis.com/~hopeofthestates/Komakinoxxxx/Komakino%20-%20RedstarUFO.mp3
http://www.iblamethecannabis.com/~hopeofthestates/Komakinoxxxx/Komakino-%20Initial%20AB.mp3
http://www.iblamethecannabis.com/~hopeofthestates/Komakinoxxxx/assassin.mp3
http://www.iblamethecannabis.com/~hopeofthestates/Komakinoxxxx/Komakino%20-%20Sick%20To%20Death%20Disco.mp3
love r xx
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
You're doing a great job, and the site is getting better all the time. Thank you :)
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
"The main changes you’ll be seeing over the next few months is DiS being much less UK-centric"
Don't overly like the sound of that, i'd much prefer the site to push british music than some guy playing the bongos from india or something... please elaborate...
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
hugs and kisses from bexy
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
What a negative wanker.
I saw Do Me Bad Things a little while ago and they were certainly interesting.
Surely the whole point of this site is to help and promote bands via gigs, reviews etc and that is it.
Some tosser slagging the whole thing off just makes me angry.
Particularly as DiS have got my bands music to some useful corners of the earth.
Happy Birthday anyway!
x
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Yes i do read NME i also read Q, Word and the American rolling stone magazine because I like MUSIC. Why slag them off they are just trying to do what your trying to do and that is give new music a voice. You lot just concentrate so much on slagging them off you've forgotten to actually put some talent into your reviews. If any of these magazines did a party for themselves we would actually see some goods bands and not Dead!dead!dead! who i can see down my local. If you actually learnt from NME and other magazines maybe you be better and not have to rely on little plebs like Mike Diver to write reviews for you
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
We don't all slag Q, Word or Rolling Stone (who voted us website of the year not too long ago so we must be doing something right!) and such a generalisation of everybody on this site is just plain wrong.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Heh.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Seriously why don't you sod off, nobody cares what you think.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
You only have to look at some the hostility towards DiS this year to see how far you've come.
All the developments for next year sound great. But I'd be a bit cautious about the worldwide thing, although i admire the vision. How could you get the same level of depth you do now, without diluting the new british stuff (which is what DiS is based on)? Or if you mean taking more notice of bigger bands in other countries (i think that's a great idea) then to what extent will you cover them, and how different will that be different to how things are now?
So far as the people reading and posting here goes: I think you're doing well with the international thing already. A fair few americans and at least one very likeable aussie.
Anyway, thats enough of me waffling...
Many happy returns, and keep up the good work.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Surely some of the hostility is related to the fact that it's owner/founder's reputation precedes it? When i worked for this place, i would say at gigs I worked for them, and the inevitable response would be, "Oh, that sean, he's a arrogant ****" and no one would like him.
Treat people nice when coming up...and they won't treat you like shit when you fall. I've my own site now anyhow, thank god.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
You're not bitter, are you?
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
The past couple of weeks the reviewers have shown themselves as a joke slagging off any band that nme have backed (like babyshambles), who knows if the pricks like Mike diver and his friends had backed pete, babyshambles could be playing alongside some of his mates (Razorlight, the others etc) at this gig. Instead we get bands that i have seen in the shittest little pubs and who are unworldly bad. The first time i saw biffy everyone knew there was genuine talent there these bands sadly have nothing.
I apologise for generalisations, if people who think they are clever and come here to make pops at other people are the actual reviewers (mike diver) then it gives the web site and the people on it a bad name. On a further note, If Biffy did get big because of you then why would they not do a gig for such an 'apparently" important DiS event, even though they are big? If NME had made them they would no doubt do there birthday bash without a second thought?
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
No there isn't, thats why the libertines are loved and idolised so much
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
This is what you had to say about the Libs record:
"5 good songs at most on the album, what became of the likely lads is really emotional, petes voice is still pretty good on it. Bottom line this album proves that, despite nme bumming them, the libertines are not the answer to rockin roll"
Are you some kind of schitzo? I often hear people say that you either love The Libertines, or you hate them. This is surely the first time someone's done both.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
That is one of the funniest posts I've read for a long time - do you realise that you summed yourself up beautifully by contradicting yourself in one line?
Or were you trying to be funny? If so, it was pretty funny.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Biffy were (are) an amazingly talented band who various reviewers picked up on very early in their career and in 2003 the band played an intimate gig at the Brixton Windmill for DiS and it was packed out.
And again, I repeat my initial point... the birthday gig is about showcasing new breaking talent that we believe in. Why would we put on the same band week in, week out? That would be defeatist. You look at the gigs DiS has put on across the UK in the past in Manchester, Colchester, Southampton, Cambridge, London and Cardiff to name just a few and you will see that we try and put on the best gigs we can without trying to overkill any one band.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
you seem to have gotten your knickers into a real twist because of one bad babyshambles review. DiS does not write off any band backed by the mainstream music press, it would be pointless to start listing the bands that are generally supported by NME and DiS but fuckit, i'm going to do a few anyway: interpol, razorlight, kaiser chiefs, bloc party, franz ferdinand, radio 4, the cribs, rufus wainwright, kasabian (oh no, forget that one!)...
take it easy though, there's no need to write such vitriolic rubbish about the wonderful people that work for DiS, it's all very cowardly squaring up to strangers on an internet message board.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
you may like to know that we have infact invited Babyshambles to tour (but he's in scotchland!) and Biffy Clyro too, but they're playing Reading that night.
we'd love if bands could cancel their tours to play our show for free, but that just isn't the case.
brodie man, if you'd like to put up £1000 donation to book some nme-approved indie-allumni which Sadie Frost would barge her way in to see, please send your cheque to our Norfolk-in-Chance address which can be found on the back of a phonebox ad to book pete doherty to play a living room near you...
so intense, so riled, yet why? have you even heard Do Me Bad Things, they're one of the most exceptional, exciting bands in the UK today. Hence just signing a massive deal to Atlantic/East West, and getting to support The Darkness @ Wembley Stadium in December. we made their debut single a single of the week and the NME liked them too. Shock horror. The world of music does exist outside of the tabloids.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Need i say anymore about the shitness of this band?
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
I hate to join the somewhat heated debate a day late, but the guy who slagged off the DiS nights is fucking clueless.
He talks about bands you see in your local, and the venues being shit. These gigs are at 93 Feet East, a 450 Capacity venue, and Marquee, a 1200 capacity venue. The 22-20s just thier album launch at the prestigious Buffalo Bar- a massive 150 capacity- not even full!
The Sofa Club might not be in the press like The Others, but that's because they don't pull publicity stunts like gigs on tubes. They just did In The City and got the best reviews from A+R- in fact turning down a deal already since then that The afformentioned bands dream of.
Wake up nob head, it's songs that count, not column inches.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
"DiS does not write off any band backed by the mainstream music press, it would be pointless to start listing the bands that are generally supported by NME and DiS but fuckit, i'm going to do a few anyway: interpol, razorlight, kaiser chiefs, bloc party, franz ferdinand, radio 4, the cribs, rufus wainwright, kasabian (oh no, forget that one!)... "
It seems you would only be happy if we booked Libertines or Babyshambles to play - or maybe fly The Killers in from LA or Jet/Kings Of Leon/Vines in from whatever middleclassh backwater they come from.
We put Bloc Party on 4 times last year. 4 times. Including our Xmas party. We put on Razorlight last March @ the Dublin Castle. What's your point? That we should have newer bands, or buzzier bands (considering 10 a&r turned up in Southampton to catch Dead! Dead! Dead! lastnight you're somewhat outta touch). Then there's the fact Komakino have just toured with Hope of the States and Bloc Party, and guess what, the NME like them too! Shock horror, good music liked by both publications. You're just blindedly digging yourself deeper and deeper trenches around yourself.
Whatever, the gigs sold out now (and has been for a week) so you dont have to worry about coming anyway Brodieman.
Re: DiS Celebrates Four Years: Come Party!
Kindly piss off.