Hardcore Mel

what time are the ghoulies on? i have a birthday party to go to, so no one mind if i show up dressed as paul stanley.

maybe it was. i was quite young at the time but i remember it being awesome!

best ever vma performance was lynrd skynard performing sweet home alabama with the moscow military choir. closely followed by the smashing pumpkins one from like 1996 or something.

i really liked the stuff they did for the film High Art, particularly the song during the credits. beautiful stuff.

bought it today. c'est magnifique! the vocal harmonies are perfection.

Le Reno Amps (album is fucking excellent.) AKA the Fox are great too. really entertaining and a bit different.

fair enough. i guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

exactly! just like if during the making of the 'one' video the rest of the band may have gotten pissy if kirk hammett showed up in a houndstooth suit and a fez. now there's a thought. i hope milner reads this and finally understands what i've been trying to say all along.

once again, you're not reading what i'm saying. his image wasn't why he was huge but more people these days will think of what he looked like first and his songs second. the visuals is what people remember.

no i don't. i go for a combination of the music and the image. it doesn't have to be a costume, like justin hawkins wears, but fuck it, bands need to look fucking rock. there's not enough of that left anymore. it's just lucky for me that the bands i do like make that effort. it's not the reason i like them, but r n r bands still see image as important and i'm glad of that.

i must have only seen you those three times then. metallica didn't necessarily dress up, but they certainly had an image, especially in the 80s. and that's my argument.

bullshit. even the beatles had an image. jerry lee lewis had an image. elvis had a number of images. doesn't mean they didn't have the music too, but they're the ones from those eras who we remember. and once again, i'm not saying bands should wear what's in fashion, but they should make an effort.

ah you kids are just too young to remember devo. they did that song, 'whip it.' dr evil parodies it with 'zip it, zip it good.' but that was just an example of a band that got somewhere because they looked stupid, despite not being very good. but i never said i wanted bands to look stupid. i just want them to make an effort to stand out from every other bloke in jeans and a t-shirt. if i go see a show i want to be visually as well as aurally stimulated. it's important. i think you're just arguing for arguments sake now.

no i'm talking about devo, the band, not devin townsend, prime example of a not great band who achieved longevity most likely through stupid outfits. and i'm not saying that generally bands need to wear stupid outfits. they need to look good though, like they have made an effort before going onstage, rather than just throwing on jeans and a t-shirt. i don't dislike bands who don't do that, but i also don't consider them rockstars. but the music i listen to tends to involve people who make that effort, like the backyard babies and motley crue.

hey look at devo.

yes, but the lost prophets are about as hardcore as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. but you referred to them as fashioncore. and just cos it has a 'core' suffix doesn't mean it has to be hardcore. it could be grindcore, munkycore or post-good shit-core. and we're not all fashion victims ben. you can follow fashion and not be a victim of it, or you can, like ryan and myself, take inspiration from fashion and push your own swing to it with the help of a sewing machine and plenty of fake fur.

i agree with ryan (but i have to since we decided to move to paris and make haute couture out of plastic vegetables on strings.) the memorable musicians with the most staying power are the ones who have an image that ingrains itsself into your mind. from the many looks of elvis, to madonna's chameleon ways, image is as important to longevity as the music is. it gives the hardcore obsessives a means of 'connecting' with a band, like with all the glam rock manics fans in their smeared lipstick and leopard print coats, or the gwennabes of the mid 90's (of which i was one) in sequinned bra straps and bhindis. man, KISS aren't the greatest band in the world but they've had a career spanning almost 5 decades because everyone knows what KISS look like and it's fun to dress up like them. they definately wouldn't have had an ARMY without the image. and they've always been a better band when they wore the make-up than when they decided to reveal themselves and everyone realised they were just a bunch of fat, unattractive blokes. 15 years from now, the bands i'm going to remember are the ones who looked like rockstars. i'd also agree with ryan on the point that if a band are gonna be labelled 'fashioncore' they should actually be wearing a particular staple of the fashion industry. the scissor sisters are the most 'fashioncore' band around just now, because jake shears is totally sporting the fake fur gilet. as for tight jeans, they only look good on people who look like they're on heroin, like scott weiland.