Simon Rushworth
Once upon a time there was an upcoming band called Lostprophets and they were desperate to get their music and their messages heard.
A nice bunch of lads from Wales, their debut album A Fake Sound Of Progress nudged into the top 50 of the UK album charts on the back of a load of gigs and some heartfelt support from regional newspapers up and down the country.
Glad of a mere mention here and there, they often got more thanks to the goodwill of journos keen to see an emerging band fulfil their potential and challenge upcoming acts on the other side of the Pond.
Soon Lostprophets were selling millions of albums on both sides of the Atlantic and for a while they were still happy to see their names and faces in the local and regional press, have their CDs reviewed far and wide and their gigs rated by the papers who backed them all those years ago.
But then a very strange thing happened.
Their record label decided not to issue review copies of their fourth album to the very newspapers who backed the boys long before their faces were all over the covers of Kerrang! and Rock Sound.
Then they decided to demand double page spreads before any interviews would be considered.
And unless those assurances were given by editors squeezed for space in the grip of a recession there were no review tickets set aside for the said local and regional papers.
Now Visible Noise are well within their rights to dictate who speaks to their bands, who reviews their bands and who reviews their bands’ CDs.
And perhaps, in the case of Lostprophets, their decision to ditch some of the band’s longest standing supporters comes directly from Mr Watkins and his mates.
Which is fine.
Maybe Visible Noise feels no need to see its artists reviewed in local newspapers now that so many of their bands’ fans are into social networking and posting their own verdicts on gigs.
Which is fine.
Perhaps Visible Noise believe Lostprophets can only get bigger and bigger in years to come and they are a band destined only for the national press, well known music magazines and broadcast journalism’s big hitters.
Which is fine.
But Lostprophets’ latest album didn’t match the number one spot its predecessor hit. The band didn’t sell every ticket in every venue on their latest UK tour. And right now there’s a few hundred fans who attended their gig in Newcastle on Tuesday night still looking for a review in their local paper.
Which is not so fine.
Here at RUSHONROCK we always intended to review the gig. So we did. We bought a ticket and delivered a verdict. But we’re also big supporters of the UK’s local press.
So for now we won’t be backing Visible Noise. We won’t be backing Lostprophets. And we won’t be backing any of the other bands on the label’s roster.
Which is well within our rights. And it’s fine.
Writing this has reminded us of the best piece of advice we were ever given: don’t lose your friends on the way up as you’ll need them on the way down.