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Collapse Board | the missing two years of messages

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Two days ago, I discovered that there was a button on Collapse Board I’d never clicked. The one whereby you can see all the messages that come through when people click the CONTACT US button at the top of the website.

Now, I have no idea whether Justin had been through some of these in the past – possibly, as that would explain some forwarded messages – but some of these dated back over a year. It was like opening a window on to a whole new, disconcertingly similar, parallel universe. (Something similar happened the previous month on Facebook.) All of a sudden, a deluge of requests from bands and errant musicians came flooding in, alongside the occasional death threat.

There were fan letters to Lucy Cage, Scott Creney, Everett True – and a whole bunch of requests for the whereabouts of Erika Elizabeth, round about the time she was writing Demos of the Week (you wouldn’t have thought so many bands would be so quick to call recordings ‘demos’ in this age of instant publishing). Most of the contacts for general reviews and listens came from Brisbane and Melbourne, and America. Invariably, the tone was polite… too polite. The cumulative effect was like being fawned over by a bunch of insincere strangers. Oddly, however, it still felt like validation – that Collapse Board does actually exist, and is read and wanted, and has some sort of purpose. (Believe me, it doesn’t often feel like that.)

So anyway. I narrowed the bulk of the fool’s treasure down to around 33 messages, some of which I thought I could reprint and possibly respond to here. They’re in reverse order, newest first.

(This really is like sorting through other people’s garbage bins.)

Dear Mr True, Follow this link https://soundcloud.com/thecatharsband/my-dad-and-suzi-quatro and you’ll find a song called My Dad And Suzi Quatro, you will either love it or fucking hate it, it’s hard to tell you’re a bit hard to read sometimes. Oh yeah and our band is called The Cathars. Yours sincerely, Mitchell Laney (on behalf of The Cathars)

Indifferent. Sorry, mate.

ATTN: EVERETT TURE NEW SINGLE FROM AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND BAND TRUST PUNKS. CONSIDER ALSO “NOT DAMN BAD” https://trustpunks.bandcamp.com/track/prone-hold

Trust Punks were a band I wrote about on Mess+Noise as follows:

Contains pretty much all the elements that made Auckland – sorry, Dunedin – so cherished in the first place: blatant repetition, a fuckable guitar sound, occasional profanity and descending chord sequences, muddied up appropriately. The other song on their Bandcamp, ‘Amphetamine Psychosis’, is even better.

Can’t say I like this one at all. Sorry mate.

Hey, This is John from the band Space Drugs. Mike Turner featured us in his “The Sounds Of 2013: Another CB Top 10″ article in July. In it, he wrote about how discouraging it was that we did not have a record out and how anxious he was to hear one. Well, we just released our first EP tonight. You can download it below for free. Hope you enjoy! https://spacedrugs.bandcamp.com/

Mike wrote:

This band with no official release and just a BandCamp snuck onto the list at the very last minute. Stuck in a room not made to hold a band and a crowd the walls were sweating and the ceiling fan that was to cool us off was just pushing the heat radiating off the band and crowd around the room driving the intensity up a notch with each song that passed. The floor was wanting to buckle as we all jumped up and down. Maybe it was the fact they sounded like Sebadoh, Superchunk, Burning Airlines and Dinosaur Jr poured through a funnel. Maybe it was the heat and the noise. Maybe I was taken back to some of the best house shows I saw in my youth. Maybe it was the Nirvana cover, but they won me over…

Oh, sweet as. Nice one. What he says, only not quite so much (I mean, duh) which still ain’t an insult.

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The next one is from an old acquaintance who was in Sprinkler, Guided by Voices, The Takeovers etc… and wanted to share a fond moment from on stage recently. He even threatened to send a photograph of himself clutching The Legend! Sub Pop 7″ as proof of his credentials.  No need, mate. Bunch of old dudes rock the house like not-so-old dudes at all. Always good to see.

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if you dont take down everything you have posted about iceage including album reviews i will fucking kill you.

As a commentator on Facebook wrote: This isn’t even in the Top 10 of death threats against me, the Top 50 even.

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Hi Everett and Collapse Board gang You were brilliantly supportive of my band Suburban Mousewife and featured us as song of the day and in your present day political pop songs list a while back. The band is on extended holiday due to others’ commitments and my new band is Feral Five – would love it if you would check us out as we have just released our debut EP, Skin. We are making a video using Vine video clips of people’s skin that they can send to us via twitter. Like this:

Oh, very nice. I like this a whole bunch. Deviant DNA female punk from London (there ought to be the word ‘electro’ in there, too – but it’d sound crap). Brooding and deviant. Nice.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cb6xmymmjyo4vrm/TheLegendRealBadJuneTwenty-third.wav My favourite set of yours at Real Bad last night.

Nice, though I say so myself.

After a few satisfying minutes of play, and a cigarette, it’s time for the first of three sets by The Legend! The first is a discordant adventure that flows in and out of realism and ultra-realism with its down-and-out delivery, partial guitar and rather complimenting violin, with repeated musings around Flipper playing on the car stereo. e x C L A G a g a n z a @ Real Bad Music, Moorooka, 22.06.13

Hi Everett My name is Stephen Goodwin — I’m a writer and photographer who has been somewhat haphazardly documenting the live music scene around Brisbane for the last six years or so. I’m writing because I’m putting all my gig photos in the public domain. Thought this information might be of interest to you, and to local musicians. More info here: http://www.wordswithpictures.com.au/2013/05/all-wordswithpictures-photos-are-now-public-domain/ best regards Stephen Goodwin

Always happy to spread the word. Apologies for delayed reaction.

Hello there, We ‘spoke’ briefly when Sophie Blackhall-Cain wrote very kind words about Nosferatu D2 in Spotlight 49: http://www.collapseboard.com/features/columns/spotlight-49. Yesterday we released a 31 track charity compilation to raise money for Rape Crisis England, Wales & Scotland. Featuring Burnt Palms who you guys were recently very rave-ey about (and I think this is their best song yet) and many more, including Jeffrey Lewis, Darren Hayman, a new group from the Nosferatu D2 vocalist, Bored Nothing, David Cronenberg’s Wife, Ace Bushy Striptease, Paul Hawkins & The Awkward Silences, Palmz and a zillion others. You can hear the compilation here: http://audioantihero.bandcamp.com/album/audio-antihero-presents-regal-vs-steamboat-for-rape-crisis I know you guys don’t exactly do ‘news pieces’ but if you thought any track on this comp was a worthy ‘Song of the Day’ or suitable for any other kind of coverage on Collapse Board then I’d really appreciate the help in spreading the message.

Always happy to spread the word. Apologies for delayed reaction. I do indeed like Burnt Palms – and seem to recall a more-than-passing fondness for Nosferatu D2 as well.

If you can’t immediately spot the yawning cavernous divide between this and the new stuff from Dum Dum Girls (say) then I would humbly suggest that you’re probably at the wrong website. (Flash backwards 30 years once more: it’s the crucial difference between Shop Assistants and The Primitives.) I’m not denying that a band can fluke a good song. And that’s fine. The more good songs, of course the better. But sometimes I just want to have something to believe in. Especially when it comes to music that forms such a crucial part of my heartland territory. Song of the day – 539: Burnt Palms

Hello, We’d love to know your thoughts! Steve Fisk recorded and mixed our most recent self-titled album available for your listening pleasure here: LINK WITHHELD If you need any more information, please do not hesitate to ask, thanks! facebook.com/beautifulliesmusic

Well dudes. As you probably know, Steve Fisk is one of my main men, Portland is one of my main towns and this… this is just LUSH. Beautifully realised and accomplished psychedelia the way those crazy old crazy heads in The Beatles always painted it (but knowing Steve, based on something way more obscure altogether).

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this is the new jib kidder record , IV (pronounced four), coming out on cassette via gnar tapes and shit / burger records on May 1 LINK WITHHELD

Damn it. Missed it. (This message is over six months old.) Love yr Jib Kidder.

dear collapse board, it seems like this is the right place, so i would like to introduce you to RAGANA. we’re a two-piece from olympia, wa, who have often been described as “witchy” and “brutal”. we write a lot of songs about beauty and secrets and surviving the weird capitalist hell-world we’re all trapped inside. maybe you would like to review our music, which can be found at http://rararagana.bandcamp.com. we also have a tumblr: http://growsrots.tumblr.com. sincerely, nicole & maria

Dudes, you’ve already got me sold. Totes. Future Song of the Day material.

hi reading everetts ramones book now. read that they wouldnt forward you a copy of yeah yeahs album .well it aint no wave its got a good first single.2 nd song filler..then got distracted but they sound like late banshees more and more.we are in melbourne(jukai forest)we did a song in a professional studio -lapse worshipping place which has a shop assistants vibe but ultimately overproduced and so we like the band practice zoom stuff.can you review it? melbourne is full of clone bands like anything that sounds psychedelic(they claim) derivative and shoefaze.the brian jonestown massacre has spawned countless imitators who the press fawn over.its time for something else enter Jukai Forest.

Shop Assistants, huh? Sure I’ll have a listen. More Dunedin ’85 and Bristol ’88 than Edinburgh ’86 – and dudes, you have a male vocalist! – but yeah, sweet enough.

Hi, I am trying to contact Everett. I am organizing in May 2014 a literary festival in Brazil, in the city of Recife and would like to invite him to participate. I lost his email and hopefully you can help me reach him. Thanks a lot

Dog gamnit. Nine months later…  I AM SO THERE

you should not have comment sections it is really boring. talking about iceage and saying they have fascist imagry is really boring. you should only let people talk about about them who know what they are about and who know what they are talking about and it is really unproffessional to let *anyone say anything. *unproffessional to let ANYONE say ANYTHING.

I like the attention to detail…. *including* album reviews. I also like the deliberate irony of misspelling “unprofessional”. DON’T MESS WITH THESE PEOPLE OR THEY WILL BE IRONIC IN THEIR USE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!

Hello, We’re interested in placing a promotional link on: collapseboard(dot)com/everett-true/odd-comment-left-on-brian-wilson-blog-entry/ for a website about addiction treatment. If you already have an arrangement or ad rates in mind, We’d be more than glad to hear from you. Regards NAME WITHHELD

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Oops.

Hi Everett: I was the tour booker for the Lovely Eggs in Germany. They introduced me to your great work. I´d like to introduce you to Frankie Cosmos from New York, who also calles herself Ingrid Superstar. She is 18 years old and already released DOZENS of homemade albums on bandcamp. Each and every song is a jewel I believe! http://ingridsuperstar.bandcamp.com/ Her first CD was released by the fabulous Pukekos label. It´s called “Frankie Cosmos does France”. http://www.pukekos.org/2012/08/frankie-cosmos-emptiness.html She´ll be on tour in June / July and i hope to be able to bring her to the UK, too. Hope you enjoy the music! Toodles! Peter

… and there you were, wondering why I was wasting my time trawling through all these messages. Wonderful, bittersweet and understated.  Another future Song of the Day, without a shadow. (Love yr Lovely Eggs, obv.)

Hi – I’m a sociologist at uni of Newcastle. My research areas are mostly youth sociology and inequality, but recently I’ve been doing some work with Andy Bennett of ‘subcultural careers’. The theorist I use most is Bourdieu as is yours from what you have written on this site. Anyway, I’d be very interested to find out more about your research… Is there info on it anywhere on your Unis website, I can’t find it – thanks, Steve

Damn. Seems like another good contact, gone. Andy Bennett is a good sort academic up here in Brisbane. Might try to get in touch anyway.

hi everett, check out our new tune http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R05b7EmnYR8 its from our new album available to download for free here: http://monsterisland.bandcamp.com/album/the-retaining-wall its about a lots and lots and lots of things. other recent vids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_sPWBPUAcc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7-NxYNBcCA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsNqV4LtrbU cheers, monster island x

Interesting weird post-Pavement pretension. Could be worth more investigation. Could be just plain irritating.

Hi, Do you have a postal address where I can send vinyl copies of releases, for review? My label, Coffin Cut, releases independent Australian bands, on vinyl. Cheers, John

Dissonant punk label, based out of Perth. (Have a feeling I own a couple of their things already.) Always happy to spread the word. Apologies for delayed reaction. And I don’t own a record player (sighs heavily).

Hey CB crew, Thought we’d drop you a line as we have been enjoying your best of 2012 wraps – our release is getting lost in the end of year rush but we wanted to send it to you in the hope one of you would listen! We’re Twincest from Sydney – a new female duo who have just released our single ‘Saint’ – which you can listen to and watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtNLTv_d1_s https://soundcloud.com/#twincesttheband/saint We’d love to get any feedback from you re what you think of our track, and would be honoured if you featured us on your blogs, we’ve really been digging Collapse Board so far. Thanks so much for reading! Hayley and Laura x TWINCEST

Man, a third Song of the Day? Whoa. I’m onto it… only a year late. This sounds like someone reared on 80s Grace Jones dance floor and retard pussy rap and there ain’t nothing wrong with that, nothing at all.

Hi ET, Hope you can find time to give this a spin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoXUlOQRz3E Not for old times’ sake, mind. Because Yeah Yeah Noh are getting fantastic feedback from 21st century audiences who never even heard of the 1980s.  Love, Derek

An old mate. They still sound fine.

Hey there. I just wanted to say I just stumbled across your site today and say thanks for the content, I have been looking for a site that actually cares about music as an art form as well as a form of entertainment and I think I found it. As a twenty three year old artist that actually makes music that doesn’t involve using loops/pitch correction, the times are getting dark and I am hoping your music criticism will give me an actual chance to learn about some interesting modern artists that are in it for more than getting that Pitchdork review and selling some records to the young music “lovers” out there who don’t seem to understand the point of music in the first place and can’t seem to make up their own minds on what they like. I am glad I was born at the tail end of the eighties and not in the early nineties. What a difference those few years make. Thanks again, Patrick Riley Graham-Holland

Cheers mate. I guess.

Hey Everett! Thank you for such a nice post! We loved it! Just a thing maybe you don’t know about los cripis is that there isn’t a dude in the band incidentally, he’s the founder of the band with Josi, he made all the songs and lirycs with her and also recorded and mixed both albums, we are not a “girls band with a boy”, sorry we write this to you but we think the last part wasn’t fair at all with his important role. We love you! Los cripis

AND I LOVE YOU!!

I couldn’t let this one go past without dragging it to the front page again This music is so fun and poignant: nerve-ends left exposed, clattering and jagged, guitars that run naked through the streets in a running battle with the tentative rhythm section, vocals that judder and jar, from Argentina and a trio like all the best trios are – they leave in the space and the clutter, and take out the boredom with the trash and remains of yr dad’s old Pearl Jam records. The reinvented, re-imagined sound reminds me of another great No Wave/post-punk, heartland ET territory, trio from Argentina – Las Kellies. Song of the day – 525: Los Cripis

What up my friend just forwarded me Scott Creney’s review of my band’s record…it came out a while ago (February) but I just wanted to write and say that I think it’s fuckin radical (the review, not the record!) You guys are dope! Take care, be well, be safe and it feels good to be understood Derek Slay Bells

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I’m sorry to have sent this here, but if you could please pass the following thank you note to Lucy Cage. I couldn’t find a contact email for her. Hi, Lucy, This isn’t a press copy thing, but more of a fan letter. I read your pieces on Collapse Board all of the time. Personally, the standout for me was the review you had written of William Drake’s The Rising of the Lights. I’m truly not a big Cardiacs fan, however, that review completely leveled me. Reading that review that connected a voracious, teenage hunger for music that used to make me feel crushed and obsessed over a record. My band went on a lingering hiatus, and I felt like the part of me that loved listening and writing and playing and singing was just fading with age or growing embittered and useless. About a year ago I made a point of not reading certain music sites (which I won’t name) and just trying to focus on finding work and artists that I could be excited about. In a few months, I was writing and playing a bit more. I’d hit record and let the machine go for an hour, as if I might forget it was running. It’s like when you find a deer eating a pumpkin on your back porch, and any attempt to photograph it brings the fear you’ll just spook it. Forgive the ramble. I’m sending this, because I love your contributions on CB and even if this album isn’t your thing, it’s only intended as a kind of thank you. It was reinvigorating to read reviews by someone who is still in love with music. In all earnestness, I no longer take that as a given. much obliged, Daniel oh> littleotik.bandcamp.com

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have you heard this Jerry? think you might like it http://soundcloud.com/heavenlyrecordings/sets/charlie-boyer-the-voyeurs-i-watch-you/ all the best, Jeff

Another old friend, and trusted source. (You’re familiar with Heavenly Recordings, right?) And a damn fine slice of post-Velvets velveteen velvetishness. A FOURTH Song of the Day? Surely not!

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There is a festival called ‘Fear of Fiction’ which will be taking place in Bristol, UK, next month. I received an e-mail from Hazel, someone who works for HOUND magazine, ‘a free, newsprint publication focusing on the best of contemporary music, art, style and culture’. I just wanted to share with you the advertisement rates they are offering bands playing at the festival, it’s great: As we are promoting Fear of Fiction festival we are contacting bands to offer low cost ad space in our November/December issue. For a limited period the offers are as below: Quarter page = £90 £50 Half page = £165 £87.50 Full page = £300 £150 Our inside front/back covers and outside back cover are unavailable as have already been sold. We also offer interview space but this price is on request and begins at £300. Information on artwork spec can be found in the media pack. **The deadline for this offer is October 25th** If you have any further queries don’t hesitate to get in touch. Best wishes, Hazel McCoubrey Editor, HOUND Magazine Yeah. My favourite part was this “We also offer interview space but this price is on request and begins at £300.”. They have such a dislike for music and running their own magazine that they want the people being featured to pay them to write about shit they don’t care about so they can carrying on doing this thing they obviously don’t really care for? Or did i miss the point. I’ll return to my cave now.

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18.08.11 Dear Everett True I grew up in Lismore, NSW in a family with a lot of women. My mother was one of twelve, the eldest, and a Large Music Lover. I remember piles of records, photos of mum vomiting into a bucket the night after a David Bowie concert, and my seven inch records was WHAM. I was 4. Somewhere along the way (I know where: Mum read the Daily Telegraph every Thursday for the music section, and it was the only newspaper mum ever purchased, otherwise it was TV WEEK and WD) I found music I liked, and I ended standing before grunge, age 14. Or more accurately, sitting; I discovered Nirvana through Video Hits. I found it all a bit man-heavy and unappealing, although I thought I might like Courtney because she appeared as if she could be an aunt of mine. The week Kurt died, I asked my mum to by me ‘Live Through This’ to see what she sounded like. I played it once while Mum mowed the lawn, and I told her it was “very scream-y”, and then I played it again. I still listen to it near daily. Live Through This > Lollapalooza > Kathleen Hanna > Tell Me So > Your Name. If I read about a band in a thank you note or a review, I would write it on a list to investigate next time I was in Rocking Horse Records. And somehow, in life before the internet (which I managed to avoid after it’s debut through years of drug addiction until earlier this year; who knew it was so big?) I sought out lists of yours, and I read BUST in BORDERS and took photos of your lists with my failing lomo, and I stumbled across Loose Lips somehow, also. To hear that you were in Brisbane made no sense, but that was fine. And Hello Collapse Board. Your name has always been a guarantee. The music you love is the same music that I get excited and saddened by, that I love and LOVE. Your writing has always been distinctly yours: real/emotional, fact/memoir, and so joyous (vs.The Rolling Stone reviews that my father read years ago, or the referential/hilarious Clem Bastow, or whatever Pitchfork is). Your writing, for me, conveys the blind love and power that a belief in music can give someone, which I guess could appear as flat if you were mistrusting reader, but it is always made multi-faceted by a sentence or link that seems to jar, and/or be at odds, and then somehow, completely appropriate. Your writing gives me the same sense of clarity and understanding that I get from Joan Didion. And when you write about feminism and punk rock and privilege and class and scenes in ways the are accessible and relevant, or you write that you don’t remember, or don’t know, or that a “haters gonna hate”… it never feels false. It feels like a superpower. I believe your writing is awesome. I know that your review of a YYY show from an early LOOSE LIPS is one of The Greatest Pieces of Musical Writing of All Time. And I wanted to say thank you. Leeroy. But as to what this says about the role and weight of a music critic in this day and age, I am unsure; I don’t really read anyone else.

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Hi Everett, My name is David Stanley and I am from a radio show here in Brisbane called ‘The Sunday Washup’. Each Sunday from 8pm we focus on the Brisbane music scene, play current new releases and also hold interviews with key players in the Brisbane scene. My self and Kieren Davies (co-host) are interested in having you on our show in the future. We enjoy your website and reviews and would love to gain more of an insight from you as to what you think is good about Brisbane’s music and what isn’t good. Let us know if you are interested. We understand you probably have a 1000 things on the go. But at some stage we would be glad to have you on the show one night. Thanks and hopefully talk soon. Dave Stanley and Kieren Davies

Indifferent. Sorry, mate. In fairness though, you’re the first people working within the music industry here in Brisbane to contact me to ask if I want to take part in something for… what… three or four years now?

Hi mate – how’s it all going up in Brisbane? I had my second instance of a family member calling me up today to let me know that ‘someone is making fun of you on the internet’ when they googled my name and found your Classic Quotes of the Street Press article which pointed out my disastrous NAME WITHHELD paragraph. I’ve moved on a long way from those days of lazy, hyperbolic writing, and am now a regular contributor at Mess+Noise. I’ve learned a lot since then and I do partially have you to thank for having me thinking more about my writing, but I’m still incredibly embarrassed by that period of time, and my responses in the comments of your article. I was hoping you’d be kind enough to take down the article as a gentleman’s gesture. It’s a real stain on my name and isn’t doing me any favours. I understand if you don’t want to, but I’d really appreciate it if you did. Hope you’re well mate NAME WITHHELD

Fair enough NAME WITHHELD, you’ve suffered enough. It’s gone. Albeit 15 months after you asked me (apologies for that!).


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