The author of this actually later sent us an amended version of this review but we lost it....
Foggy Notions (23/04/03)
A ‘pass the time’ pursuit of mine is standing in magazine sections perusing publications whilst trying to match fellow browsers to titles. On tottering in to purchase Foggy Notions, I stood for an inordinate amount of time, risking being labeled a top shelf reader, seeking to locate the words Foggy Notions in the midst of a densely populated peacock case. It was my involuntary repulsion to Will Oldham (a ginger bearded slack jawed balding Cletus who’s a banjo short of deliverance) which eventually assisted me in identifying the publication.
Foggy Notions is not heralded by fanfare, advertising campaign or Champaign soaked celebrity launch. It is inconspicuous. It’s the head at the party, sat in the kitchen for the night. No need to ingratiate, he’s self assured and quite content with his own company if that’s what it takes. And so with Foggy Notions, it sits shoulder to shoulder with the doyens of the popular music press, MOJO, Uncut, WIRE, NME but is not seeking your attention. Foggy Notions is confident that those in the know will approach and engage.
Basing my first impressions on looks, Foggy Notions is a rehashed Raygun. I worked in an art school during the nineties where Raygun was the design bible and the Tomato team the design gurus. Every exhibition was packed with work mirroring mediocrity. That Foggy Notions looks and smells like an end of year exhibition catalogue from 1993, doesn’t bode well for the freshness of the contents either.
Adding insult to injury are the pasty faced inhabitants of Foggy Notions peering out gloomily, blurrily, some with red eyes others so apathetic they keep their eyes closed. I’m reminded of an interview I read with Lou Reed where he rebuked fellow musicians for their serious expressions in promotional photographs. Like chief Brody in Jaws, I think old Lou would anger to screaming ‘Smile you son of a bitch!’ at the countenants on display here. The indifferent expressionless feature is to today’s musician what the beard was in the late sixties. It symbolizes earnest artistry. The musician has gone to such lengths, withstood such pains to bring you their art that they have lost their will to live en route. So dour are the full frontal features contained with in it’s pages, I find myself winking back at the giddiness of the Chalets smile, and expecting musical innovation of Eno-esque proportions from those not gurning.
Flicking back and forth, Foggy Notions looks like a serious read. It distances itself from its music press lineage by absence. Absent are music press staple entertainment devices like the gossip column, the news bulletins, the paparazzi photography, the crossword, the competition. Absent too are standard promotional devices like the gig calendar. Though Foggy Notions does contain three advertisements – one for Nina Hynes new album, and the others for records shops and their wares, it protests resistance against market forces and displays disdain for mere entertainment. I’ve no access to satellite music stations.
I’m not picky about what music publications I read. I value all music publications because they enable the reader to consume the content independently, to pick your own entry point, read at your own pace, engage with or cast the publication aside, depending on interest, mood or whether your bus stop’s next. They have a promotional and a pedagogic function, which you can take or leave.
In providing no contents page, and indeed no page numbers, Foggy Notions encourages serendipity. Only through browsing, can the reader get into Foggy Notions. Foggy Notions is an improvement on No Disco for this very reason. After watching No Disco from inception I had wavered in the last few Leagues years, finding I didn’t share his fascination with hip hoppery. Foggy Notions however, managed to persuade me to commence reading with an article on Def Jux, because I could do so at my convenience and with the knowledge that I would actually gain some understanding of the music that I couldn’t have accessed via a music video.
Music magazines develop in tandem with popular culture. So with the growing strength of the ‘independent’ scene in Ireland, increased musical output, development of artistic networks (Thumped) and available resources (Things You’re Missing), and with the death of No Disco it’s no coincidence that Foggy Notions appears on our news-stand now.
With the visible presence of Leagues O’Toole it would be easy to claim that Foggy Notions is No Disco in print. Indeed featured in the pages of Foggy Notions are articles on No Disco favourites such as Bonny Prince Billy, Schneider TM and Def Jux all written by the man himself. Also present, penned by Eamon Sweeney and others, are features on Dischord/ Fugazi, Badly Drawn Boy, Saint Etienne and Max Tundra, along with two live Kraftwerk reviews and an album reviews section. Apparently there was also a Foggy Notions CD featuring music by The Tycho Brahe, Stanley Super 800, Estel, Rollers/Sparkers, Jape and Boa Morte but inexplicably my copy just had that plastic snot stuff and no CD.
The Foggy Notions ideology resides in the supposed distinction between the mainstream and the alternative. The Foggy Notions audience is primarily the bands and audiences contained within the Irish independent music community. You can bet your Road Relish collection that No Disco viewers will be Foggy Notions readers. The writers authority rests on their knowledge of the reader, it’s needs and values and this in turn rests on who the critic is.
Beware though, the Foggy Notions writer under estimates their reader. Foggy Notions courts a sensitive minority readership, which it doesn’t really understand. Believing their role to be introducing and explaining music, instructing the reader how to listen, championing the new and the difficult, they respond to the music analytically, decoding music and lyrics, relating artist intention and history, detailing societal context to the reader. The writer seems to perceive that theirs is a pedagogic function.
Foggy Notions needs to be careful in its assumptions. The writers should be mindful that the readers and writers have grown up together, both drawing from the same inspirations, influences and fountain of knowledge, both members of the same community. The writer needs to convince us that they have a knowledge of popular music and pop motivation, wider and more diverse than our own. Some articles are quite masterful in circumventing these issues, particularly those written by Wendy O’Flynn but others plod along well worn familiar old dirt tracks, I mean does the reader need or want more articles on artists such as Badly Drawn Boy or Queens of the Stone Age? or a lesson on Fugazi/Dischord?
I don’t find any of the international artists or music featured particularly challenging, new or innovative. Honestly? I’ve even seen articles on some of these artists in Glamour magazine. With the increasing visibility and consumption of what was previously considered alternative, I’d question the supposed entropy and select nature of some of the featured artists. So in setting itself up as alternative music press, Foggy Notions doesn’t rise above (though it believes it does).
Where Foggy Notions does hold its head high, where it excels in its cultural concern to preserve a perceived quality of sound and teach the value of the music that engages the writer, is in dealing with the Irish independent scene. It is with Irish artists and music, outside the mainstream boundaries that an alternative resides. In any case, this is a less visible and unfamiliar musical landscape. In being a platform for the artists and labels concerned, the articles on the Chalets, Neosupervital, Hope etc., have a promotional AND pedagogic value. The Foggy Notions writers should concentrate on representing this music to the reader, focusing on this alternative.
Much like No Disco, Thumped, Things You’re Missing, Phantom and Xfm; Foggy Notions orchestrates collusion between selected musicians and an equally select part of the public, select by comparison to the perceived ordinary undiscriminating pop consumer. Thus Foggy Notions maintains an ideological role, in nurturing a knowing community around this music by endeavouring to exert the music’s cultural significance. If Foggy Notions is to succeed it should further enforce the divide between cultural significance and the economics of popular music, and become the map, mirror and manifestation of the Irish independent scene. Go on Leagues, stick a ginger beard on that unsmiling kitchen reveler.
Foggy Notions (23/04/03)
A ‘pass the time’ pursuit of mine is standing in magazine sections perusing publications whilst trying to match fellow browsers to titles. On tottering in to purchase Foggy Notions, I stood for an inordinate amount of time, risking being labeled a top shelf reader, seeking to locate the words Foggy Notions in the midst of a densely populated peacock case. It was my involuntary repulsion to Will Oldham (a ginger bearded slack jawed balding Cletus who’s a banjo short of deliverance) which eventually assisted me in identifying the publication.
Foggy Notions is not heralded by fanfare, advertising campaign or Champaign soaked celebrity launch. It is inconspicuous. It’s the head at the party, sat in the kitchen for the night. No need to ingratiate, he’s self assured and quite content with his own company if that’s what it takes. And so with Foggy Notions, it sits shoulder to shoulder with the doyens of the popular music press, MOJO, Uncut, WIRE, NME but is not seeking your attention. Foggy Notions is confident that those in the know will approach and engage.
Basing my first impressions on looks, Foggy Notions is a rehashed Raygun. I worked in an art school during the nineties where Raygun was the design bible and the Tomato team the design gurus. Every exhibition was packed with work mirroring mediocrity. That Foggy Notions looks and smells like an end of year exhibition catalogue from 1993, doesn’t bode well for the freshness of the contents either.
Adding insult to injury are the pasty faced inhabitants of Foggy Notions peering out gloomily, blurrily, some with red eyes others so apathetic they keep their eyes closed. I’m reminded of an interview I read with Lou Reed where he rebuked fellow musicians for their serious expressions in promotional photographs. Like chief Brody in Jaws, I think old Lou would anger to screaming ‘Smile you son of a bitch!’ at the countenants on display here. The indifferent expressionless feature is to today’s musician what the beard was in the late sixties. It symbolizes earnest artistry. The musician has gone to such lengths, withstood such pains to bring you their art that they have lost their will to live en route. So dour are the full frontal features contained with in it’s pages, I find myself winking back at the giddiness of the Chalets smile, and expecting musical innovation of Eno-esque proportions from those not gurning.
Flicking back and forth, Foggy Notions looks like a serious read. It distances itself from its music press lineage by absence. Absent are music press staple entertainment devices like the gossip column, the news bulletins, the paparazzi photography, the crossword, the competition. Absent too are standard promotional devices like the gig calendar. Though Foggy Notions does contain three advertisements – one for Nina Hynes new album, and the others for records shops and their wares, it protests resistance against market forces and displays disdain for mere entertainment. I’ve no access to satellite music stations.
I’m not picky about what music publications I read. I value all music publications because they enable the reader to consume the content independently, to pick your own entry point, read at your own pace, engage with or cast the publication aside, depending on interest, mood or whether your bus stop’s next. They have a promotional and a pedagogic function, which you can take or leave.
In providing no contents page, and indeed no page numbers, Foggy Notions encourages serendipity. Only through browsing, can the reader get into Foggy Notions. Foggy Notions is an improvement on No Disco for this very reason. After watching No Disco from inception I had wavered in the last few Leagues years, finding I didn’t share his fascination with hip hoppery. Foggy Notions however, managed to persuade me to commence reading with an article on Def Jux, because I could do so at my convenience and with the knowledge that I would actually gain some understanding of the music that I couldn’t have accessed via a music video.
Music magazines develop in tandem with popular culture. So with the growing strength of the ‘independent’ scene in Ireland, increased musical output, development of artistic networks (Thumped) and available resources (Things You’re Missing), and with the death of No Disco it’s no coincidence that Foggy Notions appears on our news-stand now.
With the visible presence of Leagues O’Toole it would be easy to claim that Foggy Notions is No Disco in print. Indeed featured in the pages of Foggy Notions are articles on No Disco favourites such as Bonny Prince Billy, Schneider TM and Def Jux all written by the man himself. Also present, penned by Eamon Sweeney and others, are features on Dischord/ Fugazi, Badly Drawn Boy, Saint Etienne and Max Tundra, along with two live Kraftwerk reviews and an album reviews section. Apparently there was also a Foggy Notions CD featuring music by The Tycho Brahe, Stanley Super 800, Estel, Rollers/Sparkers, Jape and Boa Morte but inexplicably my copy just had that plastic snot stuff and no CD.
The Foggy Notions ideology resides in the supposed distinction between the mainstream and the alternative. The Foggy Notions audience is primarily the bands and audiences contained within the Irish independent music community. You can bet your Road Relish collection that No Disco viewers will be Foggy Notions readers. The writers authority rests on their knowledge of the reader, it’s needs and values and this in turn rests on who the critic is.
Beware though, the Foggy Notions writer under estimates their reader. Foggy Notions courts a sensitive minority readership, which it doesn’t really understand. Believing their role to be introducing and explaining music, instructing the reader how to listen, championing the new and the difficult, they respond to the music analytically, decoding music and lyrics, relating artist intention and history, detailing societal context to the reader. The writer seems to perceive that theirs is a pedagogic function.
Foggy Notions needs to be careful in its assumptions. The writers should be mindful that the readers and writers have grown up together, both drawing from the same inspirations, influences and fountain of knowledge, both members of the same community. The writer needs to convince us that they have a knowledge of popular music and pop motivation, wider and more diverse than our own. Some articles are quite masterful in circumventing these issues, particularly those written by Wendy O’Flynn but others plod along well worn familiar old dirt tracks, I mean does the reader need or want more articles on artists such as Badly Drawn Boy or Queens of the Stone Age? or a lesson on Fugazi/Dischord?
I don’t find any of the international artists or music featured particularly challenging, new or innovative. Honestly? I’ve even seen articles on some of these artists in Glamour magazine. With the increasing visibility and consumption of what was previously considered alternative, I’d question the supposed entropy and select nature of some of the featured artists. So in setting itself up as alternative music press, Foggy Notions doesn’t rise above (though it believes it does).
Where Foggy Notions does hold its head high, where it excels in its cultural concern to preserve a perceived quality of sound and teach the value of the music that engages the writer, is in dealing with the Irish independent scene. It is with Irish artists and music, outside the mainstream boundaries that an alternative resides. In any case, this is a less visible and unfamiliar musical landscape. In being a platform for the artists and labels concerned, the articles on the Chalets, Neosupervital, Hope etc., have a promotional AND pedagogic value. The Foggy Notions writers should concentrate on representing this music to the reader, focusing on this alternative.
Much like No Disco, Thumped, Things You’re Missing, Phantom and Xfm; Foggy Notions orchestrates collusion between selected musicians and an equally select part of the public, select by comparison to the perceived ordinary undiscriminating pop consumer. Thus Foggy Notions maintains an ideological role, in nurturing a knowing community around this music by endeavouring to exert the music’s cultural significance. If Foggy Notions is to succeed it should further enforce the divide between cultural significance and the economics of popular music, and become the map, mirror and manifestation of the Irish independent scene. Go on Leagues, stick a ginger beard on that unsmiling kitchen reveler.
