National Snack Blog

Hello Snacksters

The Enormous Project #3 line-up is being currently being forged in the fires of Upper Holloway and Hackney so in the meantime…

We would like to thank EVERYONE who got involved in the first week of the Storm The Charts Campaign and voted for us. We didn’t make it in that round but there’s still hope! Although things are a little different now…

After a bout of cheating (tsk tsk) in the first rounds the Storm The Charts Campaign has made some changes to how the system works.

It is no longer possible to search out a band and vote for them.

Instead, we are asked to vote in random polls. A bands votes accumulate over the whole voting period and each week the two bands with most votes are creamed off the top and selected to be among the final 40 being put forward for the chart storming in June. All you have to do is:

1. Listen to 5 songs.
2. Pick your favourite.
3. Repeat.

We think this is a great idea.

While it is obviously minorly frustrating if you wanted to try and help National Snack, specifically, get into the UK charts, it actually makes the whole campaign just an enjoyable thing to do and to be involved with. For two reasons:

1. We don’t have to constantly ask you to vote for us. Even though we know you would, it’s nice not to have to ask you to do something for us!
2. It means that the campaign is a very feelgood process. You listen to the five songs you are presented with and you pick your favourite, which in itself is really enjoyable as you get to hear loads of new music but then when you choose you are potentially helping out that unsigned artist in a very straightforward and direct way.

It’s all random so there’s no cheating, no begging for votes, no cajoling, no rivalry between bands or fans, just loads of good music (and maybe a little crap…) with the chance of helping some hard working unknown musicians into the charts. And we don’t have to ask you to vote for us – just do it because you want to! Shweet.

I’m trying to do a poll a day and it’s a cool way to spend your time when you’re checking your emails or something. I’m actually on my 4th right now as I write this but hey, like I said, there’s some good stuff to be heard.

Oh and if you find something you really like then leave a comment on their Myspace or something, small compliments go a LONG way!

Here are the Storm The Charts Links:

• http://stormthecharts.com/ – Main Website
• http://justgiving.com/chartstorm – Fundraiser for endangered and strange creatures running alongside the campaign
• http://bit.ly/chartstorm – Facebook page
• http://stormthecharts.wordpress.com – Blog

And when you’ve done the important voting you should probably make sure you get down the polling station…

We found tiny little pictures of Dean in St Albans….

And Gem discovers that an undetected leaky pen can be perilous

AN ASIDE…

Ladies and Gentlemen, the recent radio silence and temporary suspension of the Enormous Project has been due to all energy and time being pumped into this, The Minds Ear Project:

http://www.mindsearproject.com

It’s not technically Snack but it’s definitely mungrul and it IS a positively gigantic project.

I may very well put the video we made of the recent trial day at the end of this very communique just to prove a point…

NATIONAL SNACK NEWS

Anyway, to business -- This Thursday sees National Snack and the Enormous Project #1 in the semi finals of the Battle of The Bands at The Horn in St Albans. While we know we don’t have the hugest following out that way, if you’re in the area then come down and make some hurrah!

As far as other news goes -- Enormous Project #3 is being compiled and recruited right now, Gem and myself are recording all over easter weekend  and gigs are being booked! Keep your eye on the blog for more flippant postings…

Full gig details here: http://www.nationalsnack.co.uk/live.shtml

Joe x

Here’s that video we made:

If you are rude to La Vikinga when she is trying to buy beer from you she will be unforgiving, she will be cut-throat and you will feel her wrath.

More, she will make obscene olive/mushroom men and leave them in your pub

So if YOU hear uncontrollable giggling coming from the corner of YOUR pub shortly after displaying shoddy human interaction skills with one of YOUR customers then you may be getting a visit from OBSCENE OLIVE MAN!!

You HAVE been warned.

PS. Gem would like to point out that after this photo was taken she made him a hat which apparently made him less sexually aggressive.

Please note: Many olives were hurt in the making of this photo and one mushroom will never be able to look it’s friends in the eyes again.

These pics prove two things:

1 – Gem’s hair was great last night

2- My phone camera struggles to cope with the amount of fluff and dust in my pockets…

This is the Mungrul Music Video we made back in January featuring Enormous Project #1:

It’s MUNGRUL MUSIC.

HOT HEAD SHOW | MySpace Music Videos

Yeah yeah the gig has passed, but we like the video. It was made on no budget, (and a tiny drop of alcohol), with the love and help of all the regular mungrul crew as well as many new faces. Thanks to everyone who got involved!

Saturday 20th March

The Cornerhouse

231 Newmarket Rd
Cambridge
CB5 8JE

This is a FREE gig, (optional donation to LMHR), and is run by R*E*P*E*A*T Fanzine, (They gave us a GREAT review of Apply Machine http://www.repeatfanzine.co.uk) and we’re onstage at about 10:20pm after a change in running order.

If you’re in Cambridge on Saturday then come down.

If you’re in London on Saturday then head down to The Windmill in Brixton where there’s  a Love Music Hate Racism gig going on.

Fuck Autotune.

Damn, my first ‘proper’ post on our new blog and I’ve broken the no swearing rule in the first sentence. And the second, technically.

FUCK autotune. And quantize.

If you don’t like bad language then I’d stop reading now.

For those of you who don’t know: autotune does what it says on the tin – it’s a way of digitally manipulating a sound file to bring it into tune and iron out imperfections or to pull a sung note to a different pitch/pitches entirely. Quantize is the same but for rhythms. Everyone seems to love it because it’s a clean and easy way of getting a ‘perfect’ take.Autotune/quantise is all over almost everything you will hear that has been produced recently. This applies to small artists like us and big acts, including some that maybe you wouldn’t expect it of such as early Foo Fighters.

I should say at this point that a heavily autotuned sound has evolved into a particular vocal style in it’s own right, (from humble beginnings on that Cher song), and I don’t have a problem with this at all – I personally don’t like it but it’s creative and it makes no attempt to sound natural. It’s a very synthesised/produced sound of vocal, like on Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger by Daft Punk, which no-one can deny is a kicking track. They and others are using the process to get a specific, desired sound. That’s not what I’m talking about.

What I am talking about is the routine use of  a piece of software to at best cover up mistakes and weak performances and at worst to make absolute gobshite performances from talentless dicks sound musically passable and, more importantly of course, saleable. THIS is bullshit and it goes against everything that music should be.

Good music should make you feel like you’re falling in love. There should be bits in music that make your knees buckle and your stomach churn. It might only be a few notes or beats in a song that get you but they should get you.

There aren’t any words to describe what happens, it just does. It might be anything, it depends what floats your boat musically, it might be the way a sonata progresses, it might be the tone of Leonard Cohens voice, the second chorus from some Chaz n Dave song, anything. For Gem it’s usually chord progressions and cadences, there’s one in particular that get’s her. For me it’s the way the guitar solo starts at about 1:26 of Hound Dog by Elvis, (it’s just filthy guitar playing), or most of John Bonham/Dave Grohls druming or the riff after the solo and at 3:59 in Pulse of The Maggots by Slipknot, (it’s just a filthy riff), or the way Aretha sings. Oh my GOD the way Aretha sings.  But you know that feeling right? Mildly akin to thinking your about to either fly or shit yourself.

This is what I want from my music. It’s a link between the musician/s and me that is absolutely unexplainable but communicates something about their experience of what it is to be alive. It makes me feel like a part of the human race, it makes me feel invincible and it makes me want to bang my head.

Autotune and quantise destroy this for me. One reason is that it makes the music sound too clean and almost inhuman which makes it pretty much impossible for me to connect with.

Another reason is that there is no real way to tell whether the musician or singer that you’re listening to is even any fucking good! When you listen to Elvis singing – he’s singing! He can really do that and he really is sexy! He’s a special human being who does that better than any of the rest of us. As are Billie Holliday, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson etc. etc. They are shithot and they move our souls. If you were in the room with Nina Simone or Motorhead and she/they played you a song you would hear some properly amazing music, (possibly not if it happened at the same time), but I’m not sure you would if you were (locked) in a room with Ronan Keating or N Dubz.

I want to know that the person I am listening to is a proper genius or at least phenomenal at what they do. I will happily take the odd mistake or lack of perfection if it means I know that the other 99.999% of what I’m hearing is as beautiful as I think it is and REAL!

Are we really all such a bunch of terrified consumer zombies that everything we hear needs to be corrected and sanitised first? I don’t think we are.

Music is the food of the soul, right? What happens when all the sustenance that your soul receives is dry, bland, correct and, frankly, soul-less? It’s the imperfections and nuances within the performance that makes each piece of music what it is – a human expression.

So fuck autotune. Right in the wrong’un.

The Storm The Charts Campaign is run and best explained by Wes White thusly:

“This is a chart campaign that ISN’T about another old song by a famous artist, or about getting a song to number one.

We’re looking for 40 bands and musicians on independent labels or completely unsigned, and when we’ve picked them, we’re going to see how many we can make chart in the same week.

We’ll call a ‘success’ finding some good new music; a ‘win’ getting 2 or more songs in the charts, and anything above that is epic – the more the better.

Sound fun? Want to help pick? We’ll need over a million people in the group to take every single slot, so for heaven’s sake invite your friends. We’re 1.4% of the way there…

Deadline to apply (for musicians) is 23rd March 2010, or before we get 1,000 bands in. http://bit.ly/storm_me”

We are lucky enough to have our song “Rock n Roll” posted up for consideration so join the group and get involved and with your help maybe we can add a chart postion feather to National Snack’s cap. How coll would THAT be???

Even disregarding our involvement this campaign appears to be great exampple of what the internet can do for musicians and listeners alike. The community spirit is awesome and the ability to rebel against the musical dross that we are forcefed is a beautiful thing!

If you are at all interested in the wealth of amazing music that is available on the unsigned scene, (I assume that you are or you wouldn’t be reading this), then join the facebook group, join your sub group and start checking out some of the bands and getting ready to vote and download to storm the charts with some real music.

The list of bands so far is available here: http://stormthecharts.livejournal.com/ bands are listed in the order we applied, it is not a chart or leaderboard.

Get Storming!

Thanks to Sergio for the pics