Once a day I will share any media pertaining to Silverchair that I have come across on the web. If you have come across something that I may have missed…or even if it is old you can email it to me at silverneurotic@gmail.com.
First off today I would like to thank fellow Silverchair fan Laura for emailing me with a few links. Thanks Laura! I appreciated the help.
If you are Australian, you might want to pick up the most recent edition of Jmag, the radio station Triple J’s sister magazine. It seems they are doing a feature on Daniel Johns and Bernard Fanning of Powderfinger so it’ll be surely worth the read (and the cover is quite a piece of eye candy to boot). However, if you can’t get a hold of the magazine, you can still get a taste of it here.
The Australian newspapers are also running a couple of Silverchair/Powderfinger stories related to their Across the Great Divide tour that is going on now in Australia. The Courier-Mail has an article about the Brisbane show for example and the rock music blog Faster Louder.com.au has an article about the show at Coffs Harbor.
Apart from the tour talk, I also came across yet another review for Young Modern from PinoyBlogosphere.com. I suspect that it is a reprint from a previous review, but without going into my archives I can’t be sure, it just sounds a bit familiar at any rate.
Once again, thank you for the emailed links Laura, it was a slow news day and I probably wouldn’t have much at all without those articles.
A request, please scroll down to this entry and let me know your opinion. I would really appreciate any feedback!
Now that I have a focus on this blog and have a general idea of what sort of direction I’d like to go in, I would like to hear from you, the readers. I was thinking of having, in addition to the daily round up post, a weekly feature. For example, one day I will post up an opinion piece related to something I have read or some controversial topic I’ve seen being debated (related to Silverchair of course) then the next day something else, and so on. I would like to have something like this 3-5 days a week.
So far I’ve come up with several ideas and I would like your feedback…some of the ideas will require reader participation for example…so it’s important for me to hear your opinions.
So far I’ve thought of:
- A weekly opinion piece (eg. the Paul Mac debate)
- “Bootleg Video” Day (collection of concert vids from YouTube)
- Question Day (readers submit their Silverchair questions)
- Interview a fan day (Every week I will interview one volunteer fan)
- ??? (Suggestions please!)
Please give me feedback on this, either drop me a comment on this post, or email me directly at SilverNeurotic@gmail.com. Thanks!
Once a day I will share any media pertaining to Silverchair that I have come across on the web. If you have come across something that I may have missed…or even if it is old you can email it to me at silverneurotic@gmail.com.
I’ve got lots of stuff to share today, some of it might be a tad old but still quite interesting:
The Australian media seems to be pleased to have The Boys back home in Australia. The Herald Sun featured an article about the new Silverchair single/video. In the article, Daniel Johns speaks somewhat candidly with dealing with his OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and how this ailment gave him some fuel for several of the songs on Young Modern. The Herald Sun also ran an article in which Daniel discusses the disaster which was Silverchair’s appearance on Jay Leno’s show, Australian Idol, his sexuality, and the controversy he caused recently when he mentioned smoking pot with Peter Garratt, rocker turned politician and Bono, the front man for U2.
Also found today in terms of articles, on the Silverchair Forum someone posted scans of a guitar magazine in Australia that featured Daniel Johns. (You will have to scroll down a bit for the links).
As far as reviews go, today was a fairly decent day. I was FINALLY directed to the Allmusic review of Young Modern which is definitely worth a read. Also, at the blog, Twelve Major Chords, there is an overview of the video for “If You Keep Losing Sleep”
And last but not least, if you are looking for some Silverchair vids, Soundgasms is the place you want to check up. They have several Silverchair videos up from recent gigs that band has done.
Instead of posting each thing I find on the ‘net separately as I have been doing…from now on I will do one daily post of any relevant Silverchair stuff, from any articles, interviews, videos, etc.
We start off with an extremely poor review of Young Modern from a person who is obviously still stuck in the 90’s and doesn’t understand that music just doesn’t have to follow a certain formula. For someone that writes music reviews, he seems extremely old fashioned and close minded. One can only hope he reads my little essay from the other day.
We then travel to a more positive note with articles from both The Daily Telegraph and The Australian regarding the band’s return to their native Australia. This show kicked off the band’s team-up with Powderfinger for the “Across the Great Divide” Australian tour. The show was also significant as it celebrated the band’s one year anniversary on Myspace, which was celebrated by a competition for fans to win tickets to the show. You can read more about the show on the Silverchair Myspace Blog.
After you have finished with the present, we will now jump into our trusty little time machine and travel back to the year 1996 where you can listen to a Triple J interview with Daniel Johns and Ben Gillies thanks to the wonders of You Tube. I am still curious as to why an all audio interview is on You Tube…but who’s complaining? Click to listen to part one, two and three.
Today was an exciting day for Silverchair fans as the band’s official website Chairpage premiered the third music video If You Keep Losing Sleep from the band’s fifth studio album, Young Modern. The song should be hitting the air September third and be available to buy on September 6. You can stream the video for free here.
The video, directed by the same fellows who directed the video for Reflections of a Sound is an interesting blend of ballet, marching bands, and other strange oddities that you usually would not see in a rock video. It is very entertaining, though, you might wonder if you are tripping on some odd drug. Personally, I think it’s quite entertaining and although it seems very weird, the band somehow manages to pull it off without seeming TOO ridiculous.
To be honest, I wasn’t exactly thrilled when I heard that If You Keep Losing Sleep was to be a single as it’s one of the more experimental tracks on Young Modern and might not be taken very seriously…which would be a shame after the successes of Straight Lines and Reflections of a Sound but after seeing the video, I think it’s got the potential to get the right kind of attention, at least on television.
I have been keeping a close eye on reviews for Young Modern and Silverchair’s recent gigs, partially for this blog, and partially out of pure interest. I have been pleased that most of the reviews that I have come across have been good but of course there’s always a couple of reviews that were negative, or worse, mixed.
Although I disagree with the negative reviews, I kind of have to respect them…Silverchair is just not for everyone and at least the reviewer did take the time to listen to the album. You can’t ask for more, especially as Silverchair always had this tendency to get overlooked in the press, at least the press outside of Australia.
The mixed reviews get to me however…mainly for the fact that it always seems that it’s a mixed review for the same reason. Expectations. The reviewer always seems to makes a statement along the lines of…well, the album was decent, but I was expecting it to sound more like their older stuff, or more like Nirvana or Coldplay, etc. These statements annoy me, especially referring to Silverchair’s music.
Over the years, I think that Daniel Johns has proven that he is not willing to fall into a trap of creating a “sound” for the band…sure, they do have a few signature sounds that do repeat themselves in several albums such as orchestrations and techno sounding effects, but they just aren’t the primary focus of Silverchair’s music.
I feel reviewers do themselves a disservice when they sit down to listen to a new album and instead of listening to the music with an open and clear mind, they go into a listening project with these preconceived expectations of what the album should sound like based on previous albums. When they do this, they are missing a key element as to why Silverchair is such a great band…and that makes me sad.
So just some advice for any music reviewers who might stumble upon this little essay of sorts…next time you listen to any piece of music to review it…before you turn on the music, do your best to clear your mind of those expectations that are floating ’round your head. You will have a better listening experience that way and truly begin to understand what the music is about.
I began the Unofficial Silverchair Blog sometime last month as a labor of love. At first it was great. I enjoyed seeking out news, articles, interviews, etc. about the band and posting it on here in hopes of attracting interest in the band. In my mind, it was a way of giving back to a band that did so much for me over the years.
However, I am growing bored of the project that I have undertaken…mainly because it has become such an impersonal project. Aside from my love of the band, I don’t often let “me” come through on this blog. I am just its casual contributer. So that is going to stop.
I considered just closing down the blog altogether. But instead, I am keeping it…the old posts will stay intact. I will continue posting news and all that as I did before…however, it will be formatted differently and the primary focus of the blog will be my own writings on Silverchair related topics. Writing is something that I am passionate about (and frankly, good at) and I feel as though I am doing a great disservice by being an impartial contributer to this blog.
Keep your eyes on this blog.
From Aloud.com:
Having seen the guys playing at Lollapalooza in Chicago the weekend before, I was looking forward to seeing the band in their own right – playing for longer and hopefully a little more of the old stuff.
(continue reading)
From FasterLouder.com.au:
Powderfinger and Silverchair fans have thrown their full weight behind the band’s Across the Great Divide tour with tix to teh Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brissie shows selling out in 30 mins. Promoters have added second dates to the tour to cope with demand.
(continue reading)
From iProng:
On episode #45, co-hosts Bill Palmer and Dana Sanders interview Chris Joannou from the Australian chart-topping band Silverchair. Chris joins us from a tour stop in Paris, France to discuss the surprising success of Silverchair’s new album Young Modern in the United States after a long absence from the U.S. charts, which influences Silverchair relies on most heavily these days, the band’s recent experiences at Lollapalooza in Chicago, and more.
(Listen Now)
