YBSA…The End

The rumour is true. I know this…because I started it.

YOURBANDSOUTHAFRICA is no longer.

Between Steve, Clauds and I we have decided to call it quits. “Why?” you may ask, “Why stop now at the pinicle of your reviewing career and at a time when SA music is better than it has ever been?” may run through your thoughts. Well…in true Steve Stevens style, like true champions, we decided to quit while we’re ahead. It doesn’t feel as good as people say. It’s kind of sad really.

So now is the time for all the thank you’s, we’ll miss you’s, it’s been great’s and all that jazz. In all honesty…it has. It’s been the most awesome time really. We have made so many friends and enemies it’s hard to keep up! From the music that made our ears bleed to the incredible, and usually unknown, bands that give us full hope that SA music is going to be a global phenominon. We are so honored to have been a part of something so much bigger than what we thought we were getting ourselves into, and greatful that you have all let us be honest about our experiences and been so receptive to all our crazy ideas and antics.

What will we take with us? Everything from the makeshift MySpace site in the “old” YOURBANDSUCKSASS days with our Wall of Shame, Suckass bands, Worst song ever to the YOURBANDSOUTHAFRICA days of Kickass band, Dirty band boys and girls, Send a rand to save a band, the revealing of the true Steve Stevens. We were treated like royalty which was kinda weird while on other occassions our opinions were insulted…sometimes to the point of threats to shut down our site. We had a kickass birthday party; reviewed over 100 bands in less than a year; hung out back stage; got free tickets to gigs; free CDs; got to write for some top SA music sites and see our names in “neon”. Wow…so many more things…you just need to take a look through the reviews – they are all there – every gig…

Whats happening now?

You will still be seing the odd review here and there, so keep an eye out. We will still be hanging out at gigs – it is still a true passion. We are all on Facebook, so please friend request us as we want to keep in contact with everyone who shares in our love for the SA music scene. Individually:

STEVE STEVENS is going to bum around in the appartment he bought after winning a lucky game of poker at Monte Casino and is going to drink beer and get fat and…He doesn’t really exist, so we’ll leave it at that.

CLAUDIA COUTSIDES is going to be travelling to the UK – their music scene has NO idea of what they are in for.

KERRY-ANNE FALLER (me)…I am busy working and also managing a band called Finding Noah (a YBSA recommendation – it had to be done!).

We have full confidence that all our kick ass bands are going to do just that…kick some serious ass! You know who you are!

Now for some big THANK YOUs that really have to be done…these people are all really cool in our books!

The bands. All of you.The good ones, the bad ones, the questionable ones…we love you all – it was because of you guys and for all you guys that we did this.
The band members of the kick ass bands – continue writing, loving, inspiring…it’s a hard industry with little support and money but it can be done!
The band members of the suck ass bands – support the scene…quit your band (that’s a comment from Steve)
Candice and Deane…BIG THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! For the good times. For the drinks. For dealing with our silliness…none of this could have been marginally possible without you guys.
The managers…Tash, Cher, Morgan – you are doing some amazing stuff, thank you for including us in everything.
“Our” bands, Evolver and Voodoo Child – thank you for making us feel like part of what you are doing.
The Parlotones for keeping us endlessly entertained with their awesome interviews. Glen, for always being willing to help out in any way.
Gareth (Gravity Wins Again) for being such a big fan with such a big heart and for keeping such a big secret. You are going to do so well.
Klement (Vile Minds) for hooking us up with the cool friend request program…we salute you in the name of spam.
Stay Astray…thanks for playing at our party.
The Privates…for never complaining about being on our Wall of Shame from Day 1.
Bel…our Durban/International reviewer – your writing put ours to shame.
Erin…for being Steve’s girlfriend. Ha ha.
Richard (Music Industry Online) – we’re still available for concerts…we’ll keep in touch. YBSA loves www.mio.co.za
Lesedi (Next Movement) for seeing the potential – sorry it all happened too late…we will keep you updated – things can only get bigger from here! (www.nextmovement.co.za)
There are so many people to thank, and I know it sounds lame, but EVERYONE who had a part to play – especially the band members who were always our most loyal fans.
I really hope I havent missed anyone. Oh man. Steve wouldn’t care, but we do.

So that’s it.
That was YBSA.
See you around…

Regards,
Steve

P.S. Check out the last review. It’s of the myepic EP posted in the YOURBANDSOUTHAFRICA group.

The Parlotones “A World Next Door To Yours” Album Launch

We arrived at the launch slightly later than we bargained for due to the grim weather conditions, making it just in time. The rain didn’t stop anyone as the venue was absolutely packed. It might have been more comfortable for most members of the crowd if fewer tickets had been sold, but who cares about comfort? The Parlotones were about to take to the stage and that’s all that mattered!

We spent the first 15 minutes pushing our way to the front of the stage to get a better view. We got sworn at, elbowed and stood on, but eventually succeeded and landed a sweet spot right next to the stage. The stage, as well as everything (and we mean EVERYTHING) on it was covered in tin foil. All the instruments, stands, amps, mics, wires, even some beer bottles had been covered. Glen even had a tin foil tie on at some point. It was like the aluminium version of King Midas. Between the foil and the screens all over the room – the setting was great and really effective. If you have any questions about the foil, check out the new album cover and it will all come together.

The guys played two sets mixing much loved songs from their previous album “RadioControlledRobot” in with their new material. It was such an awesome vibe that it’s difficult to say whether the band or the crowd were having a better time. Kahn pulled out his signature dance moves, which kept everyone endlessly entertained. Some people joined in – including two young versions of Kahn who can now add ‘role model’ and ‘trend setter’ to his credit.

Local musicians joined in the fun, including Sean Murphy from Evolver, who assisted Glen on keyboards for most the songs. He also did backing vocals, wore the make-up, styled his hair and tin foiled out his keyboards, making him the honorary Parlotone for the night. Other artists included one of the girls from Electro Muse, Cito (who was around to hit some of the high notes), Martin and Danny from Wonderboom. There was also a children’s choir who unfortunately couldn’t really be heard above the huge crowd, but added to the effect.

It can’t be put it more plainly – this album is going to be a hit! We weren’t sure how they were going to match up to RadioControlledRobot, but this album does it. The songs are a step in a slightly more mature direction with the sound just as distinctive. The lyrics have a different type of substance, more of a storyline and a common thread throughout. Musically, it is addictive and the songs complete each other almost in the same way as a good movie soundtrack would.

Once the band had disappeared back stage, it seemed for a moment they were going to skip the encore. It took a desperate plea from an audience member who climbed on stage, grabbed a mic, and begged for another song. The band came back and sang “Louder than Bombs” followed by their current single “Giant Mistake”. Throughout these last songs, a couple of crazy fans (the Kahn look-alikes) were jumping around on stage and singing along, much to the amusement of, well, just about everybody there!

On our way out in the early hours of Friday morning, the guys were still signing everything from albums covers to lower backs and there were still quite few people waiting their turn. The evening was over way too soon, and the most anticipated album launch of 2007 was a great success. If you haven’t got your album yet, you are leaving it way too late…

Reviewed by Kez & Clauds

YBSA – MIO Interview

MIO article about YBSA
Current mood: excited
Category: Music

Your Band Sucks Ass! ™
Author: Richard Rumney

YBSA (Your Band Sucks Ass) is a Myspace site with a difference. It aims at promoting local SA music, particularly rock and alternative, and shaming those local bands and musicians who essentially suck ass. It’s evolved into quite a popular Myspace site, and has made the leap onto Facebook. MIO spoke to Steve, Claudia and Kez the founders and spokesman (or should I rather say ladies)of the site about the essence of YBSA.

Richard: Explain the concept behind YBSA in a nutshell. You would seem to be an online publication, focused on local bands, providing gig guides, gig reviews, and of course your weekly KICKASS and SUCKASS band profiles, and monthly DIRTY BAND BOY and HOT BAND CHICK profiles. Elaborate on this a bit and tell us how long you’ve been up and running.

STEVE: I was born in January after an unfortunate experience with a “band” called White Rabbit. No one should be subjected to such torture and I felt it my duty to inform as many people as possible – learn from others mistakes and all that. Usually I feel bad crushing a group of white skinny kid’s dreams of playing the big stages, but sometimes the public needs to step in. The more time I spent avoiding White Rabbit, the more I realised that there were other really scary bands out there that should be avoided at all costs…

CLAUDS: YBSA is basically a space where people can openly express their opinions on local and international music. We do try to keep the focus on the local bands as much as possible though, they need the promotion far more than the international acts do.

Reviews are a great way to introduce others to new bands and bands from different areas. We review all the gigs we attend and encourage people to send in their own reviews. We post all the reviews we receive, whether we agree with them or not.

KEZ: When we started reviewing we realised that we had quite a powerful medium and dedicated ourselves to promoting bands that we thought deserved the publicity. We started on the bigger, more commercial bands and then moved towards the more unknown ones. There is so much talent roaming around and felt that if no one else is going to help these bands…we will stand up to the plate.

What makes the site successful is the balance we have between the good (Kickass band, Gig Guide, Give a Rand, Reviews, Dirty Band Boy, Hot Band Chick, etc) and the bad (Wall of Shame, Suckass band, Profile Song, Comments, and of course our pet white rabbit “Suckass”). It is an interactive site where anyone can nominate bands for any of our features and even trade bands off the Wall Of Shame.

Richard: Unlike other online publications you started as a Myspace page, and now have a parallel Facebook group, so you seem to essentially have gone the social networking route as opposed to other online publications that have a hosted website. Aside from the fact that this is a cheaper way to go, what are the advantages to having a social networking based online publication?

STEVE: I like anything that’s free. Bands don’t have money and someone would have to support our online publication in one way or another. Talk about choosing the poorest industry on the planet to promote.

CLAUDS: Since most bands already have Myspace pages it is a lot easier to get them and their fans involved with the page, all we need to do is send out a friend request. If we were a stand alone website it would be much more difficult getting the bands and individuals attention.

KEZ: The page really started as a private joke, this evolved into an email address and then into a MySpace site. The Facebook site is more of a marketing tool as Steve is no fan of the Facebook. Because we do this out of our passion for SA music, we don’t need a certain amount of “friends” or “group members” to keep it going. Page hits have dropped slightly since the whole Facebook boom, but it is still an increasingly popular site – especially among the more unknown bands. These bands now have a chance to show their name on a page visited by their target audience without having to approach recording companies or promoters.

Richard: Explain why you decided to create YBSA. A lot would seem to do with the promotion of SA music.

CLAUDS: The original concept of YOURBANDSUCKSASS was to call out all those awful bands who give SA music a bad name! But it has actually evolved into something very different, although we do still have the wall of shame and the SUCKASS band of the week, more focus is put on promoting the good SA music.

KEZ: Promotion wasn’t actually our initial concept. When we realised how big the site had grown – partly through attention from the bands – we thought it would be a good idea to give back. This wasn’t really a decision we made…things just seemed to move in that direction.

Richard: Tell us a little about the give a rand to help a band project.

STEVE: Most bands are pretty broke, and sometimes stuck living at home with their mommies until they are in their 30′s, I figured this would be a cool way to help them out. Unfortunately this concept hasn’t made a cent, never mind a rand.

KEZ: When you spend as much time as we do waiting for bands to begin their performance, you start discussing things like their looks, styles, bums and outfits. We’re girls – we can’t help it. There are a few bands that, although individually there isn’t always something wrong with what they are wearing, as a band, just aren’t pulling it off. This is where we thought we could help. Being pretty poor and spending all our hard earned cash on gigs, we could only beg on the bands behalf.

CLAUDS: The basic idea is that bands can approach us if there is something they are trying to raise money for (equipment, petrol money, clothes, eyeliner, anything really) and we will then run a campaign of sorts informing people about their plight and asking them to donate money. Hopefully one day we will actually be able to help one of the bands out with something they need…

Richard: Are you open to any genres of SA music? Although your name suggests only bands, would you be open to writing and promoting music such as House and other electronic music?

STEVE: House music sucksass! And electronic music. And White Rabbit.

CLAUDS: We are open to all genres and in actual fact I have recently been approaching people who review artists in other areas of the industry to get a bit more variety on the site. As long as it has to do with music we are happy to promote it.

KEZ: We are BIG rock music fans though, so this will always be the core of the site. The more the site changes, blog updates, ideas, influences there are, the more people get interested and the more the bands get promoted. It’s a win win situation – but we will always go back to what we know.

Richard: Tell us about your favorite Kickass band of the week, one that has made you proud of South African music.

CLAUDS: It’s no secret that we love The Parlotones, they continue to make us, and the rest of SA, very proud.

KEZ: The Parlotones!! I love this band…read all my reviews. Also loving Evolver – the most under rated band in the country – they really are good. (And they have some good-looking boys!)

Richard: And your favorite Suckass band of the week, one that has had your readers in stitches.

STEVE: Steve Hofmyr… I don’t like to share anything, not even my name!

CLAUDS: White Rabbit! After all, it was while they were performing that we came up with the idea for YBSA!

KEZ: Boabab – they’re just lucky we saw White Rabbit first.

Richard: So be warned: If you’re out there and you’re out there playing gigs and you suck, YBSA will put you in your place. But if you’re kicking ass, they’ll let you know you’re doing a good job.

Go to www.myspace.com/makeitstop to check out YBSA

Source: http://www.mio.co.za/article.php?cat=16&id=1052

Ampli5, The Dome, Joburg, 10 Aug 07

I knew something big was happening when I got both an email AND an SMS from Clauds at the same time. After having girls hitting on our boy Steve for the last eight months – this could be serious.

Serious stuff alright…A free ticket to Ampli5! Yes, FREE! I would normally pay any amount (of money) to see skinny white boys rocking it out on a stage, but my credit card wasn’t being so giving – so this was fantastic news!

Slightly sceptical as to why tickets were on a “buy one, get one free” basis, I handed in my half day leave form for the 10th and overdosed on Jimmy Eat World in preparation for a good old sing-a-long.

We arrived at around 2:30 and seemed to be the 10th-ish car there which was quite worrying, but understandable when you organise a festival styled concert on a working day (why???). The Golden Circle was about three times bigger than the norm, which was odd, but when pretty much anyone could walk in, it made more sense. Thanks for the heads up on that one – you know who you are…

The sound was a bit better than it was at Fall Out Boy, which was nice. The general feeling (mine) is that this is far from the ideal venue for rock concerts and I really think the organisers and other heavies in the industry should be thinking of other venues. If you build it – they will come. Okay, not so easy – I get it.

One more thing before I get to the bands – what was with that music they were playing between sets? Did I miss something? Did they realises that some of those songs were older that the average age of the crowd? Some songs were older than the collective age of the crowd, but that must have been an honest mistake.

We arrived while Dorp were playing and decided from just outside the door that we liked what we heard. The singer had a bit of a British accent going on, so before seeing their name splashed all over the screen, it was all very top, top, tea and scones, do you know the queen, blah, blah. They were a great band to watch and should have more exposure in the commercial scene here and overseas.

Max Normal TV was an act that I was so glad I caught. Still as controversial as ever, Waddy has collaborated with some very talented people, and despite different artists and influences from the original band, his unique sound is very distinguishable. This is not just a gig – it’s an entire audio visual and extremely entertaining experience. A real indication as to how technology has taken music to a new height. You really have to concentrate to catch all the words, images (some quite questionable), intentions and meanings behind their songs and then you will realise why you don’t hear much of them on the radio. Behind their over produced international style, they are undeniably South African and sing a few full songs and bits of others in Afrikaans. If they are ever playing in your area, go see them. You are in for a big surprise with this one. CONCIEVE, BELIEVE, ACHIEVE. Genius.

The YoungBlood Brass Band were my least favourite act of the night. I don’t mind jazz (on a Sunday afternoon, in a restaurant), but I really wanted them to stop after about two songs. Things went a bit “otherwise” when the drummer decided that it would be a great idea to rap. It wasn’t. Leave that to Waddy or Linkin Park.

Fokofpoliesikar have an energy that fills up a room from the second they start playing. I love watching these guys live and they seemed to initiate the whole rock atmosphere for the evening, which most people responded to. These are the dirty band boys your mom warned you about. Just cant get enough of them though.

If you want to turn an evening into a success story, you invite The Parlotones along. Yes, yes, I know you are tired of me telling of their brilliance – but they got it right. Again. Most of the crowd started arriving at around this time, so the venue started to look like there was actually something happening. This was also the time to stroll into the Golden Circle at get up close. It can’t be easy to play for a crowd eagerly awaiting another artist (Jimmy), but these guys rose up to the occasion and left the crowd wanting more. As they do. Because they’re so good.

If it wasn’t for Jimmy Eat World, the still quite pitiful crowd (for an international act) would have been a bunch of hippies and a couple of hangers on. They have been the biggest name surrounding the concert, and if it wasn’t for a group on Facebook called “Whose going to Ampli5 for no other reason than to watch Jimmy Eat World?”, most people would have no idea they were playing in Joburg.

They were fantastic! The singer, Jim Adkins, gave out an incredible amount of energy that he got straight back from the now slightly bigger crowd. They were everything I expected and can see why they have made a dent in the music world. Their set wasn’t long enough though – I was really getting into it.

The first time I saw the Violent Femmes almost two years ago, I thought the guys on stage were roadies until they started performing – they do not fit the profile whatsoever. One guy looks like a convicted felon and the other a truck driver. Enough of that though, these guys make some powerful music with the bare essentials. The drummer is amazing in the way he uses half a drum kit and jumps all over the place while playing. Their strong bass lines had the crowd mesmerised and their more commercial songs got a huge response. They did get a bit “experimental” at times, but I would still put jumping around to American Music and Blister in the Sun on every rock fan’s list of Top 101 things to do before you die.

We left somewhere between Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” and Beethoven’s “5th” that were being played before Groove Armada got on stage, so we missed out on anything happening after that. I also had to work the next morning which kind of cut the night short, but I still had a fantastic time and took some good memories and bad photos out of it all. Looking forward to the next one.