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ATARI TEENAGE RIOT - DOES WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN
They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and I suspect someone has also said you shouldn’t judge a band by its name. I don’t know who’d like to take credit for it, but until someone steps forward I’ll claim it for now.
Fuji Rock is not only a great time to see your favourite bands, but also an excellent opportunity to discover new ones as well.
As the line ups have been progressively announced I’ve found myself checking out a few completely unknown (to me, at least) bands on the list. As I’ve done so I’ve found that I’ve been rather judgmental. I seem to check out the bands with the most interesting names first. Which is odd, right? After all, it’s all about the music isn’t it?
But the truth of the matter is that if you don’t get introduced to a band by listening to their tracks first, you don’t have much else to go by. Unless you have a picture, which opens up a whole new level of shallow: “How hot is their guitarist? Hmmmm.”
Of course going by name has its risks. You may be in for some serious disappointment, because there are no rules when it comes to name giving. A really tough, death metalesque title may lead you to some fluffy pop trio which, may not be bad, but perhaps not what you’re looking for.
And then there’s bands like Atari Teenage Riot that give you exactly what you expect – something hard, raw, digital and kind of nostalgic.
It’s not all bad though, there are pleasant surprises as well. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart aren’t the whiney emo band I was anticipating. They’re more light indie pop and Phil can tell you more about them.
My personal discovery this time was British Sea Power. The name positively oozes British indie rock and yet, I still couldn’t picture what they were like at all. Which made listening to them all the better. Their sound varies from track to track and I got visions of Blur, Bloc Party, The Cure and Glasvegas all engaged in conversation at a cocktail party together drinking blueberry soup and eating green peas. Then again, that may just be the excessive amounts of kimchi I ate last night talking. What’s your take?
Regardless of names and the bias that comes along with them, I’m looking forward to discovering more great bands during the festival and hopefully my enjoyment of the music will be untainted by my judgemental eyes. Oh. That is unless I find that hot guitarist I mentioned first. Although, I don’t want to seem shallow – a cute bassist works just fine as well.
