So Earwig 'will be bringing you new acts breaking through via the world of MySpace'? Complete bollocks as far as I can see. All of the bands currently featured on this page are signed to artist management companies, have professional pluggers and bookers working for them - that's why they're featured here. One of them is actually signed to Mercury, a subsiduary of the Universal Music Group who have a distribution contract with MySpace Records - go figure!

Basement Films (a non-profit organisation) met the fantastic Kelly and the Kellygirls, from Toronto, on MySpace at the end of last year. We are the real deal - never mind Lily-bloody-Allen - working completely independently on a project that simply wouldn't have been possible without that initial connection on MySpace! In 2007 we jointly organised a successful 21 date UK tour, made a video for their song Ferris Wheel, and are currently working on a documentary about the experience. None of this is making anyone any money. We've been doing it purely for the love of music, like most MySpace artists.

We've been in contact with MySpace several times to try and get them featured artist status. The automated response we got was a telling off about 3rd party endorsements and a threat to suspend our account. Nobody even bothered to read the email. Earwig haven't even deigned to reply to us yet. My theory is that they won't reply unless you do in fact have some credible management behind you. That they aren't actually interested in supporting new music but in making money, looking for an easy buck where someone else has done the development.

I'd be very interested to find out what other people think about this.

In the mean time, check out the ferris wheel video and tell me these guys aren't fantastic!


Have a great New Year, one and all!

We're unsigned too, and mange ourselves.....and we're off on tour with Yeti (ex-Libertines John Hassall) in Jan/Feb through hard work and music running through our veins.

Nigel.

The Foxes.


"vibrant songs and a
blistering stage show.....the search for a great British rock band is over"
British music journalist legend Chris Welch - read the entire review here:
http://www.repertoire.de/aboutus/frameset_chriscorner.htm

"The Foxes confidence is not unfounded. Its been just over a year since the band played their first live gig, and already they've caught the attention of NME, XFM and Creation records founder Alan McGee, who signed Oasis and Primal Scream. But most importantly, as their rapidly growing fan base shows, they've caught the attention of the public." Read the full review here http://www.swsixteen.com/content/view/177/295/

"The noise made by the crowd as the band leave the stage says it all; The Foxes have a bright future ahead of them. Expect to hear them all over the radio soon and see them headlining much bigger shows." Carl Fisher, Ents24.com http://www.ents24.com/web/news.html?id=00024507

It nice to know there are some good independent people around who dont think 'whats the quickest way to wank off nme'. Your message really gave me hope because i love independently made music and feel that if its not join the dots nonsence and can sell a million copies then it wont appear. You have my full support and wish you every luck!

yeah i get what your saying, It is a bummer when you see average bands getting plugged with cash behind them. But hey they never last.
It could be worse, your pals band could have been stupid enough to sign up to that utterly ridiculous t mobile Unsigned competition. YAY Lets all suck major ass infront of a pack of judges like fucking x factor knobs for several weeks in the hope that we win a competition for £60, 000 WOW, gee thats gonna go far between a few band members trying to make a record and get on the road, and then when you sign the deal the T mobile or whoever the fuck is behind it basically owns your whole catalogue cuz you have signed the worst contract in history and the best part is no other band on yuor label will want to know yuo or respect yuo because yuo will always be the lame competition band.
Even better if you dont win and yuo come second yuo are the dipshit band who didnt even win the comp.
Yeah it could be worse.
Oh by the way we are playing Nambucca in London this firday night.
laters
John Drake

Well said. Although I do feel it's not necessary to say it as all of these things are just another nail in the coffin for real new music. Take the annual Great Escape event in Brighton; that was originally started as a showcase for indie (independent) bands along the lines of the Camden Crawl but was high jacked by corporate, money-focussed wasters who turned it into a back-scratching exercise for the latest media darlings.

Excellent that there's people like you still doing it for the right reasons. Don't give up!

Wow! Go on girls! I can feel a revolution coming through these message boards.. It's astonishing that there is not one single comment with a good thing to say about this whole Earwiggy thing.. It seems to smell of fish, that's all I can gather.. I also totally agree about the TMobile unsigned comment, it was deep-throat at it's ugliest..

Well, as it appears to have turned into an opportunity to plug one's wares, it'd be rude not to:

HOOVER MANOEUVRES - we are unsigned, unbridled, independent & totally self funded. Electro fused dance inspired kinda folk with stompingly fine tracks & a kick ASS live show. Wading our way through the back scratching, corporate invaded music industry (although isn't that where we all wanna be, really?). Our music: we create it, our gigs: we find them, our videos: we film them, we make phone calls, we write emails, we grovel, we plug, we network & spread the word. We command the stage, we capture the imagination, we strive for recognition, we dream & we do this all ourselves. We love it, we hate it. We are HOOVER MANOEUVRES.

xx

Basement: Love Kelly & the Kelly girls vid - nice one :)

we're currently looking for management.
check us out.

"So Earwig 'will be bringing you new acts breaking through via the world of MySpace'? Complete bollocks as far as I can see. All of the bands currently featured on this page are signed to artist management companies, have professional pluggers and bookers working for them - that's why they're featured here."

Money talks, my friend.

So does NME, though that mainly talks a load of crap. This "earwig" is a nice idea in theory, maybe it will improve with time?

Dude

Agree with totally, its all rubbish!

Go out and check www.slicethepie.com!

Way better and purely for new and unsigned music! Plus you get reviews for your music by the General public Free!!

Zenyth

ooh get you! please stop. I would probably have listened to what you had to say if it was someone else saying these things about basement films, but you were biggin yourself up so im gonna ignore you. its not about who can be the best at promoting new bands, its about the music, and the musicians' dreams to have people hear their music.

First of all i'd like to say well done to the foxes performance down in southampton supporting Yeti, i was extremely impressed.

Secondly and perhaps more relevant, is that i am concerned as to how you could ever look at a band and not take into account myspace plays, when sometimes, bands are either too young to get spotted or just aren't taken seriously.

I am 17 years old and the lead singer of a velvet underground/television personalities inspired band, and after spending 6 years of my life dedicated to gig going, i can honestly say i have never seen our local venue in as much need for change as now.

Why is it that the first band on every time is a Bring Me The Horizon orientated rock quartet with each member the proud owner of a jet black box fringe? And where on earth do they think they are going to get by squealing down a microphone for 30 minutes?

Our local venue The Joiners refuse to give us gigs because they take one look at our amount of myspace plays and assume that we are musically inept, so why on earth should your promotions company think any different?

In reality within three days we had been on xfm twice and got 5, 000 profile views in just over a week, since then, and with little or no help from local venues we have been left with only three gigs.

I just cannot see how a promotions company could genuinely assess the talent of a band without taking into account the amount of plays that they have been getting, when lets face it, 90% of bands use a fucking friend adder anyway.

I'll be interested to hear you response to be honest, have a listen to the music and tell us what you think.

thanks

jake xx

To MILOKART.
You’ve just said the same thing as Basement did in essence. You’re saying that music should be about how good the band is, yes, thats what Basement is saying and saying it shouldnt be about money so your point makes no sense at all.
Also, anyone could say that Basement was ’bigging him/herself up’ but wasn’t that the point of his/her comment? Basement was saying that music is controlled by industry, not ears, and by promoting Basement it showed that this is the only way some people can get through. I know what it’s like to struggle for attention, and the music industry is harsh, but I don’t think much can be done except keep smaller companies running. Where do NME go when they want new music? Teenagers or they look at sites such as yourself and pass the ’find’ as their own.
x

Stop bitching Ill say quite simply and get on with it...........

it’s nice to see some people agree that the point of myspace has been lost in translation somewhere along the line... myspace music at least. We’ve got professional musicians and "celebrities" sticking their adverts and links to their pages everywhere and anywhere on the site. What’s the point of people putting up their own music, much of which is better than the mainstream bands on site, if we’re going to be suffocated by the larger bands. Myspace should be focusing on discovering new, unheard groups not the same mainstream, one hit wonders that we’re now seeing pop up everywhere.

there seems a whole heap of sites, competitions etc springing up, check out road to V also, they have just completly messed up by posting the winners page up (a whole month before the winners were meant to be announced) which has caused a whole load of discontent amongst the bands that have tried to win that thing genuinely. Basically that site has been found out for fixing it. Very funny though.... hope they all ditch Virgin for that the cheeky bastards. I know of one competition that seems fair and thats a little known site called band republic. They only have 8 bands at a time, which makes it a lot easier to get noticed, and the winning band gets voted for, the single gets voted for and they get to have their single released. From what i know about it, and its not an awful lot, they only sign the winning band to a one single deal and then return the rights back to the band after two months. The best thing about them is that they do loads of live gigs as well. Most at universitys i think... anyway, enough about them. Comeon earwig, get your act together, lets start hearing about those new unsigned bands that you have disvcovered? where are they, can we hear em? see em? buy their record? or are they just bands that have paid to be featured on your site? anyway, who knows, suppose we will never know. I just wanna do my thing, carry on doing my thing, hope that i get my chance soon... as i suppose we all do, just wish we didnt have to crawl through all of these websites promising us the earth just so they get their numbers up and ad revenue up... i know they are a business but come on.... dont hoodwink all of us struggling to get somewhere... its hard enough anyway let alone wasting our time on things that will never happen cos we aint got the backhanders :)

cheer up thinks could be worse......... so he cheered up

...............and sure enough

he got a record contract!!!