Do you read Hot Press magazine?

I used to Flick through Hot Press in HMV every now and then way back when. I thought it was crap, they were always plugging crap Irish bands and I thought the cover prices was extortionate. Ronan - you are the voice of disaffected youth and we salute you.

Actually there's a good general thread in here too. Hold on a minute.

http://www.therevs.com/ revs/home/

I sense a battle of wills along the lines of Tom's low-key war against the Tom Ewings.

That said, Hot Press did have one amusing joke in its 20 year history. On a page headed "The Border Fascist", which basically was a piss-take of Irish provincial papers, they ran an ad for "Soap - they use it in Dublin".

While we're on ILE regulars and their press ways I refuse to buy The Wire again just because there's a big Sinker article in it - can you summarise Mark? I know this is cheeky but there's Bjork on the cover for heaven's sake.

Dear Sir,

I wrote a letter a few months back to your magazine about Ash, you may remember that my use of the phrase "that dork with the mohawk" was liberal. As I recall, part of the point I was making is that your magazine flagrantly and shamelessly plugs anything Irish no matter how god awful it is. In hindsight, I was unfair to Ash (No I'm not going to do a U-turn here, theres a sarcastic remark on the way) I was unfair to them because as shit as they are, they have nothing on the likes of the Revs. Far from instilling any pride in the Irish music scene in me, The Revs make me want to smoke crack. Why, oh god why, must you plug this utter rubbish? What is the purpose of plugging something so dreadful? Are you guys determined to lower the bar where Irish bands are concerned?

I feel fairly certain if The Revs were English you'd have a hot place in hell reserved for them, but since they're Irish, then you might aswell treat them like a reunited Stone Roses. Is it too much to ask for you to be mildly impartial? I despise many of the English bands you feature but at least I know they're being featured on merit and not based on their nationality. The Revs single is truly dreadful, the Irish music scene you strive to promote can do without these sort of morons getting any attention or coverage. We're going to really see how dreadful they are when they disappear into oblivion shortly despite the coverage they've got. I mean for fuck sake, if they can get their names in print then its worse than I thought, anyone can play guitar indeed, but if their talentless fools they'll always be a nothing as far as I'm concerned. I want to hear your views on this issue, because frankly I dont see how you can with a straight face claim the Revs are even on a par with the many English bands you slate regularly.(None of whom I like either)

In your (commendable) efforts to promote Irish, you've let quality control fly out the window, deliberately or otherwise.. I'm not asking for much, I'm not being anti Irish, I just want a MUSIC magazine to give bands coverage based on musical ability and musical ability alone.

Yours Etc

Ronan Fitzgerald

a new monthly music magazine launched in Ireland today

state magazine
http://www.state.ie/blog/state-magazine-issue-one-out-now/

Maybe I will buy this on my way home today, in full expectation that it will be SHITE.

I looked at it in a shop. It looked pretty good, insofar as you wouldn't really realise it was an Irish music magazine. I wonder is it as full of typos as Foogy Notions? But I have not bought it yet because the content looked a bit dull, kind of like with all mainstream music magazines these days.

I went to see a Foggy Notions gig in Dublin and didn't realise it was a magazine too. Is it bad or just typo-riddled?

Might have a look for State (and/or Foggy Notions, if that has distribution up north, but I've never seen it so I'm guessing not) when I'm in NI over Easter, but REM on the cover of a magazine in 2008 doesn't really excite me into buying it.

The magazine is alright. It's kind of like a zine pretending to be a magazine, with fairly limited content. And it is totally full of typos. Or it was last time I read a copy.