Page 14 - RYAN'S GIG GUIDE JANUARY 2015

RGG January 2015 - p.14
Every month I review about four or five CD’s, these are EP’s, demos, Singles or Albums and I
normally give you a short sound bite or overview and state what I personally think of a CD and
why I think you should get it, hear it or get hold of the artist or band. Now before we start this year’s
next barrage of verdicts and reviews I’d like to, for the first time, explain a little bit about how the
reviews I do work.
Some of you regular readers may notice that despite my other editorial work (which can be
quite offensive to some), I never ever slate or put down an artist in print. So you may
assume that I just give all the CD’s good reviews for the sake of it – Wrong! I will only
review good material. When artists or bands ask me if I can review their work I often
tell them “don’t send me anything unless you are sure it’s your best stuff”, “If I don’t
think it’s a good CD then I won’t review it” or the killer.. “I’ll contact you in person or
in private to tell you why I won’t review it rather than humiliate you as an artist in
print”. You know what? In all the years I’ve been reviewing demos and singles etc.
I’ve NEVER had to resort to that last quote because the standard of material sent
to me is consistently high. Unlike some magazines who, for the same reasons, I
won’t name and shame; I will not use a review to give a band a bad name, I don’t
care if it’d be interesting to read; exploiting bands or giving them bad publicity via a
CD review is not in my interest and I damn any reviewer out there who thrives
off that. I set a bar of high quality and I stick to that. If your music is in these
pages in the form of a review then you are doing well.
It’s possible that some bands never send a CD to me because they are
scared I won’t guarantee them a positive review. It’s in your interest to have honest
feedback so even if you were to get an email from me saying “Sorry I can’t review
your CD because I don’t think it reflects your talent well enough” (and as I have
said before I’ve not had the task of doing this yet) then at least you are getting
genuine critical feedback and you can learn from it. I could argue too that it’s a
relief not having to review a shit CD because I’d hate that experience. All the
artist and band reviews written by me that you read about in RGG during 2014
were reviewed because they were darn good releases and great examples of why
the Midlands has some of the best talent in the UK. This is an area of incredible
songwriting talent and the CD’s you will see reviewed by me in 2015 are in print
because great bands and songwriters made them. If your band is thinking of going into
a recording studio then aim for the top; don’t piss about.
I’m grateful that the editor of RGG gives me an opportunity to express an opinion; that’s all a
review is at the end of the day but I’d like to think that I’m a pretty good judge of what’s a good
CD after reviewing so many different genres of music over the years. Just in case you are
curious too; you may wonder how I review them; I don’t sit next to a CD player with pens and
paper; I listen to records in the same comfortable place every time; I won’t review unless I’m
situated in a zone of comfort of my choosing so that I can enjoy the music. There’s no point me
being uncomfortable or in a stressful environment whilst trying to do a review.
So bands, bring it on for 2015 and show us what you’ve got.
NICK
J TOWNSEND