What is Myspacedotcom.com ?

Myspacedotcom.com is a new way for unsigned rock bands to raise their profile, by having their music reviewed by us – and their myspace profile promoted right here.
When we say “Rock” we mean it in a relatively broad sense, pop rock, punk, metal – whatever, as long you class yourself as rock to some degree, then that’s kewl.

Doesn’t matter where you are, Manchester, London, Dublin, New York , Seattle, Sydney, Queensland, Sheffield, Belfast, Newcastle, LA, Kuala Lumpur….. wherever.

WHY?

Why not?…..

Well, new music doesn’t get promoted nearly enough, and those of us who came up with the idea for this site have been in bands for years, and know the fustrations of trying to get noticed – so one day while fishing for mushroom shaped purple flappasnap fish off the island of bingdangdang ( miles away from where you are, turn left, catch the ferry – jump off, ride a basking shark for 4 days, you’ll get there) a bottle floated our way with a message inside, which had been written waaaay before the internet existed.

The message said :
Ye who come upponeth this bottleth, containing this messageth, Thou hast eth, thou thy, and other random ye olde type words… Make a kewl website to help unsigned bands gain exposure on’t internet, call it myspacedotcom.com….”

So we did – the end.
WHAT’S WITH THE LIZARD IN THE TOP IMAGE?

It’s a Gekko! No Idea why it’s there, just appeared there one day. We think it may have been placed there by someone strange, possibly someone wearing a mask.

Want a review?
No worries – just go to the review request page, fill in the details, and do the review as soon as we can.
All that we ask in return is that you add a link to us from your myspace page – and that you help us to spread the word by telling people about MySpaceDotCom.com

Band Name: Burning Circle

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/theburningcircleoflife

Reviewer: Keef

Review:

Their influences read like a ‘who’s who’ of classic rock legends. And right from the first vocal, you can see why. OK, so the timekeeping might not be 100% perfect, but if you have an ounce of rock in your body and ears that haven’t been permanently damaged from turning it up to eleven, you’ve got to admire the absolute talent in the lead vocals!

I have to say I was particularly blown away by the more baladdy (that is now a word) tracks. There’s a fine line to be drawn between a piss take classic rock voice and a REAL classic rock voice and ‘Sale’ has an almost perfect ‘classic’ rock voice that would have graced any band from the list that the band cites as their influences! Honestly!

The music is a cross between classic 70s anthemic rock and the more edgy metal that came to the fore about 5 years ago. Cultural differences aside (this band originates in the former Eastern Block), ‘Burning Circle’ would have no problem selling their music anywhere in the world. No review would be complete without a critisism, but all I can really fault is the slightly lax timekeeping (can’t you tell I’m a drummer) in the odd section and the fact that some of the vocals highlight the fact that English is not these guys’ first languege, so the lyrics sound a bit contrived and don’t make 100% sense. Other than that, it gets my approval!  Well done guys!

Keef

Band Name: Vouves Krauges

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/12345vk

Reviewer: Keef

Review:

OK – my knowledge of the Greek language is limited to ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘thankyou’ (although, for reasons best not typed here, I can also say ‘I love you very much’). But this is a music review, so what do words matter??

I’m not even going to try to individualise each track, as the quality of the recording (done live) isn’t exactly the greatest – however, given it’s limitations, it’s not bad at all! In fact, I’ve reviewed far less musical stuff that’s been done in a studio!

Overall, I get the feeling that Greek rock music is a few years behind what we listen to in the UK and US – but that doesn’t make it bad. I’m no expert, but it sounds to me like the band are trying to use some elements of their native traditional music in what they play, rather than just copy any certain style, and that has to be a good thing.

The sound is OK, but it’s really hard to give a proper review from a poorly recorded live track – which is a shame, as I think I’d like to hear a bit more from this lot. Listening to them, all I’m getting is ‘The Scorpions’ – it just gives me that sort of ‘feel’ – but seeing as ‘Wind Of Change’ is an all time classic, that’s a big plus point for me!

Worth a listen – even more so if you happen to speak Greek!

Keef

Band Name: Stranger Inside

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/strangerinsideband

Reviewer: Keef

Review:

OK – In all honesty, I’m not even going to bother wasting anyone’s time with a long arsed review of this band, because the time that you spend reading my ramblings can be put to FAR better use by just going to their homepage and listening to them yourselves! Here’s the review in brief – F**king great!!

GO – NOW!! Do as you’re told!!

If anyone is still stupid enough to be hanging around, I’ll quantify my thoughts a little. Think Alice in Chains, think Nickleback, think Lost Prophets – think harmonious grunge rock that’s been painstakingly crafted, is almost perfectly formed and is JUST the right length so that you can get onto the next one.

I really am struggling to find fault with anything, and quite why this band are unsigned is a mystery to me. If I HAD to be picky, I’d say the pitching on the odd vocal line could perhaps be slightly better – but it is really only the odd bum note in what is otherwise a flawless bunch of recordings!!

Guys – if I could afford the plain ticket, I’d come to a gig in a heartbeat!

Put me down for a copy of an album and tickets for the first UK tour!

Keef

Band Name: The Bowbridge Band.

Myspace: www.myspace.com/thebowbridgeband

Reviewer: Keef

Review:
‘All Inclusive’. Well, it’s not ‘rock’ – but I guess it’s quite ‘current’ and not at all offensive to listen to. There’s a really odd bit on the 3 minute mark that really doesn’t ‘do’ anything and I can’t see the point of (given the track runs to 5 minutes plus), but overall I can see the commercial viability of this type of track.

‘Amber’ is another well crafted ‘guitar pop’ track. The lead vocals are a bit more exposed in this one and need to be a bit better pitched, but it’s another perfectly pleasant pop track that’s decent enough to listen to, without really breaking any boundaries.

‘Black is Black’ has a more 60s feel to it and the vocals kind of suit the production. They’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but that makes them all the more appropriate (let’s be honest – Dylan couldn’t sing for shit, yet he did OK)

Overall, The Bowbridge Band are probably well worth a listen if you like 60s inspired guitar pop. I think they need to try and get some variety into their demo tracks as it all sounds a bit safe, but it’s one of the better demos I’ve heard, in terms of technical song-writing, production and overall sound.

Keef

Band Name: Fire Assassins

Myspace: www.myspace.com/fireassassins

Reviewer: Keef

Review:

‘Restless Heart’ - ‘Fire Assasins’ describe their varied influences as being mostly 80s era – ranging from Metallica to Rick Springfield. ‘Restless Heart’ opens up like a tribute to The Cranberries or even The Corrs, with a very tuneful, if a little light, acoustic guitar and violin intro. Not a bad start, but not really ‘rock’ music…..

And then it all goes a bit early 70s. Now – again, that’s no bad thing, but the vocals sound like someone who’s trying to do a really poor Chris DeBurgh impression for a laugh – only thing is, I think it’s supposed to be a serious vocal melody. At over 7 minutes, this track just drags on too long.

‘Do You Remember’ - is a different kettle of fish entirely. OK, so it’s ’80s rock by numbers’ and entirely predictable, but I guess that’s half the charm of that type of music in the first place – it’s instantly recogniseable. I have to say the vocals are a huge improvement on this track, maybe it’s a pitching thing, but it’s far less forced and actually not that bad.

‘Midnight’ is more of the same. Predictable 80s rock. It has the same ‘charm’ as the previous track – but fails again on the strained vocals and being overly long. There’s a great solo and melody change towards the end of the track, but after that ‘high’, it just repeats the original riff for another minute and kind of kills the interest that the solo brought to the track.

‘Keep Christmas Alive in your Heart’. This is a terrible track – sorry guys, but it’s just not even good in a bad way. The Darkness kind of got away with a cheesy Festive song, but you’re not The Darkness. If for no other reason than the appalling wailing that is being passed off as ‘vocals’, you need to get rid of this track, as it really shows off all your bad points……

‘Outside Looking In’ – yet more rock by numbers. Sorry – but it’s getting quite tedious now and the vocals – well, they’re just getting progressively flatter and sounding more like the worst of (insert reality TV ‘talent’ show here). Another one for the bin.

‘Turn Away’. OK – what a great start! LOVE the opening to this track, as it at least shows some thought – but it then just falls apart in a big way.
We’ve now moved to ‘rock ballad by numbers’ – with ‘backing vocals’. I’m deliberately steering away from calling them ‘vocal harmonies’, because they are neither of those things. I’ve no idea whether this is both parties wailing away or a bit of double tracking, but it’s painful to say the least.
‘Turn Away’ is aptly named for reviewers – because that’s what most people will do listening to this.

‘Long Way Back’ - another pleasantly constructed 80s inspired rock by numbers track – offering nothing new and completely ruined by the vocals…..

There’s quite obviously one talented musician in this group, which makes the fact that there’s some painfully out of tune vocals on these tracks unforgiveable.

Keef

Band Name: Prom King Cobra

Myspace: www.myspace.com/promkingcobra

Reviewer: Keef

Review:

Normally, the overriding thing about US bands is their technical ability. It often is far better than their songwriting and often turns into a big ’solo-fest’ where each musician tries to outdo each other during the song (Dream Theater?).

How refreshing then it was to listen to ‘Prom King Cobra’. They have absolutely zero technical ability, restoring my faith in the USA not being a haven for unfeasably talented musicians!! Unfortunately, they also have zero songwriting ability, or musical ability in general.

Now – in the wish to not just judge them on their studio recordings, I actually listened to their ‘live’ videos too. Unfortunately, the only one that is worthy of mention is ‘PKC Insubordination’ – and it’s only worth mentioning for the fact that the audio is thankfully very quiet, meaning it wasn’t so painful on my ears.

At the bottom of their myspace profile,  it says ‘type of label – unsigned’. Guys – get used to seeing that………..

Keef

Band Name: The Crossover

Myspace: www.myspace.com/thecrossoveruk

Reviewer: Keef

Review:

‘Pressure’ – ‘Cool’, I thought – the opening sounds like ‘Blockbuster’ by the legends that are ‘The Sweet’ – and then this electro riff thing kicks in and I’m thinking ‘Republica’ and all is well with the world.

But then it all goes pants and nothing happens………….fade……….

‘Come on and Get It’ – sorry – I don’t………. samples and electro naff combined with the odd feeble vocal……

‘Good to go’ – Is neither ‘Good’ or ‘going’ anywhere – apart from into oblivion…..

‘Phunked Up’ (Pollen Tails remix) – those Pollen Tails have a lot to answer for – rather than remixing this, they should have just wiped the CD….

Sorry – I’d lost the will to live before listening to the last track.

According to the website, there’s a Bass player, guitarist and drummer in this ‘band’. I have to assume all were on holiday when the ‘MC/Vocalist’ decided to record this demo……. But at least the keyboard player got to trigger a load of samples!! Oh – and listening to ‘Fire Starter’ and ‘Killing in the Name Of’ a couple of times on the radio is about as much ‘influence’ as The Prodigy and RATM has on any of this……..despite what the website might have you believe!

Keef

Band Name: My Heroine.

Myspace: www.myspace.com/myheroinemusic

Reviewer: Keef

My Heroine

Review:

There’s no doubt that this is a group of good looking girls, but ugly people can make good records too………..

So – what about the music?

The songs on the website are only excerpts – so hopefully they’ve chosen them wisely, as that’s what the review is based on.

‘Mad’ starts nicely enough, but I can’t help feeling that it doesn’t go anywhere in the chorus, such are the lack of dynamics in the song – shame – with some thought it could have been a nice song. (Don’t you love the word ‘nice’? Only used here to spite my primary school teachers who didn’t even believe it was a proper word!)

‘Let it Go’ has ’studio track’ written all over it! It sounds like a bunch of one line vocals cut and pasted over a backing track. Maybe I’m being harsh, but I’d imagine the ‘cut down’ version that the band would have to perform live would have been a better effort to record than this overly complex version of what is quite a simple tune. Less is more guys – live vocals have far more feel than trying to get every line pitch perfect!

‘Infatuation’ GET IN!! Finally the engineer realises where the bass sliders are and/or decides to mic up the bass amp! This has got far more body to it, and the chorus finally shows the vocals off. I’m still not loving the feeling that some of the vocals have been dubbed a line at a time, as it really detracts from any sort of ‘live’ feel – but overall, this is a vast improvement!

‘Bitch’ - couple of bits of wayward pitching – which is odd considering the care that is obviously given to the vocal recording otherwise – but it’s still a decent enough track that has the potential to really rock in the chorus – I can imagine that this would be a great track live.

‘Fever’ - an old classic with a pretty reasonable twist. The production is far better on this track – so I’m guessing that this is/was the track designed to grab commercial interest. I’m still not crazy about all the overlaid vocals, but if it can be reproduced on stage, then consider me a fan!

Overall – think Strawberry Switchblade and you won’t be far off the mark.
It’s hardly original, but I’ve heard far worse from far uglier people……

I’d certainly like to go and see these live, as I reckon the studio perhaps isn’t doing them justice……

Keef

Band Name: South of Saturn

Myspace: www.myspace.com/southofsaturnuk

Reviewer: JLK

Track 1 – 93

OK, this is the first track on their myspace profile, and I’m sccaarreedd!!!!

Weird spacey computerised techno stuff, yuck – me no like…but ooh, hang on, is this porn music?? Expecting to hear “oh yeah baby” , but no – wait, is this the Pet Shop Boys??

This is a rock bands review site, is someone taking the… oooh, blimey, changing again – drums kick in, hmm, that’s a bit better. Still, it’s a bit, erm, soft.

Some of the vocal harmonies are quite nice, other than that – I have to say guys I honestly wouldn’t choose to listen to this track if I wasn’t reviewing it, but I am into heavier stuff than this, so this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad track.

track 2 – Don’t wake me up

What the…..

Naaa, I’m not having this – this is a different band surely?

This starts off brilliantly, I really get the impression that this is the kind of stuff the rest of the band, certainly drums & guitars, are more comfortable with playing – but then the vocals kick in, & everything goes a bit soft & girly again. Oooh, lets go collecting rose petals & make perfume.

I don’t really get it – why go from having such a killer riff, to then having a soft poppy vocal with two guitar tracks twiddling, no chords – just doesn’t sound right. I think this track could be great if you’d kept more true to that initial Riff.

It kicks in again about half way through, and after that the track picks up again, some chords, that’s more like it. I think there’s a bit too much going on in general with this track to be honest, it’s kind of all over the place,  it’s promising – but I’m left confused more than anything. That nice Riff comes in again towards the end, and again – that’s a really nice riff, but for me – this track needs stripping back to the good bits, simplifying, get rid of all the confusing twiddly bits & get back basics, less is more.  Just my opinion.

Track 3 – Second Star To The Right

Ooh, starts off with scary weird stuff again, hmmm, Ahhh – there we go, drums & then a riff – phew.

Again, as with the last track, starts off with a promising Riff, then goes to verses with to guitars twiddling, and then constantly switches from one to the other. It’s simple for me, I like the rocky bits – I don’t like the twiddly bits. I know about trying to create dynamics, but this just doesn’t do it for me. As the last track, I think this track goes all over the place too much also,  folks who come to see you are going to struggle to sing along even after watching you a dozen times.

Track 4 – Bridges

“Are we going to Scarborough Fair?” 

Sorry – I couldn’t resist.

Ok, this is the bit where we all get the lighters out & wave them about.

I like dynamic between the intro & the soft stuff & the heavier stuff in this track, but for me it goes on for too long before the more exciting stuff kicks in, and goes back to the soft stuff too hastily. I’ve also got to say, I don’t really think it’s that kewl to drop the F word (no, not Fish) into a chorus.  I’ve written quite a lot of songs, and when ever I’ve added the F word into a chorus, I’ve cringed & taken it out – just seems really tacky to me. But maybe that’s just me.

Not a bad track, I think it could do more though, it doesn’t quite deliver what I think it could.

Track 5 – All The Same

Ooh, this is different. Starts off very foo fighters – but that’s not as bad thing in my book. Then it switches from the Foos to the Chilli’s, I love the Chilli’s too so that’s fine by me.

I really like this track actually, it’s my favourite of the 5 without a doubt.  I would listen to it, those similarities to foo fighters & chilli’s in the two main parts of the track are really strong, which isn’t necessarily a great thing for you, as a band who’re trying to establish their own sound – but it’s certainly not a bad thing from the listeners perspective.

The Ironic thing is, this track is called “all the same” and actually this is the one track that really stands out for me as not being the same as the others.

Overall Review:

I think these tracks show you’re all great musicians & you have a lot of potential as a band, you’re very tight,  but you’ve only been together for a year, which is no time at all really  – and I think you’re still at the stage where you’re not 100% sure where you’re going yet.

This certainly shows from track to track, and that’s not too bad – but it shows within individual tracks too.

Personally I think you need to decide where you’re going, are you going with the soft poppy stuff with the twiddly guitars – or are you going for the rocky stuff with the meaty riffs?

Having the odd track which is a either left or right of the centre, is fine -  but if you keep writing songs which veer so much off & then snap back the way these tracks do, it’s just confusing to listen to, and I really can’t see you taking off with tracks like that. If someone listens to all your tracks, and they like some but hate some, that’s not too bad – it’s also not worth worrying about that some people will hate all of your tracks – you can’t please everyone, but the way you’re going now I think most people will hate parts of each track, and that’s not good.

You  either love marmite or you hate it (I love it), and the same is true of marmalade,  but if they sold it mixed together – no one would ever buy it, you’d either buy marmite, or marmalade, why would you mix the two in the same jar? Get what I mean?

So – keep it up, you’re tight, you’re good musicians – don’t give up, but do try to make a definite decision about the kind of music you’re going with, are you marmite, or are you marmalade? If one track is marmalade & another track is marmite, that’s not a bad thing, but don’t try to do that within the same track, that’s mixing marmalade & marmite in the same jar – and that just aint right.

JLK

I’ve just had a listen to the tracks here – and I have to say I agree with most of JLK’s comments. I think there’s a mass of talent there, and the songs are pretty well crafted, if a little overly complicated (please – you’re a UK band, leave the ‘complicated for complicated sake’ to the Americans…. ) – but other than that last live track, it’s all a little wishy washy for me – and I list the Carpenters amongst one of my all time fave groups – but at least they knew what they were, and they certainly weren’t trying to pass themselves off as a rock band!!

If you’re heading for the mass market appeal of the Keane/Snow Patrol/similar market, then fair play to you – but you need to market yourself as such, otherwise the reviews will all be along these lines – it’s hard to give a positive review to a ‘rock band’ who clearly aren’t……

Keef