Goodbye USA.

On Def Leppards debut LP 'On through the night', the opening track was called 'Hello America'.

It was a far cry from the multi-layered vocal nirvana that was 'Hysteria', or even the incendiary dynamics of 'Pyromania'.

To cut a long story short, it was shit. And it was shit, because Joe Elliot (who is rumoured to have knocked out Henry Rollins at one stage - it wouldn't surprise me, he was from Sheffield after all...) couldn't sing. I don't know what happened after that record, but when he came back, he was pretty good (for his genre).

Anyway, what I'm about to blog has nothing to do with that band, or any of their recorded works.

This one is about Shihad (formerly pacifier, formerly Shihad), and The Living End.

Both bands have recently returned from the USA with their respective tails between their legs, after being effectively pistol-whipped by the biz over there.

Both bands had made the requisite allowances (read: gave in to the enormous crushing pressure of their record companies) in order to crack the U.S. market (read: to have a shot in the marketplace, with no guarantee of success).

What happens is, the record companies tell the band exactly how they want things done, as opposed to trusting in the killer instinct that had brought the bands to their attention in the first place. The bands acquiesce, in order to appease the beast, and thinking loss of integrity is a small price to pay against breaking through at last, on a major scale. The labels make a series of half-baked decisions (like putting The Living End on as first support for Blink 182 and No Doubt), that see the bands come out of it exhausted and no better off. In short, wasting everbodys time.

These bands failed totally in the USA, and i just don't get it.
They are the 2 most exciting live acts to come out of Australia in the last 5 years, hands down, if not ever. And Yanks LOVE Aussies!

How could a label screw up that kind of talent?

What I do know is, if they can't do it, there is no way in Hell I ever will.
I have a pretty healthy following in the USA, I'm on all kinds of radio stations, I even have a U.S. based International Distributor. My video is about to go out to 190 Million households a day. I get fan mail.

But I'm giving up on my lifelong dream of moving to L.A. to take it to the people.
All the people I know who have tried, have either come home shattered, or killed themselves. These are not good odds.

All the little radio stations are rapidly morphing into one giant beast called Clear channel. If Clear don't like you, you don't get played. Or stocked in Wal-Mart. Or on the tour bill to support Blink 182 (Oh no! How will I live?!)

I've never been good at obeying the rules (Hello? I play rock music?), and am infamous withing the Australian Industry for telling all concerned exactly what I think of them. Over there though? Shoot me now.

Look here:

http://www.clearchannelsucks.org/

ClearChannelSucks.org is a free speech website dedicated to educating the public about entertainment giant Clear Channel. Clear Channel owns over 1,200 radio stations and 37 television stations, with investments in 240 radio stations globally, and Clear Channel Entertainment (aka SFX, one of their more well-known subsidiaries) owns and operates over 200 venues nationwide. They are in 248 of the top 250 radio markets, controlling 60% of all rock programming. They outright own the tours of musicians like Janet Jackson, Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, Madonna and N'Sync. They own the network which airs Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, Casey Kasem, and the Fox Sports Radio Network. With 103,000,000 listeners in the U.S. and 1,000,000,000 globally (1/6 of the world population), this powerful company has grown unchecked, using their monopoly to control the entire music industry. If you find this alarming, ClearChannelSucks.org is the place for you.




This is knifey, from 'the internet'.