Mat Bowles

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28 days a goth?

Hmm, not sure what to think on this one. , having moved to Exeter, is thinking of going to the Cavern tomorrow night. Fine, fairly normal. To see a band called “Betty Curse”. The lead singer of which is a persona created by Megan Burns, the actress who played Hannah in 28 Days Later. Now, of course, she’s 20, not 13/14 as she was at the time of the film. And, um, she looks pretty good from what I can find (band Myspace, her Myspace). She’s also, it appears from a few interviews, fairly switched on.

However, she’s backed by Island Records quite heavily, the contact section of the site (no direct link, not possible, see below) essentially promises to spam you with stuff about all their bands that might be of interest, and it just oozes marketing shill. It could be she’s genuine, and simply has a decent team behind her. She could be honest about always having been into darker stuff, and rejecting the popish mainstream. Alternately, she could have simply been hired and/or picked up by Island in an attempt to cash in on a market that they feel they’re neglecting. As this is my first encounter with her, and I can’t actually listen to the samples, anyone out there know more?

Their website is, quite palpably, bloody awful. That’s not just because it’s entirely done in Flash. Nor because it has autoplay music that I can’t turn off. The horrible gimmickry of the neon motif isn’t the worse crime, nor is the attrocious idea of the no-flash page that detects you have flash disabled, then asks you if want to view the site anyway, with no warning as to how you’ve got to the no-flash page. The worst crime is that navigation is almost impossible without wanting to gouge your eyes out, confusing and bloody stupid. All flash websites and designers who think they’re a good idea whould be run up and shot with a noose around their neck for good measure.

So, cool new artist with both track record to appeal, the looks to carry it off and a genuine goth/alt girl to like, or simple marketing dream designed to cash in on a market that the big boys in the industry can’t, normally, get in on?

And, perhaps of more direct relevence, given it’s apparently free entry, if I were to cancel my normal Monday night stuff, anyone interested in going along tomorrow?

October 30th, 2006 Posted by MatGB | Uncategorized | 7 comments

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7 Comments »

  1. Ah yes Betty Curse people have been asking me if I like her… hmmmm

    Comment by tregwilym | October 29, 2006

  2. And? What does the music actually sound like, any idea?

    Comment by matgb | October 29, 2006

  3. Arrrgh, that’s a painfully badly designed myspace site (her one). Or it is in Opera, anyway

    Comment by draxar | October 30, 2006

  4. its sort of indie pop.. a bit like garbage.

    Comment by tregwilym | October 30, 2006

  5. Yup, and in Fx. I didn’t bother to comment as, well, it’s a MySpace, and therefore is badly defined by default. I think it’s only worth commenting on the look of a MySpace if it isn’t ugly.

    I’m trying to load it in IE (IE tab is a very useful extension), but it won’t actually load. I’m going to give up and shut down, but I don;t know whether it won’t load because IE is shit, the layout is terrible or MySpace overall is crap.

    I suspect all three.

    Comment by matgb | October 30, 2006

  6. Yup agreed that is a god awful design

    Comment by mendees | October 30, 2006

  7. The lyrics to “The Look on Tony’s Face” are bloody hysterical.

    Comment by jackthomas | October 30, 2006

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