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Billy Mahonie

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Sox:
It's about time we started talking about good bands in the music forum again. I mean, actually talk about them, instead of just congratulating each other on liking similar shit. It's about time we shared good music, without relying on the ridiculously bloated, easy and unneccesary mediaf!re thread. So I thought I'd start by talking about the band, Billy Mahonie. With a thread, specific to the band.

http://www.myspace.com/billymahonie

Billy Mahonie were a great band in London during the late nineties and early noughties.
They formed in 1997 when guitarist Gavin Baker and drummer Howard Monk began to experiment playing music with a four track. It wasn't too long before they where joined by Hywell Dinsdale and Kevin Penney. They recorded themselves often and produced many demos and a few singles in the time building up to their debut album, The Big Dig, in 1999. It was a good album! Really! The three people that heard it, LOVED it. Unfortunately, at this time the band were criminally ignored among their peers, despite being consistently "very good", while bands of a similar ilk often jumped between "potentially very cool" and "horribly overplayed". Despite the band selling the album to their moms, twice, they got dropped by their label.

It didn't take long for them to get picked up by Southern, that record label that keeps signing underappreciated bands and putting out their best record. In this case, Billy Mahonie made "What Comes Before". After the release of What Comes Before, the band went into hiding for a little while. Howard polished his drumkit using a highly combustible homemade polish and burst into flames in the middle of a show. Kevin plumetted to his death after running from a cliff edge in pursuit of a "really pink butterfly". Hywell was sawn to pieces and stored in Gavin's basement after getting into a barfight with "That big bad dude from Westworld". After Gavin Baker reported these unfortunate, unlikely incidents to the police, he set about finding a new band. One that "knew who was boss".
This is when Billy Mahonie released their final album, Dust, with new bandmates Duncan Brown and Anthony Barratt.

I think there's a lot of people here who could love Billy Mahonie, and a fair few who already do. I've seen enough praise for similar bands that don't seem to be capable of playing without showing off or can't write an interesting song to save their lives, so I'll be amazed if this shit doesn't catch on.
There's a good selection of songs on their myspace page, and some fantastic footage on youtube.

Here's an interview with the members of the band from 1999. Here are some very good live videos.And because you fuckers have gotten fat and lazy from that fat thread at the top of the page, here is a comparitively very weak collection of alternate takes titled "Come On Billy Mahonie, Give It Your Best Shot".



So...how you like?

michaelicious:
Those live videos are great. The songs on the myspace are really good too, but man those videos. I like how at times they are just totally nonchalant about everything, all smokin' cigarettes while playing but then later on in the same song they just totally go off. They really seem to love playing with each other too. I like when bands play as much for each other and themselves as they do for the audience.

Finding out about awesome bands after the fact of their existance is always a little disappointing though. I can never seem to get truly excited about a band knowing that I somehow missed out on it while it was happening and the only thing I can experience and share with other people about the band is their nostalgia.

Sox:
Except for the guys Gavin Baker killed, they're still alive and they are occasionally still a band. Don't get your hopes up about anything though. I understand how you feel about discovering bands after the fact, it's always a little disheartening to find you were too late to participate. Unfortunately, all the best bands are dead, and most new bands are sad immitations of them.

Records, however, are as good as they ever were and as good as they ever will be. It'd be a shame to miss out on great records because a band is no longer active.

Cernunnos:

--- Quote from: Sox on 19 Jan 2009, 09:17 --- Unfortunately, all the best bands are dead, and most new bands are sad immitations of them.

--- End quote ---
No, No, No. Sorry, this is just such a terrible attitude to have. While it may be true that the bands that best fit your tastes or interests are gone, to say that bands today aren't as good is, first of all, not true, second, dismissive, third, stinks of nostalgia (which is only felt for an imagined past), and last, and worst of all, prevents one from appreciating music made now for what it is. you are missing out if you think this way. 

sox, i would like to add that i do respect your taste. i just find this kind of silly, is all.

Sox:
It's nice to hear you say that you respect my taste. Personally, I didn't think I had any. I just figure that if somebody already perfected a formula and somebody else tries and fails to pull it off, which is the case for a lot of new stuff I hear, I might as well just enjoy the first one. There's not much coming out that's totally original, and shit's often strongest at the root. Which is why I'm still gonna talk about old/dead bands. That's not to say that there's not a lot of great music coming out all the time, quite the opposite. There's so much new stuff coming out that I can't even begin filter it. Which is why I hope people start making neat little informative threads like this one. If they formed in the past few years, I've probably not heard it.

I'm gonna start saying that I don't like music, because that's way more accurate than saying that I do.

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