Posted by proxy, 30.7.2008 19:32
RED HOT PAGES!
Proxy have been featured in Red Hot's top 100 for 2008! Who'd have thought that 2007 would be the year of climate change, celebrity perfumes and Lewis Hamilton? Red Pages did. They also think it's the year for Proxy's Debut Album 'Between Screens'...
Last year's Red Pages: Hot 100 predicted the top 100 up-and-coming celebrities likely to hit headlines in 2007. From Burberry supermodel Agyness Deyn to Heroes IT girl Hayden Panettiere, to F1 hero Lewis Hamilton and music's The Enemy, Kate Nash and Mika â€" the Red Pages: Hot 100 report accurately identified some of this year's big headliners.
This year's Hot 100 2008 report predicts tomorrow's movers, shakers and newsmakers in the world of music, film, television, politics, sport, society, lifestyle and business, including the stars from US exports Gossip Girl, Pushing Daisies and Cashmere Mafia, sportsmen Danny Cipriani and Michael Johnson, artists Proxy and Adele and fashion's hot new designers and muses.
Check out the link here:
http://www.theredpages.co.uk/hot100.aspx
You at the Royal Artist blog also get a sneak peak at the 'Between Screens' album artwork...
Posted by proxy, 8.1.2008 10:35
Louise Wener of Sleeper said in the film Live Forever that the music industry uses pop music as a default setting when nothing exciting is happening. She was referring to the period following the whole Britpop saga, when an influx of bubblegum pop was being offered up by the industry. What she said was absolutely true then but things might be changing a wee bit. I’m beginning to get the feeling that ‘exciting’ periods in music are happening suspiciously regularly. I put the word ‘exciting’ in inverted commas because we are now being told what to find ‘exciting’, especially when it comes to so-called ‘proper’ music. You might be thinking that this is gonna turn into some musician’s rant about the state of music. And it pretty much is. In the same interview, Wener mentions Robbie Williams recording ‘Angels’as the moment Britpop died. We are now going through a similar period in the post-libertines, post-Arctics euphoria. We are getting the music that blurs the lines between art and crap in the same way Robbie did.
Every young act these days has some story about their rise to fame, which mostly smack of over-excitedness brought on by too much orange cordial. And which are mostly lies- I’m looking at you, Sandi Thom. All you hear is “so-and-so has a 20 billion friends on Myspace, so-and-so is part of the wicked Bognor Regis scene, which you probably haven’t heard of unless you’re in the know”. Everyone is after the equivalent story of the buzz surrounding the Beatles at the Cavern Club. Due to the hollowness of it all, people are beginning to see through it.
This is the weirdest thing about the industry, in that it is one of the few enterprises which is not supply-and-demand. The music business tells the public what to like and what to buy, and it always has. This whole obsession with trying to portray acts as young, vital and buzzing is little more than an unecessary marketing ploy to make it feel like ‘our thing’. The music industry is trying to claim the concept of ‘exciting’ as it’s own now. Their aim is to be the sole custodians of exciting…they’re bringing exciting back.
Still though, life finds a way. The real deal will out. Any artist worth their salt will back up the hype with an album to match, like the Arctic Monkeys did- twice. Looking through all the end of year reviews in the music press, you don’t see many debut efforts in there. Most of the highly rated albums of the year are by artists on their 2nd album or beyond: Arctics, Winehouse, Arcade Fire, PJ Harvey, The Boss, Bjork, etc. What’s going on then? There must be more good music out there by genuinely exciting new acts who need a break! But look at who has been given the opportunity to put their records out - The View, The Pigeon Detectives, etc… these acts look and sound like what an indie band on Neighbours would look and sound like. They. Are. Not. Exciting. It’s just repackaged versions of stuff that already exists… so maybe we’ll have to wait another year or so for the cycle to come around again. Maybe the next roll of decent artists are already here. This author knows of at least one fantastic band.
None of this is a sound thing or even really a fashion thing. PJ Harvey, in many of her interviews this year, reiterated that her motivation for making music was not to add to the plethora of samey stuff that already exists, whether it is good or bad. For something to be vital, there needs to be a degree of uniqueness about it. Something that you can’t get anywhere else. That’s exciting.
Will Hanson (PROXY)
Posted by proxy, 22.11.2007 18:47
Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who bought Jetlag over the last few weeks, and anyone who came to any of the shows, and fuck you to those who did not. You'll get yours.
We'll be announcing plans for the next release in the next few days/weeks- we're not sure how it's gonna happen yet- may be another digital single, may be 7", may be an EP instead... either way we want it to be the John the Baptist to the Album's Jesus... we expect this virgin birth to happen in March or April- so jump on the badwagon now and Proxy'll make you fishers of men. You may think it's a little early to start making comparisons between Jesus Christ and Proxy. I don't- I've heard the album.
Go now in Peace.
X
The Son of Han
Posted by proxy, 22.10.2007 17:03
Hello Proxy fans!
You will be glad to know that you can now download the full album version of 'Jet Lag' our debut single....
There is also a 'Stubby Dials' Remix of Jet Lag available.
You can download these online from the following retailers: HMV, Island Tunes and iTunes.
Enjoy
Posted by proxy, 6.10.2007 18:55
You can now download 5 exclusive Proxy Acoustic Tracks including a cover on Napster. Simply type in Proxy and you can be the first to but all 5 tracks for only 1.79! It's a deal....
Very soon you will also be able to buy some Proxy merchandise, t-shirts and the like so keep checking this sections for details...
In other news Proxy are featured currently in FHM.com @ :
http://www.fhm.com/Entertainment/
Also listen out for Proxy at your nearest Topshop over the next couple of weeks....
Posted by proxy, 11.9.2007 13:31
Sunday night before, really couldn’t sleep as the excitement was too much to contain in anticipation for adding ‘proper’ strings to Strangers and Footprints. The old Bill (Will) had done some lovely arrangements on a keyboard string setting back when we did our demos. Footprints had to be re-recorded cause we lost some of the tracks in the computer which annoyed us no end cause that was really ‘the one’ yknow? But anyway I think all in all the re-recorded version will be better. Nick had worked with the brilliantly talented string quartet Eclipse on numerous occasions and so it was we did on this day. First step was to play them Strangers in a Fight as they hadn’t heard it yet. We said that we really wanted to have strings in it that resembled an Asiatic tinge, kinda like the way the strings in Venus as a Boy are sort of like modern Bollywood strings. The great thing was that I think a lot of bands get quite nervous when they do strings cause it immediately implies a false sense of maturity which is probably why most strings end up sounding a tad unnecessary. If the track ain’t there, adding strings ain’t gonna make it any better or grander. Anyway that’s what we wanted to avoid: strings for the sake of strings. In the end Will did an amazing job getting the foundations down as we all enthusiastically encouraged Eclipse to ‘go nuts’ with diminished chords and progressions which were basically the guitar chords (we are so very clever). I think in the end we got ourselves exactly what we thought we had: a doo-wop tune with Asiatic strings. A bloody mess. A complete and utter bloody mess.
Footprints was a different beast altogether and stood the biggest chance of being string laden without thought in a ‘we’re the biggest band in the fookin world” type of way. But I think in the end we wanted exactly what we had with the demo, as the song itself is that kind of ‘epic’ song anyway.
Posted by proxy, 10.9.2007 13:39
Hello all,
The big day has finally arrived. I am pleased to
announce today sees the release of Proxy's debut
single, Jet Lag.
You can buy it from the following places on download
for just 79p. It only takes 1 min to open an itunes
account.
itunes...(where you can also buy the video if you're
very keen)
http://clkuk.tradedoubler.com/click?p=23708&a=1311764&url=http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i%3D263125628%26id%3D263125625%26s%3D143444%26partnerId%3D2003
Island Records' Website (If you are outside the UK
you'll need to use this one)
http://www.7digital.com/stores/productDetail.aspx?shop=1&sid=2356926
The single will be recieving growing radio airplay in
the UK and on the web in the next few weeks, so if you
hear it, remember to call in and say how much you love
it...
For more news, updates, etc, you can sign up to our
mailing list at this link...
http://zaphod.uk.vvhp.net/reg/reg.pl?id=1565-27011
If you wanna come see us live soon, our next date is
at THE FLY on New Oxford St, London on Monday 17th
September. Be there.
Please forward this email to everyone you know and
bully them to buy the single (multiple times)...
The official UK single chart is announced on Sunday
and if we don't go top 40 we will cry and it'll all be
your fault...
Cheers everyone...
Mike, Will, Rich & Jon
websites....
www.proxyofficial.com
www.myspace.com/proxybyproxy
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2207591938