Welcome, friends, to the first installment of the new look Notepad, a shadowed corner of the world wide web that has long served as our personal treasure trove for glorious new music. But, as with all else, we must adapt. So, gone is the sluggish filter-based AJAX grid of Bandcamp players, and in its place is a scrapbook of ideas, extended thoughts and humble recommendations from regular staff and contributors. We think you’ll like it just the same.
Craig Hayes was 29 years old when he died. Spiritualized helped bring him back to life. In our first cover story, Craig shares a deeply personal story of depression, suicide, drug abuse, redemption and the ultimate salvation of music.
Meaning can only lie squarely with the creator if their work is never shown to anyone, for it’s not the job of the listener to research or to know of artwork’s purpose prior to engaging with it. There’s nothing personal about imbibing something through the eyes of its creator, not much cause for connection. And when something is so literal that it can only really be read in a certain way, it threatens invalidating itself. If it can’t be interacted with, what’s it worth?
As their name would suggest, Bear vs Manero are a band that thrives off of the hypothetical, belligerently pitting foes together in a blackened version of Doodle God.
The output jack on my guitar is loose and I am struggling to keep the cable in. At one point it falls out halfway during a song. I continue ‘playing,’ because I’ve learned there’s nothing worse than stopping a song midway through for a technical glitch, but the panic has fully set in at this point. I struggle to sing the lyrics I know by heart and not just repeat “I’m a fraud. You know I’m a fraud. I’m a fraud.” That’s what’s running through my brain on ticker tape.
About 10 months ago I moved from Upstate New York to Ireland, frustrated by my lack of job prospects and a sense of personal stagnation, and left unstable after a series of tragedies among family and friends. I needed something new; I needed to get out. I needed, at bottom, some time away from my self.
With all its delicious, flagrant wankery, math-rock tends to draw more from the rock pools of technical precision than the deeper wells of human emotion, but Milk Time For Spiders sits between the two with one of those dual-strawed drinking hats and has the lot.
The release of Sufjan Stevens’ heartbreaking LP Carrie & Lowell has deeply affected many due to its complex themes of childhood abandonment, the importance of personal faith, and the weight of mortality. New York writer and long-time Sufjan follower Quinn O’Callaghan tells his own personal story. All photography used by Emmanuel Afolabi.
It doesn’t take long for the evidence to mount that the most important place in the world is wherever Moffat’s not. He teeters from doting family man to challenged alpha-male, and finds himself consistently misled by the adverts for each. His wants and needs spar in a caged ring because he only knows to pit them against one another, and when the wants win, they change their name to needs.
In the wake of their first record for eight years, current Hilly Eye member and former Titus Andronicus member Amy Klein examines the lasting legacy of Sleater-Kinney in respect to managing creative balance, knowing when to quit and learning to be yourself at all costs.