Sharna's Media Blog

The below questios are what they have been previously asked;

How are you today?

Tell us about your single ‘Critical’

What can we expect from your debut album?

Where did the name Soft Toy Emergency come from?

How did the band get together?

You’ve been getting support from the likes of Jo Whilye and Huw Stephens. How does that feel?

How would you describe your sound to someone who’s not heard your music yet?

You’re touring the rest of the year. How’s that going?

Waht artists are rally inspiring you at the moment?

What are your plans for the rest of 2009?

I may use some of these questions but i would like to either add more to the question or add a few of my own questions.

Here are a few of my question ideas;

 From a review by NME, you were referred to as the ‘Children of Hadouken!’, How do you feel about that?

What did you get upto whilst touring? Nothing bad i hope?

How did you form as a band? How did the journey of Soft Toy Emergency start?

How long you benn together then?

You tour with Hadouken! alot, What’s that like?

Did you get a good reaction from the crowd when you first went on tour? Where was that and what was it like?

What’s you mission? and what will you do to succeed that, if you already haven’t?

The massively known Leeds and Reading Festival, What did it feel like?

Those are questions i’ve added or changed, i will add some questions from above but make them more my type of style.

I have managed to find alot of information about this band althugh it has been difficult.

I started off by looking at the band’s sites and listened to their music, i then decided to look at reviews of the band, to see if i could find a title for the band within the review.

i have only managed to got two at the moment;

NME:    ’And here they come, bouncing fromt he dark corners with their neon and their yelping, the children of Hadouken! like a more Day-Glo Does This offend You, Yeah? with the sass of New Young Pony Club, Soft Toy Emergency knock back this sugar rush debut single like adrenaline jelly shots.’

From that Review i would like to make the Title to go with the band ‘Children Of Hadouken!’, this i think would sound exciting and to go with a picture. I plan to make to the picture similiar to the quote i have used, it’s going to be set in a playground with the female lead singer on the swing, looking at the camera and the four males around the swings messing about.

And Simon Taylor;  ‘There’s lots of fun to be had listening to a band like Soft toy Emergency who set are to make careless, neon-coated synth-pop and they don’t fail at thier goal.’  

For the review i like the ‘careless neon-coated synth-pop’  i might make a picture to go with this saying and use it in my double page spread. This one is set in a dark room, they will be covered on neon or glow in dark make-up or paint , i’ll be above them with the camera pointing downwards, i’ll have them look up and scream at the camera.

This is all i have thought about at the moment, i do intend to find more.

i am looking at questions they have been asked and how they would answer,  i have left a message on myspace and i am just awaiting a reply.

I am hoping to get Soft Toy Emergency as my front cover and double page spread band, I know them from myspace and I talk to them, they are a fairly new band who have been touring since early 2009, I want to do this band because they have wicked sounds and seem unique with the music they make.

I intend to find as much information as possible about this new and up coming band.

These are a few things that I would like to find out about by the end of the day;

All the recent tours they have been on the past year, so that I can use this in the interview I am planning to do with them, how they toured and who they toured with, synth- I want to find out more about synth, how they’re used and what exactly they are. The instruments they use and how they are set up on stage and reviews on them- going to use these reviews for many things, the contents page, under the title of their name or maybe even in the interview, I also want to get their missions to maybe go under the title of their name or in their contents page.

I know them from myspace and they’re fairly new, I would like for them to come to Kent to have an interview and a photo shoot.

I think it would be exciting because they seem pretty down to earth and I think it would be an interesting interview.

I am at the moment already thinking of questions to ask them, if they do come down, I will research what questions are asked to bands and how they are layed out.

Kerrang!

The main thing I noticed about this front cover for Kerrang! Was the colours, the red being the most used colour, Kerrang! Having the red background behind it, Placebo is red and another boxed title is red, they have used the colour red to tie in with the main picture, his lips are red. The black background makes his face and eyes stand out. I think they did that to make his facial expression stand out, his facial expression looks mean and it looks like his is sneering at the camera, it relates to his music, rock music. He is looking straight at the camera which makes it look edgy and that the picture wants you to look at this picture. His make up ties in with his clothes and make up, dark, I think that also relates to the genre of music, its tells you that his images is based on that. His is the only one of his band on the cover, which makes him the most important, the lead singer perhaps, and the title across his face tells you what band he is from. The plain black clothes don’t distract you from his face, but it also helps with bringing out the other smaller titles. The smaller bits along the top have Ozzy Osbourne, the picture shows him screaming at the camera, he is well known and famous for being the most outrageous and appalling rock star, he shows an attitude that he doesn’t care, the picture next to that is if a less known band The Offspring, The picture is simple and doesn’t really have that much of an effect. The fonts used are different but are still similar to each other. The Kerrang! Font is a font that relates to the contents and the music genre. Most of the articles don’t look they have been planned to be put there, they look kind of slapped on. Some of the titles are a bit offensive and shocking, I think that thy have made titles like this because they want a magazine that attracts young people who don’t care, it makes it entertaining in a way. Giving tips on how to annoy people wouldn’t go on a normal magazine for example; you wouldn’t see that in a magazine like Now or Ok, which makes this magazine popular with younger people who like rock and anarchy, you might also see this similar format and type of language used on the magazine Rock Sound, which is basically the same down to the music genre.

Jazz

The main focus of this magazine is no the artist itself but the music, the image is a simple black and white image. The title is simple it think yet it is still effective it’s very large and what you’d expect the type of jazz writing would look like, the title running through it shows you that the stuff inside is also more important then the title. The other title are quite cool with their colours and the way they are layed out, in colour order too, there is an order to this magazine, everything is placed in a certain area to focus the attention onto the picture. The man in the picture puts his attention onto the instrument he plays, that makes this picture interesting because you would see most artists looking at the camera or posing not playing the instrument as passionately as this man seems to be. The background looks like there was a bit of light shone just bout on him, it may be the set or how it just ended up but it looks good. His clothing isn’t really anything special black clothes, the black and white theme going on, the only colour on the page is the three, red, yellow ad orange. The banner running along the bottom matches the title running through the Jazz title. The sophisticated look to this magazine makes it aim at the matured age group, to be honest it looks too boring for the younger age group to look at it twice. The fonts used are simple and the same, no change in the font, well only for the title Jazz but that’s it. Not that much to say about this particular magazine front cover, it does attract those it wants to but I think it would a bit more colour and maybe a bit more on the front cover to give it a bit more umph!

VIBE

The title is huge, obviously a well known magazine as it also has a simple lay out. I noticed only three colours, similar to the Jazz magazine, red, black and white. The red against the white and black makes it very noticeable, you can’t miss it, I think that was the idea… eye catching! The title T.I. is also a large title, next to picture it lets you know that he is a very well known musician. The title under T.I. makes him look powerful and like a strong character, the way he speaks, an attitude maybe, but being as big as he is he needs an attitude to show how much of a good artist he is. The image itself is very in-your-face, I say this because of the expression on his face and the way he is looking straight at the camera, his leaned head shows he has an attitude, a ‘what are you lookin’ at?’ sort-of attitude. The image is black and white with they grey for his skin, I think it effective because it has that edge to it, gives people the idea that he is the way he is because of his type of music, R’n’B. The other articles on the page are not as big as T.I.’s title and placed around the image shows the importance of him and what the main focus of the magazine is. No make-up needed, the clothing is pretty simple and the background is a simple white. Comparing the three I found that Kerrang! had a lot on the front cover and even though it looks like a botched job it is still effective, there was a lot more to analyse on the front cover then what there was for the others, Jazz and VIBE. The two that were very similar were Jazz and VIBE, they both had simple backgrounds, black and white images and three main colours.