Cover mockups

Article

Double page spread content.

Rift: there are so many up and coming bands that come and go, its hard to find one good enough that can rise above the best and make it through the first part of a bands life, many don’t make it but there are a small number that do break through the ‘mediocre’ level and amaze us with there first album, band such as Primera Angostura a three man band from Leicester who have become more than just a cover and have just released there first album ‘You can go a lot further with a smile on your face and a gun in your hand’ which also has there single ‘In spite of it all’ on. I thought that the bands over all sound was great, the vocals mashed really well together with the guitar line and the bass always came in at the right time and picked the whole mood of the album up, the drums were consistently impressive and never boring or out of place.

A taster of the Band

Rift: So who plays what in the band and why?

Sebastian Faulkner: Well I play lead guitar and vocals mainly because I was the only one who was bothered to pick up a difficult instrument, and then to make that worse they made me song.

Jimmy Goodwin: well you say that but you were the only that could really sing so face it your lead singer, anyway I’m the bassist.

Karl Embrey: ell I guess that makes me the drummer then, you could say I’m the drummer because I’m the only one who can keep a rhythm.

Rift: sounds like you guys get a long quite well, where did you all meet up?

SF: well Karl and me were already trying to start a band in high school but it’s not exactly easy when you have only two members.

KE: Yeh we weren’t exactly finding it easy to find a bassist but just when we started to think about giving up we saw this kid taking out a bass and me and Seb were both like grab him he’s ours.

Rift: sounds a bit violent, Jimmy did you have any intention of joining a band or was it peer pressure?

JG: hah yeh you could say that, no I really wanted to be in a band to and a good job to because these two weirdo’s approached me and asked if I wanted to start a band project with them, and I immediately thought yeh, I so do.

Rift: So you guys have been friends for ages then?

KE: Yeh pretty much after that day we were as you say as thick as thieves.

Rift: How did start off playing, did you a particular direction you wanted to go in?

SF: well to start off with we all had a slightly different taste off music, I was more Foo fighters and Red hot chilli peppers where as Jimmy was more into classic rock like ACDC and Karl was really into old metal like Sabbath, so We kind of combined all of our music tastes and ended p with this kind off twisted rock sound.

JG: yeh we all thought about different ideas of how to start but we found it hard when we were all playing different genres to each other.

Rift: Sounds like a bit of a ruff start?

KE: You could say that yeh, but we finally pulled ourselves together and started covering some other bands songs to start off with, to test the water If you will, and that seemed to be going fine so we thought why can’t we make some songs up ourselves, so that’s the first thing we got onto.

Rift: what was the product of your first idea?

SF: well we kinda came up with a track that had the guitar line similar to all Along The Watch Tower and the drums from in The Air Tonight, with a crazy bass line, it didn’t really work because we were all trying to take the limelight for ourselves, so we had to work out the main parts for different songs, like say this song would be based around the drums or this song will follow the singing.

JG: Yeh they were pretty messed up times with trying to find our ‘sound’ and everything while still trying to do school work.

Rift where were you really discovered by a record company?

KE: well we had finally got a slot at Glastonbudget and we played our first set, which was a cover of The Best Of you by Foo Fighters and two of our own songs, and then after we had played them this guy approached us and asked us if we were interested in a contract with a record company, of course we were all ecstatic but we weren’t quite there yet, he said we had to get him a recording of every song we had done and get it to him on disk, this was fine, so we did and a week later we were sent a letter by The Brass Knuckles record company that asked us If we could come in to the studio and record a single, so the company could release it into the world of music and see if it got any feedback.

Rift: well did it?

JG: well yeh or we wouldn’t be here right now would we?

Rift; True true but what was the next step after that?

Rift: Wow impressive stuff, one final question where did you get the idea for your band name Primera angostura?

JG: wow this age old question, it seems wrong if no one asks you this, we were a bit stuck with names to start with as every band seems to be, and we wanted a name that meant something to all of us, because we didn’t want to end up like The Who, so we thought of something that had struck all of our lives, and they first thing we could think of was our friend James Dixon, he was on holiday in Spain and he went cliff diving and he dove where the water was to shallow and unfortunately cracked his head open and died, we didn’t want to forget him so we named the band after the place he went cliff diving The straight of Magellan, the old Spanish name for this was Primera Angostura, and we all agreed that this would be the name for the band, for James.

Rift: Thanks for sharing that with us, Primera Angostura, a promising start for a upcoming band, let’s hope they make it big.

Band profile.

Because I have chosen to do my magazine on modern rock I ideally need to have a band on the front of my magazine, I thought of having a three piece band like muse or Biffy clyro would be a good idea because I like the layout of each band and its a bit simpler to use less people in a band so it makes it easier for me to find people that I can take pictures of.
So I thought that having a lead guitarist/lead singer, a drummer and a bassist would be the perfect amount of people for a band, I thought this because bands like Biffy clyro and Muse only have three people but they have been very successful.

Test Shots

I quite liked this picture of Ryan behind the drums, I was limited with people when taking these mock up pictures, but this picture works quite well it involves the drums but the main focus is still on Ryan, for my real photo's I will have a band picture.

This is another shot of Ryan but I took it from a different angle so I could see what it would look like if he was playing the drums while I took the photo.

This photo of Rupert doesn't really work for the genre I'm doing, but I wanted to take some shots of him playing guitar so the picture would have a more natural look to it rather than him posing.

For this photo I asked Rupert to look in a certain direction and not straight at the camera, this shot kind of works but I think it was a very good pose for Rupert to be doing as he doesn't look very comfortable.

I took this picture because I thought It would be quite a good background for me to take pictures against because it reflects my genre quite well.

This Picture I quite liked because of the difference in height between Ryan and Jordan, the shot works quite well to because the shot wasn't planned so they are quite relaxed.

Change to magazine music genre

As of now i have now changed the genre of music that my magazine will be about, this is because it has been suggested to me that grunge is dead and has now become a very niche market, so if I continued with my plans for a grunge magazine I would find it very hard to make it accessible to a larger audience.
So I have decided to do my magazine on Modern rock now with has a much larger audience, and the good thing about the genre is that it has had quite a lot of influence from grunge because after Kurt Cobain committed suicide Nirvana split up and the band went there separate ways, like for instance Dave grohl who used to drum for Nirvana went on to start a very popular band called Foo Fighters, they are more rock than grunge and I can hear in some of there songs slight grunge influences, this is also true for the second band he helped to found, which was Them Crooked vultures this was founded with John Paul Jones (best known as the bassist for Led Zeppelin) and Josh Homme ( better known for being the lead man in the band Queens Of The stone Age).
Modern rock also called Alternative rock differs from the original rock genre who had bands like ACDC and Led zeppelin, I'm trying to appeal to a younger audience so more recent bands that have come out Like Biffy Clyro and Foo Fighters, these bands feature less on guitar solo's and overly structured songs that have One Guitarist , one singer, One bassist and One drummer and maybe a Keyboard player, More recent rock bands have lost the structure of the oringinal rock bands and rock songs and have evolved with the times to create a new more up to date genre appeals to my target market.




Sex On Fire







Biffy Clyro - That Golden Rule

Artists clothing for front cover

The Clothing style for the band that I will feature on my front cover will be quite relaxed, because in this picture here we can see the band The Raconteurs
, in this photo I can see that they are dressed from quite formal to just a t-shirt. I think that I will have my band dress up between semi formal and informal. 

In this picture the band are all wearing t shirts in quite an informal way, the facial expressions range from laughing to a very serious stare at the camera.

Though in this picture to look slightly more formal the band has gone for a normal t shirt with a more formal shirt over the top.

In this band Biffy Clyro they are all wearing different styles of shirts, the lead singer is wearing a v neck t shirt, this is because he wants to show off his tattoo.



It seems when the band wants to look a bit smarter all they do Is wear a shirt over a normal T shirt and the illusion of formality is created, they seem to dress a bit better when they are having a photo shoot so I'm to have to have my band wearing shirts for one picture on the front cover when I'm taking a artistic shot and then on my double page spread I'm going to have a larger picture of them playing in black and white so in that picture they can be wearing slightly less formal clothes.












In these band pictures I can see that the theme is that they are always wearing jeans or some short of cargo pants, this won't be an issue for me because jeans are very easy to obtain and I also own many pairs my self to getting them will be easy.













Shoes that the band wear differ from classic nike's or Van slip ons to leather Chelsea boots.


I have many pairs of vans so shoes will not be a problem and I know some friends that already have Nike classics so that won't be a problem, and the band I plan to shoot won't have Chelsea boots but that's fine because I'm not trying to go for the smarter rock look more the casual rock is what I'm trying to achieve.

Rolling stones Controversal front covers/ artistic front covers.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkw4DIt8tsNj-Dmusn5cYXO91dCmWzPn7nIt9M_vLntY0CiaRf-19Izg1JW7jKR2QTLLDeFOsx6qanywPeTnkIkXKXusKYyT8I0Sk0h6mWhJCqYN7bJ0zh4D_dHJetFu_qeTmvLmaAbc4d/s1600/Rolling_Stone_magazine_John_Lennon_Yoko_Ono.jpg&imgrefurl=http://rosieabouttown.blogspot.com/2010/10/john-lennon-and-his-red-ballon.html&usg=__ovtdzSvUiJr-uajKb5t1fJ_J-YQ=&h=596&w=460&sz=20&hl=en&start=0&sig2=FjUmiCEn1Ae4XLQw6_pOQQ&zoom=1&tbnid=pow5qJOETQpAqM:&tbnh=167&tbnw=115&ei=iC4wTeOhIZG4hAeRh_CeCw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dyoko%2Bono%2Brolling%2Bstone%2Bpicture%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1259%26bih%3D823%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=125&vpy=61&dur=1062&hovh=256&hovw=197&tx=115&ty=109&oei=iC4wTeOhIZG4hAeRh_CeCw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=26&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

• John Lennon is naked and Yoko Ono Isn't, this is quite a surreal shot because its quite an intimate shot yet its being displayed on a front cover of a magazine.
• Also the picture was taken 4 hours before He was shot by Mark David Chapman at the entrance of the building where he lived.

http://beastpop.blogspot.com/2010/10/we-belong-alive-bride-of-frank-for.html

• Magazine seen to be quite raunchy
• Also the camera shot is quite artistically symetrical

http://entertainment.ca.msn.com/music/photos/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=25320632&page=18

• This shot of the Red Hot Chili Peppers is quite controversial, mainly because they are all naked.
• They have quite serious facial expressions so theshot seems quite surreal and they are all standing in height order so the shot has quite a lot of artisic order.

http://news.lalate.com/2008/01/11/britney-spears-rolling-stone-cover-pictures/

• In this picture Britney is dressed up as a school girl and the shot is taken from above her which makes it look like someones spying on her when she is in her room.

• In this shot Kanye west is depicted as Jesus, this shot is considered to be very controversial and some Christians might find it offensive because it challenges the image of Jesus and false idols.
• Crown of thorns and the reference to the passion of Christ defiantly confirms the reference to Jesus.

http://pattifriday.com/2010/08/true-blood-rolling-stone-magazine-cover/

• The picture on the front cover here depicts the three actors in True Blood naked and covered in blood, the blood is a reference to the title of the TV series and also that the series is about vampires.
• Them all being naked is to start with quite controversial but them also standing in quite raunchy positions makes the cover even more controversial.

Artistic covers

• This Is a front cover that features Steve Jobs.
• its very artistic because of the use of colours, they red and yellow on Steve Jobs clash really badly with the background colours, but this is what makes the cover work, the colours clash so much that it looks good.
• the caption 'iGod' is quite controversial as It refers to all the Apple mac products that have i in front like the 'ipod', but referring to Steve jobs as a god seems quite controversial though it almost seems right with the idea's that he has come up with to fuel Apple.

• This magazine is quite controversial and artistic at the same time.
• The article says 'The Game , suicide is not an option' and then having a huge picture of a man with a gun to his head, addressing the problem straight away with the picture, its very eye catching because you don't normally see something this this on the front of a magazine so you would pick it up out of curiosity.

• this magazine is very artistic, because it talks about this issue being the 'Denim Me' version and instead of just having someone wearing a pair of jeans on the front cover they have got a pair of jeans that look like someones wearing them and then surrounding and flowing around the jeans they have a very artistic doodle that makes the magazine really interesting to look at.
• The white background also allows the black doodles to really stand out and give the magazine a very simple look that's really ascetically pleasing.

Presentation.

Magazine Pitch (1)
This is my PowerPoint presentation on my magazine pitch, I used this as a visual aid as I talked around it and pointed out schemes and layouts that I liked, it was also good for showing people my influences and inspirations through the means of pictures on my first slide.
I talked through what my original ideas for my magazine was, which was going to be a magazine on Grunge but I was told that it would be a to niche make and that I would want to expand my idea's and go for a slightly more mainstream genre of music, I was told that rock would probably be the best nearest choice to rock, so I decided to do quite recent rock bands that were influenced by grunge, so  have included bands like foo fighters and The crooked vultures, both of which feature Dave Grohl who used to be in the very famous grunge band Nirvana. I then went through on how I would like my layout, I also based it on my research and included some pictures of layouts that I liked, Like Q and NME, I also then said that for my main image I would like a main picture of the band that I am going to manufacture and some smaller pictures about solo artists and projects that other rock bands are working on.
I then talked about the colour scheme that I am going to use, based on the magazines that I used I saw that most of the used the colour scheme red, black and white and I thought that the colour scheme worked really well and also worked for the genre of music that I am doing.
I then moved on to a part of my presentation that involved the audience, I had four titles and I asked which one of them they preferred, I found that nobody liked the first two quite aggressive sounding magazine names (Skarring and Rampant) but I got a majority vote on Rift and some minor votes for collision, I'm quite glad that my audience had a majority vote on Rift because I had chosen that to be the best sounding name that works well before the vote.
I then went on to talk about my target market for my magazine, which I said would be majorly more teenage males but with an age cap going up to about 22, I thought that girls do also like modern rock but I found when I did some research on it its about a 70 30 split of boys to girls.
I then had finished my presentation and was asked some questions like  'what is the layout of your contents page going to look like?' which I answered saying that I was going to have a big picture on one side and all the contents listed on the right, which smaller pictures outlining other articles in the magazine. Another question I was asked was 'how would I dress my band?' I replied by saying that modern rock bands now seem to wear quite casual clothes, we're  talking jeans and hoodies which I already have access to and most of my friends do to so it shouldn't be to hard to dress the band up.
I felt that my presentation went quite well considering I had to change the genre of music that I was going to do it on.