Voldemort Can't Stop the Wrock - A Wizard Rock Blog

Leave the Scar - MiM Rebellion

2011-03-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

It's Snow Ball Time Again!

2010-12-13T16:29:00.000-08:00

Okay, so yes, I'm aware it's been a whole year since I last posted anything on here. Shabby behaviour I know, which started when I began sulking after getting snowed in and unable to attend the 2009 Snow Ball (ironic huh?) thus missing The Remus Lupins *sob*. It continued with me being rather ill and the long period of recovery during which I couldn’t really be bothered to write anything, let alone blog. Then there was what seemed like a major spate of Wizard rockers announcing their retirements, which left me wondering where Wrock was going, or if it was going and to cap it all, my father becoming seriously ill, which had me spending three months during the summer in Spain. Since my return I’ve then been rather too busy to consider posting, as the lack of posts on my Muggle blog also shows.

But I'm back, and ready to Wrock.

Whilst it's true that there have been a number of retirements from the major leagues of the Wrock world, there are a huge number of new bands ready and willing to take their place. Wrock concerts seem to go from strength to strength and there are new sites writing about and reviewing Wrock. Even the Wizrocklopedia has had a makeover.

All in all, even though the end is nigh for the Harry Potter film franchise, wizard rock seems to be growing in popularity, as the Ministry of Magic’s success on ITunes this week shows, and whilst I’m sure there will be many changes in the months and years to come, I really can’t see the Harry Potter fandom and by extension the Wrock community, ending in some dramatic fashion just because the films are done.

This Friday, 17th December, sees the first night of the new and improved Snow Ball weekend and with this excellent event now so close and with the huge amount of new CD releases just begging to be listened to since Wrockstock last month, I felt it was time to return to blogging about one of my favourite genres of music.

As ever it's going to be a mixture of me plugging songs I love, especially as I make my way through the wealth of new bands that I haven't yet listened to, interspersed with me being maudlin about those bands that I love dearly who have decided to call it a day (yes Split Seven Ways, Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and The Butterbeer Experience, I'm talking about you) to posts of general interest to the Wrock community and any other old rubbish I feel in the mood to write about.

So back to the Snow Ball.

Friday night is being held, as last year, at The Lot and is a fully fledged, dress-up-nicely, Wrock ball, starring the fabulous Riddle TM, Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons and Siriusly Hazza P and, this year's US contribution (about which I'm particularly excited), Swish and Flick with some hardcore Slytherin wizard rapping.

Then, at 3pm on Saturday afternoon, the Central Library on George IV Bridge plays host to a FREE, yep that's FREE concert featuring the above four bands with the added attraction of The Lost Diadems, Quickspell, The Pumpkin Pasties and, rather fabulously from my point of view, Split Seven Ways (excuse me while I squee really loudly here, I LOVE this band soooo much and as you’ll see from above Zoe had announced that she was quitting and I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to see her performing as SSW). Places are still available at the Library concert, so if you're within travelling distance please come along as it’ll be a great afternoon.

If you can't get to Edinburgh you can still join in the fun. The Snow Ball will be streamed live on UStream from 7pm GMT on Friday night and hopefully the Library show will be streamed at the same address the following day.

So come on you Witches, Wizards and Muggles, join us (and yes both I and Quincy the Muggle will be DEFINITELY there this year) in (probably) snowy Edinburgh for the UK Wrock event of the year.

Edinburgh Snow Ball

2009-11-19T05:22:00.000-08:00

With only a month left before the event, I just thought I'd do a quick shout-out for the Snow Ball which is taking place at The Lot in Edinburgh on Friday 18th December 2009.

Organised by the lovely Neil Bird, the Ball is going to be a fabulous evening of wrock music and general Harry Potterish Christmas madness and fun.

The bands are confirmed as follows: The Black Sisters, Siriusly Hazza P, Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons, RiddleTM and, all the way from the US, The Remus Lupins (squee!)

As you can imagine tickets are selling quickly for this awesome event and is sure to be the UK Wrock event of the year.

Tickets are available for £15. This link will take you to a PayPal page which accepts other methods of payment, so you don't have to hold a PayPal account: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=7242489

I look forward to seeing everyone there!

WROCKSTOCK III

2009-11-06T12:15:00.000-08:00

Today sees the start of Wrockstock III, an amazing weekend of music held in Potosi, MO and featuring an array of the best wrock bands around today. Sadly, I couldn’t afford to go and are therefore going to miss seeing live the last ever Mudbloods show and the possibly only ever Starfish and Stick show, but as a consolation for all the people who can’t make it the organisers are broadcasting the shows from the Room of Wrockquirement on PotterTeeVee.com throughout the weekend.

Of course this means that the shows start at something like 2am my time, but I’m determined to watch as much of the weekend as I can. In case you, like me, have been unable to go to Trout Lodge and take part in this awesome weekend and want to tune in to see the bands, here’s the official schedule of the bands that are playing in the Room of Wrockquirement (times are CST). As you can see there are some great bands playing.

Friday:
8pm – The Moaning Myrtles
9pm – Justin Finch Fletchley
10pm – Ministry of Magic

Saturday:
2pm – Draco and the Malfoys
3pm – Creevey Crisis
4pm – Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls
8pm – Diagon Alley
9pm – Swish and Flick
10pm – Gred and Forge

Sunday:
2pm – Catchlove
3pm – RiddleTM
4pm – The Whomping Willows
8pm – Tonks and the Aurors
9pm – The Mudbloods
10pm – The Remus Lupins

Of course this is just a part of the action that is going on at Wrockstock. There are plenty of non-musical activities such as Quidditch, O.W.L.S. and N.E.W.T.S. , but there is also more music in the form of the Wampum Willow slots which will take place before the main action on Saturday and Sunday and are shown below. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to be televised, but I’m hoping that there will be plenty of videos available of the performances.

Saturday
9:00 Dreari Inferi
9:30 KwikSpell
10:00 The Buttermellows
10:30 The Vanishing Cabinet
11:00 X Lovegood
11:30 Madame Pince and the Librarians
12:00 Hogwart Heartbreakers
12:30 Professor Hooknose
1:00 Hawthorn and Holly
1:30 The Butterbeer Experience

Sunday
9:00 The Blibbering Humdingers
9:30 Snidget
10:00 Standing In Line
10:30 Starfish and Stick
11:00 The Nifflers
11:30 Tonks and the Werewolves
12:00 Alohomora
12:30 Half-Kneazles
1:00 The Dumbledore's Army Band
1:30 Neville's Diary

Recent Relevance of Retired (or semi-) Wrock

2009-06-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

On Facebook, Russ of Creevey Crisis and Starfish and Stick, posted a note regarding Wizard Rock. Its main theme was to get opinion on how bands could stay in the consciousness of fans and how they could create new fans even if they were no longer together, or on hiatus. He was thinking in particular of those bands that led the way in the genre and yet were no longer known by a large part of the wrock community, i.e. Hollow Godric and Ginny and the Heartbreakers. I read Russ’ note with interest and thought I’d give my opinion as a more recent recruit to the world of Wizard Rock. Of course this is just my personal opinion so feel free to agree or disagree with what I’ve said, although I’m not up for an argument, just stating my feelings on the subject.

First I guess I should give a bit of background about me as this is what shapes my thoughts and ideas, likes and dislikes. Obviously I’m older (by some considerable way) than most wrock fans (and bands), but I am a music fan and have been since I was a toddler and good music, regardless of genre has always appealed to me. My extensive record/CD/MP3 collection encompasses many types of music, although I have to admit that in the Muggle world Rap doesn’t really float my boat, R&B (as it is defined these days) leaves me a little cold and Country & Western generally makes me run screaming for the hills.

I was a latecomer to just about everything Harry Potter-related – the fandom, fan fiction, podcasts, you name it...they all passed me by for a long time until the last book was over and done and everyone I knew who had an interest in Harry Potter had gone back to living normal useful and productive lives and no longer wanted to discuss plot points from the series or help me through my grieving for Severus Snape. Soon, I realised that this magical world which had so taken over my life for ten years, and was continuing to do so, was to my friends, nothing more than a series of interesting, if somewhat annoying books.

There were two things that marked a turning point for me – a particularly traumatic conversation, during which someone told me to stop daydreaming about children’s books and get on with life, because I was turning into a freak, made me decide to look on the internet to see if there was anyone else like me out there, which of course resulted in me finding the Harry Potter fandom in all its glory; and buying an I-Pod which meant I-Tunes and finding the hundreds of Potter-related podcasts.

Amazed, and somewhat relieved to find that I wasn’t alone in my obsession with Harry Potter – although possibly a bit older than others, I happily began downloading and listening to podcasts, mostly wishing that I’d known about them at the time they’d come out. How much more would I have enjoyed the books, had I have had Pottercast there with me? And I know for certain that I’d have felt less as if there was something wrong with me for queuing up with all those kids at midnight for a book and refusing to do anything until I’d finished reading it the following day, if I’d known that there were so many other people as involved in the whole thing as me. As a huge Snape fan I of course gravitated towards Snapecast and it was there that I first encountered Wizard Rock. The track was Snape vs. Snape by Ministry of Magic and I heard it whilst at the hairdressers. By the time I’d emerged with my new hairstyle I knew there was a whole new world of music out there that I just had to check out. Now I will admit that I had vaguely heard that a band called Harry and the Potters existed but I had never bothered to check them out and had forgotten about them until Ministry of Magic came along to shake up my world.

And so I studied the internet and found that MySpace was the place to find Wizard Rock. I signed up and starting with Ministry of Magic and Harry and the Potters, I soon found myself delving deeper and deeper into the wrock world via the friend links. At the same time I had discovered the list of bands on Wizrocklopedia and in the days when the Wrock Wiki was still around would spend my lunch hour checking out info on the bands on there as I had no access to MySpace. And then there was Atriumcast, which also introduced me to a number of new bands (I had not, at that stage, discovered WZRD). Evenings were spent downloading and listening to tracks by the bands I’d found, but there were so many bands out there, that I didn’t have time to delve too deeply into their backgrounds and if I’m honest, bands that allowed you to download their music for free (and not all of them did by any means) were more likely to be of interest to me than ones who didn’t. Over the last eighteen months or so I have amassed a huge amount of Wizard Rock (both free and paid for), and most of my time is still spent listening to it. However, as time has gone on, I no longer spend so much time looking out for new bands, although if, like the Deathsticks or Quickspell, one happens to come my way I’ll happily give them a listen.

As far as the bands I have already got music by goes (and I think at the last count that was something like 350) I have been working my way steadily through it and very unscientifically rating each band’s folder depending on how much I like 1) their style of music, 2) their singing (the great thing about wrock is that anyone can have a go and be accepted, the downside of this is that there is some quite appalling stuff out there) and 3) the lyrics of the songs.

Now I am a great fan of the comedy songs, so I love bands like Peeved, The Blibbering Humdingers and The Moaning Myrtles, I’m also a huge fan of decent female singers which is why I love Split Seven Ways and her offshoots, The Butterbeer Experience and Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons so much. Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls, The Remus Lupins and Marked As His Equal are just awesome. Bands like Ministry of Magic and the completely wonderful (and yes I am a major fan girl of theirs) The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office make music that makes me happy and want to dance and Draco and the Malfoys just make me laugh with pleasure.

It is obviously these types of bands who I have concentrated on buying music by along with the many charity compilations that are always being released (after all I have a limited amount of money available for music each month and I don’t just listen exclusively to wrock) and of course I tend to listen to these bands more than the others. I do still find new stuff – hearing The Common Welsh Green on Accio Potter Wizard Radio a few weeks ago made me check out The Quaffle Kids and I am now the proud owner of their excellent album Bludgers and Broomsticks, but to be honest, when I find a band, I don’t know whether they have been around forever or have only started a few weeks before. I, for instance, knew of Hollow Godric because I have a couple of their tracks, downloaded from MySpace back in that first frenzy, but I had no idea that they were one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the genre. To me they were just another wrock band.

Also for me, these days I tend to prefer to download the albums where I can, both because of ease of doing so, plus the bonus of saving space in my already overcrowded flat. Shipping from the US can also come at quite a cost and I have had to wait anything up to two months for a CD to arrive, both of which are annoying when you really want to hear the album. Therefore I am more likely to buy albums by bands who have released their work on I-Tunes/Amazon, than those who are selling hard copies from a link on their MySpace page.

I think for a band to stay popular there needs to be a healthy balance between self-promotion and fan exposure. Band promotion would come from touring and regular blogging or perhaps with newsletters (as Draco and the Malfoys and The Whomping Willows have just started) even if just to remind people that they are still there. Now obviously this isn’t going to happen if the band is no longer active, for whatever reason, so perhaps, as is the case with the millions of defunct Muggle bands around the world, their fans should make the effort to spread the word in their place. Touring is not the be all and end all of becoming and remaining famous. After all most, if not all, of the current major US wrock bands have never played (and, sadly, probably will never play) in the UK and yet they’re as well known to the (admittedly smaller) wrock community as they are in the US.

Unfortunately, conversely the same isn’t necessarily true of UK bands like The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, Peeved, Siriusly Hazza P, Shrieking Shack Disco Gang etc. although RiddleTM are obviously doing something right in that department – they’re definitely well-known to the US community. And then there’s the rest of the world. So many places producing Wizard Rock and yet so much of it going unnoticed amongst the wider mass of wrockers, even in these days of YouTube and streaming TV.

Why is this? Well because bands like Harry and the Potters, The Remus Lupins and The Whomping Willows get out there and tour regularly, and when you discuss with other wrock fans about albums that are worth purchasing, you are more likely to get a recommendation for their latest album than for an album by a band that haven’t released, or even played anything for years. This is the nature of music and will always be. However, with the change to MySpace, the chances for finding the older bands is receding - or at least the chance to download and hear properly their songs. Since the initial major change which stopped downloads (this happened about a month after I discovered Wizard Rock) I spend most of my time on the site catching up with blog updates from the bands I’m interested in rather than trying to find ones that I know nothing about. To be honest if I hadn’t already come across Hollow Godric I think it unlikely that I’d know anything about them, or would even know that they were there to search for. And even when you do manage to find the pages of these bands, many of the links no longer work, so unless they’ve stored a huge amount of songs on their player (and I seem to remember that a lot of bands lost the songs stored on the old players), you’ll never get to hear them.

Of course some bands seem to be able to reach iconic status regardless. I know Russ mentioned The Weasel King – who I would agree is totally awesome. I too have no idea why he’s so popular – I just know that his music appeals to me. Generally though, I assume these bands reach this status because of some quirk. For instance, whilst there are several excellent wrock bands that feature members who are under the age of sixteen (and yes I’m thinking of The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office again amongst others), The Hungarian Horntails once again won the WRPCA despite, as far as I’m aware, not releasing a single thing in 2008. As someone who missed them when they came out, I can’t see why they’re still so popular, except that they feature very young children and this I assume gives them the ‘aah’ factor. Maybe if fans could find a way to give their own favourite band that little quirk these ‘older’ bands wouldn’t disappear from the consciousness of the masses.

Unfortunately, I found out about wrock too late to join the Wizard Rock EP of the Month Club for 2007 (if anyone has a spare set they’d like to sell me I’d be eternally grateful as there’s several of the EPs that I would LOVE to own – Ginny and the Heartbreakers Love Storm amongst them), but I did sign up for both last year and this year’s selections. I think they are excellent value for money and quality and are a good way to find out about bands you either might never have heard of, or would never previously consider listening to and I’m pleased to see that some of the less major bands are having a chance to record for them, thus hopefully ensuring greater exposure. Whilst I expect this will have no effect on future award ceremonies, nor will it do anything to make bands like Hollow Godric more popular it does at least give a reasonably priced way to amass a collection of the very different types of music within the Wizard Rock genre. Perhaps the way forward would be for someone to produce a collection of the unknown ‘greats’ of the wrock world...although who would choose what should be on that is another question all of its own.

So I went and listened to Hollow Godric again to see why I don’t have them on my wrock favourites playlist (that currently stands at about 250 tracks) and I found out that it’s because whilst they are obviously a good band, the tracks I have by them are pretty boring. Lovely sounding and well crafted to be sure, but I have plenty of music that’s like that. Unfortunately, there’s nothing about them in what I’ve heard that stands out to me as being better than the rest. When I’m spending my hard-earned money on music I’ll be buying something that I adore, like The Butterbeer Experience, Split Seven Ways or RiddleTM rather than Hollow Godric I’m afraid.

Live Wizard Rock (via UStream anyway)

2009-06-12T18:15:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have been interesting ones for me on the Wrock front. With tours starting by several of the US bands and the advent of streaming TV on my new fabby computer, I have, for the first time been able to watch these bands performing live.

The day before Leaky Con started I was lucky enough to see Witherwings, Snidget, The Butterbeer Experience, Swish and Flick and The House of Black in NYC. This was then followed last weekend with a concert by Justin Finch Fletchley, The Moaning Myrtles and The Whomping Willows, and last night with the concert by Gred and Forge, Tonks and the Aurors and The Remus Lupins who are playing in St Louis. Each of the shows has been excellent and I’ve enjoyed them very much. However, the buzz of being at the concert just isn’t there when I watch it from the lounge and I now very much want to see these and other bands live.

Sadly, it is unlikely that any of these bands will ever make it over the pond to the UK (although I did suggest it to Stacey of Swish and Flick earlier) so the earliest I am likely to see them performing will be at Leaky Con 2011 (I’d love to go to Wrockstock in November this year, but I’ve got absolutely no idea how I’d get there as it’s in the middle of nowhere and Infinitus in July 2010, although tempting, even if only for Lena’s wrock opera ‘Blood and Beauty’, is out of my price league when I’m so determined to be at Leaky Con the year after). I just hope all these excellent bands are still around. After all The Mudbloods have said their final live concert will be at Wrockstock.

Fortunately, the news isn’t all bad. The UK has produced some of the best Wrock bands around and they do hold regular concerts. I just need to be able to get to one. As luck would have it this month sees Hogwarts Jamboree which is being held in London on Sunday 28th June and features the bands Bella and the Deatheaters, Siriusly Hazza P, Shrieking Shack Disco Gang and RiddleTM. They will also be showing the Wizard Rock documentary film ‘We Are Wizards’ which I believe is the first and probably only time that it’ll be shown in the UK. In addition there will be plenty of other HP-related fun and frolics. Tickets are still available, at the link above, so if you’re free on that day get on down to the Loom Bar in London and join us for a quality UK HP Day.

Wizard Rock and the Hurtful Podcasts

2009-06-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

I have just listened to a Podcast called Stereo Radiation which was pointed out to me by Alex Heule from Accio-Potter. He was upset that they had broadcast an episode criticising his Accio-Potter Wrock podcast purely because it had knocked them out of the Top Ten on Podcast Alley. So I listened to this jealous and quite frankly vicious rant to see what the fuss was about and now I’m really upset about it too.

I understand that not everyone ‘gets’ the Harry Potter books and the fandom that has grown up around it and that Wizard Rock is seen as a joke to those who haven’t bothered to actually explore the genre and although I personally feel that these people are missing out on something wonderful, they are fully entitled to their opinion. However, that said, to criticise so roundly the APW podcast and Wizard Rock in general, without any real knowledge of the subject, purely because you’re jealous that they are getting more votes on a Podcast voting site is pathetic in the extreme.

The SR podcast is nothing but a badly-informed, petty and spiteful dig at the Accio-Potter podcasters and Wizard Rockers alike and their ignorance is actually almost as annoying as their criticisms. Several times before getting to the segment about APW, they mentioned that this HP podcast had knocked them from the Top Ten - obviously this is the only motivation for their spite.

Funnily enough SR themselves aren’t too keen on criticism. At one point they said they were happy to receive comments about the show and that they’d make fun of how silly people are. They also said they were pretty charitable, unless you leave a nasty comment in which case you’ll get ignored. Oh, and if you want to leave a comment on their site, you have to register with them first and all comments are moderated – and guess what - no criticisms get through. I guess that you’d have to take this course when your podcast consists not, as they like to think, of witty banter, but a spewing of bile and jealousy.

First they began with a character assassination of the APW podcasters whilst playing snippets of the show, making puerile assumptions about them. I can only imagine that these assumptions are based on their own experience – certainly the way they described the podcasters made me imagine that they were actually talking about themselves. Not quite the gentle teasing that they mentioned earlier.

More rudeness against the APW crew ensues when the SR presenters point out what they consider to be the mispronunciation of the word ‘Accio.’ Luckily for us the presenters of this HP-hating podcast have the definitive answer. This is followed by a rant that HP podcasts get into the Top Ten because they merely mention HP and that they should produce one of their own – more proof, if it were needed, that jealousy is fueling this entire edition. And then they move onto criticising the Wrock itself.

Playing ‘Ice Cream Man’ by Harry and the Potters, they first of all picked up on the band name with the inference that it was lame. Then, completely showing their ignorance of the HP books they asked why they were singing about an ice cream man – hinting that it had nothing to do with wizards apart from the band name and the words Diagon Alley in the song. Further criticism was soon poured upon HatP, with speculation that they were actually a middle-aged rock band purely doing this to cash in and rip off the gullible HP fans.

In fact it was this criticism, which appeared several times throughout the podcast, which really infuriated me the most. As anyone, who has ever vaguely had anything to do with Wizard Rock knows, the whole thing is based on friendship and community and family and love. How many of the bands have given away their music rather than sold it? And how many of the bands give at least some the money they do make to charity and good causes? Has a genre ever produced so many charity albums? And to suggest that Wizard Rock bands are doing it only to cash in is to completely denigrate an entertaining and creative genre of music.

Finally, and the thing that really made my blood boil, was the comment that wizard rockers fall into either one of two camps – those that are cashing in and those that are, in the terms of the SR presenters ‘freaks.’ A huge criticism followed about people wasting time on writing songs about HP, along with surprise that anyone would be interested in hearing or buying the music. Interestingly, they also made it sound as if it was just a few bands, producing sub quality music – rather than the thousands of bands, in the main producing very good quality songs.

Of course the presenters admitted to knowing nothing about Wizard Rock and the blurb for this particular podcast describes the Wizard Rock genre as having a narrow focus and being bizarre. However, to use that as an excuse to denigrate people is not just lame, it’s downright nasty. One of the presenters said that he wouldn’t even know where to find ten wizard rock songs, let alone eighty four minutes worth (the running time of the episode of APW that they were discussing) – perhaps he should try checking out Google. A search for ‘Wizard Rock’ brings up almost 1.5 million results – so not that hard to find.

The main reason I’m so annoyed about this podcast is that these two presenters have been so incredibly mean to a bunch of people, that although I’ve never met in real life, I am proud to call friends and they have so rudely criticised the entire genre, without even bothering to investigate whether the music is any good. To call people who have the talent to write entertaining songs freaks is probably about as low as you can go in my opinion. I guess their bile must stem from the fact that they aren’t talented enough to write anything worth listening to and they are unable to keep their jealousy from spewing out.

For them, this jealousy has obviously turned into a vendetta as their new episode also contains a rant about Accio-Potter and Wizard Rock with yet more slandering of the AP podcaster. I know these stupid little podcasts think themselves subversive and entertaining, but really they are nothing more than spiteful. Perhaps they should consider about how pathetic they sound, before they start spouting off about other people’s podcasts.

Wizard Rock Show in Birmingham on Saturday 30th May 2009

2009-05-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

I meant to mention this before but with a brain like a sieve I completely forgot, so apologies for the short notice!

For anyone at a loose end on Saturday evening there's a Wizard Rock gig being held at Birmingham Library's Centre for the Child, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ, starting at 7pm. Expect an evening of top class entertainment from some of the UK's best wrock bands. The line up is as follows:

Siriusly Hazza P
RiddleTM
Split Seven Ways
The Lost Diadems

I am hoping to be there but I've got a poorly car at the moment and I don't finish work until 4pm. With a three hour drive it'll be cutting it fine, but hopefully I'll make it without missing too much of the concert. Maybe I'll see you there.

Fair Fortune: A Wrock Opera

2009-05-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

One of the things I was really gutted about missing at Leaky Con was the live performance of Lena Gabrielle's (The Butterbeer Experience) wrock opera called Fair Fortune. This was featured on her fabulous CD Songs from Beedle the Bard and featured the vocal talents of a range of wrockers.

Fortunately, although having seen it I'm even more gutted at not having been there, someone at the performance videoed it and uploaded it onto You Tube. Obviously, I need to share this with everyone (if you haven't yet bought the CD go get it now!) so below are parts one and two of what would have been for me, a highlight of Leaky Con.

Cast:
Narrator - Christie Mowery (Hawthorn and Holly)
Asha - Kristina Horner (The Parselmouths)
Altheda - Erin Pyne (The House of Black)
Amata - Lena Gabrielle (The Butterbeer Experience)
Sir Luckless - Jason Munday (Ministry of Magic)

Wrock Bargain of the Week

2009-05-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

Obviously Leaky Con was the perfect place for many of the Wizard Rock bands who were performing to release new albums and the fabulous Draco and the Malfoys were no different.

In fact, they've just released two albums - It's a Slytherin World and An Anthology of Slytherin Folk Music.

Brilliant news at any time, I'm sure you'd agree. But, to make things even better, for a limited time they are offering both albums at the special price of $20, regardless of where in the World you live.

Better still they have also added clips of each of their songs, not only for the two new albums but for their two previous (and totally must-have) albums, Draco and the Malfoys and Party Like You're Evil.

While you're there add yourself to their mailing list and follow them on twitter.

Go on, do yourself a favour and check them out. You definitely won't regret it!

Wizard Rock People's Choice Awards 2009 Results

2009-05-23T15:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the WRPCA's have finally been announced at Leaky Con and on Wizrocklopedia.

I will admit to being a little disappointed that most of them were won by the bigger names in the Wrock world, although I suppose that will always be the case. After all, the older established and better known bands like The Remus Lupins and Ministry of Magic will have a much larger fan base than bands like Split Seven Ways, and are therefore going to get more of the votes.

It was also clear that the results were dominated by bands from the US. Hopefully, with the amount of good quality bands that the rest of the world are producing, international bands might have a better showing in future years' awards (with the help of things like the Wizard Rock EP of the Month Club), although the US bands still have a huge advantage in gaining fans with being able to tour the US, which many of the international bands can't afford to do.

There was some good news for the UK Wrock scene, with RiddleTM winning four awards, including best female singer, but this left the talent of such great bands as Peeved, Split Seven Ways and Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office unrewarded.

Anyway, without further ado here are the results of the Wizard Rock People's Choice Awards 2009:

Best Male Vocals: Ministry of Magic

Best Female Vocals: RiddleTM

Best New Artist: Madam Pince and the Librarians

Best Full Length Album: Goodbye Privet Drive by Ministry of Magic

Best EP: A War Amidst Pop Songs by The Mudbloods

Best Album Art: Frankie Franco III for Goodbye Privet Drive by Ministry of Magic

Best Song: Seven Potters by The Remus Lupins

Best Solo Artist: Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls

Best Duo: The Moaning Myrtles

Best Group Effort: Minstry of Magic

Best Band From Beyond The Grave: The Remus Lupins

Best Band Featuring a Magical Creature: The Basilisk in Your Pasta

Best Hufflepuff Band: Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls

Best Gryffindor Band: The Remus Lupins

Best Slytherin Band: Draco and the Malfoys

Best Ravenclaw Band: The Moaning Myrtles

Best Non Hogwarts Band: The Whomping Willows

Best Kept Secret Award: RiddleTM

Best Youth Effort: The Hungarian Horntails

Band of the Year: Ministry of Magic

Best Music Video: Covah Yr Junk by Jace MacDonald

Best Live Act: Ministry of Magic

Band Using the Most Exotic Instrument: The Parselmouth's for the use of Eia's tap shoes

Best Collaboration: Goodbye Privet Drive by Ministry of Magic with Kristina Horner

Best Dance Song: Seven Potters by The Remus Lupins

Best Holiday Song: Nargles in the Misletoe by The Moaning Myrtles

Best Comedy Song: Covah Yr Junk by Big Whompy

Best Folk/Country/Blues Song: A Pensieve Full of Unrequited Love by The Mudbloods

Best Techno/Electronica Song: The Bravest Man I Ever Knew by Ministry of Magic

Best Punk Song: I Believe in Nargles by The Whomping Willows

Best Rap/Hip Hop Song: In Which Moaning Myrtle Moans by The Moaning Myrtles

Best Memorial Song: The Bravest Man I Ever Knew by Ministry of Magic

Best remixed Song: It's Still Snowing, Danny Dementor's remix of Catchlove's It's Snowing

Best Metawizard Song: For Jo by RiddleTM

International Awards: Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls and RiddleTM

Finally, the Lifetime Achievement Award went to The Remus Lupins

It might seem that I was being a bit negative about the awards, but I didn't mean to be. All the artists who won strongly deserved it; after all I own almost all the albums by these bands and would love to see them all live one day (yes, I know, I should have been at Leaky Con where most of them have been playing this weekend!)

I just feel that with the wealth of talent in the Wrock world these days I'm not sure that these awards do justice to the hard work put in by some of the lesser known bands who have produced albums that are at least as good as, if not better than the better known bands. After all if you only have 700 friends on your Myspace, you can't possibly hope to reach the same amount of people as a band with over 20,000 friends on theirs!

Leaky Con!!!

2009-05-21T12:49:00.001-07:00

So everyone knows that this weekend is Leakycon, the Leaky Cauldron's Harry Potter Conference being held in Boston.

I am really gutted to not be there. The conference itself looks fun enough, with round tables and workshops by the Pottercast staff and others and a healthy dose of social issues by the Harry Potter Alliance, without taking into account the truly awesome amount of entertainment being laid on. There will be live podcasts, and keynote dinners and, of course, Wizard Rock...lots of Wizard Rock.

This evening kicks off with Evil Night! which features Draco and the Malfoys, The Parselmouths, Justin Finch-Fletchley and the Sugar Quills and Swish and Flick. Tomorrow continues with Rock Night featuring Harry and the Potters, The Whomping Willows, Gred and Forge, and Tonks and the Aurors. Saturday afternoon has Wrock Afternoon - featuring The Remus Lupins, The Moaning Myrtles, The Mudbloods and RiddleTM and then there is the Rocking Charity Ball to end Saturday evening in style.

Add to this The Butterbeer Experience (and friends) one-off staging of her wrock opera - Fountain of Fair Fortune and a performance by the ever-popular Potter Puppet Pals, not to mention after-show parties with performances by people like Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons and you get an idea of exactly what I’m missing. It will also be during the conference that the Wizrocklopedia’s Wizard Rock People’s Choice Awards will be announced.

If I wasn’t already aware, excitement by friends who are going and a live concert (which I watched via blog.tv and didn’t finish until 5.30am this morning my time) at the Sidewalk cafe last night featuring Witherwings, Snidget, The Butterbeer Experience, Swish and Flick and The House of Black have helped to really rub in what I’m missing.

In retrospect I really wish I had just borrowed the money and gone. I know that I'm missing something truly momentous and listening to it on Pottercast or whatever just doesn't make up for it. Although in one way not being there is a good thing. With so many brilliant bands releasing new albums this weekend, along with t shirts and other HP goodies I’d probably need as much in spending money as it would have cost to get there!

Wizard Rock People's Choice Awards

2009-05-11T04:53:00.000-07:00

I’m a little late in reporting this, but the final Wizard Rock People’s Choice Awards nominations are up on Wizrocklopedia. Voting is open until May 15th so get on over there if you haven't already. I was please at how many of my original nominations ended up on there – and dismayed at how much good stuff I’d completely missed thinking about. As ever the final choices were hard to make, but I’ve managed to cast my vote, although I desperately wish there had been four places for international band and more for best kept secret.

Dawlish and the Archies and the Terrible Fan Fic

2009-05-09T16:40:00.000-07:00

Anyone who was lucky enough to be around yesterday evening could have had the opportunity to join me and a select few others in the live performance, by Dawlish & the Archies, of the worst Harry Potter fan fiction of all time 'My Immortal'.

I have to admit I initially tuned in curious to see what the fuss was about, but soon Dawlish's excellent performance had me laughing so hard that I settled down to watch the complete thing and even managed to get Mrs H3 to join me (and yes she enjoyed it just as much).

Fortunately as it was shown on UStream, the video is still there for anyone to watch in two fantastic parts.

If you get time you really should check it out (although obviously without the live interaction it might lose a little something). Anyway, still worth a watch in my opinion.

Oh and you, like the rest of us, might need the written version of the story to refer to when you can't understand what the hell Dawlish is talking about because of the abbreviations! *LOL*

My Immortal - Part One

My Immortal - Part Two

Harry Potter Podcasts

2009-05-03T14:52:00.000-07:00

Last night I listened to Accio-Potter Wizard Radio’s first live podcast. Now I love listening to Harry Potter related podcasts, be it the informative and entertaining Pottercast and Mugglecast or the truly wonderful Snapecast (which isn’t produced anywhere near regularly enough for my liking – of course I’m not at all biased about that), however I’ve never really got into the Wizard Rock podcasts. Mainly this is due to a lack of time – after all listening to all these podcasts takes a great deal of time and I just don’t have enough, but also because I already have plenty of Wizard Rock (over three thousand tracks at the last count) to listen to and of course then I have to find time for my Muggle music too.

Now I know other Wrock podcasts do exist. When I first found Wizard Rock I used to listen to Atriumcast and I have listened to a few episodes of WZRD and the Harry Potter Wizard Rock Radio, but finding myself unexpectedly at home with nothing much on at a time that was actually compatible (no mean feat when you’re living in the UK and most HP-related things are from the US with their inconvenient early morning timings) I decided to log on and listen to the live show.

And I really enjoyed it. Of course being old I had trouble getting connected and I never did manage to work out where the polls and the chat they kept mentioning on the show was going on (if anyone can point me in the right direction for the future I would be grateful), but I thought the music was excellent, the hosts did a pretty good job and it was nice to hear an interview with Jarrod from Gred and Forge about what he's up to.

Of course I was especially happy as they played The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and RiddleTM amongst others and a song that I really want to get hold of (so someone please tell me where I can get it) Wizards Who Died by The Remus Lupins. This is of course a cover of the classic Jim Carroll song People Who Died from his wonderful album Catholic Boy and was for me one of the highlights of the evening.

I guess the live podcast was a success because there’s another one on 16th May and if I find myself at home again I will definitely be tuning in and would urge you to do the same.

All You Need Is (Wizard) Love

2009-05-01T16:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I wanted to post about this awesome new compilation album that was created to help fund Wrockstock Staffer Rose's trip to Zambia. She’s volunteering there for 4-6 months, teaching kids how to read and working with AIDS relief. The money raised from the album (and let’s face it, it’s not expensive - a minimum donation of $10) will go towards things like flights, vaccinations, and living expenses whilst there.

The album contains 14 songs originally by The Beatles, but transfigured into wizard rock by some of the best bands on the scene, mastered by Christian of Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls.

The track listing is as follows:
Grindylows's Garden - Draco and the Malfoys
All Together Now - The Nifflers w/ Alex Carpenter
Millicent - Justin Finch-Fletchley
I've Just Seen A Witch - Madame Pince and the Librarians
Stubby Raccoon - DJ Luna Lovegood
The Weasley Family - The Holyhead Harpies w/ Catchlove and Oliver Boyd & the Remembralls
Black Family Tree - Hawthorn and Holly
I'll Follow Their Son - The Remus Lupins
Sybill Trelawney - Catchlove
A Hog's Head Night - The Blood Traitors
All My Magic - Creevey Crisis
Why Don't We Do It In The Burrow? - Tonks and the Aurors
House Elves - Dreary Inferi
Mean Mr. Filch/ Lavender Brown/ She Died In An Upstairs Bathroom - Gred and Forge

Now I love the Beatles and I was really impressed at the great reworking of these classic songs in wizard rock style. An excellent compilation in my opinion and, as is often the case with Wizard Rock, for a very worthy cause.

If you want to buy a copy of the album please click on this link and it will take you to the order page. The album is in download format to cut down on production costs.

The Wizard Rock People’s Choice Awards

2009-04-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

Wizrocklopedia recently announced that it is accepting nominations for the 2008 Wizard Rock People’s Choice Awards.

The nomination form needs to be completed by 11:59 PM EST on Thursday, April 30th (sorry not much time left I know). The final voting will begin on Monday, May 4th and should close on Friday, May 15th. It is anticipated that the winners will be announced on Thursday, May 20th at about midnight EST.

I will admit that I spent a very long time trying to decide on my nominations for the awards. Some of the categories I found impossible to fill in and some had so many candidates that I was torn as for who to choose, especially as I wanted to give everyone a fair hearing. I spent two whole days listening to nothing but Wrock in hopes that it would help – it didn’t. However, finally last night I submitted my nominations and below is my list of nominations. I’d just like to add that just because I didn’t vote for a band in any category doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re not brilliant – just that my heart told me to go with someone else.

Best Male Vocals: The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and The Mudbloods

Best Female Vocals: Split Seven Ways and The Butterbeer Experience

Best New Artist: Lost Diadems and Snake Like Snape

Best Full Length Album: Goodbye Privet Drive by Ministry of Magic and Nevermind the Furthermore by The Remus Lupins

Best EP: Valedictions by Split Seven Ways and A War Amidst Pop Songs by The Mudbloods

Best Album Art: Valedictions by Split Seven Ways and Goodbye Privet Drive by Ministry of Magic/Frak

Best Song: Crimson Beloved by The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and A Pensieve Full of Unrequited Love by The Mudbloods

Best Solo Artist: Split Seven Ways and Marked As His Equal

Best Duo: RiddleTM and Draco and the Malfoys

Best Group Effort: The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and Hawthorn and Holly

Best Band From Beyond The Grave: The Moaning Myrtles and Creevey Crisis

Best Band Featuring a Magical Creature: Witherwings and Buckbeak’s Flight

Best Hufflepuff Band: The Butterbeer Experience

Best Gryffindor Band: Gryffindor Common Room Rejects and Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons

Best Slytherin Band: Draco and the Malfoys (obviously) and Split Seven Ways - there were really too many to choose from for this category!

Best Ravenclaw Band: Roger Davies

Best Non Hogwarts Band: The Whomping Willows and The Nifflers

Best Kept Secret Award: The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and Split Seven Ways - this was a HUGE problem as there were so many people I wanted to nominate like Peeved, Nagini etc.

Best Youth Effort: The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and Sirriusly Hazza P

Band of the Year: Split Seven Ways and RiddleTM - the hardest category for sure!

Best Music Video: Amortentia by Split Seven Ways and Save Ginny Weasley? by Peeved

Band Using the Most Exotic Instrument: The Blibbering Humdingers using a medieval krumhorn (thanks to their blog for informing me of this fact) and Split Seven Ways for the violin

Best Collaboration: The Burrow by The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and RiddleTM and Death Eater Tango by The Butterbeer Experience and Mark from Ministry of Magic

Best Dance Song: Occlumency Lessons by The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and The Bravest Man I Ever Knew by Ministry of Magic

Best Holiday Song: Draco's Christmas Wish by RiddleTM and Candle in the Window by Tonks and the Aurors

Best Comedy Song: The Year Harry Went Emo by Peeved and The Mandrake’s Lament by The Butterbeer Experience

Best Techno/Electronica Song: Occlumency Lessons by The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and I Should by Malfoy Manor

Best Memorial Song: Ode To Those Who Died by The Butterbeer Experience and The Veil by RiddleTM

Best remixed Song: Ode to Voldemort by RiddleTM remixed by Peeved and Potions Yesterday by Draco and the Malfoys remixed by Ministry of Magic

Best Metawizard Song: Transparent by The Moaning Myrtles and This Is Never Going To End by The Parselmouths

International Awards: Split Seven Ways and RiddleTM - this was such a hard one too – I wanted to nominate every band I’ve heard!

Okay, so I said that I tried to be fair, and I really did but there does seem to be rather a large number of nominations for The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, Split Seven Ways and RiddleTM. I’m not ashamed of this. I think they are truly excellent bands who deserve the recognition that they might not receive being ‘international’ bands rather than the rather better known US bands like Harry and the Potters et al.

So those were my choices – good or bad, biased or not. It really was hard to cut down the nominations to two in each category and it will be interesting to see if any of them make it to the final nominations.

Roll on May 4th!

The Wizrocklopedia

2009-04-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

The Wizrocklopedia is an excellent source of news and information for anyone interested in Wizard Rock. Featuring articles, news, updates and competitions amongst other things it is every Wrockers first port of call for information. Click on the link above or in the favourite Wizard Rock Places in the sidebar to visit the site.

Introduction

2009-04-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my latest blog. This one, as you’ll have gathered from the give-away title is all to do with Wizard Rock – the Harry Potter fandom genre of music. The Harry Potter fandom was the first to create a whole type of music dedicated to exploring the world that Jo Rowling had created (although now Twilight and Doctor Who and probably other genres too have their own music, some of which has been created by Wizard rockers). It is also the case that some very talented artists who began with Wizard Rock have now branched out into Muggle music.

Wizard rock is a huge and ever-growing genre of music, with a large variety of bands and musical styles. You can find everything from the polished and professional bands to the home-taped filk producers and everything in-between. I discovered this world pretty late in Wizard Rock terms – only about eighteen months ago – but in that time I have been fascinated and impressed at the talent that the genre has produced and, as with everywhere else in the HP fandom, the friendliness of everyone involved in the scene.

As I’m in no way musical and I haven’t yet been able to convince Mrs H3 to start a Wrock band – she’s the talented one after all (although I’m still working on it) my intention is to use this blog to promote greater awareness of Wizard Rock through my writing as I feel that more people outside the fandom should have the opportunity to investigate this music. I’m hoping that people will be interested enough to read the blog and then to check out the bands mentioned within. To do this I’ll be talking about the bands I love, new bands I’ve discovered, albums I’ve bought and oldies but goodies that should be on everyone’s listening lists. I’ll be including other sources of information and will possibly be writing reviews on albums and bands, along with any concerts or general wizard rock news that comes my way.

To be honest there are so many Wizard Rock bands around these days that I’ve not even heard of some of them. So if you have a band that you want me to check out, or have some music that you think I should be listening to or reviewing then please feel free to contact me either by e-mail or by leaving a message on here. I’m also interested in your opinions on the topics I cover and if you have any ideas for things I should be blogging about feel free to leave a message about those too.