About
Hell’s Belles is run by a music-obsessed female in London, UK. It is named after the 1969 biker film. Hopefully this blog is better than the film!
Pretty much every music lover I know talks about how they used to dig through their parents’ records as a kid, which I did to a certain extent. My obsession with music made before I was born – particularly 60s music – came about mainly from current bands I was listening to who namedropped their influences. I discovered the Velvet Underground because of R.E.M., Shocking Blue because of Nirvana, and Captain Beefheart and 13th Floor Elevators because of… um… errr…. some 90s bands I’ve long since moved on from and can’t even remember now.
The music media today is completely obsessed with the new (which, at the risk of sounding redundant, is nothing new). There’s tons of blogs covering the latest newest thing in witch house, chillwave, dubstep or whatever new genre the blogosphere has come up with. I love a lot of current artists, and I could hang with the music-snobbiest of ‘em when it comes to namedropping the latest New Thing if I chose to. I just don’t because when it comes to a good tune, I don’t care whether it was made yesterday or 60 years ago.
Anyway, talking about the music… If you like what you hear here, please support the artist by buying the music. A lot of what’s featured here is long out of print, but please investigate the artist’s catalogue. eMusic has a reasonable selection of digital old obscurities, and you can find most of the mainstream stuff on iTunes or Amazon. And there’s always ebay or support your local record shop for vinyl. I try to put in buy links when I can find them, but the very nature of the tracks I’m posting is that they are OOP or are just generally hard to find, so if there isn’t a link, it’s probably because I couldn’t find a legit seller online (by legit, I mean the artist actually will get the money, rather than some guy selling off his record collection).
If I’ve posted something that shouldn’t be here, and you’re the copyright holder, please drop me an email at hello AT hells-belles DOT org and I’ll rectify the situation immediately.
Some guidelines on sending me stuff:
It looks like people are finding my humble little internet homelet and sending me stuff. I am flattered, honestly. I guess that Hype Machine listing is doing its thing. However, I am starting to see why some bloggers get frustrated by being plugged at. Here are a few guidelines on how to contact me.
If you’d like to send me a track, please send it to my Soundcloud Dropbox (preferred). If you’d rather email, please write “NEW MUSIC FOR TT” in the subject line. That way I’ll know you’ve actually read this and haven’t just added me to some spam list. Very important: Do not send attachments. A small jpg (under 1MB) of a band photo or packshot is fine. If you send MP3s I’ll just think you don’t know how to use the internet. Use YouSendit or zShare (I hate sendspace because of all the stupid popup ads, but I will still reluctantly use it if you insist). If you’re not cool with me posting up your track for download, then best send it as a soundcloud streaming link that I can embed. If you send me an MP3, I will automatically assume you’re okay with me distributing it.
Finally, please have a look around the site to get a feel for what I like before sending a track. I am not a fan of most radio-friendly stuff around at the moment. The phrases “indie rock” and “alt rock” make me break out in hives, auto-tuned vocals make me nauseous, and your bangin’ funky house mix is likely going straight into the trash.
However, I read every email, and I listen to almost everything I’m sent… eventually. I can’t promise that I will have a chance to respond to you (I do this blog in my spare time, of which I have very little) so please don’t be offended if you don’t hear back. It’s not you, it’s me.
