The alleged lowdown: cool young kids from uninspiring Slough council estate revive Britpop. Signed by Geffen after 6 gigs for £200,000 deal. Fresh, new and exciting.

The actual lowdown: Reading pop punk band Kill the Arcade (made up of kids who've never even seen a council estate) changes name to Wolf Am I and releases earnest-sounding emo album on Alcopop. Disappear for 12 months. Reappear wearing John Lennon sunglasses and playing gigantic gibsons, in a 'guerilla' video where they play 'spontaneous' gigs around Slough before being shut down by The Man. Their every move documented by The Sun newspaper, they're on the cover of NME before they've even released a note of music.

Seriously, what the fuck.

Just watched their "An Introduction" video on YouTube. Hilarious. Totally lacking in self awareness. Way to spunk money up the wall, Geffen...the A&R man's probably one of their chums.

As I've said before, pretty much the only people who can afford to pursue music these days luckily have parents loaded enough so that they can live their "dream"...painting yourselves to be champions of the proletariat whilst being rich is nothing new, though. For every Elena Goulding, there have always been enough Edgar Broughtons...

Rumours they are managed by the MD of a rival label... can this be true?

JKCB you are spot on about those doing music but I think if you are prepared to put your money where your mouth
is you can achieve success. The key to success is the internet but you need to do it the internet way and sadly
many in the music biz don't know how to do that and they have NO success.

Managed by Charlie Lycett and Chris Gorman,Lucid have a management arm now how it effects RCA is
anyones business......Surreal times

Brother almost seems like an exercise in NOT using the web.

The band's previous incarnation took down all their music and media without any kind of announcement; in fact the way they've tried to cover up the fact that they actually HAVE "paid their dues" in several bands over the last few years (Twice Upon A Time, Thirteen, Kill the Arcade and Wolf Am I) makes this an anti-Arctic Monkeys... where their selling point was supposedly all the hard work they'd put in via MySpace, these guys are being marketed as if they just went into a practice room and came out as the future of music.

with a big budget video and a Stephen Street produced debut single, of course.

Well - good luck to them. At least they are trying to do something - which is more than most other artistes or executives in this declining industry.

I just don't get why people criticise this band for re-branding.

Countless brilliant bands have done just that may times before.

.........."Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"