On Thursday Milwaukee Record ran my feature article on Latest Flame Records closing up shop after nearly 13 years of kickass releases. It was really difficult to write that piece without injecting lots of personal asides and, admittedly, sour grapes and snarky butthurt feelings about Dan's decision to close up shop, which is why i'm hopping over here to do that, naturally. Make no mistake--i fully support Dan's decision to stop setting his personal income on fire in order to allow his favorite bands to have something to sell at shows. But the day i got the email from Mr. Hanke breaking the news, i felt like a family member had died.
To me, Latest Flame Records and the bands that recorded for it during its noisy second act were family. Having become aware of punk rock and independent record labels beginning with a mind-expanding summer between my senior year of high school and the onset of college in the early 90s, i was immediately drawn to the romantic notion of record label as symbol of quality and community. If i bought a Touch & Go Records release in the 1990s, i had a pretty good idea of what it sounded like before breaking the shrinkwrap--it was going to be loud, it was going to be abrasive, and it wasn't going to sound exactly like anything else available. And i was probably going to love it. Just as importantly, i had a pretty good notion that each of those bands were likely to play shows together, tour together, hang out together. Eli Janney of Girls Against Boys recorded Brainiac's Hissing Prigs in Static Couture. Blond Redhead opened for Shellac at the Congress Theatre. And so on. It quickly became a dream of mine to be a part of something like that. Dan shared that dream and made it happen with a stacked roster of aggressive and off-the-beaten-path-yet-completely-accessible-if-you-give-it-a-chance rock tunes from the likes of Police Teeth, Waxeater, Trophy Wives, Nervous Curtains, his Like Like The The The Death, and my own IfIHadAHiFi and Body Futures.
Music, like any art, is deeply personal and subjective, of course, and that the Latest Flame roster never exactly set the world on fire is by no means an indictment of its quality....of course. It's the same story that scores of labels that have come and gone have endured over the years. But when you're sinking the amount of money that it takes to release a record or a CD into something in which you believe, it's hard to not be frustrated when those efforts aren't validated by the outside world. We are only human beings, after all, and human beings are inherently social creatures seeking outside validation. But make no mistake: almost every time i get on stage with Body Futures or IfIHadAHiFi, and every time i throw on one of our records, i feel completely validated in that we've produced music that i would want to listen to and would be stoked about even if i wasn't in the band, and that's all anyone can realistically hope for. As my friend John Dykstra has often said to me, we should all be thankful for living in a time where we are able to make music and press records with our pals in the first place; should anyone else actually enjoy it, that's a bonus.
Still, being able to cover costs would have been a nice bonus.
In the spirit of celebrating the diverse Latest Flame catalog, here are ten Latest Flame releases that everyone should hear. Dan was kind enough to document it, so dammit, it should be heard. This stuff is all over the map, from new-wavy power-pop to wiry post-punk to brutal riffage, and it all deserves to be remembered. I hope you take some time to check them out if you don't know about them already. And thanks, Dan, for helping all of us live that dream of being part of a musical family with a sense of real community and belonging, just like those indie labels of lore. What a gift.
In more-or-less chronological order:
Showing posts with label waxeater. Show all posts
Showing posts with label waxeater. Show all posts
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Guest Post! Rob from Waxeater Delivers His Favorites of 2011
(l-r. Rob, Elliott, Red Dog)
Waxeater are my boys, and some of the HiFi's most crucial of band bros. Their guitarist/singer, Rob Montage, is a HiFi pal from the days of yore (specifically, the yore days of June 2008), back when he played bass in Tremendous Fucking and we introduced ourselves to them by taking them to Stars Cabaret in Manitowoc, WI, North East WI's most...something...strip club. (The TremFu song "Covered in Bruises" was named as a direct result of that night, and that's just one of the stories the Wizard missed out on by reading in the van instead of buying $2 lap dance raffle tickets and $16 pint glasses of straight gin.)
Rob needed a public outlet for his Best of 2011 list and asked me if my dozen readers could be it. Why would i refuse? It's not like i was gonna get to letter C in the Great Record Excavation tonight (tomorrow, maybe?), and like any blog worth its SEO salt, my aim is to get my readers THE MOST CHOICE AND VIRAL WEB CONTENT. But i don't have that, so here's Rob's picks instead.
By the way, if you haven't listened to Waxeater yet, don't be a douche. You're missing out.
Music in 2011: The Year I Slept on Everything
I’m not kidding. I think I got one album right when it came out. I am usually a more devout music fan than this...but there was something weird about this year. Everyone I knew was getting knew records weekly and loving the shit out of them; meanwhile, nothing was clicking with me. Eventually I stumbled ass-backwards into some really quality stuff, but it sure felt like a long time coming. Here’s what I listened to in my admittedly narrow headphones:
THE BEST (in Alphabetical Order):
EPs: Future of the Left – “Polymers are Forever”/WHORES – “Ruiner”/Big Business – “Quadruple Single”
I’m certainly not giving a whole spot to three individual records that only total like 38 minutes between them. However, these dudes got very heavy rotation. I predicted last year that I would love the new FOTL and I was not let down. It took me a couple spins (like all their stuff does) but it wasn’t long before I was all SWEPT BACK JOE PESCI’S HAIR. The WHORES record came out, like, two weeks ago but fuck it that is some POWERFUL dolt-rock (being a genre I came up with to describe heavy, simple, yet awesome jams in the vein of early Helmet). Speaking of, these guys just sound like early Helmet, which rules since modern Helmet has exactly 0% John Stanier and Paige Hamilton looks like he is in a 24/7 Daniel Tosh lookalike contest. Also, their records are bad now. As for Big Biz, this EP was just a welcome return to form after the incredibly dire “Mind the Drift”. And speaking of dolt rock: guns are better than everything else.
Joe Lally – “Why Should I Get Used to It”
My god, this is the worst victim of my sleeping on it. It came out in March and I didn’t find out about it until November. Whoops...not like this guy was in one of the most influential bands in independent music. This for me, like Big Biz, was a welcome return to form. I found his last one, “Nothing is Underrated,” to be a snooze, especially after his baller debut record. I guess moving to Italy helped him discover the secret to me liking it: speed it the hell up.
My Disco – “Little Joy”
I’m fairly certain this came out at the beginning of January in the states, so it qualifies. I loved their last album and was stoked for this but boy is it different. It has the same repetitive/droney/stoney vibe, but there is just something weird and tinny about the drum sound...like he’s hitting Tabla’s Danny Carey style. I wasn’t feeling it at first and then it was eleven minutes later and the song was still on and I wanted to buy a bigger knife. I wish these guys would stop touring the states with Young Widows so someone would actually come to their shows and experience how awesome they are.
New Brutalism – “Personal Record”
These jerks. They recorded this TWO YEARS AGO as one of a double LP (in a custom aluminum box, natch) for their friend’s wedding. What a dick move! I mean, granted I’ve had the album for two years but they finally released it publicly. If you’ve heard one Brut song you’ve heard them all (as I have) and that is sort of what makes them brilliant.
Police Teeth – “Awesomer than the Devil”
This record is a goddmaned beast. Catchy as all hell, yes: but what really gets me about these guys every time is the lyrics. They are cynical about exactly the same stuff I am which makes me want to marry them. Especially Richy, because he gets the drunkest.
True Widow – “As High As the Highest Heavens and from the Center to the Circumference of the Earth”
There’s no way that fits on the spine of the CD, right? Maybe that’s the trick...force their label into getting vinyl. Realllll clever, guys. This band is great. It actually makes me wish I lived near my parents in Dallas. I don’t know really what to call it...slow-core? Too distored. Shoegaze? Not enough pedals. These guys do a slow burn very very well. I get hints of late period Swans, cool bands with paper-thin voiced girl singers and even a little Radiohead at times but louder and with some stones. This is some perfect cold weather walking around jams.
Wugazi – “13 Chambers”
I almost said fuck this on pretentious concept/cleverness alone. I am SO GLADD (puns!) I didn’t! Is there an original note on the record? No. Did they recontextualize two musical canons with gusto? I think so. This might have gotten the most rotation all year.
My Friends – Various Albums
I know there are supports of music I make but goddamnit some of my friends make me look like a stone cold asshole when they pick up an instrument. This was a banner year for records by my tight bros from way back when. The following are awesome bands I have the privilege to call friends who put out tight shit this year (in the order I could remember): Trophy Wives, Cartographer, Memory Map, Jabberjosh, Powerlifter, Girlfight, IfIHadAHiFi, The Men, and Humans.
ALBUM OF THE YEAR:
Das Racist – “Relax”
This was a tough choice for me. Honestly I’m giving them this not just for "Relax," which is a great but imperfect record, but for their entire catalog thus far. These guys give me a serious case of QOTSA disease (wherein I just love everything they do. it’s a symptom of my Mcluskyim, if you feel me.) I just love what they do. I’m a sucker for literate rap and these jokers make me laugh, and make me think...just like John Frink do. Sorry, but I will be an apologist for these guys for at least two more records.
THE REST:
Hail Mary Mallon – “Are You Gonna Eat That?”
I love Aesop Rock but something about his collabo album with Rob Sonic just didn’t do much for me. Maybe it was the fact that Aes’ vox sounded like they were coming out of a garbage bag. Dude spits like 4596853847 words per verse, I’d love to hear a couple.
Iceage – “New Brigade”
So hypey. So so hypey. I gave it an honest 5 spins and I still can’t tell you if I’m feeling it or I hate it. Faint praise if I’ve ever heard it.
Fucked Up – “David Comes to Life”
Take a fucking pill, guys. This album is gruelingly long. Aaron made me turn it off in the van because I guess 74 straight minutes of this band is enough to break ever Red Dawg. Honestly there’s nothing wrong with it, there’s just too damned much of it. And why the hell is everyone freaking out about this thing? It sounds JUST like their last album, if not less catchy.
Obits – “Moody, Standard, and Poor”
Another honest five spin listen. I don’t think it’s totally my bag but I wanted to try because everyone my age and older I know loves it. There’s just something about the guitar tone that’s too surfy for my tastes. Oh well...I still like duder’s other bands and at least he’s still out there doing it and not making beats for Robyn or some shit.
AWARDS TIME!
“Ain’t it About Time Award” (make a new record already): this is a tie between Part Chimp and A Place to Bury Strangers. You are two of my favorite contemporary bands...time to shit out a new one, it’s been like three years. (and Part Chimp, less like thriller, more like I am come, kthnx)
“Thought it would rule, sucked a bag of dicks: The Award” (self explanatory): another tie! This time between Arctic Monkeys (who I genuinely enjoyed) and TV on the Radio. AM: I should have known from that fucking title. “suck it and see”? more like “see, it sucks” AMIRITE. And TVOTR: booooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnng.
“Best Old Find Award”: a tie! This time between Helmet and Superconductor. Oh the early 90’s...why did I have to be 7-10 during you? I missed so much dolt rock. Also, what the fuck happened to Helmet? Was it the sweater vests? As for Superconductor, they
taught me a valuable lesson: A.C. Newman wrote a song called “Ride the Big Penis.”
“Bummer of the Summer Award” (worst music news of the year): Bloomington legends The Coke Dares look to be finally finished, what with their members being spread in Portland, Blooms and North Carolina. Funniest live band of all time (intentional category. Non-intentional winner: KISS). We’ll always have Fourth of July.
“Hummer of the Summer Award” (best music news of the year): Elliott survived.
PROPS AND SLOPS
Props:
- Austin: thanks everyone in Texas for your support during Waxeater’s ordeal! Especially Kelly, Dani, and Joe.
- Police Teeth: could you have been funner tourmates?
- Vanne Frank: thank you for not killing us this year
- Everyone that plays in a band I’m in: Ell-bo, Red Dawg, Joshy, Rachey, Rinne-Rinne,
Baby Drew, G, and last but least, Joey Haircut
- Milwaukee: still the best host city in America
- America’s 1%er Motorcycle Clubs: for not stabbing me...yet.
- Stroh’s Beer: for always making it easy to see who stole your hooch at a party
- Racist Husker Du: for being the funniest bit I’ve ever come up with on stage
Slops:
- Austin: really? Thanks a lot GOD. Is this because we made fun of the thumb drive
highrise?
- Police Teeth: fuck it, I’m saying it. I’m going to miss Frenchie.
- Vanne Frank: dude. No A/C and we spent five days in Austin in july. Youz a bitch.
- Powerstrips: THREE PRONGS OR NO SONGS
- Tyler, the Creator: that shit was unlistenable, dude.
- The one guy who was a dick to Waxeater about canceling this summer: that’ll
come back on you, just wait.
- Magic the Gathering: for plunging me back into irrevocable nerdiness. Also, it’s a money-pit.
Ok, now everyone comment and congratulate me on a job...done.
_R
waxeatermusic.bandcamp.com
Friday, December 2, 2011
Rock and Roll is a Pyramid Scheme
I've been mentally adjusting my personal "best records of 2011" list in anticipation of writing it out for both this blog and for my acquaintance Matt's annual Top 10 Party and Blog, and it's led me to think a whole lot about something that's been brought up among a couple of us in the Latest Flame camp: the shifting role of money and social class in popular music. I mean, let's not play naive or stupid or anything; obviously, money's had a lot more to do with who becomes popular than music itself does for as long as we've had a record "industry." That's not news. But with the advent of the internet, MySpace, filesharing, Bandcamp, etc., a lot of writers all but declared a new era of independent freedom and visibility for even the most basement-ridden of obscure basement bands. Now artists can charge what they want to for recordings without need of a Big Record Label, and anyone can be discovered on their MySpace page, conveniently ignoring that the only artists who can make money off pay-what-you-want downloads are those who previously built an audience thanks to major-label ad dollars, and not realizing that thanks to the now deafening din of billions of media players on millions of Bandcamp pages, those dollars still have to get spent on PR and advertising in order to get them heard by the folks peddling the most influence.
It's not necessarily as nefarious as all that, of course--i'm sure the fine folks at Pitchfork and Spin and what have you are genuine music lovers. But when you have hundreds of PR firms flooding your desk with thousands of promo CDs that you'll never get through, how much time do you have to actively search for new music on your own? I'm asking--i don't really know. I'd assume some effort has to be put in; i know for me the temptation to get lazy and just focus on what's on my desk would be overwhelming, and thus, i'd likely miss out on a lot of the records that i'll be listing in my year-end selection.
I don't do this for a living, so when i rank my favorite albums of the year every December, it's just that--my favorites among what i've heard that particular year. This year, i probably managed to hear somewhere around 30 new releases, which is really good for me. But it also means i definitely missed some records that i'm sure i'd have loved. So it goes--there's only so much time in the day, even when you've been unemployed since May (actually, that could account for why my number is so high this year). I find new music from friend recommendations, a few places i trust online (which aren't many), and most of all, from going to and playing as many shows as i can. I'm in the shit, y'all.
On the flip side, i'm bracing myself for a bunch of "best of the year" lists at the usual Big Music Mags that will look awfully similar to each other. Paste already crowned Bon Iver by Bon Iver their #1 of the year, because of course they did. (Spoiler alert: that record will not be on my list.) Absolutely put out a record this year easily as good as anything on Paste's list, but they're a local Milwaukee band with no one championing them but themselves, Steven Hyden (who mentioned them in an AV Club piece earlier this year only to be met with snide "i've never heard of them, so Hyden must be trying to earn hipster points" comments) and me, i guess, so what are the odds that someone from, say, Pitchfork or Spin saw Hyden's post, saw a name they were unfamiliar with, and gave it a shot? Is that their fault? Not necessarily, because "Absolutely," while being sort of a ridiculous name for a band in the first place, is just one in a wild blur of band names they see every single day. Law of averages. That's just the way of the music world.
So when i run my list, i will be sure to list it as my "favorite" records of the year, not the "best of" the year, because that's a silly thing to say when i haven't heard every note that was recorded in 2011. And when the Big Boys run their "best of" lists, we should probably remember that it's just their favorites as well, because while they listened to a lot of stuff, they missed a lot as well, and for the opposite reason.
* * *
Speaking of the authors of the song from which the title of this post came from, Radio K in Minneapolis had our boys Police Teeth and Waxeater on to perform live last June when the bands toured (and came through Milwaukee, which many of you missed. Shame upon your families). Three songs from each performance are now up on their site (and may have been for a while, i dunno--i just found them today thanks to Rob from Waxeater), and you can hear them for yourself by clicking here for Police Teeth, and here for Waxeater. Bands we like.
It's not necessarily as nefarious as all that, of course--i'm sure the fine folks at Pitchfork and Spin and what have you are genuine music lovers. But when you have hundreds of PR firms flooding your desk with thousands of promo CDs that you'll never get through, how much time do you have to actively search for new music on your own? I'm asking--i don't really know. I'd assume some effort has to be put in; i know for me the temptation to get lazy and just focus on what's on my desk would be overwhelming, and thus, i'd likely miss out on a lot of the records that i'll be listing in my year-end selection.
I don't do this for a living, so when i rank my favorite albums of the year every December, it's just that--my favorites among what i've heard that particular year. This year, i probably managed to hear somewhere around 30 new releases, which is really good for me. But it also means i definitely missed some records that i'm sure i'd have loved. So it goes--there's only so much time in the day, even when you've been unemployed since May (actually, that could account for why my number is so high this year). I find new music from friend recommendations, a few places i trust online (which aren't many), and most of all, from going to and playing as many shows as i can. I'm in the shit, y'all.
On the flip side, i'm bracing myself for a bunch of "best of the year" lists at the usual Big Music Mags that will look awfully similar to each other. Paste already crowned Bon Iver by Bon Iver their #1 of the year, because of course they did. (Spoiler alert: that record will not be on my list.) Absolutely put out a record this year easily as good as anything on Paste's list, but they're a local Milwaukee band with no one championing them but themselves, Steven Hyden (who mentioned them in an AV Club piece earlier this year only to be met with snide "i've never heard of them, so Hyden must be trying to earn hipster points" comments) and me, i guess, so what are the odds that someone from, say, Pitchfork or Spin saw Hyden's post, saw a name they were unfamiliar with, and gave it a shot? Is that their fault? Not necessarily, because "Absolutely," while being sort of a ridiculous name for a band in the first place, is just one in a wild blur of band names they see every single day. Law of averages. That's just the way of the music world.
So when i run my list, i will be sure to list it as my "favorite" records of the year, not the "best of" the year, because that's a silly thing to say when i haven't heard every note that was recorded in 2011. And when the Big Boys run their "best of" lists, we should probably remember that it's just their favorites as well, because while they listened to a lot of stuff, they missed a lot as well, and for the opposite reason.
* * *
Speaking of the authors of the song from which the title of this post came from, Radio K in Minneapolis had our boys Police Teeth and Waxeater on to perform live last June when the bands toured (and came through Milwaukee, which many of you missed. Shame upon your families). Three songs from each performance are now up on their site (and may have been for a while, i dunno--i just found them today thanks to Rob from Waxeater), and you can hear them for yourself by clicking here for Police Teeth, and here for Waxeater. Bands we like.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
"The Black Flag touring model is long, long dead"
Tuesday night i unpacked my CDs and began to arrange them in the apartment i now share with Liz (as opposed to my original idea of stashing them in the basement since most of them are on my computer anyway). I'm glad i didn't hide them away, because the process of going through my CDs always stirs years of half-remembered memories of bands that otherwise would be long forgotten. There's a disc on the top row called Juvenile Anthems by a band called Anger; i remember them as a run-of-the-mill punk band that i found entertaining at the time but i might not be as into today, 14 years later. Thanks to their show at the Concert Cafe in Green Bay, i've got the Black Halos' The Violent Years, which i'm positive i only listened to once. Digging around in my car i located a CD i picked up at the Borg Ward by a rad weirdo-punk band called Beings; did they open for Torche? I can't remember, but i remember liking them and hating that my aging disc drive refused to rip the songs onto my Mac Mini. Red Planet's Let's Degenerate? Another more power-pop reminder of my Concert Cafe years.
It's a good thing i have these CDs; otherwise, there's a very good chance that i'd have forgotten about every last one of these bands, good and bad. It reminded me of something i wrote on our tour blog, something that i thought about a lot during our road trip:
I count twenty-one CD copies of our new EP remaining out of 50 we started tour with. That's twenty-nine copies out there along the East Coast. Assuming they don't get dumped at a CDMax in a few months, that's hopefully twenty-nine people who will, at the very least, have that same "oh YEAH!" moment i just had while eying my Anger CD for the first time in years. As i said elsewhere in that paragraph, this tour was a pretty inefficient way to encourage memorization of our band name, but for us, the biggest reason to play shows is to visit our friends and play music for them.
Unfortunately, that's not the most fair attitude to have when we have an awesome dude at Latest Flame Records mortgaging his future to promote bands he loves. If we want to move product (if we don't, it sort of makes us assholes, really), conventional wisdom would normally dictate that we have to tour more often than the middling two weeks per year we generally embark on. However, it's 2011, and certain truths have taken hold in our post-Napster age: people are buying less and less physical music, and the number of touring bands competing for that ever-shrinking fan dollar is higher than ever. Also dwindling rapidly is the number of people who value music, period, as evidenced by the basement show we played in Bloomington, Indiana that earned us a cool $13 in donations from about three of the twenty-some kids in attendance. "Hey, man, cool show! Your band is really good!" "Hey, thanks! Did you donate anything for the show at all?" "Aw, dude, i have like no money. *drinks BYO beer #5* So when ya coming back to Bloomington?"
It's obvious that young people don't put a price on music the same way that those of us who grew up with vinyl, cassettes and CDs did, and hell, many of them don't seem to value live performance over the beer they're drinking that night (though i doubt that's a recent development). Yes, money isn't the main reason that anyone should play in a band, but without it, producing recorded music--even the digital kind--becomes less and less appealing of an idea. Look, we can all talk until we're blue in the face about how we make music for ourselves, and how none of us are looking to do this for a living, and that may even be true, but let's be honest--validation is pretty damn sweet too.
So, assuming that there are still people who care about physical music products, and people who still care about seeing new or more underground live bands, what's the best way to reach through the sea of apathetic bodies and connect with those more "active" (for lack of a less douchey, less marketing-sounding term) listeners? I have some thoughts on this, but would love to read some in the comments too:
1) Quality over Quantity. Being able to tour three months out of the year would be awesome, but it's also unrealistic for dudes in their 30s with day jobs, and a lot of those shows would be of the Bloomington basement show sort anyway. But there are ways to tour smarter instead of tour harder. Coordinating with the label to see where the record's getting played; more aggressive regional touring (we could probably stand to hit Minneapolis more than once every two years, honestly); and working those bigger shows wherever possible. That one Archers show was probably more effective than a week of touring as far as getting the name out and about.
2) Teamwork, online and in the meat world. Videos. Twitterz. Podcasts. Facesbooks. Blogs. ENTERTAINING CONTENT. Yeah, establishing a solid base of followers on the internet is a long commitment, but at least you can do it from your living room. During a conversation with James from Police Teeth, he said he was pretty sure PT has sold more records online than via shows. "The Black Flag touring model is long, long dead," he said, and i think he's right.
So how do we coordinate that stuff? Like i said, it's got to be entertaining, and then shared like crazy amongst like-minded folk. The Latest Flame bands have been walking around saying "less of a label, more of a street gang" ever since NAP JUSTICE; maybe we should start acting like an online street gang? Heck, i wear the shirts of other Latest Flame bands at nearly every show i attend these days, and i wore Waxeater's shirt on stage at the Archers show. I dunno how much love that gets the other guys, but there's a mentality involved that puts me in the frame of mind to hype my pals every chance i can get. I was wearing the Waxeater shirt when we arrived in Philly on tour, too; when some of the other bands showed up, they reacted. "Oh hey! Waxeater! All right!" Familiarity compounds on itself and breeds more familiarity.
Any other thoughts? I'd love to hear 'em.
It's a good thing i have these CDs; otherwise, there's a very good chance that i'd have forgotten about every last one of these bands, good and bad. It reminded me of something i wrote on our tour blog, something that i thought about a lot during our road trip:
As i stood around at the Caledonia Lounge on Tuesday night watching everyone drink, chat, and completely ignore our merch table (save the bartender and Chris Dragon's friend Sarah, who accounted for our first CDs sold in four days), i thought about the hundreds--thousands?--of touring bands i've seen over the years from the Concert Cafe in Green Bay to the Cactus Club in Milwaukee, and i'm sure that many of the ones i've forgotten were damn fine. Do any of the attendees at the Longbranch in Knoxville even remember the name "IfIHadAHiFi?" Or are they more likely to say "oh, man, that band...I Wish I Had A HiFi? They were great," their memories of the bands they saw on a random Monday night in August 2011 already fading into a jumbled mash of beer and feedback? As in love with our self-constructed image of the band too crazy to ignore as i am, i realistically get the feeling that by tomorrow it'll be "those bands with the crazy drummer" and "yeah, that night our pals played with some touring bands" by September, if not Friday.
I count twenty-one CD copies of our new EP remaining out of 50 we started tour with. That's twenty-nine copies out there along the East Coast. Assuming they don't get dumped at a CDMax in a few months, that's hopefully twenty-nine people who will, at the very least, have that same "oh YEAH!" moment i just had while eying my Anger CD for the first time in years. As i said elsewhere in that paragraph, this tour was a pretty inefficient way to encourage memorization of our band name, but for us, the biggest reason to play shows is to visit our friends and play music for them.
Unfortunately, that's not the most fair attitude to have when we have an awesome dude at Latest Flame Records mortgaging his future to promote bands he loves. If we want to move product (if we don't, it sort of makes us assholes, really), conventional wisdom would normally dictate that we have to tour more often than the middling two weeks per year we generally embark on. However, it's 2011, and certain truths have taken hold in our post-Napster age: people are buying less and less physical music, and the number of touring bands competing for that ever-shrinking fan dollar is higher than ever. Also dwindling rapidly is the number of people who value music, period, as evidenced by the basement show we played in Bloomington, Indiana that earned us a cool $13 in donations from about three of the twenty-some kids in attendance. "Hey, man, cool show! Your band is really good!" "Hey, thanks! Did you donate anything for the show at all?" "Aw, dude, i have like no money. *drinks BYO beer #5* So when ya coming back to Bloomington?"
It's obvious that young people don't put a price on music the same way that those of us who grew up with vinyl, cassettes and CDs did, and hell, many of them don't seem to value live performance over the beer they're drinking that night (though i doubt that's a recent development). Yes, money isn't the main reason that anyone should play in a band, but without it, producing recorded music--even the digital kind--becomes less and less appealing of an idea. Look, we can all talk until we're blue in the face about how we make music for ourselves, and how none of us are looking to do this for a living, and that may even be true, but let's be honest--validation is pretty damn sweet too.
So, assuming that there are still people who care about physical music products, and people who still care about seeing new or more underground live bands, what's the best way to reach through the sea of apathetic bodies and connect with those more "active" (for lack of a less douchey, less marketing-sounding term) listeners? I have some thoughts on this, but would love to read some in the comments too:
1) Quality over Quantity. Being able to tour three months out of the year would be awesome, but it's also unrealistic for dudes in their 30s with day jobs, and a lot of those shows would be of the Bloomington basement show sort anyway. But there are ways to tour smarter instead of tour harder. Coordinating with the label to see where the record's getting played; more aggressive regional touring (we could probably stand to hit Minneapolis more than once every two years, honestly); and working those bigger shows wherever possible. That one Archers show was probably more effective than a week of touring as far as getting the name out and about.
2) Teamwork, online and in the meat world. Videos. Twitterz. Podcasts. Facesbooks. Blogs. ENTERTAINING CONTENT. Yeah, establishing a solid base of followers on the internet is a long commitment, but at least you can do it from your living room. During a conversation with James from Police Teeth, he said he was pretty sure PT has sold more records online than via shows. "The Black Flag touring model is long, long dead," he said, and i think he's right.
So how do we coordinate that stuff? Like i said, it's got to be entertaining, and then shared like crazy amongst like-minded folk. The Latest Flame bands have been walking around saying "less of a label, more of a street gang" ever since NAP JUSTICE; maybe we should start acting like an online street gang? Heck, i wear the shirts of other Latest Flame bands at nearly every show i attend these days, and i wore Waxeater's shirt on stage at the Archers show. I dunno how much love that gets the other guys, but there's a mentality involved that puts me in the frame of mind to hype my pals every chance i can get. I was wearing the Waxeater shirt when we arrived in Philly on tour, too; when some of the other bands showed up, they reacted. "Oh hey! Waxeater! All right!" Familiarity compounds on itself and breeds more familiarity.
Any other thoughts? I'd love to hear 'em.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Why We Do
I question many of the paths i've taken in life on a regular basis; i'm about as self-critical as Nyjer Morgan is delightfully batshit. That criticism has been cranked to Code Orange levels in recent weeks due to my current unemployment. Is my 1997 BS degree in radio-tv-film worth anything? What if i had studied something more marketable and not concentrated so much on rock 'n' roll? Would i be flailing about looking for writing jobs that i'm not even confident i'm qualified for? Have i failed in my attempts to balance band and job?
The grass is always greener, right? My sister and her husband have put together a steady, stable family with a house they'll have paid off in no time, awesome kids, and what i can only assume is more financial security than i have. I have, to this point, traded that in for tours and nights spent on floors in remote American cities.
And then there's the stereotype of "band guy" that i always imagine that i'm fighting against (which may be one of those self-imposed standards that this article warned me about not long ago). Whenever a friend has made a joke about old dudes in bands, as if someone over 30 who still plays music is automatically clinging to some sort of childish dream of fame and fortune, i bristle, because that's not me. On the other hand, i've spent enough hours promoting us and trying to get as many people as possible to hear us, that i can't deny that it's thrown my life out of balance on several occasions.
The response to Elliott's accident, however, has served to remind me that i'm still on the right path. In the last day and a half i've seen an emotional outpouring for him that includes friends that he's met in all corners of the country and across the pond. I defy anyone who hates on social media to dispute the impact of dozens of get-well wishes, spanning pages upon pages of a Facebook wall and an EA Forum discussion thread. If it doesn't thrill Elliott upon his awakening (and it will), it has comforted his family and friends while he sits in an induced coma in an Austin ICU.
I touched on this briefly during the NAP JUSTICE recap, but this is what this silly indie rock thing is all about: community and family. We don't tour the country playing our music in front of indifferent drunks in Denver in order to get famous. We do it because the quest to find like-minded souls is its own reward in so many ways. That Elliott has so many brothers and sisters spread across the world who love him is proof that he's on the right path as well--even if that path is what led him to his accident. If there's one positive thing i can take away from this goddamn tragedy, it's a reminder that community is everything. It doesn't matter if it's indie rock, indie wrestling, Dungeons and Dragons groups, midnight basketball clubs, or even furry conventions; whatever crew you run with, that crew will be all you have left when everything else goes away.
Much of Elliott's circle of family and friends overlaps with mine, and knowing that we all are behind him on this one gives me a lot of solace in his current situation, as well as my considerably less significant trials. I know that there are a lot of people out there who love me too, and that means more than anything record sales could ever provide.
Tomorrow, Elliott wakes and we find out what he's going to need next. I am confident that we, in some configuration, will see that he gets it.
We've got your back, brother.
The grass is always greener, right? My sister and her husband have put together a steady, stable family with a house they'll have paid off in no time, awesome kids, and what i can only assume is more financial security than i have. I have, to this point, traded that in for tours and nights spent on floors in remote American cities.
And then there's the stereotype of "band guy" that i always imagine that i'm fighting against (which may be one of those self-imposed standards that this article warned me about not long ago). Whenever a friend has made a joke about old dudes in bands, as if someone over 30 who still plays music is automatically clinging to some sort of childish dream of fame and fortune, i bristle, because that's not me. On the other hand, i've spent enough hours promoting us and trying to get as many people as possible to hear us, that i can't deny that it's thrown my life out of balance on several occasions.
The response to Elliott's accident, however, has served to remind me that i'm still on the right path. In the last day and a half i've seen an emotional outpouring for him that includes friends that he's met in all corners of the country and across the pond. I defy anyone who hates on social media to dispute the impact of dozens of get-well wishes, spanning pages upon pages of a Facebook wall and an EA Forum discussion thread. If it doesn't thrill Elliott upon his awakening (and it will), it has comforted his family and friends while he sits in an induced coma in an Austin ICU.
I touched on this briefly during the NAP JUSTICE recap, but this is what this silly indie rock thing is all about: community and family. We don't tour the country playing our music in front of indifferent drunks in Denver in order to get famous. We do it because the quest to find like-minded souls is its own reward in so many ways. That Elliott has so many brothers and sisters spread across the world who love him is proof that he's on the right path as well--even if that path is what led him to his accident. If there's one positive thing i can take away from this goddamn tragedy, it's a reminder that community is everything. It doesn't matter if it's indie rock, indie wrestling, Dungeons and Dragons groups, midnight basketball clubs, or even furry conventions; whatever crew you run with, that crew will be all you have left when everything else goes away.
Much of Elliott's circle of family and friends overlaps with mine, and knowing that we all are behind him on this one gives me a lot of solace in his current situation, as well as my considerably less significant trials. I know that there are a lot of people out there who love me too, and that means more than anything record sales could ever provide.
Tomorrow, Elliott wakes and we find out what he's going to need next. I am confident that we, in some configuration, will see that he gets it.
We've got your back, brother.
Monday, June 27, 2011
The World's Biggest Heart Can't be Stopped
My plan for today was to blog about the awesome weekend IfIHadAHiFi just spent in Louisville, and maybe i'll be able to get composed enough to do that later. For now, i ask everyone i know to send positive vibes, prayers, and well-wishes to my brother in rock, Elliott Turton from Waxeater and Trophy Wives.
Elliott was on stage with Waxeater last night in Austin, TX when he received a severe electric shock and was functionally electrocuted. As i understand it, he was lying on stage with no pulse or breathing when my friend Ashlee (a nurse and wife of my friend Cody, whose new band, Bad Chapters, was playing the show last night) and a fellow nurse rushed to the stage and worked to revive him until the EMTs arrived not two minutes later.
The text message i just received from Waxeater's guitarist, Rob, said that he's in critical but stable condition, and will remain sedated for 48 hours while tests are run. There has been no problem with his heart since he was taken to the ICU, where he remains, and his parents and girlfriend are with him.
I've been fighting bursts of tears all morning. Hopefully i can pull it together to function on some level today.
Elliott was on stage with Waxeater last night in Austin, TX when he received a severe electric shock and was functionally electrocuted. As i understand it, he was lying on stage with no pulse or breathing when my friend Ashlee (a nurse and wife of my friend Cody, whose new band, Bad Chapters, was playing the show last night) and a fellow nurse rushed to the stage and worked to revive him until the EMTs arrived not two minutes later.
The text message i just received from Waxeater's guitarist, Rob, said that he's in critical but stable condition, and will remain sedated for 48 hours while tests are run. There has been no problem with his heart since he was taken to the ICU, where he remains, and his parents and girlfriend are with him.
I've been fighting bursts of tears all morning. Hopefully i can pull it together to function on some level today.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Nap Justice! The Story of NAP JUSTICE
Once upon a time, my goals for playing music were fairly ambitious, and not in any way matched by the amount of work necessary to meet that goal: 1) get as many people as possible to hear my band; 2) get signed to large indie label (dream destination: Touch & Go); 3) maybe get to a point where i could make a living playing in my band. Real life and a desire to not live in abject squalor during the 4-5 months i wouldn't be on the road per year doing the necessary touring in order to achieve those goals soon forced a harsh, severe re-evaluation (not to mention the fact that our music is in no way marketable. At all). Today, when it comes to playing the rocks and rolls musics, i have modest goals: 1) write and record the best music possible; 2) get it heard by as many people as possible who would enjoy it; 3) make as many like-minded friends around the country as possible. That new #3 is a goal that i always had but didn't realize until, well, i had achieved it. Now, i understand that the most rewarding part of playing in an independent rock band is realizing that it's a fantastic excuse to meet and visit an incredible network of like-minded fools across the nation, if not the world.
Two bands that qualify as "unstoppably crucial pals" are also our labelmates on Latest Flame Records: Seattle, WA's Police Teeth and Kentuckiana's Waxeater. Along with our other LFR pals Trophy Wives, we've formed the unofficial nucleus of what we consider "less of a label and more of a street gang." That street gang's name, other than "Latest Flame Records," is NAP JUSTICE, and NAP JUSTICE laid down some amplified law on Saturday, while Police Teeth and Waxeater were in town.
After a wildly entertaining Friday night show at the Cactus Club (which included local noisemakers Absolutely, a band you should probably get on board with right now), we prepared for a basement show at the HiFi home base, the Church of Murray (a makeup for a scheduled Madison show with Zebras that was canceled due to Madison cops being lame, which is hard to say in the wake of their overall awesome behavior during the WiUnion protests), by spending the day consuming heroic levels of alcohol and meat, occasionally taking a break to walk down to the street fest on North Ave. to see Scarring Party and Call Me Lightning. By Liz's estimation, the party consumed:
which sounds about right. Later in the afternoon, a couple Waxeaters and Police Teethers crashed into mid-afternoon nap mode to recharge for the actual show, only to be eventually stirred from their slumber by the Church of Murray's across-the-street neighbors--an Axe* of dudebros who had decided to let a hippie jam cover band set up on their porch. As we tried to enjoy the outdoors, The 311 Matthews Traveler laid down the most "mellow" of jams, harshing ours with atrocious renditions of the usual hippie nonsense - Dave, Sublime, and countless blasphemous renditions of CCR tunes.
Slowly but surely, our patience wore thin. Each rendition of a watered-down lite rocker was punctuated with a "YOU SUCK!" or a "STOP PLAYING!" from one of us (usually Yale), or a "BONNAROO!" volleyed at a wasted hippie staggering away from the dudeporch. When Bronaked Ladies dared to sully "Folsom Prison Blues" with their inoffensively offensive hemp-rock, it was decided that a retaliatory strike was needed--nay, mandatory. (EDIT: Yale has sagely reminded me that it was actually a mashup of "Folsom Prison Blues" and the "Beer Barrel Polka." Information presented without comment.)
The Wizard fetched a practice amp and Police Teeth drummer Richy (derisively referred to by his bassist Chris as "the best guitarist in our band") plugged in just in time to join Hurl Jam on a run through "Mary Jane's Last Dance" by Tom Petty, easily outshredding the acoustic guitarist across the street. When the Petty waned, Richy launched immediately into the opening riff to "Paranoid," inspiring a full Church of Murray balcony singalong. NAP JUSTICE was on, and into their third tune, a gut-busting rip through the opening strains of Slayer's "Raining Blood." By this time there wasn't a dry eye or upright torso in the house, as everyone was doubled over in pain from abdominal-toning laughter.
Once Richy was done, PT guitarist James took over for some AC/DC and some other classic punk i can't remember. Waxeater's guitarist (and one of our most essential band pals) Rob Montage began to assist on snare drum as Richy dangled a grill lid for use as a cymbal/cowbell. Our friend George, who had made a trip away from the house, returned with the following report: "you can't hear anything but your guitar anywhere except directly in front of their house. It's pretty impressive."
Eventually, the band across the street cracked and responded with their take on Cee-Lo's "Fuck You," which James simply played along to. After that, they were done, and NAP JUSTICE had prevailed. Latest Flame Records: less of a label, more of a street gang.
PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE!
Chris and i lose our collective shit while Richy lays it down (not pictured: [B.]O.A.R.)
James and Rob take over
Grill Cymbal!
Moral: Do not mess with Latest Flame bands. Because we're fucking assholes.
After the NAP JUSTICE set, the proper basement show was on, which was totally fine, save that part where HiFi only played two songs because the Wizard stormed off the stage for some reason. Eh, whatever, at least we got that out of the way before tour.
*yes, an "Axe" is the proper collective noun for dudebros. Just ask Neil Hamburger.
Two bands that qualify as "unstoppably crucial pals" are also our labelmates on Latest Flame Records: Seattle, WA's Police Teeth and Kentuckiana's Waxeater. Along with our other LFR pals Trophy Wives, we've formed the unofficial nucleus of what we consider "less of a label and more of a street gang." That street gang's name, other than "Latest Flame Records," is NAP JUSTICE, and NAP JUSTICE laid down some amplified law on Saturday, while Police Teeth and Waxeater were in town.
After a wildly entertaining Friday night show at the Cactus Club (which included local noisemakers Absolutely, a band you should probably get on board with right now), we prepared for a basement show at the HiFi home base, the Church of Murray (a makeup for a scheduled Madison show with Zebras that was canceled due to Madison cops being lame, which is hard to say in the wake of their overall awesome behavior during the WiUnion protests), by spending the day consuming heroic levels of alcohol and meat, occasionally taking a break to walk down to the street fest on North Ave. to see Scarring Party and Call Me Lightning. By Liz's estimation, the party consumed:
1 bottle of Everclear (mixed into "doom punch")
2 bottles of cheap bourbon
2 30 packs of PBR
1 30 pack of High Life
Assorted other sixers of higher quality beer
Many, many meats
which sounds about right. Later in the afternoon, a couple Waxeaters and Police Teethers crashed into mid-afternoon nap mode to recharge for the actual show, only to be eventually stirred from their slumber by the Church of Murray's across-the-street neighbors--an Axe* of dudebros who had decided to let a hippie jam cover band set up on their porch. As we tried to enjoy the outdoors, The 311 Matthews Traveler laid down the most "mellow" of jams, harshing ours with atrocious renditions of the usual hippie nonsense - Dave, Sublime, and countless blasphemous renditions of CCR tunes.
Slowly but surely, our patience wore thin. Each rendition of a watered-down lite rocker was punctuated with a "YOU SUCK!" or a "STOP PLAYING!" from one of us (usually Yale), or a "BONNAROO!" volleyed at a wasted hippie staggering away from the dudeporch. When Bronaked Ladies dared to sully "Folsom Prison Blues" with their inoffensively offensive hemp-rock, it was decided that a retaliatory strike was needed--nay, mandatory. (EDIT: Yale has sagely reminded me that it was actually a mashup of "Folsom Prison Blues" and the "Beer Barrel Polka." Information presented without comment.)
The Wizard fetched a practice amp and Police Teeth drummer Richy (derisively referred to by his bassist Chris as "the best guitarist in our band") plugged in just in time to join Hurl Jam on a run through "Mary Jane's Last Dance" by Tom Petty, easily outshredding the acoustic guitarist across the street. When the Petty waned, Richy launched immediately into the opening riff to "Paranoid," inspiring a full Church of Murray balcony singalong. NAP JUSTICE was on, and into their third tune, a gut-busting rip through the opening strains of Slayer's "Raining Blood." By this time there wasn't a dry eye or upright torso in the house, as everyone was doubled over in pain from abdominal-toning laughter.
Once Richy was done, PT guitarist James took over for some AC/DC and some other classic punk i can't remember. Waxeater's guitarist (and one of our most essential band pals) Rob Montage began to assist on snare drum as Richy dangled a grill lid for use as a cymbal/cowbell. Our friend George, who had made a trip away from the house, returned with the following report: "you can't hear anything but your guitar anywhere except directly in front of their house. It's pretty impressive."
Eventually, the band across the street cracked and responded with their take on Cee-Lo's "Fuck You," which James simply played along to. After that, they were done, and NAP JUSTICE had prevailed. Latest Flame Records: less of a label, more of a street gang.
PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE!
Chris and i lose our collective shit while Richy lays it down (not pictured: [B.]O.A.R.)
James and Rob take over
Grill Cymbal!
Moral: Do not mess with Latest Flame bands. Because we're fucking assholes.
After the NAP JUSTICE set, the proper basement show was on, which was totally fine, save that part where HiFi only played two songs because the Wizard stormed off the stage for some reason. Eh, whatever, at least we got that out of the way before tour.
*yes, an "Axe" is the proper collective noun for dudebros. Just ask Neil Hamburger.
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