Media Medusa
Is it bad form to follow up on a woman's teary-eyed explanation that she was inspired to sing by the passing of her daughter with the praise "you all killed it!" One more reason not to watch television: Clash of the Choirs. I just sat through a segment where Patti Lebelle and a group of tone deaf mutants murdered "We Are the Champions." It was a painful reminder that TV needs writers, because even canned laughter is better than this shit.

Instead, anyone with the option should check out Juno this weekend. I'm still compiling my year end favorites list, but I really doubt that another movie is going to knock Juno out of my top 5.

On the subject of music, it was refreshing to read my main man Simon's feelings about the pitfalls of wanting to be a career musician. Simon and I seem separated at birth sometimes, though I must admit he wound up with the dashing good looks and I was left with the ability to cultivate facial hair like a yak. I long ago decided that making music ought to be fun, and that anything that took away from that ought to be left behind. Most of the time, that means money.

I was reading an article in this week's Creative Loafing and I was reminded of how the game of peddling music runs hand in hand with actually making it for a lot of folks. It's especially rampant in the hip hop world, where success stories often start with a guy pushing mixtapes or homemade CDs out of a backpack or car trunk. I absolutely respect the world ethic, but I despise the pusher mentality.

It dawned on me at some point that I am not good at peddling. I have been there--I used to sell CDs out of a bag on campus to anyone who would pay me any mind. It wasn't fun, and I wasn't great at it, but I managed to unload enough of them (with everyone else in the band) to make back the production costs. Once that debt was paid though, I never tried to force that disc on anyone again. Not that I didn't believe in the music; I certainly did at the time. I just realized that I'm not a salesman.

My approach to selling music is probably one of the major reasons that my label wasn't really successful. I am good at writing band bios, press releases, one sheets, and the like, and I'm good at being organized, keeping a list of places to send promos, following up on that, clipping reviews, updating the website and so on. What I really always sucked at was getting on the phone with a distributor or radio station and trying to convince them to give a record a chance. It always came off as so desperate to me. My philosophy was always: "Here's a record. I love it and believe in it. I hope you like it. If you do, I have more of them, if not, please give it to someone you think might enjoy it." In fact, that was more or less my exact sales pitch. I could never muster the kind of "this is a ground breaking work of next level shit that you MUST hear because it's HOTTTTT!" kind of hyperbole that I see all the time.

For one thing, without a reference point, there's no reason anyone in the world should listen to a record they get in the mail unless it's out of sheer curiosity. I used to run a label, I KNOW this to be true. I listened to scores of demos for years until I finally just started to throw them in the trash unless they had some amazing cover letter, artwork, or song titles. Usually, the records that passed that test were still disappointing as all hell. So without someone knowing my taste, there's no reason at all that they should believe me when I say "listen to this, I sent it to YOU specifically because I know what you sort of like and this should fit right in there." Maybe it was never obvious that I was selective about the people I sent discs to, but I was, because I hated being on the receiving end of a disc that had absolutely no relevance for my label.

And of course, radio stations and distributors and magazines are getting records by the van-load. See the jaded way that Pitchfork writes about things that they LIKE and you'll see how easy it is to get cynical about that perceived desperation on the other end of every package that comes with a note that says "please love me." Being a small label or an unsigned artist often feels a bit like being that pimply, fat dude with mismatching clothes who asks the class president and cheer team captain to the prom. You know you have almost no shot, but you go for it anyway because fuck, you believe in yourself and you see that she has a Ramones sticker on her 3 Ring Binder and that has to count for something, right?