Scott Mills wanted to do an interview in 2000 on the history of the Journal, which was 8 years old at the time, and had four more years to live. My recollection is we did the interview as a series of email exchanges. I published it in the paper and had it on the website for awhile. Now it's time to park it on the blog, minus the parts that are no longer true, like Twisters still existing and things like that.
When did the RMJ first hit the streets?
Late in October of 1993
Did you think it was going to last as long as it has?
No, I thought I'd get a real job eventually and lose interest in it, or someone would buy it. I didn't know what the future would hold. At job interviews, they would always ask, where do you see yourself in five years? And I never knew. Maybe that's why I never get the job.
The RMJ is legendary for the battles that took place in its pages. What are some of the memorable ones?
The first one was when we started to go see bands in the Bottom. That pissed off the clubs on Grace Street.
What do you think made the scene change locations?
I couldn't guess. I know what makes me change locations is a bad neighborhood vibe. No parking, running for your life to get back to your car. The second battle was giving the Richmond Music Cooperative's CD so-so reviews. So that crowd hated us. And they were the In Crowd, too. Then everyone who hated the Vapor Rhinos hated us because we liked them. Then everyone who hated girls doing a music newspaper hated us, because most of our writers were girls and we didn't always write about the music. We wrote about the scene.
Let me publicly thank Anne Soffee and Lisa Honeycutt, who both traveled the scene with me a great deal in the beginning. Anne invented the term "toe molecule" for where a musician keeps his personal sensitivity, romanticism and loyalty. They draw on that toe molecule to write music, but they don't live up to their own lyrics. Lisa, especially, took a lot of mean-spirited criticism from the guys for things she wrote. The musicians complain that the RMJ is not supportive, but nothing beat the personal attacks and personal ugliness they dished back. It's always about the music from this end, but they'd hit back at our looks.
I remember the interviews used to ask who the babe magnet in the band was. I always thought that was an unusual question.
It was a 16 Magazine type question. The whole interview was based on that magazine. The next battle was the waitresses at Marvin's, the restaurant across from the Hole in the Wall. They hated us. Marvin's was the scene hang-out. Every time someone famous died, they put up pictures of the dead person immediately. I always wondered how they did that so fast. It was actually a pretty cool place, but I was an interloper to them. Then we wrote about Dave Brockie getting naked at the end of a Gwar show at the Flood Zone. So then the Flood Zone hated us, because that became a part of their liquor license problem, although not the part that lost them their license. But Mike Hsu, who was in Animal Farm and also a deejay on The Buzz, kept badmouthing the paper on the air. So there was plenty of love lost there. And radio hated us because our readers wrote in letters about how much they hated local radio, and we printed them.
What I find really interesting is the RMJ is still a survivor and The Buzz, the Flood Zone, and a lot of those bands no longer exist. Kids today don't even know there was a Flood Zone.
Then everyone who hated Frog Legs hated us, because we liked Frog Legs. Then we didn't think much of the Floating Folk Festival's first CD, so they hated us. Everyone who gets a bad review hates us. I have an enemies list, and people move off it, but it's pretty stable over the years. There's people who write us really, really nasty letters that make personal and untrue accusations about our motivations. There's people who shafted us on money, people who stole things from us, people who tried to start competitive newspapers, people who tried to sue us. That's the spectrum of unforgivable offenses. One woman used to call me repeatedly from North Carolina in the middle of the night and said I was sexually frustrated and dressed in Garanimal outfits. Finally, I read her phone number to her off my caller ID, and she stopped after that. I guess she didn't know Caller ID existed. I still don't know who that was. I wouldn't have minded if she called the phone line I set up for late night calls, the message line. The ringer was always turned off on that phone. It just recorded messages and took faxes. But she would call my personal phone.
The Garanimals outfit is songworthy. Again, all of those start-up papers came and went. Of course, bands wanted as much press as they could get, and would do whatever they could to be in any music paper. Did you have hard feelings toward bands that did things for competitors?
Of course, especially if they bought ads everywhere but the Journal. Or they send hate mail about me to other papers. What's with that? One band bought a display ad in Punchline saying insulting things about me!
What is the most outrageous thing that happened while doing the Journal?
Getting kicked out of the Metro during a Gwar show. They actually tried to confiscate my camera. I told them I wouldn't take any photos -- photo bans were common -- even though I had the band's permission, but they wanted to take the camera anyway. So I dodged them. And the bouncers kept hunting me down in the crowd. It got scary. They were big guys. I darted in front of the stage at one point and got sprayed down with fake blood. Then I headed for the staircase, a huge bouncer on my heels. I pulled my keychain out. It had a little silver pocketknife on it, and pulled out the blade. If that bouncer had touched me, I really think I would have tried to stab him. I got out with my camera, and ran into Marvin's across the street, looking for my friend, Anne. George Reuther from the Vapor Rhinos was sitting inside and looked really startled when I walked in. I didn't realize I was covered in fake blood. He said he didn't know where Anne was, so I went home and saw myself in the mirror, all fake bloody.
That was an unnerving experience. I also got kicked out of the Flood Zone a couple of time for taking photos of bands, even local bands. That was insane. Then Metro wouldn't let me in even if I was on the guest list. Like I'm so much trouble. Writing about things that happened in the clubs attracted trouble from the ABC agents.
That's really a visual description. That's the one thing I miss about the RMJ, when you stopped writing as much as you did in the early days. Your descriptions were always so visual, it made you feel like you were right there. Did you study journalism?
My degree is in journalism, although I learned more about writing just from reading people I admire, not from professors. I've always been an observer of life rather than a participant.
What's the worst thing that happened?
Having to hire a lawyer for $500 over the Gwar/Flood Zone hearing at the ABC Board. That was a lot of money for nothing, since the Flood Zone lawyers made a deal with the ABC in the hallway moments before and I never had to testify. I had hired a lawyer to explain why I was going to refuse to testify. It's called quashing a subpoena. Brockie was there in a suit with his lawyer, too. And it all turned out to be unnecessary because the Flood Zone owners, just kids, caved. They had done more serious things we didn't know about, so it really wasn't a First Amendment issue. $500 was a huge amount of money to me.
Why did you not want to testify?
It was a violation of journalism ethics. You can't be subpoenaed to squeal on people when you are reporting a story. That was the basis of the papers we filed in reply. Brockie had taken off his costume before he left the stage, so he was nude on stage for a few minutes, and we mentioned that in the story. The ABC tossed the lewd display charge in with a bundle of other ABC violations they had against the Flood Zone. Even with the lewd charge, they would have lost their liquor license. I don't think Dave or I knew that going in. We both wanted to maintain silence to help the Flood Zone because we both lawyered up. And then the Flood Zone never gave us the courtesy of letting us know they were up the creek anyway.
Oh, in other worst things, I got mugged outside the train station in the Bottom one rainy Friday night. The guy grabbed me from behind and punched me in the head until I hit the ground, took my purse and called me a bitch. It was an older black man, neatly dressed in an Eisenhower jacket. I remember that I kept walking toward him when I spotted him in the shadows because I didn't want to insult him! Make him think I was prejudice because he was black. Like if I turned and ran the other way, it would hurt his feelings.
I was so rattled after it happen, ran around looking for a cop. Finally found one, and he didn't even call it in! It was too routine for him. I lost $25, my credit card, and a camera. The cop finally agreed to go back to the scene with me and shine a flashlight around, and I found my cosmetics purse, but nothing else. I had just come from seeing Suzy Saxon and the Anglos at Alley Katz. I had a black eye the next day. I had to get a replacement driver's license, so I put on layers of makeup to cover the black eye for the photo, and it came out great. Like Glamour Shots. Best license photo I ever took.
I also got hit by car on Cary Street and broke my wrist. I was picked up an article from a girl who worked in a shop there. She told the insurance people I was in a hurry to meet her, so my claim failed, and then she went to work for my competition, so she was not a great experience. I did the next paper by putting a pencil inside my cast and typing with the eraser end. Look how resourceful I was, and I still got fired from my job. I was working part-time for a personal injuries attorney. It wasn't a good business to have an injured person sitting in your front office, still able to work.
The RMJ is distinctly unapologetic to complainers, and that sets it apart from the music papers that come and go. Where did the your motto "Everybody Hates It, Everybody Reads It" come from?
That's why everyone tells me all the time, so it became the slogan. We don't care what people think because the newspaper has never supported me financially. If you depend on advertising revenue to pay your rent, then you're going to want to please everyone and keep the advertising dollars rolling in. You edit scared. I suspect that's why there isn't that much local coverage in Punchline. The ad revenue has to be protected. But I've never lived off the paper. It pays for itself. If it does well, it gets bigger. If it doesn't, it gets smaller. I don't make calls soliciting ads anymore. I don't have the time. They need so much attention, so many reminders, a dozen phone calls to get their ad in on time, and then two dozen to collect the money. I just build the paper around whatever advertising comes in on its own.
I was in Seattle in 1994 and the local music zines were more like the RMJ. What are some of your favorite issues and articles?
When no one knew me and I was in a period of my life when I didn't care what people thought, I wrote better articles. I lived it back then. Went out almost every night and stayed out until the bars closed. Hit five or six places a night. I can't do that now. I enjoyed publishing Killer Montone's work. Mad Dog wrote for us. Ned Scott Jr., Buzzy Lawler. I have a good group now with Robert Stutler, Walter Boelt, Kiki Nusbaumer, The Griper and the Johns. There's two or three Johns. I get them confused. Except for John Church, I've never met any of the current writers. It's all done by email.
You have had a lot of writers and reviewers of the years. At one point you did most of the writing. What made you stop doing as much?
The usual thing that stops women from doing things, a boyfriend. He didn't want to go out every night because he had a full time job, and I didn't want to go out without him. Then when we did go out, it was usually to see his friends play, and they knew me, so it was not easy to review them. If you hate them and write about it, it becomes a dilemma. It's tough to handle the advertising, too, when you're a reviewer. I had to retire.
Lots of your writers use fake names. Why?
They're in bands, so they don't want other bands to know they're reviewing. But most of them are audience members. The one rule I had was, if you must use a fake name, you have to stick with it. You build an identity and become that person.
Has a band ever pissed you off so much, you left them out of the RMJ?
Yep, either they didn't pay for an ad, or they didn't pay my boyfriend when he ran sound for them. Or they complained they only wanted good reviews. All bad reviews should not be published. Or they were insufferable assholes who fought dirty by taking personal shots at me in other papers. All those guys were banished. It's not a big deal. They probably didn't even notice.
Somehow every music person in town still manages to pick up the RMJ and scoff at why they're not in the polls. Have you ever boosted a band in the polls you really liked, or is it always based on votes?
I vote when I see someone I think is good. If a group is tied, I'll put them in the order I think is most deserving. There's a lot of ties. Second through 10th place are often just single votes.
Word association. Dave Matthews.
I bought "Under the Table and Dreaming." I like some of the songs on that CD. The lyrics are nonsense. What I really hate is bands that try to imitate him. They're always really bad. I've only see him play once at the Flood Zone and it was too crowded. I took a few photos and left. I interviewed him on the phone before "Under the Table" came out. He was modest and shy and said he really wasn't friends with his band. They barely rehearsed together.
Did you think he would be the mega-sensation he has become?
It's an amazing feat for a band with no sex appeal and not many hit songs. But it's like Phish or the Grateful Dead, I guess.
Cracker.
I bought two of the CDs. I like a lot of their songs. I've seen them twice, at the Flood Zone and at a Plan 9 in-store. They hated our Flood Zone review and sent a lot of pissy mail about it. So I guess we'll never have a Sound of Music ad. Most people who try to start a music newspaper in this town kiss up to Sound of Music hard, do a lot of interviews with their engineers and the bands they're recording. We never cared. Interviews with engineers are dull reading anyway. And interviews with bands who have a new CD out, it's always the exact same story. They worked hard on it. They think it's good. Hope you buy it. Zzzzzzz.
I remember David Lowery wrote a letter to the RMJ about someone saying he did nothing for the local scene. What was that all about?
A misinterpretation. We said no local band he championed has made it big, or has made it yet. See, even you remember just the misinterpretation from their side, and not the original review or our response. That's how rumors start.
Gwar.
I've seen them four times, and maybe that many times without costumes. I've seen X-Cops. It's always an enjoyable show because, unlike other bands in Richmond, it is a show. Scariens, Frog Legs, Vapor Rhinos, Ultra Bait, Thelma Shook, they all did shows with costumes and themes. You never knew what was going to happen next, and the music was the soundtrack. I'd rather see a show any day. I interviewed Dave Brockie once. He was very entertaining to write about. He gave me Hitler's head to present to The Ramones as a gift since I was going to that show that night.
I'd say the Gwar review that landed you in court was your biggest publicity moment. The local news and Times-Dispatch all mentioned the paper in their stories. MTV reported on it.
And then came the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I felt Brockie understood the paper. It's not like other papers. It didn't do preshow interviews. But since then, no one has mentioned us. (Style never did, even when I finally folded the paper after 11 years, when they would write stories about the end of papers like ThroTTle and Caffeine that didn't last as long.)
Frog Legs.
Their early songs were great, great musicianship. They put on a show. They were characters. They should have made it. I saw them play every week for months, and never got tired of it. They had just started getting a following locally when they went on the college circuit for East Coast Entertainment, and then dissolved. The frat houses did not get them. I asked an East Coast booker once how they were doing, and they said the after-show comments were bad. Then some producer changed their sound for their first CD, and they were blander. The songs didn't sound the same. In the beginning, they used to call my answering machine in the middle of the night and record long, long messages. They'd get on extensions and talk to each other, do skits. That definitely created interest in seeing their show the first time. They they were impossible to interview because they were always in character, always on. They never told the truth or gave a straight answer. Guitarist Tom Illmensee really was the band. People thought it was vocalist Wrenn Mangum, but musicians went to hear Tom play.
Thelma Shook.
I have both their CDs. Dean Owen wrote some of the best songs I ever heard. I still listen to those songs. He is a great vocalist and showman. He should be on the cover of Rolling Stone. Their music was better than Frog Legs, even. Damn near brilliant. He's a musical genius. When they were promoting the first demo tape, I came home one night and found the front door of my apartment building completely decorated in Thelma Shook eyeglasses. They traded me computer software for advertising space, so it was a great deal.
Cover bands.
I don't have anything against them, really. In the beginning I thought they were cheesy, but now, if I am going to be in a bar for four to six hours, I'd just as soon hear some covers. The bands writing truly entertaining originals are few.
One thing I heard about the RMJ was cover bands got treated better than bands that composed their own songs, and it was the bands' writing that got dissed because their songs were not good. But the cover bands avoided that criticism because they played known hits. They were not being judged on how well they played.
Sometimes that's all you have to do to be entertaining, play covers. But that's not true, what you said. We judged cover bands. The Fredds hated us, BS&M hated us. We didn't give all cover bands a free pass.
Original acts.
You mean bands that write all original music or have an original act? You need to be really good before you start playing out. I hate it when a show is like a rehearsal, when everyone stops between each song and has a meeting, when they wear street clothes on stage. If someone has to change a string, the others should play something. It's not smoke break time. Have a plan for technical difficulties.
Moondance.
We had a great deal there. I gave them half-price ads and I always got in free. And they always did an ad. I went there a lot, so it worked out. It was a good room. I like square rooms with tables. I couldn't offer other clubs that deal because I didn't go to the same places every week, but at Moondance, I ate a lot of food, saw a lot of bands. The bartenders, the waitresses, Chuck, everyone was like a family. Chuck always had a joke.
Other music venues.
I used to know all the doormen. When it got to the point where I didn't and had to pay covers, that was a kick in the teeth. I like places with no cover charges because I never know how long I'm staying. I stopped going to the Bottom when the parking situation got ugly. Suddenly, every spot had a man standing there trying to collect $4 in advance. Or they were towing. It became easier to go to the suburbs, club in a strip mall with plenty of free parking and lights. No homeless people trying to intercept you.
Memorable bands?
Vapor Rhinos, Frog Legs, Gwar, Dumm Dumms, Thelma Shook, Los 10 Space, Grumbledog, Ultra Bait, Scariens, Princess Tone, Barbie n' Bondage, Dog Psychology, Beex, Peter Bell and his amazing combination of ego and insecurity. My Guitar wrote the best songs and had the worst band name. It was all V.J. Jones, a real talent. He wasn't so good playing out because there was no stage charisma, but his tapes were amazing. I gave away dozens of "Radio and Coffee." People loved it, but the live show would be disappointing. He should have a songwriting deal. I liked Ira Marlowe's solo CD, too. He was before my time, but the work he left behind showed ability.
Ten Ten, The Good Guys, Single Bullet Theory were all before I came along. I've met some of them, seen some revivals and reunions. They fit the context of their time, but their music sounds dated now. The Waking Hours sounded dated before they even got started.
The best show I saw was John Fogerty was the Classic Amphitheatre. That was emotional for me. I loved Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Monday, January 02, 2012
Friday, July 22, 2011
Dean Owen - A Memoir
I found in my computer this fragment of an interview with Dean Owen, which I did not conduct. I think someone named Chris Brooks might have asked the questions, but it is stream-of-Dean, which needs to be preserved for historical purposes, and I have translated it into English and attached some video to this because, as it turns out, I was in attendance for some of these highlights.
There was a time when I was playing with the Vapor Rhinos at the Metro and Dan-o was in the front row, yelling for us to play “Chinese Rocks.” Both Tommy Rodriguez and Peter Headley turn around and give me a look, but I didn’t know the song, so I just shrugged! Dan-o had a look of total disbelief, dumbfounded, like “how can you not know ‘Chinese Rocks’”? But I hadn’t listened to The Ramones. I didn’t come from that background. That’s why Tommy called me "Dirty Hippie" for years.
With me, it’s never been about genre. I can find things I like about any genre. In those days, it was weed or women for me. My high school hadn’t caught up to punk rock yet. We were still at jocks and freaks. Everyone smoked pot, but you were a freak if you wore it on your sleeve. It was all Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ted Nugent, ZZ Top, Alice Cooper, The Grateful Dead.
I was playing jam band music when I met Tommy. Charlie Brown ran a little reggae bar at the corner of Harrison and Broad called New Horizons. He calls me and says a band called Brown Experience is playing with the Prevaricators and someone else, and the regular sound guy won’t do it because they are awful! So, for 25 bucks and beer, I was mixing me some awful. That’s where I first met or saw all of those guys, Tommy, George Reuther, Dave Brockie, Keith Clarke, Crazy Jimmy.
That night, I watched Crazy Jimmy flick a cigarette into one of those retro greasy car mechanic haircuts and chuck his white ‘70s boot into the mirror ball. The guy with the cigarette in his hair didn’t notice until it was smoking pretty good. I laughed my ass off the entire night. I had already seen and fallen in love with Root Boy Slim, so this was pretty much exactly where I was headed. Loud, often obnoxious, slightly offensive, fun as shit, rock and roll that didn’t take itself seriously!
I continued to play the jam band stuff for a stint, toured with a band from Georgia, even moved to Arizona for awhile. I played with Widespread Panic a number of times and even toured with them, but I was never in the band.
New Horizons caught fire. The Jade Elephant opened. Twisters opened, and Tommy and Peter let me join the Vapor Rhinos! George was the bass player! I think Peter liked me because I was good, but not as good as him! I loved all the crazy shit, the flying penis, the smoke machine, the gutted stuffed animals everywhere, poking fun at everything and everyone, especially the cool people. Packing peanuts, general all-over goofiness, but mostly I really loved the songs! Peter is one funny guy and that is totally reflected in his lyrics, beach me a whale, chocolate mousse, if you can’t cut the mustard, you can cut the cheese. That’s some All-American potty humor at its best! I was all about it!
We played New Year’s Eve at the Red Light Inn in 1994. Aside from George chasing wild, coked up strippers around with a yard rake and a bicycle horn down his pants, the funniest thing to me was the regulars were really upset I was wearing a red, white and blue bikini top. We really didn’t get too out of hand that night because as you can guess, some pretty big bitches work at strip clubs! Not to say we didn’t do any crazy shit, we just didn’t break anything that wasn’t ours to break.
I was actually a DJ at the Red Light. I "spun the hits that shook the tits." Peter loved that one! Lots of funny shit happens at a strip club. The reason they hired me to DJ was because the girls were sick of the idiots loading the juke box with “Girls Girls Girls,” 47 times in a row.
The Pee Patrol used to crack me up, as well. Every night they would stick their heads in and make sure everything was all right. Two officers dressed up in ridiculous disguises would walk through the alleys, trying to bust drunk college students peeing. They would mill around the entrance for 20-30 minutes every night, getting a freebie! That building is now the home of my fellow bandmate and best friend, Ric Withers’ print shop!
The Vapor Rhinos eventually gave me the boot, signed my walking papers, kicked me to the curb, told me to amscray. They shit in a bag, lit it on fire, and threw it on my porch. I’m kidding, kind of. Bands come and go. People come and go. I am still great friends with those guys, and I think the world of them. Peter got me to stop using so many notes on the hi-hat and introduced me to the girls of Ultra Bait, the next band I was in. Tommy taught me how to tongue kiss! George gave me one of his gonads. I love all of them and now they kick ass with just two and don’t need nobody else.
Ultra Bait was super fun, my first chick band. We rented a practice space downtown the first summer. It was a Salvation Army storage building. The Cashmere Jungle Lords had a space there. The place was originally a school and our space was the shower and locker room area. It was hot as hell, so there was a lot of almost naked rehearsals. I loved that part! Peter introduced me to them and one night a few weeks later, in Carytown, a girl dressed as a hot nurse comes bounding across the street in the pouring rain, carrying a guitar amp, slips and falls, smashing the amp right in front of me. I got out of the car, helped her up, and it’s Carmen. She is a lot upset. So I told her I would get my amp from home and she could use it. I watched them play with this drummer they called Jiffy Pop.
He was awful, truly awful. His beats were sporadic and irregular like the sound of Jiffy Pop on the stove. I told Tammie they should let me play, and they did! That lasted a couple of years. With me, it’s not really about genre or anything other than I like you and you like me. I can’t handle playing music with someone I don’t like. No matter how much money or anything else you get! I explode eventually and destroy it all!
Thelma Shook was one of those bands. We were all teenage friends way back, with the exception of the drummer, and now we were together again to give it another try. We had just recorded an EP with Mark Miley at Glass Hand that was getting attention. We had enough money and material to put out a CD, and then…I exploded. The band was practicing at my house. The bass player was living with me, behind on his rent and not giving a shit, eating my food, not cleaning up his cat shit, drying his stinky ass fish socks on the radiator and gassing everyone out of the house. We broke up. Ric and I carried on without them. Hell, we wrote all the songs anyway.
We recorded the CD with Mark again, this time at Montana studio. Everyone from Harry Gore to Tim Harriss played on it, Sherrie Blanks, Tommy Rod, Tom Illmensee, 27 people in all. That was a lot of fun! Then we put together a new band to play out. It was pretty much straight up pop-rock. We dug it. Ric let me do whatever I wanted, so I got to be all campy and goofy again with giant, inflatable dolls, space costumes, lots of fun! The Rt. 1 South show was super fun with Mark Miley on drums and Cheez playing bass. There’s a funny as hell video on YouTube of another show, opening for Beex at Moondance and Tommy is heckling us throughout the set. You can’t mistake us, we are the guys dressed like sailors! The rhythm section was Bobby Jorgenson and Chip Farnsworth. It’s great to see how uncomfortable those guys get when I start making with the gay sailor jokes.
Bands come and go. I have been in more than 50. Bay of Pigs is a stoner metal band I am singing for. They wrote all the songs and arrangements. I just do the screaming. I really like not being in charge. It’s nice to come back to. The other guys are half my age and full of piss and douche, so they aren’t afraid to tell me what sucks and what doesn’t. I love that shit.
Brown Sabbath sprung from Ultra Bait. Mr. E.T. Snyder, El Presidente, came up with it. He put it together with Ryan Lake on guitar, Denny Cable on vocals, and me on drums. He told me he heard Bill Ward in my drumming, but I think it was more that I had a good practice space. Truth is – and this harkens back to the Ramones thing – I had never listened to Black Sabbath until I was asked to be the drummer in a Black Sabbath cover band! I had the first record on vinyl and that’s it. Skillet actually set me straight on how to play that shit.
Other musicians will give you shit about playing in a cover band, but it doesn’t bother me. Bill Ward is a kickass drummer, so if someone says I play his music, great! I take it as a big compliment. I wouldn’t say Brown Sabbath is a tribute band, though, not in the sense of Zoso or Mister Crowley. We don’t dress up or duplicate a record or performance. There is a lot of us in it, sometimes whether we want it there or not. Ryan Lake was the original guitarist and he is friggin' amazing. He left to play with Alabama Thunder Pussy. Frank Jackson took over and promptly fell off a roof and compound-fractured his arm. Ryan came back one more time to play the Frank’s Hospital Stay Benefit at the Canal Club. It has been Frank ever since. We all really enjoy it, still, every time. I doubt we will ever completely stop.
It’s always great to play on a nice stage like The National, with a great PA and someone competent to run it. Always! When you play mostly low quality stages and basements with mediocre PA systems, a nice stage stands out. But in this town, music venues are held captive by outdated and idiotic ABC regulations. Everyone knows it. You have to sell 15 slices of shitty pizza so you can drink a beer and watch a band in Richmond. I don’t understand why outside investors don’t do a little scouting before opening a big-ass, never going to pay for itself club in this town. Why were there 12 security guys at a Brown Sabbath show? How much does that cost? This town can only float a smaller venue. Why do they make them so big? For half the money, you could equip and run a great, local music venue, even with the inane regulations. I believe you could stay afloat. It takes a good deal of work, and by more than one person, but I’ve seen it done. Dreams of the lottery….
I am not a good Iggy Pop. I look like Iggy, but as Danny and Chester can tell you, my voice is awful! But the band Iggy Plop is fun and funny. The other band members don’t like the name Iggy Plop! They don’t think it’s cool! That cracks me up. I like playing music that I like with musicians I like, whether it’s my music or someone else’s. I don’t care, as long as it’s fun. I am not what you call a looker, and you wouldn’t know it from watching me on stage, but I am shy, so I do this whole music thing just to meet girls! Oh, and maybe smoke a little weed! Hang out with my friends! I am such a douche!
Footage from Onionhead.
There was a time when I was playing with the Vapor Rhinos at the Metro and Dan-o was in the front row, yelling for us to play “Chinese Rocks.” Both Tommy Rodriguez and Peter Headley turn around and give me a look, but I didn’t know the song, so I just shrugged! Dan-o had a look of total disbelief, dumbfounded, like “how can you not know ‘Chinese Rocks’”? But I hadn’t listened to The Ramones. I didn’t come from that background. That’s why Tommy called me "Dirty Hippie" for years.
With me, it’s never been about genre. I can find things I like about any genre. In those days, it was weed or women for me. My high school hadn’t caught up to punk rock yet. We were still at jocks and freaks. Everyone smoked pot, but you were a freak if you wore it on your sleeve. It was all Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ted Nugent, ZZ Top, Alice Cooper, The Grateful Dead.
I was playing jam band music when I met Tommy. Charlie Brown ran a little reggae bar at the corner of Harrison and Broad called New Horizons. He calls me and says a band called Brown Experience is playing with the Prevaricators and someone else, and the regular sound guy won’t do it because they are awful! So, for 25 bucks and beer, I was mixing me some awful. That’s where I first met or saw all of those guys, Tommy, George Reuther, Dave Brockie, Keith Clarke, Crazy Jimmy.
That night, I watched Crazy Jimmy flick a cigarette into one of those retro greasy car mechanic haircuts and chuck his white ‘70s boot into the mirror ball. The guy with the cigarette in his hair didn’t notice until it was smoking pretty good. I laughed my ass off the entire night. I had already seen and fallen in love with Root Boy Slim, so this was pretty much exactly where I was headed. Loud, often obnoxious, slightly offensive, fun as shit, rock and roll that didn’t take itself seriously!
I continued to play the jam band stuff for a stint, toured with a band from Georgia, even moved to Arizona for awhile. I played with Widespread Panic a number of times and even toured with them, but I was never in the band.
New Horizons caught fire. The Jade Elephant opened. Twisters opened, and Tommy and Peter let me join the Vapor Rhinos! George was the bass player! I think Peter liked me because I was good, but not as good as him! I loved all the crazy shit, the flying penis, the smoke machine, the gutted stuffed animals everywhere, poking fun at everything and everyone, especially the cool people. Packing peanuts, general all-over goofiness, but mostly I really loved the songs! Peter is one funny guy and that is totally reflected in his lyrics, beach me a whale, chocolate mousse, if you can’t cut the mustard, you can cut the cheese. That’s some All-American potty humor at its best! I was all about it!
We played New Year’s Eve at the Red Light Inn in 1994. Aside from George chasing wild, coked up strippers around with a yard rake and a bicycle horn down his pants, the funniest thing to me was the regulars were really upset I was wearing a red, white and blue bikini top. We really didn’t get too out of hand that night because as you can guess, some pretty big bitches work at strip clubs! Not to say we didn’t do any crazy shit, we just didn’t break anything that wasn’t ours to break.
I was actually a DJ at the Red Light. I "spun the hits that shook the tits." Peter loved that one! Lots of funny shit happens at a strip club. The reason they hired me to DJ was because the girls were sick of the idiots loading the juke box with “Girls Girls Girls,” 47 times in a row.
The Pee Patrol used to crack me up, as well. Every night they would stick their heads in and make sure everything was all right. Two officers dressed up in ridiculous disguises would walk through the alleys, trying to bust drunk college students peeing. They would mill around the entrance for 20-30 minutes every night, getting a freebie! That building is now the home of my fellow bandmate and best friend, Ric Withers’ print shop!
The Vapor Rhinos eventually gave me the boot, signed my walking papers, kicked me to the curb, told me to amscray. They shit in a bag, lit it on fire, and threw it on my porch. I’m kidding, kind of. Bands come and go. People come and go. I am still great friends with those guys, and I think the world of them. Peter got me to stop using so many notes on the hi-hat and introduced me to the girls of Ultra Bait, the next band I was in. Tommy taught me how to tongue kiss! George gave me one of his gonads. I love all of them and now they kick ass with just two and don’t need nobody else.
Ultra Bait was super fun, my first chick band. We rented a practice space downtown the first summer. It was a Salvation Army storage building. The Cashmere Jungle Lords had a space there. The place was originally a school and our space was the shower and locker room area. It was hot as hell, so there was a lot of almost naked rehearsals. I loved that part! Peter introduced me to them and one night a few weeks later, in Carytown, a girl dressed as a hot nurse comes bounding across the street in the pouring rain, carrying a guitar amp, slips and falls, smashing the amp right in front of me. I got out of the car, helped her up, and it’s Carmen. She is a lot upset. So I told her I would get my amp from home and she could use it. I watched them play with this drummer they called Jiffy Pop.
He was awful, truly awful. His beats were sporadic and irregular like the sound of Jiffy Pop on the stove. I told Tammie they should let me play, and they did! That lasted a couple of years. With me, it’s not really about genre or anything other than I like you and you like me. I can’t handle playing music with someone I don’t like. No matter how much money or anything else you get! I explode eventually and destroy it all!
Thelma Shook was one of those bands. We were all teenage friends way back, with the exception of the drummer, and now we were together again to give it another try. We had just recorded an EP with Mark Miley at Glass Hand that was getting attention. We had enough money and material to put out a CD, and then…I exploded. The band was practicing at my house. The bass player was living with me, behind on his rent and not giving a shit, eating my food, not cleaning up his cat shit, drying his stinky ass fish socks on the radiator and gassing everyone out of the house. We broke up. Ric and I carried on without them. Hell, we wrote all the songs anyway.
We recorded the CD with Mark again, this time at Montana studio. Everyone from Harry Gore to Tim Harriss played on it, Sherrie Blanks, Tommy Rod, Tom Illmensee, 27 people in all. That was a lot of fun! Then we put together a new band to play out. It was pretty much straight up pop-rock. We dug it. Ric let me do whatever I wanted, so I got to be all campy and goofy again with giant, inflatable dolls, space costumes, lots of fun! The Rt. 1 South show was super fun with Mark Miley on drums and Cheez playing bass. There’s a funny as hell video on YouTube of another show, opening for Beex at Moondance and Tommy is heckling us throughout the set. You can’t mistake us, we are the guys dressed like sailors! The rhythm section was Bobby Jorgenson and Chip Farnsworth. It’s great to see how uncomfortable those guys get when I start making with the gay sailor jokes.
Bands come and go. I have been in more than 50. Bay of Pigs is a stoner metal band I am singing for. They wrote all the songs and arrangements. I just do the screaming. I really like not being in charge. It’s nice to come back to. The other guys are half my age and full of piss and douche, so they aren’t afraid to tell me what sucks and what doesn’t. I love that shit.
Brown Sabbath sprung from Ultra Bait. Mr. E.T. Snyder, El Presidente, came up with it. He put it together with Ryan Lake on guitar, Denny Cable on vocals, and me on drums. He told me he heard Bill Ward in my drumming, but I think it was more that I had a good practice space. Truth is – and this harkens back to the Ramones thing – I had never listened to Black Sabbath until I was asked to be the drummer in a Black Sabbath cover band! I had the first record on vinyl and that’s it. Skillet actually set me straight on how to play that shit.
Other musicians will give you shit about playing in a cover band, but it doesn’t bother me. Bill Ward is a kickass drummer, so if someone says I play his music, great! I take it as a big compliment. I wouldn’t say Brown Sabbath is a tribute band, though, not in the sense of Zoso or Mister Crowley. We don’t dress up or duplicate a record or performance. There is a lot of us in it, sometimes whether we want it there or not. Ryan Lake was the original guitarist and he is friggin' amazing. He left to play with Alabama Thunder Pussy. Frank Jackson took over and promptly fell off a roof and compound-fractured his arm. Ryan came back one more time to play the Frank’s Hospital Stay Benefit at the Canal Club. It has been Frank ever since. We all really enjoy it, still, every time. I doubt we will ever completely stop.
It’s always great to play on a nice stage like The National, with a great PA and someone competent to run it. Always! When you play mostly low quality stages and basements with mediocre PA systems, a nice stage stands out. But in this town, music venues are held captive by outdated and idiotic ABC regulations. Everyone knows it. You have to sell 15 slices of shitty pizza so you can drink a beer and watch a band in Richmond. I don’t understand why outside investors don’t do a little scouting before opening a big-ass, never going to pay for itself club in this town. Why were there 12 security guys at a Brown Sabbath show? How much does that cost? This town can only float a smaller venue. Why do they make them so big? For half the money, you could equip and run a great, local music venue, even with the inane regulations. I believe you could stay afloat. It takes a good deal of work, and by more than one person, but I’ve seen it done. Dreams of the lottery….
I am not a good Iggy Pop. I look like Iggy, but as Danny and Chester can tell you, my voice is awful! But the band Iggy Plop is fun and funny. The other band members don’t like the name Iggy Plop! They don’t think it’s cool! That cracks me up. I like playing music that I like with musicians I like, whether it’s my music or someone else’s. I don’t care, as long as it’s fun. I am not what you call a looker, and you wouldn’t know it from watching me on stage, but I am shy, so I do this whole music thing just to meet girls! Oh, and maybe smoke a little weed! Hang out with my friends! I am such a douche!
Footage from Onionhead.
Friday, April 01, 2011
Last Testament
Page Wilson's last general email.
Took a pretty rough fall a bit over 4 months ago, when my knee went out (again), and dropped me on the "step stone" in my front yard. FYI a step stone is a roughly 2 X 3 foot kinda squared, roughly 10 inch high, flattish piece of granite, where in times past you would pull your buggy up to so the passengers could disembark without taking that long step into the mud! Or something like that. Obviously, my property was something more than a house in days gone past. What type? Haven't a clue, but have heard some juicy rumors. Only the step stone remains. I thought it was actually pretty cool, until the night of the fall. But it will remain right where it is. Never know when another buggy might show up, eh?Sent November 26, 2010
So, some things have changed around the home base of our radio/musical Swamp. I broke my left shoulder, sprained something in my back, and still have a left knee that threatens to drop me again if I'm not a really good boy. It hurts to walk and, for the moment, to play the guitar; but that must change as I heal. I have a couple of good doctor friends who are trying to make some things happen, and I'm going to do my best to be a good, patient, patient. Try that without health insurance or money, and you'll have an idea of where I am today. And that's why I'm sending this missive out to you.
As I've talked to some close compadres about the pending hospital/recovery/operations situation, almost every one said I should let the folks on my mailing list know what was happening, and see if some could help. I fought writing this email to you, because I don't like to ask for help. For me. Helping other folks is second nature in my very unique, blessed position as a singer-songwriter/radio producer/musical performance organizer/whatever. Now I find all that could be in jeopardy, so am going to suck up my pride, and just lay it out there. That's what they told me to do.
Brutal honesty, when you haven't been able to work for four months, things get a little slim. I'm on the verge of losing my house to foreclosure. It's not only where I feed the dog, but also where the Out O' the Blue Radio Revue is produced. Am also barely keeping lights on, and the water running.
If the dog is hurt, the $led don't run. And this dog is hurt right now. Ideally, I would be able to add a few sponsors to the radio program, and get through this. But folks are scared in this economy. And for the moment, me, too.
So. I write you tonight to just up and ask if you might be able to help. Our fine radio station doesn't pay me to do the program, but they give me the two hours to spend with you weekly, and play the wonderful music we are so blessed with. So, with this missive, I am hoping you might have a few bucks you might invest in the Swamp, and keeping Page Wilson and his brave crew of volunteers functioning in close to our usual manner, bringing you radio, and live music, and whatever else we can think of.
I don't send you this lightly. These are desperate times here, and I need your help. 'Nuf said. Thank you if you can help, but if you can't I understand. Times are rough all over. I just don't have anywhere else to turn right now. The banks won't touch me. Heh, heh. The new mailing address is below.
Thank you. Take care.
Pg
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Adam Lambert at The National
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| The line outside The National at mid-morning. |
Concert going is a commitment. There's serious fans who know how the game works, and then there's the clueless. Like me.
The serious fans began gathering outside The National early in the morning before Adam Lambert's concert on Aug. 27. There were at least 20 in lawn chairs out on the sidewalk when I came to work around 8:30. By mid-afternoon, there was a couple of hundred. By the time I got off work, the line was down the block.
A co-worker wanted to go with me instead of my husband, who would have been more cooperative. She didn't want to stand on line until the line. Our original plan to hang out at Gibson's and go through the get-in-early underground door was nixed because there was a line to get into Gibson's. So it was 7 p.m. before we joined the line, which was then halfway down 8th Street.
Lines really aren't ordeals, at least to me. You have a good time talking to other people, finding out what lengths they have gone to be there. The weather was great. I could have handled a three-hour line. It's like a community and everyone has a story.
A white limousine pulled up and a man got out with a gaggle of older women who looked like they had just come from sitting on a patio. Even with a limo, they had to join the line down on Marshall Street, literally around the block from The National.
After 7, National bouncers came down the line shouting that everyone should have their own ticket in their hand, and we began to move forward. I noticed the man behind me had an Internet print-out. I asked him if that was his ticket. He said he hoped so, because it was all he had. His mother had already been taken inside because she was in a wheelchair. And she was 70 years old!
"This is all she wanted for her birthday," he said. "She wanted to see Adam before she died. She thinks he is the next Elvis."
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| American Idol Adam - Not Performing This Year |
And sure enough, when the show started and hands went up in front, almost all of them were wearing fingerless black gloves.
Considering our position several hundred back in the line, my friend and I were very lucky to find two seats together at all, but there were in the next to the last row in the balcony. It was a nice enough view of the stage if you don't mind that the people on it look an inch tall. Despite buying a ticket and investing half a day in seeing this concert, my view would be 100 times better watching fan videos on YouTube the next day. That made me grumpy. I seldom go to concerts. This time I had made an effort, but not enough of an effort to actually make it an unforgettable experience. Next time I will know.
I got even grumpier as the next 90 minutes transpired. It takes a couple of hours to settle in a sold-out house when there's no assigned seats. In the balcony, people did what people do, kept leaving single seats between each group. The ushers had to urge everyone to fill in the empty seats so the latecomers could sit together. Then there was no room to seat even later comers together, and they had to be broken up. We heard their displeasure. Then the still later comers who expected to sit, not stand, got into insisting-matches with the poor ushers, who had to comb the balcony looking for volunteers to give up their seats and move to the floor. No one did.
The unremarkable Alison Iraheta finished her short opening set and the lights came up for intermission. We got a second wave of people looking for seats in the balcony. These were moms and dads with little kids moving upstairs after realizing during Alison's set that the kids were too short to see the stage. There was no way they were going to successfully push their way through the determined goths in front of the stage so that American Idol Adam could meet their cute kids, who were actually wearing matching, spangled dance recital costumes. American Idol Adam wasn't doing this show anyway.
I don't know where these super late seniors and parents with recital classes in tow ended up sitting, but kudos to the bouncers at The National for handling all the drama without going crazy. And they stopped people from standing along the mid-balcony rail and blocking my view. And thank you to my fellow old people in the balcony for not standing up through the whole show so I didn't have to.
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| Singing "Soaked" |
He does songs from his album. One was "Soak," sang alone on the stage, stunning in a long coat, with possibly just keyboards for accompaniment. He is very tall. His voice was so gorgeous. That was the highlight for me, even though it was a song I had not paid much attention to on the CD.
The rest of the time, four dancers gyrating on stage made it far more entertaining a show than just a singer at a mic with a band playing behind him. Adam sang, he danced, he changed outfits. He was tall. He kissed his guitar player. He was fab. Yes, he is the next Elvis, and the next Liberace, and the next Michael Jackson, and the next Liza Minnelli.
Concerts have changed. Fifteen years ago when I used to attend a dozen a month as a reporter, you had to beg the management to let you bring in a camera, and half the time you were refused. And if you took a camera in anyway, you got ejected. Now there's video cameras all over the room recording the show. I guess they don't even try to ban them. On YouTube, you can follow Adam's concert up and down the United States, and it looks and sounds just like the show at The National. Here's a really good video of my favorite moment from the Knoxville show, uploaded by Needacoke. All her/his videos are good.
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| The stage door line early in the day. |
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Permission to Kill Yourself
In Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, there is a fascinating study about how suicides of prominent personalities set off chain reactions of suicides, as if the first gives permission for the others to do likewise.
I never met or interviewed Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse and wasn't a fan of his music, which I found mumbly. News reports say he shot himself in the heart while drinking with friends after a series of text messages he exchanged with an unknown party upset him.
Going through old interviews with Linkous, I found one where he said he was deeply influenced by the Charlottesville writer Breece D'J Pancake, who shot himself in the head in 1979.
Reading Pancake's biographical notes, I found he, in turn, was a big fan of Phil Ochs, who hanged himself in 1976.
It's like each gave the next one permission. For what? To prove you are artistic, or too deep or troubled for this world, or too romantic a figure? Does this somehow validate your art? What in the world makes you blow yourself away?
I never met or interviewed Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse and wasn't a fan of his music, which I found mumbly. News reports say he shot himself in the heart while drinking with friends after a series of text messages he exchanged with an unknown party upset him.
Going through old interviews with Linkous, I found one where he said he was deeply influenced by the Charlottesville writer Breece D'J Pancake, who shot himself in the head in 1979.
Reading Pancake's biographical notes, I found he, in turn, was a big fan of Phil Ochs, who hanged himself in 1976.
It's like each gave the next one permission. For what? To prove you are artistic, or too deep or troubled for this world, or too romantic a figure? Does this somehow validate your art? What in the world makes you blow yourself away?
Friday, December 11, 2009
Social Media and Art
I (Twitter address @MarianeMatera) went to the December Social Media Club Richmond VA (@smcrva) meeting at the Firehouse Theater (@firehouserva), which afterward dispersed to The Camel (@TheCamel) a few doors down, and then a few diehards went on to Sine. I did not.
The focus was how independent music and film can use social media. Ian Graham (@IanGraham) of RVA Magazine, which to me is a publication of style over substance, was the moderator. The panel was an imported Amy Greenlaw (@girlgamy and @FilmPop) of Film Pop! from New Hampshire to talk about independent film promotion; Joel Burleson of the band Ki:Theory (@kitheory) and Jessica Gordon of The Trigger System (@triggersystem), to represent music. Gordon used to bartend at Twisters, ran the place when it was the 929 Cafe, and still books bands for The Canal Club and some other places. She also teaches English at VCU, which made me smile because she speaks in the flowing cadence of today's young people, so she reminded me of no English prof I ever had.
So what did I learn -- other than as usual I am the least luckiest person ever? (Even with two raffle tickets, a relatively small attendance, and many poinsettias to give away, I still didn't win one.) If you've been to one seminar on social media, you've been to them all. Seldom is anything new brought to the table after the basics, but this discussion was a reflective discourse on what social media killed.
Victim: the flyer on the telephone pole as a way to promote a show, for one, although Gordon said she still makes use of flyers, but not like the old days when you'd run off several hundred at Kinko's and then hire some derelict musicians or street denizens to wander around with a staple gun and cover the telephone poles.
When I first started the Journal, the city had declared war on telephone pole flyers and occasionally stripped the poles, but that didn't stop anyone. Bands were engaged in pre-show warfare to staple their flyers over everyone else's and sometimes it got very ugly.
Still, we can list as victims of social media:
Flyers
Kinko's
Staple gun salesmen
Poor musicians with staple guns who need the job for cigarette money
Fax machines for faxing the flyers to Style Weekly
For bands, the victim of social media is the traditional press kit. They no longer need a demo cassette or stacks of 8x10 black and white glossies. Instead they can stream their latest originals on their MySpace page and park color band photos and videos of performances there as well. Despite MySpace being the ugliest, most difficult to use social media site, it's perfect for bands because it streams music in a handy audio player.
You neglect MySpace at your peril. I learned this hard lesson recently when the Tobacco Company was feeling around for some classic rock bands for long-term regular bookings. By the time my husband's band got three songs together to burn onto a CD, and realized there was no current band photo, and the press kit was years out of date, the Tobacco Company booker had made his decisions. We would have been able to move faster on that feeler if all I had to do was email him back with a link to a MySpace page, which would have everything already on it.
Clubs and bands can reward people for following them on Twitter, MySpace or Facebook with a few ticket give-aways before each show, essentially functioning as their own radio station.
(Shall we list local radio as another victim of social media as far as promoting local shows? Okay:
Local radio)
Nationally, iTunes and Walmart killed the recording industry as far as the $19.99 CD goes of two hit songs and 10 bad songs. Bands no longer make their fortunes through album sales. The dollars are in concert tickets and merchandising now, and local bands must go the same route. Burleson said he pretty much gives his music away on the Internet, but it's all about cultivating your fan base. They will come to your shows not to hear the music they can get for free, but to meet the band, to experience the show, to meet other fans with similar taste, to buy the T-shirt, to get a CD/DVD that has some added value to it, like artwork, or a video. Burleson says he makes his money by licensing his music to television shows.
Getting signed by a major label, getting radio play, making the Billboard Top 100, kissing your keyboard player as the closing act on the AMAs and then having to apologize for it to Barbara Walters -- these are all still the goals of any band, but be realistic. Making the big time is as likely as being struck by lightning. Divide the number of bands in Virginia by Dave Matthews and you still have one single lucky son of a bitch.
But you can have a degree of local notoriety through the cultivation of fans through social media. YouTube some of your past song performances, stream your best originals on MySpace, create a fan page on Facebook. Be a little star.
Greenlaw was less engaging about promoting independent film because that is a narrow niche -- film people and film fans. Essentially, though you build a website for your little film and from that mothership, launch your droids: clips and behind-the-scenes videos on YouTube and Vimeo, Facebook fan pages, Twitters to alert people to film festivals where you're showing the movie. Unlike music, you never give the film away free, even though, if you ask me, little films are just auditions for directors and screenwriters to get a bigger deal.
You realize Southpark started out as a little holiday gift Internet video shared by industry people.
So that's it. I sort of knew all this already, only I'm not doing it yet because if I was, my husband would have a three-nights a week gig now at the Tobacco Company, bringing home an extra $180 a week (okay, not that much, really, for the sacrifice of three nights a week gone), but it's $9,360 a year! That buys something.
The focus was how independent music and film can use social media. Ian Graham (@IanGraham) of RVA Magazine, which to me is a publication of style over substance, was the moderator. The panel was an imported Amy Greenlaw (@girlgamy and @FilmPop) of Film Pop! from New Hampshire to talk about independent film promotion; Joel Burleson of the band Ki:Theory (@kitheory) and Jessica Gordon of The Trigger System (@triggersystem), to represent music. Gordon used to bartend at Twisters, ran the place when it was the 929 Cafe, and still books bands for The Canal Club and some other places. She also teaches English at VCU, which made me smile because she speaks in the flowing cadence of today's young people, so she reminded me of no English prof I ever had.
So what did I learn -- other than as usual I am the least luckiest person ever? (Even with two raffle tickets, a relatively small attendance, and many poinsettias to give away, I still didn't win one.) If you've been to one seminar on social media, you've been to them all. Seldom is anything new brought to the table after the basics, but this discussion was a reflective discourse on what social media killed.
Victim: the flyer on the telephone pole as a way to promote a show, for one, although Gordon said she still makes use of flyers, but not like the old days when you'd run off several hundred at Kinko's and then hire some derelict musicians or street denizens to wander around with a staple gun and cover the telephone poles.
When I first started the Journal, the city had declared war on telephone pole flyers and occasionally stripped the poles, but that didn't stop anyone. Bands were engaged in pre-show warfare to staple their flyers over everyone else's and sometimes it got very ugly.
Still, we can list as victims of social media:
Flyers
Kinko's
Staple gun salesmen
Poor musicians with staple guns who need the job for cigarette money
Fax machines for faxing the flyers to Style Weekly
For bands, the victim of social media is the traditional press kit. They no longer need a demo cassette or stacks of 8x10 black and white glossies. Instead they can stream their latest originals on their MySpace page and park color band photos and videos of performances there as well. Despite MySpace being the ugliest, most difficult to use social media site, it's perfect for bands because it streams music in a handy audio player.
You neglect MySpace at your peril. I learned this hard lesson recently when the Tobacco Company was feeling around for some classic rock bands for long-term regular bookings. By the time my husband's band got three songs together to burn onto a CD, and realized there was no current band photo, and the press kit was years out of date, the Tobacco Company booker had made his decisions. We would have been able to move faster on that feeler if all I had to do was email him back with a link to a MySpace page, which would have everything already on it.
Clubs and bands can reward people for following them on Twitter, MySpace or Facebook with a few ticket give-aways before each show, essentially functioning as their own radio station.
(Shall we list local radio as another victim of social media as far as promoting local shows? Okay:
Local radio)
Nationally, iTunes and Walmart killed the recording industry as far as the $19.99 CD goes of two hit songs and 10 bad songs. Bands no longer make their fortunes through album sales. The dollars are in concert tickets and merchandising now, and local bands must go the same route. Burleson said he pretty much gives his music away on the Internet, but it's all about cultivating your fan base. They will come to your shows not to hear the music they can get for free, but to meet the band, to experience the show, to meet other fans with similar taste, to buy the T-shirt, to get a CD/DVD that has some added value to it, like artwork, or a video. Burleson says he makes his money by licensing his music to television shows.
Getting signed by a major label, getting radio play, making the Billboard Top 100, kissing your keyboard player as the closing act on the AMAs and then having to apologize for it to Barbara Walters -- these are all still the goals of any band, but be realistic. Making the big time is as likely as being struck by lightning. Divide the number of bands in Virginia by Dave Matthews and you still have one single lucky son of a bitch.
But you can have a degree of local notoriety through the cultivation of fans through social media. YouTube some of your past song performances, stream your best originals on MySpace, create a fan page on Facebook. Be a little star.
Greenlaw was less engaging about promoting independent film because that is a narrow niche -- film people and film fans. Essentially, though you build a website for your little film and from that mothership, launch your droids: clips and behind-the-scenes videos on YouTube and Vimeo, Facebook fan pages, Twitters to alert people to film festivals where you're showing the movie. Unlike music, you never give the film away free, even though, if you ask me, little films are just auditions for directors and screenwriters to get a bigger deal.
You realize Southpark started out as a little holiday gift Internet video shared by industry people.
So that's it. I sort of knew all this already, only I'm not doing it yet because if I was, my husband would have a three-nights a week gig now at the Tobacco Company, bringing home an extra $180 a week (okay, not that much, really, for the sacrifice of three nights a week gone), but it's $9,360 a year! That buys something.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Gary Gerloff
Gary Gerloff was one of my telephone buddies back in ’93, ’94 when I first started the Richmond Music Journal. I don’t recall if we ever actually met in person and talked, and I’ve only seen him play a time or two.
He was delighted with the newspaper and would call and tell me stories about the Richmond music scene of years ago, most of which I could not use because they were racy and I didn’t know if they were even true. He knew all the wild women of the scene, the groupies, the local girls that went on to become regional and national groupies, all the stunts they used to get into the band buses parked outside the venues. He wanted me to do stories on them, but I declined since I think they had moved on and probably didn't want to be reminded.
He often told me the paper kept him connected to the music scene, the new local bands coming up that he would never have heard of otherwise. Our stories often tickled him and he would call to laugh and comment about them. And one time he took me to task quite sternly for being lovesick over a musician he did not think was worthy of my time. He called him Pie Face and that shook some reality back into me.
I had the feeling he wasn’t working because he would call me during the day and could talk for hours. Later I heard he was a Mr. Mom who kept the kids while his wife worked and then played music at night. I don't know if that was true although his obituary didn't list any job history. It seemed like a good arrangement, if true. The running joke about him was, obviously, how much he physically resembled Jerry Garcia.
He died this past weekend at age 58.
He was delighted with the newspaper and would call and tell me stories about the Richmond music scene of years ago, most of which I could not use because they were racy and I didn’t know if they were even true. He knew all the wild women of the scene, the groupies, the local girls that went on to become regional and national groupies, all the stunts they used to get into the band buses parked outside the venues. He wanted me to do stories on them, but I declined since I think they had moved on and probably didn't want to be reminded.
He often told me the paper kept him connected to the music scene, the new local bands coming up that he would never have heard of otherwise. Our stories often tickled him and he would call to laugh and comment about them. And one time he took me to task quite sternly for being lovesick over a musician he did not think was worthy of my time. He called him Pie Face and that shook some reality back into me.
I had the feeling he wasn’t working because he would call me during the day and could talk for hours. Later I heard he was a Mr. Mom who kept the kids while his wife worked and then played music at night. I don't know if that was true although his obituary didn't list any job history. It seemed like a good arrangement, if true. The running joke about him was, obviously, how much he physically resembled Jerry Garcia.
He died this past weekend at age 58.
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