Hey.
I read this article and it really bugged me for a few reasons.
The responses are that much more disheartening.
Now I've only seen the Trains Across the Sea guys play once, thought they were competent enough, but not my style. Columbus seems to have little love for folkyrockers, but heck neither do I. Some other city would love them, or some other decade. But the indiehip fauxhemians around here just yell "dood you suck that's why nobody comes to yer shows" at em anyway. At least the responses to the other paper article on their webpage say as much. Only their specifically okayed brand of music is non-suck, I guess.
I know I'm , what's the word, generalizing, but it seems to me that Columbus indie/alternative music scenekids have limited scopes of musical passion. If you sound like something other than Elephant Six stuff or , I dunno, who's the hipshit this week? Vampire Weekend? It seems to me anything not in that narrow rut is derided. Well, also, shitcore. Bleh.
Don't be different if you want success.
The other thing that bugs me reading this page, that article, all the comments... columbus music really is just one big smarmy playground clique. I see the other paper fall all over themselves to drool on the same popular locals and ignore any new folks. If you started in the last 5 years, forget it. Unless, of course, your band is made of people from other big name bands, in which case you get instant praise.
People don't go see bands they don't know already. Big local bands don't give opening slots to people they don't already know. Offer a big name band the headline slot on a gig you get, if you're a little person, and you're lucky if they return your email even. They're too big to talk to little people, see.
As a little band, I've spent a handful of years around here writing and recording and singing and sweating and screaming and flyering and marketing online, and the same 15 people come. Bar owners have said they like working with us, like our sound, but since we're not Sowash clones we don't get the
s. And since we don't have friends in the big local hip bands, or share members with them, the big bands could care less to play with us.
Here is where you cool kids tell us that since we don't get the huge love the big kids on the playground do, obviously we suck as musicians.
Perhaps we just suck as disingenuous clique insiders?
I never dreamed of playing music for a living. All I ever wanted to do was play to a few local clubs with a throng, sell a few t shirts maybe, maybe play comfest or PLBO or indiependents day.
But the more I play here, the more I market and reach out, the more I volunteer at the fests, the more I see that it's not a meritocracy. It's a junior high clicque.
When you see the lineup of a local fest and it's got a band on it who formed this year, and is clearly there because they're members of another band that is big in town, you know that trying is not worth it.
Trying is never worth it when nobody cares what you do or how you do it, just who you are and who you know.
So, between the reality that the other paper article's truths will just be laughed at and derided, and the reality that all the locals here spent more time ripping the guy and the article down and circling the wagons around their collective WaBeach ego, I can see there's little point in trying anymore.
I await your inevitable "omg u suck yer band must suck if you don't get the big love" comments. Truly, they must be insightful. Obviously you know exactly what my band's done, and can explain exactly what I did wrong, just from this comment. Really, it doesn't come off at all elitist and self-absorbed, it's constructive, right?
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Yes if you are a Social Retard you won't get gigs. It's all about networking. SELF PROMOTING. DIY! If you are too lazy to do the work and everything you can to get your name out there (which doesnt take nearly 10,000 dollars) then give up! 