The Gothic Rap Project (GRP), representing the east side of Scandalvania, appeared at the Utah Dark Arts festival a few years back, and I was lucky enough to hold onto a copy of Chiaroscuro’s 2004 CD of the Absurd, which features the GRP on track 16 called Fang Bang. To those who think choosing the best of Salt Lake’s music for the compilation is easy, try listening to the not-so-soothing sounds of Spit a few times over. The hissing, skipping and overall crappiness of the recording makes it painful to listen to, even though the song itself is kind of catchy. You’d be surprised how many hundreds of these types of recordings we listen to from artists all over the country. There they are somewhere on the web, waiting to be heard, then upon hearing the first 5 seconds, the listener labels it as amatuerish crap and moves right along. You might also be surprised at how many bands never survived the second year of ‘birthday bash’ venues. Got a recording called “Three syllable noun – Live at Tina’s birthday party – One Syllable Bandname?” It’s already crap, the sound of cop sirens and dogs barking outside aren’t working in your favor, trust me.
It seems that many hard-working local musicians still don’t have official websites, which forces highly interested folks like myself to sort through mountains of junk information to find their demo. In contrast, the artists that do have official URL’s that are easy enough to guess or google, seem to be getting noticed and working far less to do it. Local artist AODL and Eucci records combine sight and sound and some simple creative design as an important supplement to the music. When combined with sound, graphic and visually pleasant themes can increase the length of time the listener remembers the experience dramatically.
Salt Lake artists: I know what you’re thinking, “I’m trying to fight that corporate conformist crap.” First of all, that isn’t a very original POV, almost every home-brewed recording company uses it as a tagline. Secondly, the best way to fight the ‘conformist crap’ is to make your music available for free if possible. Times have changed and webspace is cheap, (although bandwidth isn’t) Get a URL, get a demo and put it online for people to download, regardless of how you feel about selling CDs because otherwise nobody knows what kindof anti-conformist propaganda your work is about. Music communities requiring people to join in order to download are also extremely annoying, if average listeners aren’t extremely motivated to listen there’s no way they’ll spend th time it takes to give up their info and join a spammer’s fade-list. Chances are they’ll simply move on to the next band listed, in hopes of finding something more permanent than a java embedded snippet.
Finally, if your band breaks up or splinters off, don’t keep the site going as a memento. Let the listeners know what’s happening by posting a final update. Post something besides “One Syllable Bandname has now changed to Two Syllable Latin-Sounding Bandname” and avoid leaving up old information about band members and venues, outdated links and pictures of people holding beercans and such. Give loyal fans some closure, chances are if they’ve stumbled across your website years after the fact, that’s exactly what they’re after. As if Flatline Syndicate breaking up wasn’t bad enough, I had to hear the news from a total strange, why God? I hope you can enjoy the diverse sounds of our most talented local recording artists as much as we have. Comments are always appreciated. Thanks
1. Spokezman – Kaotic – Listen
2. Battlecow – Purrbats -Listen
3. Feral – Day of Less – Listen
4. Sudden Change – 1h86335 – Listen
5. I Am God – Red Bennies – Listen
6. Superstars – Expression – Listen
7. Another Chance to Kill – Carphax Files – Listen
8. It’s On the People – Afro Omega – Listen
9. California – Tolchock Trio – Listen
10. Wrapped in Plastic – The Gothic Rap Project
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