Premier Rock Forum

so here's where i'm coming from. just played this big "festival" in town (cleveland) at the agora. psyched to play the theater on the "alternative" day of said festival. death metal day was saturday, alternative on sunday. well, let's just say i didn't belong. i'm a one guy thing, doing an upbeat solo acoustic rock deal - too bad "alternative" to the prodcution company still meant metal.

now, i have nothing again metal at all. not my favourite genre, but i can still go out, watch the bands, support them and have good time. music is music, and i support fellow musicians. problem is that most of these bands at this particular event (please know i am not generalizing!) were all like 17 year old wanna be non-conformist dicks. i was greeted three songs in with a healthy "you suck" to which i replied "but you are ugly - i can practice."

but here's the thing - what do you do when its hopeless? like, the damned production company said they listened to my stuff. they should have know damn well i wouldn't fit in. i asked them point blank and they said "that's what we have alternative day for!" all the bands had to sell their own tickets, thus relieving the production company of that responsibility as well. they did the whole gig because they fucked up the cleveland music festival, and in my opinion only made things worse.

so what do you do when its too late, and it hopeless? i play at 1:40, other band starts at 1:00 and rip through a little number called "i thought i tripped on your decomposing body." i trudged on - i came to rock a big stage, and save the few losers i did. got several comments afterwards that were positive. but i knew at about 1:05 i shouldn't have been there.

but along the same lines, what do you do if your music is completely different from the entire music scene? one of the fine upstanding citizens of this board pm'd me asking if i knew any melodic-fuzz-power-pop type bands in this area, and i was like "dude they don't exist." i coughed up two bands that at least sing, but felt bad cuz i learned a week later the one broke up. i was serious though - not in cleveland.

the scene here is all metal all the time, baby!! and i don't wanna just dwell in coffee shops. i wanna rock. but if you "sing" in cleveland, well... that's not cool! so what do you do? just suck it up and play for the latte lover in all of us?

i'm just frustrated right now, and curious if any of you have had a similar problem. maybe you've got the opposite - maybe you're the nerosis in a town full of old 97's. what do you do?

thanks in advance! if anyone wants more details, either tell me to post or pm me, but i just wanted some input - sorry if i seem a little... i dunno... you know what i mean. but thanks and sorry!!


josh

In all honesty, don't sweat it. Some of our most memorable shows have been the most ill-fit-audience-looks-at-you-like-you've-beamed-down-from-space-and-are-there-to-get-on-their-nerves type gigs. In the end, do what you do as well as you can.

If the show feels like it's going to be a wash, suck it up and go for it. Don't pull punches or do lame takes because you don't feel the audience-- you never know who is listening. Some of our most poorly attended gigs have included people who have had a profound impact on us later on.


Chin up.



Faiz

You have any stuff recorded? I'd like to hear it. To solve your little problem, start doing acoustic covers of metal songs like "Symphony of Destruction" by Megadeth and mix your songs in cleverly. It "un" worked for the Beatles.

one of the fine upstanding citizens of this board pm'd me asking if i knew any melodic-fuzz-power-pop type bands in this area, and i was like "dude they don't exist." i coughed up two bands that at least sing, but felt bad cuz i learned a week later the one broke up. i was serious though - not in cleveland.

May i suggest a few bands?

Machine Go Boom- fuzzy pop. NOT retro in any way. excellent.

Self Destruct Button- noisy live chaos. the recordings reveal a lot of layered melodic content but don't have the power of the live shows.

Mike Uva (hook boy trio)- excellent singer/songwriter. i don't think he's playing out right now but keep an eye out in the future...

The New Lou Reeds- rock based on blues structures. few solos.

Lives of the Saints- out of the ashes of Proletarian Art Threat. incredible!

Terrorist Other- punk rock. strange song structures. politically laced lyrics.


There are many more great bands in your own city. Go see a few of these bands play and eventually you'll find a lot of music in this city that isn't "metal." Really.

-paul m.

black ark wrote:

one of the fine upstanding citizens of this board pm'd me asking if i knew any melodic-fuzz-power-pop type bands in this area, and i was like "dude they don't exist." i coughed up two bands that at least sing, but felt bad cuz i learned a week later the one broke up. i was serious though - not in cleveland.

May i suggest a few bands?

Machine Go Boom- fuzzy pop. NOT retro in any way. excellent.

Self Destruct Button- noisy live chaos. the recordings reveal a lot of layered melodic content but don't have the power of the live shows.

Mike Uva (hook boy trio)- excellent singer/songwriter. i don't think he's playing out right now but keep an eye out in the future...

The New Lou Reeds- rock based on blues structures. few solos.

Lives of the Saints- out of the ashes of Proletarian Art Threat. incredible!

Terrorist Other- punk rock. strange song structures. politically laced lyrics.


There are many more great bands in your own city. Go see a few of these bands play and eventually you'll find a lot of music in this city that isn't "metal." Really.

-paul m.

There is also an unhealthy amount of juggalos. At least when I was there, there were.

another great Cleveland band are the American Werewolves. Spook rock at its finest.

bridavsky

I was in a band at one point in my younger years that basically just wanted to be Rapeman.

But in this area you have a few versions of Thrice, some Stone Temple Pilots and Metalica replicas. So whenever we would play festivals, or joint shows, we would get a real bad response.

So we started just going insane live. We would brake everything. We were kicked out of/banned from most fo the venues around here.

My point is, we were making music for ourselves. So if everyone there hated it, we were determined to make it a good time.

best time of my life.

I would have to agree. my band has been hated MANY places for a long time now. I like standing out. I recommend taking it on the chin and realizing how much guts it took to write and play your songs for people who might not understand. you did a great job it sounds like, fuck everybody else.

word!

hey, thanks for the great responses. i'm glad to see that other people have had similar situations. and black ark - i'll definately be checking those bands out. i live a little over an hour from cleveland, so getting out to know all these bands proves difficult. i haven't checked out these bands yet, but most tend to not have websites so checking them out that way proves tough too. but i'll start sniffing them out!!

thanks again for words of encouragement. someone had mentioned earlier in the thread about recordigns - yeah, i've/we've got a cd out. you can hear the most samples from it at www.cdbaby.com/TAL and the band website is www.shoogabear.com/TAL.

i was also thinking - the boos, fuck yous and you sucks i endured... i guess now that i've heard them i won't be shocked if i hear them again, so i passed that hurdle! and having a place like this to ask veterans is also a huge help.

thanks y'all - later!
johs

sorry - that cd baby link is actually www.cdbaby.com/cd/aeronautical

my bad...