Letters To A Young Promoter

In the early, freeze-dried days of the new year, one thing I have been doing is mailing out review copies of the record Bel Argosy put out last summer, The Wreck of the Bel Argosy. The process is sometimes exhilerating (when the record is reviewed) and often frustrating (when the record is ignored). I'd like to say that it's led us to develop a more sophisticated strategy for promotion, but I don't think that's quite true. That is to say, can we expect a radically different response to the next thing we put out? Almost certainly not. Inevitably, though, we have learned a few things. The first records we sent out were like my first round of college applications: Requested information supplied, but nothing to supplement or distinguish it, and nothing to suggest a personality behind the envelope. We assumed people would be like, oh, let me listen to this strange and unsolicited record and judge it on its obvious merits. Because I am a record label / college radio station / blogger and that is just my job.

And it would be great if that worked, but that approach was largely unsuccessful for us -- even when we reminded our respective almas mater's radio stations of our membership in the class of oh-man-that-was-a-long-time-ago. (Hi, WESU Middletown!) Thus, our new tack is that we are willing to play ball and, you know, get personal. Open a vein. And that seems to work better: After all, a lot of blogs or magazines even suggest that you write a personal statement to accompany your record in order to help it stand out from all of the unsolicited free music they get in the mail every day, and many of them hint that your communication with them should contain entirely original content -- no form letters, please. So I've started writing little essays about what a fun band we are and how proud we are of the record and what an interesting time this is to be playing music in New York City -- all true, really. However, doing this anew for every blog we pitch is prohibitively time-intensive, and even when you do find the time to write something personal and evocative, it's no guarantee of coverage. I successfully reverse-engineered the kind of writing I thought one guy was looking for, and we got into a back-and-forth with him about editing it just-so for inclusion on his site, and then he abruptly shuttered his blog and moved to Paris. No lie, it pays to hedge a bit. But we've enjoyed a fair amount of success, too. In particular, blogs that specialize in reviewing vinyl records have been kind to us, as have a few local indie rock blogs. And publications that represent the intersection of the two, well, that's just gold.

Moving on. Truly, it's been bitterly cold out, but I didn't want to have spent it indoors like I did last year. Instead, I'm continuing the silly quest for for new experiences, as if I were 21 instead of 31 and a decidedly middle-class computer guy. I'd bought tickets to the Iceage show at 285 Kent last night, and, appropriately, it was well below freezing as I walked down Kent Ave. to South 1st. Kent in winter always reminds me of the very beginning of Moby Dick, where Ishmael is exploring a pitch dark New Bedford. There are a lot of boarded-up storefronts and a lot of barred windows on funny little single-story buildings that might be peoples' houses and might not be. 285 itself is right next to Glasslands and looks like maybe the freight entrance for that place; if there weren't a parka'd bouncer parked in front of the featureless door, you wouldn't know to go inside. Initially I thought it might be the place where Nina and I saw The Spunks-u several years ago, but 285 Kent is much bigger and, well, grander than that place. The room easily holds two hundred people, and the walls are covered in a network of aerosol and brush-painted black lines, part Keith Haring, part Mentaculus. It's cavernous and cold and a little intimidating, maybe like a much less cozy Death By Audio (which is right down the street).

The first band was Deformity, perhaps an ironic name since all the band members were good-looking dudes. They sounded alright, although I quickly deployed my earplugs. The lead singer, who vibed hardcore nerd rage in an IBM-style short-sleeve shirt, yelped his vocals in staccato, which made me think of Sarim al-Rawi from Liquor Store. "Fuck!" he shrieked, frantically diddling his guitar. The drummer took his shirt off. They played a short set, less than thirty minutes, I think. Maybe that's de rigeur for the genre -- which would make sense when there's not a whole lot in terms of hooks or lyrics for a listener to latch onto.

Raspberry Bulbs were next. I'd read their name here and there in the breathlessly-written metal coverage on BrooklynVegan, and I guess I'd managed to suppress or ignore my confusion over their name. Raspberry Bulbs: What gives? Is their name some kind of ironic meiosis? Or do raspberry bulbs look really, you know, brutal? I suspect it's the former, since the lead singer goes by the stage name He Who Crushes Teeth. "Turn the reverb, like, all the way up," he instructed the sound guy while adjusting his mic. That made me worried, but they were actually pretty good! Also, there are not one but two old bald dudes in the band, another several points in their favor. And their on-stage affect was pretty awesome, too, a careful balance between too-cool-for-school and rocking-too-hard-over-thirty; they were like blacksmiths working a forge. Unfortunately, the wiring on one of the guitars crapped out about four songs in, and they couldn't get it going again. He Who Crushes Teeth shrugged and signaled to turn the house music back on.

Nomads were up next. I don't have a lot to say about them: Screaming and noise. But they only played for twenty-five minutes. While I waited for Iceage to set up, I sat on a dirty couch in the foyer next to Craig Finn, who was talking to a pretty girl. The concrete floor was wet and dirty. I was tempted to drink another beer but started worrying about the calories, like an old guy who is getting soft. A few years ago, Iceage was notorious for being young ("Some of the band isn't even old enough to drink! And yet they do it anyway!!") but now I think people wan to know whether they're racist ("I heard they're racist!!"). I think I would have been super into them in high school, mostly because of their practiced punk rock disaffection: They played songs off a new album called "You're Nothing" and from the moment they got on stage, you could tell that Elias, the lead singer, was spoiling for a fight. He had an air of threatening nonchalance, dispensing the lyrics instead of singing them, and before too long he'd hopped down into the crowd to take care of business. Their albums have a thrilling buzzsaw energy to them, but their live sound was a bit unfocused and muddled. I'd gotten stuck at the back of the house as the room filled up before their set, and as a tall dude it was fun to see hundreds of people react to the violence, performative or otherwise.

Then back out into the cold and wet. We left our boots in the hallway.