by Dan Majesky
I guess I’m supposed to tell everybody why local music is the new black. 3 years ago, I would have shot myself in the face for even thinking about defending that position. Now? Fuck it, I’m riding the wave of the future.
The hey-day of the low-level music tour is over. Gas prices were kept artificially low here for years, and now we eat the back-lash with A1 sauce. Used to be, anyone could tour for nothing and get paid decent.
Your average band on the road these days bleeds cash out their eyes. Mid-to-low-level touring bands usually have aces up their sleeves (aka cash cows back home or mounting credit card debt) if they go out for more than one week a year.
There’s just no use in trying to tour up a following. You don’t have to, anyway. Bands get famous on the internet. It’s just a hurry-up version of oldskool hipsterism. No more ltd 500 7†and scotch tape zines. Rock into your laptop, upload that shit to myspace and wait.
No one will like it since you suck, but they might like it even though you suck and they’ll blog you and quicker than you can say Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, you’re on tour and all the critics hate your second album because they can now say you suck without tipping their hands and letting on that that first album ate their ass out, too, but they wanted that one girl to like them, so… But, whatever. You’re already rich off t-shirt sales; at least enough to not work for like, 3 years, which, in my book, makes you Richard Branson.
Anyhoo, no one worth a poop is coming to your town. Positive counter vibration: the talented people in your town don’t need to move to Portland, Chicago, or New York City to make it. Hell, it’s probably cooler to live in Wooster or some shit anyway since towns that are worth a squat are played out, right? Right?
The good bands will condense and co-mingle and become better bands. The rebirth of regional sounds is happening right now.
Outside of porn and theft and instant fame, the main reason the internet wins is that it gives us the ability to better understand what’s going on around our dumb asses. Stacks of paper flyers used to rot while friends came to shows. Check it: you can actually find what’s ripping in your town without shelling out 3 bucks and a canned good to see bad metal.
Don’t be fooled. Don’t complain. Don’t stay at home and wait for the next national act to come through. You probably could use the sun, anyway..