Song We Like: Lipstick by The Painkillers

Song We Like: Lipstick by The Painkillers

Music with the ease and confidence that either comes from being young deluded and on drugs, or from years and years of not giving a fuck. In this case it’s probably the latter and we love it

Song We Like: Wanton Way of Loving by Esther Rose

Song We Like: Wanton Way of Loving by Esther Rose

Recorded to sound like an old record playing from an old jukebox, with sun shining on the floor and dust in the air and somebody serving pie. But it’s also very modern – this is a sexually empowered woman and she wants to make sure you know.

Song We Like: Jack in Titanic by Bodega

Song We Like: Jack in Titanic by Bodega

Once again we say, if you are both musical and funny, please don’t hide that light under a bushel. It’s 2019 and we need that shit so bad. Do it, Bodega! Art rock! 

Ep 58: Bodega, Esther Rose, Painkillers, Rose Droll, Derek Frye

Ep 58: Bodega, Esther Rose, Painkillers, Rose Droll, Derek Frye


Weekly-Mixtape-Podcast By and For Underground Musicians.This week: Women! Throwing Leo DeCaprio under the bus. Singles vs. Albums. (Follow us on Facebook! Instagram! Twitter! And lots of stuff about these and other bands, including John’s extremely interesting weekly interviews, is at www.hlycrp.com.)

Experiment: Band Management: Blog 19: Dauntless Promotions

Experiment: Band Management: Blog 19: Dauntless Promotions

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This year I am managing “Band A.” The stated goals are to get “Band A” onto a record label, to play at a festival, and to get 100 people to a regular show. I started this investigation because no one seemed to understand the current music business. Bands don’t seem to know how to get on radio, how to put together a tour, how to get press, and how to get onto a label. Basically, bands and artists don’t know how to create a sustainable business out of music.
I started to research these questions and the first article that was clear concise and helpful was by John Richards of KEXP​ titled “Getting Airplay.” (https://www.kexp.org/about/getting-airplay/) This essay mentioned “promotion companies” – which I just kind of understand, like I kind of understand what “booking agents” do… John Richards listed promotion companies he likes and trusts – these are the companies that have a relationship with KEXP – companies like Dauntless Promotions, and Jennifer Daunt. John Richards said that it was worth it for a band to hire a promotions company if a band was on tour and they wanted to saturate the press and radio before a show.
So Dauntless Promotions represents courtney barnett​, Sharon Van Etten​ – a bunch of truly bad ass artists – and Jennifer was kind enough to chat with Holy Crap Records Podcast. In this interview, Jennifer talks about getting radio play, how Spotify has become the most important medium, and that building a buzz in your local scene is still the best way for a band to get noticed. (Also – this is the Dauntless Records Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6jwJLJKSFRUNSqtp5qjmq1?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open)

Experiment: Band Management: Blog 18: The Nitty and The Gritty

Experiment: Band Management: Blog 18: The Nitty and The Gritty

The nitty and gritting of getting a record out. Band management is not all-sexiness, all-the-time. Although, my style of band management is mostly being sexy all-the-time. How do you get your music out into the world? In physical form and on major online platforms? (Most of you know this sh*t already.) And what are you paying? And why are these sites and interfaces so f*cking annoying?”Band A” released a new album. The lead single is being played on the radio in a few markets – so I need to get it on the most popular online platforms right away? iTunes? Spotify? I’m using Tunecore to help me. It costs about $30 to release an album – and they’ll distribute it over a whole bunch of platforms, and deal with a bunch of stuff I don’t understand. Great right? Except Tunecore is annoying the hell out of me. Tunecore asks you to lists the songwriters, which I did in the classical format: “Rose/Gibbons/Justice/Kennedy/Kennedy” – for example. But that wasn’t right. Tunecore wants each person who contributed to the song to get a different line. So I went back into the interface and corrected it. Then I sent the guys at Tunecore an email saying I made the corrections. They didn’t give a crap. Did it about a week ago – and they haven’t done anything to acknowledge I’ve made the changes. Some radio stations have asked “Band A” for CDs – and some of the publication will want a package in the mail, with a CD, a one-shit-er, some merch – so we’re printing 50 CDs using CDBaby. Which costs $156.94. $3 a CD. We could print more, but no one buys them. CDBaby has one very annoying aspect to their interface. Graphics. The cover and packaging needs to fit their specs, which means you need to download their specs on Adobe Illustrator, and then you have to learn how to use the program if you want to upload graphics. And they’ll come back to you, all bitchy, and tell you you’re made shitty design. Come on. Anyway, that’s what I did for “Band A” this week. Also, here is the letter I wrote to 25 radio stations (college and independent) and 3 stations wrote back to say they liked the song. And here’s come additional paperwork on costs and interfaces…

Song We Like: TCBB by the World’s Greatest Detective

Song We Like: TCBB by the World’s Greatest Detective

It sounds like it’s going to be a grateful dead kind of jam, but then the singer starts with sort of an ecstatic Housemartins kind of thing, and then they go in several different directions from there. The song suggests a band full of musicians who are all exercising pretty hard to convey everything to its maximum, and are probably covered with sweat

Song We Like: He Thinks He’s People by Quinn Powers/The Styrofoam Turtles

Song We Like: He Thinks He’s People by Quinn Powers/The Styrofoam Turtles

It’s hard to top the original, but Quinn Powers comes pretty close here. His electronic choices highlight that this is a particularly well-written song, and his delivery is creepy and compelling. Quinn please make it about 7 minutes longer and put it on spotify so that we can listen in the car

Song We Like: Fire in the Theater by the Right Offs

Song We Like: Fire in the Theater by the Right Offs

People who can sing like this and who have a knack for rhyming have to be vigilant about keeping to the right side of the Huey Lewis line, but the Right Offs do a great job of being both singer-y and legit. Particularly with this lyrically fascinating tale about a fire in a theater.