Best of the underground, week of August 27, 2019! Lots of great music, plus: our opinions about the very weird world of recording music in a studio. Also a story about butts in Miami, and Cinnamon sings a radio song. (All podcasts are on itunes and spotify, and reviews plus podcasts are on our website, and you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.) We love you artists 💚

Massive walls of distortion and slammed drums – and walls of massive irony. I just spent my last cent – that’s ok because I don’t give a shit. We love a shout along chorus and energy that builds up into a a destructive wave and crashes everywhere. Featured on our #67 podcast at www.hlycrp.com.

This stuff only happens when you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m managing “Band A” for one year, as an exploration of the music industry – and I don’t know what I’m doing. 
I’ve had success sending out music by “Band A” to college and independent radio stations. I won’t say overwhelming success, but if I send out a “Band A” release to 25 radio stations then a radio station will play “Band A.” 
Back in May I sent out a bunch of emails. One radio station (a pretty influential station) sent a great email back, that one of the DJs liked a song, was sharing with a couple other people at the station, and could we send a physical copy? So I printed 50 CDs of the release – and I sent them out to a bunch of radio stations. I didn’t hear anything. Crickets. I sent a couple of follow up emails to stations that had expressed interest. Crickets.
So “Band A” is not a profane band. It’s not about profanity. Maybe in the total catalogue of 10 songs there is profanity in one song. They’re garage, new wave, pop.
On Tuesday morning I received an email from the radio station: “Hi John, did you warn us that the title track has a FCC violation? I played it tonight and the F bomb was rather clear over the airwaves.”
I broke out into cold sweat – because I truly love this radio station. They chose a song that has a lot of shouting in it – like it’s purposely recorded to sound as if the band is playing at a late night dive bar. Me, the band, our engineer/producer Edward Madill all shout-along the chorus. And there are some random shouts and claps during the song. And, yeah, sure enough, in the middle of the song, in the middle of a guitar solo, I am shouting the f-bomb. Me shouting the f-bomb like an idiot.
Do you want to read my cringey/total wanker apology response:
“I am so sorry. “Band A” are not a band that uses profanity – except that word in the title track. I know I need to be more clear with an “explicit” on that track. When KPSU put us into rotation they reached out to confirm the lyrical content of “Cloak & Dagger” – but I understand I need to be more pro-active and clear with profanity. You are one of the greatest radio stations in the country – and we are so lucky to have you. I am so sorry. I will be adding “explicit” to the track listing and “Band A” will be back in the studio on Monday and I’ll get the band to create a clean version of for the radio.”
Cringey…