Music in the age of digital reproduction

Hey guys, Frank here.

This is the maiden-post of our new band blogger page.



Being 2011, it's tough to exist as a band without having some sort of internet presence. I know that a lot of bands resisted using Myspace when Myspace was popular. While it may be "cool" to be the ONE band in the entire world that doesn't have SOME sort of website, I think you risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater by avoiding the digital age altogether. I can't tell you how many hours I spent on purevolume.com as a teenager, just browsing through pages and pages and pages of search results for bands. I can't tell you how much I was able to broaden my taste in music by being able to discover new bands almost instantaneously online. As I type this, I've got a band from Belgium blasting through my headphones. Had I not been able to follow link after link, jumping from music player to music player, I probably wouldn't have ever discovered this particular band. Had it not been for the the vast expanse of free information available online, and the ease of listening to new bands, I probably wouldn't have gotten as serious about hardcore as I have, and I'd probably be bumping lousy Top 40 jams in my car every day.
Granted, the internet has made it a bit tougher for decent bands to stick out amongst the millions of lousy bands floating around on the internet... but letting this problem give you a pessimistic attitude is such a cop-out. Yes, the fact that just about anybody can record and upload an "album" does make it harder for decent bands to get noticed. BUT, this fact should be seen as an opportunity and not a set back. If you've got talent and a message, but kids are too distracted to take notice, TRY HARDER...play louder, put more and more energy into getting better and better. Instead of letting it hold you back, let it motivate you to try even harder to become even better at what you do. Sure it will take time for kids to take notice, but which worthwhile things DON'T take time?

The Internet can be both a blessing and a curse. It can be responsible for the creation and proliferation of a lot of bizarre, meaningless trash; but when used constructively and strategically, it can enrich the lives (and iTunes libraries) of hardcore kids everywhere.

After leaving our practice space one night a while back, Bill and I stood outside and had a conversation pretty similar to this post. We discussed how we were going to represent our band digitally, and we decided on a blogger/blogspot page. These days, it's so easy to create a free account on a website like Facebook or Bandcamp. These types of sites make it easy to create and share content. They give you boxes to fill in, you fill them in, click SAVE, and you've got an instantaneous internet presence. Don't get me wrong, I can't go three minutes without checking to see if I've got any new Facebook notifications. Facebook and sites like it are excellent for staying in touch with friends and family. But the reason sites like Facebook are so appealing is also the reason sites like Facebook aren't the most appropriate for band pages.
Ultra-standardized and over-simplified, Facebook makes it almost TOO easy to share information. It attempts to take the broad, wide-ranging aspects of human social interaction and cram them into rigid and polarized categories. You have to pick between Male or Female, Single or In A Relationship, etc. You have to present your pictures, your thoughts, and your friendships within a specific, generic format. This makes me wonder, what if there is more to the human experience than the options sites like Facebook allow us to select from? What if you've got more to say than the low character-limit the Status Update feature will allow? Will we eventually begin to think, act, and speak in a way we know will fit most easily into these categories? What will happen to human social interaction after a few generations of being conditioned to behave within these boxes?
While standardization does make it easier to find friends with common interests, checking off boxes from a list of pre-determined options can't possibly be the best way to represent our interests.
I can say I like "punk", "books", and "outdoors". But reading these bullet-point interests doesn't tell you I like DC style bands more than West Coast style bands, it doesn't tell you I read more historical non-fiction than anything else but still have a soft-spot for comedic science-fiction, and it doesn't tell you that I love camping but have no interest in hunting/fishing in particular.

The whole point is.... there is far too much complexity involved in the day-to-day experience of human life to try and condense into cramped compartments or categories.
This principle applies to music as well.

There are more aspects to being in a band than Facebook currently allows you to showcase. There are entire WORLDS of information...live videos, tour stories, excerpts from lyrical experiments, etc... that can't possibly fit comfortably within the rigid black-or-white/this-or-that format Facebook offers.

So that's why we've chosen to do a blog-style website. I don't know a single thing about HTML, or design in general, but I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to put the time into learning how to make this page more interesting and more dynamic, because I'm not content with the options standardized sites like Facebook have to offer.

We've chosen to go with a site that leaves the format up to us to determine. We've chosen to go with a site that allows a little bit more freedom when it comes to presentation and expression, in the hopes those who come across this page are able to get a better feel for who we are, as a band AND as kids, than they would had they skimmed through yet another generic, impersonal Facebook page.

So, this site is probably going to change quite a bit while I adapt to using it. Please be patient and stay tuned for fresh updates and new content.


Thanks for reading this.
Thanks for having an open mind.. there are fewer things in life more valuable than that.



-Frank Edge