i am feeling real bitchy/catty/petty tonight for no apparent reason. my feelings bring to mind how mr costanza must have felt during the opening festivities of festivus. i got a real problem with the people or actually one particular person at merge. i will preface this by saying that merge is probably my favorite label and i hold no ill will towards the blind higher ups, but their publicity department leaves something to be desired. being a former publicist for 8 years, i know a little something about the game and how its played. granted, i am no stereogum, aquarium drunkard or my ol’ ky home, all great sites in their own regard, but this little edge of the blog-o-sphere does pretty ok for itself. i am about to burn a bridge but i really dont care, its not like they have done anything for me. so about two months ago, i had requested a couple of interviews from the lady publicist at merge. i was told one artist would be available and the other two were questionable. fine, i can deal with that. i went through the trouble of typing up a few questions and sent them over. i didnt expect a quick reply but we are going on three months and have yet to hear anything. at this point i aint expecting anything, but you know what? just out of professional courtesy, an email saying “hey the artist(s) dont have time, sorry” or “your questions suck, so go fuck yourself.” either/or would have been sufficient. i am a big boy and can handle rejection, but silence is not necessarily golden in this case. how difficult is it to send an email stating either of the above scenarios? its not difficult let me tell you. i used to do it just about everyday. at least people know where they stand. i dont know if its some fucked up indie rock ego trip, or just plain laziness. whatever it is, fuck em. i dont need em. i am not on any one’s mailing list so quite frankly i dont feel compeled to lightly suck on the fingers that feed me.
with all of that bullshit being said, i will not hold it against los angeles’ the broken west, who recently signed to merge. their debut i can’t go on, i’ll go on chaulk full of jangley pop brilliance. usually when you describe a record as such there is something a bit pussified about it, but the broken west have created a “dudes” version of the jangley pop genre. i cant go on, ill go on is very reminiscent of the power pop invasion of the mid 80’s and 90’s which included bands like teenage fanclub, one of my personal faves, red kross, matthew sweet, another favorite, and big star. the broken west is not re-inventing the wheel here, but they are definitely adding another spoke that is really quite difficult to resist. if this doesnt end up in my top ten of the very young year, i would be really suprised.
they are touring as we speak, and will be in athens @ the 40 watt on 3.20. check out their myspace page for details.
“down in the valley” live
I’ve been digging these guys too. Didn’t realize they were on Merge though. Nifty.
I have had this happen too, being told I’d get an interview, and then no response. I did what you did and eventually just wrote my post without it. Oh well. It’s not like I’m getting paid for writing a blog–I’m definitely going gladly in the hole!
Good band. I love jangle-rock. I’ve got Teenage Fanclub, Redd Cross, and gobs of Matthew Sweet in my collection.
Keep rockin’!
~alt-gramma~
@ Speed of Dark
I’ve had this a lot with employers. In the industrial design industry you get an awful lot of applicants, especially with 0-3 years of experience so if you’re in that zone yourself you can go to an interview and be told that you’ll hear back in the next few days, only to hear nothing at all and have them avoid your phonecalls, so you end up humilatingly having to call back three or four times only to be told by an embarrassed secretary that you didn’t get the job some three weeks later. Writing a stock ‘I’m sorry, but…’ email or letter is hugely easy and a common courtesy.
People who don’t do this are simply twats. There is no excuse (too busy, too many letters, etc etc etc..) that you can make for not simply treating other human beings with the respect and courtesy with which you would yourself wish to be treated. If you can’t do it, then you are not worth much as a person.
Sorry about the rant, but this one has been bubbling away with me for a while too!
Big Star wasn’t active in the 80s and 90s you dumbass, and there wasn’t any “power pop invasion.” What are you, fucking 14 years old? Eat dick.
awesome my first piece of hate comment! i understand kelly that big star was not active in that time period, but due to my lack of editing/laziness i decided to leave it as it was. there was indeed a brief power pop invasion during that period. sure it didnt make much of a dent in the musical landscape but still. also, if you would have said “eat a bowl of dicks,” that would have been much more poignant. as it is, it just leaves me confused on actually why i should eat dick? thanks for visiting kelly.