Think your band are great?

[Marcus]

...Then release some vinyl.

I'm well sick of all these bands from Yorkawiltshireton that send me demos which give me a HUGE brown-nosing fest with their one sheets, making them out to be chaotic rebels when they play weak powerpop. I'm bored of these bands, they have it too easy. Anybody can go and find cdrs for cheap, then make a cdr to sell for £3 to all of their 'friends'. A sink-or-swim test for your band would be to record 3 songs, release this on a nice piece of wax (Realistically, make 200, and on a sweet colour of vinyl too) and push them to everyone you know. If you're ace, they'll sell out, but if you suck, you'l sell them to be melted into hand-held fans, and at the same time sell your guitar and buy a laptop instead, because you're not going to achieve no rock & roll dream. I know i'll get people blathering saying 'buh buh but none of my friends have record players!" Well, you don't have any real friends then, i'm afraid.Tell them to buy or die. Epideme did what i'm saying and look at them! They're ace and when people see them on the street they wish they were Michael Simon, Barney Wakefield or Finian Zapper... There's too many bands around nowadays, somebody needs to kill them off. Like Travis Keller pointed out, people are starting bands just to get free drinks at the bar. So do what I say folks, don't buy that delay pedal or that new guitar that won't make your band sound, look, or feel better to you or anybody lse, and release vinyl instead. Also that way, you can sell none then become cult heroes in 21 years when somebody from the NME digs up 167 copies in your dad's basement.

Speaking of too many things, there are too many people around as well. I tried to get to Action Records today to dive into the bargain bucket (also because i'm such a badass, I got a full feature in the Lancashire Evening Post, and people wanted me to sign them) but dirty, sweaty people crowded and congested the motorway, and turned my 15 minute trip into a 45 minute one. Ridiculous. There needs to be a new war. Say 200 young men (AND women, we don't want to be sexist) from every town in the world (1,000 for cities) get sent to the north pole with everybody else and have a battle for 3 years with nothing but knives. Then, the survivors are upgraded to the Amazon with rifles, and then after another 3 years, they are upgraded to...nothing, and they fight with bare hands for six months.There might be a few more million people left over, so i'd say...out of all the survivors, 1/3 of them are thrown in an underground sugar mine. Look out for my new rant, "VOTE FOR ME".

[pea]

good rant, but i agree, there are way to many bands out there, and even more guitarists stop stealing what was once a very respectable instrument, makes me ashamed to be a guitarist sometimes when i see some people ruining what is meant to be called music.

[DIRTYMIKE]

Epideme are the only REAL band left!

[pea]

sure

[irandirty]

Cd is the way to do it...but fuck the CDR cheap thing, wait til your ready, record it properly and release it as an EP, fuck the whole demo thing too, if your good enough you won't need a label.

[Sharpie]

I own vinyl but I don't have a vinyl player - I have to use my dad's. Which is a bit hard because he keeps it in his office...
The majority of music listeners own CD players, most own more CDs than vinyl. They're lighter, more compact, last longer and are shiny. Also, if you want to listen to a CD on the go then you can just pop it in your walkman or if you have a car, you can use your car stereo - where as with vinyl you have to put it on to tape and/or record the vinyl and then put it on to your PC and then burn it on to a CD. CDs are straight to the point and until they make Portable turntables (which would be quite heavy...) CDs will be the easier option. However, as this new dawn of digital age enters more people are buying mp3 players. And still it's easier/simpler to put a CD on to an mp3 player than a vinyl.
It's just a format thing, I don't see how making that little extra effort to release your demo/EP/whatever onto a less used format proves anything.
Granted, there are quite a lot of shit bands out there and most bands write bio's that make them sounds ten times better than they are, it's just life really...

[irandirty]

I also own lots of vinyl but no vinyl player, not even my dads, I like vinyl, but CDs are easier to listen to when your out the house. Also I hate download singles, stuff for example like the new Reuben single, brilliant stuff but now I wont get to own it til they release their album, bastards. same happened with IShoes, Stockholm Syndrome, Ribcage and Theres No Such Thing As A Jagged Snake.

Fuck the download chart.

[DIRTYMIKE]

irandirty said:

Cd is the way to do it...but fuck the CDR cheap thing, wait til your ready, record it properly and release it as an EP, fuck the whole demo thing too, if your good enough you won't need a label.

No offence or anything, but it does cost a fair ammount to put out a proper cd, CDR's have bassically taken place of the blank tape, before cds were invented bands would send demo's round to labels on cassette its just now most labels prefer to recieve it on CD/CDR format, as for the whole ep i guess thats what epideme did, but now we're looking for some label interest, might i add indie label, no major or anything to possibly put out our records and to do this you need to send a demo, which will be on CDR, only coz its cheap.
we wont be selling them coz thats just ripping people off, and even though i dont entirely mind paying for a CDR that a bands released coz in a way its taking DIY to the max by burning the cd yourself. i dont agree when a band pays say 50p per cd and sells them on for like £4, thats quite a big profit margain.
YES VINYL IS THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.
but CDR'S are helpful..

[irandirty]

it doesnt cost that much really, im not talking about the type of thing you can walk in hmv and buy, but a good cd can be put together fairly cheaply, with artwork and everything. by cheap I mean about £300 ish, which isnt that much if you have four guys in the band. I just guess that I don't like the idea of somebody owning a piece of music that my band has made when its not ready, like we've just set up some mikes and recorded it live, i guess that works better for some bands but not others...

[pea]

my band released an amateur recording for £3.50 in december to some of our friends who wanted it, we had a vote on the forum and everyone said that price was fair, because we were happy to sell it for whatever they would pay for it. But now with the money we got out of that profit we've organised three gigs (were good at skanking the stuff we need so hasnt cost much!) and we can also afford to proffesionally record an EP which we'll be distributing for no cost to as many people as we can, so although it may of seemed we were jsut making a big profit margin at the time but all those people have contributed to that and i think about 30p of it hasnt been put back in the band(sam needed a drink:P) so its not totally unfair to dismiss non proffessional recording and/or making a profit because, unless it does just go into the bands profit, its actually helped us loads and now were trying to repay that investment from our fans by giving them a free EP and a load of gigs.

[DIRTYMIKE]

wait a minute, we've gone from putting out cdr's as demo's to professional recording, the way you record something shouldnt really matter as long as you think it sounds good. if that means recording it on a tape player or paying £3000 to record a full album with a top producer.
£300 is a lot. specially when your unemployed, and theres no point spending that money on a cdr that your just gonna give away to labels and zines and whatnot.

[maaksu]

£2.55 for 53 cdrs. Hang your head in shame. Vinyl is better than CDs in EVERY WAY.

[pea]

yea, you can get cd-rs real cheap now

but its true a good song overcomes the worst recording, most of the time

[irandirty]

but you dont have to give the cds away, ie you actually sell them, that is, if your good enough and people want to buy them, a local band, dons mobile barbers, did just that, i think they even managed to get a grant from the local council too to record their album, they've done two know and you can buy both of them over the net for about a fiver or something.

[Ralph]

so what your saying is, bands should not perhaps try and get better equipment, or use that £400 to get another day or so in the recording studio, but rather they should release a 7", because it instantly makes you more credible? Do you write for NME or somthing? Are you a total cock?
Its fuck all to do with a "sink or swim" test, its just shallow. Up until now we have just given away all our recordings, our last one cost just under a grand and a lot of favours. I took part in medical trials for two months to fund most of this. There simply is not any more money to put out somthing which (despite how much i would like to, i mean, i havent bought anything other than vinyl for so long because CDs just dont feel like their worth anything) is esentially a vanity item if you dont have a label to put up the cash for it. bands have instruments and equipment to buy, practice spaces and storage to pay for, vans to repair, on top of just paying the rent and eating by working some obviously shit job so that you're able to take three days off a week practicing and travelig to shows. Fair enough if people put out stuff like that and manage to get somthign back (whether that be cash or cult stardom or whatever) thats worth the outgoing, but by no means is it a rule. and for fuck sake, have some kind of a clue about the cost of a record before you write somthing like this, 200 copies of a coloured record? do you know how much it would cost to master to vinyl and set the plate? you'd have to sell for stupid money to not be utterly reamed even if you didnt send out the 100 or so for promos.