Recording a band with sub-par equipment isn't fun. You'd think I would remember this from that time I was in a ska band in high school, but Friday night I decided to try my hand at it again. Local boys Baristacide came out to The Daily Cardinal office and set up all of their gear, helped me out by finding a controller to run the mics through so I could get audio and played a set of pretty awesome pop-punk-for-people-who-hate-pop-punk. After seven songs and a few minor technical issues, we ended up with more than enough for a good session.
Now comes the hard part: mixing the audio, editing the video and making the band look good.
This little experiment was inspired by some of the little startup websites like A.V. Club, Daytrotter and The Wild Honey Pie. Pairing free audio downloads with cool videos of great bands performing seems like a great business model, and it seems to be paying off nicely for at least one of these sites.
Daytrotter recently went from being an advertising based site to a subscription site. A $2 subscription site.
Yes, $2. I can wait while you go check and make sure that's right.
You can still download their old sessions, there are more sessions available everyday and there are now videos. Plus they've added a live-streaming component. Daytrotter regularly gets the best independent musicians to stop in and perform for them, and their recordings are amazing.
The Daytrotter Sessions actually make up a pretty decent percentage of my music library, and with artists like Thrice and Cage the Elephant stopping by, I have to keep looking to see who else is coming in.
Case in point, the Knux were in the studio back in August, performing songs from their then upcoming record, which is fantastic if you didn't already know. The Antlers and RX Bandits also made appearances last month, just to show the ridiculous diversity that Daytrotter has in their artist selection.
Why aren't more sites doing something like this? Getting original content is the only way music publications are going to stay afloat, and with the print aspect of places like Spin and Rolling Stone shrinking, online presence is becoming more and more important.
The A.V. Club has their Undercover series, which features some really awesome bands covering some really awesome bands in a really small room. Songs like "Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba are being covered by They Might be Giants and the Smith Westerns are covering Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
The one thing the A.V. Club isn't doing with their website is breaking new bands. Granted, the Smith Westerns are only on their sophomore album, but there is a market for fresh faces to perform in a small room, even if it is an original song they're playing.
Don't get me wrong, I love that the A.V. Club isn't just getting another acoustic performance from the bands they bring in, but they could do so much more.
Spin also has a section on their website for video, including music video premieres and live performances from near the offices, but my personal favorite is the Spin Sessions, which finds bands performing on their stage.
There are a ton of great sessions available, whether it is up-and-comers Grouplove or virtual nobody's Foxy Shazam. In fact, Spin probably has the most bands that are on the cusp of breaking, rather than only having established acts.
To come back to my escapade with Educational Davis, Pancho Pilot, Van Mojo and Johnny Sucrose, it would be awesome if The Daily Cardinal could provide that kind of thing for local artists, because I don't know of anywhere that really takes any band that can play.
That's a shame too, because Baristacide really impressed me and I wish there were more places that would take them seriously enough to hear them out. We get to test them out before their next string of shows though, which will be in January at Mickey's Tavern right here in Madison. Look for their session to be up sometime around New Years.
Think Jeremy's just whining about the music industry again? Want to set him straight and shut him up? Send him an e-mail at jgartzke@dailycardinal.com.
