Notoriety comes easy in these times. Do something stupid or comical, record it and this manchild called YouTube (worth $1.65 billion dollars in Google Inc.
stock) will set the table for your sudden, then flagging, then fleeting fame. That's all there is to it for the regular mister or miss without any musical talent. For those who play an instrument or know their way around a microphone, the process is essentially the same and the results can be as well, though for a successful working of the peer-to-peer marketing available to everyone via MySpace, this notoriety can be sustainable.
There is this new-fangled trend of bands becoming something of a player in various circles on the vast internet ,and then those circles quickly turn concentric, and pretty soon, they're subsisting without an official record to their names, no label representation and just the buzz of various interlocking computers across the world puffing their sails. You can sell out shows without ever having played one, and you can sell thousands of records without even knowing what you're doing, just setting up a PayPal account, obeying your e-mail inbox and trudging down to the post office every so often to ship another armful. One has to think this is good.
It's a power to the people thing. It leaves the choice to the listeners and makes the bottom line whatever it turns out to be. There are the stories about the Lily Allens, the Cold War Kids, the Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsins and the Clap Your Hands Say Yeahs of the world that prove the legitimacy of this system.
They also prove that the betterment of the musical landscape can come from out of the dark woods, where two minutes ago no one had even thought to look. So, it should come as no surprise that bands are now being looked upon as viable stars even before they've released anything by what they would consider demos. They post songs they've been working on, as they've been working on them and lo and behold, those bloggers and their rabid readers find them one way or another and they begin to tout it because there's nothing like being the Christopher Columbus of a new band.
But as Columbus and the bloggers go, we know that neither has ever discovered a thing. Maybe there's a first for everyone, but by the time there's a post on anything, in five minutes it's in 40 different places and the origin is a lost mark. With that preparation complete, there is a Los Angeles band that has played less than 10 shows in its history.
They are great. Already. They will be greater.
Any pomp and circumstance or glowing recommendation for The Deadly Syndrome should not be dismissed with a scoff. All it has to show for itself is a four-song demo CD that includes "The Ship That Shot Itself," "I Want To Become A Ghost," "Emily Paints" and "Eucalyptus." It's a burnt copy, and there's no artwork to go with it.
It came here just as music. What was on it was unheard of. It shares traces of the Arcade Fire movement of the past few years, since the Canadian band claimed all of us with its 2004 full-length debut "Funeral.
" Themes of death and the metaphysical coil themselves around a mutating array of lush pop a la Rogue Wave and bouncy, barroom pianos and lasering keyboards. Likely not an ode to the Durham Bulls and the baseball picture "Bull Durham," the band's lead singer goes by the name Crash and his vocals and lyrics are reminiscent of a self-trained idiot savant who, if dreams could ever hold true, would respond, "Who's that?" if you asked him if he was into David Bowie or Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel.
He sings, "And when I listen to myself I think that everyone else should kill themselves and maybe save themselves," and that's oddly where he has you in cuffs and breathless, heart beating faster than it's taught to beat. This is so promising that we'll just leave it at that. Few rappers are as believable and likeable when they're rapping as Stefon Alexander - or P.
O.S. - is on this year's "Audition," which should be universally acclaimed as the hip-hop album of the year with some co-acclaim pushed toward Ghostface Killah's "Fishscale.
" P.O.S.
verbalizes his life and his thoughts in a way that gives them the immediacy and firepower that they are entitled. He raps about living on a shoestring, self-importance and responsibility without sounding soft and can rail against politicians without sounding redundant.
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