in what i'm sure was brought on by my mention of explosions in the sky in my last post and the appearance of it in a google blog search, i received an email from a publicist asking me if i had seen an interview with explosions on MTV URGE.
this works for me on many levels:
1) this guy was on top of his game and hitting up blogs that are talking about, not just the product he is repping (turns out he was a rep for URGE), but the bands that they are featuring. this is a great way to generate interest for URGE, especially focusing on a sub-national band with a loyal following, like explosions in the sky.
2) the email was addressed to me, my real name, and was not trying to be overly hip or buddy-buddy, just very simply, "thought you might be interested in this".
3) it came from an actual person, not a generic mailbox.
4) i responded to the e-mail and received a response within 15 minutes, which is very important in this give and take "social media" world.
here is what i didn't like (and has nothing to do with the publicist):
*click for larger image*
the program required to watch this interview does not run on a mac. why? i'm just speculating, but my best guess is that Viacom, who owns MTV, is in bed with microsoft on some level. and since it looks like URGE is also a music store, they don't want it to be cross-platform and head to head against the itunes dominated mac world. which also means that anything that is purchased from URGE will not play on an ipod, only on "plays for sure" devices, which are advertised on the site, thanks to the ongoing DRM wars. of course, in the FAQ they try to point the finger at Apple for using a different DRM product, AAC, but really both sides are playing against the middle. and bill gates has not come out and said the he would ditch DRM tomorrow if the labels would allow him, steve jobs has done this. at least point the finger at the right entities, the record labels, not at the competition in a feeble attempt to cast them in a bad light.
on that note, emusic just became the second most popular music download site behind itunes and they have mp3, DRM-free, files for download. but sure RIAA, unrestricted files hurt sales. who are you kidding anyway?
anyway, in another great move by the publicist, he sent me the transcript of the interview after hearing of my platform issues....very cool. so expand the post to read it:
URGE: In terms of the writing and recording process, how do these songs come together? On one hand, they're incredibly precise, but there's also a very organic, loose feel.
Chris Hrasky: We don't have a very good process of "Here's how we do it." It's a lot of trial and error. This album took quite a while to do. We spent six months working on it and wound up throwing it all away. It can be fairly arduous. There are certain patterns where we do one thing that leads to another, but typically, it's fly by the seat of our pants.
Matt Smith: The first two albums were fairly easy to write. I mean that was six or seven years ago, but I don't remember anything traumatic happening. It was still a part-time thing. We all had day jobs, and there weren't really any expectations about where things could go. The album before this one was pretty difficult just because we weren't coming up with material, but for All of a Sudden ..., the problem was the awareness that people were waiting for it. We're already pretty self-critical and adding expectations to the mix almost makes you not want to do it! [laughs] But we got over it. We're big boys, and after a while, you just want to make an album you're happy with.
URGE: So then, if writing can be squeezing blood from a stone, what's the recording process like?
Hrasky: We mostly record live, and that has its own set of problems. You'll be playing an 11-minute song and you get to the eighth minute, and you start thinking, "F**k, don't mess this up." And we screw up a lot. I mean, some of these songs are hard to play! There are flubs everywhere on albums. We just try and use the more charming mistakes, but we're dedicated to recording live. We might overdub tambourines or something, but we really try to keep it as us in the room, and that can be kind of scary.
URGE: Is there any kind of razzing that goes on if the same guy keeps screwing up a take?
Hrasky: Hah -- not really. We're getting better at it. You get in a sour mood after the sixth take. Then you gotta get a pizza or something. You can't get mad. We all screw up. There were points on this album where I simply could not play the drum parts. You get to a point where you're on whatever take and you just know you're gonna screw it up.
Smith: We really like the mixing process. The recording process is kinda nerve-racking to be honest.
URGE: You've talked about how the expectations are tangible now. Ever since Friday Night Lights, people probably associate certain songs with a paraplegic football player. Have you had to let go of some of your personal relationships with these songs? In a larger sense, do these songs have meaning to you guys? Are they about something?
Smith: In terms of people equating things to Friday Night Lights... that's always been a tough decision for us. We don't want, in five years, for people to say, "Oh, that's the Friday Night Lightsband." That's not why we wrote those songs. So it's pretty tricky. It isn't easy for us to just say, "Go ahead, use the song."
Hrasky: We have a song in a car commercial. I'm completely embarrassed by it. The only reason we did it was financial security. It was a time when it was kind of necessary to get some help, but that was really hard. My parents will call and say, "We saw the commercial again!" They're parents, they get excited, but I don't even want to see the thing. We just sold it. There's nothing beyond that. We did it for money and it sucks. At the same time this is our job now. You do start thinking about if you get married or have kids, then the band has to support that. So, we're only just coming to terms with the idea that this is what we do.
URGE: It must be hard to think of your art as a bargaining chip.
Smith: When we write it, we're not thinking about the commercial value of our music. I'd rather have this be my job than any of the jobs I've had before, but it's a tension. None of us are completely comfortable with it, but ultimately it's our decision.
URGE: But with the TV show, there definitely seems to be a pretty complimentary relationship between the music and the narrative it's scoring.
Hrasky: I make a huge distinction between the commercial and the show. I haven't actually seen all the episodes of the show, but it's been pretty acclaimed critically. I don't have the same guilt with the show; I just don't want to always be associated with it. And up until now, that hasn't happened. We haven't had that at all, and it has introduced our stuff to tons of people who wouldn't have [previously] listened.
Smith: A lot of times it is weird though. You'll see a scene and Lyla [a character on the show] is crying her eyes out, and you think, "Well ... that's one way of thinking about it!"
URGE: Is there much of a working relationship with [the show's creator and film's director] Peter Berg?
Smith: For the film, we went out to California and talked with him, saw some dailys, and tried to figure out which songs fit which scenes. And that's how "Your Hand in Mine" became the film's main theme. Mostly, we work with the music supervisor. They ask to use three songs for scenes, and we'll tell them you can use these two, so on and so forth.
URGE: Has soundtrack work always been a collective goal for the band?
Hrasky: Definitely. We had worked on some short films made by friends and then all of a sudden we're at Universal Studios, and I'm thinking, "What the f**k!?" And that's a credit to Peter Berg because he was able to convince the studio to use some obscure instrumental band from Texas in his football movie.
URGE: You're heading out on tour, and I noticed there are few alternative venues, not just rock clubs, listed as destinations. You guys certainly don't seem to do the Sigur Ros thing where you only play, like, cathedrals filled with ice sculptures.
Hrasky: [laughs] Right. We're not playing the New York Public Library. We're a band. We totally love playing different places, but for the most part, we play wherever people want us. We'd like to play more offbeat places. I heard Arcade Fire is playing five nights in a church in New York ... we don't have that kind of clout yet! But I like it when bands do that kind of stuff. I saw Low once play at the Johns Hopkins Library in Baltimore, and that was incredible.
URGE: The band has a really cohesive, singular sound, but what are your individual tastes as listeners like?
Hrasky: Well, the record we all love is Sunset Rubdown. It's the solo record from the guy from Wolf Parade. That was my favorite album from [2006].
URGE: Do you listen to much music that sounds like Explosions in the Sky?
Hrasky: I like Mogwai. I don't listen to them that much anymore, but they're a huge reason why we exist. It's funny though, none of us are really that into Mogwai or Godspeed You Black Emperor. None of us listen to that much instrumental stuff -- weird composers here and there, but not a lot of stuff that you'd think as influences and our sound.
URGE: What's the most unlikely stuff you listen to, given the sound of the band?
Smith: I've been listening to a lot of Clipse recently. That's the best record I've heard in a long time. I listen to a lot of hip-hop, but that's really a cut above.
URGE: I feel a collaboration in the works.
Smith: Tell their people to call our people.
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Summary only...
so, during the normal meandering through the interweb that makes up my daily routine, i came across the bodog myspace page. "huh", i thought to myself and loudly across the office, "this is a great looking myspace page...i wonder if they manipulated the page themselves and what does the coding look like to do that." i was looking for some ideas and this type of layout would work really well for a client. i pulled up the page source and saw that all of their images and video were being hosted on 'http://creative.myspace.com'. ok, interesting, so it looks like they probably paid a pretty penny to get myspace to design and/or host their layout for them, which explains why the page, in some fundamental ways, can't just be a modified profile like the one's available to us peons.
