Imagine being at peace, writing for The Gumshoe Grove ... visually the feeling is cool and ornate like this ...
First off:
- Preview several great Tomlab albums at its site, including Thee Oh Sees‘ (incredible) Thee Master’s Bedroom LP, Niobe‘s inSANE White Hats, Les Georges Leningrad‘s bass-ackward Sangue Puro and Skeletons‘ Money. Cool! Fresh! Mint-something!
- Listen to Rickolus‘ “No Future” MP3/download; it’s also fresh, cool and something.
And now, read my desperate plea:
Become a Gumshoe Grove contributor: contact @ grant_kzuu@hotmail.com
I look at this site as a somewhat personal thing, but now that people are startin’ to trespass ’round these parts more and more — and thanks for doing so, incidentally — I’m feeling the need to hire on a new RAnch hand or two to lessen the lump of a load I have in my life and in my throat.
I also would love to expand what we can offer here. Considering I might be back at work full-time within weeks, AND the fact that I’m now about a week or so away from putting out my first record (much more on this soon; excited?) I’m getting worried the Gumshoe Grove will get buried like toddlers in big, blue-yellow-red ball pits.
I’ll go into detail about music-writing and its effects/etc. later. First, I want to describe the type of person that would make sense as a Gumshoe contributor (the “contributor” designation meaning you can post on the site when and where you want; I will not be picky about that stuff as long as you’re into it and posting good stuff. No Muse posts, essentially).
Gumshoe contributor requirements:
- First off, you must-must-must be literate. I don’t wanna be a dickhole here but this is one of those skills that’s hard to make up for. Thanks for understanding.
- Secondly, you must be deeply inserted into the depths of independent music. That means you need some years of fandom under your belt and at least a half-dozen concert Ts in your closet. (If you’re just a silly-with-it-amazing writer, a writer so pen-pouncing that you blow me away like only Doug Mosurock, Mark Richardson and Andrew Earles can, then you transcend the need for extensive knowledge and you qualify; hell, maybe we can talk about writing a novel together. But you’d better be good, nay, GREAT!)
- Thirdly, I should mention the cool stuff: I can get you into concerts sometimes, and I can always give you music to review. I mean constantly. And there’s never knowing where it can go from there. I used to get sneered into paying for concerts I was reviewing for no pay after 6-hour drives; now I get approved, +1, for the Mile HIgh Festival within 10 minutes. So yeah, there are a lot of random little perks and opportunities built into the writing-about-rock infrastructure; take advantage so I can feel better about taking advantage of you!
- Finally, what you’ll be doing: I just want you to be the best music-blogger you can be. If you’re into posting short news bits all the time I guess that works, but I’m definitely more of a Slooow Music-Journalism Movement guy; I like in-depth analysis and long words and breaking through any and all barriers. Get the drift here? I’m serious about this stuff. It would also be nice if we could focus on different aspects of the site’s coverage, but who knows; very unprofesh here.
You’re probably thinking right now, “Wow, this sounds great. I get to write about music and not get paid anything for it! Why don’t I just go intern at a lemonade stand? You SUCK Gumshoe, you SUCK. Get the HELL OUT OF HERE Gumshoe, the HELL out because you SUCK.”
And you’d be right, but one thing: I’ve been writing about music for about 10-years-plus, pro bono for about half of them, and, save all the practical stuff like wife/kid/friends/relatives/love-for-print-publications-in-general, it’s far and away the best, longest-lasting, most-rewarding endeavor I’ve undertaken since finding, post-high school, that life can be enjoyable and not full of rich jerks.
It definitely didn’t turn out exactly as I had envisioned — I, and even many of those around me, assumed I’d be penning rock-crit masterpieces for Rolling Stone and Spin like, daily, and it hasn’t happened at all; in fact, it REALLY hasn’t happened (my more astute readers will pick up on why this is the case).
That was tough to get over — the fact that I probably won’t write about music for a living for awhile — but I’ve also found that, with one exception (that exception being Tiny Mix Tapes), when I write articles for ambitious (aka monetarily or career-advancement motivated), rather than artistic, reasons, I tend to fall flat on my face.
In fact, that’s the ONLY time I fall flat on my face.
When money first started to come into the picture, at the Local Planet Weekly back in 2000 or so, I did fine because hey, it was just the local weekly and easy to take for granted …
But then came the Spin assignment, during which I reviewed Tool, one of the bands I know absolute BESt, and I absolutely BLEW it (I realize that now, after a long while of feeling weird about this or that; in the end, I didn’t set myself up to succeed because I didn’t prepare well going up to the event, nor during the event did I get the chance to focus as I should have arranged for. It’s a long, painful story. Oh well.).
I also wrote my first press release, for a record label recently, and found I had a tough time adjusting to the new form of writing, wherein my analysis isn’t the crux of the product, the exploits of the client are. Press releases are bio-heavy and sell-first and all that, and my attempts to cross over didn’t go over too well. I take full responsibility and also point you to the assignment above; I just don’t flourish when I’m not comfortable with an aspect of a job and/or assignment.
With that in mind I want fellow Gumshoers — if any do arise — to know that what I want, more than anything, is to let the pure-joy aspects of this whole music-sharing thing shine through. That’s where the best music writing comes from anyway. I want you to post at least once a day, but what I want more is a Sense of Purpose, someone who can spot a sparkly MP3 among a bucketful of duds and write a blurb quickly and efficiently, yes, but also someone who sees music as a vital form of communication, way of life and, of course, genre of art.
WELL, I guess I’ve managed to sound way more intimidating than I am, by far. Oh well, I think whoever takes the plunge with me is going to be amazed at how rewarding it is to be involved in something like the Grove — and, taking the next step up, many of the bigger sites like Tiny Mix Tapes are a pleasure to work for, as well.
OK … so who’s in?
