Yellow Pages

This is a text to which I will refer to when asked… and it’s

about my role as the yellow pages of the underground. I do write a lot of reviews, hence I do ‘know’ lots of musicians and labels, and as I sometimes play out music live I might know a few places to perform music. All duly noted in Vital Weekly. Yet, on an almost daily basis I receive requests from musicians for labels, contact persons at labels (even those with whom I am no longer connected for about 10 years), or that super handy list of venues to perform. I love you all, I wish you to do well, but the answer to your question is simply ‘no, I can’t help you’. A) because I simply not well organized, so I don’t have a fine word document with the requested information and b) because this is made to measure work, like which label would suit you best, which venue, what money would be involved. This also extends to requests such as ‘write me a support letter for my grant’, or ‘hey why does Extrapool not respond to my e-mail (or anyone else)’, ‘will you be my support act if I play in Extrapool’ etc. To put it bluntly: I am not interested in doing free work for anyone, other then myself and the ones I seek out myself. I don’t have the time to listen your demo and think of a list of a least 10 willing labels to release it. Or to book your tour. Or to release it myself. I think, through my work for Vital Weekly, my own music, my own label (when you hand in a request for advise, think about this: when was the last time you bought a release of my label?) and some work which I do, but don’t take public credit for (if you know what that is, fine. If not, just ignore), I think I serve the underground with all my heart already. Save those Vital Weeklies, make an effort of reading it (as far as is possible), seek out those labels and venues yourself and build your own word document with relevant info. And to those I do help, which I actually also do, I usually offer it, not asked. Or simply find me hanging at a bar and buy me beer. I’ll talk your socks off, and you make the notes.
This extends everyone, no matter if we never met, or met a lot of times, or even if I released your work. It’s nothing personal, but please understand my position. I don’t want a daily business running errants for everyone who asks.

(this already appeared on facebook in March 2013, but slightly changed here)