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Jason Cruz of Strung Out Talks With Dying Scene

Strung Out
Jason Tate

Jason Cruz of Strung Out talked with Dying Scene:

There’s a lot of that. There’s a lot of anxiety until you get an idea of how it effects people. You want to know that you’ve earned the right to be here and that you have something to offer, and I think peoples’ response validates that. Up until the time it gets released, you’re wondering, especially with social media and everything that’s going on these days, everyone’s got an opinion and everyone feels their opinion needs to be heard, and they start throwing around how they think you should write the songs… It’s an interesting time to be somebody that creates stuff. Anxiety is a part of the game, I guess.

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Marianas Trench Talk Stage Setup and Touring

Marianas Trench
Jason Tate

Alternative Press talked with Mike Ayley of Marianas Trench about touring and the band’s stage setup:

It’s important with the styles for us to try different stuff we can do live so the shows feel fresh. Not just having new music, but even the feel. It definitely gives us direction with video content—not so much the stage as it could be. When we’re doing arenas, we have a little more leeway because we have more production. We still bring a truck full of production for the U.S. tours. The balance is trying to enhance the album theme in the show while still having production that accents the music and doesn’t make the other album singles look out of place. We always do our best to balance that. It’s really cool being able to create a world. It’s neat that anybody who comes to see a Marianas Trench show will see the show and know what album the music is from.

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The House Where The Maine Recorded ‘American Candy’ Damaged in Fire

The Maine
Jason Tate

The house where The Maine recorded American Candy caught on fire over the the weekend:

Two men were arrested Thursday following a fire in Joshua tree. Residents near the 61800 block of Rosemary Lane reported hearing small explosions and popping noises for about 10 minutes before they saw smoke and called in the fire at 6:22 p.m. Thursday evening. A garage was fully involved with flames, and heavy black smoke could be seen for miles when firefighters from Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley, Yucca Mesa, BLM, and Calfire arrived about 10 minutes later.

Taylor Swift Tops the Charts

Taylor Swift
Jason Tate

Surprise! Taylor Swift has the number one album in the country:

Lover earned 867,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 29, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 679,000 were in album sales. Both figures are the largest registered for any album in a single week since Swift’s reputation debuted with 1.238 million units in its first week, of which 1.216 million were in album sales (in the week ending Nov. 16, 2017).

The album accounted for 27% of all U.S. album sales last week.

New Interview with Good Riddance

Good Riddance
Jason Tate

Russ Rankin of Good Riddance talked with PunkNews.org about their new album:

There was no pressure, really. We decided to start playing again and after a year or two after that–maybe a year and a half–we were having a blast. Speaking for myself, five years away from it was good and the band’s place in punk rock history, modest as it may be, was pretty well cemented so there was nothing to prove. And being able to survive and be a human being apart from that band for five years was good for me. And so for me, when we started playing again, especially traveling and playing festivals, I really got a chance to just enjoy the opportunity rather than being concerned with the nuts and bolts of the business side of it or lapsing into imagined competitions in my head with bands I considered friends.

Can Music Journalism Transcend Its Access Problem?

Jason Tate

Jeremy Gordon, writing at CJR:

Twenty years ago, a magazine could slot a profile of a smaller band alongside an interview with a popular artist, and hope that it might be read as part of the whole. Now, every article is packaged individually on the internet and measured to the last click, making it very clear when something isn’t being read, incentivizing coverage of artists with proven followings. “It’s a giant shift,” Ken Weinstein says. “It was kind of better when people couldn’t really put an absolute finger on it because art is not that.”

Most music journalists aren’t so craven as to go entirely by the numbers, but they work at businesses. “I could invest ten hours and do a long feature on something that no one has ever heard of, but five people will read it,” Julianne Shepherd, editor-in-chief at Jezebel and former executive editor at The Fader, says. “And then is my boss going to be like, ‘Yo, what the fuck are you doing?’”

I found that this piece hit a little too close to home a few times. Especially when thinking about AbsolutePunk.net and the machine it got sucked up in. However, now that we’re independent, and largely based around a member supported model, I don’t have to care about what gets the most pageviews or clicks. It’s freeing.

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