Noah Gundersen Live in Grand Rapids

Noah Gundersen
Craig Manning

Last Friday night I saw Noah Gundersen do something I’ve seen very few artists do: walk out onstage alone, with no backing band and no opening act, sit down in a chair, pick up an acoustic guitar, and start playing. He’d interact with the audience more—and make a surprising number of jokes—later in the show, but for now, he wanted to get right to the point: the music.

There’s something to be said for a concert with high production values. There’s something to be said for light shows and setlists where every moment has been meticulously planned — right down to the dialogue between songs. But there’s also something to be said for a show where an artist just comes out and acts like he’s playing songs in his living room. As someone who just made an entire album in his living room, that was something I appreciated about Noah’s show on Friday.

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Wrong – ‘Wrong’ (Album Premiere)

Wrong
Drew Beringer

Wrong will be releasing their massive self-titled debut album on April 29th through Relapse Records. Luckily, you don’t have to wait until then to stream all eleven aggressive, noisy tracks — you can stream the album right now below. Featuring former members of Kylesa and Torche, Wrong will crush you with their Helmet/Unsane heavy riffage. Check them out on their current tour with Nothing and Culture Abuse. 

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The Classic Crime Launch Kickstarter

Kickstarter
Jason Tate

The Classic Crime have launched a Kickstarter for their new album.

We are recording brand new music and we need your help to finish it (mixing, mastering, manufacturing, marketing, any other m-words that require the m-word, etc). By backing this project you will not only receive some phantasmagorical rewards, you will also ensure that our next album is the best sounding music we can possibly create, making you an integral part of the whole thing. We are thankful to have the most loyal supporters in the world, and we are hopeful we will reach and exceed our goal. There’s no more middle man. It’s just you and us.

Your Media Business Will Not Be Saved

Jason Tate

Joshua Topolsky, writing on Medium, about the struggles the media industry now faces:

A second thing happened alongside those foundational publishing challenges: this industry which had controlled its ability to reach a populace through ownership of things like printing presses began to cede its power in the delivery and distribution process to other people. People who didn’t care about or understand the media business. People who told them the answer wasn’t the best of something, it was the most of something.

Partially this was done out of fear, but mostly it was done out of ignorance.

Obviously this is a topic near and dear to my heart. It’s why I’m trying something different with this website. And, well, this first month has been a rollercoaster. So far we’ve had one of the biggest unique visitor months a website I’ve run has seen in quite a while, we’re going to go past 4.5 million pageviews, our time on site and retention numbers have been fantastic, and a few hundred have already signed up to support this website, the content we are putting out, and the community we’ve been building. I’ve heard a lot of positive feedback from our sponsors and advertisers about the new model we’re trying out and they seem to be loving the exposure they’re seeing. I’ve heard from a lot of members that love how fast the site loads, love how quickly they can find what they are looking for, and have enjoyed our features, community, and even the advertisements themselves. But mostly they seem as excited as I am about the course we’re headed down.

Is this going to work long-term? I’m still not sure. But it’s a start. I hope we’re making the “good shit” that Topolsky writes about here. I think we are. There’s still a very long road to self-sustainability, but this time I at least feel like we’re in the right vehicle and it’s pointed in the right direction.