That’s tough but fair, Rex. Thanks for the heads up. And Jet W. Lee has a CD release next week, too. I overreached there; thanks for the call-out.

And hey, local bands, we’d be happy to hype your release shows, too, and it would be awesome if you’d let us know about them. Send us a CD or a download; we’ll try to review it.

Hi John.

rex,
are you going to say that duke of uke or the curses are as popular as elsinore or wffm?  duke and curses are both great bands (duke was awesome last night), but they don’t have the following that the bands playing release shows tonight have.  THUS: tonight’s shows get more coverage.

As a music writer at SP, I can tell you exactly what affects my choices of what bands to cover—what bands I like.  Our lovely editors (Seth and all of his conflicts of interests included) have offered me exactly zero push as to what to cover, besides providing the ongoing list of upcoming shows that all of you see tagged on to the end of The Overture.  For myself, I have no conflicts of interests that I’m aware of—hell, I don’t even have friends in the music scene yet.  On top of that, I just moved here, so I have no idea which local bands have followings and which don’t.  My choice to review the new World’s First Flying Machine was made because I listened to some songs online and thought it sounded worth listening to.  I had no idea where their show even was when I signed on to do the piece.  And I think our other music writers will say the same—say what you will about Seth’s involvement in the music scene, he’s never once encouraged me to cover one show or one band over another.
 
As to the idea that SP doesn’t exist to forward the interests of the music scene… I won’t speak for others here, but for myself, I cover music here in the hopes that more people will be out at shows, I can introduce someone to new music, and for the purely selfish reason of having an outlet for my music-related opinions.  I don’t know whether you think that forwards the interests of the music scene, but I can honestly say that I haven’t once thought while picking a show or band to cover about whether or not Seth’s going to get a pay raise.  (Sorry, Seth.)  So yeah, I’m actively stating that I do not have an investment in booking certain shows, popularizing certain bands, and earning a very certain benefit on the back end.  For most of our music writers, there would be no extra benefits even if were actively trying to get them.  And Seth certainly hasn’t tried to exert any influence over us to increase his benefits.
 
So yeah, I didn’t start SP, but damn it, I’m a part of it.  And this tiny little part of it has no reason to cover one band over another except for pure personal preference.
 
I think it’s more the case that we write what we know.  As Joel said, we’d LOVE to get more submissions from local musicians that we might not know about.  I’m still trying to get to know the scene here, and it’s exciting every time I get to listen to a new local band, following or none.  Most of us are VERY open to covering music we’ve never heard of, if we can just get our hands on it. 

you know….I fully support and am impressed with Seth’s involvement with the local music scene but let’s get real…..even if he forced every single writer who VOLUNTEERED to write for Smile Politely (which means—-I would imagine—-that you could TOO) it’s not like he’s gonna make a fortune from one ‘his’ bands being mentioned here…. geesh…..let’s think about this shit and put it in perspective, o.k?  You wanna hear about other bands?  Well write about them here or elsewhere…don’t knock people who are supporting music they happen to care about.  Of COURSE there’s lots more music in town than is mentioned in Smile Politely….and OF COURSE every one who writea about music has a certain bias or opinion or slant on it.  We WANT that, don’t we?  Can you imagine somebody perfectly neutral writing about music?  I sure as hell wouldn’t want to hear it.  Nope.  I want passion about music…and that can NOT be neutral….

Elsinore, especially, appears to be right on the verge of becoming a very big deal.  Giving them a lot of ink is nothing to apologize for.  Anyone who feels we aren’t writing enough about other acts is free to do so themselves. 

As far as the accusation that Smile Politely is just the propoganda arm of Seth’s business, I’m not really seeing it.  I don’t know all that much about the local music scene, and I don’t know who’s booking what band where, but there have been plenty of critical pieces appearing here about acts Seth is associated with, the most glaring example being the pre-Pygamalion article that dissed about half the acts on the roster of Seth’s festival. 

I’ve made critical comments about aspects of Smile Politely’s coverage in certain areas myself in the past, and I don’t want to gush about the magazine, but when it comes to local music coverage of alternative bands we’re pretty good.

Just noticed I spelled “propaganda” wrong in my last comment, and one more thought: the argument above using Dave Matthews and Michael Bouble doesn’t really work - they’re international acts; we’re covering local ones.

In all honesty, we try to cover shows that we’re excited about, as Annie said, but we also try to give bands coverage who ask for it.
In this case, Elsinore and WFFM both told us about their CD release shows well in advance, sent us downloads so we could get them out to reviewers who volunteered to have a listen, were cool about doing interviews, and were appreciative of what coverage we could muster. And, to be frank, we’d pretty much ignored Elsinore for over a year (you could look it up) so I felt it was the least we could do to try to make a bit of a fuss about this show. Have we been contacted by local bands who wanted us to publicize their show and have we dropped the ball? Absolutely. But we make an honest effort to cover as much of the local scene as we can.
As other commenters have mentioned, we’re an open shop, so if we’re missing something, feel free to either point it out or put pen to paper yourself and fill in the gaps. But try to avoid questioning our integrity or commitment in the process. And if you know a band with an upcoming album release, have them send a copy our way. Put another way: if you want press, try contacting the press.
I apologized for over-selling the “rarity of releases” angle in an earlier comment; it’s truly shaping up to be a fantastic year for local music releases. It’s still a pretty big deal to have two release shows on the same night, but in context of what’s coming up, it’s not exactly a once-in-a-blue-moon thing. I meant no disrespect to anyone, and I certainly wasn’t coerced by anyone else or making it into some sort of popularity contest.
My conscience is clear about our motivation for what we’re doing here, and I really appreciate the efforts of everyone who’s trying to make SP the best it can be. If you don’t believe me or the other writers and editors, I guess you’re entitled to your opinion, but thesandwichlife is right: there’s really not enough money flowing in the local-music-reporting scene for anyone to bother selling themselves out. We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing here and be as transparent as we can about it. It’s unreasonable to expect that people won’t get pissed off from time to time, but I hope the majority of you appreciate it.

Joel brings up a fantastic point in that most of the bands you’ll find bitching about not getting covered are the ones who never, EVER, bother to put in any effort when it comes to promo.  There is a chip on the shoulders of so many local bands, both “big” and “small.“  Sure, it’d be great if you could just focus on making music and performing it, but at this level, you have to put some effort into getting the word out.  There are some incredibly well-meaning folks out there covering local music, but they simply can’t know about everything, even with dilligent internet searching.  And some bands make it even harder by not even bothering to enter show info to a website or myspace.  And then they bitch when no one knows about the show so attendence is low.