Musicians and labels on SPB@20
We reached out to several musicians and labels to get some thoughts, memories, and reflections about Scene Point Blank, but also about how things have changed in the 20+ years we've been doing this thing.
Miski Dee // City Mouse
Happy 20 years! You're almost as old as City Mouse!
I think 20 years ago I was so excited to hear independent music news, which I got from mostly punk magazines and college radio shows, because it wasn’t continuous. Now with social media, everything is so out of sight out of mind. I feel like my mind erases with every next post. I enjoy reading an actual article or review instead of just flashes of information and images so I’m grateful for web and print zines like Scene Point Blank, Bad Copy, New Noise, Razorcake etc.
Will Butler // To Live A Lie Records
First off, big happy belated-ish twenty years! My label is hitting that mark next year so that is a big milestone. 2003 is a great time to look back because it is right around the time I was in college, running a distro as a hobby, and starting to move from studying and working hard in school (plus working after hours and on the weekends) to thinking more about how to participate more in music. I was highly involved in music in my hometown up to 2001 and going off to college shook things up and the town I was in for college was interested in a different genre of music than I really was excited about but it was good to see the DIY ethos living and being able to enjoy house shows with friends.
I was not aware of SPB until 2013 so I guess I was around for the ten year anniversary.
2003 was a time of musical transition leading to conversations that would eventually become my first label release. I don't think I was reading webzines a ton then but was using Livejournal and reading MRR which was only in print at that time. I wasn't booking tours but BYOFL was a huge site back at that time. Since I wasn't there early on, I took a little dive if you want to join me, here is the Way Back Machine snapshot of the early days of the site. Again, congrats and thanks for all the hard work and content over the years!
Laura Larson // Baby Guts // Cadette // Kitten Forever // Scrunchies
SPB has been reviewing my albums since my first band Baby Guts' release Gasoline in 2007 (8.2/10 thank you very much) but I think they really took the cake when they published Kitten Forever's "One Question Interview" in 2014.
Happy 20 years Scene Point Blank!!
Shauners // Middle-Aged Queers
I sheepishly recall coming to the SPB party somewhat late. It wasn't until (2007 or 2008, I think) when my friends American Steel reunited. I can't remember if it was an interview or review or just general news about the reunion, but Scott had shared something from SPB on Facebook and I "smashed that like button," as the kids say.
Jihad // Twelve Gauge Records
I look back very fondly at Scene Point Blank as a webzine that didn't just stick with whatever was big at the time. Case in point: you covered Twelve Gauge Records new releases very often, which I always very much appreciated and feel is a testament to how plugged into the underground you and the staff were. Thanks for all you have done and continue to do.
Looking back at one of the many pieces covering Sabertooth Zombie, this interview stands out in particular since it covered the first time I worked with and released Sabertooth Zombie, a band actively playing and making a name for themselves in the Bay Area hardcore scene. It was Curt from Set It Straight who first gave me the idea of working with them and, once we met, we clicked right away. That was the first of 11 (!!) releases we put out together. It's been a long friendship -- I love that band and I love those guys like my own brothers.
Joe Steinhardt // Don Giovanni Records
Congratulations on 20 years, that is a major accomplishment and wires like SPB are vital to the health of independent music and culture. Here's to another 20!
Blag Dahlia // Dwarves
Congratulations on 20 years of Scene Point Blank, a brilliant music site that’s named after an okay movie. The Dwarves are also celebrating an anniversary of our own, 40 years of recording the coolest underground records everyone has never heard.
In 1983 there was no internet to speak of, no smart phones, and very little adult supervision in the punk rock scene. My high school friends and I were already abusing substances in the bars of Chicago, armed only with fake IDs, brown pot and a whole lot of moxie when we debuted at the Cubby Bear Lounge. We covered songs by the Gang of Four, Buddy Holly, Sex Pistols, Frank Zappa, the Moving Sidewalk and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band without shame.
By the time SPB was invented, the Dwarves were already rock legends, having conquered the grunge, punk, thrash and garage scenes while always managing to look cool and starve a lot over two long decades that saw us visiting hospitals, jails and rehabs; getting thrown out of CBGBs, dropped by Sub/Pop and revived by Epitaph records during their “we’re on drugs and we’ll sign anything” phase; alternately exalted and maligned by the rock press, college radio and at least a dozen women of loose morals who worked at independent record labels.
So on this festive occasion remember, no matter how long you’ve been around, there is always someone who’s been around twice as long and still looks better than you do in tight pants.
Happy Anniversary, Stay Fabulous!
Jensen Ward // Iron Lung
[In 2003] Jon and I were on our way to play an IRON LUNG show at Mission Records when traffic slowed up real quick and we had to slam on the Daewoo brakes to avoid smashing into the car in front of us. It's a curvy mountain highway between Reno and San Francisco with limited sight lines at times, so it can be treacherous. Luckily, we were spry enough to avoid calamity but a different outcome awaited the car behind us. I looked up at the rearview in just enough time to see the driver of an SUV pull her face out of a yogurt container she'd been sucking the bottom out of. Not one of those squirt kinds either, I'm talking full on cup style with a spoon and everything. Who eats fucking yogurt when they're driving? People...
I saw the horror on her face and then the panic, all in a split second she swerved and clipped the back of our car pretty hard. Hard enough to break the bumper off our car, give our necks a little jolt and smash up some of the gear that was back there that we needed for the evening. She jumped out and started yelling at Jon saying he stopped short and how all this was our fault. Horseshit! She still had yogurt all over her face, hahaha. If we only had cell phones with cameras back then...
Lucky for us, we weren't hurt too bad and after we got insurance info figured, we still made it to the show and played. The best part of all this is, we had a friend who worked at a chiropractor's office (thanks for those x-rays we used for the BG split covers too!) and we talked her boss into writing up a claim thing so we could get an insurance pay out from this lady. It worked. We used the money from that to pay for the recording of "Life. Iron Lung. Death" later that year. Crazy the shit we gotta do just get a record made. And then we moved to Seattle...
Terence Hannum // Locrian // The Holy Circle
I think about [the state of independent music journalism] often. 20 years ago was a lot more print -- and certain sites could essentially make or break a band or a release. There also were smaller blogs that could really generate a lot of buzz about a band from really any genre. I think Locrian, which started in 2005, really benefited from this -- making CDRs and small edition cassettes -- the word spread really fast. At that time there was still MySpace -- and it did help (kind of like Bandcamp but you made no money).
Today is different, obviously, but mainly just because there is so much out there and so few avenues for people to really dive deep or like a trusted voice lifting up something obscure. There aren't enough people to cover the bands and performers out there -- not that there were before -- but the amount of sites and locations has dwindled. I think it's just more work for the listener to find what excites them. This also makes it harder for some acts to get heard. I would say maybe in 2003 it was easier for a band to organically kind of find an audience by playing shows and tapping into scenes, while today it takes more media savvy to position a release.
I would add, I book more shows now in Baltimore (dreamGAZE night -- a shoegaze and deampop night), but today a band with tons of promotion, years of press and tours on all the right sites, can still hit a city and have 20 people show up. It's inexplicable to me. That would not have happened 20 years ago. The press and hype and work would lead to better and better shows. Now it seems to need something more than just favorable write ups, etc. I do not know what that is.
Chuck Coffey // Snappy Little Numbers Quality Audio Recordings
I think the state of independent music journalism has become much more fractured, with the best writing being small to midsize entities and the worst being the large ones. It's really no surprise that the smaller and midsize webzines, sites, publications et al have the most original and incisive writing. These platforms are labors of love for their creators, editors and staff. Those terms are fairly loose in many instances too, as some of my favorite small music journalism spots are operated by one person. Like their chosen medium to express their love of music, they aren't catering to the mainstream. Journalists are writing about the bands they want to write about, regardless of how connected a band may be in the larger music industry.
The music means something to them and they want to share it with anyone out there that loves learning about bands that are good, not just the ones acquainted with the right people. Even if they aren't technically good writers in an academic sense, they are passionate and expressive. If one person reads it and checks a band out, it's a win for all parties in the eyes of the participants. These are the journalists where writing about music is in them. They have to do what they're doing, just like many of the artists they're covering. Also, much of what they write about is sent to them directly by the bands/artist as opposed to a publicist. These are DIY endeavors that have a symbiosis to keep the underground alive and moving forward.
On the flipside, any larger music journalism websites and publications seem mostly interested in what's being pitched to them by a professional publicist or other representative attached to a band/artist. If a band/album/story is picked up by one of these places, most of the copy consists of what was already written by the publicist (or perhaps supplied by the band/artist) with very little original insight going into the piece. They're a bit of a cog in the machine that is the music industry. That being said, there's a place for these entities and the people that seek and are able to be covered by them. That's just not what I'm interested in.
Twenty years ago you'd still find the same level of quality in the small to midsize zines. I say zines because the mid '00s is when things really started to transition to being web based as opposed to print. I know webzines existed as far back as the mid '90s or so, but not like the ones today that are well designed with a large variety of content. I also think there was a more diverse array of writing in larger publications before the internet really took hold. Journalists tended to be more adventurous and original. I'm guessing it's because they didn't have 90 emails a day in their inbox from industry types trying to get their spots.
Now there are music journalism sites that have their own media distribution, like exclusive vinyl variants and merchandise, to where the line between journalism and commerce is becoming increasingly blurred. That wasn't the case 20 years ago and I think as time goes on the larger music journalism sites are going to have even more commerce, while the actual writing becomes less and less of what's featured. I do think it's cool when smaller entities have their own merchandise for people that want to support them, such as shirts and stickers. It's a lot of work to keep the fires stoked and webzine and zine writers are artists in their own right. The difference is those are components of their platform so that they can keep doing what they're doing... crafting great reads and championing the bands/artists that they love and want to share with their readers.
I think 20 years from now, the only difference in small to midsize entities will be what kinds of platforms are available. The large places will continue to skew away from actual journalism and go deeper into the commerce end of things. Maybe I'll feel differently 20 years from now about where I prefer to read about music, but I really hope not!
Note: I didn't mention any entity names because all of this is just my opinion. I didn't want to accidentally stir any pots or have anything get misconstrued about a specific site or person. I also didn't want to unwittingly leave anyone out of a list of favorites. I have lots of favorites and credit anyone that gets out there and tries to do something creative!
Tobias Jeg // Red Scare Industries
I’ll tell you one thing I’ve noticed about the past 20 years, is that people in the punk/underground music scene stopped giving a fuck about some sacred ideals. Specifically the various “rules” about commerce and scene ethics put forth by people like Ian MacKaye, Tim Yohannan, Steve Albini, etc. Us Gen Xers were very parochial about corporations getting involved in music, but that all seemed to disappear with Millennials, who appear to be fine with Live Nation and major labels. I’m not saying they’re wrong, because nowadays it looks pretty silly that Jawbreaker were made to be pariahs back in the day, but I wish there was some more visible leadership from younger folks. And let’s admit it, the current generation adheres to strict dogmas too, because lord knows you can get canceled for anything.
Would be nice if the generations could collaborate and learn from each other in the spirit of unity and progressive values, but there’s just too much clout to be gained from anger, identity politics, and outrage. Sigh. And just the other day I saw a couple “legacy punk bands” (that’s what we call them now) who teamed up with a manufacturer tied to the Proud Boys. Sellouts abound. Ope, you see that?! I still got it!
