Electron Deception Christmas Song

So when I started this blog I had actually intended to talk a lot about my band, Electron Deception. Over time, however, I've drifted away from that. However, I wanted to do a shameless plug here for the Christmas song we just recorded. It's our fairly liberal interpretation of "Little Drummer Boy" and you can get download it for free, here. While you're at it, feel free to check out the other bands' Christmas songs on the same website, as they are very cool to (if very different from our own).

In the coming days I hope to discuss Christmas music more generally and some of the interesting realizations that we (the band) had as we tried to actually write a Christmas song. Assuming I don't get distracted with other topics I'll post that next week.

Writing Negative Reviews

This week I went back and read Electron Deception’s negative show review from April (sorry, I'm not linking to that). I was really trying to see if any of our efforts to drive it down in the Google search results had worked (they hadn’t), but it got me thinking about the purpose of reviewing things, especially local things.

 

Ultimately, as I’ve considered this topic, I believe that writers who decide to cover local events should actually avoid giving negative reviews, at least initially. If communities are going to thrive and produce things (arts, restaurants, etc.) people have to actually go out and support those things; negative reviews, on the other hand, prompt people to avoid local activities and can contribute to increased isolation. Taken to their extreme, they also eventually kill off local endeavors and leave people with few options other than chain restaurants, generic music, and mediocre art.

 

I’m not suggesting here that writers simply lie and say that everything local is good. Instead, I would hope that when covering a community, they focus on the positive. If a restaurant, musician, etc. isn’t great, simply chose to cover something else. If at some point something becomes so big and so ubiquitous that members of the community have begun weighing on it with various opinions, then it might be time to start writing honest, hard-hitting reviews. I know that’s a nebulous distinction to make, but the vast majority of local entrepreneurs and artists aren’t becoming rich, famous, and powerful. Instead, they’re struggling to make ends meet and a single negative review can sometimes force them out of business.

 

Of course, negative reviews may prompt people to improve whatever it is they’re trying to sell. When Electron Deception got our scathing review we genuinely tried to address some of it’s more legitimate points. On the other hand, most of our efforts have never been heard by anyone; our shows often don’t have huge attendance and the review has certainly not done anything to improve that. In fact, despite our efforts, we think the negative review may have caused some people to not come see us, even after we’ve changed our sound considerably. If the people who wrote the review had wanted to improve the music scene they could simply given their suggestions to us privately, let us work on them, and waited to see what had happened. If they had done that we would have been happier of course, but local venues might have made more money when we played there (because more people would have wanted to come out) and parties would have been livelier (for the same reason). However, as it was, the negative review only dampened the music scene across the board.

 

Electron Deception is just one small band and few people will probably remember us, but I think this incident is illustrative of the anti-community effects of negative reviews generally. If a writer, blogger, or journalist decides to condemn a local theater production or restaurant, for example, people will go elsewhere. If you live in New York where there are hundreds (or thousands) of local performances and food establishments all the time this probably isn’t as big a deal. However, if you live in a mid-sized town (like Provo, Utah, for example) people don’t necessarily have other options. A scathing review of a single local theater production can thusly put an end to all or most of local theater generally. A bad review of a local restaurant can drive people to chains (which typically serve terrible food). In both situations innovation is stifled, local economies suffer, and people interact less with each other.

 

Journalists certainly don’t have the responsibility to advertise for local businesses and events. Journalistic integrity is important and should be defended. (I would argue, however, that that doesn’t apply to the blogosphere, where many local reviews take place. A negative review on a blog seems closer to cyberbulling than journalistic honesty to me.) Still, if we want to live in vibrant places where diversity and creativity abound, it’s important to ask ourselves if what we’re writing is going to bolster that community, or stifle it. 

Sex, Equality, and Rock and Roll

This coming weekend my band, Electron Deception, is playing at a show featuring all female-fronted bands.  For a lot of people, it’ll probably just seem like another local music show in Provo.  What many won’t realize, however, is just how remarkable it is to get three female fronted bands together.

 

Despite the superficially liberal leanings of many musicians, rock music critics have widely observed trends of masculine dominance, anti-feminism, and even misogyny.  Indeed, rock and roll is a “male form” and rarely, if ever, points to gender equality.  (If you want more information to support these assertions click here, or if you have a BYU ID, here.)  If this research isn’t enough, just watch some music videos.  Ask yourself A) how many feature women in lead roles (probably fewer than feature men), and B) how many of those that feature women don’t depict them as sex objects (probably close to none). 

 

Of course, gender inequality in music (as in most industries) is nothing new, but what is surprising is that these trends are as easily observed in local music as they are on the national stage.  In fact, at least in Provo (and despite the city’s strong music scene), the gender gap is even wider than it is in the larger music community; very few bands include women, and many of those that do give them minor roles or even seemingly use them as “eye candy” for male fans.

 

In light of all this, my band’s upcoming show seems like a significant assertion of femininity. Despite the fact that male performers will still outnumber females, women will occupy the most prominent positions and the whole event was organized by one of the band’s female vocalist.  Yet while these facts lead me to believe that music (and specifically local music in Provo) is moving toward greater gender equality, this particular show still includes some strikingly examples of machismo.  What’s even more alarming is that I have probably been the biggest culprit of this. 

 

Probably the best example of this phenomenon is the poster that I made for the show. 

Though it’s not particularly racy, it obviously relies Laura’s image and sexuality as a marketing tool (the design was admittedly inspired, at least partially, by classic pin-up posters).  In addition, the fact that the female lead singers of the bands are called “girls,” as opposed to “women,” further calls into question the show's claim to gender equality.  If other posters of ours have been less extreme in this regard, they've also worked along similar lines. 

In the end then, what started out as a potential night of feminist assertion has shaped up as a night to watch hot chicks.  If that wasn’t an obvious enough problem by itself, a bigger one might be that everyone has loved our posters, men and women alike.  I love our posters, and I’ll probably make more like them.  Though I’m readily willing to admit that making posters like ours—or calling something a “girl show”—might not promote gender equality, the bottom line is that it is effective.  People like it, remember it, and if our end goal is to get people to listen to our music, it’s something we almost have to do. 

 

All this then begs the question: can women not be objectified in rock/pop music?  (For that matter, can men?)  I know that as Laura and I have discussed stage presence, for example, I’ve been surprised to realize there are significantly fewer things for a female to do on stage than there are for a male.  Basically, it generally boils down to something like “be sexier” or “wear sexier clothes” or “do heavier make up” or something like that.  Most of these options are actually open to male rock musicians (at least within a certain genre), but for females they’re often times the only options.  Again, like the posters, these things may represent a questionable ideology, but they’re also effective. 

 

Ultimately, this upcoming concert will come and go without many people thinking about these issues.  It’ll be just one more local show (albeit a fun one).  Yet even as a “girl show” it will still be an anomaly (as everything else must, by implication, be boy shows) and in that light, it probably signals a trend toward something.  Whether it’s toward greater equality or objectification remains to be seen.

Electron Deception Show Review

Electron Deception has received two show reviews.  One of these was positive and one negative.  After having been reviewed, however, I started thinking that it might be useful for us to review our shows.  After all, who knows us better than we do?   

 

Summary: So, on Monday, June 15^th we played a show at Mo’s Bar and Grill in Salt Lake City.  We were opening for Nate Baldwin and touring band Windsor Drive.  We were fairly excited because it was only our second show in Salt Lake.  Unfortunately, things quickly went downhill.  First we almost immediately had problems with the PA.  There was no one to mix the sound and since we run all our instruments through the sound system (as opposed to using amps), this was a big problem.  Not surprisingly, this problem resulted in others; since we couldn’t hear that well we didn’t play that well, which meant we had poor stage presence, which meant that the audience wasn’t that into it.   

The audience wasn’t huge (it was a Monday night after all), but they were surprisingly positive, given how off I felt we were.  The highlight of the night was probably finding out that we sold one of our new t-shirts (a yellow girl’s tank-top).  So either someone like our music, or at least liked our silk screening design.  Also, we got invited to play again, which seems like a relatively good sign.  The other highlight of the night for me was seeing Ryan’s stage presence.  I was at an unusual angle and was pointing more or less at the keyboards.  Ryan told me he didn’t think his stage presence was all that great, but at least while I was looking at him he was rocking.  

 

Conclusions: I am beginning to feel that we need to revamp our sound.  Only about half our shows sound really good (usually they are at Muse Music).  Our biggest problem is that we use a fairly non-traditional set up (digital drums and keyboard, as opposed to guitar, bass, and acoustic drums), which means that not many people know how to do a proper stage mix.  This makes it hard to improve because we can’t really control the mix.  So, I’m thinking of switching to a mixed acoustic-digital drum set.  Also, I think we’re going to try to use amps for the keyboards.  These changes will probably alter our sound considerably, but they should also make for more consistently good shows.

Electron Deception Casserole

Today in band practice I realized that Electron Deception is very much like a casserole.  Specifically, we’re a lasagna. This metaphor emerged while we were trying to pare down one of our songs to make it more interesting.  Thus, Ryan’s keyboard parts are similar to noodles before they go into the lasagna; though they make up large part of the finished product, they’re not so great uncook and/or on their own.  Laura’s vocals are kind of like sauce: not the biggest part in terms of volume (I mean space, not decibels), but perhaps the most responsible for the lasagna’s flavor.  My drumming is similar to the hamburger (it’s a ground-beef lasagna).  Its kind of rough but punctuates the dish with different textures.  This leaves the bass as the cheese.  Unfortunately we’re without a bass player, but when Chris gets here, we’ll hopefully be a delicious band.  

Electron Deception T Shirts Coming Soon!

Today we finally got a silk-screening screen to turn out the way we wanted.  It has taken us a lot of money and many photo emulsion sheets, but this one looks like its going to work.  The trick now will be getting the right amount of ink on the screen to show up on the shirts, but not lose detail or any such thing.  Also, I say that "we" have done these things.  I should probably say that Laura has done them.  I have helped, but she has really done the lion's share of the work.  I'll post some photos soon, but for now, keep an eye out; the shirts will be here soon.  

Silk Screening (Electron Deception T Shirts)

The pic above is Laura making a screen. Lately she and I have been trying to silk-screen t shirts, mainly for our band Electron Deception. We thought that after a few tries we could figure out how to do this, but its been proving more difficult than we expected. So far, we've managed to destroy a number of screens and photo emulsion sheets. On Saturday we got a fairly decent screen, but all the detail in the face was lost. Tomorrow we'll start again, I suppose. The image below is what we're trying to get onto the screen (and then the shirts). (Sorry for the low res image.) If you notice, the lettering is kind of thin, so we were worried about that part, plus the little wisps of hair. What turned out to be a problem was the eye area.

Regardless of how successful we are, we like the image we came up with. Its not the most original idea (if you've seen a Che t-shirt, or pretty much any shirt with an historical figure's face on it, it might seem pretty standard), but it seemed do-able for first time silk screeners. Also, we felt like the art deco-influenced font combined with the image of Laura's face (which I think of as more Blondie than Che), at least lets it not completely be a blatant rip off. Anyway, feedback is welcome. If we ever get it on a shirt, orders will be welcome too.

Electron Deception

So, among other things, I am the drummer in the band Electron Deception.  We're not too big but we enjoy playing and we're going on a tour pretty soon.  The people in the band are Laura L., Ryan D., Chris R. (I didn't ask them if I could put their last names up, so for now just last initials, though their full names are on our myspace page.)  We play a lot of shows in Utah, and sometimes outside of Utah, so come to one.  Also, you can come hang out with us any time.  Just message us or something.  

Our music is electro dance music and our EP should be done in June 2009.  Some influences are Depeche Mode, Ladytron, The Sex Pistols, Ratatat, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc.  There's more but for some reason those are the ones that come to mind at the moment.  To help you visualize (or aural-ize, as the case may be) our sound, we have two keyboards (but one keyboard player), an electronic drum set (not preprogramed drums, but an actual electric set like those lame ones from the 80s that turned out to be super cool), bass, and vocals.  On one song I also do back-up vocals.  

We're pretty DIY about stuff.  For example, right now Laura and I are learning how to silk screen shirts.  At our next shows you can buy one if you like; we'll basically be selling them for what it cost us to make them.  We also make lots of posters and that sort of thing, which we'll sell to you for a dollar, or just give to you if you're cool.  We are kind of trying to do a series of posters that are similar to each other, but still distinct as well.  Each one features Laura and some words.  The amount of information on each poster is very minimal, which I thought was cool, but might just be annoying.  Also, we're trying to figure out what to do for our EP cover.  We want to do that ourselves to, but we also want it to look really good.  We have looked at getting a rubber stamp made, painting each one individually, getting them printed somewhere else, or some other approach.  If you have suggestions let us know.  

Well, in the future I'm sure I'll have something better to say about the band, but for now I just wanted get it out there.  So yeah, that's Electron Deception.  

myspace.com/electrondeception