Monday, June 21, 2010

Musicians and publicists: Please read this before e-mailing.

Hey, everybody. It's interesting being back in here. I almost forgot my password.

In recent months, I've received quite a few e-mails from musicians and publicists asking for coverage via LaRuminator. It's weird. As far as I could tell, back when I was writing LaRuminator, the only readership I had was people I already knew -- I never received feedback from strangers, and I certainly never heard a single request for coverage. Since roughly the beginning of 2010, though, the e-mails have been coming in fairly reglarly.

While I'm flattered people have somehow stumbled across LaRuminator, I would advise anyone who might be about to e-mail me to request I write about their band to actually take a look at this site. Aside from this post, the most recent post here is dated Feb. 17, 2009. In my experiences, finding a blog where the most recent post is over a year old would indicate one of two things: 1. The blog has been abandoned by its author(s), or 2. The blog is being maintained by a really crappy blogger who doesn't understand the medium and posts too infrequently to keep a readership's attention. Either way, asking for coverage from a blog that's been silent for over a year is kind of like walking past Han Solo in carbon freeze and high-fiving the dude. And furthermore -- you can't discern this from any other blog post here, but I moved to Brooklyn this past spring. If LaRuminator ever were to be revived, it would not have the Connecticut focus that once was its raison d'etre.

I don't want this to look like one big, mean "GO AWAY" sign, because that would be more or less lame and too unnecessarily snarky for my taste. I still write, including music journalism, and I still play in bands, so communicating with like-minded people is always crucial to the furthering of my thing (and yours!). Basically, I'm writing this as a reminder that when you put out a new record or go on tour and enter that long slog of firing off e-mails to every print and web publication you can think of, it's important to make sure you're making the best use of your time. In general, maybe don't e-mail a blog that doesn't cover the kind of music you play, or that doesn't cover the region you're playing in, or that no longer exists. If you do anyway and you write something like, "I love your blog!," it's going to look kind of like you're lying.

Kudos to all the bloggers out there whose work is timely, pertinent and well-written. Maybe someday I'll join their ranks. Just not today.

Best,
Brian