Press kits are the easiest and most universal way to get your new music into the hands of people who matter (press, labels, management, etc). Unfortunately, there isn’t any one definitive primer that says what should be in a press kit — and more importantly, what shouldn’t be in a press kit. For people like us at 402, press kits are essential. So, for the artists without a PR company helping them out with their press kits, this is a simple guide to tell you what you should have in your kit and what you shouldn’t have.

And before you anal readers get on my case — I know this is a pie chart and not a flow chart. Sue me.

Current artist bio

This is the main information everyone should know about you and what you’re promoting, whether it’s an upcoming tour or an album or a new video on YouTube or whatever it is. The bulk of the kit will be words about what you’re doing. Remember to follow the classic W’s approach:

Who are you? Make this really short. A few sentences. We don’t need a life story, and would prefer not to skip over paragraphs of information… so after I read three or so sentences of “Back in 1998…” and “…so in 2003…” and “Our last album in 2008″ then I’m suddenly at a loss of interest. Here’s an example from the press kit for the new band Marriages:

Marriages is a new band comprised of Red Sparowes members Emma Ruth Rundle (vocals, guitar), Greg Burns (bass, synthesizer) and David Clifford (drums).

And that’s it. No elongated elaborate musing of how the band became to be — that’s interview fodder. A press kit needs to communicate information extremely quickly and efficiently.

What are you promoting? This will no doubt be the bulk of your words. If it’s an album, feel free to go into nitty-gritty details. When did you record it? Where? What inspired it? Any meanings that may go over our heads first time around? What is it like? Any special tracks we should pay attention to? Things like that. If it’s a show, similar guidelines apply. Is it in support of something? Are you opening for someone special? A benefit? An album release party? Hold my hand and walk me through your project with words.

Usable images/artwork

This is very important. Especially to 402, as we are album art fiends here. Please include album artwork, promo pictures, live pictures, tour posters, etc. in your kit. The more stuff the better. All the press kit information I normally receive will include high resolution artwork and usually at least two high resolution images of the artist. All sites are different, some use only artwork and some use as many pictures as possible. Send as many as you got.

The term “usable” should be defined as two things: 1) do I want this to represent who I am/who we are and 2) will this image pixelate if enlarged? Sending high resolution images would solve the latter of the two problems, as most websites don’t post images over 1.0MB for a review (or a size larger than 1000×1000 normally). The first one is more subjective — be smart about it and be creative. An image of a band up against a brick wall is fairly lame, albeit general and informative. A photoshoot of all of your members doing something themed — maybe around the theme of your album — is something more interesting. Straylight Run had a pretty fun set of promotion photos when they were releasing their album The Needles, The Space. Sort of a throwback showtime-y vibe… dare I say steampunk?

Don’t overflow the kit with image gibberish. I received a kit once where it was a PDF of a handful of pages and the background on all of the pages were random images of all the members in the band at some party. Needless to say, I couldn’t really extract these photos out rendering them useless to me. However, it was also really distracting and unnecessary. I appreciate the effort, but the hours it took you to collage each page together could have been spent on emailing more press outlets.

Supporting information

Tour dates, liner notes, production notes, track listings, press clippings, etc all go here. It shouldn’t be the bulk and should only accent what you’ve said in the current bio. Think of all of this stuff as the promotional stuff you may put on a flier or adspace. Can’t use up much space — needs to convey a lot in a tiny amount. Press clippings from press outlets are helpful — as are jibs like “FOR FANS OF _________, _____________, and _________!!!”. Liner notes and production notes are really helpful for us at 402, and for other more in-depth review websites, as we like to dissect albums track-by-track. However, put only what’s necessary. I don’t need a story about how your group Craigslist’d a preamp that didn’t work but sounded cool when you dropped it on the floor. Again, interview stuff… not press review stuff.

This is also a good area to include contact information. This is including ALL contact information: Twitter, Facebook, external links to sites hosting your music, email addresses of everyone who represents you, etc. We can support you best by promoting you through every mean we have. If you don’t tell us about your Facebook page, we’ll never know about it. That is… many (most) of us won’t try to Google you and dig around for information — the people who need to use this as a guide most likely don’t have many supporting documents that are very reliable via search engine.

Other

Other is usually easy: album link/stream, supporting video links, information on interview slots or events you’ll be at, etc. Again, don’t need life stories or explanations — we know what to do when you put links in your kit.

General information and what I don’t like seeing

In the end, what does a press kit look like? That’s up to you — seriously. Some kits I get are all embedded within the email, with links out to their “other” section. Some kits are PDF with the albums linked out to some 3rd party file hosting website. Some kits are entire webpages with everything embedded within it. I’ve seen kits that are compressed into a single file and then when it’s uncompressed it’s just a bunch of one page word document files. I got a handful of physical press kits, where they’ve printed out all of the supporting documents and a physical copy of the album. I had a physical press kit once delivered in a basket with that plastic stringy fluff before.

My personal press kit when I was in a band years ago had a compressed file with three folders inside: Press Kit, MP3s, and Images. Should be pretty straight forward as to what was in each folder…

Not all press kits are expected to have your album free, all willy-nilly. In fact, the majority of the press kits I receive ask for me to reply with a request to access the album at hand. That’s completely fine. A handful of companies I work with have just added me to a “press release promo mailing list” of some sort, where they can monitor who is downloading an album and from where. Another handful of companies just send me albums and ask me to review them — through sites like Mediafire or DropBox. Again, all of these options are completely fine with me and my team here at 402. Just ask yourself What would be the easiest way to get these people my music?

What I hate seeing is: albums attached, track by track in the attachments. I don’t want to download your album track by track. If it’s compressed into a file and attached, I’m okay with that. Just remember to include your press kit. Also, don’t send me fluffer questions about what you should send me. Especially after this. I’ve written a good amount on how to get press and how not to get press on this website. While I try to help everyone out as much as possible, there are easy ways to get on my nerves… being an annoyance and naive/ignorant is definitely one.

Hopefully that helps

This isn’t the most perfect way to present your press kit but it’s generally the way I see (or perceive) most press kits. You may think of a way that is better and that’s fine with me so long as I get all the information out from what you send me. I would assume that most small press units will generally agree with me — if not, please let me know in the comments or via email.

Hello, all! This is Nick Wan. As many of you know, this website doesn’t pay the bills. As many of you also know, nor does my current occupation of student researcher. However, the benefits of being a research assistant are fairly awesome — such as being able to attend and present at international neuroscience conferences. And that is exactly what I’ve been doing for the last few days (and next few days).

Tanya has been my lab partner for two years now. We’ve worked on this project, music processing differences between dancers and non-dancers, ever since we got into this lab (ran by our primary investigator, Dr. Nakano). As expected, I’ve probably spent more hours shoulder-to-shoulder with Tanya while hacking away on a computer than maybe anyone else in my life.

As many of you probably don’t know (or particular care about), Cognitive Neuroscience Society Meeting is one of the bigger neuroscience-specific conferences in the world. It’s sort of like the science equivalent of Noise Pop, CMJ, or SXSW — it’s multiple days, bringing together a bunch of the newest neuroscience research available (some from big name schools, many [most] from small name schools). It’s similar priced to some of these touted festivals (around $120 for registered students, around $400 for unregistered “at-the-door” tickets). And the big thing: networking. You’re trying to talk with as many like-minded people as possible. Hopefully they will help you out with your project designs and potentially you spark some interest in some researchers who are ending a current study and hoping to start a new one. This is all wrapped together with keynote speakers, slide presentations, and award ceremonies.

The venue of the CNS Meeting changes yearly, switching between a handful of US cities (if I’m not mistaken, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York). This year is in Chicago. We were in the first presentation group. Each presentation group crams into a massive room, where over 100 presenters are presenting their posters at the same time. Generally, you will be talking to anywhere from 40 – 200 people about your project. Then, you will be fielding maybe 10 – 40 extremely difficult questions about your research. It’d be like playing a demo for the foremost A&R and producers and having them tear you up, constructively. In a sense, it’s not as hardcore as being torn up by a producer (or multiple producers at the same time) because the science community is about advancing good research, as opposed to bashing a project because of tiny blemishes here or there. In fact, many of the projects being presented are still in the process of being analyzed — almost none of the projects are near completion, and a handful are preliminary results.

Our presentation went a little into overtime, so to say. We were talking nonstop and at the very end, literally maybe 10 minutes before the hall closed for the night, we had two interested CNS members ask us about our findings. These discussions can vary between the short and the engaged (aka the long). This case was the long. Which was fine, because if you know me then you know about how I love talking. Because of this, we took our poster down last. They had to turn the lights on and off, sort of like signalling last call.

My friend Adrienne, a native Chicagoan, recommended us to check out The Neo-Futurists’ Theater and their showing of Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. The cab driver stated, “That’s… a local’s place. How do you know about it? There’s a line around the corner for it every weekend. It’s in the church.” And so it was — next to a funeral chapel. The line did wrap around the corner and the show was sold out (as it normally does). It was maybe one of the best theater performances I’ve ever seen (I don’t see much theater, but this will be hard to top going forward). Going to Chicago and missing out on that is not a wise thing to do.

Tonight was an easy night — we ate Gino’s deep dish and watched Game of Thrones. We went to a handful of talks and poster presentations today. Tomorrow it a lot of music related talks, so I’ll obviously be there. More pictures and notes from the field soon.

We get a lot of emails. This should serve as a nice primer guide. And yeah, we’re definitely behind on the funny flowchart meme. Forgive us, Internet Jesus. More flowcharts to come… most likely less relevant and more weird.

I was invited to a show the other Saturday, the 2nd Annual DigiTour presented by Neuro and Posse Audio, and although it wasn’t necessarily a show I normally attend (nor would I review almost any act on that stage that night) it did shine a few shimmering lights on the side of music business that we at 402 are normally sheltered from. You see, we are mainly based upon a few errant beginnings from my music past — where it was really hard for me to get people to review my stuff due to my small name, small amount of shows played, tiny fish in a tinier pond sort of persona I was given. This site was supposed to be promotions of music acts that normally get little to no press — much less, advocating good music that isn’t hyped or talked up by some editing team that dictates what you listen to and read about. Needless to say, we don’t have much power here to flip a band from a no-name-nothing to a signed success, but that’s not the point I suppose. Promotion of music isn’t just magazines or publications, nor is it really online publications or social networking power. For me, it’s a holistic approach to what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. You tour, you come out with an album, you promote it and you get your friends to promote it, you do all you can to flush out new fans. It’s a classic tale with new technology. Your promotions are based around the hundreds of emails you send a day, or subtly becoming a forum regular on popular message boards while using your signature as a linking out point, or your witty and retweetable comments on your Twitter feed… whatever it is, the kids at the bottom of the totem pole seem to be doing alright for themselves. Shows are easier to book today than they were a few years ago. A band that could pull 20 people to a show on a weeknight was a big deal back in the late 90s — now, if you don’t have 40 or so people coming in, what the hell were you doing for the past few weeks? Promotions, promotions, promotions.

This show was all about promotion in two forms: lots of corporate money keeping all the acts happy and the fact that the lot of them had “OVER 2 BILLION YOUTUBE VIEWS”. Wow. You can swing that number however you like: whether one act got the majority of it, or it was spread evenly between everyone, or if a single dude clicked refresh a few hundred million times, the command of that many views means something today. It’s sort of like the Billboard of the old, or the Rolling Stone top albums and singles list of the older — the new version of a one-hit wonder is no longer about radio play but the view count on your most viral video.

The show itself was fairly poor, and I think there isn’t much more to be said other than that. Almost all of the acts with the exception of a few were not really live performers. The way the show was set up was also gimmicky, with a massive TV screen presenting the musical act’s YouTube videos alongside and in sync while the act was playing their song. As the troupe of The Key of Awesome said, “You don’t have to watch the TV while you’re here. You can look at us, too.” Funny, as that’s definitely what a live show should be.

The line up in terms of YouTube cred was fairly impressive: Nick Pitera sang, who is known for his ability to sing like a girl (quite literally, as his video for “A Whole New World” suggests). Dave Days attracted a handful of his channel subscribers — he (I guess) is known for making quirky videos directed towards the teen community. A handful of Ricky Ficarelli‘s friends seemed to be shared musicians for many of the acts that night — and this Ficarelli fellow seems to be the drummer version of a Justin Bieber character. During soundcheck, he was no slouch — definitely a shredder on the drums. And that’s actually something to be said about all of the acts this night: no one theoretically sucked. Everyone was amazing. The fat black guy who sang parody songs about food could belt it. Asher Monroe‘s vocal ability matched the swagger. The Key of Awesome (we’ll get to the nitty gritty about them in a bit) were on point. Alex Goot was also a fairly polished singer-songwriter product. Wellington, albeit Disney soundtrack rock music, all had musicians who could play their asses off in any context.

The driving force that has shoved all of this together is most likely what “selling out” means to me. I encounter bands all the time who talk about “selling out” or what it means to sell out. Mixed reviews suggest that this notion of selling out is always subjective and about as dumb as calling someone gay or retarded. It makes no sense and is a term used mainly to piss people off. But I feel that after seeing what a lot of backing can do, selling out is a real thing.

The show, and it’s handful of sponsors (the biggest being Neuro and Posse Audio it seems), was commanded by money. Oddly enough, no one gives a shit about viral videos outside of the internet. There were maybe 20 people at this show who came solely because of an act on stage. The others seemed to have either won passes some how or were invited. The target demographic was definitely teens and pre-teens, which basically doubles ticket sales since they usually bring a parent along. The New Parish, the Oakland venue the show was held, isn’t a no-name venue at all — Too Short, Ozomatli, Orgy, and Afroman are playing there in the upcoming months. On any other occasion, trying to swing a show that will attract only 20 kids who can’t purchase drinks at the bar would normally not even be booked. In this case, there wasn’t any indication of a loss of funds.

Which brings me to my thoughts on corporate backings of new bands. Usually, it’s for some sort of promotion — Disney rock is usually in order to find cheap teencentric music to play in their made-for-TV-movies; promising production costs and studio time being covered in exchange of flaunting Neuro energy drinks is also a way to gain a cultish following if all of the cult fans of a certain act begin drinking what was on a table of a viral video. One of the staff at The New Parish put it bluntly, this concert is completely fabricated. And who is to say that’s a bad thing? These kids want to make music their living. What’s a few dollars for a crappy tour going to do? Hurt their rep? They have no rep to begin with. The headlining band, Wellington, admitted they had only played two other shows before this night — and those two other shows were the two other shows of the DigiTour. Asher Monroe was asked to play one more song, a sort of encore — which any SUPPORTING act would die for normally — and he awkwardly declined. DECLINED? PLAYING MUSIC ON STAGE? IN FRONT OF POTENTIAL FANS? Needless to say, his set was not perfect — he missed coming into the verse by singing his own chorus for an extra progression. Monroe was one of the less prepared of the live acts, as he definitely has not played with a live band probably ever.

Most of the acts had little to no experience on stage. Dave Days, the lanky left handed pop punker, seemed to be one of the most comfortable on stage. His banter and presence was reminiscent of what a local show with high school bands felt like when I was growing up in that age. His “band”, a bassist and Ricky Ficarelli, was still rigged together by outside forces it seems. The bassist of Wellington, the long-haired, muscle-heavy guy named Troy, was also very energetic. Some of the cornier things, like melodically saying I can’t hear you or picking at his bass while holding it by the neck overhead as if every song was the last song of the night, were amiss for me. Other than these two and Nick Pitera, everyone else seemed uncomfortable — not energetic — abnormal to watch after seeing their viral videos.

As promotion goes, the world of advertising is definitely a crapshoot. Somethings work and somethings don’t. Some times, putting up a lot of money for an act can pay off — the amount of money invested into *NSync was probably a good idea in retrospect, whereas putting a ton of money into Dr. Dre‘s Detox is bordering on Guns ‘n’ Roses Chinese Democracy in terms of return investment. Where would these DigiTour kids fall? Most likely closer to a risk than a reward. I view it as this: trying to promote a hard working band by making videos for that band is just another way to promote a band. Trying to promote a well produced viral video by making a band for it is much harder to do. You can edit around a video — hard to edit around a real live band. Reverse engineering these YouTube wonders doesn’t seem like a very good strategy.

The worst part about this tour seems to be the talent director or scout for the tour. I mean, how hard was Gotye to get? In all honesty? He’s the hottest viral wonder out there right now and you aren’t cashing out to have him headline? What would be the problem of ditching the view count stats for actual bands and fans? Couldn’t you put together a show with bands who have been together for longer than a week, pay the same money, and have better returns?

In the end, the best advice for a band or artist with a viral video is something that is very well known in the music world: be a big fish in your small pond before becoming a small fish in a very large, vast, competitive, usually heartbreaking pond. Viral promotion, paired with corporate promotion, seems good on paper but can introduce you to horrible habits. A habit formed out of this show would be thinking that you will always have a safety net after a show is done. Then you board your million dollar tour bus provided to you for free and drive off to Tempe. That’s definitely not how it goes — you get a van, you get shit stolen, you learn how to change out your spark plugs, you sleep in positions most people aren’t comfortable sitting or laying in. Even before that, you flier your town, you play a ton of free shows, you make albums using stolen software and shitty microphones and you press them yourselves and hand them out to everyone in walking distance, you play shows at all the venues in your town until you finally see a kid or two without their arms crossed and jumping around. A viral video helps speed up this process, but you have to be smart about the speed in which it does this at. This isn’t to say that selling out, or being used by corporations to be the face of their product, is entirely horrible. As I mentioned, these kids on this tour are slayers in their own right — probably all guaranteed studio musicians in the very least. This experience might be once in a life time for a good amount of them. It’s just a bad idea to pretend to be something you aren’t. And many of these acts were just that — acts.

Photos courtesy of Annie Tsui

It’s true, Rufus Leaking and crew just called it quits. In their announcement today, the recently former public television children’s show that also promoted indie music has fallen short of it’s next big step: securing funding and support for a wider, larger television show. For those who have been privy to Pancake Mountain, you already know what hilarious antics are being lost today. For those who have no idea, here’s a few videos that I was exposed to years ago (I think around 2007 or so).

There used to be more videos available, but it seems that many have been pulled down and never reuploaded. There were many interviews from the Warped Tour with Captain Amazing (I think that’s what his name was… I believe the interview I witnessed was the Captain interviewing Anti-Flag?), or The White Stripes teaching children how to count through a song, or the random Ian MacKaye videos about education from their first episodes. Needless to say, the two media being promoted (children’s television and extremely under-the-radar music acts) aren’t necessarily cash cows.

For those who still are lost, Pancake Mountain really stuck their necks out for both indie artists and children. As many of their videos show, they would have bands and artists play for children usually before that act played a show later that night, usually in the same venue. This created 1) a great way to introduce your children to good live music, as well as being able to see a band or artist play live when you might not have been able to if you are a parent and 2) viral promotion for a small indie band or artist. I mean, not too many live videos are out there with +30 children jumping around your stage. A handful of acts that strolled through were indie acts on their way up to bigger and better things, such as Arcade Fire, Tegan & Sara, Katy Perry (seriously, Katy Perry pre- “I Kissed a Girl”), Deerhoof, and the list goes on. This execution of booking soon-to-be-huge music acts and quality children’s programming ends up becoming what many people believed to be a completely new wave of television — some even argued it was a completely new genre of television. Sadly, Pancake Mountain may have been leagues ahead of it’s time.

Rufus Leaking, the face of Pancake Mountain (created by Scott Stuckey), was fairly vague as to specific reasons why they have called it quits. However, we are left with this most telling quote:

The hoity-toity TV network big wigs just couldn’t bring themselves to let us make our show the way it was intended. And, if our punk ethos has taught us anything, it’s never sell out to The Man.

And right you did, Rufus. Right you did.

In my opinion, we have lost one of the more interesting facets of promoting indie music with the loss of Pancake Mountain. Of course, Stuckey seemed to be very focused on promoting children’s programming and education… however, the internet majority of ironic adults who seek out the newest and best music were most likely the viewing majority of Pancake Mountain. Their cartoon expression and interviewing style gave way to a platform of silliness that only the most affluent pop stars seem to be able to garnish on shows like Yo! Gabba Gabba and Sesame Street. Even when these musical demigods of our time are promoted, there is no real execution more than just a cameo and some lyrics changed around in your most popular song to promote the letter of the day. Pancake Mountain was all encompassing: real promotion of artists, real entertainment based around artists, and a solid backbone for promoting children’s programming.

Is this to say we may have seen the first and last of a genre? I would say so. Unless Pancake Mountain finds a way to become a web-based series (highly unlikely) or the “hoity-toity TV big wigs” decide to renegotiate creative freedom for Stuckey and company (even more improbable than the web-based idea) then I don’t believe we will be seeing something as unique and exciting as Pancake Mountain ever again. Which is truly why we are losing one of the most creative and innovative indie media outlets of our time.

So, for fans, parents, and children… I feel that loss with you.

In a very stupid and most appropriate way, Pancake Mountain’s farewell video on YouTube has been blocked via Warner Brothers because of the use of Sinatra’s “My Way”. However, you can view this video (which is both a montage of previous shows with all the characters as well as a completed credits list) HERE.

The staff question-and-answer routine continues with…

Starting in 2011 and continuing on, a heavy flow of bands whose existence has been put on hold for a while have been given new life. Whether it’s a one-off tour or a full-fledged reunion, who are you most excited to have back?

Nick Wan:

At The Drive-In. Almost all bands and artists on this site have either been inspired by or love ATDI. And yet, there has never been a band since to come near the influential prowess they possessed. Not to mention, they have been heralded as the best live band of all time; so the kids born in the 90s have never seen a show of theirs in person.

Adam Finley:

Ben Folds Five. Yeah, I know, Ben is a magical fountain of awesome songwriting with or without the rest of the band, but it’s awesome to see the old lineup back together in all their garage nerd-rocky glory. And Ben says a new album is “happening fo sho”. Show me the mosh pit.

Nate Pavlot:

I’m most excited to see Dispatch back together. Back in the day they were one of the first groups to inspire me to pick up a guitar, and my inner-bro could not be more excited that they’re recording again.

Ryan Gabos:

Although I won’t get to see them, Archers Of Loaf getting back together is awesome. I’ve enjoyed watching fan-recorded videos of these guys still pulling off their flawless indie rocking anthems. One faux-reunion I did get to experience was Joan Of Arc’s addition of Victor Villarreal to their lineup which resulted in them playing a few Owls tunes on tour. I say faux-reunion because only two of the four members were actually in Owls, but nonetheless, it felt really awesome belting the words to “Everyone Is My Friend” back at Tim Kinsella from a few feet away.

I never make mixtapes or playlists because I normally suck at them. Usually, I’ll just end up loading a bunch of songs I like but make no sense when you listen to them together. I really tried hard on this one, guys. Here’s the playlist and a run down of why these songs made my list.

Anamanaguchi – Helix Nebula
I was looking for the intro music to the game Super Tecmo Bowl, but decided Anamanaguchi, a band that relies on chiptunes/8-bit, would work fine for an intro.

The Owls – Everyone is My Friend
Sadly, there aren’t too many songs with the word “Super,” “Bowl,” or “Super Bowl” in them. And even fewer that are actually decent to listen to. Superb Owl was more strategic in name than anything. Thus, The Owls being on the list.

Lemonator – Superb
This was the only song in my library with the word “Superb” in it. I’ve heard Lemonator maybe twice… one of those Amoeba dirt-cheap used album finds.

Wavves – Super Soaker
“Super”. This may be one of the only Wavves songs I like.

Circa Survive – The Most Dangerous Commercials
Not only is this song fucking amazing, but it’s fairly relevant tonight.

Christie Front Drive – Bowl
On a side note, for the longest time I thought Chris Simpson from Mineral was in this band. I was fooled though.

State Route 522 – Avenue of the Giants
I am against the Giants tonight because they beat my precious 49ers. But, that shouldn’t discount Jake Snider’s band before Sharks Keep Moving and Minus the Bear. State Route 522 was way messier than the technically sound riffage of Minus the Bear, and fairly opposite of the sort of jazzy slowcore vibe Sharks Keep Moving had. Also, the lesser known State Route 522 is sort of like the proverbial underdog in terms of this game, in which this song is representing the NY Giants. The song representing The Patriots is fairly more well known.

Karate - Trophy
It makes sense. Also, if you haven’t been listening to Karate, Ardecore, Glorytellers, or any of the other Geoff Farina projects, then what the fuck are you doing with your life?

Action Action – A Tornado; An Owl
OWL!!! Also, Action Action is a fair assessment of what is about to happen in this football game.

David Bazan – Cold Beer & Cigarettes
Minus the cigarettes, this is exactly what I’m indulging in.

Billy Bragg – A New England
This was everyone’s favorite song at some point. And New England should be the favorites this game.

Enjoy the Super Bowl, music friends. And if you are just at some party and don’t care, drink ALL THE BEER. And if you’re just at home, not caring about anything and not drinking beer, you should probably study. For something. Anything. Read a book.

Hey there, readers of 402! Welcome to the new series of articles where a music-related question is tossed around to all of our staff, and we respond. Simple. Today’s question…

We all know that the most talked about band in the world will always be The Beatles. Their catalogue is an excellent one, but, what song(s) of theirs can you not stand?

Nick Wan:

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. That transition with the drums into the chorus always bugs the fucking shit out of me. You’re the greatest band in the world, writing the greatest album in the world, and you let that bullshit slide? George Martin (the producer at the time) must have been duct taped and thrown into a closet to let Ringo get away with that shit. I am filling with rage just talking about that song. Yellow Submarine may be number two. A select few White Album tracks too.

Blake Rice:

Yellow Submarine. Obnoxious fucking song.

Adam Finley:

Norwegian Wood annoys the hell out of me. I had to play it on clarinet for my middle school band and even back then I was like “this song is bullshit!” I don’t know precisely what it is: the obvious attempts at “cleverness”, the repetitive melody, the cock-blocking job the woman has, or the friggin’ sitar, but I despise that song. If someone puts that on Beatles Rock Band I walk out of the room.

Nate Pavlot:

I’m gonna have to go with “Baby You’re A Rich Man”. That chorus just got carved into my brain one too many times.

Ryan Gabos:

As far as a single song is concerned, I would have to go with “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite.” Yes, when the Fab Four took psychedelic drugs it produced some great tunes, but it doesn’t get more irritating for me than that particular track. Others that bug the hell out of me are any of the handful of songs that George decided to play sitar for. “Tomorrow Never Knows,” “Within You Without You,” etc. They seem less like songs and more, “Let’s have George mess around on that thing for a few minutes. John, say whatever comes to mind.”

There I am! Putting an EEG cap on one of my great friends, Kris Milland. I’m a bit haggard in this picture, as my unshaven face and bed hair will attest. This is truly the lab I have spent the better part of the past two years in. As I have spoken very openly in the past, neuroscience is something that is a big part of my life. Music is a huge passion, but research is something that I am also passionate about. If you notice the empty chair behind me in this picture… I’ve probably spent more hours in that chair than any chair I’ve ever owned. And I like that.

Something that is nice about doing data analysis is the fact that I was able to throw on any recently submitted albums for review as I was hacking away at my keyboard. It is this awesome blend of extremely hard work set to the soundtrack of my 402 Productions album submits inbox. Sort of like working two very time consuming jobs at the same time.

In that, doing what I do in my academic life and what I do in my personal life was becoming more and more convoluted. My sleep would be suffering because I was up all night reading literature on EEG studies and then writing reviews to be scheduled the next day. And then, when there were no more hours of sleep that could suffer, my grades and work ethic began to suffer. And then, my activity on 402 began to suffer.

There is a lot of suffering… and it is all hard to admit. So, I had to change my life fairly drastically in order to produce high quality work both in my academic life and my personal life. Unfortunately, 402 Productions was what I’ve had to “move away” from. So, with this, I am stepping down as the editor-in-chief, or boss, or head writer, or main contact, or whatever you want to call it. I will just be another writer for this website, and hopefully I can contribute whenever I can find time. And, by the looks of things, I won’t have much time (which is really tough to admit/say).

I wrote a really long statement about what 402 was and what it became, but at the very end of it I ended with some words to music bloggers. I found that in the same concept of this site, I’ll give some advice I’ve found useful when setting up 402 rather than having this extremely long poetic history about how big my dick is.

Write with furious passion

This website didn’t just wake up and have albums being submitted to us on a daily basis. I would go to class and have a new album playing into my ears for practically the entire day. At times, specifically in an anthropology class, I was made fun of for being the kid in a lecture listening to music. It wasn’t that I was not interested in the topic (anthropology is actually really interesting to me) but rather 1) the class seemingly went faster when soundtracked to music and 2) if I was actually bored in lecture, I had a place to escape to. At home, I really did escape. I would write up a review about this article I’ve had on repeat for the last handful of hours, spilling my guts out about how the track listing was not right or how the instrumentation could have been tighter or how it could have been split into two EPs rather than a single LP. So on and so forth. I really do give a lot of time to each album I listen to, and that time equals writing quality of an article to me. It shouldn’t be about the amount of hits you get or how fancy your site looks. It’s about wanting to just do something, even when no one is looking. The time you have alone to yourself and you’re thinking How can I do something constructive? My answer ended up being this website.

Don’t put the cart before the horse

After I began getting my first EPKs and album submissions from bands and artists, I began to think about getting into festivals. In doing so, I began to apply for press credentials for festivals even though our website didn’t had any respectable traffic. That was only a year ago, and I have now sent Adam Finley to Bumbershoot and Bryan to some traffic-sensitive shows. However, the point is that there are realistic goals and there are long term goals. Festivals was a long term goal. Something like getting 20 articles out in a month is a short term goal. Famous psychologists Maslow and Rogers attest that the distance between where you are right now and where your goals, dreams, ambitions, hopes, desires are has some sort of distance between each other. The shorter this distance is, the greater the quality of your life. This website works in that same sense. We aspire towards usually one big yearly goal and try to do the things that build us up to that goal.

Remember professionalism

In music journalism, especially for this website, being contacted by bands and artists directly is sometimes amazing and always unique. However, sometimes it’s fairly unfortunate. Some emails I get are extremely unprofessional. Usually filled with poor grammar, bad spelling, mentions about bitches and hoes, dropping f words every other fucking sentence. But then you listen to their album and their music is something completely different from their internet personality. It’s something we all have to acknowledge in the realm of internet talking — the personality we emote. Earlier, when I was still learning how to properly request for an album, I would write these very long and elaborate goals about what I was going to do with an album. It took a very nice press contact of mine (I can’t recall exactly who it was — it was a guy, that’s all I know) to tell me to cut back on the bells and whistles and just keep emails simple. It really dawned on me that this is really people’s 9 to 5. They want work to go swimmingly on a daily basis. Dealing with assholes like me is something that they don’t really want to come across — especially when I’m seemingly never going to go away for the time being. So, remembering professionalism goes both ways. I expect the equivalent of a handshake in an email, not a bro fist or a bro hug. On my end, I hope that I am returning what seems to be the equivalent of a handshake and not a mistaken novel of fandom and descriptions of useless things.

Define what you want to do and then have that define you

That’s the most important part about 402 Productions and me. I said I am going to review albums from bands and artists who get little to no press. I did that enough to the point where people wanted to write with me about bands and artists who get little to no press. Then, people around me started to take notice. Including my professors, who believe that 402 Productions is a full-time job for me (after calculating the hours… it is). It defines me now. I held this place and ran with it until it grew its own legs and began running on its own. I am not 402 Productions. Everyone on this staff are the components that make up 402 Productions. Every single reader is a component of 402 Productions now. I don’t have to get up and run with this place anymore. I can sit back and watch this place do marathons. And, in my opinion, I feel like I couldn’t run a marathon with 402 Productions even if I tried at this point.

Goodbye, 402!

With that, I am stepping down from the boss of the place. In my place, Ryan Gabos will be taking the lead on all projects and assignments. He’ll be the go to guy from here on out. I will hopefully contribute a review every so often in the coming year, but that will most likely be far and few. I hope this place can continue without me being the fearless leader. In a true sense, I know it can.

402 Productions’ editor and co-creator Nick Wan doesn’t always upload pictures to his Facebook, but when he does, he weaves his secret history of epic proportions through his photographs. Forget about the Nick Wan you thought you knew. I have been studying my boss’s Facebook page for months now, and after much frustration and trial and error, I have cracked the code behind the man’s system. Allow me to walk you through Mr. Wan’s real life story up until now, via a series of episodic articles.

Regarding Nick’s code for which he chooses to display photos on Facebook, it is a rather confusing ordeal. Keep in mind that I have spent countless sleepless nights and days ebbing away ever so slowly at the unexpected mystery that lay behind this guy’s seemingly harmless portraits. We are dealing with conspiracy on a very small scale here. One man’s social networking account somehow covered up years and years of a human being’s life and replaced it with lies. I do not wish to give headaches or fry anyone’s mind, so I will not reveal the algorithm necessary to exhume Wan’s TRUE past time. The overload of knowledge, comprehension, and subsequently horrific realization of what has come to pass would simply cause your cerebral cortex to explode if digested all at once. The world is not ready. Instead, all that I can say is that the equation deals with an abundance of “ironic” peace signs, guitars, and alcohol abuse.

I find that the best starting point to regaling Nick Wan’s secret history begins with the above picture. This is what he looked like at the ripe and tender age of fourteen… the age when things started to go wrong. Wan had always loved the sea. Venturing out to the beach was an everyday affair for young Nick. Early in the morning, he would prepare his large backpack and head out to the place he loved most: Dynamite Shoals. The area was a popular attraction for kids like Nick; naive, thrill-seeking, and aquatic. The backpack he brought was always used for any seashells that were found throughout the day. Unique or not, Wan was a conch fanatic. He would fill up that satchel with muscles and bivalves until he could fit no more, and then leave it under his beach umbrella so that he could go swim in the ocean.

One fateful day, after a great haul from high tide, Nick took his trusty bag up to his umbrella setup to wait for his return from riding the waves. A half hour goes by. He comes back to the sand, folds up his umbrella and beach chair, tosses his backpack on, and departs. Like always, when arriving home, Nick opened his backpack up to better analyze the day’s winnings. Only there were no seashells when he unzipped. On the contrary, fifty pounds of cocaine wrapped in individual baggies flooded out. The look on his face, went beyond astonishment. It looked like this:

Our protagonist, fourteen-year-old Nick Wan, sat and stared incredulously at the cornucopia of drugs that had somehow replaced the treasure chest of happy, joyous shells discovered on the beach just hours ago. Silence. Shock. Disbelief. A phone call. Without hesitation, Wan grabbed the phone.

NICK WAN: Hello, Wan residence.

???: If you ever want to go shell gathering again, you will bring the goods to Dynamite Shoals at midnight. Under the boardwalk. No tricks. Got that, smart ass?

…And that concludes the first installment of Nick Wan’s life as translated by his pictures on Facebook. As aforementioned, I will trickle more chapters out at random and without warning. Enjoy your day.