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Blogger Of The Week: A New Band A Day
Welcome to the third edition of ABoF's Blog Of The Week! This week, we talked to Joe Sparrow over at A New Band A Day, a Manchester based blog devoted to finding up and coming bands and artists that you wouldn't necessarily find on other sites. They've been a great help to us over the years due to their open minded approach to new music, and have provided some of our less established acts with a great platform to showcase their material.
Tell us about A New Band A Day.
ANBAD is how I spend my time in between sleeping and doing crummy day jobs. It stretches the concept of 'one a day' a bit, in that I post about a new band every working day.
How do you actually find a new band a day - is it a hard task?
It involves plenty of time sifting out the bad bands - the ratio of bad to good is at least 10:1. But I love new bands, new sounds and new songs, so it's not a burden.
There are so many music blogs nowadays, how do you keep the blog fresh and different?
You can't really think too much about that. I've realised over three years that blog readers are hugely discriminating, and so you may as well run/shape a blog exactly as you please, because it will attract/repel readers on precisely those merits. Keeping standards high is a different matter - but just as important.
You're based in Manchester. What's the scene like up there?
It's finally shaken off the Madchester/Factory/Hacienda tag, and now there are a glut of very young, very carefree new bands. Look at the ones who have broken through recently - Everything Everything, Wu Lyf, etc - and you can see how creative and obtuse they are.
Some bloggers are cynical towards PRs sending them music and mailouts about their roster, what's your stance on this?
I get pissed off with PR email when the PR has clearly never read my blog and sends inappropriate bands, or is very obviously sending a faux-chummy "Hey there, how about this wonderful weather?"-type blather.
I appreciate that online PR is pretty tough work, but keeping it simple and straightforward would cut down on the number of times I hammer the delete button. That said: all the PRs I know are lovely people who are nuts about music, so I can't complain too much...
We have to ask... which ABoF artists do you quite like the sound of?
I'm a sucker for any band with punctuation in their name. A genuinely stupid quirk, but it meant that I took to The Son(s) instantly. Lovely tunes.
Finally, for those looking to start a music blog, do you have any advice?
Just do it, and worry about everything else later. Also: if you make a promise in the blog's title that you'll blog every day, without fail - it will take over your life...