Dirtnap Records might be the best straight-ahead punk label around right now. In the last few years, they've released start-to-finish great albums by The Exploding Hearts, The Epoxies and The Minds. Right now they've got two more great tracks posted.
The bands they put out come from some alternate universe where punk and new wave never split, and the Go-Go's chart success lead to Minor Threat breaking bigtime.
Charming Snakes get a big rolling Glen Matlock bassline going, a reminder that the Sex Pistols rarely played that fast, but sure found a way to hit hard. The Ends track has a great Stiv Bators vocal and a pounding Jerry Lee Lewis piano - a lot of Dirtnap bands make keyboards rock as hard as guitars.
Charming Snakes - Ammunition
The Ends - Pucker Up
And speaking of Minor Threat, what is Nike doing here?
posted by bendy @ 6/24/2005 12:48:00 PM [permanent link]
Blackstrap is a rockpunk band that was formed in 2002 by several
disgruntled music fans. Some had played in bands for years, some had
never been involved in music. All of us were upset with the
direction the USA was moving. As you can tell, our impact on all that
has been overwhelming.
We broke up in 2004, just before releasing a debut EP. We still feel
bad about messing up 307 Knox Records
like that. We got back together in
2005. We might drive each other crazy again, so no promises.
We're a band that doesn't have many options as far as
money and time and touring and all those other thing that could make a
band be your life. The web is the main way we promote
ourselves. We figured out we should share what meager knowledge we have
obtained.
Websites are a lot of work to figure out, and don't work any magic
on their own. Most people who view your website are already going to know you exist.
Just having a website doesn't mean anyone is going to visit. So don't
worry about securing an Internet domain right away. Stick some
music on MySpace,
and then participate in sites that might actually drive interested
listeners to your music. Blackstrap gets more hits from our link
on ncpunkonline.com than from
higher-profile sites where we get lost in the shuffle.
There are advantages to having your own custom built website and
domain name, but it's only as useful to the extent that it gets linked to.
Here are some sites that are important and help to get noticed. They aren't all music sites, specifically. Alot of them require participation. But hey, you wanted to be on stage, right?