Funk Babblings

I've been listening to the Pat Radio podcast, which is a weekly show focusing on the Columbus music scene. The show's theme song is called "OH/IO (Washington Beach Party)" (by Magic City). That song title is apparently a reference to a neighborhood just northeast of OSU. (Which in turn was apparently derived from Grand Theft Auto.)

Granted, this label for the neighborhood was apparently just coined five years ago, but considering I used to live near there I'm surprised I hadn't heard it before. Have you heard that neighborhood called Washington Beach?
( There's a video for the song! )

(BTW, another music-oriented podcast I've just started listening to is Sound Opinions, a public radio show out of Chicago. The show with Bob Mould got me hooked.)

Have you ever really paid attention to the closing credits on The Daily Show? I've been watching the show for years, and I just noticed this:

Theme Music
"Dog On Fire"
Composed by
BOB MOULD

Theme Music
Performed by
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS


Additional Original
Music Composed
and Performed by
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS

In the past year or two, I've been noticing a lot of indie bands getting attention via non-traditional methods. Traditionally, of course, a band's primary goal is to get signed by a major music label, and from there get pushed on the radio. But with the consolidation of both of those industries, there's not as much room or diversity as there used to be, and both musicians and listeners have started to pay attention to other paths to each other.

I've talked a lot here about podcasts, one of the newest of the new ways of connecting musicians with listeners to buy their music, but there are of course others. TV is a big one -- a lot of shows make it a point to feature new music, often telling the viewer at the end what music they heard. Some bands are even gaining listeners via commercials, especially iPod commercials. Even Starbuck's is getting involved, putting out its own compilation CDs. (I think some are also going the video game route, but since I'm not really into any video games made in the past decade or so, I don't really know anything about that.)

One example that still cracks me up: Back around the turn of the century (you know, 1999-2001), when MP3.com was cool and not owned by a big record company, I spent a lot of time browsing the music there. One band from there that I loved was Headboard, which had a fairly unique hip-hop-influenced/pop-rock/mixed-male-female-vocals sound. But I discovered the band relatively late in its life, and they broke up around 2002. I never met anyone else who'd ever heard of them. Fast-forward to maybe mid-2004-ish, when we're hanging out with some friends, and they turn on the current incarnation of DeGrassi (which I'd never seen before in any incarnation). A character trying to join a band whips out a keyboard and starts banging out "this song he wrote" -- and it's a Headboard song! (Not one of their best, and an instrumental keyboard-only version, but still recognizable.) So apparently Glenn Rubenstein managed to keep the income from the band going a little bit.

So anyway, there was recently a story from the Washington Post (and reprinted elsewhere) about this phenomenon of indie bands finding success with these alternate routes to listeners and money. And it starts with the example of Bob Mould (one of my favorites) getting his new music on The O.C.. I might have to start watching that show just for the music.

Update: By the way, GarageBand.com seems to have picked up where the old MP3.com left off, but I haven't had much time to explore there. Oh, and seriously, go check out Headboard's CD Nothing Is Static at Amazon or the iTunes Music Store.

This Friday is one of those many times when I wish I could be in two places at once....

( Bob Mould in Cleveland )

( Room Nineteen in Columbus )

( Saturday, Cleveland and Canton )

I really should try harder to catch the show listings in Scene every week. Some good ones are coming up...

Tue Oct 26 - Social Distortion at the Agora
Thu Nov 18 (my birthday!) - Bob Mould at the Grog Shop

One of these days I might get around to building a web site that automatically lists the upcoming shows at various venues based on info scraped from other web sites...