Why asking “webzines” to “review” your music so often backfires…
Posted: September 19, 2022 Filed under: music review | Tags: Big Black, cowman, Cruel Nature, mbv, Music, music review, My Bloody Valentine, the organ Leave a commentSo I recently produced some new noisy music under my cowman persona , which I was so proud of I invested in professional mastering, and shelled out to get 50 LPs pressed. A couple of indie record labels I’ve had dealings with heard, liked, and offered to help me distribute; Cruel Nature are even putting it out on cassette. To test the waters and remind folks that I’m still alive (my last release as cowman was 2013) I put together an e.p. of leftover tracks as a digital-only release. Knowing I’d need to do all I can to get some publicity on all this, and given I have no social media presence, I signed up to Muso-Soup, a kind of pay-for-reviews/coverage aggregator (largely a waste of time/money), I created a twitter account (a horrific shitstorm of desperation and loneliness), tidied up my YouTube and made a couple of DIY videos, set up an imprint -COJU Records-, got ISRC numbers, and a whole bunch of other stuff. A friend who reviewed my stuff in the past kindly reviewed my new stuff positively (Aural Aggravation), and I got radio play on BBC 6 music and a couple of nice podcasts (inc. Ninehertz). All good so far, some pre-sales made, and a sense that all time invested was not a complete waste. Now I’d be the first to admit cowman is not for everyone, and certainly not everyone ‘gets it’, riddled as it is with contradictions, sloppiness, absurdity, non-sequiteurs, puns and outright silliness – not always conducive to the noise-rock scene unless you are a band on mid-90s Skin Graft or the mid 80s Butthole Surfers…
So with less than a month to go before the big release date (30 Sept) I knew I needed to try to solicit some more reviews/coverage – so with a friend’s help I drafted some emails, signed them from the imprint COJU so I looked less desperate, and sent them off. Now, here was the first mistake, the blurb sounds overly pretentious (though remember, it was rushed):
“After the Sonic-Youth/Pavement infused squall of the car-crash-themed -crunch- ep, Cowman now drops “Slaughter”, a welcome return to full-on, balls-to-the-wall experimental noise rock, reflected by its glitched air-disaster artwork. With This Heat and Big Black serving as inspiration, “Slaughter” is Cowman’s first recording to be released on vinyl and tape. With politically engaged songs on topics ranging from Operation Hydrant to the ousting of Boris Johnson, “Slaughter” is perfectly timed for the cost of living crisis…let the post-COVID slaughter continue….” –
I mean, I’m not in marketing, so that’s the first error, indeed the the lower-case “cowman” is important – and signifies a lack of hubris with which I am comfortable – I missed that too.. The second error was that the one-sheet was poorly designed without all the right links, and the email contained the Soundcloud link to the WRONG RECORD – the earlier -crunch- e.p. and not the new, professionally mastered full album ‘slaughter’. Fatal. Always proofread your emails with a friend. The third error was attempting to write a friendly first line: “Dear xxx, Hope all is good etc.” Now for this particular website, we’ll call it “The Organ”, I knew know the names of the people who manage it having read it quite a bit over the years. Having looked at it recently and only seen event blurbs, news items, and reviews for well-known stuff like Eno, Deerhoof and Skin Graft Records stuff (I know they have a boner for Skin Graft and Cheer-Accident – and I cannot blame them for that at all) – I made the error of writing the following, “Hope all is good. I know you don’t do reviews much anymore but this may be of interest for the site/radio:”. Almost immediately the response came back: “Who says we don’t do reviews so much? Loads of reviews constantly going up on the Organ website! You should give it a read sometime. That one looks to have been out quite a few weeks already but we’ll have a listen” Not knowing how to reply or even realizing that the wrong link had been sent I left it. I didn’t like the assumption that I had not read the site – because I had – although it has to be said the site is a nightmare to navigate.
Less than a week later the full extent of my faux pas became apparent with a full “review” from the reviewer, we’ll call him “Sean”. The withering was withering, right from the title: “well apparently we don’t do reviews anymore…”, to the withering use of irony in calling my music “so-called “experimental” noise rock”. See the inverted commas mean he doesn’t think it is experimental at all. Get it? What he means by writing “bands with a love of noise and little else in terms of the walls they build” is anyone’s guess, bricklaying perhaps, but then, I guess the point is no-one is reading his review in the same way that no-one is reading this. He even acknowledges as much, in tragic tomes:“Frankly I spend way too much of my life thanklessly writing reviews of art shows, bands, albums, gigs and here comes yet another one.” Well I do offer thank-you’s to Sean, but I wonder if his time might have been better spent on another, less withering activity; perhaps something that prolongs life? I seriously worry about his mental health, as cowman seems to have put him on one. Why not just ignore the email, the music, the bad blurb. What was I supposed to do, wear some yellow trousers like Wooze?
Is that how to get a good review? Pay for some band PR agency to write all the emails in the correct way? Name-drop bands other than Big Black or This Heat that are really cool and on-point? I use a drum machine and have been approximating -but not copying- Big Black since 2005. I do it as one man not as a three-piece, and I can do it well live. That was my aim, I accomplished it, and of that I am proud. This Heat’s first album was a direct influence on a particular track that “Sean” clearly did not listen to. Fine. And as for being “experimental”, the album has a 16-minute song that affectionately rips-off Shit and Shine’s “Ladybird”, and they are labeled “experimental” – and openly admit ripping-off Drunks with Guns and Strangulated Beatoffs (favourites of mine too), yet they can do no wrong and are never derivative. Though I cannot find any reviews on Shit and Shine on “The Organ” as there is no search function I can find, only endless love of all things prog (which I don’t dislike unless it is described in a pretentious way as though by a connoisseur of piss. The hot piss of a school teacher.). Anyway, I had nothing but the utmost respect for The Organ and their radio show, especially their support for Skin Graft. But to be taken apart like this, after all the hard work I put in is a little annoying – so I guess we are ultimately even. It’s not like I have a band I can fall back on for support – no this is all me, all my production. All my carefully arranged beats, getting guitar sounds just so, recording without an engineer to start and stop the fucking tape, mixing, overdubbing, getting the mixes ready for mastering, working with the mastering engineer, working with the record manufacturer. Paying for it all out of savings as there is no money in music at all. The whole time doubting whether any of it is any good, whether it is worth it, whether anyone would like it… And then this “review”: “kind of semi interesting but really, they do sound like hundreds of things we’ve heard before only not quite so good and we a wondering what the point is in terms the person who made the pieces of music or in terms of us reviewing it?” Indeed what is the point? Of any of it. What is the point of “The Organ’s” navel-gazing echo chamber? Shouldn’t we all, following this logic, throw ourselves under the nearest omnibus? Well why not answer your own question and simply not review it. I once wrote a long review for an art show that filled me with such disgust and loathing at the way the meaning of the art was utterly subservient to the cuntish arty-types self-regard that the only meaning left was the price tags on the paintings. I was aware enough of the importance of the art, artist, agent and gallery that I deleted it. But I was reviewing the thing I was supposed to. “Sean” reviewed the wrong thing anyway – but well, if he is reviewing it and it is “kind of semi interesting” why not say how it is “semi-interesting”. He bothered to listen to the 25-minute e.p. (part of the joke of the name is that it’s way longer than an ep should be, and not the 15 minutes of his life he claims to have wasted), and write a “review”, why not engage with the material seriously? What actually happens in the music? Did he actually listen to it? I mean really listen? Did he really? Did he mention that the vocals last for just the first 30 seconds of the first and last tracks, with no vocals 24 minutes remaining of the EP? He mentions it doesn’t go anywhere, but isn’t that quite obviously the point – the last track is the first half of the first track, the third track is a drone version of the second half of the first track…etc… The “not exciting” cover is a decaying car, formerly owned by William S. Burroughs, the catalyst for the noise experimental music scene of Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, and a symbol for the decaying husk of Punk embodied by the EP. But yeah, not “exciting”. Does any of this mean anything? Isn’t it “experimental”? The first track is not meant to be emulating Sonic Youth – it’s a fucking parody, a joke. The second track is similarly an MBV parody.
The press release talks of “the sound of civilization collapse, the decline of the West; an anguished agit-punk attack that channels Rudimentary Peni, Big Black, Crass, and This Heat” and well, not really hearing any of that on the EP, the music is down there, are you? I mean, you’re name-dropping some impressive bands there, you’ve got to be good to back that up, this kind of feels like something that would get a 5.6 review is this was Pitchbloodyfork and we gave everything marks. This is referring to the LP not the EP – but surely he’d realize that as the EP sounds nothing like those bands – yet evidently not. All bands name-drop, you need a point of reference – you do that in the studio as the engineer needs a reference master. Yes, they are big names but why not aim high? Should I be name-dropping Mr Blobby, and be completely ironic? The point with referencing these bands is about integrity and commitment – “slaughter” is an utterly committed record, despite cowman’s penchant for irony. The times call for a committed record about real things, not yellow fucking trousers, or bespoke t-shirts that spell “Up Yours”, or Detroit noise-rock bands that have glasses like Doc in Back to the Future II.
I do not mean to disrespect these bands or their very legitimate silliness, I am just saying they are not what I am about, and that they perhaps deserve more “reviewer ire” than my efforts. I guess, ultimately, I am not what “The Organ” is about or what “Sean” is about. I helped Yowie with their tour in 2012, and they are the greatest prog band I have seen – but ultimately that level of virtuosity led me (and them I feel) down a blind alley that restricts freedom. Let some things slide. Who complains about the error in the email sent to him in a review littered with typos? Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone responds with multiple sentences ending in exclamation marks like they are constantly shouting! Let it slide. And breathe. It’s better for your health. Anyway, thanks to Sean for not just deleting it, as his words will stand across the ages like the bard’s velvet tones, like billowing crystalline clouds against the azure sky: “these days we would have jsut deleted the annoying Cowman e,mail and moved on to the next one but then, hey, come on!”
I am the fucking cowman and I am the fucking shit and I will blow this whole fucking shithouse down.
In memory of Simon Windsor (Big Oaks), Clairo (Tayside Mental Health), Tom McCarthaigh (The Perverts) and James Marriot (Human Sacrifice)RIP, and all the other deserving artists honestly expressing themselves and looking humbly for an audience. It is tough, hang on.
Some nice words on Rate My Music
The Pensive Quill: “More known for his work with electronics under the name Coaxial, Ben Heal also plays post punk influenced noise rock under the name cowman. This, the first full album under the name since 2013, is the kind of LP the likes of Imperial Wax should be making: scuzzy, off-kilter but fierce when called for. While ‘Sticks, Stones…’ wins the title of best song on the record due to the plummeting bass, closer ‘Wichita Black Sun’ is a punishing 15-minute listen that will overpower you.”
Slaughter – Out on vinyl and tape 30 Sept on Cruel Nature, COJU and Tenzenmen.
Oct 29: Final response to Sept. 23 response.
1. “Hissyfit” – Not quite hysterical, but definitely and I would argue justifiably, venting spleen.
2. I sent “The Organ” one email, subject line “arrogant review request“
3. Whether or not the bands sent pressers to “The Organ” is irrelevant – they clearly have more support, financial backing (and professionalism) than I do, hence why they came unsolicited into your purview, and cowman did not.
4. My friendly tone was always genuine – I always had respect for the Organ – which I read along with the far superior Stool Pigeon and Plan B, back when I had spare time.
5. I do not care whether “The Organ” likes cowman – I was annoyed that the review was less about the music and more about bullying for a small mistake. As I said, if the email was annoying then ignore it, don’t attack its ignorance and ineptitude. Consider pointing out the errors in private first. Unlike this waste of time.
6. The threat of going back to listen to the new stuff after the existential attack of that review is like the words of a recividist abuser. As if to say had I sucked it up and taken the abuse on the chin, stayed silent, that I would have had the unmitigated joy and bliss of another review. That type of attention is, and was, not required. Please don’t hit me again Daddy.
7. What, precisely, in your holy subjective opinion, is “predictable” about the -crunch- ep?
8. I have no problem with the other bands. I listened. They are not in my purview – they do not “speak” to me or my situation. Dead are pretty good. But those T-shirts. And I’m pretty sure they can appreciate what I’m saying.
9. The “fake press person” is real. I just wrote and sent the email. The “fake record label” is real. And so what if they were fake? Art is so often artifice. A review is a review regardless of how it was solicited. cowman clearly does need all that crap, despite not being entirely serious, in order to be taken seriously by individuals who seem to take things very seriously.
10. I was bothered because I had respect for “The Organ”. That respect has, of course, evaporated.
This is not cowman’s blog. This is a virtually private blog (see the number of subscribers…) for me to vent. I clearly am prepared to respond – but as a cowman I do not take kindly to being goaded. But ultimately this is moot. We are both content providers locked in a pathetic argument about creating content – my music was poor and badly promoted – the review was unfairly framed and impolite. Fail again. Fail better.
Btw the “slaughter” tape/lp has sold a few copies, and has, despite sending what seems like hundreds of emails, received just three reviews so far – all positive. Perhaps the best thing to happen is the lovely Chris of Yowie and Terms buying a copy. Artists supporting artists as ever. I still believe passionately in the music I produced…but damn it is hard work to get anyone else to give a shit about it…
(although “The Organ” seems to have spent plenty of column inches shitting on it, and the cowman…which was kind of the whole point of cowshitman in the first place…
Lower-case “cowman” is reference to ruth weiss, central yet endlessly overlooked figure of 1950s avant-garde and Beat poetry, who invented jazz poetry. She changed her name to lower-case as a protest against the law-and-order ethos of her birthplace in Germany. An anti-Nazi statement. So not “yawn”, yeah?
Who’s a billy-no-mates? I don’t see much collaboration on “The Organ” – not even a friendly proofreader…)
alabasterbreadfruit 