2008 Woodie Awards
Myspace market
Benjamin Billman
Issue date: 9/17/07 Section: Intermission
- Page 1 of 1
One of the best tools up-and-coming musicians have working for them in this new electronic generation is Myspace.
With the advent of millions of other personal networking sites, Myspace has held on to its own little corner of the market by making an incredibly friendly niche for any new band to gain listeners from all over the world, something nearly impossible in the past without a record company.
One band taking advantage of this development is Stop Me Short, a self-described punk/emo punk/rock band.
Based in Wilmington, Ill., they sound, as their frontman and lead guitarist Lonno says, "We're either really pissed off or really sad, but either way, it's worth listening to, and you'll wanna hear it again and again."
Certainly a prideful boast, but their songs are fresh and clean, mainly focusing on the heartbreak of losing a loved one. The recordings are well mixed, with little overlap and no errors, a pleasant change from much of the music found on Myspace.
The band, surprisingly, given the amount of skill, have only been playing together for about seven months.
"The cool part about it is that everyone assumes that just starting up means bad music, but it's been really impressive how far we've come along in such a short time," Lonno said.
The members all hail from Illinois, as is reflected by the majority of their engagements. However, several weeks ago they found themselves in Minneapolis for the IMI music conference.
As a result of their trip to Minnesota, they said they would be excited to perform in St. Cloud because it sounds interesting.
For an under-established band, they have created enough material to produce a full-length album.
"We play plenty of covers to fill in time for longer performances, but eventually it'd be nice to play a three-hour original set," Lonno said.
Stop Me Short can be found at www.myspace.com/stopmeshort, where they have several songs for sample listening, as well as band memorabilia.
With the advent of millions of other personal networking sites, Myspace has held on to its own little corner of the market by making an incredibly friendly niche for any new band to gain listeners from all over the world, something nearly impossible in the past without a record company.
One band taking advantage of this development is Stop Me Short, a self-described punk/emo punk/rock band.
Based in Wilmington, Ill., they sound, as their frontman and lead guitarist Lonno says, "We're either really pissed off or really sad, but either way, it's worth listening to, and you'll wanna hear it again and again."
Certainly a prideful boast, but their songs are fresh and clean, mainly focusing on the heartbreak of losing a loved one. The recordings are well mixed, with little overlap and no errors, a pleasant change from much of the music found on Myspace.
The band, surprisingly, given the amount of skill, have only been playing together for about seven months.
"The cool part about it is that everyone assumes that just starting up means bad music, but it's been really impressive how far we've come along in such a short time," Lonno said.
The members all hail from Illinois, as is reflected by the majority of their engagements. However, several weeks ago they found themselves in Minneapolis for the IMI music conference.
As a result of their trip to Minnesota, they said they would be excited to perform in St. Cloud because it sounds interesting.
For an under-established band, they have created enough material to produce a full-length album.
"We play plenty of covers to fill in time for longer performances, but eventually it'd be nice to play a three-hour original set," Lonno said.
Stop Me Short can be found at www.myspace.com/stopmeshort, where they have several songs for sample listening, as well as band memorabilia.