There's comes a time for many bands where they cross the line from cult heroes to mainstream icons.
This will never happen with My Sweaty Cats. "We've signed a contract that we will break up if we sell over 20,000 copies of any record, have more than 100,000 downloads and more than 1,000,000 views, total, of all our videos," says Greg Montagne, bassist and co-Cats founder. "We binge-watched VH1's 'Behind The Music' during our last tour and had nightmares about becoming the next MC Hammer or David Crosby. So we've made sure that we will always have a career supported by a smallish but devoutly loyal fanbase." But what if a My Sweaty Cats album, song etc. becomes a true hit? What then? "On every video we've uploaded to YouTube, we've inserted a pop-up window stating that once that any clip reaches 100,000 views, the band will break up." Montagne boasts. "There will be warnings once views reach 900,000 views as well. Agreements come with album after the 17,000 sales mark, and with any download after 80,000 mark. We're even open to having our current fans scare any other potential fans away from us to make sure this happens. I'm confident that our group will do it too." New business model for the music industry, or sheer madness? Only time will tell...
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I was 13, and my buddy got tickets to the Motley Crue show on their "Dr. Feelgood" tour. I was amped for the Crue, but mainly for the opening act, my favorite band at the time, Tesla. Even though they're now known as 'Tesla - The Band' (thanks a lot, Elon Musk!), the band was flying high back in 1992, touring the world with the excellent second album, The Great Radio Controversy, and its #1 song, Love Song. We got to Skydome and looked at the merch booths before finding our seats. My buddy, who was a huge Crue fan, naturally found a shirt to his liking. I was torn, because my love of the Crue knew no bounds, and their concert shirt game was tight. Tesla's was not as impressive. However, one shone like a beacon from amongst shirts with the generic album covers and requisite shot of the band. Nikolai Tesla's eyes almost bored a hole through my skull and drew me in like a moth to a flame. The shirt was designed by legendary rock artist Pushead, who had done many classic shirts for Metallica, The Misfits, The Exploited, the Crüe and many other great groups. He is the Rock Shirt Whisperer.
For me it was Guns N' Roses. It was 1987/88 and I never wanted them to get bigger than mid-size clubs, and every time someone in my Grade 8 class began to sing 'Sweet Child Of Mine' or talk about them, I got angry. I was angry for the sole reason that they were MY band, and no one else's. My bedroom wall was covered with their rock mag pictures months before they even an utterance on anyone else's lips.
Everyone has a band like that where they got too big, sold out or the people who started to like them weren't true fans like you. It may be Nirvana, or Muse after they had their songs on the Twilight movie soundtracks. All that work you put in nurturing and protecting that group or artist, down the drain. *sigh* Faux Rawk fixes that, because the bands we have aren't real, so they can't get too big. You can sound as snooty as you like while proudly wearing your Faux Rawk rock shirt, listing off their fake debut album songlist and spouting their backstory. So go ahead and lift that nose in the air. You can be a music snob with the help of little ol' us and our fake-yet-ultimately-cooler-than-most bands. Marcus Ritchie Co-Creator, Faux Rawk Merchandise The name of a band or artist can make or break their career. Sometimes the music can overshadow and even make a seemingly lame handle cool. Here are some of the best stories about band names:
One could spend days learning about how bands came up with their names, but since your precious time's already filled with watching cat videos and looking at Facebook baby pics, here are some other noteworthy tales of musical nomenclature:
- Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Yo La Tengo - Kajagoogoo - !!! - And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead We would be seriously amiss if we, purveyors of fake band merch, did not have a Best Fake Band list of our own. There's so many out there (fake bands and fake band lists - just Google for yourself), but we're pretty confident that this one is the definitive list of the fake band genre. We say this with absolute confidence and arrogance. And now, in descending order:
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The officially unofficial blog of Faux Rawk. Everything you read is true, although some of what you read is 100% false. Whoa... trippy, man. Archives
June 2017
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