THE CRESCENT NEWS
Apparently the Crescent News which is the local paper in the town of Defiance, Ohio ran a story on the band in this past Sunday’s paper. I just read the article, and you can take a look at a copy of it here. Overall, given the style of any newspaper article and the nature of the publication, I thought it was pretty okay. I just thought that given information about the band is in such an unconventional (at least for us) media outlet, I’d give a little context.
A few weeks ago, we got an e-mail from one of the editors at the newspaper asking for information about the band. I’m not sure how he found out about the band. Our first thought was that we should just ignore the e-mail, our second thought was that we should concoct a ridiculously false press release and send it to the paper. We didn’t do either of those things and I’m glad that we didn’t. What we did do was write out some information about the band in language that didn’t assume that the reader had a close knowledge of the diy punk community, its practices, and its ethics and sent it along with a CDR to the newspaper. We wanted to explain why we play music and write songs about the things that we do in a way that didn’t get lost in some of the rhetoric that we commonly use when talking about these things to friends.
Normally, I don’t think we would have been very interested in talking to the mainstream media, but I thought that since we named our band after a particular community, it was only fair that we honestly address inquiries from members of that community. We also hoped that it would give us an opportunity to talk about things that were important to us like doing things ourselves, rejecting the attitudes of “making it big” held by the record industry (and unfortunately sometimes those in the diy community as well), our relationships with each other, and the importance of community, to an audience that includes people who, if not for seeing it in their local paper, might not think about such issues being connected to music.
In spite of our best efforts, it’s quite possible that the information we provided was still interpreted by readers of the the paper as a “small time band trying to make it big” or “college kids having fun playing music together” story. This is unfortunate and frustrating, but I think that this is the impression that a lot of people, even my parents, get when I try to explain why I play in this band. And those people aren’t newspaper writers – they’re people who have a lot more exposure to me and my feelings and reactions. The fact that the actions we take and the reasons that we do things are misunderstood or misrepresented doesn’t make us stop doing them and it shouldn’t make us stop communicating with people who have different backgrounds than us. I try to make the choices that I make and live the lifestyle that I live because I think they’re right things to do and I’d like to think that at least some of the ideas are relevant to people who aren’t just “punk” kids.
The media, be it the mainstream media, the independent media, or the punk media, is a difficult institution and it’s hard to tread the thin line between trying to express your beliefs and ideas and having them be exploited. I hope that we’ve done a good job of walking that line.
xoxo,
Geoff