My Advice to Your Band: This Time, for Free
by Andrew Alexander Prieto (Dingus)



There are a few mistakes that the modern DIY band makes, in such harsh repetition, that it requires my special attention, here, now, in this article. For sake of reference and absolute clarity, I’ll address each in list form.

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1. Your uncontrollable urge to play a show every weekend makes you look desperate. Crowds for live music are few and far between, these days. If you’ve got one, treat it right. Asking a group to show their support on such a consistent basis makes it easy for your fans to say, “I’ll see them next time” or worse yet, actually get annoyed by your moaning. If your complaint is that you’re not getting paid for all the time your putting in, than put in less time, play less frequently, and make it a real, worth-my-time-and-money event when you do. Booking shows with the right people is key, but I’ll let you determine who those people are.

2. Treat social media like the novel your'e writing, not your constant stream of thought. Realize that at the end of every post you make there are people, usually frustrated at their work desks, reading your nonsense. Posting the same thing over and over again is more likely to flood a few people’s feeds than it is to reach new users. If, in the end, your only creative idea is that you’re creatively being yourself, get in line. A strong intellectual backbone, something to tickle the readers mind will go a long way in differentiating yourself from every soulless star-fucker on Youtube. Remember, just because something is far enough down on your feed, doesn’t mean it’s gone; try not to be foolish.

3. Do not employ B-List publicists. This job should be obsolete by now. There is a whole genre of music publication specifically dedicated to covering the emerging musician and they hate getting press releases. If your publicist isn’t booking you to open for LCD Soundsystem’s reunion tour, don’t waste your money. Getting your name out there, especially through the Internet, is a job you can do in your free time. Email some bloggers, not with fancy press releases; just send them a link to the music. I’ve never met a music blogger who stops to read your four-paragraph biography, so why are you wasting your time writing it? Doesn’t your music speak for itself? Or do I need to know the details of your broken upbringing to get it? If we want to know, we'll ask.

4. Stop trying to sell us garbage; you have a very real commodity you’re ignoring. You were deceived in the first place when they told you that you’d make money off an MP3. Does a painter make money off a Jpeg? The reality is, with easy access, I download somewhere between five and fifteen albums daily. I listen to them all, mostly just once; if I couldn’t do that, the musicians on the other end would not benefit from my purchase, they would simply lose me as an audience altogether. So, give me your mp3 for free, gain some brand recognition, weasel your way onto my Ipod and then convince me to buy your vinyl, tape, merch, show tickets, etc. These are the true products of your hard work, and the reason why music should never lose physicality. Charging for sound is a fleeting concept.

5. The 90’s aren’t retro YET. The band pictures you take staring off, slightly to the left, or posed in front of some urban scene, make you look stupid. If you’re going to take a band picture, then just be straight up about it, lose the gimmicks and you’ll gain a lot of respect. If you take your music seriously, then you take the visual art that surrounds it seriously. Employ someone talented, someone who’s passionate about visual aesthetics, even if you are, if only for their opinions. If you do want to go the whole route of 90’s-band-self-absorption, because you’re “going to make it retro”, at least go for it completely.

6. Know your demographic. I can’t count how many times I’ve gotten press releases from some California girl who’s just recorded her song about heartbreak and moving on in a beautiful studio that her daddy paid for. If you’re band is simply recreating some washed up sound (at your parents expense), half-heartedly and, as you would say, “just for fun”, sending your music to a pretentious music snob, like myself, will more likely end up getting you publically lambasted. There are plenty of publications out there that eat up your similar sounding “alternative pop”- if they’re not writing about you, what makes you think Pitchfork, or any blog with a similar attitude, will. The fact that I have to listen to a hundred terrible projects before I find one worthy of critique means that there are ninety-nine of you who are too blinded by your own ego to compare your music to the market standard quality. Realize that music is not just something you pick up and do without natural tallent or intense knowledge. The 99% of self-releasing musicians are not musicians at all, and if they stopped pretending to be, those of us who treat composition as a career would be taken far more seriously.

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That’s the end of it, for now. I’m sure round two is brewing. I hope you, and your band, enjoyed reading my thoughts. These common mistakes are more like symptoms. Realize that the vast majority of music, posted online, deserves to make these mistakes because it truly is desperate. But, your band, the one in one hundred, is merely suffering from a collective syndrome the DIY community must face, formed from existing in such a large sea, filled with so much pollution.

A Discussion With Andrew Prieto
an Interview from Music Defined
Photography by Erin Hansen



MD: Andrew, you’ve been heavily involved in the DIY music scene for a while now. What was the catalyst for your involvement with the scene, and specifically projects like Dingus and The Snake?

AP: I believe that music, as an art form, is being thrust through a series of cultural changes brought on by the increasing accessibility of the Internet. My assertion is that, when corporations brought audio out of the sphere of fine art, and began selling it as a mass produced commodity (something that was necessary before the digital era), they, first, devalued their product, and then, when switching over to digital formats that could be pirated, lost complete control of a market that was never meant to be controlled in the first place. In the end, they created a culture that has very little respect for audio in analog format (comparable to oil on canvas), as long as they can steal the MP3 (comparable to a Jpeg).

The Meme Movement (mememovement.com), Dingus (dingusonmusic.com) and The Snake (thesnake.mememovement.com) are mere extensions of these theories. There are many other organizations actively working within the same sphere, whether they are aware of it, or not.

MD: The Snake has, in a very short time, proved your theory of putting the power back in the hands of the artist. I think it stands at 24 releases in the past 6 months and growing exponentially month to month. Why do you think bands and artists are responding to the way The Snake works?

AP: Well, I think that the artists creating within the global DIY music scene understand what I’m talking about. But, that scene is so vast that the small audience it gets is spread so thin. The thought that music should exist as a form of fine art, limited in physical release to retain value, and free in digital release because of governing internet principles, is something that the public has not warmed up to as a whole, and will not, probably, for some time. It’s also something that the corporate entities actively fight. In this way, they can continue to sell a worthless digital product for a common price.

MD: Speaking of the global DIY scene, The Snake has people in a bunch of different countries. For people in the US, music generally begins and ends with American music with some UK bands thrown in. How important is it to capitalize on the DIY scenes in places like Sweden and Israel?

AP: American nationalism, and ultimately, American ignorance, extends far beyond our political dealings into the business world, and because we see music as a market rather than a cultural vessel, it suffers from this syndrome. The fine art scene, is one of the few scenes where Americans embrace other cultural viewpoints, particularity because these people have a deeper understanding of what drives global progress. Poetically, visually and on an auditory level, art affects thinking. Cultural upbringing, clearly, affects perspective, and it’s this diversity of perspective that allow us to problem solve as one global human organism. This is why it’s disadvantageous to exclude other cultures, in any affair, artistic, political or economic. I’m sure Benjamin (our manager) get’s very different recommendations from our representatives in Paris or Australia, than he does from me in New York.

MD: In addition to bringing music from around the world to the forefront, The Snake and Dingus also work with Meme Movement to put on free live shows that celebrate these DIY bands. So far they have taken place in New York. Are there plans to spread the shows out to other cities? Is part of the importance of these shows a sense of building the community?

AP: The shows have only taken place in New York City out of necessity. Right now all these groups run on a volunteer basis and are relatively new. If someone wanted to host a Meme show in Paris, I would be delighted to help them set it up, but let’s be honest, most people are either focused on their own dreams, or striving to make as much money as possible. A little home-made music project is not normally the kind of thing to grab attention. That being said, what the Snake, Meme and DIngus all do, on a philosophical level, is extremely pervasive on an international level. Our goals, our dreams, are monumental, and given the proper outlet, our theories about the global music network have massive implications for the entire world.

As I said, we are a young group and there are many “next steps”. One of them is opening a Kickstarter project, to see if the world responds to our ideas in the way we’d hope. And the other is writing grant programs, to see if academia deems us worthy.

MD: Recently The Snake started putting out cassette tapes of EP’s and LP’s. Was there a discussion about the sustainability of physical media, or was there a need to allow people to have tangible products that they could hold on to?

AP: The idea came about within the context of music as fine art. We believe that there should be some physical testament to the work, something that could theoretically be buried when civilization collapses, for the next intelligent beings to find and decipher. More immediately, the physical copy provides a benchmark to say “here, this is the art in its true, real world form”. Having a set number of releases helps the art retain value. The valueless commodity, the digital copy, is a gift to the world, for all to enjoy. But, can you imagine if the next Radiohead album was only printed on 100 limited edition vinyls? It would be like owning a Damien Hirst original (**laughs), it would be as highly valued too. This is how musicians can steal back, from the corporate sphere, their artform; limited pressings.

MD: I know that, as of now, these projects focus solely on DIY music. Are there any plans to broaden the spectrum into other arts? Doing ebook publishing or hosting gallery shows for artists who wouldn’t be able to otherwise showcase their work?

AP: Dingus has a history of breaking away from DIY music and occasionally interviewing a DIY artist, performer or thinker. I think that its important to understand that art, regardless of medium, is art. Meme Movement’s first show, No More Love, featured 4 visual artists, but we have no been able to do that since. We’d like to, its merely a matter of where my personal connections lie, the visual art world is far more estranged to me (and far more confusing to me, as well).

MD: What are the plans for the future? Have you mapped out a plan for what you’d like to do, or do you just take it as it comes?

AP: Financial backing. As much as these projects are not about money, it’s hard to get the word out further than our immediate surroundings without having some sort of funding for advertisement/promotion. We’d like to go international, we’d like to own our own warehouse space and we’d like to be able to commit ourselves 100% to the cause, but unfortunately, there are bills to pay.

So for all you millionaires out there, reading this interview: I invite you to impact your world, your global art vessel. I invite you to help revive music, to take it back from the grave of capitalism. You know where to find us.

Death of Music
by Andrew Alexander Prieto (for Mama Coco's Funky Kitchen)



Growing through some of our most impressionable years during the 90's was a battle. More than a battle, it was a war; a war for artistic integrity (a sentiment we were never formally taught,) for purity and passion. We didn't know it then, but having been indoctrinated with the MTV cafeteria menu of bands that, in reality, were corporations selling products of pre-assembled angst, love or whatever banality marketed best, set a foundation that would be hard to alter. The foundation is not a mystery; it is an extension of the embedded, corporate-capitalistic philosophies that hold our society together by a thread. It's a foundation that preaches instant gratification, and while the majority of us were being sold on that disillusioned pleasure, a minority labored in the service of music that held on the idea of artistic purity.

The 90's, while giving birth to a whole arrangement of abominations, also gave rise to the indie label and, in-turn, the indie scene (a scene fueled by an already seeded new wave aesthetic). And, over the last twenty years, the idea that music should not be monopolized has given a platform to some of the greatest minds of our musical generation; minds that might have otherwise gone unexposed. However, as the indie label became mainstream (for better or worse) its motivations changed.

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The year is 2035, and there isn't a soul on the planet who gets singular recognition and mass acclaim on par with today's superstars. No, this is not a dystopia; it's the coming of artistic salvation. Somewhere along the way, the independent music label lost its innocence. They say a rising tide lifts all ships, and it did. Insert power, money and influence into anything and it slowly rots with corruption from the inside out. The result: a three tiered music industry fighting for your love which, in the first two tiers, translates directly to: your money.

You’ll be familiar with the first and second tier. They are the major and minor record labels (respectively) and they thrive as businesses. Integrity resides in the third tier, a level of music distribution that rises above popular demand and nearly all free market constraints. It is not a dog eat dog model, there is no competition because there is room for everyone. Born out of the leveling power of the internet, distribution of anything, not just music, is now possible from anywhere you can get wi-fi. It's this equalizing force that is pushing musicians all across the globe to live out their vision, communicate their fantasies, and be heard, potentially, by the entire world. Without executives to tune a song to a market, without marketing to tune a genre to product, musicians everywhere, bound to their work only by their hearts and not their wallets, are driving progress. And, as always, in response to the change in creative method, the consumption methods must shift too.

Now the music world sees a rampant growth of personal music publications that consciously avoid even the indie-mainstream, in search of the new artistic frontier. Of course, not all are equal, and some are more vigilant curators than others. But the DIY sentiment that is slowly settling into the market, while imperfect, refines itself daily.

With the redefinition of the music market, the consumer now has access to a limitless stream of creative energy, and can decide for themselves what they connect with and what they don't.

It is the re-localization of the art world.