shots on goal

I also got a call yesterday about some writing work. It's not just for a single bio, or one-sheet, or press release, but for an entire package for a label I work with. It is a job writing copy for the entire site.

This is also a good sign.

It's also a weird sign.

Earlier yesterday, I started thinking again about something I've thought about before, and that's pimping myself to a lot more of my fellow electronic music label peers as a writer. Some of them need it. Some of them need it very, very badly.

Case in point. Photek Productions. There's probably no name in drum and bass with more luster than Photek. He's signed Teebee, and more recently, reemerged legend Crystl. The site is all very high speed Flash; very glossy, very slick. The copy is embarrassing. Read Teebee's and Crystl's bios.

I'm constantly shocked at the number of EDM sites that boast stridently contemporary, hip, glossy designs, with all the latest faddish bells and whistles and aesthetic tics, all seamlessly coded, and then you start reading the copy, and it's just terrible. Teebee and Crystl deserve better.

It really makes me cringe. If you've sunk all your resources into creating this rich looking facade, how could you possibly skimp on the writing? It completely undermines any pretension of seriousness.

On occasion, I've been teased for being over-serious or tight-assed. I've had people criticize me for writing like an adult, rather than like Ali G. That would all be right and fine if the music and the scene were authentically and exclusively in the street and underground, but when the vast majority of the scene's producers, DJs, managers, agents, lawyers, publishers, designers, and investors go to very great lengths to don the appearance of a mature, sophisticated, and urbane culture, then it's only right to expect that there be a corresponding maturity to the substance beneath that surface.

So either your whole steez is a pose, or you mean it. If you mean it, write like you mean it.

If you can't write like you mean it, hire me.

That's the crux of this.

That's what the call was about yesterday. And it was a spooky coincidence that not four hours after thinking seriously about how to kick off the effort to start doing whole site writing packages, I get a call from a label to do just that.

So EDM buddies, send me your picks for worst music-related website writing and I'll put on the pimp hat. If you run a label or are an artist who recognizes the value in having good copy to accompany your product--like the very well known drum and bass producer who called me yesterday--let me know. I can provide you with samples and references.

Past and current clients include: Certificate 18 Recordings, Polar, John Tejada, Palette Recordings, Moods & Grooves Recordings, Violence Recordings, Hive, Stunt Company, Create:Fixate; Breakbeat Science, Urb (reviews), Phunckateck, XLR8R (reviews, and an in-studio piece), and, err, Metaformal.