Boston Band Crush Is Back!
Hey it's been a while. You look great.
Back in 2018 I decided to reboot One Night Band because I wanted to help out Zumix and bring back an event that lots of people love. Each of the 3 rebooted versions has been a resounding success, raising money and awareness for Zumix and bringing together the community even more than I’d imagined it would.
After each show I hear from lots of people who attended who tell me that they discovered a new musician and ask me where I found them, where they can see them again, what band they’re usually in, stuff like that. It’s great! I can’t see myself doing ONB more than once a year, but it hit me that it would be nice to introduce people to the artists that I’m coming across all year instead of just at that one event.
If only I had some outlet to do that. Oh wait, I sort of do! The Boston Band Crush website is long gone, and frankly I don’t want to set up and maintain a whole website in 2020. I also don’t want to do a podcast because that’s a whole mess of work (I’d have to get microphones, figure out how to work microphones, it’s very daunting). All I really want to do is just post a profile of a band with some photos and music links to a place where the people who have expressed interest in seeing them will be able to, so here we are with a Substack newsletter.
So Boston Band Crush is being reborn in a new medium! It’s going to be a very stripped down version - no daily show list or mixtapes, no show previews, just Band Crushes - quick profiles of a band, artist, producer, booker, or otherwise music-adjacent person that I think others might be interested in. Some might be already familiar if you followed back in the day, but I’m hoping to focus less on the bands we covered in the heyday of BBC and more on ones that have come since.
Just like the old Band Crush, the point will never be to criticize. There are plenty of places to find that, and all I’d like to do is provide an outlet to profile artists in this city. One of the things that organizing One Night Band has really driven home for me is that there’s so much more out there than you might think, and it’s helpful to check out as much of it as possible even if you don’t think a particular band is your cup of tea. One thing I really want to avoid is any sort of gatekeeping or pretentiousness - I understand that not every musician creates with me in mind, and it would be unfair to everyone if they did. If you’re an artist in or around Boston, there will be space for you to tell everyone who you are and what you do.
Another reason for all of this is a little selfish: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are really doing us dirty. They used to be platforms that allowed us all to reach whatever audience was interested - if you “liked” a band page, you saw the posts by that band and knew when their next show was, when an album was coming, all that. Over the years they’ve throttled those posts to the point that they’re useless for any sort of promotion. While I don’t even want to use this newsletter as spam, it will be nice to know that it will be sent to everyone who signs up to receive it. No more paying Facebook to show a post to more than 8% of the audience! So you may see a note from me at the top of a band profile letting you know that something good is coming up, a show I’m doing, a show I’m just interested in, things like that.
There’s lots more to come, I’ve already got the first batch of Band Crushes in the can and ready to go. Once I’ve banked a few more I’ll start dropping them. In the meantime, make sure to subscribe by clicking one of the “sign up now” buttons, tell your friends to subscribe, and if you’re in a band and want to get Crushed, hit me up: indierockranger@gmail.com.
Love,
Richard
