The Hippodrome

What a shame this is so short! But I bet it’ll whet your appetite as much as it whets mine.

After rejecting yet another talented and unheard band because that little box on their MySpace profile had a label name in it, The Hippodrome will now officially accept musicians for feature consideration who are signed to a label. Before you file The Hippodrome under the “generic mp3 blog” header in your reader, consider this: even though we’re now accepting “signed” bands, the focus on unknown and previously unpromoted musicians will now by stronger than ever.

This is because, as many of you have pointed out, being “signed” means almost nothing in this day and age. We feel that by not considering artists on unknown labels with little or no commercial backing, this blog was perpetuating an aspect of the music industry that it had (at least nominally) disparaged. Truly independent labels can be a wonderful community and resource for fledgling musicians, and The Hippodrome, of all blogs, doesn’t want to discourage this.

So while this change in operating procedure may take a few weeks to hammer out, we’re all looking forward to hearing music that we had previously forbade ourselves from considering. As always, email editor[at]thehippodrome.org with music to be considered. If you have any questions or suggestions about this, please also don’t hesitate to get in touch. And of course, artists with no label association will still be treated with the respect and consideration of those who are signed.

Rarely in indie-pop do you see an artist using their name as the band. That appears to have disappeared long ago in the early to mid 1990s. But, with artists like Shawn Fogel rising up, it may be making a comeback. But wait! Jeremy Sparrow is not in the band. Is it a made-up name? Or is it a moniker taken from a novel, as that of Harper Lee?

Jeremy Sparrow is a made up name and a fairly new discovery. The band messaged me several… err… months ago about writing a little feature on them, but I never got around to it other than sticking it on my “things to do” list. When I finally checked them out, I found their music to be the hefty style of pop I tend to associate with countries like Denmark (their home) and titles like “experimental” (well… slightly experimental).

While it’s nowhere near as monumental as fellow Denmark cohorts Mew, or not nearly as experimental as The LK side-project Fredrik, Jeremy Sparrow does know a thing or two about crafting a good pop tune. There’s an 80s element to the music, often found in the guitar riffs, bass lines, and jumpy percussion. Just listen to “The Rent’s Due” and you’ll hear it.

Audio: The Rent’s Due
Audio: Outrunning Paper Tigers
Audio: Suburb

Tyler Griffith moved to Queen Creek, Arizona, six years ago, and has been making mostly laid back instrumentals ever since. A bassist by trade, he grabs whatever he get his audio hungry paws on quickest.

Most of Griffith’s tracks are wonderfully postmodern in their self-referential DIY ethic… “Timers” takes the ubiquitous chair creek found in homemade demos and turns it into a fleeting beat. This is even better considering Griffith’s bedroom production tool — Garageband. “Property Ownership” (or P___O) is a super relaxed lounge piece that uses some nice bells, panning, and a false coda to achieve its unpretentiously beautiful effect.

Griffith also has a few interesting videos up on his MySpace, which make sense considering the soundtrack quality of his work.

Audio: Property Ownership
Audio: Timers

For some time now, Calabash Music, an online vendor of international music and a former employer of yours truly, has been shopping around its micro-financing platform for musicians that don’t have the funds to cut a record themselves. Now, Calabash is in the final round of an Ideablob contest that could give them the funding needed to get the idea off the ground. The idea, “Tune Your World,” from Calabash’s page:

Every artist has the same problem of obtaining capital for their next recording. Tune Your World provides the solution of applying micro-financing to the music industry. Our groundbreaking approach is the creation of peer-to-peer micro-financing of new music projects - enabling fans to deliver start-up capital to aspiring musicians from developing countries. Tune Your World operates on a people-to-people model. Musicians obtain funding for new recordings directly from their fans without giving up ownership or control. Our mission is to revitalize the music industry in places where the music industry has never worked very well.

While I did indeed work for Calabash, my opinions on this idea stand separately from my personal relationship with the company. Micro-financing has worked all over the world in many different industries, and while some sites like Sellaband have tried to bring it to western audiences, Calabash is the first company to implement it in places where the mainstream music industry has failed the most. With a business model that makes sense for the consumer and the artist, I encourage you to visit Calabash’s Ideablob page and vote to help them achieve their goal.