FRANKLIN PRESS CLIPPINGS & PUBLICITY

I wish I were a better writer or that I had more patience when it came to writing. I’d love to sit down and adequately express my feelings about the dual nature of being in a band that plays for an audience or hopes to release music to a buying public (or even dreams of playing music for a living) versus simply creating music because you’re innately driven to it. Ultimately, I think there is a huge difference and the difference between those two things is what, to this day, makes me not miss playing music all that much.

So, today’s post has to do with publicity. Attached, you will see numerous scans of press clippings about Franklin. Most of them are reviews about our final self-titled LP and 7″ (soon to be posted here) which were both released on Tree Records out of Chicago, IL. If you are the type that has even a shred of interest in reading what people had to say about records recorded over a decade ago, then by all means, please enjoy. There are also several interviews from local papers about the band. While it’s important to to me to document as much as I possibly can on this blog, I’d hate to be considered egocentric when posting these types of things.

Thus, I’d like to explicitly state that these clippings are posted for documentation purposes only.

Nevertheless, publicity is a slippery slope. When you start a band, you do so because you don’t know what else to do with yourself. Something needs to be said, something needs to be done. The possibility of success stemming forth from that creative outlet in any financial or commercial sense isn’t a realistic thought in your mind. Sure, you might joke about it from time to time; fantasize what it might be like to know that kids you’ve never even met bought your record in a their local record shop and learned all the lyrics while driving around with their friends in their own local towns, but realistically, it’s so not even a possibility that one might just as well fantasize about swimming to Mars.

In that obscurity, in that hopeless but amazingly independent abyss you are making music for the sake of making music.

But then one day, you do make a record. You do play a show and ultimately, people start giving you their opinion. They end up buying your record and the world changes. Your music can actually make money from people buying recordings of your songs and from your songs being playing on horrible television shows. You can actually make money playing on the right bill or touring with the right band. But to do so, you need publicity. By that time, your music is a career. Something to be thought about, analyzed and considered. In that consideration comes music that is made from thinking about music and therein lies the problem.

It’s no longer music for music’s sake but music that has been considered and thus, subconsciously edited for a desired business outcome. That’s awful and ugly. Or at least, eventually, it felt so to me.

But maybe I’m a little too analytical. Anyways, here’s a bunch of stuff from the dusty files.


Look for Free Shipping Certain online discount viagra no prescription suppliers offer free shipping as an incentive to buyers. You may feel a levitra without rx little bit tired after the procedure. An ED is found a most embarrassing condition in men, which fails them to enjoy their sexual concern. india tadalafil Who knows – this may even get more men interested in Hatha heritageihc.com cialis on line Yoga practice.

P.S. – Below, this is the very first “publicity” piece Franklin ever created. It was made to ride along with our first demo. We sent a cassette and this flyer to help us get shows.

Publicity. Ugly, but necessary I guess?

TSUNAMI HIDDEN TRACK

Atom suggested I post this and after thinking about it, I thought it was a pretty good idea! Thanks Atom!

Rewind back to 1991. I was booking all-ages shows at JC Dobbs and started asking bands from DC to come and play the shows. Not only would it help draw more folks to see our local bands play thus hopefully building more of a community, but my friends and I would get to see some of the bands we were completely in love with. A win-win situation.

(On a side note, it still cracks me up that when I booked Jawbox I thought their guarantee of $150 was outrageous.)

Anywhoo, one of the bands we were very interested in booking was Superchunk. Their No Pocky For Kitty album had recently come out and while side 2 was kind of a boner, side 1 was freakin’ awesome.

Not knowing how to get in contact with them, we reached out to the kind women at Simple Machines Records who had assisted us in producing 7″s. Kristin Thompson and Jenny Toomey of Simple Machines played in a band called Tsunami. Greg, Roy and I tried to sneak into a show they had recently played at the Khyber Pass which was a (GASP!) over 21 show. However, being only 17/18 years old, were denied entry. Roy got into a comical shouting match with one of the door guys, but that’s a story for another time.

Nonetheless, since we didn’t get to see Tsunami we decided to add them to the list of bands from the DC area that we would love to have play in Philadelphia.

Nonspecific buy cialis levitra is typically a sort including Sildenafil Citrate 100mg etc. are equally effective and safe products from the company. Touch Screen Video Wall Options Multi-touch has buy viagra in usa taken the precedent over dual-touch for a lot of displays, but it’s not always necessary. Besides treating erectile malfunction issue, lowest prices for cialis wouroud.com may perhaps also be turning useful for tackling the BPH situation. Even if the man gives everything visit address viagra professional for sale he has learned to win your case. Again, because this was pre-internet/email, booking a band would usually require some work and persistence. One would have to make a long-distance phone call from their parents land-line phone and (since people weren’t tied to their phones) leave a message. Hopefully, a member of the band would call you back and you’d try and lock something in. In Tsunami’s case, Greg and I decided that we would leave a series of messages on their answering machine, each more hilarious than the other. This would then impress the women of Tsunami into calling us back immediately to book, what they would only be able to assume would be, one of the most awesome shows they might ever play.

Tsunami never did play one of our all ages shows.

They did however call us one evening asking if they could use our recorded messages on their answering machine as a hidden track on their upcoming album, Deep End.

Here’s those messages.

P.S. – Jenny Toomey and Kristin Thompson should be given punk rock awards for providing so much information to young punk kids the world over. Their patience and kindness? Out of this world.

HIDDEN TRACK