As a wise comic book man once said "with great power comes great responsibility" and it seems that the saying can be applied to blog running as well. Looks like this little moth blog acquired quite a fine dose of fame, so to speak, thus recently it has been under the watchful eye of labels and non-band entities. It might sound like a cool thing and it is to some extent, but as the above written quote says, there are some rather unpleasant issues that came along as well.
Namely, in the past few weeks I have received a couple of emails criticizing me for reviewing and posting download links of some bands without the "consent of the respected label", which was quite weird to me. I had to battle my way through things, saying that the bands asked me to review/post them, forwarding emails back and what not, everything being quite frustrating. Luckily after several of those eerie and extremely unpleasant moments and maneuvers I held my ground and the reviews were saved. I seriously don't know what is wrong with the reviews and uploads, maybe those people think that I'm profiting from this in some way and taking glory points away from the people who put out the records with blood, sweat and tears or whatever such nonsense. I'm writing all of these reviews/interviews/tour announcements/everything because I find enjoyment in this and have met a lot of wonderful people through the blog. A bunch of times a band/label would ask me to review them and later not only do they not spread the word about the said review, but much rather fail to even say thanks for the write-up, yet I don't mind, since I'm doing all of this out of pure enjoyment. In fact, the vast majority of everything posted on the blog (something like 90%) was posted per band request and not my own personal pick, which I'm thankful for since I found a lot of amazing bands this way and consider their wish to be here a compliment to my "work". A couple of times I already ranted about blogs and diy and passion and other shit associated with everything in this type of music, which I won't do now since I'd end up writing an enormous wall of text of hate and education and would sound like a pissed off man waving his walking stick and would be just repeating myself.
So, because of all these people who fail to understand the machine that works behind this blog and underground music in general, I'd like to kindly ask all of you something, so that you help me out with not having to battle angry and insulted people in the future. Please, read on:
If you are a solo artist/band/label/whoever and are interested in being reviewed on "Natures With No Plagues", PLEASE send some form of consent toward me, but NOT just in digital format. Send anything, be it a letter asking for a review with a drawing/love letter/band picture/poem/joke/palm print/nude pictures/song tabs (this would be so cool), a cd-r with burned tracks, promo material, real label consent or the actual official release on tape/cd/vinyl/floppy/VHS which you desire to be reviewed, anything as long as I have some "proof" that someone in fact wanted something to be posted up here. Anyone interested can contact me from now on through my email and ask for my address, so that we can further talk about whatever.
I feel completely stupid for having to post this, but I just don't want to have my own experience with spreading my thoughts on digital paper about something I really love get ruined by other bitter people. Lately several bands have actually sent their cds and whatnot toward me on their own right, so I think that setting up these "rules" is nothing out of the ordinary, just making everyone safe, sound and keeping this flowing.
And for those who have been insulted by my review without their respected green light and those infuriated by this post, I recommend listening to this.
Love,
Stefan.
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