...on selling out (but mostly lord of the strings)

When I was a wee eighth grader I had the fairly common dream of growing up to be a musician. I carried this dream with me throughout several musical projects and prospects, including but not limited to The Concept, Dustbunny, Lightspeed Academy (as you can see its Myspace has become a sort of playground), and of course, Lord of the Strings.

Lord of the Strings was great because we were playing in a genre of music that didn't really care if you were good or bad. Therefore we were able to prosper.

However, my experience in LoTS gave me some insight in the subject of this post.

“Selling out.”

For those of you not familiar with Lord of the Strings, I'll be brief. In the midst of the hiatus of our “real” band, a friend and I decided to delve into the world of “Wizard Rock,” which was basically a genre of music dedicated to Harry Potter. We wrote our songs in about 15 minutes, recorded them on a computer microphone, and put them online. Slowly but surely we somehow gained a fanbase and played a number of Open Mic nights in which we were the main attraction. Okay, that sounds a bit self indulgent. But honestly, for a month or two we were a pretty big deal. I mean, I signed my first and only autograph. And for any good ol' fans from the Corner who may or may not be reading this, I thank you.

Ben and I had a pretty decent fanbase going with between the Internet and “real life.” It was quite humbling, especially since we were basically just goofing around. After a while, though, we hit a wall. Our number of fans (this is measured in Myspace friends, lame but that's how it goes) leveled off and it seemed that interest was waning. We attempted to analyze the success of other Wizard Rock bands and then assessed ourselves. Musically, we had a good number of them topped. Our lyrics were clever, our melodies were catchy, and Ben was our teenage heartthrob. Where were we going wrong?

And then the dark side of Wizard Rock reared its ugly head.

When you think about the “dark side” of the music business, you usually think of mountains of cocaine and people spraying their fans' blood on the wall and stuff. This, unfortunately, wasn't the case.

There was quite a bit of politicking within Wizard Rock, and we realized that we weren't playing ball. We didn't spout the whole “we're teaching kids how to read” business or the bleeding heart “fight evil” stuff. We were playing music to an audience and enjoying it. We wanted to expand our audience outside of Open Mic night, but couldn't bring ourselves to lick boot and whore ourselves into the Wizard Rock hierarchy. To do so would exert far too much energy and time, and plus it just wasn't worth it.

Plus, we wrote this:
“Gryffindor Party” (2006) Listen to it here.


I just got out of my second class
And I got about an hour or two I gotta pass
Run into the common room, this ain't no joke
I got a couple of pounds of gillyweed to smoke

Cuz my mischief is managed and my homework is done
so I gotsta kick back and have some fun
Harry Potter's in the next room eatin' some candy
Smokin' in the common room sounds just dandy

I pull out my pipe and I pull out my lighter
And everybody's faces get a little bit brighter
Reach my hand down under my bed
And pull out some stuff that I just got from Fred

And Lupin's in here, he's mixin' potions in the back
And I gotta make a deal with Sirius (he's) Black
Gryffindor party, reppin' red and gold
If you're in another house we'll leave you straight up cold

It's a Gryffindor P-P-Party (x a lot)
Cuz we gotta try and stay out of Azkaban

You call her Luna Lovegood I call her Luna Lovegreat
I know she's Ravenclaw so please don't hate
I'll make an exception for girls from Ravenclaw
But you ain't seen what I just saw

But that don't compare to Hermione Granger
In the common room she ain't no stranger
Classy and shy to the naked eye
But she don't mind seein' a naked guy

And poor old Cedric may he rest in peace
It ain't been that long since he been deceased
When them Slytherines don't want to behave
We beat them down infront of his grave

Cuz we gotta keep it real, it's the Gryffindor
Shuttin' wizards out from day to day
So pull out your wand, shoot a spell at me
Dodge, counter-curse, now you're dead (WIZARD PLEASE!)

It's a Gryffindor P-P-Party (x a lot)
Cuz we gotta try and stay out of Azkaban

So no, the cursing and sexual references didn't help our case. Not until typing out the lyrics did I realize how “naughty”/awesome that song was. We actually got to perform it, once. But I'll be damned if our rap wasn't brilliant.

And so when our beloved venue closed we faded into obscurity. It's funny, because no matter how you spin it, the whole “rise and fall” of a band is a pretty accurate archetype. When Ben and I attempted an open-mic night over the summer at a Borders, we could only recall the entire lyrics to one song. We were shadows of our former selves. Granted we never practiced (seriously, NEVER) and hadn't played our songs in something like a year and half, I suppose it was excusable. Although I can picture a similar situation with two guys in their forties with gray mullets, slurring their speech and unable to manage one of their songs before getting booed off the stage. It's funny.

I'll get to my point before turning this post into Uh, I Can't Remember the Words: The Uncensored Autobiography of Lord of the Strings and How We Almost Killed Ourselves, coming to a local bookstore near you, let me get to the point.

Back in the day I wondered how bands like Good Charlotte could attempt to spout that they were inspired by the punk ideals of Rancid and NOFX while they were center stage of the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards. I always thought “Man, if I was a musician I would never sell out like that. Those guys are the biggest hypocrites in the world.”

But then I thought what if (and this is a big fat hypothetical “what if”) I was offered a big fat publishing deal at the hands of the same people who published the Gossip Girl books or something? Everyone wants to be the next Hemingway, sure. But when someone's waving real money at you in order to publish your work, could you honestly say no?

I imagine that comedy actors suffer a similar plight. They start out on the stage and wind up on SNL or something. Some can break the mold, sure. But other get stuck in those roles and just can't break them. They wind up having successful careers, but there's that big “what-if” they didn't take this role or that role? Of course there's the what-if of if not taking such a role meant they never got work in the first place.

It's a sticky situation, indeed. Contemplate that.

Sorry for making this ¾ about my glory days and ¼ about what I actually meant to talk about. I always think the Lord of the Strings story is pretty interesting, though, and one day I hope to write the whole thing out.