compared to what

One Saturday, back in April, I was tooling around getting errands done and heard the last syllables of an interview with some British musicians. Immediate segue into this (only live on radio):

I was slammed by the sound and pulled over to listen, figuring it was yet another 60’s-70’s era Brit blues band, back on tour. No. It was a new band, Back Door Slam, and they were playing in town that night.

This was fantastic. You see, most of my life, my musical interests (big band era, pre-1700 continuo, and a few others) were understandably rarely heard on the radio, so I rarely tuned in at all and didn’t worry about it. Even if something from one of those genres is played, it’s the most hackneyed thing, never something cutting edge. Other avenues were the path to new music.

But in recent years, getting interested in blues and working from there out, I’ve been around a lot of discussions that eventually come around to bemoaning the state of radio: it plays nothing any good, it’s useless in helping an artist reach a new audience, etc. That all may be true, but as somebody who went a decade never hearing something new up my alley, my experience is the opposite. At least once a month, I’ll hear something brand new that I really like. Often it’s an artist I didn’t know about, sometimes it’s just new stuff by someone I hadn’t listened to in a while. That’s happened a few times over the last months when I was not blogging, so I’m going to slowly catch up and talk about some of these.

First, up: Back Door Slam. When they came back on to talk, I learned the group was set to play in town that night. I like them well enough to memorize their name and googled them up on my next errand, while I waited for some engine diagnostics to get done (btw, Jiffy Lube has great wireless, but limited ability to cope with engine problems).

I couldn’t make the gig that night, but I have tickets to hear them later this summer. And, of course, I hit iTunes for their album and have had it on steady rotation ever since. Why am I telling you all of these mundane details of my Saturday afternoon? Because it’s radio doing just what we always think it should do:

• potential fan hears music and falls for it
• fan buys music
• fan buys tickets to live show
• fan tells friends about it (did that part back in April)
• fan blogs about it

That’s how it’s supposed to work, right? Obviously that can’t be ordered up a la carte. Back Door Slam has (apparently) been generating good buzz the last year on tour, and it snow balls: SXSW, opening for Buddy Guy at NOLA Jazz fest, a standing-O after their appearance on Jimmy Kimmel. But here they were playing out their hand with a gig no doubt booked before things started rising so fast. A 100 seat room, a live radio interview, and some new fans.

So here they are: The fact that they’re 19 years old and Manx means they’ll be around awhile, but if their touring near you, you better grab your chance. Davey Knowles is just coming on.

Back Door Slam, “Gotta Leave”

ETA: thanks to reader Karen for finding this excellent video of Back Door Slam doing Robert Cray’s Back Door Slam (she explains in comments below):

categories: biz, music
tags: Back Door Slam, blues, Isle of Man, radio