Buttery Death Monkey
November 2002
by Matthew Scrivner

My latest gripe are these fucking indie bands that are posting their mp3's to filesharing servers renamed as the products of legitimate bands.

Yes, I download MP3's. Yes, I respect that artists should make money for their work, so I use it as a way of sampling something to decide if it's worth the purchase. If I like what I hear, I buy it. If I don't I generally lack the storage space to keep a bunch of stuff I would otherwise not listen to, so the MP3's get deleted anyhow. But another thing I do, and I consider this no different than trading mix-tapes with friends, is download rare, b-side, and hard to find tracks of bands that I am really into. For example: Radiohead. I got online this weekend and went searching for rare Radiohead tracks (found some too – in one case an acoustic version of Subterranean Homesick Alien they did on KRCW Los Angeles back before OK Computer was even released). But I guarantee, if you were to get on WinMX or Kazaa and search for "Radiohead, rare" about half of the hits you get will be these garage bands who have renamed their junk as a way of spreading it across the net. You'll open Winamp and the song will say "Radiohead - Dark New York (rare, b-side)" but you'll click play and it will be some idiot screeching over out-of-tune guitars (no, I am not merely mistaking this as a track from Amnesiac, ahem). If you right-click and chose file info, the ID3 tag clarifies that the actual band is something like "Dog Rapists - Buttery Death Monkey" and if you have dialup (which I am forced to use since I am out of the service area for both DSL and cable) you have justed wasted 45 minutes downloading junk.

Note to indie bands doing this: Not only is your misrepresentation probably illegal, I find it irritating enough that even if what I download is decent you have lost my ear as a potential listener because of your lack of integrity.

(Matthew Scrivner is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine)