I could seriously kick myself. In fact, forget that - someone seriously kick me!
As some of you may know I am a seriously big fan of rock and metal from Finland, but I've been struggling to find Finnish artists I'm interested in on Sellaband - even when there's been something vaguely interesting there's been no sign of life on the page in question. However last night I decided to wander down to the "under 1K in budget but more than 0 dollars" department on Sellaband and I landed up having a very interesting evening as a result.
I came across an artist from Finland sitting on $150 by the name of Essentia and yes I love the music! Their Sellaband page looks pretty typical of many I see where the artist signs up, maybe updates for a week or so and then seemingly disappears, so there was no way I was going to jump in and buy a part when the last update was May. But whilst the page looks like nothing particularly special or different, there were 2 things on it that struck me. The first was the fact that it actually had comments on the page, some of which were from just a few days ago and the second was the name of the guitarist. "Sammy Black" probably means absolutely nothing to you, but as a follower of Finnish music it was a name I recognised, though my brain failed me and I couldn't work out from where. Some research was obviously needed.
As I was going over to Myspace anyway to leave a comment on Skitzo Calypso's page (which incidentally I never got around to at the time as a result of what I'm about to share with you - sorry boys, hope I rectified that now though!) I thought I'd start my search over there. I don't know whether someone from Essentia has been reading the various tips on how to succeed on Sellaband since the revamped website, but I discovered a blog post on their Myspace page, again from a few days ago which was trying to get people over to Sellaband to believe in them, as well as finding "stickied" topic discussions about Sellaband in both their English and Finnish parts of the forum on their website. This is despite the fact their page on Sellaband hasn't been updated since the end of May!
But to come back to Sammy Black - music in Finland gets quite entertaining because a lot of musicians seem to play in more than one band and you can land up following and listening to quite a trail of music before you come back in a circle or reach a dead end. The reason the name struck a chord is because I already own the first 2 albums of the other, more famous and signed band (at least in Finland) he plays in! I'm going to give you the Wikipedia link to Lovex rather than their band site because it will give you a faster idea than trying to fight your way through the flash content.
I view this as an absolutely FANTASTIC opportunity, both for Sellaband and Essentia and the reason I am kicking myself so badly (see my first sentence in this post) is the fact it has taken me so long to spot them, which is going to make things a lot harder. But you need to understand why I am so excited about finding them.
Think about the following things. Finland went absolutely nuts after Lordi won the Eurovision song contest - media storm doesn't even begin to describe it. This is a country in which selling a mere 15,000 copies of an album earns you a gold disc and we need artists to raise enough for 5,000 albums on Sellaband. I don't know about you, but I think an unsigned band turning up in Finland having raised 50K on Sellaband to record their first album might actually cause a bit of a stir as a result. We've also talked many a time about how to get young fans interested in Sellaband and I can tell you for starters that Lovex has a small legion of young female fans in tow from all across Europe (Sellaband users, think of Lovex as the Finnish equivalent of So What if it helps, though they are obviously musical different). Some of these young fans have obviously followed Sammy's involvement into Essentia too. Here's an ideal opportunity to get some of that "missing generation" involved with this site somehow. It's noticeable that most of Essentia's existing money comes from these young ones too.
North European bands (dare I say Scandinavian?) are noticeable for their different approach to Sellaband from the majority of those from other countries. You only have to look at artists on Sellaband like Morris, Slim Void, Silverimage or Six Eyes Lost (to name just a few) to see they pretty much sit around making music or touring and don't tend to make loads of posts or direct attempts to attract believers on Sellaband itself. And I think it can put them at a real disadvantage as a result. Hence where the title of this blog post comes in.
It's all very well to moan about bands not bringing believers or being too quiet, but if you think trying to get people into Sellaband is easy, even if you're the artist then you need to think again. It's also not easy to find your way into an existing community and become part of it, particularly if you're not of the same age group. Sometimes it's necessary to look beyond what you see of an artist on Sellaband and understand that whilst Sellaband is still an "unknown", believers also need to get out of isolation and go elsewhere to see what they can do to try and help artists they love get going on Sellaband. Take some of that Sellaband love out into the world and maybe some love of Sellaband will come back in. Help create that two-way street.
So wish me luck because I now have two battles to fight. I'm off to Essentia's various sites to rattle a few cages, fight the suspicion (and the language difference) and try and get a couple of really simple things done - see if I can wake them up enough to get their Sellaband page kept up to date and as many of their existing fans as possible to add themselves to Essentia's Sellaband page as fans too. Then the other battle has to be fought in Sellaband itself, because even if we can get that far it needs the Sellaband community to wake up and take real notice of them too in such a way that may encourage more of their existing fans to become a part of Sellaband (and hopefully an active part too).
Maybe if you're reading this blog, there's something here you can help me with?
P.S. Apologies to Phil Tweed who provided the inspiration for the blog title.
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