Pop Monty: Bio Writing

I’m in the middle of writing bios for the Pop Montreal schedule. I’ve been doing it every year for a while, and I actually really enjoy it. It forces me to listen to new bands, old bands, bands I’ve “heard of” but never actually heard. I hardly ever listen to music at home, so I like the opportunity…then I can make my hardened, jaded comments about the music industry (indie and otherwise) with at least some element of validity. Anyhow, I realise that all I do to get my info on bands is check their MySpace, Wikipedia and CBC Radio 3 websites. I was just noticing it, because just like five years ago, that wasn’t the case: I’d actually have to scour the web, hope a band had their own website or at least a CBC page. Now it seems bands don’t even have their own websites anymore, or those sites have become a static, secondary source. MySpace basically formats a band’s web identity, the same was Facebook formats a person’s individuality. But this isn’t a complaint, this is just how it is, how things have become. It’s like Jennifer Aniston’s waitress character from Office Space: we all have to wear the same uniform, but are encouraged to add pieces of “flair” to distinguish ourselves from one another. Weird…