Can you believe the hype?

I wrote recently about all the effort that goes in to trying to get your band noticed by the right people in Dig the archives (and weep).

Here's a good example. Some bands take their names from a line in a book, but in Reel Funk Inc's case we'd thought of the name first. This didn't hold us back. Instead we invented a book, and then I wrote an excerpt from said book which we used in our promotion.

without it. He moved towards one of the tables and sat down, dragging a chair nearer with his boot. Over at one end of the room was a small stage area where a longhair was setting up some acoustic drums. One by one, other musicians came through a small, battered door at the back with cases of equipment. Behind him wheezed the sound of credit slots powering up in the vending bar and muffled laughter from a room somewhere beyond. God he felt tired. He wondered if Slide would show up.

One of the musicians wore torn coveralls with Reel Funk inc, discreetly screened on the shoulder. It brought a faint smile to his lips. Reel Funk inc. was a massive entertainment corporation which had, in its day, dominated the leisure industry, controlling software houses, musicians and studios. That was before the last crash. Now, Reel Funk inc. was a tarnished golden tower in Centre with sealed doors and belligerent security for those pursuing wages or royalties. Funk was a word everyone used and no-one understood. Maybe this group hadn't heard. Maybe they still believed the myth of the Cyberfunk Corporation. Maybe they didn't care.

He watched them more closely. As they unpacked the cases it began to dawn on him how much the old ways were already being lost.

They seemed to have the most basic equipment. One, a thin white in black jeans, was strapping on some sort of digital processor and what looked like a home-made guitar. The big black guy was fiddling with the battery compartment on a five string bass. Another, he assumed she was the singer, was drinking from a small bottle, waiting. He looked again. She was gorgeous. He tried not to stare at the bottle pressing against her lips and the slow swallowing in her throat.

There was a startled crash from one of the cymbals and the drummer broke into a striding hypnotic rythm. He stopped, and then just as suddenly, all three of them started up and the singer was dancing up to the stage. Despite his tiredness his feet wanted to move. The music might once have been written as software but it had a coarse wildness to it here that he felt he hadn't heard in years. The bass rumbled in his chest. The guitar scratched and howled and a woman's tough sinuous voice chanted over it. Most of all, it was loud. I ought to get out more, he thought wryly.

And then Slide was shouting in his ear to get his attention and he realised that people were moving into the club, sitting on tables or pushing them away to make room for dancing. He stood up stiffly, grabbed Slide's arm and dragged him, grinning to the music, towards the vends.

If only it was as easy to make music as it is to write about it.