2010-10-31 HARD Haunted Mansion - Los Angeles, CA

[negative1]

Originally Posted by khouri

A crucial component of touring is awareness. If Underworld aren't filling venues, it's because people don't know they're still putting new music out, assuming they've even heard of Underworld in the first place. I can tell you that hardly anybody I spoke to at the aborted Hardfest gig last year had any idea who Underworld were.

i think this has pretty much been true ever since they've toured
the US ... they've had a smaller indie following for most of their
history bar the 'trainspotting'/'born slippy' single...

The solutions to that problem are -- and here I go again -- Internet presence and content distribution. All the major electronic acts that have remained or become relevant in the last ten years, from oldies like Daft Punk to the new lot like Fischerspooner or Justice, have done so in part by making their music wildly available and heavily promoted. Underworld willingly opted out of that industry system -- in my opinion, to their peril. With the exception of A Hundred Days Off, Underworld have spent most of the last decade making it nearly impossible for the casual listener to discover and obtain their music:

actually, their music has ALWAYS been hard to find even when they started..
how many copies of m.e/the hump are there? their early 12" singles on JBO,
the skyscraper single, etc. etc... i would say the opposite, its a LOT EASIER
NOW to find their music online / amazon / ebay, etc... you can find all the
main albums, and some selected singles...and of course all the recent stuff
online..

i can't speak for the other bands you mentioned, but relevancy is
mostly subjective i would think... if a band is more productive or has
a bigger media presence, good for them and their fans... we have this
board, and other ways of getting the information..

The early albums' availability is spotty at best; their greatest hits package is, I believe, out-of-print; their RiverRun series of EPs and singles were released in the most bullsh*t fashion imaginable; the 3-disc Live in Tokyo record, arguably the best Underworld release of all time, was practically impossible to obtain; the Sunshine soundtrack was hopelessly delayed;

as i mentioned, its not that hard to find all of their albums.. yeah, sure
the riverrun EP was not a fullblown release for the masses (and wasn't
meant to be), and how much interest in the film soundtrack for a non-hit
movie is there? so how much did that really impact them?

Oblivion With Bells was a proper album with proper avenues of distribution, but the promotion was dreadful: homemade music videos, bizarre single choices in the form of Holding the Moth and Ring Road, assuming you could buy them in the first place (I don't have a record player, so no Ring Road for me). Of course, some of this stuff is available digitally, but what if nobody knows it exists at all?

how many of their singles have been 'obvious'? how many of the mixes
actually sounded like the original back when they started? only 'club
friendly' mixes seem to be more predominant compared to their
experimental ones... if people are fans of the group, they'll find out
how to get the singles, which sites have them, and of course
torrent/download them .... as they do for a lot of other groups..

Finally, the Underworld website is demonstrably lacking, to put it mildly. True, the shop is now equipped with a good chunk of the back catalogue, assuming there are no longer problems buying any of it, but the site itself looks really unprofessional, is difficult to navigate, is home to no useful information beyond the dubious shop and barebones tour dates -- no bio, no gallery, and no free music beyond what's available in that weird pop-up media player despite releasing so god damn much of it over the years.

yeah, well it's always been a work in progress, and who goes to
just one site anyways? there's always been some good fansites
and other places to look up more detailed information ... just because
it's not centrally located really shouldn't deter someone if they
really wanted more indepth information..

I get so frustrated about all this stuff because I think Underworld are the best band in the world. Barking seems poised to be a Beaucoup-level success, so hopefully Underworld will finally emerge from the underground.

hmm..did you really consider 'beaucoup fish' that succesfull?

although i agree with what you said at times,
(and yes, even being booked on a late night
talk show miight point to a different agenda.)
but ask yourself, do they really need or even
want to 'emerge'?

later
-1