Digital
Highway Paved the Road to Woodstock
Sticky Pistil used edgy marketing tactic
Santa Fe New Mexican
September 3, 1999
By the time they got to Woodstock,
the road had been paved by the digital highway. The Taos funk-rock group Sticky
Pistil used leading-edge marketing tactics on the Internet to promote itself
and garner a gig at this year's Woodstock music festival.
Sticky Pistil, which plays a kind of music the band describes as "funkinmental," formed in 1997. Three members formerly were in a group called Sonic Bloom but had to change the band's name due to a conflict with a same-named company that makes music for plants.
After adding bass player Shawn Perry, Sticky Pistil's brain trust led by singer Mark Hershiser worked on a plan to promote the band.
"'We started working on our show and playing around here," said Hershiser, a California native who moved to Taos five years ago. "When we were Sonic Bloom, I had purchased recording equipment. I was fully convinced the way to go as a band was to get inexpensive stuff, since it's the digital age, and make our own CD."
Hershiser previously had successfully launched an herb company, Native Essence, so he knew the value of creating a business plan to promote the group.
"Pretty much right away, I thought we should work on a package with a CD and a Web site to create the perception of a full-on band," he said.
After getting Perry up to speed with material already developed in Sonic Bloom, Sticky Pistil was off and running, performing its first gig at the Taos Solar Music Festival in 1997, opening for Spearhead, a national act.
Confident Sticky Pistil's live act would propel the group, Hershiser set out to get an edge on the normal working-band process of playing low-paying gigs and touring.
"All we were looking for was a marketing outlet for what we can do - be a rock 'n' roll band and go out there and play," Hershiser said. "My theory from a business or marketing standpoint is that of every band I've been in or known, I don't know anyone who's made it. The conventional thing is to go out and get the exposure, play the little clubs, hope some guy sees you, and build your fan base.
"The theory is that you are going to get discovered. When that happens then you jump into the other level. I see so much of that as (being) a lottery. I think my luck would be better if I bought a lottery ticket."
Hershiser is well aware the Internet would not be a magic bullet. The band still would have to play hard and perform well but perhaps it could circumvent New Mexico's isolation through online technology.
First, the band built a Web site that offers information about the group, reviews, press clips and its CD for sale.
But if it's ' true technological innovation starts revolutions, the development of the MP3 compression format has created an insurrection in the traditional music business.
Simply put, compression allows an artist to post a digital file of recorded music, which until recently was too large for standard online downloads. Bands now can post songs or entire CDs on Web pages. Consumers then can retrieve the music through the Internet to listen to on computers or special audio players.
While several compression formats are available, MP3 has surfaced as the clearest and most accessible. Originally developed in '87, the Moving Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) approved MP3 technology through the International Organization of Standardization in '92.
The MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, shortened to MP3, since has become the compression of choice for a number of artists wanting to bypass the traditional music industry.
A virtual cottage industry of Web sites devoted to MP3 has enabled musicians to offer new songs and remixes for free on the Net. Many established artists have gotten into the act, offering out takes and alternative cuts over those Web sites.
In one extreme example, rap group Public Enemy decided to release the album, There's a poison goin' on.. . only on the Web after the album was killed when the band's label, Def Jam, was dropped by the label's parent company.
A major music-industry trade association, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), opposed the MP3 format and sought to block the release of the Rio MP3 player manufactured by Diamond Multimedia, in fear the compression technology would promote piracy.
The Rio player is a portable device, Other players can be downloaded for playback on personal computers.
Most libertarian Netizens don't care about the piracy issue but artists wanting to protect copyrighted material have recourse.
"Water marking" has been developed so material can be traced to its source, encryption allows companies to restrict material to proprietary players, and "use-by" codes can prevent files from Working after certain dates.
Piracy hardly is an issue affecting Sticky Pistil. If anything, MP3 has caused a different problem: a glut of material on the Net.
"On the Internet," Hershiser said, "one can find 50,000 bands and that's growing by the thousands daily. It opens up things. It changes the playing field but it's still just as hard. If you are someone looking for a band and you pull up 300 genres, you'll get 3,000 bands (per genre).
'Natural selection is taking place; certain things are rising to the top. But a lot of it is aggressiveness, as it always was - playing clubs, building a solid base anyway."
As an early proponent of the Internet Hershiser has found the instantaneous feedback afforded by the Net a major bonus.
"The Internet is just as hard but you can get something out there, send it out and see your review on a site," he said.
"Minimal as it may seem, you can put your package together," he said. "We get hundreds of e-mails from people who love our songs. People are not going to send you a postcard but e-mail gives you a press kit. You can go out there and get the ball rolling.'
It was through a contest that Sticky Pistil earned its trip to Woodstock. The Web site AMP3.com established a contest to select 12 artists for the Emerging Artists stage at Woodstock. Winners were determined by download popularity and a video, of the band's live performance, submitted to contest organizers.
Sticky Pistil made the grade, a spectacular achievement considering the band is based in a rural community far away from the music industry's epicenters of New York and L.A.
Sticky Pistil has songs posted on AMP3.com, which pays the band $.05 per download.
Ultimately using the Web allows Sticky Pistil to balance art with making a living.
"I looked at this as a business," Hershiser said. "I wanted to take a product that I like, not to make something that sold.
"There is a market for anything. That was part of my belief, that I could make a business out of the band - playing music, being successful."
-Antonio Lopez
Fertile
Imaginations
Taos News
May 6, 1999
The name is a metaphor for fertility, fruitfulness and crosspollination. The pistil is the female part of the flower that incubates the growing seeds after being fertilized by the pollen from the stamen, the male part. the fact that the pistil is sticky means the flower is definately interested in making that fertilization process happen - which is a metaphor for what a local band is trying to accomplish on many different levels.
Part of the band's stage dress includes insectoid-style sunglasses, which keeps the metaphor going. Like the birds and the bees, these musicians pollinate the hip hop scene in Taos. To keep the strain healthy and genetically interesting, the band has carried pollen from a wide variety of musical styles. The result is a striking hybrid.
The group delivers a crop of tunes that has music classifiers and catagorizers scratching their heads. The music has much in common with the new layered funk and trip hop (a psychedelic offshoot of hip hop). Sticky Pistil's sound is like The Lo-Fidelity Allstars with Pigeonhead on a cyber date with Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. Their new release, "Hi-Fi superfly", has as much in common with urban R&B and rap as it does with the psycedeleic funk of the early 70's.
The energy of each band member is infectious. Each member seems to be happy to find himself in a band like this. Mark "uziq" Hershiser, Scott "the preacher" Kesson, Mike "mc2" Caron and Shawn "freakboy" Perry.
Band leader, master mixer and lead "singer" Hershiser said this blending of styles allows the band to pay tribute to all their musical heroes at once.
"My influences include (David) Bowie, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, the New York Dolls, the Psychedelic Furs, [Beck] and Public Enemy. Now there's a cross-section of American pop music," he said, laughing. Growing up in Southern California, he added, made for a very urban overlay in his musical taste. Hershiser is tall, wiry and has a sly sense of humor.
Kesson, sings sings and plays lead guitar, said, "my tastes run from fusion to guitar legends. From [drummer] Bill Cobham to [guitarist] Robert Fripp. From Alfonse Musant to Jimi Hendrix. I'm also a big Zappa freak. I wore those albums through, while I was growing up in Denver," he said. "I once saw [Parliment] Funkadelic in concert. It was alife changing experience,' he added. Kesson's laugh is deep, infectious and plentiful.
Caron, the drummer for the band, grew up in the Midwest and his influences reflect that. "I listened to progressive rock like Peter Gabriel and King Crimson. Also liked classic rock stuff like Jeff Beck, Yes and Rush." Caron is quiet, the quintessential drummer who expresses himself with his drums.
Perry grew up in Southern California, too. "I listened to a lot of thrash metal and punk and rap, like Run DMC and 2 Live Crew. Then there's Madonna and Duran Duran," he added. Perry is the youngest member of the band and is also described by his fellow members as the "workhorse" of the band.
Before joining Sticky Pistil, Perry played bass for one of Robert Mirabal's national tours. He also played in the Never Never Band, which was one of the precursors to Sticky Pistil. "Our music, which uses a lot of electronic tools, does not have the 'Taos vibe,' that mystic Taos ganja mojo," Kesson explained "Hip hop is the new culture. It's the new generation and it is an important one. It's a pallette you can paint with.
"People think performing to samples and drum machines is easy, but when things get out of sync, it's the ultimate Sticky Pistil train-wreck," Hershiser explained. "Our stage persona is kind of freaky. I've dressed in drag, done a little gender-blending. I do it for the shock value......I make this screaming psychedelic presence," he said.
"We certainly like to take you out of the ordinary with the weird appearance," Kesson added.
Besides releasing a [Independently] recorded and distributed disc, Sticky Pistil is creating a big online presence. Their release is listed on MP3.com, a controversial website dedicated to the proliferation of pop music.
MP3 is a file format which stores audio files on a computer in such a way that the file size is relatively small, but the replicated song is faithful to the original. Typically one megabyte of space is equal to one minute of music or several minutes for spoken word and audio books.
MP3 poses several problems regarding copyrights. Using MP3 files is legal if the song's copyright holder has granted permission to dowload and play the song. It is, however, a new way to distribute and promote new music.
Singles from "Hi-Fi Superfly" are also listed in the top five singles in the funk category for a new digital music dowload site, AMP3.com. One thing that separates this site from others is that artists are paid each time someone dowloads the artist's music.
The band has also set up an impressive site of their own, stickypistil.com, which includes music and animation for web surfers. Hershiser has big plans for establishing a live-feed music website for the Taos scene. "The company we have set up, Vinyl Grooves, hopefully, will turn into an internet-based independent label. I'm thinking about putting together a compilation of local grooves and rappers," he said.
Hershiser has also helped a couple of young rappers from Taos High School. The rappers, Joe "G-Styles" Moya and Hillario Ledoux, with the help of Hershiser, have put together a CD of samples and rhythms.
"I'd like to put together a complation of all the young rappers here in Taos. They tell me about all the craziness at school. The situation is not good. There's so much peer pressure to get into some weird things. Rapping is creative and something to do besides getting into serious trouble," Hershiser said.
Rapping may be creative and part of a new important generation, but some people may have difficulty embracing music that prizes rhythm over melodic strings. The sounds of Sticky Pistil are going to challenge more than the patience of parents and our concept of how music is distributed.
They may have so much infectious, positive energy you can't
help but be in love with their ideas and enthusiasm, even if you can't embrace
the music.
-Julio Diaz
© 1999 Ariel Publicity and Sticky Pistil