Shameless Self Promotion

With the growing popularity of social networking sites, bands are bypassing traditional promotional steps to reach out to their fan base on a whole new level

It used to take years of hard work, grueling tours and a restrictive record contract for a band to “make it” in the music industry.

Not anymore.

On April 28, 2007, just fourteen months after forming, rock band Neurosonic announced via MySpace that they would be playing on the Family Values tour alongside their childhood idols Korn.

Neurosonic front-man Jason Darr is a master at online promotion. He uses social networking sites, especially MySpace, to personally communicate with fans and post up-to-date information about the band.

“We’re on there all the time, constantly interacting with our fans,” he says. “It’s spreading for us right now. [Our page is] getting up to 5,000 hits a day…We’re new and the fact that we’re still bringing in that number of people every day to check us out is a really big deal.”

With the growing popularity of social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and PureVolume, many bands are choosing to bypass traditional promotional steps, such as radio, television and magazines, and are instead using these sites to keep in touch with their fans and reach out to new listeners on a more personal level. Bands no longer need record companies or PR agencies to gain publicity. Instead, they are able to promote themselves and speak with their fans directly.

“It’s a one-stop shop,” says Bobby Alt from Street Drum Corps. “You can go to MySpace and you can get the band’s videos, you can talk to the band, you can leave comments, you can buy music now right from MySpace. It’s a great way for people to check out when our shows are…I have been a musician for 20-some-odd years now and when MySpace came around, it absolutely changed my life.”

Before the advent of social networking sites, bands had to think of new and creative ways to reach out to listeners. Mailing lists, while costly and time consuming, were often the most popular form of communication between bands and fans. Mark Jansen of Epica promoted his previous band After Forever in the mid-’90s by sending spam e-mails to potential fans. At the time, the response was positive, but now spam email has such a negative response that bands can no longer use it to their advantage.

“I’m a little proud that I was one of the first people to use spam email,” Jansen says. “I collected e-mail addresses from the guestbooks of other bands and I sent emails mentioning After Forever. I got emails back saying ‘thank you for mentioning this band,’ but if you do it nowadays people just say ‘fuck off!’”

Social networking sites allow bands to send out similar emails without being deleted or ignored and, unlike more traditional forms of promotion, social networking sites are absolutely free for bands, promoters and listeners. They are easy to use and anyone can create a page, leveling the playing field and providing any band with the opportunity to promote themselves.

“It helps bands who are just starting out to really virally spread the word and it gives everybody the opportunity to flick a spark and see if it catches fire,” Darr says.

In the past, record labels have had a monopoly over new up-and-coming acts but due to the rapid expansion of social networking sites, grass-roots promotion has taken the lead and anybody with the right amount of time and motivation can gain popularity without needing a record company or PR agency to back them.

“Any computer you buy nowadays has some kind of recording software on it so anyone can start a band, write songs, record them and have them up online within a day and start drawing their fan base,” says Eron Bucciarelli of Hawthorne Heights.

The benefits are evident for listeners, too, as social networking sites are making underground music more accessible to the public. Whereas in the past unsigned bands had to individually pack and ship demos to fans who contacted them or hand out CDs personally, they are now able to upload songs directly to their networking pages for fans to check out. Better yet, they are able to see how many hits each song has received to gage their popularity, whereas with demo CDs there was no way of telling who actually listened to their music and who just threw the CD into the nearest garbage can.

This type of feedback is embraced by bands and now, thanks to social networking sites, they have the opportunity to easily see their fans’ responses and use that to decide what direction to go in.

“You are so in touch with your fans that you can put up a little survey asking ‘What did you think of our last album? What was your favorite song?’ You can totally gain from that where you should go and what are people liking,” says Robbie Kirkham of The Vincent Black Shadow.

Neurosonic have a poll on their MySpace page that asks “What’s your favorite Neurosonic experience?” and lists “Live Show,” “Album/Single,” “Music Video,” “Meet and Greet,” “MySpace/Official Site” and “Other” as its choices. The site also features a Google map of their current tour and a chance for fans to “demand” that Neurosonic play in their town.

“It’s at it’s germation stage right now; it really needs to blow up,” Darr says of the show requests, noting that once enough people start voting, the band will use that information to plan their tours.

Social networking sites make it fast and easy for bands and fans to communicate on a personal level, adding a whole new dimension to the music-lover’s experience.

“It’s sort of taken that pedestal away from the bands,” Kirkham says. “I think the majority of bands now that are starting out and are trying to get somewhere use MySpace as a way to make life-long fans…We write back to everybody who writes to us. Why wouldn’t you?”

Neurosonic also make a point of personally writing back to every message they get.

“[MySpace] gives us a chance to interact with our fans a lot more. If we didn’t have that, we’d be getting fan mail and have to write back. This way, with the internet, you can just ‘boom, boom, boom,’ respond back to someone,” says bassist Jacen Ekstrom.

While communication with listeners is a huge part of the promotional process, already established bands like Hawthorne Heights use social networking sites as a way to keep their fans updated on their lives.

“Back in the day, bands just had actual mailing lists and by the time the message reached the fan, it was already old,” Bucciarelli says. “As soon as something happens with us we can send a message out to our MySpace account and everyone knows the second we know.”

With so many bands readily available to the public free-of-charge, the competition and pressure to keep listeners interested is growing.

“I think it’s just forcing bands and artists in general, song writers and everybody, to just really hone their craft and offer their fans value,” says Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed.

“The thing about social networking sites and the internet in general, is that you can get what you want when you want it,”says Jake Janzen, a college student who uses MySpace to find up-to-date information on his favorite bands. “It doesn't have to appeal to a wide range of people, so people can watch, listen, and read whatever they want. However, since there is so much stuff on the internet, it's sometimes difficult for potential fans to find [bands].”

In addition, social networking sites, especially MySpace, tend to have irrelevant clutter on the band pages.

“I don’t care about messages from friends saying ‘thanks for adding me’ or any of the spam that they usually get from other bands,” says Sharon Lewis, who prefers looking at bands’ official websites to their MySpace pages. “It takes up too much space and doesn’t mean anything in the band context.”

While MySpace pages may help bands reach a wide audience, some information (such as bulletins and photos) are exclusive to other MySpace users. Although use of the internet is growing rapidly, some people still don’t surf the web regularly or have their own social networking page. Therefore, traditional media is still a vital part of band promotion.

“I still think there are millions of people who aren’t on any of the social networking sites,” Jasta says. “They listen to college radio, specialty radio and the commercial stations, go to shows or hear it word of mouth.”

Radio in particular remains an extremely important medium.

“I honestly feel radio is still a lot more influential [than social networking sites] because a lot of people are in cars or by cars and there’s always a radio no matter what,” says Ronnie Winter of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. “It may not be the best radio, but it’s still a radio. Not everybody has the internet, so I still feel a little more towards the radio side personally. If there were more radio stations playing unsigned bands, it would be a better industry.”

DJ Carl Sundberg, host of The Edge and Local Lixx on Eugene’s KFLY FM, helps local unsigned bands gain publicity by playing their songs on his show. Although some bands still send in demo CDs, he uses MySpace as his primary tool when searching for new bands.

“I use [MySpace] now in more of a business way than a personal way every single day,” he says. “It’s my contact point for so many bands that don’t have any other way to communicate…If a band is legit enough, they have a MySpace page, so I can check out their songs and determine then [if they have] something I’d like to play.”

While there is definitely some competition between traditional media and the internet, Sundberg doesn’t think the popularity of radio or television will ever completely diminish

“The radio will always be there, just like network TV channels,” he says. “They’re always going to be there because it’s a free medium.”

Johnny Evil, founder of promotion and booking company Evil Live, says that printed flyers are still his preferred promotional method as they are invasive and hard to ignore.

“Don't get me wrong, I use the internet quite a bit for communication, but for the most part you need to have a lot of physical flyers and posters to bombard people with,” he says. “If it's all electronic-based, the user can wipe the promotion you've thrown at them from their memory the second they walk away from the computer.”

Although Jason Hale of Chiodos says that one of the best things about MySpace is that you don’t need to tour as much to gain publicity, many listeners still argue that touring is the most gimportant thing a band can do. As social networking sites can be so cluttered with bands, seeing a band’s name on an upcoming show list can drive listeners to search for their MySpace page, especially if they are opening for a band that the listener already likes.

Neurosonic agree, continuing to tour almost non-stop, hoping to build up as much awareness about their band as possible and give something back to those that helped make them a success. After wrapping up their month-and-a-half gig on the Family Values tour in early September, they spent a month touring Europe, documenting the trip in video blogs which they posted online for fans. Upon returning from Europe, they began to tour the U.S. again and have dates booked until early December. Despite their busy schedules, they still check their networking accounts regularly and don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

“The Nintendo Generation is beginning a takeover,” Evil says. “We've been scammed our whole lives into thinking that we need capitalism, that in order to be a ‘success’ in the music industry we need big business. Well, I think there are many people of high intellect that are shaking off that brainwash and are writing a page in history all their own.”

Lordi: "Bringing Back the Balls to Rock"

Not many bands that have performed at Ozzfest alongside Lamb of God and Ozzy can say that they have something in common with ABBA and Celine Dion. Not many bands that were once shunned by their entire country can sell their own brand of cola and candies a year later.

But Lordi can.

Since its first live show in 2002, Lordi has mesmerized audiences with its energetic hard rock, horror-inspired costumes and extravagant pyrotechnics. In 2006, Lordi shocked viewers all over Europe as it represented Finland in the annual Eurovision Song Contest.

There used to be a saying that hell would freeze over before Finland would win Eurovision, Europe's oldest and most-watched televised music competition with 37 participating countries and an audience of up to 600 million each year. Not only did self-proclaimed “monsters of rock” Lordi win both the semi-final and the final, the band's anthem, "Hard Rock Hallelujah," also received the highest score in the 50-year history of Eurovision.

Although Finns were initially skeptical about the image of their country that a metal band in monster costumes would present to the rest of the world, opinions changed dramatically once Lordi's song became a success at Eurovision.

“When we actually went to the finals at Eurovision, the whole thing changed,” says Lordi's vocalist Tomi Putaansuu, who goes by Mr. Lordi when in costume. “Over one night we became national heroes and just the other day we were national shame.”

After Lordi's Eurovision victory, the band received an award for exemplary work from the Finnish president and a square in Putaansuu's hometown, Rovaniemi, was renamed “Lordi Square.” By breaking Finland's 40-year losing streak at Eurovision, Lordi had helped its home country gain international recognition.

For a hard rock band like Lordi to win the Eurovision Song Contest was a surprise to many viewers, as the contest normally showcases what Putaansuu refers to as “brainless pop.” Occasionally, however, Eurovision can help more progressive artists gain publicity. “The first band that was really different here was ABBA in the 70's and then I think the next one was Celine Dion in the 80's, and then there was us,” Putaansuu says. “It seems that every 10 or 15 years there is something that really makes a difference.”

Despite the popularity Lordi gained from Eurovision, Putaansuu notes that the band is glad that it is over. “Even though it opened really good windows and opportunities for us, in some ways it's already like a really big burden,” he says. “There has been enough Eurovision for one rock band's career already. We were a rock band before Eurovision and we continue to be a rock band after.”

Lordi formed in 1992, but it took Putaansuu ten years to find a record label willing to sign the band. “No record label really understood the whole concept,” he says. “They thought that the music was crappy but the image was good or the music was good but the image was crappy.”

While at first glance Lordi appears to be just another hard metal band, its music is actually far more melodic than the monster image may imply. It can best be described as heavy metal meets 80's hard rock with killer guitar riffs and catchy choruses. Among the band’s influences are Kiss, Alice Cooper, Twisted Sister and W.A.S.P. According to Putaansuu, a paper in Europe “intentionally misheard or misunderstood” Amen, Lordi's guitar player, and quoted him as saying that Lordi is better than Kiss or Alice Cooper. “Now some parts of the media are taking up on that and are really trying to provoke Alice Cooper and Kiss fans,” Putaansuu says. “There are thousands of other interviews where we say they are our big idols and then there's this one where it says that we are better than them, which is something that we never would have said. But, of course, that creates a scandal and sells papers.”

Lordi played its very first show five years ago at a major venue in Helsinki, just after its first album was released.

“For a band like this to go out and play before the album was out in little clubs would have definitely watered down the whole thing. It has to be kind of 'big' from the get-go,” Putaansuu notes. “Of course, that was a huge gamble in a way, but it paid off.”

It was at this very first show that Putaansuu’s worst pyrotechnic mishap occurred.

“Of course when you have pyrotechnic shit something happens every once in a while,” Putaansuu says. “I have this dynamite stick on stage that I point to the audience and it shoots fire and explodes over the audience, but I was holding it upside down, so it actually blew to my balls! But then again, I have lots of leather and latex covering me, so I just felt the warmth for a little bit. All the costumes are so thick and heavy and they are made of rubber so they are not flammable at all.”

Lordi's costumes, made from a layer of latex over foam rubber and leather, are influenced by a variety of its favorite bands, horror films and comic books, including Kiss, Alice Cooper, Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, and the Incredible Hulk. “I like to think that I have taken a little bit of each of my favorite monsters and put them all up together,” says Putaansuu.

Although the Lordi characters always remain the same (a mummy, a bulltaur, a vampire countess, an alien manbeast and Mr. Lordi as “The Most Fearsome Khan of All”), their outfits are redesigned for each new album and need constant repairing. “It's prosthetic makeup really, not costumes, so it's not meant to be used day after day after day,” Putaansuu says. “So, of course we need to do constant repairing all the time...like every two days or so.”

While wearing costumes onstage sets Lordi apart from most metal bands, it takes a significant time commitment to get into character. Putaansuu spends five hours putting on his makeup and costume to before each show and ninety minutes afterwards to take it all off.

The band members repeat this process before all photo shoots, interviews and performances because they refuse to show their real faces. In 2005, a Finnish tabloid posted photographs of the band members without their makeup, causing a huge backlash from fans.

“[How we look is] not relevant at all. That's not the band, that's not what the whole concept is about,” Putaansuu says. “If you go to Disney World, how cool would it be if Goofy took off the head?…Our fans are really, really strict on this. They don't want to know about our personal life and they don't want to know about the way we look because they are fans of our characters and our music and this band, but not of our civil personas.”

Despite, or perhaps because of, never having been seen without their costumes, the Lordi characters have become sex symbols in some countries. “I don't know what it is about them but the thing is, the uglier you are, the more girls you get,” Putaansuu says. “Think of Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead or even Gene Simmons. He’s not the prettiest boy on the block.”

Because Lordi is so heavily influenced by the horror genre and Putaansuu is a former film student, it seems only natural that the band would create horror films of its own. In 2004, Lordi released a short film Called “The Kin” on the album Monsterican Dream. In February 2008, its first full-length horror film, will be released. The film, titled “Dark Floors,” stars a young autistic girl who must save the world from a monster attack. Putaansuu wrote the script and designed the monsters for "Dark Floors," which will be directed by Pete Riski, Putaansuu's best friend since childhood, and filmed by Jean Noel Mustonen, who has shot all of Lordi's music videos. “Dark Floors” will not be released in US theaters but Putaansuu hopes that it will eventually be distributed in the US, at least on DVD.

To add to its music and film repertoire, Lordi has taken after its heroes Kiss and created a variety of different Lordi merchandise. “I've always thought that it doesn't take anything away from the band and it's the other way around if you have something else on the side, even though the band and the music is the main thing,” Putaansuu says. “It just makes the thing bigger.”

Finnish fans can buy Lordi-brand cola and a variety of Lordi candies. Copies of the single “It Snows in Hell” (a tongue-in-cheek reference to those who believed Finland would never win Eurovision) can be purchased at Finnish post offices. Lordi even has its own restaurant in Finland, Lordi's Rocktaurant, serving what Putaansuu refers to as “all the good stuff,” including reindeer, steaks, burgers and a la carte food.

Lordi has definitely come a long way since 1992. With a new album out in 2008 and the plans for more tours on more continents, Putaansuu is optimistic about the future of the band.

“Lordi has been going on for 15 years already so I don’t see us stopping,” he says. “It’s the only thing I know how to do and the only thing I want to do. As long as there’s a record label who wants to put out our music and as long as there are venues and people who want to see us live, I think the future is bright.”

Published in the Oregon Voice

Warped Tour 2007

The Vincent Black Shadow
Robbie Kirkham, guitars

How would you describe your sound?
I like to describe it as gonzo music because my writing idol, who is Hunter S. Thompson, the late great Hunter S. Thompson, called his journalism "gonzo journalism," and it was basically based on the fact that when he would write a book or a collection of something, it would be autobiographical, it would be fictional, it would be letter writing, it would be poems, all mixed into one thing, all into one medium. Essentially what we do is we take from rock, pop, jazz, metal, anything we love and we sort of mush it into “our” sound. So rather than saying, "we're kinda like rock-rap-punk-funk-jazz-soul-metal," you know, we just say it's gonzo music, which means we take from styles and make them our own.

Where do you draw your inspiration?
It comes from wanting to be different. I’ve always – when I was young all the way to now – I was always a weird kid. Whenever my brothers would show me music, it was like, “here, listen to this. You’re weird, you’ll like this.” Primus, Oingo Boingo, Devo, B-52s, stuff that was like, “everybody is listening to this, I’m going to go over here.” I have the same approach to the way I dress, the way I act and the way that my music comes out, because who wants to be the same as everyone else? I mean, everybody wants to be different but they want to be different in a conformist sort of way, you know what I mean? Like, “I’m gonna be different by getting the same haircut that everybody has.” All my musical influences have come from people like Mike Patton, Glen Dazing, Les Claypool, Fiona Apple, people who were the badass in their own way. It’s just like, I’m going to do what I want to do and if it means the end of my career, whatever. If it was the way I wanted to do it, cool.


Killswitch Engage
Joel Stroetzel, guitars

How would you describe your sound?
It's kinda heavy but kinda goofy; kinda melodic, I guess. A bit of everything.

What do you think is more important: a killer live show or a great album?
It's hard to say. Thing is, if you don’t really have a good record, people aren't going to come to your live show, and if you don’t have a good live show, they're not going to buy your album. They kinda work together I guess. But, I mean, as far as building up a kinda grassroots following, doing it yourself, I guess having a live show and just playing as much as you can is probably more important. Thing is, it's really hard to make money selling records, to make a living like that today, because nobody buys records any more. It's all download and iTunes. If you have a good live show and you can sell some t-shirts, you make a living that way.


Street Drum Corps
Adam Alt, Bobby Alt, Frank Zummo

How would you describe your sound?
Bobby: Beautiful noise! It’s high energy drums. We’ve got everything now though. Our sound is heavily drums, but now we have vocals, we have other instruments – a theremin, I think our friends played some guitar on this new record we have coming out, bass, keyboards, lots of programming. It’s all there.

Where did the concept for SDC originate?
Bobby: Mainly from street drumming, All of us were playing theme parks and private parties for years, playing hand drums, buckets, garbage cans, drum sets.
Adam: Bobby and I had a show called Experiment, Frank had show called Re-Percussion.
Bobby: We kinda joined forces 3 or 4 years ago and started doing work and ended up on the Warped Tour, Taste of Chaos, on the road with The Used, 30 Seconds to Mars, Matisyahu, little bit of everything now.

What do you use to make music?
Bobby: Everything from regular household appliances to things you might find in the garage – grinders, pieces of motorcycles and cars, real drum sets, electronic instruments, buckets ...
Adam: Trash cans
Frank: Marching drums
Bobby: Everything from a junkyard to a drum shop.

Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Ronnie Winters, vocals

How would you describe your sound?
Basically, as stupid as it might sound, we kinda consider our CD to be like an iPod Shuffle. We tried to cover a lot of different things from piano rock to screaming metal to punk rock to power ballads, so that’s how we kinda consider it, if that makes any sense.

What would you say is your biggest accomplishment as a band to date?
Well, we did a tour called the Take Action tour in February/March. It’s a tour to raise awareness about youth suicide. They give out free samplers and if you put it in your computer, you have the option to become a youth counselor. On the tour that we headlined, there was a 500% increase in people that not only put the CD in but signed up and took the course than all of the existing years of the tour put together. I think that was pretty rad. That’s probably the best thing that we’ve done so far.


Still Remains
Jordan Whelan, guitar

How would you describe your sound?
Anything diverse. If you like bands like HIM, In Flames, Stone Temple Pilots, I think you'd like Still Remains.

How has Warped been so far?
It’s a great opportunity for us to tour with bands and meet bands that we would never tour with otherwise. There’s a band on tour called the Rocket Summer, an incredible band but Still Remains would never tour with the Rocket Summer on a regular tour! So it’s cool for us, it’s cool for the fans.

Do you prefer the creative process of writing the music and seeing it all come together or playing it live and watching the crowd’s response?
I love playing live and I love being on tour, but for me, the most accomplishing feeling is being in the studio and making something out of nothing. It’s obviously not the same as birthing a child, but it’s the same sort of thing. It’s like taking your thoughts and ideas and composing them and compressing them and making this beautiful piece of work. So definitely the creative process is my favorite part about it.


Chiodos
Jason Hale, guitar and Matt Goddard, bass

How would you describe your sound? Jason: Diarrhea
Matt: It’s a mixture of a bunch of stuff. I don’t really know.

How has Warped Tour been so far?
Matt: It’s been great, just really hot. I cant wait to get back to my own toilet. [To Jason] Why are you looking at your…[Jason holds up his finger after picking his nose] Oooooh, gross! Um, I’m looking forward to not being in a bus on Warped…that’s gross. I’m seriously distracted by that, I cant stop looking at it.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Jason: Halo rocks!
Matt: I can’t even think straight right now we’ve been playing Halo so much today. One day we were driving and we played for 4 hours straight. I had to pee so bad but I couldn’t get up.


The Matches
Shawn Harris, guitar/vocals

How would you describe your sound?
I have no idea what the description comes up as.

So tell me a bit about co-directing your new music video for "Salty Eyes."
I co-directed it with my art partner and our manager and this guy who was the Director of Photography for the video. It basically came about because we shot our video for this album, Papercut Skin, which came out about the same time as the album. Being on an indie label, you pretty much get a bunch of promo videos. We had this concept for "Salty Eyes." It was an appropriation of the Bob Dylan "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video, and we had this really good spin on it that went with the song perfectly. We ended up making it for less than $1,000. We wound up finding all the TVs in junkyards ourselves. We collected between 50 and 100 televisions that all worked and practiced for a week using cardboard boxes. We finally shot it all in one take. There are no cuts; it's one take straight through. We had one chance to get it right.


Hawthorne Heights
Eron Bucciarelli, Drums

How would you describe your sound?
I would describe it as rock with emo inflences, pop-rock influences, hardcore influences, metal influences, classic rock, pop, the whole spectrum. I think at it's core, it's rock music, but if you listen hard enough, you’ll be able to pick out where were drawing inspiration from.

What’s life on the Warped Tour like?
Its like camping. It's long, hot days. You've gotta figure out when you’re gonna eat, when you’re gonna shower, and sometimes the facilities are just as good as camp facilities. But it's really fun. There’s a lot of really great bands here that we’re friends with and that we’ve become friends with and the crowds are amazing. You cant beat the crowds. Warped tour is the best summer festival out there, hands down.


Published in the Oregon Voice

Get Up, Stand Up ...

I am constantly amazed at how truly sneaky our politicians can be.

On a routine tour of San Quentin State Prison during the week of Monday, April 9, members of the Legislative Analyst's Office, “California’s Nonpartisan Fiscal and Policy Advisor,” discovered the already-in-progress construction of a new death chamber - construction that had been kept so secret that even Jim Tilton, Governor Schwarzenegger's secretary for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, was unaware that it had begun.

The cost of construction was estimated at $399,000 - just $1,000 below the $400,000 price that would require legislative approval. Coincidence? I doubt it. Of course, on further study, it is now estimated that it will cost $725,000 and, as it now requires the legislative go-ahead (and is no longer covert), Schwarzenegger has put the project on hold.

However, regardless of whether it resumes or not, money that could have been used for prison reform (which is desperately needed) has already been spent. Not to mention that the death penalty has been under review in California since December when Judge Jeremy D. Fogel ruled that it could be considered cruel and unusual punishment, therefore violating the U.S. Constitution, as the prison officials who carry out executions are poorly trained, the lethal drugs are often mixed and/or administered improperly, the chamber was too cramped and the lights were too dim. (In other words, the death penalty is currently on stand-by, making the building of an unapproved death chamber even more ridiculous.) Schwarzenegger was supposed to submit proposed reform suggestions on May 15 for evaluation, but, despite memos initiating the construction that say otherwise, he was never told by the court to build a new chamber (and he never mentioned that he planned to). As quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday, April 14, Assemblyman Jared Huffman aptly stated, “Why on earth would you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on something when the whole Death Row project is in question and we're not sure our form of capital punishment will meet constitutional muster?”

To make matters even worse, Schwarzenegger has asked for $10 billion to address prison overcrowding by building more beds, but, as Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata stated in an interview with the Chronicle, “if we can't trust them on something like this, why should we trust them at all?” So it looks like inmates won’t be getting new beds. Great. I suppose they will just have to deal with overcrowding along with inadequate health care, lack of rehabilitation programs, etc. etc. (the list goes on).

I am outraged by this scandal, as are the people I have discussed it with, but what can we do about it? We can’t sit back and watch the events unfold before us without taking an active part in the process, but there’s not much we can do. We can raise awareness and write to representatives, but even that can only take us so far.

However, I refuse to let this fury-induced motivation go to waste. It’s one thing to just complain about the things that get under our skin, but why not channel that aggression into something more productive? As frustrating as it is that there is nothing we can do about the Governator’s appalling behavior, there are plenty of issues we can do something about. Why not use our aggression to fuel a campaign about something we do have control over? Join an organization that fights for the things you believe in or start a group of your own. Post flyers around town or get out on the streets and talk to people (because bringing the message to the people instead of the other way around is the best way to prevent “preaching to the choir”). Find new and creative ways to inform the public about the issues you care about most and give them simple suggestions of what they can do to make a difference. Of course you’ll still be heated about certain issues, but at least you’ll feel good for making a difference in whatever way you can. Let’s start with the easy stuff first and work our way up.

I know it’s hard to find the time to fight when we are constantly bombarded by other responsibilities, but it is so important and even just a couple hours here and there can make a huge difference. Whatever your motivation is, use it to make a difference now and deal with the bigger political issues when it comes time to vote.

Published in The Insurgent

Camel No. 9

I like to think of myself as a free thinker, uninfluenced by advertising and popular media. However, today I purchased buy-1-get-1 packs of Camel No. 9 and I was drawn in by the packaging. Granted I bought them because they were cheaper than my normal brand, but I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I pulled the hot pink tinfoil out of the inside of the pack. I thought to myself "What cool packaging! What vibrant colors! How slick!"

What can I say, I’m a sucker.

Once I got past the initial glee of hot pink tinfoil, I realized that everything about Camel No. 9 is completely and totally marketed towards women. And I fell for it. Would I have bought it if it wasn’t buy-1-get-1? Probably not. But the fact still remains: I thought it was cool.

The slick black box with the hot pink (or bright teal for menthol) trim looks like a perfume box. It's even rounded on the corners, feminine and curvy, and the cigarettes are white with a dainty little pink camel above a thin pink band. Even the name, “Camel No. 9,” rings of elegance, and I cant help but think of that song “Love Potion No. 9” every time I look at the label (and wasn’t there a Chanel No. 9 perfume?). I even noticed that the smoke has a softer, more floral smell to it, and I have to admit, not smelling like an ashtray all day would definitely be a plus.

So there you have it. I was suckered in. Feeling stupid that I bought into it, I decided to research it to see what other people thought. Many reviews noted that, although women make up 50% of all smokers nation-wide, they comprise a measly 30% of Camel's addicted smokers - hence the need for "girly cigarettes" and "girly ad campaigns," such as the one pictured below.

The most disturbing thing, in my opinion, is that I am definitely not the only one to fall for the manipulation. One blog entry about the new Camels yielded comments such as " I rarely smoke - only when I'm drinking - but I'm going to start smoking these simply because of the beautiful box" and "I bought these two nights ago, only because the ads in Vogue got to me. I'm satisfied, they're really light. My friends kept asking me why I wouldn't take the pink paper off in the inside, I just told them it made it look more attractive. Cute packaging always gets to me."

Which brings me to the most important question: If I, a 21-year-old, analytical and incredibly cynical, jaded smoker of multiple years can fall for this marketing ploy, how many vulnerable, impressionable, dying-to-look-cool teenage girls will, too? It sickens me that cigarette ads are targeted at young girls and that in the years to come, hundreds more will wish, like I do, that they had never started.

And for the record, no, I will not be buying Camel No. 9 ever again. Yes, the packaging is beautiful and yes, I do enjoy smelling more elegant, but smoking the cigarette itself is like drinking a milkshake through a coffee-stirrer, not to mention that I refuse to reward Camel for its ingenious marketing ploy.

Photo Credit: http://discount-cigarettes-store.net/images/camel_n9.jpg