It means buying new copies if it's within your budget (artists don't receive any royalties from second-hand sales). This includes publicising or promoting the work if you're so inclined. The duty of the fan is to give the work an audience and space to breathe and grow. We will also look at our friends a little askew if they don't immediately share our passion. We fans will want to buy everything, watch everything, read everything, see them every show and bore our friends senseless with our enthusiasm. If they're lucky, some of the right people might even guest on their albums or invite them to play on their tours.Īs a result, they will develop a dedicated following of early adopters.Ī successful act of creativity communicates in some way (whether deep or superficial) with its audience. In the early days, they will play the right covers, they'll name the right influences, they'll get name-checked by the right people.

If the sound of the band is special to the band, then how many people 'get' the sound is secondary from the musical point of view.Ī cult band will usually have the right pedigree. This is the first and foremost duty of the band to itself and to its audience. I know this will sound like heresy, but I think there is a sense of both success and failure implicit in the term 'cult band'.Ī cult band usually creates a sound that is different, unique, distinctive, quality, a worthy addition to what Julie Burchill used to sarcastically call 'rock's rich tapestry'. So ultimately they remain(ed) a cult band whose obsessive fans (e.g., me) wonder why more music lovers don't join them in their (my) obsession. They flirted with major record companies (Elektra and Beggars Banquet), but ultimately they got jilted. Like another of my favourites, Bettie Serveert, and perhaps the Go-Betweens, they seemed to have everything needed to generate popular and commercial success. Luna was a cult indie band that played from 1991 to 2005. I don't know the answer to the question, but I'll have a go. I can't wait to see what Dean has to say. The promo says that 'Black Postcards' is also about what it's like to have to pretend to be civil as you answer the same helpful question over and over again, 'Why aren't you guys more famous?'

I experienced a little sense of excitement yesterday when I learned that Dean Wareham had written a book about his life before, in and since one of my favourite indie bands, Luna (due out March 13, 2008). Luna and Dean Wareham – 'So why aren't you guys more famous?' I have read the book since then and loved it. It's a whole lot of ideas in anticipation of the publication of the book. My review below isn't really a review of the book after I read it.

Black postcards a memoir