Most-Recent Entries
By: Ben Cannon, Bram Epstein, and Darrin Snider
Sunday, June 6, 2021
M.O.R. Episode 2 -- Ian Thomson
By: Ben Cannon, Bram Epstein, and Darrin Snider
Sunday, May 23, 2021
M.O.R. Episode 1 -- Mark Kelly
By: Ben Cannon, Bram Epstein, and Darrin Snider
Sunday, May 16, 2021
An In-Snide Look: I Think I Could Get Used to this Life Sometimes
By: Darrin Snider
Sunday, June 7, 2020
Getting Down to Earth with mOOnMen
By: Amy Foxworthy
Sunday, February 16, 2020
The Musical Journey of Jethro Easyfields
By: Amy Foxworthy
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Monday Mixtape: Etwasprog
By: Darrin Snider
Monday, February 10, 2020
Monday Mixtape: Excerpts from the Summer of 2014
By: Darrin Snider
Monday, January 20, 2020
Mix Tape Monday: Mashin' it Up
By: Darrin Snider
Monday, January 13, 2020
Mix Tape Monday: Back to the Gym Workout
By: Darrin Snider
Monday, January 6, 2020
Show #042: Tonos Triad
By: Darrin Snider (darrin at indyintune dot com)Monday, June 22, 2009 8:00:00 PM
Even though I'm frequently a judge at such things, I have this love-hate relationship with the typical "Battle of the Bands" competition. The one redeeming factor is that I get to see a lot of acts this way. I've seen some comically bad acts, and I've seen some acts that make you think, "What are these guys doing playing a battle of the bands for fifty bucks!? They should be touring, at least regionally." On some level, I like all that stuff. The problem is, most of the time the contest is just a thinly-veiled audition to see which bands bring in the biggest crowds or have the most audience appeal -- favoring bands with the longest track record, cutest singer, or best time/date slot in the draw. Rarely do they have anything to do with and objective assessment of musicianship, showmanship, or dogged determination to get up there and give the audience a satisfying musical experience. Ask yourself, would any of the top-selling, most-groundbreaking, influential artists of the past 20 years have a chance in hell at winning American Idol? Could you see Nirvanna, Tool, or Green Day up there defending themselves to Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul?
Tonos Triad is a perfect example of such a band that I met at one of those aforementioned contests I was judging. The cards were stacked against them from the start. Not only did they draw the short end of the stick and end up last on the bill that evening, but they were also up against other great acts that had large followings and brought dozens of their friends -- to say nothing of the fact that the Triad's music isn't exactly what one would expect to hear in a blue-collar sports bar (and a two-night booking was one of the prizes up for grabs that night).
So you have to picture the scene: It's 11:00 or so on a Monday night. Most of the crowd is gone, and I've been drinking beer and listening to bands for the past four hours (hey, there's only so much even I can take in one sitting ... particularly when I'm sitting on a very uncomfortable bar stool). Our "judges' scores" are, for the most part, tallied. The crowd has long-since cast their "audience votes" for whatever band they came in with and left. We're all tired and just waiting to go home. Suddenly, in walk three very serious-looking guys that I figured must have just come off the set of Reservoir Dogs II. One of them whips out an expensive classical guitar; one is hauling a large upright bass; and I can't figure out what the third guy is doing, but he's carrying what looks like ... luggage? Honestly, my first thought: "Pretentious. After all, this is just a small-prize battle of the bands in a neighborhood bar on a Monday night. They can't be any good, otherwise I'd have heard of them before."
Within a half-hour, I'm introducing myself and begging them to be on Indy In-Tune so I can tell everybody about them.
Links referenced in the show:
- Tonos Triad can be found here: MySpace | Web Site | Facebook.
- They were heavily influenced, initially, by the scene at the Wheeler Arts Community: Myspace | Web Site.
- Their first two EP's as well as their full-length eponymous CD are available on their web store, Indy CD and Vinyl, and Luna Music.
- Their CD was recorded and engineered by Paddington Productions (MySpace | Web Site).
- Their video for Murder Swing can be found on YouTube.
- Rod Schindler plays Zildjian cymbals. Yev Baburin endorses Kenny Hill guitars and Nittaku ping pong balls.
- Important dates:
- Next Indianapolis Podcaster's Guild meetup: June 29th, 7:00 PM at South Bend Chocolate Cafe.
- Next Musician's Night Out: June 30th, 7:00 PM at Shallo's.
- Deadline for the Artbeat Online Songwriting Contest is July 31.
Currently Listening To: | |
Tonos Triad: Tonos Triad Click Image for Details Click Here for More Essential Listening |
Previous Post: Show #041: Fernhead | Next Post: Show #043: Bring the Fiyah |
Darrin Snider is the OCD music nerd responsible for creating Indy In-Tune. By day he's a cloud engineer and business analyst, but he still hopes to someday be an overnight freeform disc jockey married to the local weathergirl who happens to be a former eastern-European supermodel. |
Blog comments powered by Disqus
Gear Up for Summer
Solicitations and Submissions
Solicitations for blog posts can be made by sending and email to "blog -at- indyintune -dot- com" and should follow these guidelines:
- Local (Indianapolis-based) acts always have priority.
- Visisting acts playing a bill with one or more local acts are also considered.
- We generally don't like to repeat content found on other sites. If your request already has a lot of coverage on other sites, it will be considered low-priority unless you can give us an exclusive angle.
- For obvious reasons, we don't do solicited album reviews, though we do appreciate you letting us know when you have a new release. Consider coming in and talking about the album yourself live on the air or a podcast.
- All of our staff writers are unpaid enthusiasts. All requests for blog posts are entirely at their descretion.
- As such, they generally need a lot of lead-time to put something out -- we're talking weeks of lead time, not hours.
- That said, individual authors have full authority to ignore the following guidelines and write whatever they want ... if you can convince them to.
- In addition, feel free to write your own post and submit it for posting as a "guest blogger." Those almost always get accepted.
- Finally, regional or national acts submitting without meeting the above guidelines are generally ignored. We're not trying to be dicks, but if you send us a generic form-letter with your press release, and it doesn't even remotely concern a local artist or event, then you're not part of our core focus.