Craigslist: All the jokes about its inherent creepiness have already been made. So we'll skip them -- and the fact remains that, for better or for worse, the site remains one of the most-visited clearinghouses for musicians in search of fellow like-minded players. The "musicians" section of the South Florida Craigslist site remains a fascinating wilderness of musical ideas both half-baked and fully formed and alternately horrible, genius, and crazy.
Reading the ads is an amazing sociological time-waster, during which you can imagine the kinds of strange and possibly beautiful music that might result from these classified-ad dreams. In honor of that, here are ten recent postings that we hope really result in bands. Here's the extra shoutout in our attempt to try to get some of this magic happening.
*This guy is looking to put together a "gypsy brass/psychobilly" band. If that sounds carnival-esque, well, the poster himself purports to be a circus performer as well as a singer, dancer, and DJ. He seeks "brass, wind, or anything peculiar." Please, please respond, players of "peculiar" instruments.
*"Indie, 60s pop, trip-hop, shoegaze" bands are currently a thing people want to start? AWESOME. Most of C-list is all about "technical metal players" and "kickass keyboardists" and tribute bands. So yes, we vote for this. Answer this ad if you're a female vocalist into everything from Phil Spector to Portishead to Metronomy, but there's a caveat -- you need to be "attractive" and send headshots. "Serious industry connections" are promised. Hmmm. Well, you can't fault someone for thinking image is important if you dream of trying to break out big. (It kind of is.)
*Along the same lines of, "HOLY SHIT PLEASE EXIST SOON," this outfit in Pompano is looking for an organist to create keys-drenched power pop/mod/garage rock. YOU MUST BE OUT THERE, KEYBOARDIST WHO LOVES THE GREENHORNES AND BIG STAR. (Call us when you've written some songs so we can be your number-one fan.)
*Wait... is it a trend? We don't think it's the same posters due to different habits in capitalization and punctuation. In Lake Worth, someone wants to try some "indie genre-bending," again, hoping to shoegaze with girl group stuff, psych... and delta blues and '90s hip-hop? With Broward and Palm Beach currently awash in bearded Americana/swampy stuff, is a shoegaze/trip-hop/vintage psych revival the next local wave?
*This is probably one of the most detailed ads we've seen in a while, but it's for a metal band that aims to combine progressive, technical, and neo-classical stuff into a sound with clean vocals. We're mostly highlighting this here because damn, these Tamarac-based posters certainly know what they're looking for. Focus is good. They seek pretty much everybody -- a bassist, vocalist, guitarist, and keyboardist. Influences cited here include everything from Trivium and Killswitch Engage to more ambitious stuff like Dream Theater. If done right, this could be interesting stuff.
