Letter to cdbaby

Hey guys,

Miami is a tough town for local music as you may or may not know already. its over 65% Latin now, and about 20-25% black. So us “gringos” who make pop/rock music and still listen to it are a very small minority here in Miami. That's why you don't hear about bands breaking out of Miami. Over the last twenty years we’ve had maybe two—mavericks (country) and Marylyn Manson who was more of a broward/palm beacher—he never played in Miami and still doesn’t. [We’ve had a few lesser knowns like nuclear Valdez and Mary karlzen.] And Broward County (fort Lauderhell) is not part of the Miami scene—they cater to more of the mainstream alterna-schlock you hear on rock radio—bands like Endo and New Found Glory have come from there recently. And also most recently Dashboard made it out of Palm Beach about an hour up from here. Bigger cats like Lenny and the bee gees live here but don't actually play here. but the sick thing is that we have an amazing scene here with amazing talent. I'm sure all of them are already with CD BABY so I'm sure you already know their names—if not we can drop them on you. If our label had more money we would put out a lot more of these bands besides just our own band. There's so many talented bands and singer/songwriters. Really really good stuff going on here. What there is not is so many fans. I think maybe there are about fifty music fans here in Miami. I shit you not. 

Now if you are looking for Latin music or electronica or dance—welcome home boys. Miami is the breeding ground in America for those two styles. Miami fashion has literally taken over American culture due to the craze Miami has caused due to its fusion of hip-hop, Latin, dance and electronica all over the world in the last five years. People in Miami love this kind of music. Which is all cool. But for BANDS and POP/ROCK, its pretty limited. We really only have two or three clubs here to play and we usually only play for ourselves. Other musicians. You walk into a live show and I swear to God if you're a musician you'll know every single person in the venue. And our radio sucks ass. Seriously. WVUM our college station is the only place to hear real music in Miami. Our local rock station will not play local bands except on Sunday nights, which most bands refuse to do because they don't want to be labeled as a “local band”—its owned by clear channel and they only play alterna-schlock. No cool music. They think Radiohead is “out there” for God sakes.  

To give you an idea, on Friday I called our local BMI office here in Miami. And the lady who answered the phone didn't even speak English. BMI for God sakes. I was trying to have her talk me into switching from ASCAP and she was telling me that this office doesn’t know anything about rock music and only deals with Latin music. She told me to call the New York office or Atlanta. So there it is in a nutshell. 

The question is why the hell do any of us still live and work here then? Why not move to Seattle or New York or Austin? Who the hell knows, except that we hear the same shit from all of our friends in every other town in America about their scenes, so who knows. Anyway here's a pretty detailed list of some local notables.

I will add that this list is very biased towards Miami people, not fort Lauderhell people. Both scenes are very unto themselves and have been fighting for years. In a nutshell, Miami’s scene is more singer songwriter, old-school rock and roll, like New York. Bands like Humbert, Sixo, the Squelchers, Transcendence, DC3, Rhett and the Pawn shop drunks. Fort Lauderhell is more geared towards bands like endo, non-point, new found glory. The “new Seattle sound.” Like this: when the strokes came here they play Miami. If limp bizkit ever came here they’d play fort Lauderhell. The scenes don't usually mix. But they should. But maybe you can get them all in the same room. That would be funny. The long hairs versus the crew cuts! But you should seek out the names from that city from someone else cause I don't know them.

 Good luck,

Fishy