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Gogol Bordello - On the art of writing bio's

You can write great songs and you have recorded a great album? You gave your band this cool image and you think you're gonna make it now? Think again! What you need is good marketing and good PR. Today the first lesson in music marketing: How to write a bio that is really appealing to the average reviewer? Our case study today is Gogol Bordello's Voi-La Intruder.

Tekst: Manuel Aalbers

Publicatiedatum: 27 september 2002

At the end of the year, music magazines have this fashion of making top lists of the past year. We at KM restricted ourselves to personal album lists. Now, KM writers have the tendency to announce their favourites throughout the year. I am actually one of these people who make their own hype. Today, however, I would like to introduce a new top list. And to add to this: I already have a first candidate for the new list. The contest is called Best Bio of 2002, and the first candidate is Gogol Bordello's Voi-La Intruder.

Let me first explain the bio thing. A bio, or biography, tells you something about the band. Record companies supply us, at KM, with bio's of the bands that we choose to review. Since these so-called bio's often contain more information than just a biography of the band, the music industry prefers the term 'one-sheet' to 'bio'. Big deal, you say. Well, after studying these bio's for one-and-a-half years, I can say, yes, indeed, a big deal. One-sheets are a reviewer's saviour when (s)he has nothing to write about, nothing more to tell about the band, their music, their lyrics, and their backgrounds. We turn to the one-sheet — which, actually, occasionally fills more than one sheet of paper — and get our inspiration from the record company. Not the best source, of course, and biased at best. Did you ever wonder why that review in Rolling Stone seemed so similar to that in KM? Did you ever wonder who was copying whom? I tell you, I bet they were both copying the one-sheet. Is this copyright fraud? Probably. Does anyone care? Probably not. The record company people have written that bio with that thought in mind: Copy as much from the one-sheet as possible! Now, the art for any reviewer-sans-inspiration-but-with-bio is to copy some details from the bio, rephrase them, and turn all the positive record company shit into whatever you want it to be.

Now, we are faced with a problem: Some record companies and labels don't supply one-sheets, and if they do, the one-sheet might be of no value at all. But since we writers-without-inspiration rely so much on these one-sheets, I am making a plea for better one-sheets. And to stimulate this, I now announce KM's first (probably the world's first) Best Bio competition. The nominations are provided by inspirationless KM writers. (Of course, nominees for Worst Bio are also welcome.) And the first nominee for 2002 is the one-sheet accompanying Gogol Bordello's Voi-La Intruder. Why? I'll tell you. But I will do it by breaking all the rules. I will not copy&rephrase&turn-the-argument. Instead, I will easily quote from the bio? Why? Simple: It's the best bio I've read so far.

"It's 10 p.m. on a Saturday night and you're visiting your crazy New York friends from your small hometown. You tell them you want to have a crazy NYC experience — a night you'll never forget. In this town, the world is your oyster — but your friends — they know what's up. Twenty minutes later you think (about) getting new friends when you are taken to the second floor of a building on Canal Street. As you go up the stairs, the smell of vodka and Bulgarian food is overwhelming. You just ate dinner somewhere else — why are they taking you here? Around 11 p.m., you've had a drink, and your friends seem to be anticipating some sort of mass excitement. You see someone setting up turntables and DJ equipment, but you hate 'electronic music' . . . you are nervous. Soon, the room starts filling with fashionable 'cool kids' . . . not the kind you don't like, the good kind, people that read books and listen to cool music. You see a guy with the coolest moustache you've ever seen sauntering up to the DJ area — who IS this guy? He is clearly some sort of a rock star celebrity! You stop looking at your friends and you can't take your eyes off this guy and the people in the club . . . up . . . dance . . . jump . . . you're suddenly dancing and you don't know why. Clearly the moustache guy has the most amazing musical taste you've ever heard . . . he is playing a few songs you've heard, but mostly stuff you haven't. Moments later the crowd — now barely able to move is jumping and singing along breathlessly to a song that's like none you've ever heard before: "For me I'm just a bordello kinda guy." Singing along and hanging from the rafters is none other than moustache guy . . . who IS he? You finally glance at your friends and they are smiling knowingly. This is an unforgettable night."

What else can I tell you? That the bio tells us the story of the moustache guy? ("Eugene Hütz has a moustache. He is also the leader of Gogol Bordello.") That the bio describes the music as 'Ukrainian Punk Cabaret'? That Hütz invented his own country called Hützovina and is called the 'gypsy Iggy Pop'? What do I think of the CD? Do you really wanna know?

http://www.kindamuzik.net/achtergrond/gogol-bordello/gogol-bordello-on-the-art-of-writing-bio-s/1897/
Meer Gogol Bordello op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/gogol-bordello