More Than Music

So i'm going to be very honest here and some people will judge me, but thats fine.

Bands are about more than just the music, its the complete package. Personally i like bands for different reasons than just the songs they write, it could be their reputation, respect, history, beliefs, relationships, and other factors. Back in the day we didn't know much about bands except what we saw of them either live, or on MTV, or maybe an interview we read in a magazine.

Now with the explosion of social-networks like myspace and facebook we can learn a lot more about the bands we listen to. Most "big" artists have someone that creates and runs their profile pages, which still doesn't give the fan an idea of who the artist really is, but for small-time bands, they usually run the pages themselves.

I personally am a facebook user, i still have a myspace account, but the main reason i keep it is because of the music. Myspace (if you don't know already) allows it's users to post bulletins for everyone to see, and bands use this tool to either announce shows, new albums, sell merch, or breakup. You don't really get much else except maybe a shout-out to another band or a thank you. Not in this situation though.

I've been a pretty big fan of Destroy the Runner since their debut album Saints came out a few years ago. Last year they released I, Lucifer with a new lead singer, and i thought the album was pretty good (i ranked it my 4th favorite release of 2008). The problem is they apparently love myspace, and posting ridiculously lame bulletins.

It's hard to judge a band by their myspace page, most hardcore music fans would say its only about the music, but not me, i like to think that the bands i like are "cooler" than average, they're too cool and busy writing awesome music to pay attention to myspace. DTR apparently has a lot of free time since they don't really tour outside of SoCal. They post an amazing amount of lame bulletins like Paris vs Britney, lame youtube clips and crap like that. I would have been better off never seeing this side of the band.

I was getting over this little hiccup when yesterday they released another music video for one of their songs, and it was ridiculously lame. I don't know what to do. They're actually playing in Ft Collins next month and i'm going to go, but what if thats the last straw? Recently some bands have come through and changed my opinion of them in a negative way based on their live show like Emery, Matt Wertz, and Energy.


I don't think i'm going to say "i don't like you guys because of your myspace page". Pretty much anyone who posts multiple bulletins or whatever is annoying, rather they're in a band or not. So i guess my question is whether or not this should affect my view of Destroy the Runner? Does anyone have a similar story? Does anyone this this is totally lame that it bothers me?