Don't Believe Anything You've Heard About This Band

PR gets one over on journalists. Ann Powers demystifies the "band" Delicate Steve. It's actually one guy, Steve Marion who records instrumental music. He's on the Luaka Bop's label.

It's hard enough to get any press attention for your band. It's that much harder to convince someone to write about instrumentals.  Steve's label thought it would be a great idea to get Chuck Klosterman to write the bio. Chuck is a music writer and has written several books which  include one about visiting musician death sites.  He was given free reign to write whatever he wanted. He didn't even have to listen to the music.  The idea paid off.

Publicists have told me that nobody really reads past the first few lines of a press release.  Well the headline of Delicate Steve's is a winner.  THE CRITICS UNILATERALLY CONCUR: DELICATE STEVE IS A BAND WHO CREATES MUSIC.  This basically tells you that Delicate Steve perform and more than likely write their own music.  Ann pondered this.

My favorite line of the bio:  "Delicate Steve was signed to the label before anyone at Luaka Bop heard even a moment of their music – all he needed to experience was a random conversation about what they hoped to achieve as a musical five-piece." The "he" they are referring to is a real person, but not an A and R guy as mentioned.  I wonder if Chuck was thinking The Rutles when he wrote this.  The Rutles was filled with so many brilliant stories.  There were strict security measure taken for The Rutles first play at Che Stadium:

As a security precaution the Rutles arrived by helicopter a day early. This enabled them to be safely out of the place before the audience came in. It was a brilliant public relations coup. The kids were screaming so hard that thousands never noticed the difference. Promoter Syd Bottle described it as the most exciting twenty minutes of his life.


Delicate Steve - "Wondervisions" Video (Feat. Nat Baldwin) from stereogum on Vimeo.