Musical “Tinned Processed Meat”

Recently, I’ve been swamped with a new kind of spam. Or maybe not. Let’s call them “smeat” for now.
Who are these musicSUBMIT.com people, and why are they flooding me with musician’s resumés? I’ve gotten 3 in the last hour, singing the praises of bands/singers/musicians from around the U.S. I’m not sure why they chose to send them to me, of all people. I mean, sure, the MissingLinks page has a music column, but it’s not ever been thought of as a place to showcase musicians…
I took a look at their website to see if they were legit, or just another spammer, trying to convince me that my penis is too small. Turns out that everything seems to jibe with what they’re trying to do. Trevor Lyman’s name is on the email, and on the website — another plus for the legitimate side of things. Then I had a look at their overview, to see why an unknown blogger, such as myself, has any reason to be on their radar.
Sure enough, I’m one of their targets, although I’m still not sure where they’re coming from, or how they found me (surely I’m not very “googleable” as they put it):
We’ll Take It From Here!
Your submission process begins once we’ve received your completed submission form.
Each month, your materials will be submitted to a combination of 50 Internet-based resources like:
– Blogs: Rapidly taking over the role of print media as a way to discover new music, blogs have the remarkable ability to move and expose bands with speed unattainable by traditional print resources.
– Directories: Not only do we save you the time it would take to submit yourself to international, regional, and genre-based music directories and search engines, but we also save you the many hours it takes to search the web and find them all.
– Internet Radio Stations: Popular radio stations that appear first in the search results and stations hosted by large internet radio portals such as live365.com.
– Online Music Magazines: Our opt-in list of music writers and online music magazines will receive your press release. These are music news industry persons who have agreed to accept press release submissions from musicSUBMIT.com clients.
So, blogs … okay. I’m a blogger. Makes sense now. Wait, only a “combination of 50 Internet-based resources”? I’m one of 50? Cewl. But hey, wait a minute … that’s bullshit. I’m not that popular. Check this out:
Submissions are sent via email and you’ll ONLY be submitted to resources that are interested in receiving music from independent artists in your music genre.
Hey, that’s also bullshit, since I’ve never once shown an interest in “receiving music from independent artists in your music genre”. I mean I grab a few things from BitTorrent now and again, but I don’t think that’s what Trevor means. Either something got screwed up royally, or this musicSUBMIT.com is actually just a spamming service for musicians. Me, I’m thinking the latter, but I’ll give the guy the benefit of the doubt and keep his musician files for now. Maybe I’ll even look/listen to/at them. Not promising anything, but … to be honest, Trevor made me feel good about myself. Like I matter in this world. Not too many spammers can do that, not even those Nigerian bank scammers can do that.
To be honest, I kind of like the idea. I (along with many other tin-ears) like to think of myself as a budding musician, so naturally this kind of promotion appeals even to me. However, I would like Trevor to start sending me stuff in *my* genre. I’m not really that much into Country and Western, regardless of what I look like in chaps. Maybe Trevor can send me some ambient/trance/techno/chillout/political stuff. That’d be something to write about. Also, how about something more regional to my part of the world (i.e. Toronto, or Kitchener/Waterloo)? Well, looks like that’s also taken care of. You can sign up with these guys, and submit yourself as a recipient of these spams. So that’s also kind of cool, if you like getting sent a bunch of emails — at least they’re no longer unsolicited.