The following advertisement recently appeared in the Nashville Craig's List. At first, several folks thought it was serious because it sounds SO MUCH like what we hear from wannabes every day. I personally thought the humor was "fenominal"!

OUR BAND CAN PUT YOUR STUDIO ON THE MAP (Nashville)

We have an exceptional band and all of us are extremely talented. We are probably some of the best musicians you've ever heard. Our band is ready to go places. We have written several fenominal songs that we know are going to be big hits. And they sound even better when you are high. We just need help getting them in front of people. Unfortunately, we don't have much money. We are hoping to find a recording studio that is willing to record us for free. (See below for details) We know we will be selling a lot of CD's and downloads once people get hooked on our great songs. We're looking for a studio who hungry for success because Our project could put your studio on the map.

We are going to ask a lot from you but we are going to faithfully promote your studio at every turn and we won't even charge you much for an extra-large ad on our CD.

Do you want to risk passing up this opportunity and forever regret it? If it helps we can pay you from the sales of our CD's and downloads. We promise you'll make more this way anyhow.

What we can do for you:

1. We will give you 1% of the profits. This may not sound like a lot until you do the math. We figure there's about 300 million people in the USA (not counting other countries). We figure that a minimum market of 1% is 3 million sales at $1.00 a song you have 3 million dollars. At 1% is $30,000. These numbers are fairly conservative since this doesn't included people buying more than one songs. So we're sure this is far more than you normally get to record a CD. Remember we have to leave room for the record label when we get signed,

2. Everyone will know you as the studio that recorded the "Golden Boys". Let's face reality hear in Nashville there are many studios that need to set themselves apart to stay in business. You should be happy we are willing to work with you. (Email us for an application to be considered) This is the opportunity of a lifetime for one lucky studio. When you see the big picture hopefully you can see how much we are helping you by letting you record us.

3. We are willing sell you an ad for your studio on our CD at a reduced price as well.

4. Having us in your portfoliage will get you a lot more business.

5. We will let you take photos of us at your studio for no extra charge. We'll even autograph a few for you.


Studio Requirements:

1. Your studio has to be a real professional studio (No home studio pretenders)
2. You have to be able to record live drums (and Amps) and have a great kit with professional level cymbels.
3. We only want to use top of the line gear so you must have great equipment. We've heard about Newman and Tellerfunker mics and those would be acceptable to us.
4. Studio must be able to put sublimnal messages into the songs for us. (We know this will help sell the music.)
4. We want Flexible hours because we sometimes like to work until after midnight.
5. We're hoping you will be able to have lots of food on hand as we don't work as well on empty stomaches. (Some beer would also be nice.)
6. We need a studio that is 420 friendly and maybe even willing to supply some to help give our creativity a boost. (It will shorten the amount of studio time needed so it's a good investment for you.)
7. We don't want reporters their without prior notice. We will allow one day for the press to be present.

We have 12 songs but it won't take us long to record them because we are great musicians which will lower your investment. Once your ready to go we can probably nail them one time through like most profeshional recording artists. We are willing to use a metro gnome click if it helps you but we don't need one because our drummer keeps perfect time already. We know all the time is spent on the mixing and we are willing to help you with that. We can give you advice on how everything should sound. We do need you to make us loud! Also, Our guitar player would like to be in charge of mixing the songs to make sure you do it right. He says you need to compress everything a lot to get it real loud and need to totally remove 500 hurtz from everything. He says mixing is so easy anyone can do it as long as you run everything through the magnimizer with the "dither" and "tube" settings on. I just know I want a lot of echo reverb and that cool ultratune effect on my voice.

We don't mind asking for these things because we know you will eventually be paid very well. Plus we will keep coming back to you no matter how famous we get.

When we go platinum and win a Grammy you'll be happy you recorded us. You'll have more business than you can handle.

Please email us to apply for your chance to record us.

A purported studio owner going by the name "Maffick" has drafted the perfect reply:

MY STUDIO CAN PUT YOU ON THE GLOBE!!!

Hello Golden Boys,

I must say, I like the cut of your jib, you remind me of me with a reduced grasp of the English language- which will really connect with your demographic!! I left the studio I was working for where I personally mixed many "almost' bands. I did the E-street band without Springsteen, I did the Heartbreaks without Tom Petty, I did Sync without N' just to name a few. I got tired of almost and now I can sniff out a pretender from a contender and you guys sound like the real deal. I would like to hear you hum 30 seconds of the melody from your best song over the phone, that should confirm my gut feeling about you boys. Of course in the dog eat dog music industry, having me steal that melody and make millions off of it is a legit concern so I'll have my legal department send over intellectual property copyright paperwork for it, this will of course include a non-compete clause. This will ensure that you have taken the steps to protect and lock up ownership of your own music before we start the process of recording. If we all put in a modest amount of work we should all get rich relatively quick, The Beatles were rich overnight and I don't want to be like the guy that missed out on the Beatles- true story! As for gear; I have a bunch of top of the line equipment; Newman, Fender, Mashal, Gidson, Tellerfunken, Teletronix, Yamahaha, SSLL, API, Line 6, Behringer and the list goes on!!!! As for not needing a Metro Gnome, good for you. Metro Gnomes and Click Tracks are for lesser polished musicians and they take the "Human" element out of music, you're the Golden Boys not the Golden Robots, like C3-PO, ammirite!! As for 420 friendly and you pointing out that music sounds better high- BINGO!! We've actually had to resort to spiking artists drinks without them knowing at our old studio to get them to "loosen up" and get the MOJO flowing- they ALL thanked us afterwards. We have a couple of rappers that pay us in mason jars of "sticky green" so we are always in real good supply there and myself I am a better mixer/engineer after a half a dozen double whiskey sours and some meth so... let's have a good time and see what happens!! Obviously we have a full bar and we cater all recording sessions, there are usually a few ladies kicking around that "help out" if ya catch my driftorino. As for hours, what's a clock?? We move whenever you move, we are your shadow, if you're up I'm up. Now, I can do subliminal stuff but I have to warn you- you can never fully hide it so if lawyers get involved it's game over. We had one track messaging "buy "band name" tracks and go to their shows". I won't tell you the band name but we dropped the single and due to what the English subliminal under track sounded like in the Dutch language we had a small problem some kids in Holland getting a hold of it. They started stealing cutlery out of their neighbors houses and and throwing forks and spoons at old people in shopping malls. That was a big reason I left the old studio, the lawsuit is still in litigation!! As far as mixing goes your guitar player is bang on, it is super simple. Make the faders dance a little, murder the 450-550 hurtz and then compress away. I don't use a tube setting on my magnimizer but I can get you loud, my SSLL consoles Master Fader goes to 11. That is one above the traditional 10. I use an old Led Zeplin trick where instead of a fake "tube" setting I run the track at 11 through our best speakers in a padded closet. There is a hole in the closets wall that is just big enough to fit an actual tube that is just big enough to fit our Tellerfunken mic and then. . . LOUDNESS happens. I, like most engineers, love having a band member in my ear throughout the mixing and mastering process. The less they know the better as then their mind isn't jammed with all that "studio knowledge" and an understanding of the equipment- their free to just be creative and tell me what I should do. I hate when the whole band records and just leaves me to mix, like a mother gives birth and then what?? Just leaves, NO!! They feed and nurture, feed and nurture!! Anyways, that's where I'm at with this, let me know. Hopefully we'll all be laughing on a beach that we own in a couple of months.

Best regards,

Derek McGerald
Senior Studio Engineer | PLP

PS I want, 1.3% of gross sales not just 1%.

Now here's the really sad part: Surrounding these obvious pokes at Nashville's extensive wannabe community are dozens of similar posts that seem to be SERIOUS!

Here's one I can't help posting just as an example. . . . .
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Subject: play bass? wanna be in a serious rock'n'roll band? (east nashville)

We're a local east nashville rock band, ranging from 23-29. My last band's front was 40 and he's real cool, but since this band is younger than my last, really I'd like for you to be 23-32. younger and you might not be able to hold your booze, older and you might feel out of place in the group. I'm the oldest in the group currently

All original, no breadheads, 3 month financially viable tours as a goal. If we have to pay you to play, we don't want you involved, no offense that's just not our thing, everybody gets an even split of everything, which often begins at zero doll hairs if it's going to be done right

You have to have your shit together and be really good on bass. That probably means you've got a job you hope to be able to quite someday, preferably soon...so do we

you need pro gear, we're a rock band, that means we get loud often, so you've got to be able to push enough that all 4 of us can comfortably sit on your sexy fat tones. wednesday's are shaping up to be our main weekly practice day

If you're a studio guy that can't leave the city for long, or already the bass player in 1 or more bands, we're not interested, but i'm glad you're able to be so diverse, this is a primary project for everyone involved with the intent of creating a band where we play original rock and roll and make money touring on it. we're looking for a serious relationship, not a one night stand, this isn't tender

This happens all the time, so if you don't think it can be done, you're right, because you suck...seriously, go practice
our sound is specifically blues psych, pentatonic heavy, riff oriented rock with a loose yet solid structure

Do you like John Paul Jones and Bill Wyman a whole lot? if not, your music taste and everyone else's in the band has some major contradictions which probably means we're not the right band for you

We're a front, drums, and 2 guitarists right now looking for the 5th personality to add to the mix
we have a 24 hr full rehearsal space available in east nashville near jenni's icecream

I'm the front, however I'm an accomplished lead player, and decent drummer and bassist, which helps with the communication during the creative process, which is made even easier since I have 2 dedicated guitarists in their own right to lean on. One is jazz and structure heavy, which helps the writing process immensely, while the other spends most of his time hammering down riffs and goosestepping tones. I don't know enough about drums to give a specific feel to it other than rock with a healthy serving of floor tom that is consistent, responsive on point.

We're all good musicians, with connections, and schoolings, and experiences, and blah blah...I think the bassist should be the coolest person in the room. I play lead for a black baptist gospel band in Alabama called the Soul Redeemers, and Earl, the bass player, is always the coolest person in the room. The bass player decides how the whole room moves. With a good bass player, you can't stop it, it's mind control, you literally HAVE to put sex into your abdomen. When Earl plays, everyone gets down, because like i said, you don't have a choice.

I've been fortunate enough to jam with Victor and Reggie Wooten on occasion(i stress on occasion, it's not like i can call them up and go camping). Once Reggie told me that I had played "world class guitar tonight", which is one of my favorite compliments ever. That's one of my best plugs, hopefully it helps convince you i'm serious about this and know somewhat what i'm talking about.

I hope you show up, realize I'm much less dickish than I sound in this post, and lay down some groove that me, as well as the rest of the band will instantly wanna get down on.
We don't have any group recordings as we are a new group, all apologies
It's all for the music, otherwise I'd live somewhere cheaper, so please email me and hopefully we can meet up.
my name's hob and i look forward to meeting you