An Introduction by Mark Oster

Welcome, all, to the first "issue" of Badresa. My name is Mark and I'll be your music guide.

When Badresa invited me to work with her on this, I emphatically agreed. This is something I've always wanted to do, and with the current saturation in the local music scene, I feel we desperately need something to help people find what they want to listen to. We're starting small, but hopefully, with time, we'll have at least a little information on a healthy chunk of the groups out here. If you are in a band (and if you live in the city, chances are you are) and would like your album reviewed (that's album, not demo, though I'll happily accept them and send you feedback personally, we aren't going to put them on the site, at this point anyway), send it to us, and it will be reviewed in the next issue.

For local groups, I discourage negative reviews, unless they really deserve it. Music is so objective, just because someone doesn't like something, doesn't mean everyone else won't either. That's what I hate about the likes of Pitchfork and Buddyhead, they have some really sharp writers writing for them, but they posture as if they are the final word for what's cool and what's not. Hey Pitchfork? Sorry to burst your bubble...but if you think the new Blur was the best album to come out last year, then I must ask you, what does your intestine taste like?

But that's a bad comparison. For big national groups, a bad review is no big deal, they're still going to sell hundreds of thousands of albums, and are going to be just fine. What really irks me is mags that bash local groups, not going to name any names, but for my dollar, if you are willing to work on a band at this relatively thankless level, you deserve a favorable ear. As Roger Ebert (a movie reviewer, yes, but the principle still applies) recently wrote, a good review tells you whether it's something you, personally, would be interested in seeing (or in this case, hearing), not just whether the reviewer likes it. Now, I'm very fortunate, I like pretty much everything in this first batch of albums I'm reviewing, but I'm sure that won't always be the case. However, I appreciate that not everybody ascends (or descends) to my level of music snobbery. Stuff like generic pop punk, emo, garage, etc, that turns my stomach might just be what the doctor ordered for someone else. My goal here is not to tell you what to listen to, rather, it's to tell you to listen. There's a lot out there right now, we're going to try to help you sort through it, I can guarantee there are groups that each and every one of you would love, waiting to be discovered.

Concerts are a little bit of a different beast. We're going to come together to recommend the shows that we think are can't miss, and hopefully start to do concert reviews sometime soon. But I encourage all of you in readerland to stop by our message board and post the shows you're going to and/or would recommend, and write reviews for the ones you've been to. If it's good, we'll put it on the site itself, and you'll feel that much cooler!

So dig in, learn something, thank us or disagree with us, whatever. Don't hesitate to email or post us with feedback and we're always looking for more contributers, if you think you can offer something, drop me a line, and we'll talk. Hopefully, with time, we can turn the Badresa music section into something special.