As the music industry undergoes a giant sea change, traditional, well-established archetypes are shifting along with it. Record labels are becoming marginalized as new distribution models—for both traditional and digital media—continue to evolve. The role of the publicist is rapidly shrinking in an era when a band simply requires an Internet connection and a few free online programs to reach thousands of music fans instantaneously.
Popular Valley metal band Yucky Octopus serves as a prototype for this new music business model. After forming in Easthampton over four years ago, the band—originally comprising Tony DeNucce on vocals, Chris Couchon on keys, and Simon Simard on drums—went through a few lineup changes. Darren Masloski joined on bass, and Simard was replaced on drums by Dave Mikuta in 2005, in keeping with their self-described "Polish onslaught." Mikuta says things were still not complete: "It seemed like we had a guitarist of the month club that whole time, until a year ago—now we have a solid unit with Chris Daniele and Adam Cote on guitars."
The Advocate spoke with drummer and de facto spokesman Mikuta to find out about the band's eclectic mix of sounds, John Waters, and what all the fuss is concerning this newfangled Internet.
"I think we do 90 percent of our promotion and interaction with our fan base through Myspace. It's an incredible medium for us," says Mikuta. "We get offered shows through Myspace all the time, get in touch with new bands, fans send us photos and videos they took at our shows."
Yucky Octopus has worked the Myspace angle to the hilt, taking full advantage of the site's instant messaging and mass emailing capabilities to announce shows and new releases and to stay in touch with fans from all over the world. They have received over 36,000 profile views on their site, and have gathered over 1,000 "friends" through the social networking connectivity. "It's incredible," says Mikuta, "and it's free."
The powerful functionality of the Web and the technological adroitness of their fans has translated into popularity at the local level, as well as in the online universe. The band (and their fans) upload images, songs and videos to the user-created Myspace "Local Media" pages. According to Mikuta, these additional sites "document the local scene with photos and video clips, and all of that adds to the resurgence of the Valley music scene right now." Thanks to this kind of electronic networking, he claims the scene is in great health: "Better than I've seen it in a long while. Pretty much anytime you go out now, people are at gigs; it wasn't like that even three years ago."
Yucky Octopus loves to play live, and is known for bringing intense energy and a sense of humor, along with props and matching outfits, to the stage. And because it integrates so many sources and sounds—from metal to synth-driven spaz-outs to atmospheric "soundtracks"—into its postmodern pastiche, it can, and will, share the stage with any type of performer. "There is not real genre for us, that's why we play with anyone and everyone," Mikuta says. "Amongst everyone in this band, I can't say there is a main musical influence. We just try to make it sound like jewelry."
When asked if the crew has devised a moniker for its musical blend, Mikuta invokes his singer: "Tony came up with something a while ago, I think it goes like this: Sci-Fi Channel spaghetti Western directed by the adopted child of Herman Munster and John Waters who was taken away at age 12 and raised by ninja vampire pirates on Mechanized Zombie Dinosaur Planet."
The Yucky Octopus songwriting process offers no insights into the band's exact influences, either. "We just step into this room with spiders and an intolerable mold presence and somehow manage to come up with a few songs a year," explains Mikuta. "The mold effects might be slowing us down these days."
Yucky Octopus self-released—and self-distributed, of course—its mold-affected debut, Adventures in Science and Space, this past winter. The band found it required a great deal of work to realize the potency of its live set in a recording. "The album certainly has much more in the way of layering and sound effects than we could ever do live. It took a couple years of poking away at it, messing with ideas, and trying things out," Mikuta says. "Playing with aggression can certainly come across on a recording, in my opinion. A lot of bands aim for perfection in the studio instead of trying to capture an emotion, which I feel like we did, even though it was time consuming and layered bit by bit."
The band has spread out geographically some over the years, but still maintains a strong allegiance to Easthampton. Mikuta says, "When the band started, we all lived and worked in town. Tony and I both worked at an old record store called CMC Music Room, that's how I met him and Chris Couchon, who I caught shoplifting there one time. Over the years, with new members and certain migrations, half the band now has a Springfield location. We're still an Easthampton band at heart, though. It is the center of the Yucky Universe."
And just what is the Yucky Octopus mission statement? According to Mikuta: "Save the Giant Panda!"
Yucky Octopus appears at Maximum Capacity in Chicopee on Thursday, July 24 at 10 p.m.
