When/How did you first start playing music?
Dan (vocals, lead guitar), Nick (vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboard) and I all played together in a thrash band in Boston called Crippled Minister (the band dismantled after a mildly unsuccessful residency in Edinburgh, Scotland). Jon (vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboard, drums) and Nick, being brothers, have played music together since their earliest days. We didn't start playing regularly until we all moved to Brooklyn in the summer of 2010 (we brought Kyle (bass, drums) on then, too, who we also know from Boston, and appreciate for his casual style of dress). The current incarnation of Crinkles was begotten just a few months ago.
What's the best gig you ever played?
Probably playing two shows in one night with Mt. Eerie in Burlington, Vermont. It was nice and intimate and everybody was wine drunk before anybody even started playing.
How has social media effected the way you market/promote your music?
With all of these new tools, it's both easier and harder to promote ourselves--easy to put music out there, easy for people to access it, and easy to put bogus blog entries up at rapid speeds, but hard in the sense that it is monopolized by a few larger online institutions. We are looking forward to a dramatic shift towards sites like Bandcamp and the glorious (but now mostly defunct) Muxtape.
It's hard to increase the signal to noise ratio, to get at the good stuff with the abundance of mediocre stuff in the way (ourselves often times included).
What's your prediction for the next big advancement in how we find/listen
to/share music?
Right now, bloggers and music fans with a significant online presence are almost completely in charge of what independent music people are listening to in the since that their ideas and opinions are consolidated by sites like Hypemachine and Grooveshark. At this point we are in support of that. In the future, it would be really nice to see a renaissance in independent FM and AM radio – especially considering the Amateur Radio Bill that just re-entered congress. Either way, we are likely to see the complete collapse of Myspace within the next few months.
What's your next big gig coming up? When/Where?
On February 20th we are playing with Widowspeak and Poison Control Center at Mercury Lounge in Manhattan. That should be a real fun one. We will be selling our custom variety of wines: Crinkleswine. The red is good and the white sucks but is a great gift for your underage little sister.
Check out more on Crinkles here.
