May 13--The Internet was aghast this week when it learned the L.A. band Yacht had faked having their sex tape stolen in order to draw attention to a new song about sex. The ploy was so misguided that even the band's PR company recoiled, publishing tweets distancing itself.
"What Yacht did is troll people's innate sense of horror, disgust and compassion when confronted with a terribly violating crime," Anna Merlan wrote in Jezebel. "This is one of the grossest publicity stunts I've ever seen."
I mention this in order to set up a contrast.
RELATED: MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR
One of the cooler music-industry publicity stunts I've ever seen -- one so cool its originator rejects the notion that it is about publicity -- will take place this weekend across Chicago neighborhoods.
On Saturday afternoon, Bloodshot Records singer Al Scorch will ready his vintage mountain-bike-turned-urban-commuter, place his banjo and copies of his new album in an attached trailer and set out with bandmates on a kind of mini-version of a tour supporting the album.
From noon to 6 p.m., roughly, he and bandmates will ride from one Chicago record store to another, play a short acoustic set at each, five in total, and then gather with friends and fans -- anybody who wants to join the ride -- for a barbecue to celebrate his Bloodshot debut, "Circle Round the Signs," which comes out Friday.
"It's just kind of a natural way to celebrate," said Scorch, whose record has been praised for honest, deeply felt songwriting and its combination of roots-music instruments played with a more contemporary drive.
The tour starts at Permanent Records (Noon), then hits Reckless Records on Broadway (1:30 p.m.), Laurie's Planet of Sound (3 p.m.), Bucket of Blood (4:30 p.m.) and Logan Hardware (6 p.m.), 12 miles in all.
When I told him it's one of the better methods I've encountered to promote an album, he shoved the suggestion very far away.
"I never think about anything I do in those terms," he said. "That's the problem, when you're thinking, How do I get through to people? Because, you know what, man, go to college and get a marketing degree. Those people are needed in the music industry. Go be one of those people."
He wants, instead, he said, to bring together his communities, the record stores that have been supportive, the fans, his fellow urban cyclists, the musicians he's played with, the new label. "I wanted something very connected to my life, my community, my friends," he said.
"This gives everyone a chance to get in on the bonding that is tour. So much of that bonding is in transit. You just stare out the window and look at the landscape going past and talk to each about all the deep stuff in your head and try to parse out more complicated problems with your friends. With this miniature tour we get to all be in the van together, but the van is a bike ride."
It's organic and creative and, importantly, sounds like a great deal of fun -- pretty much everything the Yacht sex-tape stunt was not.
What Yacht had in mind, the band explained after the dupe was revealed, was to "explore the intersection of privacy, media, and celebrity. We enjoy and have spent a decade creating multi-faceted projects that unfold over time, using the most current tools at our disposal."
The band failed to understand that the fundamental tool it was exploiting was the sense of empathy that decent human beings try to have for one another.
Scorch didn't know anything about any of it until I told him. As you might predict from a guy who sounds like he tries to maintain an open and questing nature, he found sympathy for the band.
"As an artist, sometimes when you cook something up in your creative world and you lay it on people, it doesn't always turn out like you thought it would," he said, which is both a fair and a generous point. "People just took it in a way they didn't predict."
Josh Zanger, as a Bloodshot publicist, is one of the people Scorch talks about who does get paid to think of ways to connect music to the public.
He instantly loved the record-store-by-bike-mini-tour idea. "I thought it was something we had never heard of before," he said. "Even if no one shows up at any of the events and we still just do the ride, it's still going to support awareness of record stores." (For the record, that doesn't seem likely: Scorch figures a few dozen, at least, might take part during the day.)
Zanger, too, was sort of sympathetic to what Yacht attempted. "Being a publicist, that's something we're aware of," he said. "It's becoming harder and harder to get people's attention. Just straight up ability and creativity and hard work don't always translate to people paying attention anymore.
"But they kind of got off track. It was exploitative."
On the other hand, I pointed out, it did prompt me to call up a few Yacht songs on Spotify, give them a listen. So, perhaps, mission accomplished.
Their retro synth pop and nouveau disco was fairly listenable, but there was also something manufactured sounding about it. Scorch's music has a rawness to it, an earnestness, with visible rough edges and maybe a sweat stain of two.
It is almost exactly the difference between trying to draw people your way with an intellectual exercise in media manipulation versus the physical exertion of pedaling your gear and your self from one lo-fi locale to another, then singing your songs without even so much as an amplifier to help.
sajohnson@chicagotribune.com
Twitter: @StevenKJohnson
RELATED STORIES:
'Reprehensible to no end': Indie rock band YACHT fakes sex tape leak, sparking Internet outrage
Rappers increasingly choose Chicago as the place to be
Chance the Rapper's 'Coloring Book' released
