Dear Local Bands Of The World,
You may still be hurt and angry because I don't like your flyers. I understand your pain, and I am here to take your mind off such unpleasant things. There is something else that you need to know, something no one else wants to tell you. Your web sites suck. They suck ass. They suck rocks. They suck ass rocks. Like Flanders, they su-diddley-uck. All of the sites hurt my eyes, and the really bad ones caused a rash to break out on my face and arms.
Why do you have such half-assed sites? These sites are quite possibly more important than your flyers, and they are either hopelessly overdone or pathetically underdone. I have just toured well over thirty band sites, and there is one common thread. They all suck. I found one, that's right, one site that was beautifully done. I hunted a band member down to pay a compliment, and found out that the singer's wife designed the site. She is a web designer by trade. The only other site that doesn't burn my eyes is a site that the band hates and has asked me to redesign for them. It looks fine to me.
But most of the web sites don't look fine at all. The point of your web site is to promote your band, right? Then why all the extra garbage? Just tell me where to see your band and where to buy your stuff. Or where to download MP3s. I think you all include these things, but you are also including a whole lot of crap that I do not need. Let's take a site tour.
Site Entry
Why do I go to your site and see Click Here To Enter? By clicking on your link or typing in your URL, I rang your doorbell, why are you making me knock too? I am trying to enter! I expect to see your main page when I type in your address. Not a logo that tells me Click Here To Enter. Not animation with a Click Here To Skip Intro button. I know you are a brooding, gloomy band, but it takes a long ass time for your brooding, gloomy intro to load. As a result, I skip the intro and therefore have never been awed by its brooding, gloomy message. If I want to see a scene featuring some guy in a cape who lives in a castle surrounded by candles, I will watch Sesame Street.
The Main Page
Now that I have knocked and you have finally let me in, what do I see? An eyesore. While I was knocking you could have cleaned up a little! What were you doing in there? Now, I think that blue and black are both stunning and useful colors, but you have to lose the blue writing on the black background. Also lose the patterned backgrounds and the collages. What did I tell you about your flyers? Use all the graphics tricks in your CD booklet! The same rule applies to your web sites. Oh, and by the way, it's called a Shift Key. Use it. If I see all capital letters or all lower case, I am going to scream.
Other than that, I don't really care what you place on the main page. News is good. The cover of your latest release is nice. Go ahead and tell me when your next show is happening. Maybe a picture of the band somewhere, provided that you aren't butt ass ugly. Please keep the photo small, my computer is older than television, and huge files take forever to load and make me hate your band. Yes, I will hate your band before I hate my computer. I've known my computer longer.
News
By all means, have a news section. You have to archive the old news somewhere, don't you? If you haven't posted any news in two years, you may want to remove the news section. Just a thought.
Upcoming Events
This should probably be an expanded version of your main page. Maybe on the main page, tell me the upcoming dates, and in this section, tell me everything you know. I want to see everything that should be on your neatly organized flyers.
Links
Why are you guys so insecure? Why is it that when I go to your links section and click on a link, the new site pops up under your menu bar? Why is that? Thanks to that bit of design work, I now only have three-fourths of my screen with which to view your buddy's site. If I have to scroll down so I can Click Here To Skip Intro I am going to be mad. Why can't you just have a whole new window pop up containing their site? Because if I click on one of their links, and they use the same technique, then I have two band's navigation bars hogging my screen, and not much room to view other sites.
Do you think I'm leaving your site forever if I click on a link? I have a Back button and I know how to use it. If I want to find you again, I know how. I'm not done picking on you, of course I will be back.
Domain Names
Please splurge on an actual domain name for your band. If I go to your site and it is on one of those free spaces, I am going to get ticked about the rapid fire popup ads and leave your site before I even have a chance to make fun. It's not that expensive to have a web site with a proper domain name for your band. Pass the hat at practice, or buy fewer cases of beer. It will be well worth it.
Band Bio
If there is a more unnecessary waste of space for a local band, I haven't seen it. It is all well and good that you met while folding newspapers for your respective paper routes in Mr. Peterson's garage in New Brighton when you were eleven, but I don't need to know. I also do not need to know every single band you have ever played in since junior high. Really. If your current group has played under a couple of different names, you should list them. It's possible an old fan didn't know you changed names, and you can get that fan back with just a smidge of information. But the rest, well, no one cares.
For instance, why do I need to know what your favorite beverages are? What is the purpose of that list? Do you really think that one day, some girl is going to sashay up to you at one of your shows and say, "I read on your site that you like canned domestic beer. Want one?" That day is never going to come, my young friends. And if it does, with your bad luck I will be sitting right there at the bar and when I hear that exchange I will laugh.
And this won't just be a barely suppressed snicker. If I hear that, my beer is getting spit across the bar (out both mouth and nose), then I will fall off my barstool in a fit of glee. My laughter will be so hyena-like that people will think I am having some sort of episode and call the paramedics. Then when the paramedics arrive and don't look just like Roy DeSoto and Johnny Gage from Emergency! I am going to be super pissed and hold your band responsible.
After I have convinced the nice EMTs that I am fine and they have left, I will offer to buy you a canned domestic beer. It's the very least I can do, since your fan is long gone and you are sorry you ever told me to "come check out my band." Well, I'm sorry I ever went to check out your band's web site, so we are even.
Love,
DragonAttack, Design Critic, Music Fan, Rocksnob