Love your music, hate your name
October 7, 2016 9:23 AM Subscribe
How do you go about finding more information on music acts whose names are difficult to google?
I have a feeling this is intentional on the part of many artists, but I find myself often hearing of a band and thinking, well, i'll never be able to google them.
I find music sometimes through mixtapes/playlists where I'm given little to no information about the artists other than name. I used to pride myself on my googlefu, but some names are just awful. The current example I have is an artist or group called "Fan Fiction". I can find their bandcamp and a seemingly-related tumblr, but I'm struggling to find more information.
Maybe this is the point - there's no desire to be "found" so mission accomplished. But if you're like me, and you like to find out more (like where they are from, are they touring, still active, do they have other albums) what do you do?
I have a feeling this is intentional on the part of many artists, but I find myself often hearing of a band and thinking, well, i'll never be able to google them.
I find music sometimes through mixtapes/playlists where I'm given little to no information about the artists other than name. I used to pride myself on my googlefu, but some names are just awful. The current example I have is an artist or group called "Fan Fiction". I can find their bandcamp and a seemingly-related tumblr, but I'm struggling to find more information.
Maybe this is the point - there's no desire to be "found" so mission accomplished. But if you're like me, and you like to find out more (like where they are from, are they touring, still active, do they have other albums) what do you do?
Best answer: Well, the Fan Fiction bandcamp links to the Tumblr you referred to, and right at the top of that Tumblr is a "My websites" link, which takes you to the personal site of one Steph(anie) Davidson (stephdavidson.com). That page links to the Fan Fiction soundcloud, so there is clearly some relation. Steph is probably in the band, or is the band. There are other links as well. Steph Davidson appears to have several websites, several Tumblrs, a twitter, Flickr, Youtube, etc. Coincidentally, Steph and I also have a bunch of mutual friends, though I've never met her.
All this to say that some good old-fashioned detective work will probably get you what you want. I don't think there's anything particularly hard to Google about the name "Fan Fiction", just that they're probably small enough that they don't rise to the top. Also probably small enough that if you email Steph directly I bet she'd get back to you. You could do this for most small bands, by the way. People love hearing from fans.
posted by dadaclonefly at 9:45 AM on October 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
All this to say that some good old-fashioned detective work will probably get you what you want. I don't think there's anything particularly hard to Google about the name "Fan Fiction", just that they're probably small enough that they don't rise to the top. Also probably small enough that if you email Steph directly I bet she'd get back to you. You could do this for most small bands, by the way. People love hearing from fans.
posted by dadaclonefly at 9:45 AM on October 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
I find that it helps to search last.fm for obscure bands; that can help you at least find the names of albums or songs you didn't know about.
If it's a band that has (or may have) been around for a while, you can try Googling their name along with "myspace". Years ago, I was trying to track down a band called "La Junta" (also hard to search for) and I got some info from their old, defunct MySpace page.
posted by neushoorn at 9:49 AM on October 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
If it's a band that has (or may have) been around for a while, you can try Googling their name along with "myspace". Years ago, I was trying to track down a band called "La Junta" (also hard to search for) and I got some info from their old, defunct MySpace page.
posted by neushoorn at 9:49 AM on October 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I'd also use some search operators. Searching for "Fan Fiction" pulls up a lot of what you don't want. For example, searching for "Fan Fiction" band -site:fanfiction.net -- that'll eliminate all results from that fan fic site, which are what the bulk of what comes up.
posted by jenny76 at 9:58 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by jenny76 at 9:58 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Discogs is pretty good for this. For example, here's Fan Fiction, with only one release listed.
Probably not as helpful for current bands doing independent non-physical digital releases, but it's a goldmine for obscure older stuff.
posted by neckro23 at 10:02 AM on October 7, 2016
Probably not as helpful for current bands doing independent non-physical digital releases, but it's a goldmine for obscure older stuff.
posted by neckro23 at 10:02 AM on October 7, 2016
Generally I use [band name] + band/lyrics/music/song - that tends to weed out some stuff. It gets harder with bands like !!! but works with The The.
posted by kariebookish at 11:19 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by kariebookish at 11:19 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
If the artist name is a bunch of weird symbols, you can try putting the "name" in quotes.
If you know the genre of music, you can try adding that to your search.
You can search within forums for the genre of music.
posted by ethical_caligula at 11:47 AM on October 7, 2016
If you know the genre of music, you can try adding that to your search.
You can search within forums for the genre of music.
posted by ethical_caligula at 11:47 AM on October 7, 2016
Response by poster: My problem with the soundcloud + tumblr route is that I'm usually doing this on mobile (sorry) where those links are not as evident (at least on the views of those sites I see). I don't use desktop browsers as much as I used to, so I bet that's the key. I had also forgotten google could exclude a site using operators, so thank you for that great advice too.
posted by obtuser at 12:44 PM on October 7, 2016
posted by obtuser at 12:44 PM on October 7, 2016
This thread is closed to new comments.
Also, go to YouTube and search band name + live.
Also, what about searching in Apple Music, Spotify, etc. so your search is already more restricted to music?
Lastly, if you've only just heard a song, try to jot down even a couple phrases. Google two separate phrases, each in quotes, in the same search. I've found several songs that way.
posted by whoiam at 9:44 AM on October 7, 2016