By Maomew Human
Photography by Wappy Spray-fairy
Following musical trendsetters Taylor Swift and Neil Young, Umphrey’s McGee has decided to pull all of their music from internet streaming services and digital retail outlets. As of this upcoming Monday morning, albums Greatest Hits Volume Three through Similar Skin will be found in physical format exclusively. This includes the shows archived in the infamous non-profit Live Music Archive from Archive.org, so you better start your downloading immediately!
“When the band started 15 years ago, I turned to Joel and said ‘This industry is full of phonies. Fuck that! Lets just be genuine about things, fuck art, man. This is all about the goddamn money’. Instantly, we knew our mission. We have spent a decade with that in the forefront of our consciousness, selling our integrity for the dollar chase, ignoring the wants of our ravenous fan base, building up our sizeable warchest with the intention of eventually developing a secret/not-so-secret private island headquarters. Then all of a sudden Spotify and streaming music comes out of left-fucking-field. No technological innovation is going to change our cynosure,” stated the sixtet’s frontman and troglodyte Brendan Bayliss.
“There’s really only one reason someone goes into music in the first place: easy money. Sure, it takes lots of work to make the big bucks, but even small time artists make enough to enjoy life, have full bellies, court all the ladies. Who ever heard of a musician living at their parent’s house or crashing of a friends couch for months? It just doesn’t happen,” keyboardist Joel Cummins told us. “It’s a guaranteed career path that ensures large amounts of monetary compensation. Let’s put it this way: it’s alot like drug dealing. Initially you make everything available to as many people as possible. Give them a taste, get them hooked. Eventually you’re sharing the stage with Katy Perry and buying submarines in Redondo Bay, swimming in pools of cash off-tour while the addicts suck on the merch-teat.” He smiled before continuing, “We’re playing fewer shows and yet the income has never been higher. Working smarter, not harder.” .
That money began floating in after the band’s Superbowl appearance earlier this year as thousands unexposed fans became instantly aware of the progband’s existence. Jake and Stasik took the world by storm dressed as the now-infamous ‘Stage Sharks’. “Since then it’s been easy money,” says Brendan. Offers of corporate sponsorships started flooding in and the band happily obliged: Stasik donning a Goodyear Tires jacket at many shows this summer, Jake adding the words “Pete’s Pride” before Pork Fritters in 40s theme. The band has started gaining a celebrity following, with ESPN’s Toni Reali and conservative pundit Ann Coulter labeling themselves as ‘Umphreaks’.
“But I became sad, oh so sad inside,” said Bayliss. “There was a hole in our near-perfect profit project. Fans had become dependent on our streaming audio to satiate their thirst between gigs, but like my friend Taylor Swift always says ‘Freebies are for fools’. We knew we had to somehow rid ourselves of streaming services.”
The band divulged that “Tay-tay” has actually been a huge influence since crossing paths at the Grammys. “We plan on naming our next album “1348”, ya’know, because it was the year that Joel was born, and rerecording it again because we’re somewhat in love with rereleasing tunes yet maintaining a large catalog of unreleased tracks as a sort of inner joke with/at our fans,” stated Bayliss.
“We knew that, by making the music scarce, we could drive up the price and make our music available to the super-elite alone, but that would lead to another issue we’ve already had to deal with – bootlegging,” stated Joel. “The internet is full of thieves who would rather see us starve, have to live on the streets in cardboard boxes, over paying for our music. Is that right?! Is that fair?! That’s why Taylor stopped streaming her music – she was becoming dangerously close to Poor before she took her music off of Spotify. There was only one option – make our music available in DRM share-proof special designed CDRs only – no ability to rip them, no ability to share them. You can listen to our CD in your CD player, that’s it. If you want to hear our music otherwise, get in the van!(…also, ticket prices soon increasing.)”
No word yet in if Umphrey’s intends to ever return to internet streaming services in any fashion. You can still subscribe to UMLive and stream tracks through Monday. Afterwards, though the site is devoid of music, you will still be able to enjoy the versatile Social features and bugless intuitive User Interface that fans have come to know and love. Umphrey’s McGee returns to the tour circuit this month after taking the majority of July off to find a suitable island property for their new headquarters.