Post-Punk Iranian Band In Exile, The Yellow Dogs, Are 25th eMusic Selects Featured Act

Selects is a cool sounding opportunity for indie bands to get some extra attention on eMusic. With their 25th band, Iranian rockers-in-exile The Yellow Dogs, eMusic is expanding the program by partnering with music site Death and Taxes and crowdfunding site RocketHub. But as much as I'd like to be excited for indie artists about this expanded program, the execution suggests that currently the separate parts are greater than the promotional whole.

The Yellow Dogs are an interesting group. They formed in Tehran, the capital of Iran where rock music is illegal. They appeared in a documentary about the underground rock scene in Iran, No One Knows About Persian Cats, and then fled to the U.S. where they've recently been granted asylum status.  Now they're featured artists in eMusic Selects.

Help The Yellow Dogs Tour The World

Having gained official status in the States, they're now able to travel internationally and want to tour. So they've kicked off a RocketHub campaign to fund their tour with some help from eMusic. They've also released an EP, Upper Class Complexity, as the 25th band in the eMusic Selects program designed to feature up-and-coming indie artists.

eMusic announced The Yellow Dogs' involvement yesterday as part of the news that they're expanding the program by entering partnerships with online music magazine Death and Taxes and crowdfunding site RocketHub. Not only that but eMusic is matching the first $1500 in pledges to their fundraising campaign.

It's great news for The Yellow Dogs and a positive move for eMusic at a time when a variety of music-related sites are featuring indie promo opportunities as part of their branding. My only concern is that the pieces don't quite fit together and aren't coordinated in a way that takes full advantage of the partnership between websites or being featured on eMusic Selects.

If one looks at The Yellow Dogs on eMusic there's no mention of the crowdfunding campaign and no link to their Facebook page that seems to be their primary web presence. The eMusic Spotlight feature on The Yellow Dogs links to RocketHub and Death and Taxes but only to their homepages, not to the campaign or article.

At Death and Taxes one finds the article about The Yellow Dogs in the newsfeed near the bottom which will probably move off the front page by the time this post is up. There seems to be no additional promotion on the site for the partnership.

Over at RocketHub there's nothing on the homepage about the campaign and it's not till you get into the Projects section that you see the Partners list in the left hand column. That's the sort of thing an oddball like me might check out, though I'd probably check some of the other links before I checked eMusic, but how many people are going to even notice those links, go to the eMusic channel and click through to The Yellow Dogs' campaign?

I think it's great that eMusic is supporting indie artists and working with RocketHub and Death and Taxes but I have to wonder if this is a classic example of the parts being greater than the whole. Honestly, it's kind of strange when my post does a more complete job of connecting the dots than the people that are actually supporting the band.

Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith blogs about business at Flux Research: Business & Revenue Models and about dance at All World Dance: News. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.