Pittsburgh Pulse puts local bands on display

Of the many challenges facing musicians trying to break into the Pittsburgh music scene,… Of the many challenges facing musicians trying to break into the Pittsburgh music scene, attracting publicity may no longer be an issue. Pittsburgh Pulse, a weekly YouTube show, will provide free exposure for local bands in the greater Pittsburgh area. The show’s founders Thomas Schmaus and Andrew Pollack, both Pitt juniors, wanted a project that utilized their major skills ‘mdash; respectively a film major and marketing major ‘mdash; to help promote musicians and the local music scene. ‘Once we did the research and talked to our friends who are musicians, people started to get excited. The idea just caught fire,’ said Schmaus. Every show will feature two bands or solo artists who will play a 15-minute set of their songs. Afterward, Schmaus and Pollack will interview the musicians. Members of the first two bands to be featured, The DeadMites and Red Fox, are good friends of Schmaus and Pollack and were among the first to show enthusiasm and support for the idea of the show. The duo owns its own sound and video recording equipment, and Pittsburgh Filmmakers provides them with free studio space, which allows them to not have to charge the musicians. Preparing for the videos is a lengthy process, involving multiple meetings and preliminary interviews with the bands. Once Pollack and Schmaus film and edit the videos, they hope to post them online, ideally within a week of shooting. The bands can then link those videos to their own MySpaces and Web sites. What they produce will be higher quality than what most bands could manage on their own and subsequently might lead to more bookings and recording deals. Schmaus and Pollack are very aware of the difficult situation the current economy places many musicians in and hope to alleviate some of that financial stress. ‘I don’t think Pittsburgh is necessarily a tough scene, but there could be a lot of improvement in terms of availability of resources. Resources are there, but bands just don’t know about them,’ said Pollack. He and Schmaus hope to rectify this through their Internet presence. They currently operate a MySpace account in addition to the YouTube account. Their site will feature resources such as lists of local venues hosting concerts, recording studios, labels based in the area and vital networking opportunities. ‘We’d like to have this as a networking tool that continues to grow. We’d really like our site to eventually become the central site for anyone looking for information about the music industry or a particular artist in Pittsburgh,’ said Pollack. Bands must play at least one concert at a club or bar to be considered for the show, but beyond some minimal experience, Schmaus and Pollack don’t want to place any limits on what kinds of musicians will appear on Pittsburgh Pulse. ‘We really want to show the extremes of Pittsburgh’s music scene and work to expand it,’ said Schmaus. Of the musical groups that have already expressed interest in appearing on the show, Schmaus and Pollack said that punk is the most popular genre, but groups playing everything from hip hop to solo songwriters are scheduled to play. ‘Right now it’s all sorts of genres, we’re not dealing one out and keeping another. We accept any upcoming act, we really want to help these artists out,’ said Schmaus. The first episode will premiere on Feb. 22. Musicians interested in appearing on the show can contact Schmaus and Pollack at pghpulse@gmail.com.