{"id":1072,"date":"2008-01-10T20:32:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-10T20:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/?p=1072"},"modified":"2024-04-03T20:33:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T20:33:50","slug":"heres-your-stinking-press-now-stop-calling-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/?p=1072","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s your stinking press, now stop calling me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We Prick You frontman practices flagrant cell-phone abuse<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Marcus
Marcus Cortez can\u2019t even concentrate on shredding when there are fliers for next <\/em>week\u2019s show to be distributed!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Check out We Prick You with Iguanadon and White Wizzard Saturday, January 12 at 9 p.m., $7. Old Ironsides, 1901 10th Street; (916) 443-9751; www.theoldironsides.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I should never have given Marcus Cortez my phone number.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I thought, as someone who writes about music, why not make myself available to the lead singer and guitarist for the hard-driving, Bowie-allusive local rock trio We Prick You? Really, what harm could come from it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We first met outside the entrance to Old Ironsides, one of the many locales at which Cortez and his band like to wreak havoc. By then, I\u2019d already heard them\u2014serious rockers in the great tradition of early Local H and Queens of the Stone Age. So far, so good in my book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as he madly papered cars outside the venue with his show fliers, Cortez seemed<\/em> like a nice enough guy. He was having an unusually bad hair day, but that\u2019s a common occurrence when you wear a curly, shoulder-length mop. Somehow, though, he seemed permanently disheveled. Plus, he was hell-bent on distributing several thousand fliers at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI usually dice up 1,000 to 2,000 fliers for myself,\u201d the fast-talking frontman said. He was beaming. \u201cI\u2019ve fliered a ton of strangers. Some become really good friends and we share lots of good times.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others, not so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was threatened once,\u201d he said. \u201cOnly once, by some cat who said, \u2018You don\u2019t ever talk to this woman ever again and don\u2019t you ever let me catch you talking to my girlfriend.\u2019 I got the feeling he was serious. He wouldn\u2019t shake my hand or smile or anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI left one of my own shows early and ran out right when I was done playing so that I could promote during the headliner at another show across town,\u201d the spastic self-promoter went on (with a certain amount of glee). \u201cThat\u2019s the show where I ran into that gentleman and his girlfriend. A bit of a hassle, but it made for a pleasant turnout.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without missing a beat, Cortez then asked, \u201cCan I get your number?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carelessly, I obliged. First mistake, last mistake. Since that first chance meeting more than a year ago, I\u2019ve received somewhere near 1,000 We Prick You-related text messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve now grown so accustomed to his wanton acts of cellular abuse that I can accurately guess it\u2019s him by the awkward timing alone. The messages are unrelenting, often coming at rapid-fire speed, and usually when I least expect them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One time I woke up to a text about a Blue Lamp show at 1:30 a.m. and just about threw my phone out the window. Another time, my girlfriend and I were enjoying a movie and my cell phone registered five texts before the end credits rolled. I even received a phone call directly after a text from Cortez after already receiving a flier on my car, an e-mail and a MySpace bulletin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I know I\u2019m not alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Cortez isn\u2019t willing to give out the total number of contacts now forever trapped in his cell-phone, he does mention there are \u201cat least a baker\u2019s dozen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what on Earth gave him this seemingly limitless energy to promote? \u201cSubstances may or may not be involved,\u201d he said vaguely, \u201cbut I meet a lot of really cool people, catch a lot of good music and support a lot of my friends in doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For better or for worse, the publicity blitz will be stepped up for the next recording, a follow-up to the self-released Two Face Mona Lisa<\/em> CD. With a solid lineup now featuring Joe Bryant (keyboards, vocals, guitar) and Scott Michael Quam (drums), We Prick You fans can look forward to thousands upon thousands more notifications in the months to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, in the interim, I\u2019ve changed from my previous number to an undisclosed one. And Cortez\u2019s number will, indeed, be blocked. Yet somehow, the crafty frontman still got an article out of me. That son of a bitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(SN&R)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We Prick You frontman practices flagrant cell-phone abuse Check out We Prick You with Iguanadon and White Wizzard Saturday, January 12 at 9 p.m., $7. Old Ironsides, 1901 10th Street; (916) 443-9751; www.theoldironsides.com. I should never have given Marcus Cortez my phone number. But I thought, as someone who writes about music, why not make myself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1073,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions\/1073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}