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I have been an avid fan of the band The Airborne Toxic Effect for the last two years. Their music helped me get through a rough time in my personal life.

So after the release of their sophomore release this year, I was excited, with their bonus video disc of Bombastic videos, which was better than the audio cd. Doing my due diligence as a journalist I started months ago to try to interview the band for this column. This is when I learned the reality of major label PR bullshit. First after months of no response I did get a response and was promised an email interview. As the weeks and months continued, I was then told the band was too busy but I could get a phone interview. After weeks of no contact, I was sent this, by Ericka from their management company, "Apologies that we were not able to get this in ahead of time. I assure you that no interview is too small for us. The band's schedule has been crazy these last few weeks and I am sorry if you feel blown off- it was certainly not our intention. The band is grateful for all interest and press. I have cc'd out tour manager Bill and perhaps we can get you some time with the band day of show"

Sounds encouraging? Yeah right. More smoke blown up my Arse.

"Sorry for the delay Vinnie, Sadly we do not have the time for an interview today. bill"

The bottom line is that I tried to tie traditional fandom, with comics and movies, to music, and I was shown how naive I am. Popular musical artists do not care about their fans, they are only concerned that you buy their product. The music industry is still operating in its traditional mode. They are still tied to traditional media formats, which are dead, and refuse to accept blogs and Internet websites, such as www.crazedfanboy.com as legitimate sources of promotion.

I think the only band that might understand this is Blink-182' Tom Delonge, with his Angels and Airwaves project "Love", which I will comment in a future column.

As a P.S. I called the
The MGMT Company
4220 Lankershim Blvd. 3rd Floor
North Hollywood, CA 91602
o: 818.760.7657
c: 818.621.4384

11/29/2011 and spoke with a Cory, who did not even want to talk to me or was not even interested in my concerns. I once was a huge fan of The Toxic Airborne Effect. Now I will never buy another release.

As an addenum: Trying to post to Airborne Toxic Events Facebook gets everyone of my posts deleted. Maybe I have been so wrong about this band. They refuse to let First Amendment rights on their facebook. I would suggest everyone stay away from this band, if they refuse to let anyone with a negative comment post on their facebook.