Requesting your own music on a radio show is the musical equivalent of autoerotic asphyxiation: You’re the only one who gets off, and you’re gambling with your future prospects.
Especially when the DJ knows it’s your band and you’re acting like it’s a regular request. “Well, I was thinking of asking for a little Laibach, but meh, y’know what, how about some YOUR BAND NAME HERE instead?”
Bullshit. In the goth industrial realm, the requests are for the usual suspects: Skinny Puppy, FLA, Neubauten, etc. If requests come in for a given small band, it’ll usually be when they’ve just out an album that’s starting to catch and get attention or when they have a show soon, something like that.
Real requests usually start with something like “Hey, y’know what I haven’t heard in ages? Fucking Bauhaus’ ‘Sanity Assassin.’ Can you throw that on?” I’ve also had legit requests for obscure bands that aren’t from the usual suspects, but invariably they’re something weird and Slovenian that once toured with Borghesia or something like that.
For example, I think it’s safe to say that the odds of anyone calling up any of the DJs in Montreal and asking them to play any maQLu are probably pretty slim. And thus if I were to do so, it would be pretty obvious that I’m maQLu, not some fan.
This, by the way, is different from sending your shit to a DJ or even casually asking them to check your stuff out.
If this has already happened, and you know they know about your project but it’s not getting played by them, trust me there’s a reason for it, and it has nothing to do with not being asked enough.
