[Podcast] A CONTENT-CHALLENGER Has Appeared! Please Welcome Newest ISC Team Member - Spiro ‘The Hype Guy’!
GAH. I wanted to get this out earlier on the site than on my main FB account (which I’m judiciously mostly avoiding at the moment, to great effect on my productivity and mental ‘health’. Nevertheless, I’m bringing you the scoop on our latest correspondent Spiro ‘The Hype Guy’. My man also has an important appeal to you, the music community, as part of his introduction to the ISC staff roster.
See below!
I’m probably more lax in some respects when considering who to reach out to/who to bring onboard to the ISC staff roster. But in many others, I’m a lot more judicious. I care less about whether you have a creative portfolio a mile long. Sure, that helps in terms of demonstrative evidence, but this is still a hobby project for me, and I’m paying for, not making money on.
That not-withstanding, I like to think our humble project has some integrity, values and professionalism (less so me, maybe). Plus, a major (main, even) focus of why I initiated this and keep it going is to help promote grassroots and independent creatives, extol some virtue and value-add amongst a sea of increasingly unceasing low-effort GPT/reel-slop in the contentosphere, etc.
Ergo, when I’m musing about who to bring on next, a decision I don’t make lightly with a team of passionate volunteers who deserve the right to not be even more overwhelmed with scale alongside my incessant nattering - I’m primarily looking for passion, values-focus and decency.
I’ve lucked out three times previously in that regard with Mal, Hamza, and Elodie. And it seems Spiro’s addition to the ISC canon was a similarly safe bet!
I won’t give you an itemised listicle on the man’s exploits, we’re not playing economic meritocracy or validation-seeking here.
Regardless, here’s the scoop on our latest troop!
Let’s start off with a shot in the arm against Metal-Bro/general toxic masculinity! Real Men (™) who are based ain’t afraid to drop some pink drip. And yes, the 80’s thrasher-sunnies are a must.
Spiro’s Content-Antics:
My man has a successful content-creator page on Facebook under aforementioned auspice of The Hype Guy. With a healthy 2K+ following on the rotting entity that is Facebook, that’s no small feat!
Spiro focuses a lot on hype, positivity and channelling promotional love for the music scene. In particular, he’s got a strong ethos as espoused above; making sure The Little Guy out there gets some love in our increasing noise-to-signal afflicted social media scene.
Facebook - Right Here.
Some recent cuts unashamedly lifted from said profile (with consent, of course!):
A solid list of Brisbane-based bands for a playlist he’s cooking up. Being a capital city that has, from direct punter/muso experience myself 2007-2017ish, an actually-thriving scene sadly often reliant on more DIY methods of promotion than say, Melbourne (policy, etc)… he’s cooked up a very methodica; nascent playlist of local acts to get HYPED about. (There was a dog-pile on his recent callout for some promotion love, as you can see below):
And BOY does it warm both the ASD hyperfixator AND the ADHD goblin in me to see such an extensive charcuterie of cuts across a bunch of genres! I’m all about this - let’s go.
2. Gig footage and thoughts on some regional-Aus sets! Examples including Mildurans Constellation Prize, local heavy-rockers JARR, singer-songwriters Philthy Steel + Bloody El , plus sharing others’ footage such as that by Melbourne melodic death-metal big-noters Orpheus Omega, et al. Dude’s as incessant as spreading the love as we are, and we’re all about that fact.
3. Promo of various home-grown acts, such as Perth’s super-thrashin’ VANTA, modern-metallers Amberdown (link to the single Spiro posted here) and honestly, too many more! Spiro’s stuff gets a lot of heartfelt and thankful reception from bands across socials, Youtube etc. And that’s because us humans have pretty well-developed bullshit-detectors and can sense genuine passion, authenticity and love versus reposting for the Metrics Game. Something Spiro is also about as interested in playing as myself/our team. Ergo, a great addition as the man speaks his truth and is just all about injecting some much-needed community and hype into these dire times!
YOUTUBE:
Spiro’s channel is a treasure.
Contrasting to my often glum, nihilistic and cynical diatribes (I’m pretty goth/emo-coded like that in honesty), Spiro brings a relentless and fervent maniac energy to his love of all things music that is scarily close to my own goblinoid levels of ADHD stoke. Where we differ, is the bloke is just an untapped well-spring of positive vibes.
Where ISC is concerned, I figure we have enough Fantanos and big-ticket music outlets that are staffed and scoped in terms of time, content and reach to take on big-name bands and pull zero punches. Which isn’t say to say we do, we’re honest.
But if I can drop a few examples of Spiro’s humour-fuelled but genuinely warm and passionate coverage, I’ll drop a very important one on you first.
Quoting the man himself:
“New HYPE GUY video out now!! I thought I’d kick start the year off, by supporting a worthy cause. JamPot Studios, lead by Tom Johnson is currently in need of a new building for rent, in order to continue his ongoing music production business of now 13 years! Please take the time to give this video a view, it would be greatly appreciated! (This also includes a couple of songs from Warrior Within which I react to in said video.)”
Bro goes out of his way, with a mixture of whimsy, fun and genuine sincerity to make an appeal for local Sunshine Coast institution Tom Johnson, who is having a very rough time of it with brain cancer recover and the looming threat of losing a 10+-year Sunny Coast music institution in JamPot Studios.
Now, I spent from 2007 - 2012 on the Sunny Coast or my undergraduate years pre-Brisbane and later, Victoria. Some of the best years of my short-ish 35 years so far (and very loose - man, Queenslanders can drink, so can ex-Coffs ratbags like me) for my undergrad Psychology studies.
Unfortunately, the region suffers from an attrition of venues, promotion and arts funding on a level that rivals my relatively-smaller region back home on the Mid North Coast of NSW. You really had to dig to find gigs and bands, and that was back when the Sands was regularly putting on heavy matinees.
Thus, any entity such as JamPot is crucial to keeping the spirit of music alive on a region that has been absolutely slaughtered by the relentless march of gentrification and housing issues, things I won’t discuss much further save for keeping blood pressure intact.
My long-winded point is thus - Spiro not only works in a bunch of mirth, memery and high-energy (I’ve watched this a couple times now and still jump at the HYPE MORNING, EVERYBODY!, grinning as I do so), he’s been sure to include the GoFundMe link for Tom, and places a passionate clarion-call for people to pitch in what they can.
I might be a social worker by trade, too many degrees and a crippling HECS debt - but THIS is a perfect example of direct-action in praxis. This is social work. I don’t give a shit what anyone says. Us human services professionals beam proudly when we see folks engaging in their own direct action and frankly, our narcissism-encouraging online environment can always be better off with more of it.
I’m even broker than Spiro right now probably, but like the man himself I’ve pitched in a few bucks, and you should too. RIGHT HERE.
The stuff I have in the works for Spiro is being kept Mum’s The Word for now. #sorrynotsorry!
BUT:
Where Spiro and the rest of my team are concerned for 2025?
I’m pulling the ol’ music industry classic, and stand by it:
big things coming.
Mid-joyful headbanger-snap courtesy of Amy Jane Photography. Give her website a suss!
Welcome, Spiro. To quote Ace Ventura, the team and values fit has already been like a glove. On that note, stay tuned as I make a whole-squad post for 2025. Right after I get done with the tooth-extraction/amputation-sans-anaesthesia process that is manually porting, reformatting and reuploading an entire dead website (RIP) to this one right here.
Stay Tuned.
Peace, Love and Grindcore xoxo - Brady.
LINKS:
Spiro - Instagram @zer0thehypeguy
TikTok
Youtube Channel
Random Gratuitous Thrasher Sunnies Pic:
