For a music blog that has long prided itself on being true to “indie rock, metal & comedy”, we were amused to see Brooklynvegan.com going out of their way to promote Converse with not only a “Free Music Day” co-presenting slot, but going so far as to say that “Converse is doing a lot lately to help support music, and has especially hooked up Brooklyn.”

The idea of a corporation using artists and bands to market their products is certainly nothing new, but for a music blog that stakes it’s claim on “indie” music coverage to fall for a basic corporate PR stunt (along with the NY Times Music Section), not only falls far short of music journalistic standards, but when you tie it in with perhaps the ugliest flyer in creation? Pathetic.

Thanks to a PR piece in the NY Times, (which BrooklynVegan also linked to in their piece), Converse has been using money to open a recording studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to “let bands record for free”. A great idea right?

Sure! But given the readily-available recording software and numerous independent studios already operating all over Brooklyn, Manhattan and elsewhere, this idea, while a nice concept, is about seven years too late. The mastermind behind this “ground breaking idea” is Geoff Cottrill, the company’s chief marketing officer. In the NY Times piece, they describe Cottrill as “sporting a pair of ripped jeans, a Rolex watch and a big, I-swear-it’s-true smile” as he described the plans for the studio, which is to open by the end of the year.” The irony of a Rolex sporting CMO cruising around Williamsburg in ripped jeans plugging a recording studio wasn’t lost on us either.

While Brooklyn Vegan described this as an “incredible hook up” to the local musicians in Williamsburg desperate to record their music with some hot-shot engineers on the Converse dime, it’s all-too-convenient to forget that Nike (the parent company of Converse)l, rakes in over $19 Billion per year largely by exploiting third world countries for not only labor but for obvious profit margins to actively market their products. The fact that Converse decided to spend a fraction of their typical ad-buy on a recording studio in the heart of hipsterville is not only a joke, but maybe it’s proof that music blogs (operating under the guise of journalism standards) should open their eyes to the bigger picture of what constitutes a corporation trying to move product, versus a genuine non-profit support of the arts.