Apologies to my friends in PR, but I honestly can't help feeling preferential toward artists who have to be sought out a bit. It just seems as though, while a good publicist is a tremendously valuable asset to new bands, the whole "Check us out! Write about us!" media-hounding is a little...silly.
Of course, they only do it 'cause it works. And sometimes in a pinch, or during a slow entertainment week, having that crappy bluegrass band coming through town with a dozen "Let me know if you want to cover us" e-mails can save a busy student-writer from busting a deadline.
It's a tricky relationship, though. Most of the time, the ones who get advertised relentlessly (and require setting up interviews through a tour manager with an official confirmation) are really not that great. They're not established or interesting enough to be especially sought after, yet we eat up their press releases (when desperate, anyway) so they figure they have the upper hand and may as well act totally full of themselves. Don't you think you ought to earn your acclaim first? How "indie" are you if you want to be force-fed to people through newspapers? That doesn't sound much better than ClearChannel.