How Many Dead? So Sad. Hey, Buy My Album!

File this one under "unimpressed releases." We want you to meet Michael Weiskopf. If there is a poor man's Bob Dylan, Michael Weiskopf is that person's poor man. Oh the plight of musicians; they grind it out for years hoping to get their big break. Fortunately the internet has provided a myriad of opportunities to expose that desperation. It's hard to draw attention to your work. And when the going gets tough, the tough capitalize on mass murder in the form of a badly written press release to increase SEO, draw people searching for information on the crime and get them to check out your latest song that's loosely related to gun violence.

What? Isn't that what they do?

So Michael Weiskopf, whose website is here, wrote a song in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre called "Guns Don't Kill." From what we've gathered after spending literally dozens of seconds researching this guy is that he's based out of the Hamptons. His website is created by Hamptons Web Design, and he has radio appearances centered out east.

Today, he accidentally decided to promote his music with this headlined release: "Latest Shooting Underscores New Anti-NRA Rant." 

OK, first: calling your song a "rant" is probably not the best tactic. Secondly, the lead graf calls attention to the recent shooting in "Santa Monica."

On May 23, a young man in Isla Vista, Cal. went on a shooting and stabbing spree reportedly because he kept striking out with women. Whatever the matter, he senselessly took six lives and wounded a number of others before finally turning the gun on himself. He committed this crime near UC Santa Barbara and one of his targets was a sorority house off campus.

Santa Barbara. Not Santa Monica. Which is not that bad of a mistake unless you're writing this press release as your attempt to mark your solidarity and empathy for the victims. Oh wait.

Then there's this to consider. One year ago this week, there WAS a mass shooting in Santa Monica, where another six people were killed, (including the shooter) making it entirely plausible that this "gaffe" was in fact, no mistake, but a press release that was repurposed and sent out again in the wake of the Santa Barbara killings.

So you're capitalizing on TWO mass murders? And you don't even have the decency of a proofreader to make sure your opportunism isn't so transparent?

Oh self-promotion: I love you. Oh Hamptons: I love you more!