Jack Shepler got his start in rock journalism at an early age. As an eighth-grader, he ran a Geocities-hosted music Web site called FreakCentral.com, which featured album reviews of Christian rock bands. Today, Shepler is the editor, web developer and main promoter for rockmusicreview.com, an indie rock and hip-hop-focused music publication that has garnered attention from musicians and record labels alike.
"It got to the point where I had to open a P.O. Box so I stopped getting piles of CDs at my house," Shepler said.
Shepler said that about half of the albums he receives are from public relations people seeking press for their clients and the other half are from independent artists.
"Rock Music Review is Jack's idea," said senior Dave McGovern, one of the site's main contributors. "So he definitely deserves credit for doing all the web page and the initial contacting of PR people and building relationships and publicity."
At a 2005 Warped Tour photo shoot, Shepler exchanged business cards with former Rolling Stone photo editor Barry Brecheisen. Later that day, Brecheisen left a comment on one of Shepler's photos from the shoot on Rock Music Review that said: "Looks great, man. I think it might be better than my shot!"
Shepler has also photographed Green Day, Dashboard Confessional and Taking Back Sunday, and recently conducted an interview with post-rock luminaries Sigur Ros.
"I was definitely honored to speak with someone in the band," said Shepler. He cites the Icelandic innovators as one of his favorite groups.
Currently, Shepler is at work on a compilation cassette tape project under the working title, "Project Mix Tape." Side one, dubbed, "Indy Indie," will include contributions from regional artists such as Margot and the Nuclear So and So's, BIGBIGcar and Catch the Bear, and side two will feature enigmatic Atlantic Records stars Death From Above 1979. Shepler has established a rapport with several other major label artists whom he hopes will be added to the compilation.
"I figured that cassettes would be more noticeable than CDs," Shepler said of the album.
Shepler said that the idea for the tape project stemmed from a Rock Music Review t-shirt that he sold last semester, which featured the sarcastic phrase "Blank Tapes Killed the Music Industry."
"When blank tapes came about, the music energy freaked out and said it was gonna kill their profits and people were gonna stop buying, but that just wasn't the case," Shepler said.
The shirt is a jab at the current music industry claim that mp3 file-sharing will be the end of music as we know it.
"Mp3 downloading is really good for bands that are not known of," Shepler said. "You can be a completely unknown band and put a song on the internet, and if the song's good, people will notice it."
Shepler hopes to continue to expand Rock Music Review and to make sure that good Indiana bands get covered, he said.
"The next step would be to be an actual music publication that could pay writers," Shepler said. "I really don't mind just running the site and it just being what it is, but that would be pretty amazing," he added.
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