Downhill Rip

This is an email I received today. My comments are in bold/italic.

Arthurkill is a Hard Rock band from Staten Island, New York. Things have not always been easy for the band. You could say they have done it the hard way. 

Why would I say they have done it the hard way when I know nothing about them?

This is their story…..

Arthurkill was formed in the early part of 1996 in Staten Island, New York. There was a lot of musical activity at that time in the area but without any acts making significant breakthroughs into the national scene. Despite its close proximity to New York City, the region did not exactly have the major labels beating down the door of local musical talent. In fact, Staten Island is probably more famous for being the site of the world’s largest landfill site.

Needs a comma between "area" and "but" or, better yet, end the sentence and start the next one with "Without...." By the way, wanting to create a mental link between a band and "garbage" is probably not the wisest decisions.

The members of the band are:
- Ken Munson - lead vocals
- Rob Petillo - drums
- Mike Petillo – guitar

The Petillo's are brothers and first cousins' to Ken Munson so there is a strong family bond within the group.

The band started rehearsing in a studio called island sound studios in Travis in early 96. They kept late hours most time practicing into the early morning hours but thats where they developed their sound and stage show. We needed to figure out what direction we wanted to go in says Ken Munson we had so many different styles at that time we were big Bruce fans but also liked U2 and bands like motley crue and the police but we only did originals we wanted to write our own stuff that was important.

The word "rehearsing" is being used as a noun. The band actually started 'rehearsals' in 1996. If "island sound studios" is the name of a business, then it should be "Island Sound Studios." Also, it took me a minute to realize that "Travis" is the name of a city / town.  There is a jarring change in tense between the first two sentences - third person - and the third sentence - first person.

Arthurkill had its first live experience in local bars towards the end of 1996 and the buzz began to circulate about this amazing live rock band. The guys worked promoting the band with flyers and bus trips to gigs, making every effort to spread the word. Then one night in the summer of 97 at Gate Way park Staten Island NY, 8500 people showed up for an AK show, so many people came that local authorities had to close the park.

Wait, what. This is a band that is using a show from 1996 as a reason that I should be excited about them?

While the band had become a live attraction of note, the members knew recording was the only real way forward. In the Fall of 97 they went into the studio with famed rock producer Jon Ryan, probably best known for his work with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Carlos Santana and Styx.

Music business has changed and AK got caught up in that change. Grundge was the new sound and AK was stuck in between. 

Grunge, not "grundge".

We liked nirvana and sound garden great music creative but now music companys were headed out to seattle to find new bands says rob petillo nyc was no longer the place to be, thats when arthurkill started working with Mark Berry for the new album Addiction. They developed a guitar driving sound with big drums catchy songs with choruses that explode into rock anthems and vocals that sound like a nucleur reactor with pure emotion bleeding through.

 Good heavens! Whether you like the band or not, "Nirvana" is a proper noun. "Sound garden" is a single word. "Seattle" is also a proper noun. And if the entire sentence is a quote, it should follow the standard punctuation rules of the English language. I lost interest in hearing the band when I saw the following two things:

1. The author didn't capitalize the name of the band 
2. The author didn't bother to spellcheck - "nucleur" is not a word!

‘Addiction’ was the band’s first production in a first rate studio. It was fast, painless and just a pleasure to record and produce because they had become such a tight and well-rehearsed unit as a result of their live work. Unfortunately, in a by now classic rock and roll story, there was massive confusion with the record label despite the fact that the record received a lot of airplay, particularly on college and XM radio.

The relationship with the label came to a fairly abrupt end and everything was put on hold while the guys regrouped and licked their wounds.

Soon after the initial disappointment of the original record deal, Arthurkill came into contact with a small but growing label called On Top Entertainment Inc.

That's the end of the text in the email. After the above paragraph, there is a link to download the band's music. I won't be doing that anytime soon.