Josh Venable, host of Dallas-Fort Worth station KDGE-FM’s “The Adventure Club,” is a big Polyphonic Spree fan. But even he has some questions about how a 20-piece-plus band making choral pop can hope to survive in this age of hip-hop and Hoobastank.

“How do you get this band played on the radio? How do you put this band on tour and pay for them? How do you get the band played on MTV when MTV is dominated by girls in crop tops and gangsta rap?” he wonders.

All good questions, and they’re ones that Lincoln Wheeler, Hollywood Records’ executive marketing director, has been mulling. His initial plan, as politicians might say, is to energize the base. In the next few weeks, the label is going after the tech-happy, culturally aware alterna-rock fans and urban sophisticates who may be open to the Spree’s brocaded, rococo rock:

– Efforts are under way to get the band on “The Late Show With David Letterman,” “The Craig Kilborn Show” and “Morning Becomes Eclectic,” the influential program from National Public Radio’s KCRW-FM outlet in Los Angeles.

– A contest is being run on thepolyphonicspree.com in which entrants create a video for the song “Hold Me Now;” the winner will receive $5,000. The video will be submitted to MTV2 and Fuse for airplay.

-Listening parties are being set up in major markets, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, where fans can hear the new album and a mix of music from other bands chosen by founder Tim DeLaughter.

-Some in-store events will be in unusual places, such as an Apple computer store in San Francisco or an alternative space/theater in Los Angeles.

-Then there’s the tour, still being put together, in which the band might do extended “residencies” in some markets, like Cirque du Soleil on a smaller scale.

-The song “Two Thousand Places” is part of an Olympics promotion in which the track is synced up to images of the Olympic torch.

Finally, Wheeler is taking the band to the movies. “Those are mainstream places to expose them. As part of our street-team campaign, the album will be heard in (the national arthouse chain) Landmark Theatres,” he says.

Wheeler hopes this will create enough momentum to spark wider interest. “This is an approach we did with “The Beginning Stages Of …,’ and we had the opportunity to create this snowball effect. (The song) “Light and Day’ began to be picked up by modern-rock radio. We want to have this organic build that has served the band well throughout their career.”

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(c) 2004, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Visit the Star-Telegram on the World Wide Web at http://www.star-telegram.com.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

AP-NY-07-14-04 1351EDT

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