Lost in the Supermarket

I would love to answer this at length but that requires many, many words. My label is small, and for the most part it functions as an avenue to release records with/for my friends and make sure they have proper distribution. I’m certainly not trying to “compete” with any other indie labels and, in fact, when the opportunity came along to move a couple of Red River Records titles (my album Heart of a Dog and Dead Rock West’s album Bright Morning Stars) to a larger label with a larger budget, I jumped at it, and would do the same should that opportunity come along again. I just the idea of a “record deal” with a label that cares enough to invest the time/money necessary to really “break” an artist is something people should let go of. Labels who do have enormous budgets don’t want to risk it on watching an artist grow and hoping that artist finds an audience. Likewise, labels like mine, with a minimal budget but a very strong interest in helping artists grow, don’t really have the wherewithal to make that opportunity available to more than a few artists. This is why so many people choose to just do it themselves, and that choice is becoming more easily justifiable every day. 

That said, Let the Bloody Moon Rise will be released on my label (unless, as I said, a larger label offers to put it out, and we are currently talking to a few), and I’ll be releasing the Shuggie and Uncle Joe’s Big Ol’ Driver back catalogues, as those are two of Andrew McKeag’s older bands whose records never received digital distribution, and they really ought to be available to people. There will maybe be an Eric Ambel solo record sometime in 2012, and I hope another Chip Robinson record, but three-to-four releases a year is pretty much the extent of what my budget can handle.

So, in short, it’s fun but incredibly frustrating, just like seemingly every other worthwhile thing in life.

Probably late summer or early fall, yes.