A few notes

It's late, but I wanted to post a few comments, seeing how our album release plan made Slashdot this morning.

First, let me reiterate that we are not pretending to be the first band to do this, or be the first band to give their music away. Hundreds upon thousands of other bands already give their music away. And while we were on a major label, we are no longer (have not been for a while) -- we have paid for and are doing all the work involved ourselves.

We're not releasing things in this manner to make a big statement. Other bands (Wilco, Fiona Apple come to mind) have used these tools already to their advantage. What we're interested in is seeing if this is a viable economic model for artists, especially artists that may be where we are in our careers/lives. A different way of doing things that takes advantage of the strengths of today's technology.

Record labels will cling to and fight for old models because that's all they know (and change is always frightening). But there's no reason why artists should be limited to just that model. Part of this experiment is to see/demonstrate that doing things in this manner can work, that it is a viable option -- both artistically and economically.

It's highly unlikely that we're going to get rich off this -- and none of us are planning on quitting our day jobs -- but what this method gives us is an audience and, over the long term, the financial capitalization -- and therefore the independence -- to continue making music the way we would like to. And that's the important part. How many bands had their best work ahead of them, yet couldn't reach their audience, got caught up in the label machine, or simply couldn't get noticed by a label? I can name a few in each case, and that's only those that I know of.

I would also like to point add that this is also not some throwaway album that we slapped together in a few months for a couple hundred bucks. Production costs were a little over $30,000 and it was written over the course of a year; recording took about a month. (You indie rockers should note that we pulled in both John Goodmanson and Steve Fisk to co-produce the album -- it wasn't me in our practice space recording stuff onto my laptop.) We had it mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling. In all respects all aspects of production were exactly like what we would've done for a major/indie release -- and in fact, when we originally recorded the album that's where we thought it would end up.

(As a personal aside, woo hoo! Slashdot and Boing Boing! How cool is that? The rest of the band might not understand, but....)

Comments

[Jarrett Wold]

Reasoning with Slashdot's user base is a pain.

I am going to stop up at my local record store, and give them a copy to play in store. The messages have already gone off to my contact list, for people to grab it.

I love when bands do this, it's what got me into Wilco; in spite of being a metal head.

So, great album! It's made itself onto my programming playlist quickly.

Hopefully, you can bust into clear channel space, everyone of these songs would play well on radio.

Ah well, off to bust out some code.

[taint]

kudos!

it's refreshing to see forward thinking from bands. as you say, the industry is attempting to cling to an outdated model primarily out of fear.

consumers had been demanding on-line purchase and dowloading of music at a reasonable rate for years before steve jobs finally convinced a few companies to give it a shot. once they did, piracy dropped considerably and digital music became a vialbe income source.

that was the first step, and through the actions of bands such as yourself and those you mentioned, artists will hopefully see that they can do things on their own, and maintain control of their creations and operate as a business themselves, rather than as a tool of their record company.

again, thanks. i'll be sending some money your way simply for having the balls to do take this step.

[jennatar]

Yeah! I totally got here through Slashdot. Nerds totally know where it's at. Just stopping past your blog to say awesome, and way to go. I just downloaded the torrent of the HD album--this is only like the second thing I've ever gotten through bittorrent, so I'm feeling pretty triumphant myself--and I'm listening to it now, while my oven preheats. And this is outstanding.

But also, divorced from aesthetics, way to go! I am just really thrilled--as a geek, as a music geek, and as a generally wrathful person--that you guys have elected to take a stand against the corporate tradition, to do it via technology, and to do it, musically, so *well*.

Truthfully, I know I would not be listening to this right now if I hadn't heard that there was an album to download, and that I was invited to it. Well. You've got a listener in me now. So for my own part, this experiment has worked. You all have my support, and my ears.

[Kati]

Hi -

You're up on digg too, which I'm sure is boosting your downloads.

I think this is a great decision on your part and I think that, in the event that you lose money in the short term, you will make it back in increased sales of your first album and concert revenue. You're gaining listeners by the minute.

I'm definitely going to kick you a few bucks for this - great work!

[quas]

Wow. I am impressed - both that you had the guts to do this, and with the album itself! I'm just a poor college student, so I'm not buying music at the moment, but as soon as I have any money to spare I'll be sending it your way.

Also, I think it's really impressive that there's a band out there with members who read Slashdot and Boing Boing. You don't see that too often. Long live CS majors! :)

[devnull]

I'd never heard of the band before the /. post, but I figured "it's free music, plus it's a good idea" so I d/l'd the album.
I'll be going down to my local indie shop with a disc and at least 1 request for the "hard copy" in the next couple of days.
The album's been added to my "Coding Collection" of music for work.
Keep up the good work and the excellent music.

[No]

Hey, congrats. Damn good album.