After an intoxicating house party performance this past weekend, local noise rockers Whatever Brains (whose bassist, Vince, occasionally blogs for this site) will have their new three song 7” distributed by Matador Records. The Indy proclaimed Whatever Brains “rookies of the year”. The 7” is now available at Schoolkids.
You say Potato, I say Whatever.
Grayson Currin has the low down over at the Indy.
In the world of music labels and distribution, the verbs “release” and “distribute” mean two very different things. Labels typically “release” records, which, depending on the contract terms, covers anything from paying for recording, mastering, pressing, marketing & promotion, etc, to smaller deals that might only cover the physical costs of pressing.
The label’s logo is on the release, and quite often (but not always) the label owns the copyright in the recording. And in the case of a label like Matador, there’s a whole promotional machine that comes along with that (and a widely-recognized implication of quality, and even a certain common aesthetic).
Distributors, on the other hand, typically just agree to take a certain number of copies of an existing release (in the case of Whatever Brains, initially at least, I think Chaz said it’s 30 copies), service orders for that release from stores, and then eventually (maybe) pay the label, typically 30 to 60 days later. Or maybe they just sit on them for a year and then return them, at their own convenience. Assuming they’re still in business after that year. Ask yr musician & label-owning friends how much money they’ve sacrificed to distributors who disappeared without either paying or returning product.
Having distribution is definitely preferable to *not* having distribution, if your goal is to sell any copies outside of your home town. And certainly, being picked up by a distributor like Matador is a vote of confidence in your release. But it’s still not the same as having Matador release yr record.
Glad to see you changed the headline on the post, which originally read “Matador to Release Whatever Brains 7”, which was the reason I wrote my long exegesis of music industry terminology. Not as random as it now appears.
Cool, but is this really newsworthy? Most distributors will take your shit if you e-mail them nicely…
i don’t think people understand how small of a thing this actually is. chaz was excited when he made his original blog post about it, which, as a new label, is exciting to him. but as platitudes said, most distributors will take your shit if you e-mail them nicely. let’s pay this no more mind. thanks.
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