Cool story, bro!

Now, who's going to the Valient Thorr show in Charlotte tonight? Just so you know, I hate you.

Very good article/discussion.

I'm still one of those people who follow labels very closely. I owe most of my musical discovery to labels. Fuck Pitchfork and blogs. I like the reviews on this site for the most part but they only touch on about 25% of the bands I actually listen to nowadays if that.

Great read.

One thing it doesnt mention though is that there are now more labels than ever, which dilutes their importance.

I mean in the punk community you have the big players - Asian Man, Fat Wreck, Epitaph but all these labels established themselves in the 90s. I'm struggling to think of labels that have come to mean something, that have their own identity like these ones, that have really flourished from new in the last 5 years.

I thought the headline said "NPH" at first. that would have been legend - wait for it -

I love NPR's coverage, but I can't stand the production -- namely, how you can hear the spit hitting the side of people's mouths whenever they pronounce hard consonants.

I've just started my own label called Ridiculous Records LLC (Shameless plug: go to www.ridiculousrecordsllc.com) in order to more easily distribute my own music and to eventually branch out with other artists. Here's some questions for the board: What do you guys want to see from a record label? What are your expectations? Any feedback I can get will help and I'm really curious to see if there are other people here in my situation.

When I am looking to discover new bands I usually look to certain labels depending on what genre I am looking for. If I want some punk/country/bluegrass I'll look to Blootclot Records. If I want power pop or 77 pop punk I'll look to Dirtnap Records. Hell, at the beginning of this decade I pretty much bought everything that Hellcat put out. Yet I guess this puts me in the minority because I know and care about what labels my favorite bands are on and I don't own an ipod or download any music.

On a side note: Three Bad Jacks at Rock Bottom tonight. I'll be the guy drinking Lone Stars like a fiend.

I like the statement, "it is definitely more abstract, what our [the record label's] role is." Also understanding that most bands don't even know what is going on with their label half the time is an important message for the fans to understand. All the bands know is there is less transparency financially than ever before, and touring cycles have been disrupted beyond recognition, thus throwing off the rhythm of thousands of indie bands all over the globe. The slowness/unwillingness of indie labels to adapt to certain changes and realities within the industry coupled with the lack of communication between labels/bands/agents about those changes has led to problems with the bottom line for all three.