What's the latest with INDISTR?

Hey everybody - just wanted to give all the users, both artists and their fans, a quick update on where things are at with INDISTR. The service has been around for about 1 1/2 years and has been quite the learning experience for all involved. We started with a very simple focus and plan - letting independent artist sell their music directly to the public easily and get compensated instantly with no contracts. As many of you know, the music industry is in a very 'interesting' place right now - we've referred to it here as 'the swamp'. I can honestly say I'm surprised that from 2 years ago, if not more, until now - very little has changed in how music is being distributed and artists are being compensated. Artists, fans, the business and even the labels themselves have been predicting the downfall of the classic 'record label' model that we know today. It was assumed that the idea of artist controlled, or independent, distribution would be the natural next move. While we've seen some great examples of this with Trent Reznor, Radiohead, and others - it doesn't seem to have taken hold in the far-reaching manner that we had expected.

We still firmly believe that ultimately the artist should be in control and should make the most money from their art in the supply chain of its distribution. Unfortunately its been difficult for us, and many if not all of our competitors, to find a foot-hold with the artists and their buying public. INDISTR has always been privately funded and operated with a pretty low overhead - we kept things as simple as we could - but there are expenses and set budgets for funding. We're very, very happy to say that we facilitated quite a few artists making money from their work a reality. It was a thrill and an honor to be a part of that and we want to thank those artists that used our service. But the sales have yet to reach what we consider acceptable to justify continuing forward with funding to support new feature development and sales/marketing staff (which was just 1 person). INDISTR will be up and active as a web service but as of this month we'll be scaling back on spending and letting the site run itself.

I can't say this is the way we saw INDISTR heading - the risk in starting it was either success or failure. Instead we've landed in the 'swamp' of the music industry where a lot of our other competitors and similar businesses have landed as well.

Again, the site will continue to be up and active and we'll do our best to help with any support issues or questions you might have.

Thanks again to the artists and users that have support the service in the past year or so - we genuinely appreciate it.

- Benjamin, Founder

INDISTR 10!! Interview with Wild Years!!!

So I came across Wild Years from Ann Arbor, MI, while thumbing through the internet, and the sound really impressed me. I wouldn't be surprised if big things happen to this band in the near future. I contacted Alex for an interview, and here's what he had to say.




1.Let’s start from the beginning, when and where did it all start? And with who?
Wild Years started last summer. It was originally an outlet for music that I felt didn’t really fit with my other band, LS Banjo.

2.If you had to describe your sound in one sentence, what would you say?
It’s like if Andrew Bird became the songwriter for the Flaming Lips but instead of Wayne Coyne, M. Ward led the band. But, not quite as good.

3.Name 3 artists that have inspired you as musicians.
I take a lot from different artists but really only Wilco has inspired me per se.

4.What do you see in the future for music, with all of the outlets available for exposure, along with the current Internet craze?
I really think this is a great time for music. With the internet I feel like an unprecedented amount of new artists are able to get their music out for people to hear. And the great thing is that it doesn’t look like the music scenes are getting saturated; people just keep coming out with awesome new stuff. The future of music is definitely digital.

5.What can we expect to see from Wild Years in the next year? Any big plans?
Well, Wild Years is still very much in its infancy right now. Within the next year, I want to finish putting together a live band and just play a lot of shows.


6.What has Wild Years been listening to lately?
I’ve been really digging the new Dr. Dog record, Fate and the new Nomo, Ghost Rock. I also just got out of my Talking Heads phase, listening to Naked, and all that stuff.

7.Your thoughts on independent music and if it’s possible to be successful through these means of distribution?
Success is a very subjective thing, but I definitely think it’s possible to get a good amount of hype just from Myspace and stuff like that. The independent music scene is getting huge. It’s more in parallel now with popular music, rather than being underground.

8.If we can’t find you playing a gig or practicing music, where might we expect to find you? Probably, somewhere outside. Running, biking, swimming, that kind of stuff.

9.How many shows do you play a year? What’s the atmosphere typically like?
I’ve only done a few shows with Wild Years, but I’m hoping to play a couple dozen this year. When playing, I really try to bring the life to music that it sometimes loses when recorded, but the atmosphere is really left up to the crowd.

10.Lastly, your thoughts on INDISTR.COM?
It looks like a terrific site. A good way to stay independent and still get your music out there.

This seems up our alley!

I just finished a 7 day tour with some friends that play in a band you may have heard of called Mustard Plug. We started last Sunday and played 4 shows in Florida, 1 in Georgia, 1 in South Carolina, and 1 in Norfolk, Virginia. Mustard Plug was touring with Less Than Jake, who happened to just release an album TODAY on their OWN independent label, called Sleep It Off. The name of the album is GNV FLA. I saw this video and realized this is right up Indistr's alley. Seems like Indistr would be great for Less Than Jake, don't you?

Congrats to Joshua Wentz for being chosen as this months Ultimate Ears "Artists to Watch"

Joshua Wentz, residing in Chicago, has been chosen as this months "Artists to Watch" by Utimate Ears. Check out this, and congrats again Josh, we love your music over here at Indistr and wish you continued success.

Indistr is on tour with the Montana Boys, who happen to be touring with The Breeders!

Hello my fellow music fans, sorry for the delay on posts. I've been on the road for a week now, touring with the Montana Boys and The Breeders. It's been fantastic so far, and I can't say enough good things about the shows and cities we've traveled thus far.
We've (Montana Boys) played Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, as well as Detroit this far with The Breeders, and we're about to play Cleveland in a couple of hours here at the lovely House of Blues.





The responses I've been getting from the merch table about Indistr have been great, and people really seem to like the banner that Indistr made for the stage.

Also, please let me know if you're in any of the following cities and would like to come to a show, we have tickets to give out, and it's too great of a show to miss.

June 4th: Northampton, MA
June 5th: Boston, MA
June 7th: New Haven, CT
June 8th: Philadelphia, PA
June 10th: New York, NY
June 11th: Washington DC

I'd like to hear your thoughts!!!

So, as you may recall (I remember briefly seeing ads for it), Pennywise released a free album through MySpace records and Textango (a pay by text messaging company) in the month of March titled "Reason to Believe". The album was released for a little over a month, with no option to pay for any format of it online. This was a free download only. What did you have to do to get the album for free? Just add Textango as a MySpace friend, and you'd be reached on instructions on how to get your free copy.




The reason I'm making the post, is because the numbers are in, and the album certainly reached new heights of Pennywise fans. I remember listening to Pennywise's release "Unknown Road" in 1994, thinking to myself, why is this band not bigger than what they are? The whole pop-punk generation of early 90's artists on Fat-Wreckchords never reached super-stardom. Why? Was it because they didn't want to reach the heights of MTV? Or was it simply that their approach was too underground to reach that market?

Over 500,000 downloads have come through, and they haven't even released the video for the single, The Western World. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this album release and see what you think. Will Pennywise now be a larger band 20 years after they were formed? Either way, this band deserves everything they've put into the last 2 decades as a band.

May's Ulitmate Ears chosen winner is...............

It's been a couple weeks since I've made a post. I thought I'd give some detailed insight to this months winner chosen by Ultimate Ears to be featured on "Artists To Watch". I can't blame UE for choosing them, especially after Tribal Seeds released their newest self titled album on Indistr 1 month before it was available for physical distribution. Congrats guys, and keep up the hard work in sunny San Diego.