Drag City

ILM would be much better if it was just a Pandora station tbh.

Howling Hex's Denver record from 2016 is very solid too -- might be my fave from his current phase, a little more varied, anyway. I just saw the Hex playing a weird afternoon residency (i think global did too!) last month. at a wine bar kinda place!

bill callahan + will oldham alone probably make DC one of my favorite labels tbh. other stuff is great too

ooh thx for the link to In C!!

ha yea listening now too, thanks

rangda
ali roberts
6 organs
bbs

these are some of my favorite people making records today, so i am glad to support them
bandcamp is (imo) DC's best bet for satisfying longterm reliable customers (like me) and allowing weenie freeloaders (spotify cousins) to hear in order to form an opinion
beyond that, it's not really my decision to make and i have been buying DC records for what seems like forever

xxxp I listen to bill's kath bloom cover on spotify all of the time to help me cope

annual In C performance is always a good time, hope they keep it up!

I think Spotify Cousins are signed to Jagjaguwar, not Drag City

maybe Sacred Bones

i should really give rangda a listen, those SRB albums are some of my favorite guitar records ever, i love those early six organs albums a lot too

Wimmels' cousins could be Link Wray

Only Wimmels knows the degree to which we're burnt

Congratulations: you are my uncool cousins, Bjork and Roy Orbison

xp new 6O has Chris Corsano on it too, he is awesome (and part of what I love about Rangda)

i probably said this on the BBs thread, but part of the reason i think Drag City not being on streaming is good is that it miiiiiiight make "uncool cousins" realize that there is a world of music out there that isn't just spotifiable. and that might generate a little interest in the world outside of the computer. or it might just generate more insufferable snobs like us, probably.

it is not difficult to make music that is unspotifiable. I don't understand how this is a good or impressive thing.

it's the coolest!

(i don't know, i'm not really making sense)

insufferable snob generator is the name of my new band

well, better get your stuff on Spotify or no one will know it exists

that name's not as good though

the thing that's annoying about the "if your music isn't on Spotify no one will know it exists! Think of the exposure!" argument is that it neatly elides the fact that there are bajillions of bands on Spotify that no one knows about. It is not a promotional tool, unless you pay Spotify to promote you/expend resources working it as a PR tool, which will quickly eat up the miniscule revenue generated by Spotify.

Well, but I think it can be argued that it can be an auxiliary promotional tool if you are getting promotion in other ways and people can then check you out on Spotify.

people do ask "are you on Spotify?" when they e.g. work with you in some personal capacity (kids' teachers etc) and if you say yes, they go listen, and then a week later they say "I looked you up! say, I enjoyed the song I knew from the tv show!" - I guess outis's objection here would be "that translates into maybe one album sale for you, not really a huge promotional gain" but I'm gonna get three bucks of that sale and I can use three bucks so it counts for me. not as great a promotional tool as radio, ever, let's be honest, just because somebody still has to go "I'm going to listen to this": the passivity of radio engagement had huge promotional value. but Spotify as a promotional adjunct, it's got its uses ime.

As opposed to just typing your bandname into a search engine and being taken to band's page w soundcloud or bandcamp or other music links

yeah I mean -- you're a lifelong music fiend posting on a music board. that's obvious to both you and me. I can't imagine it's surprising to you that there's a gigantic segment of the population for whom a few very comfortable uses of technology are the go-tos. I utterly guarantee you that there are many many people (like, millions) who'll go as far as "I'm using spotify, I'll type in that band's name" who aren't about to google a band, pick a link, and pursue it that far

That's true. How many of those ppl are likely to dig Drag City bands? I would wager not a lot.

As opposed to the music nerds here complaining that DC's catalog is not on spotify - which is essentially entitled whining.

what I am reporting to you as a working musician is that the positive effect of availability on Spotify is real, measurable, and valuable. the same people who dig what I do -- the appeal of which is inherently self-limiting -- would be as likely to dig Bill Callahan for sure.

They've also been the label never to advertise (Chunklet excepted), never to license their songs to Starbucks/Chipotle, and so not being on streaming services feels like a natural continuation of that. And their artists know what they're getting into with that.

still doing it the right way, they are

i haven't been following this revive closely but i will say that i've liked a lot of dc acts over the years but given my limited time for new listening these days i'm gonna pick the new record that's on spotify over the new record that's on dc which i won't be able to play without 5 minutes of effort on my part.

like, it's a great label but i don't think they have a strong enough brand to override other forces at work.

otm. Though I did buy insignificance the other month because I loved it in high school and hadn't heard it in years. I don't think I love it anymore, so good work, DC.

"I kinda wish their stuff was on Spotify"="entitled whining"

Jesus.

I guess it kind of fits that most of DC's roster now is indie-grandpa music and y'all are yelling at clouds.

I just wish they kept selling t-shirts. Have a Viva Last Blues one I'd pray to fit into to.

Also: don't think Oldham, Callahan, Berman besides being old man indie have problems with a label that's given them notoriety and which they've never left. Give me a list of Drag City refugees... I can't think of any.

i probably said this on the BBs thread, but part of the reason i think Drag City not being on streaming is good is that it miiiiiiight make "uncool cousins" realize that there is a world of music out there that isn't just spotifiable. and that might generate a little interest in the world outside of the computer. or it might just generate more insufferable snobs like us, probably.

hehe I like this post

what's up with bitchin bajas, what a weird name for a band, listening to a song called "bueu" on youtube rn and it's awesome, is that the album to get? if so I'm buying the shit out of that cd, won't even bother to look it up on spotify

bought 'Dream River' for a friend last year and he did seem to have like a eureka moment when he realized this awesome music was not on spotify

They've also been the label never to advertise (Chunklet excepted), never to license their songs to Starbucks/Chipotle, and so not being on streaming services feels like a natural continuation of that. And their artists know what they're getting into with that.

yeah this is OTM for the most part. of course their stuff is avail on iTunes, whose royalty rate is set by Apple and non-negotiable, which you'd think would be a sticking point for the purer-than-pure but hey, a sale's a sale

I know O'Rourke doesn't want his music on Spotify because of sound quality issues rather than royalty rate issues, wonder if other DC artists feel the same way

I just wind up thinking about Drag City a lot less often because they don't come up in the main channels I use for checking out music.

This is such a strange viewpoint IMO. I mean, what were you doing five years ago when Spotify wasn't available?

http://i.imgur.com/zSb64B1.png

It’s interesting how Drag City doesn’t have any of their stuff on Spotify. I work in a restaurant, and I’m always trying and failing to play Trux or your solo music.

Neil Hagerty: There actually is one streaming service they license to, but it’s very specific to a hotel chain, or a hotel lobby, or some restaurants that are a part of its network. But that’s a different, smaller service. Personally, I’m for having the music in every venue where people can hear it, but I defer to Drag City for those things. I don’t make those decisions, they do. Personally, I would let it go out in any format that would give more people the opportunity to hear it, you know? But that’s a separation of our interests. They’ll feel another way, and I’ll defer to them on those issues.
http://bombmagazine.org/article/6931428/neil-michael-hagerty

This is such a strange viewpoint IMO. I mean, what were you doing five years ago when Spotify wasn't available?

― donut, Friday, January 6, 2017 7:56 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I believe man alive was analyzing why DC is unintentionally not at the top of mind these days, based on how music consumption habits have changed. That's how I read it.

xp i don't have a problem w/ DC not being on streaming services but the weird thing to me is not deferring to the artist's preference here.

(assuming there are a number of other DC artists like hagerty that would otherwise be fine w/ streaming services)

I could be wrong here, but I thought Spotify was an "all in all out" sort of situation wrt labels. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

which would mean if a handful of (relative) cash cows rejected the idea of their music being available on Spotify, everyone else would have to follow suit

There have definitely been cases of big artists pulling just *their* catalog, but maybe they have their own dedicated publisher or something?