The self-published indie artist model has usually been, make 1000 or so CDs, give away a bunch, sell 300 and then let the rest take up space in a storage area. Check out avant garde artist Eugene Chadbourne’s hilarious telling of this phenomenon in I Hate the Man Who Runs This Bar.
While big name recording artists do their thing and have the benefit of a corporation to hustle their merch, we indies attempt to combine the two (I have released over a dozen). Thus, in order to be accepted as a legitimate ‘artist’, the focus somehow becomes making, marketing and selling CDs.
There’s one big problem with this whole idea – CDs aren’t selling anymore. I have talked to many indie artists about this and the consensus is that it has been much harder to sell CDs, even after putting on a killer show.
Back in 1998, I was touring the Northwest with Ramona the Pest and we did a show with Slim Dunlap from the Replacements in Portland, OR. Great guy, full of advice. Told hilarious stories of the ‘Mats being kicked off the Tom Petty Tour and talked alot about ways small artists like us can survive by touring. He detailed his plan to make a recording of every show and then ‘have a computer and a little CD burner in the van, so I can make and sell copies to fans right there after the show…’ Brilliant. Fans take home something that was special to them, right then and there.
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The idea that an independent artist must duplicate and sell multiple copies of a fixed compilation of songs of their choosing, packaged in in lame and wasteful plastic boxes strikes me as increasingly absurd. Somewhere along the line, the trust between fan and artist was broken. Then the model was turned on its head, no, blown out of the water by the Internet and the Ipod. Salvation?