My fave indie label is Odessa Records out of Durham, North Carolina. This is real indie.
It is inevitable that college kids making a record label who choose a clutch of bands who become popular loose their indie cred and move into the mainstream. It was true of Stiff Records, it was true of Sub Pop and Saddlecreek.
If you watch the “Night At Saddlecreek” documentary, you’ll see Conor and the other Saddlecreek owners glueing the the mirrors on the sleeve of Bright Eyes Fevers And Mirrors. If you read about Odessa Records -and if you check out their catalogue, this is the same DIY aesthetic at work.
Odessa have a conceptual lo-fi idea of the work ethic but the sound, for all its artistic outsideyness, is commercial. Trust me, if I like it, it has at least the potential to reach a mass audience.
Though I wonder if that is what Paul (the owner) wants. Paul released what I consider the band of the decade Spider Bags, new song “Teenaged Eyes” as a seven inch vinyl only.
Which begs the question: “eh?”. I am fanatical about Spider Bags and would happily give Odessa Records 99 cenets or a buck twenty nine (or a fiver, just to help out a label I believe In) for the mp3 but it can’t be done. It sems Paul and Dan decided upon a format they wanted despite the relative financial loss…
Which leads me to a comment by our old pal anonymous on Helen’s Love Via Dance Machine. Helen claimed LVDM business plan was a throw back in many ways. Much like the Motown tours of the early sixties or rock and roll shows on the late fifties which cost is Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly. the “mega” tour is a way to bring the audience bang for their buck. A bunch of similalrly inclined bands touring together.
What has this to do, either pro or against, the DIY aesthetic of an Odessa Records? Odessa Records are twenty something aesthetes taking on the crumbling edifice of the rock biz.. The, still unsigned, LVDM, are punk pop upstarts trying to make a living.
And Mr. Anonymous is a reactionary conservative laying down the laws of moral equivalency for the rest of us.
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