Clams Casino Signs To Tri Angle Records
1. Congrats to Clams. Extremely talented and humble dude, and I’m sincerely excited that his work is reaching a wider audience.
2. The larger question I have in all of this (re: Tyler to XL, MellowHype to Fat Possum, Danny Brown to Fool’s Gold, and now Clams to Tri Angle): what kind of “deals” are these labels putting on the table for artists with primarily internet-based followings?
Are they just fronting the recording costs and hooking the artists up with studio time and professional engineers, or is it more encompassing, like an “artist development” deal?
Who controls the masters?
What’s the compensation structure for the artist?
I guess I understand signing with a larger independent, like XL, who carries a hefty amount of “indie cache” and has the manufacturing/distribution infrastructure already built out, but in the case of a Tri Angle (or other, smaller, genre-defined indies, like Acephale), who are so tied to one particular sub- or micro-genre, I’m extremely curious what they are offering. That is, beyond the allure of having your record available for “mass consumption.”* (Granted, that’s a good starting point for a label’s value proposition, but certainly doesn’t hold the same weight it did 7-10 years ago.)
And on the flip side, I’m skeptical of these labels’ abilities to sell records and operate at anything other than a loss (or maaaaybe break-even on some “larger” acts). Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the model (entirely possible), and, like, Tri Angle functions in the industry as a kind of patron of the musical arts or something, but if you are commissioning an original work by an artist who’s following is in the low four-figures, I don’t see how you operate the label at a profit.
These are the kinds of questions I wish there was more discussion around when tiny labels sign buzz-worthy internet acts (#noshots, and in this case, a deservedly buzz-worthy act) given that album sales offer nothing close to a sustainable source of revenue for them. Of course, I don’t work in the recording industry, so maybe these discussions are happening (and I’m also not privy to any small indie labels’ financials), so it’s possible a small niche of the music buying public can support their (modest) goals. And maybe I’m under-valuing the “brand recognition” that comes along with positioning your label as a “tastemaker,” as I often see Tri Angle referred to in the press.
Regardless, as I said up top, nothing but luck and success to Clams in his partnership with Tri Angle, and this also provides another opportunity for me to plug the conversation he and I had a few weeks back. So check it out.
If anyone has further insights on the blog-buzz/indie label ecosystem, drop us a line in the ask box, or get in touch some other way.
-SM
*Which, for an unestablished act in 2011, is probably a limited vinyl/CD run of 3-500 copies.
