Last week I downloaded a Southern Culture on the Skids album from eMusic, and in doing a bit of research, found that SCoTS is perhaps the band of the future. They’re already selling their music without DRM both via eMusic and via the Yep Roc Store. You can listen to their latest album via MP3 streaming right from their home page, without registering for anything.
They also have a liberal taping policy for their concerts. Anyone is free to tape, and they ask that if your recording is good, you burn a CD and send it to the band. Over at eMusic, there are four exclusive concert recordings available for download. I wonder if those recordings were submitted by fans?
Either way, it seems to me that Southern Culture on the Skids is embracing the Web music ecosystem rather than trying to resist it. I hope they’re making out like bandits.
April 23, 2007 at 8:12 pm
SCotS, as with any band with a liberal taping policy, has a decent archive on archive.org. 28 live shows, recorded between 1991 and 2006.
I found that my personal favorites the Asylum Street Spankers have 11 concerts up there. I’ve bought every album they’ve made, including live ones, so it doesn’t stop me from paying the artists.
They put a music video on YouTube and have 650K hits so far. When we saw them in manhattan, about a third of the audience was new and had found them via that video. The web music ecosystem won’t be a success for everyone, but it will for a lot of people.
April 23, 2007 at 11:04 pm
I like that they throw fried chicken into the audience when you see them live, but that sounds good too!