Tis true, I have brought our box to a grinding halt more than once over the last decade. Crap code, stupid mistakes, once a bad include. But today - hooboy - did I ever top myself. This morning I somehow managed to lose an entire domain. Seriously, it was like a click-shush of the mouse I didn't even realize I did and POOF! Bye Bounte! It's back online now, but damn am I retarded! That's it - no more FTP before coffee!

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Things never really work out the way you want them to. Er, maybe I should say they rarely work out they way *I* want them to. What was supposed to happen is that the new posiBLOG I've been working on since the begininng of the year would launch, then Callisto would be released, and we would move forward with the "new" posi. What actually happened is that I released Callisto today, sans blog, cuz a blog needs bloggers and I don't seem to have any.

So, here you go. Enjoy - Callisto

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All together now: awwwwww

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Here you go:



The single will be available tomorrow at shopPOSI for TWO WHOLE BUCKS.

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I'm sitting here right now just rocking my ass off to the new Atomica single, Gravity. I'm so excited to get this one up at shopPOSI!

I'm uploading to last.fm and kPOSI today, so you'll be able to listen soon. It should be available for download....maybe this week?

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Erlenmeyer "Fatty" Randall
1995 - 2008

Rest in peace little girl. You will be missed.



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Yes, you read that correctly, Positron! Records is going entirely digital.

I know some of you will be very unhappy with this news and for that I am sorry. But I don't have to look long at the numbers to see that every year digital sales outpace CD sales, and the divide is only growing. However, this isn't just about not selling CDs any more - this is about our entire relationship with music.

Positron! has never been a label like labels are labels. I've always had a more "do whatever you want" approach to things. My mantra for the artist was always: make the record you want to make. The problem with that is some artists want box sets and others want EPs. I'm not kidding, IRM's original idea for their debut release was a 3CD box set. And you know what? If I had the money I TOTALLY would have done it. But I didn't, so we had to compromise, which is why Axioms is more of a compilation than an album. Wade, on the other hand, would prefer to release EPs, but it costs the same to press a CD with 3 songs as it does 10 songs, so from the perspective of the person who writes the check, albums are more cost effective than EPs.

So, if I mean it when I say I want the best for my artists, then I need to cater to their creativity and not their output. Because they are, after all, artists; creating is what they do. And by going digital, they can write, record, master and release a song in a day if they want to. They don't have to wait til they have 10 songs to make it more cost effective, they can release it at 4 songs if that's what they want. Nor do they have to pare it down to 10 songs, they can release an album with 50 songs if they want. They can create and release at whatever pace is comfortable for them.

Trust me, if I'd thought this up earlier, you'd have new Amish Rake Fight by now.

Ideally, for the customer, this means more new music, more often. Not more often only because the artist might be creating smaller collections of songs, but surely, wouldn't you rather get 3-4 new songs every 3-4 months than have to wait a year between records? No, I mean more often because no one has to wait for someone else's record to come out before theirs can. No one has to wait for the label to juggle money. The only time constraint on the label's end would be the time it took to upload the tracks.

Also, you may not know this, but Positron! Records doesn't own shit. So before you completely lament the demise of the posiCD, understand this: the artists own their own masters and thus can do whatever they want. They can also profit from whatever they do. So what begins its life as a series of downloadable EPs at shopPOSI, might at some point in the future turn into a box set on the artist's website, or CDs on tour. And you'll know that buying it from them meant every dollar went into their pocket.

So to begin our transition, all posiCDs are on sale at shopPOSI. Yes, if it comes with a free album download you still get one. Yes, if it's in your download locker now it stays in your download locker. As we sell out of CDs, the albums will become digital only. Some of them are already sold out and already digital only. And in about a month, we will have two brand new releases under this new system: Atomica's Grayscale and Micronaut's Callisto.

I think many in the music biz today are watching and waiting and wondering what the "new way" will be. Did Radiohead figure it out? Did Madonna, Prince, NIN? I think the new way is that everyone is going to have to find their own way. What works for one artist is not going to work for another. So Positron! going digital isn't a statement on how anything should be done, it's just the way I've chosen. And if there's one thing you can say about posi, it's that it's always had its own way, so in that regard, nothing will change at all.

UPDATE: CR talks more about audio fomats here.

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I got a demo in the mail today. I'm somewhat visual in that if something catches my eye, it catches my attention. While it's not the end of the world that your demo doesn't look like you dropped $1000 at Disc Makers, if it DOES, all the better. This demo looked great. Nothing too particularly fancy, just a simple slim jewel case, but the insert and on disc printing were very well done. Enough so that I picked it up and said: wow, this is pretty nice, I should give this a listen.

But then I read the cover letter. I won't reprint it here, but the poor fellow spent about 3 paragraphs telling me why I shouldn't listen to his demo. It was just one confidence lacking sentence after another. In between the lines it screamed: I DON'T REALLY TAKE MYSELF SERIOUSLY. And if that's the sense I get from you, why should I take your demo seriously?

The point of a demo package is to actuate. You WANT to be the outside force that causes me, or whoever, to change direction and head for the CD player - which is almost exactly how it happened with Bounte. The package looked great, he didn't look like a serial killer (that's an inside joke), and he told us a little bit about himself, what he did, and what he wanted to accomplish. The package said: I'm serious and I believe in myself. In the player it went, and I think CR contacted him later that day, or maybe the next day. But this one? It sent me to my blog. So in the end, yes, it did spur me to action - just not the one he was probably hoping for.

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The FIRST time they pressed the Bounte CDs, they wound up with Chris Randall tracks on them. The SECOND time they pressed the Bounte CDs, they reversed the disc colors. Apparently, the third time IS a charm because I am now in possession of Bounte CDs with the CORRECT tracks and the CORRECT artwork. About fucking time!

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