Cuneiform Records - straight from the source

[Dana5140]

I am just thinking back many years to visiting Steve and Chris Di Chiari of the Blitzoids at their record store/rehearsal studio just down from where I worked in Lombard, IL. Those guys were really the ones who brought Wayside and Cuneiform to my attention, and I still have some of the early paper catalogs. I know that in the past I was ordering more music than I did later in my life. As a Boomer, I think that I love tangible products that I can look at and feel, more so than digital copy. I still visit the CD section of my local Barnes and Noble, even though they do not offer much there. I still play CDs, of which I have around 3000 (but sold my record collection off when I moved). I don't stream music, though all of my kids do, on whatever platform they use. I wish I had answers.

[battema]

I wish I had answers.

Steve, I think, has presented his answer.

Some of us wish it was a different answer, but when it comes to the biz (especially this particular flavor of the biz) frankly there isn't anyone else whose opinion I'd place above his. Guess that's kind of why, like Cozy, I'd just as soon offer praise for a damned-near-phenomenal run of amazing work for decades, bringing some truly remarkable music into the world and making many musical tastes (including mine) all the better along the way.

[Facelift]

Here are some general thoughts:

- eBay, Amazon and others created a robust used CD trading market in the early 2000s, which made it easier to buy something for half the price instead of new.
- Fast forward a few years, the success and acceptance of the MP3 format proved that convenience was a factor in spite of loss of quality
- The iPod revolutionized how MP3s were stored and played
- Internet speeds, CD rippers, and increased storage space helped legitimize the MP3 further as a preferred format
- iTunes and other legit MP3 download sites changed the shifted the purchase dynamic from album to singles. 99 cents is easy to spend and now cheaper than buying a used CD.
- Additionally file sharing sites also grew in popularity and replaced "CD-R trading" as an accelerated form of P2P file sharing.


And in 2010, it was easy to pinpoint a decline of sales on file sharing because it AMPED up the speed and volume at which people could attain something they might have previously purchased.

However, the dynamic has changed significantly since that time.

- Streaming is a way of life, not an option. For the younger crowd, even MP3s seem antiquated by comparison.
- Don't want to pay Spotify? No problem. YouTube legitimized free streaming once Google took it over. Free songs, free albums 24/7. The guilt associated with listening to something without paying for it went away when this happened.
- Streaming service providers like Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu use a subscription model
- Content volume and accessibility from music to tv to movies grows exponentially each year

And where are we in 2018?

- We live in an attention based society. Content providers fight for it. Music is now not only fighting for its own relevance, but fighting everyone else fighting for your attention - TV, streaming services, social media, etc.
- Worse yet, the amount of content out there gets lost in plain sight. Heck, even on PE if some person starts a thread about his new band, it largely gets ignored.
- There is a paralysis effect that occurs when exposed to this much content, studies show people actually go back to what they are familiar with instead of trying something new. The choice is overwhelming.
- Our particular demographic is aging, has already bought a ton of stuff, is less interested in discovering new music, has other financial priorities.


So how does a small indie record label survive/adapt? It's difficult, maybe impossible. I won't presume to give Steve advice. I do think there are ways a label with 35 years of history can leverage that base and possibly find a model that works. But then again, perhaps not.

Great points. It is, right now, a golden age for listeners of music. It's a terrible time for people holding certain positions within the music distribution industry. The industry has been undergoing a period of fundamental change, as all industries do from time to time.

[Mister Triscuits]

I still have some of the early paper catalogs.

It warms my heart to see people mentioning this. As much as a pack rat as I am, I had to throw mine out eventually. Green and white, with a goldenrod order form: the colors of Wayside! Always a joy when it appeared in the mailbox. I confess that I do still have a catalog or two from NMDS, and every few years I'll run across them while sorting through the pile of junk in my closet and smack myself in the head saying "I wish I could still order this stuff!!!"

[rcarlberg]

I threw away A LOT OF SHIT when I moved into the new house last year -- a full dumpster's worth -- but one thing I kept was my 3-ring binder full of every Wayside catalog. Those are going to the grave with me.

[rcarlberg]

People download music because ultimately they KNOW that once the music is downloaded, it becomes totally worthless. In other words, unlike anything else, it can't be turned around and sold.

In my case a lot of what I collect is rare enough, and unpopular enough, that a CD-R of it is worth exactly as much as a CD of it = i.e. exactly $0.00.

Therefore when faced with the decision of paying for a download, or buying a CD + shipping (if both are available), it's usually the download for me. I figure A.) the artist hopefully makes a higher profit on the download, even though the sell price may be a couple dollars cheaper, B.) a CD-R lasts as long as and sounds as good as a commercial CD, C.) I can make my own booklet, to include what's important to me (the music's the main thing anyway), and finally D.) when I'm dead & gone 99% of my collection will probably end up in the dumpster anyway.

[arturs]

I never consciously threw away my green Wayside catalogs but I doubt I have them anymore. I was living in Michigan when I received most of them and have moved three times since. During one of those moves they likely got tossed.

It would be fun to read through them again and see how much of that music I still own and listen to. And maybe get some ideas for music to check out that I missed the first time around.

[rcarlberg]

Danger Will Robinson! Here There Be Dragons!

[Skullhead]

Will you be at ROSfest this year?

I rarely drive more than 30 minutes to see live music, but I do live in a metropolitan area.
Getting on a plane to fly somewhere to see music is cost prohibitive. What I like is a strong local music
scene were there are lots of great live bands and interesting things to see and listen to. I prefer to support
local first.

That being said, the "local scene" is not very good. Too many acoustic singer songwriters who are just brazing over
the same ol stuff. Nothing new. Three chord alternative bands with great looking guitars and tube amps that play so loud
I spend most of my time outside waiting for it to be over. On occasion I'll go see a prog band that is either metal prog (which I am
not too thrilled with) or noise prog (which is even worse to my ears.)

I do keep hope that there will be at least one band that excites me as much as bands from the great generation of prog, but unfortunately still
waiting.

[Steve F.]

I prefer to complain loudly and repeatedly about
local first.

Fixed it for you!

[Skullhead]

In my case a lot of what I collect is rare enough, and unpopular enough, that a CD-R of it is worth exactly as much as a CD of it = i.e. exactly $0.00.

Therefore when faced with the decision of paying for a download, or buying a CD + shipping (if both are available), it's usually the download for me. I figure A.) the artist hopefully makes a higher profit on the download, even though the sell price may be a couple dollars cheaper, B.) a CD-R lasts as long as and sounds as good as a commercial CD, C.) I can make my own booklet, to include what's important to me (the music's the main thing anyway), and finally D.) when I'm dead & gone 99% of my collection will probably end up in the dumpster anyway.

Of course that is the admirable thing to do. You are conscious enough of the situation. But the younger generation in particular feels that their fees to internet access (high speed connection, iphone, laptop etc) will simply include all the content that the internet has to offer. An additional subscription fee for something like Spotify etc is more in their wheelhouse. They view that as additional access to the web. Social media etc has HUGE value to them. But a file has no value in and of itself... and it doesn't, so they are correct. They might buy a tool such as clipgrab software so they can rip youtube vids etc.... but that is a small fee for what it does.

The solution is obvious, but people can't think outside of the box enough to make it happen.

[Skullhead]

Fixed it for you!

Appreciated!

[smcfee]

Given the trajectory of the music business, my preference is for whatever course of action will give Steve and Joyce, who are awesome people, the best outcome. If that means Wayside and no Cuneiform, so be it. Cozy got into a lot of the thoughts I have, which isn't surprising given how much we've talked about these things over the years, but at the risk of being Captain Obvious, I would add that a market needs a broad base in order to be healthy. When some people won't even enter (they stream or download or go without), then the whole "industry" rests on increasingly fewer shoulders, who are getting progressively older. We are hitting a point where many customers are hitting lower disposable income in retirement, or encountering more permanent events that end their purchasing activities.

In my case, I have something like 2000 CDs and 1000 LPs. Even the collection I have, it's hard for things to get my attention. Anything I'd potentially add has to compete with what is already there. And even though my comfort food is weirder than most, I am at a point where after a long day I'm more inclined to reach for the familiarity of Magma or Univers Zero than necessarily try something new.

When I was in my early 20s I happily bought a few hundred albums a year. The last 5-6 years I've probably averaged 40-50. That isn't going to cut it, and even that's well more than the average joe.

These aren't good sentiments for anyone running a label now, but they are honest ones.

Regards,
Sean

[smcfee]

OK, I'll double down. As bad as I feel for Steve that Cuneiform is probably not going to continue, I feel even worse for all the daring obscure bands that had very little access to effective distribution and promotion of the kind Cuneiform could muster. I know we live in a world where every asshole can put music on Bandcamp, but that's also the flipside. Being on a label like Steve's was a stamp of quality and legitimacy. There are also some excellent longer running bands who were basically Cuneiform or bust. I don't know who is going to put their stuff out now.

[Steve F.]

Thanks, Sean.

I don’t know either. I just know I cannot afford it any more; I put it off as long as I could. But facts is facts and here we now are and that’s that.

[rcarlberg]

Possibly probably nobody. It's reversion to the mean, survival of the fittest, mainstream or no stream. Outlier bands will no longer be available, or maybe hobby bands will continue with Bandcamp but physical media and international distribution and any kind of promotion will be distant memories in a few years. Nobody will be able to make a living playing in a band unless they're the latest flavor of the month on Twitter or Snapchat.

[Baribrotzer]

Steve's point about value is a good one.

But it's not just the kinds of value that Harry Partch record had to him, both monetarily in terms of paying for it, and psychologically in terms of waiting for it and anticipating it. It's the idea of music as a thing valuable and worthwhile in itself, not just as a lifestyle accessory, a cultural signifier, a sign of membership in some particular club or subculture, or a soundtrack to one's life. Not just as a part of your identity. It's the idea that listening to music - as opposed to dancing to it, playing it at your party, or having it constantly running in your earbuds as a congenial and supportive background noise - is a worthwhile activity. Granted, that's how casual listeners have always treated it, going back to the 19th-Century nobility using the opera as a background for competitive socializing; they'd yammer and posture through the recitatives and ensembles, and only quiet down and listen when the arias by their favorites came along. But it seems like the people who treat it as something more, something of its own have become less common

[aith01]

I was hoping that might have been a staged question, for the benefit of any listeners who might not be familiar with the term. Hoping...

it was.

Glad to hear that at least.

Streaming (along with the piracy you mention) IS killing the model, because I would estimate that 35-40% (and growing) of the people who used to buy our releases now use streaming services and never buy anything.

They like our releases, but now that they get unlimited everything except 'Cuneiform and a couple others', they aren't going to bother to buy 'Cuneiform and a couple of others'.

They have more than they could ever use of everything else.

Sadly, this seems to be pretty accurate.

[aith01]

Steve, I think, has presented his answer.

Some of us wish it was a different answer, but when it comes to the biz (especially this particular flavor of the biz) frankly there isn't anyone else whose opinion I'd place above his. Guess that's kind of why, like Cozy, I'd just as soon offer praise for a damned-near-phenomenal run of amazing work for decades, bringing some truly remarkable music into the world and making many musical tastes (including mine) all the better along the way.

Very nicely put, John. I echo these sentiments 100%.

[Steve F.]

An aside: Why I love the internet. Every word here is as received:

------


Always thought cuneiform had a lot of potential, i really resonated with a lot of the ideas i felt were behind your releases! Such an eclectic collection of great releases! But I've kinda felt that like something has been up.

A lot of the smaller labels ive been following have had a pretty precise sense on their curating...both visually and sonically they've had stuff they are strongly associated with,
A lot of them have really focused on the online side of things while many of them have maintained healthy distro on both cassette and vinyl... a few ive actually seen in local record stores all the way in Vancouver bc canada (the stack of orange milk records tapes at audiopile comes to mind)

While the impression was that you guys have been focusing on more left-field jazz, a lot of that jazz seems increasingly conservative compared to stuff released 20-30 years ago!

I hate to say this as it seems pretty critical but it seems to be an image problem, a lot of your album art looks like it was whipped up by someone quickly on photoshop, while i've enjoyed this kind of sloppy digital art when its done with more humour or self awareness (see album art by foot village)
It seems to detract from a lot of the material on your catalog, as well as not speaking well for the music it represents.

I've found that in my local music scene the avant-garde music, culture, and performance being produced has been very celebrated by the people in proximity to it, and that most of the most cherished things coming out of the city are products of urgency, authenticity, catharsis and sincerity. And there might not be room for much else.

Im really hoping you guys get back on your feet and continue to put out releases, and look for fresh talent, but you might need to make it clear that your label is about vision, and trim the fat.

Good luck.

Ps. Nothing wrong with putting out and embracing the single. As a format Its home to Some of the most artistically concise expressions on wax.

Pps. i love your work, i don't mean to come across so terribly condescending im wasted right now.

[Poisoned Youth]

I’m speechless.

[Supersonic Scientist]

Steve's point about value is a good one.

But it's not just the kinds of value that Harry Partch record had to him, both monetarily in terms of paying for it, and psychologically in terms of waiting for it and anticipating it. It's the idea of music as a thing valuable and worthwhile in itself, not just as a lifestyle accessory, a cultural signifier, a sign of membership in some particular club or subculture, or a soundtrack to one's life. Not just as a part of your identity. It's the idea that listening to music - as opposed to dancing to it, playing it at your party, or having it constantly running in your earbuds as a congenial and supportive background noise - is a worthwhile activity. Granted, that's how casual listeners have always treated it, going back to the 19th-Century nobility using the opera as a background for competitive socializing; they'd yammer and posture through the recitatives and ensembles, and only quiet down and listen when the arias by their favorites came along. But it seems like the people who treat it as something more, something of its own have become less common

This +1

[battema]

That is six different kinds of special, including rocky road.

[moecurlythanu]

Don't let that email get to you, Steve. The world is full of know-nothings who think they know everything.

[Poisoned Youth]

Like I said Steve, I was wasted.