The cry goes up, “Why launch a record label in the era of digital downloads and streaming. The answer is quite simple, precisely because the music industry is dominated by digital downloads and streaming.

So the question is, can we party like it’s pre 1999? That was the year Napster was launched, widely considered to be the first steaming platform. The platform was eventually shut down, due to legal issues, in 2001. At that point other services raised their head above the parapet, including Rhapsody, a subscription based model. Then in 2003 iTunes was launched, providing legal downloads of a wide range of music. We now come to a watershed moment, when in 2008 Spotify was launched. These developments gave musicians a way into the music industry which bypassed the traditional model of music production and distribution. What a revelatory and liberating time to be a musician right?

Music had always been produced, distributed and licensed by third parties, who consistently sucked in and ripped off unsuspecting and painfully naive musicians with contracts where the small print could only be seen by using the very latest thing in microscopes. In the process becoming very rich indeed. Then on January 28th 1977 a group of young Manchester lads, fuelled by a Pistols gig in the city’s Free Trade Hall in 1976, were inspired to start a band with the frankly crazy idea of releasing a single of their own backs. The result of this was Buzzcocks’ Spiral Scratch, essentially the first truly independent record release. A David and Goliath moment which still resonates to this day. 

This lead directly to the creation of independent labels whose legend is still spoken about with hushed reverence and misty eyed nostalgia to this day.  I give you, Rough Trade, Stiff, Postcard et al. 

We at Store Corner Records are looking to take a back to basics approach based on these legendary labels. There was a time when said labels would load crates of vinyl into a Morris Minor and go round the UK visiting record stores lugging their wares with them. Or accosting DJ’s in the street, as in the case of Alan Horne (Postcard’s maverick supremo) who approached John Peel outside the BBC’s Maida Vale studios urging him to stop playing the shite he was spinning and play Orange Juice instead. Peel being Peel, rather than take offence at this Glaswegian assault did actually play the single in question. 

Whilst we are not naive enough to imagine we can totally circumvent the streaming giants, we do feel that we can at least go some way to giving a degree of control back to working musicians and ensuring they are paid a fair price for their art. Everyone involved at the label has many years of experience in the music industry and we feel well qualified to guide bands through the minefield that is the current music industry.

Above all find the others and CREATE!

Kirk Maxwell-Sterling