Touch & Go record label S&D

Jay your whole deal in re: T&G specifically is a huge mess of assumptions & projections that afaik don't actually apply here, it's not like T&G is an unraveling pyramid scheme. There are other places to do P&D, and there's DYI, and the labels will have to work hard if they want to keep doing what they do but those that want to go on will be able to do so.

John D- It's not a pyramid scheme. It's a supply chain. This is a big disruption and will likely be the final straw for some folks in terms of doing real-world product. There will most definitely be people who want to go on who won't be able to do so now because credit is so tight.

you're making a fuckton's worth of assumptions and i think you need to hire a fail truck to carry them away

both makro and j0hn: i think yr. projecting weird things onto what jay's saying (ecluding the more metaphorical last paragraph). far as i can tell, what jay did was to describe the role of distributors/middlemen as credit holders. something fundamental to way almost all businesses operate, large and small, indie and outie. i expect, based on reputation, that corey will at least try to handle the closure of the distro responsiblity, but the loss of that credit pool will be a significant blow to a LOT of people, no matter how you slice it. as a thing in itself, but also in terms of the secondary effects jay mentioned: shift of the burden of accounting work, the way breaks in the chain tend to delay payment & confuse issues of responsibility, etc.

of course there are assumptions built in, but i think they're mostly fair assumptions. not guaranteed, but very reasonable.

System - I don't understand your point...? Are you saying that perhaps Cory's management style and strategic decisions have been financially foolish, and he just got lucky for a while and his luck ran out? That just doesn't make sense to me to say. I know too many smart people in the business who work with him, or speak highly of him; they don't work with dummies, and they don't say that kind of stuff lightly. So I dunno...

mr. que - Um. Look. Point out which assumption doesn't make sense to you, and I'll give you the basis for my making that assumption. Okay?

Contenderizer - Thanks for putting it better and more gracefully than I've been able to.

One assumes that one thing in play here is that there are too many CDs that have been manufactured, shipped to stores and shipped back to distributor, unsold. One can reasonably assume that there are also vendors who have sold CDs (say) to customers but are behind in paying T & G. Distributors like T & G often operate as a bank here -- they extend credit (that is, they allow for late payment) to stores if they think it will help the store to stay alive and give T & G a better chance at eventually being paid; I would also assume that, given their reputation as good faith players and wise businessfolks, T & G also extended credit (that is, allowed for late payments) to labels for manufacturing costs. If you take these two reasonable assumptions, then it's reasonable to assume that T & G is holding a serious amount of debt that Cory doesn't think will ever be paid. So, he stops. Okay. This means a large, sturdy, dependable source of credit is now disappearing from the whole process. What happens to the money one presumes is owed to T & G for CD sales that retailers can't pay? What if stores say "we need another 60 days" or decide not to ever pay T & G since their relationship with them is now over since T & G is no longer in business? Remember that everything is done on terms/credit at this level, not with cash! The accounting work is significant. For the affected labels, this means that they have to do a whole lot of work right that they were hoping they wouldn't have to do, at what's probably the worst possible time...they're already dealing with problems on every front, and now THIS HAPPENS. Yikes, total triple red emergency alert.

i mean when i worked at a record store it was all about cash not credit. but i could be wrong. but you have like 800 assumptions in this paragraph i'm not gonna enumerate em all for ya, but do indie record stores really ship back CD's to T&G????

HITLER
LADY GAGA
TRUCKER HATS

I'm trying to kill this argument dead via Godwin now.

Jay, why you thought I was inferring Corey was a bad bussinessman is beyond me. I'm sorry I said anything.

What if stores say "we need another 60 days" or decide not to ever pay T & G since their relationship with them is now over since T & G is no longer in business?

isn't this like totally illegal?

I'm just going to say this again:

There are other places to do P&D, and there's DYI, and the labels will have to work hard if they want to keep doing what they do but those that want to go on will be able to do so.

not minimizing how sad it is that one of the best p&d's working won't be doing it any more but there is no reason, on earth, for any of the affected labels to not soldier on. most of them were self-running indies before they allied with t&g, and many of them can probably going through ADA now. I don't imagine ADA can pick up all of them, but it's not like these labels can't do the job themselves. Slow down the release schedule, work on cash instead of terms, it's really not that rough. It does mean, yeah, you can't keep a credit revolving door going for a while, but that's going to be true across many sectors in a slumping economy and would be imo healthy for a lot of reasons.

John D: I agree with you, to a degree. But I think it's going to be much rougher going forward than you think. We'll see!

Mr. Que - Yes stores return CDs to distributors. My understanding from one other major indie distributor was that there was a huge uptick of returns in the second half of 2008. I don't have firsthand info on T & G in this regard, but um...yeah. I don't know many (any?) vendors of significance that are set up to buy cds in cash upfront from distributors as s.o.p.

re: legality of non-payment of debt. That's missing the point. You can have a contractually binding agreement with someone but if the cost of enforcing it is greater than the benefits derived from enforcing it, then...

I was a big Pinback fan at one time, but my favorite thin on Touch & Go is QUASI. That band still doesn't get enough credit.

Yes indie stores return unsold indie CDs to distributors. It sucks because you're like, I thought we sold a million, why are they coming back!

LATimes' Todd Martens blogs:

... Touch and Go has handled distribution for such labels as Merge Records (Arcade Fire, M. Ward), Suicide Squeeze (Minus the Bear) and Kill Rock Stars (the Decemberists' Colin Melloy). Yet Touch and Go has also been affiliated with Warner Music Group's distribution arm Alternative Distribution Alliance, which has handled the heavy lifting on major releases, including all of Merge's in the past few years.

Merge was distributed exclusively through Touch and Go for 15 years before going direct with the Warners' ADA. In a statement passed along to Pop & Hiss, Merge notes that had it not been for Touch and Go agreeing to manufacture and distribute the label, the Chapel Hill, N.C.-based indie could not have existed "as something other than a singles label."

In an e-mail, Merge founder Mac McCaughan calls Touch and Go "the most straight-up and ass-busting-for-music-they-love people we know."

"Corey Rusk is the most meticulous, cautious, thoughtful business person I know," he said, "which is what makes this whole thing so unbelievable and such a bad portent for the rest of the independent music business -- if a company that did everything the right way can't survive in this environment (and the environment existed before the current worldwide financial disaster -- the Bush economic legacy only piled on), then who can?"

It's unclear at the moment if Touch and Go will continue to sign new acts, or operate only as a catalog imprint. Billboard quotes a source that implies the latter, but a Touch and Go spokeswoman declined to clarify, and Rusk has not yet returned calls. Indications are that Touch & Go will continue to be distributed via ADA, but affiliated labels will soon have to seek new arrangements.

all of this jay babcock & dan seltzers

selzer

white girls

I prefer cherry selzer

what about white girls?

what jay said about retail + credit is otm, but I think the major assumption in his scenario is that corey waited too long to make this step and he's now irreversibly in the red. if the decision to close down distribution was proactive and will result in a balancing of all accounts then it's not unthinkable that nobody's going to get screwed out of monies owed (even if corey has to lay people off to support it).

although conservative outlooks during mid-2008 now seem wildly optimistic given the current conditions, one has to assume corey's character is going to have a lot to do with how this thing plays out.

Edward III - True! Could be it's proactive. Still, the disruption/etc.

yo, i think they'll be alright, but you know, at the moment, it really is touch and go

RIMSHOT

People who were doubting what me and Contenderizer (and others...) were saying would be likely fallout -- check this new article by Greg Kot in Chi Tribune -- Touch and Go's cutbacks leave independent music labels reeling: Owners say they will have to scale back operations to survive; others unsure if they will be able to make it

Yes, jay,as was clearly said upthread, there would be NO FALLOUT from this. Way to fucking twist words,dude. You're the human form of Godwin's law.

System - Not referring to you, obv.

(System: I was talking about what the likely fallout would be and why... not whether or not there would be any fallout at all. Sorry for any confusion.)

Jay did you read the article you linked? It's rather less doom 'n' gloom than your tone on this thread.

yeah it really is

Here's a new report from Billboard/Reuters

what's a "catalog-only imprint"?

a label that only keeps their back catalog in print, and doesn't release any new albums

According to T&G's own website, everything they've released (excepting licensed stuff and the, ahem, Butthole Surfers catalogue) is still in print, which is pretty remarkable. So while it's certainly sad that they're downscaling, at least they're not going the way of SST and disappearing into a crack in the ground.

bought the reissue of the 1st die kreuzen lp today (with dl, thanks). we do our part

^ C: S

According to T&G's own website, everything they've released (excepting licensed stuff and the, ahem, Butthole Surfers catalogue) is still in print, which is pretty remarkable.
Would be if it were true! I expect most of it is, but not everything. The most obvious being the Necros, but there's at least a couple of old EPs not in print - Flesh Columns, Angry Red Planet etc.

Oh well, most of it is. Can't find where I read that about the whole catalogue now, d'oh is me.

In any case, it's still a damn sight better than SST, or even Sub Pop.

anyone picked this up yet??

http://www.bazillionpoints.com/touch-and-go-magazine-the-complete-years-by-tesco-vee-dave-stimson-and-steve-miller/

it is AWESOME

I've been on a big Laughing Hyena's kick for a few months for the first time since the 90s, mostly getting ready to see Easy Action open for Dino Jr. earlier this year. John Brannon is definitely one of the more intense vocalists in that group of bands.

A joke a buddy of mine made the next day after seeing the Laughing Hyena's back in the 90s in Bloomington always comes to me when I listen to them trying to imaging John Brannon trying to order breakfast at Dennys.

I WANT BACON!!!
TWO EGGS!
OVER EASY!
WITH A SIDE OF TOAST
AND A CUP OF COFFEE!!!!

Brannon's vocal style is pretty much 110% all the time. Don't know what he is like off stage, but he's pretty intense dude with a microphone in his hand (even today). When I saw Dino Jr. earlier this year Brannon did the vocals on their old tune "Don't".

So his vocal style has been like that for decades then I guess! Remember him from way back when.

Yeah, Brannon still has the hard man stage persona. Easy Action was pretty cool at that show I saw earlier this year. Saw Laughing Hyenas a couple of times back in the early 90s and they were great live.

I probably saw that same Bloomington show, I know they played at 39 Steps (short lived all ages club) and maybe at Second Story once?

so fucking good

oh wait, no, those were 80s shows

I saw them here in Oregon in like '91 once more before they broke up, Larissa was so smacked out

He's on twitter now and he starts every single tweet with the phrase "check it out"

he starts every single tweet with the phrase "check it out"

this is so wonderful

THIRD MAN RECORDS' REISSUES OF LAUGHING HYENAS'
MERRY-GO-ROUND AND YOU CAN'T PRAY A LIE
NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER

http://thirdmanstore.com/pub/media/catalog/product/cache/small_image/320x320/cd7fcf27be6a733566b266f46cb4e67d/t/m/tmr509_hyenas_cover.jpg
https://thirdmanstore.com/pub/media/catalog/product/cache/small_image/320x320/cd7fcf27be6a733566b266f46cb4e67d/t/m/tmr471_lhyenas_youcan_tprayalie_final.jpg

In partnership with Touch And Go Records, Third Man Records is re-issuing the full discography of punishing Michigan hardcore punk blues band Laughing Hyenas for the first time in over 25 years. The first two of these reissues, Merry-Go-Round and You Can't Pray A Lie, are available for pre-order on black vinyl now. Both reissues will be released on February 14. View both reissues HERE.

The Merry-Go-Round 2xLP reissue will include the 5 bonus tracks that were originally included on the 1995 Touch and Go CD release. The reissue of You Can't Pray A Lie will be a straight reissue of the 1989 release.

Formed in the mid-80s wreckage of American punk and hardcore, Laughing Hyenas were comprised of staples of the Detroit punk scene, including John Brannon (Negative Approach) and Larissa Strickland (L Seven) along with the locked-in rhythm section of Kevin Strickland and Jim Kimball. Groundbreaking, game-changing and some of the scariest records to come out of Detroit... or anywhere, and lovingly re-mastered for vinyl and cut by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering.

nice, those are great records