R&R Music Labs

It has begun.  In the next month or so, we will begin recording the first volume of the STL LOUD local music compilation.  The goal of which is to give unexposed local artists the chance to record a track for free that will be distributed online free of charge.  I will also be working on getting some funding to release in the form of CD as well to be distributed (free of charge) at locally-owned record stores.  This is a community-minded project, and we would like your participation as well.

• If you are, or know an artist or band who is need of some exposure, or has had little or no studio experience, please contact us.  I only have a few so far, so there are plenty of tracks to fill.

• If you have other talents that you would be willing to contribute to make this project more successful, I would love to talk to you.  We will need help with graphic design (clearly), marketing and promotions, and potentially fundraising.

• If you provide a service that would benefit this project, (CD Replication for instance) let’s collaborate.

• If you have a website and would be willing to link to our download page for online distribution, the more we have, the better.

• Finally, anyone who talks, posts, tweets, blogs, …etc about this project would be doing it a great service.  The idea is to get as many people hearing new local artists as possible, so spread the word!

Here’s to the St. Louis music scene!  I look forward to some hard-core community collaboration on this one.  Talk to you soon!

My contact info:

314-225-7104

ralbritton@rrmusiclabs.com

Thanks!

Just a little of the magic from last week…enjoy!

One week ago I boarded a bus bound for Chicago.  My name was one of several on the list of delegates at this year’s NASNA (North American Street Newspaper Association) Conference, which was being held at DePaul University in Downtown Chicago.  I was representing Whats Up Magazine along with the organization’s founder and executive director, Jay Swoboda.  For anyone who is unaware of Whats Up, or the street paper concept in general, we are a coalition of publications across the globe distributed by homeless people as a form of employment.  Many papers, Streetwise in Chicago being a great example, also have extensive services offered to their vendors including: job placement, education and even housing assistance.  Whats Up is St. Louis’ street magazine and was founded in 2002.  Jay and I came back from this conference with many ideas and much inspiration for expanding our organization and improving the services we can offer the homeless in St. Louis.

I have been collecting my thoughts on this experience for the past week, organizing my ideas, and trying to understand the implications of everything I learned and will soon be meeting with the others in the Whats Up organization to discuss our strategy moving forward.  Through this process, an old idea resurfaced and is now swirling in my head trying to make sense of itself.

A year ago or so, while trying to figure out the next steps for the studio and brainstorming ideas for the feasibility of a record label in St. Louis, the possibility of a non-profit record label came to mind.  Through my initial research ( a google search) I decided this has never been attempted, or at least successfully implemented on a large scale.  The problem, of course, is that non-profits can’t charge for their services and therefore require fundraising to survive, and the prospect of fundraising for a street newspaper that helps the homeless is a difficult one, not to mention fundraising for a record label.  So the idea sat in my head for the last year, until being awakened as I thought up fundraising schemes for Whats Up this past week.  The next piece of the STL LOUD puzzle may be in a non-profit record label, funded by those who have made their way in the old system.  By funding a record label, established musicians would have the opportunity to support future musicians- giving them the break they need to succeed in the music business.  Now all I need to do is convince some famous musicians that they need to give me money, shouldn’t be that difficult…clearly there are some steps that need to be taken between here and there, but this may be the model for a sustainable music industry in the future.

My intention has been to pursue this idea since its inception, and now that it is a little more round, I am going to move forward with it.  If the idea of a non-profit music industry sounds interesting to anyone, please contact me, as I will need some help.  Also, Whats Up will be looking for more stakeholders in the coming months, so if you are interested in journalism and/or homeless advocacy please contact us soon.  If you would simply like to keep up with the magazine and the organization, please follow us on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Thanks for listening, hope I wasn’t too loud!