Open Source Society

The Future of Music: with Jay Cassano of Fall of the West Records

One of the things that has always interested me is music and how it’s produced. I got the opportunity to talk with Jay Cassano, a volunteer with Fall of the West Records in Amherst, Massachusetts. I asked him how his indie label was any different from the thousands of small labels that abound across the world, and what he told me was astounding. While it may not have been a conscious decision on their part, what Jay and his friends have done is to create a open-source model of recording, producing, and selling records.

Doing this has made it possible for them to pursue a passion, while making it easier for new bands to get themselves heard. They have also pioneered an on-demand production model which keeps their costs extremely low while still producing as many CDs as the bands want or need. This mean less waste, more profit for the bands, and low overhead for the recording company. Fall of the West is a not-for-profit company, but this model could be applied with little modification for a group who did want to do this for a living. In short, anyone who owns or wants to own a small business can learn some incredibly useful things from what Fall of the West has done.

OSS: Tell us a little bit about your record label.
Jay Cassano: It’s called “Fall of the West”. It’s a workers’ collective where decisions are made on consensus, we don’t make money off of it, it’s all small folk/punk/experimental bands, and it’s run by a bunch of anarchists. We also try to be really involved in local politics and local organizations.
OSS: What prompted you to start this project?
Jay Cassano: Well, I wasn’t one of the founders of the label, but when I met Brian last year it was just natural for me to join on. I hate how for-profit companies monopolize knowledge and make us think we need them. That’s what the record label is really about, proving to ourselves and the world that we don’t need a Sony or Warner Bros to produce and package professional-looking music products. I also think the future of record labels is very much in jeopardy. People are realizing that CDs are somewhat a pointless medium. If you want a digital version, just download it. If you want a physical copy, get a vinyl record.

OSS: Vinyl is making a comeback?
Jay Cassano: We (the bands and the company) seem to sell our vinyl records so much more quickly than our CDs. But that might have more to do with punk culture than a general trend. At the very least, we have to acknowledge that file sharing is going to continue to severely impact the music industry .

OSS: Aren’t turntables expensive and hard to come by?
Jay Cassano: Eh, that’s kind of true. But you can find a functional one on eBay for $50 pretty easily. When you think about it, buying CDs is kind of pointless. They don’t do much that a digital file doesn’t, especially with all the mp3 players (ipods etc.) out there. You can just as easily burn a CD of the music you download online. It’s obviously kind of silly for me to sit here and try to predict the future. But that’s definitely something I see as a possibility. You want music on your computer, you get a file. You want a physical copy of the music, you get a record. There are definitely other factors to consider. That’s just a trend that we’ve been observing first-hand. Since we want to acknowledge this trend, whenever we sell a record to someone, we email them a .zip file of the music so they can listen to it on their computer or on the vinyl.

OSS: Do you have a brick and mortar store?
Jay Cassano: No, we don’t. We don’t know that we ever really will. Sometimes Brian and I half-joke about opening up some other worker collective, like a restaurant/cafe and running the label from a back room there and selling stuff in the store front. As far as we can see into the future right now though, we won’t have a need for an actual storefront. Especially since we’re not doing this to make a living. That being said, we do have our stuff stocked on retail in some small independent local stores. Maybe if we get big enough, we’ll get an actual store. but there are also a whole host of concerns about “getting bigger” and we’re just not sure if we want that. Fall of the West is small label that functions well for small bands or for bands that need a stepping stone.

OSS: So no big plans to go Hollywood?
Jay Cassano: We’re definitely comfortable with where we are right now. To some extent, getting bigger would contradict our whole purpose. I really love the area we’re in and I love what we’re doing. And like I said, we’re already involved with a few local organizations that are doing some really amazing work, so I’d like to stick in the area. The two organizations we’re most involved with are The Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives and North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens.

OSS: What sort of things do you collaborate on?
Jay Cassano: We’re pseudo-members of the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives (VAWC). Because we’re not making money off of this, we’re not technically a “worker cooperative” according to the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, which VAWC is a part of. We share the Alliance’s aims and we go to all the meetings and are active participants in them. As college students, we’re also involved with trying to get some of our peers to do research for VAWC. For example, VAWC is going to start an informational campaign soon to educate people in the area about the benefits of worker cooperatives over traditional capitalist businesses. That campaign was actually Brian’s suggestion at the last meeting. So, for all intents and purposes, we’re members of VAWC and function that way. If the label ever does get bigger and we end up doing this for a living, we would definitely become full-fledged members of VAWC.
At North Star, Brian actually just finished teaching a class called “running a do-it-yourself record label” to a group of high school aged kids. Brian showed them our equipment, explained how we do everything and really demonstrated that it’s the kind of thing that anyone can do, much like how I think the open source movement views software. He showed them everything from how to record their own music to how to produce and package CDs. The kids loved it.

OSS: What gives you guys an edge over other record labels?
Jay Cassano: One thing that distinguishes us from most other labels (even other independent or DIY labels) is that some money from all of our sales online goes directly to the bands.

OSS: Really? i thought most labels worked that way
Jay Cassano: Some DIY labels will produce a set amount of CDs, give like 15% of that to the bands for free, and then sell the rest. When they sell the remaining on their site, they keep the money. It works because bands get some of the CDs for free. It’s definitely better and simpler than a major record label, but it’s not perfect. (Not to say that our way is flawless either.) What we do is try to be more flexible about it. Instead of producing a set and finite amount, we try to take advantage of the fact that we are a small, DIY label. We don’t need to produce 1000 CDs; we can produce 238 CDs if we want, or we can produce 15. It doesn’t make a difference because we do everything ourselves. If a small label outsources its production to a professional CD-pressing plant, then they have to make a large quantity, usually 500 sometimes 1000. The difference is that those are dependent on the manufacturers of the CDs; we have the ability to make only what’s needed when it’s needed.
We also don’t give bands free CDs, like a lot of labels, unless that’s what they want, in which case we’ll work it out. But our preferred way of doing things is to sell the CDs we make to the bands at the cost required to produce them. Then they sell them at their shows so they can pay off the amount they owe us really easily and still make some profit. And we don’t have them pay us until they’ve sold those CDs, that way they’re never in debt to us. That would be wrong and contradictory to what we’re trying to do. A lot of DIY labels (ones who make the CDs themselves or who use CD manufacturers), like was stated earlier, give the band 15% or so of the CDs - and then if the band ever wants anymore they have to buy them for wholesale cost from the label. And then they can only get however many the label has; once the CD is out of print they can’t get anymore unless the label makes the investment to produce more. The way we do it, bands don’t get the 15% for free, but they get them for almost the exact cost it took to produce them - and they can get any amount of the CDs whenever, because they are never out of print. Yet, it’s not like this is the “best” way of doing it. We’re an all volunteer run label; we’re not making a living off of this. Some labels are actually trying to support themselves with their work in the DIY world, and that’s totally cool, so whatever way they are working probably makes the most sense for them. We don’t need to make a profit, just what we put into it back, so that’s why we’re able to operate in this way. Though, the way we do it does require a significant amount of initial investment for the materials and the equipment, so some labels might just rather pay-as-they-go and that might be the best method for them.
That’s how it works when bands sell their CDs. The flip side of that is how it works when we sell albums off our website. The only money we take from those sales is the money we put into it so that we can continue to exist and fund our next project to put out more music. Then $1 from every sale goes to a non-profit organization of the band’s choice as a way of giving back to the community. After that, all the remaining money goes to the band. So it’s not that the bands get “a cut” - they actually get most of the money. It seems kind of complicated I guess, but it seems to have gone over really well with the bands. Sometimes it doesn’t work perfectly though, so we’re always trying to adapt and evolve and make it better for the people and for the bands. We make it easy for small local bands who don’t have a lot of money but really want to get their music out there, and I think that dollar to a non-profit from every sale is a pretty important thing we do.

OSS: So what’s the point of all this?
Jay Cassano: We’re about getting good, non-mainstream music out there and building real sustainable communities. We think art is integral to any vision of social change.

OSS: Where can people find you?
Jay Cassano: Our website is www.fallofthewest.com and you can hear free tracks at http://www.fallofthewest.com/media.htm