I grew up on independent music -- where would I be without Smallman Records sending artists to play at the Native Friendship Centre in Timmins!

Indie labels and music have shaped my life and pushed me towards community, and I'm very grateful to be trusted with this work.

Indies are also creating stable, high-quality jobs and valuing workers:

83% of label workers in our sample were formal employees with access to benefits.

This is a strong commitment to decent work in a sector where precarious labour is pretty much the norm!

I'm especially excited by the data showing how indies treat both artists and workers equitably - consider this:

For every $1 invested, labels generated $0.77 in profit — and critically, 77% of that profit ($0.59) was distributed directly to artists! 🤘🤘

Anyways, I am a leftist who knows about this stuff should anyone need any advice on it! 👋🏻👋🏻

These people r freaks — they understand arts as a tool of the ruling class, rather than lifeblood of society & meaning making. Art isn’t to be USED to inculcate specific meaning, it makes meaning & sense of the world through its doing and sharing.

🤢:
www.withoutdiminishment.com/p/why-im-enl...

Yes! She is one of the best! I'm so psyched for this conversation!

Bonus: if you are into music and music writing and making music better for workers, then you should run for a board position!

We’re a very dope crew of folks and we’d love to have YOU!

Grab a ticket….or become a member/co-owner and attend for free! 😉

If we’re serious about sustaining Canada’s arts & music ecosystem, we should work with the gov in power, but we should also name this clearly:

Renewal without (at minimum!) inflation adjustment is decline.

4/4 fin!

By 2028, these programs will have absorbed years of real-dollar losses.

And the baseline for measuring that loss isn’t 2024 or 2025. It’s 2023, when this nominal level first came into effect.

3/n

But we should also be clear about what was actually announced.

The funding is continued, but it is not increased!

These programs will receive the same nominal amounts for the next three years as they did in the last two.

In a high-inflation environment, flat nominal funding = a real cut.

2/n

Someone should really write about why it is essential for artists to get equity + governance in gen AI...😎

musicx.substack.com/p/the-foreve...

Remember when Spotify handed the majors equity (as penance for its initial failure to obtain licenses).

When those shares were sold, the majors claimed the windfall wasn’t “royalty income” and didn’t have to be shared with artists.

We're at the same point now with AI!

*googles merch printers*. I'm gonna seriously look into this!

Great paper and episode 🙏!

🧛🩸💸
we all know 'On the Beach' is ol' Shakey's best album. Ditch Trilogy forever!

youtu.be/fn27aTInqBM?...