The Ledger
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McCaughan: Record labels represent a shared aesthetic voice, not just manufacturing
“I thought of a label as the kind of aesthetic umbrella of, like, a certain group of artists.
In other words, like, when I thought of record labels, I thought of For AD, or Sub Pop, or Discord, or Teen Beat Records.
Like, they each had their own kind of voice”
McCaughan: Performing well earns artist retention better than contract lock-in
“I mean, our assumption, I think, to this day is that if we're doing a good job, then why wouldn't you want to do another record with us? Though we do use contracts now, but we were taking the handshake deal model from labels like Touch and Go and Discord and l…”
McCaughan: Bands are more open to labels run by fellow musicians
“From the artist relations side, bands are more open to working with the label, knowing that The people running the label are also in a band.”
McCaughan: You can judge a music demo within 30 seconds
“The good thing is you can often tell within 30 seconds or so whether this is going to be something that you're into or not, you know. Sometimes without even listening to it from the way it's being presented to you can tell, so you're not literally listening to…”
McCaughan: Indie labels can't scale permanent operations for rare blockbuster albums
“We go into things trying to keep a rein on, you know, how much money we're spending, because it's the band's money, too, you know? And so, for better or worse, that does put us in a position of not having made the 50,000 records that we could have sold from th…”
McCaughan: Mainstream music listeners do not care about record labels
“When a record gets as big as, or a band gets as big as Arcade Fire, there's a percentage of people that know what label that record is on, but there's a much bigger percentage of people that don't know and don't care, like, even what a record label is.”
McCaughan: Multiple agents admitted ignoring Arcade Fire's demo CD
“After we put out the first Arcade Fire album, more than one booking agent called and said, you know, I could have booked that band. I had that CD sitting in a stack of demos on my desk, and I just never listened to it.”
McCaughan: 1980s punk shows were all-ages unlike standard music clubs
“Punk shows were usually all ages, unlike... Shows at the clubs where you would hear a song on the radio by a band, like on college radio, and you'd be like, oh, this band, you know, the Rain Parade, they're playing at the Cat's Cradle, and you'd be really into…”
McCaughan: Slush Puppies opened Fugazi's third show ever at Cat's Cradle
“So, this was gonna be their third show ever. So, I mean, I was excited about being able to set that show up at the Cat's Cradle and being able to open that show.”
McCaughan: 1989 Sub Pop visit was as fans, not to get signed
“One of my friends from school, Aubrey Summers, was friends with them just from growing up, I guess, from high school or something like that, and so it wasn't like, oh, you can get your band signed, it was just more like, we're fans of Mudhoney and Sub Pop, and…”