Making A Case For Altru-Cynicism
by Sean Carolan

A few guys in (or near) the town of Flitwick, about thirty miles north of London, stared heartily at the state of the music business and decided that if they were going to lose money, they might as well do it in style.

They print up records - 45 RPM singles, to be specific - of their music and anyone else's that happens to cross their desk. Then they send those records, free of charge, to anyone that cares to sign up at their website.

They're probably not doing it to gather a huge mailing list to sell to spammers, or to steal identities, or any other nefarious purpose. (Of course, they may be doing all these things, but nothing bad's happened to me ... yet.) They just want to get people that are interested in hearing the music they make in a position where they might actually hear it, and they're cynical enough to know there's no better way to do that than to give it all away. If it means they have to print up a few thousand singles and drop them in the mail, so be it.

Will they get famous? Maybe, but of course, maybe not, with the smart money betting on "not". Still, this is an industry where a group saddled with the misfortune of a cocktail-napkin contract can look forward to a hit record that leads to a healthy future in bankruptcy. Why not just take the loss up front and bank the anecdotes long enough to impress the grandkids?

Then again, consider what might happen if they do catch on. They displayed a glimmer of the aplomb they're capable of wielding recently, when they released a new record by the Fall, primarily for laughs all around. Check out their page (unless you're at work; their clever use of many classic anglo-saxon words may leave your web admin curious about you) at http://www.flitwickrecords.co.uk for their rather sparkling use of the term "N.B.".

(N.B.: the record itself, which you now need not be told is no longer available, is decidedly lo-fi, and decidedly fun to listen to. Fifteen seconds of Mark E. Smith clearing his throat into a distorted microphone while drums beat and guitars screech beats the pants off the latest Orlando-teens any day of the week.)

All this once again raises the question, "What's more important to the musician; getting heard or getting paid?" Sounds like the folks at Flitwick are solidly devoted to the former, as long as it means they can say whatever they damn well please.

©2001 Sean Carolan