Avalanche Manifesto – Very Briefly

As many of you will know the manifesto has caused a huge amount of discussion virtually all positive and very briefly here are some of the points that we will try to address over the coming months.

Everybody is agreed that better distribution at least within Scotland would be greatly beneficial. There is the thorny issue of bands and labels wanting their releases in shops while also wanting to compete for customers with those shops that will have to be overcome but a compromise should be possible. There is no reason why these ideas should be limited to Scotland either.

Listening posts would definitely help and the new wave of tablet style screens could be adapted for this purpose. With some funding these machines could be placed and easily updated anywhere in the world !

Showcase gigs for Scottish bands in major cities outside of Scotland would be another way to break bands further afield without the current expense of going to SXSW. Many bands would just like to play a decent venue in London and try to get some industry people along to that.

Funding needs to be more transparent, more accessible and some might say better targeted. I’ll be asking the various funding bodies to give me posters and regular info so bands will be able to easily see what is available in the shop and on our website. We will have a notice board put up in the shop not just for this but for those “drummer wanted” adverts too.

Not sure what can be done about the forms but it is no surprise that those with management to take care of these things seem to benefit so much more than more talented but less bureaucracy minded  artists. We may look to providing help with this in the future as there is clearly a huge number of people put off by the forms some not getting so far as to even look at them such is their reputation !

More to follow.