Fire at SONY DADC – PIAS Labels

I’ve been asked by customers about this and to be honest I’m not sure what the best thing to do is. You will understand I’m not too keen on albums being downloaded at the expense of shop sales. If you buy a CD from Avalanche there is a very good chance it will be from PIAS who are by far our largest supplier. Bon Iver, Frightened Rabbit, Twilight Sad, Broken Records, Beirut, National, Mogwai, the entire Chemikal Underground catalogue we stock, Bonnie Prince Billy, Pavement, Sebadoh, Smog. Silver Jews, James Yorkston, King Creosote (some titles), Pixies, Slint, Big Black, White Stripes, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada etc etc etc. You get the idea.

Exactly which of the PIAS labels will end up needing help I’ve no idea. The Beggars group who lost the most have said they will probably cope the best as they are a global concern now. I don’t think they would want somebody to go out of their way to buy one of their albums at the expense of some small struggling non PIAS label. Best thing I can suggest is buy independent labels’ releases and most of the time you will be supporting PIAS. Buy from an independent shop and you are supporting both the shop and independent labels. WIN/WIN as far as I can see. We were lucky in that three large boxes arrived from PIAS just before the fire so we have a reasonable amount of stock for now.

Without a doubt there will be people on all sides who will just see this as an opportunity for publicity and sales. Such is the world we live in.