Avalanche Future Plans – Label, History of Scottish Music Centre + more !

While most of this will not be new to regular readers or followers I wanted to put everything in one place if for no other reason than to remind myself to get on with things. Firstly that send some of Avalanche’s best selling albums over the last few years to some of the best shops in the world idea. First mooted several years ago now the original plan to send CDs has now changed to also sending vinyl and using the Avalanche label when necessary to make these albums available on vinyl. There is a great affection for Scottish bands all over the world and this combined with Avalanche’s reputation has meant that we have an impressive list of shops I know will support these albums if we can get them to them.

The plan is to press 500 vinyl and give 100 to shops worldwide free of charge. Another 100 will be given to the band and the remaing 300 will be sold to pay for the venture. It will generate worldwide publicity for the bands and of course the hope is that some of the albums take off and shops will need more. While manufacuring costs can be covered a sponsor is really needed to pay for the shipping. If bands already have vinyl that can be worked with too. Originally only for artists who self distributed I think the net would now be thrown wider. 

Secondly I would like to put together a comprehensive collection of Scottish bands old and new all for sale in one place. This could not be done under normal shop terms as the vast majority of titles simply don’t sell quickly enough to remotely justify being stocked on CD or vinyl. Old releases will be actively sought out and sold at lower margins if necessary. Again for this to be viable it would need financial support. Certainly if there was demand for an old title we could use the label for that and the Scars album on vinyl and CD is a good example of something we are already looking at as a possiblity.

This last idea fits very well with the plans for a History of Scottish Music Centre and/or Exhibition. This has been covered before in a previous blog and been widely acclaimed though it does to some extent mean different things to different people. Several parties have shown an interest and I’ve even had preliminary talks with a number of museums about what material they have that might be of use but for now I’ll continue with the idea and if others get involved at a later date that can be only be good. It is an idea I see gradually growing and in the first instance I think a pop up is possible showcasing what might be done.

I’m very interested in talking to others who would like to get involved with any of the projects as clearly there is a lot to be done here and probably most importantly given none of these ideas are huge cash generators what is needed most are sponsors and investors. Clearly all these projects would be suitable for crowd funding but I would like to see what other interest there is first. Several years in the planning everything is now ready to go and hopefully will start to move forward very soon but that can only happen with support. [email protected]

http://www.avalancherecords.co.uk/2014/12/17/the-scottish-contemporary-poprock-music-centre/