It's Here! 3-Way Singles Club Volume 21!

Click on the pic to get the goods! FREE DOWNLOAD today!

Hello once again, and thank you for joining us for this 21st edition of ITAV's long-running 3-Way Singles Club! We try to have lots of firsts, so here are a few: first and foremost, Vol. 21 represents the first project -- ever -- in ITAV's catalog to have originated entirely outside of the Great Lakes State!

Secondly, we are quite pleased to release the debut single from '78 Camaro, the latest project of Phil Avalos, whose guitars and songwriting have graced many past projects like The Quiet Lanes (who appeared on our first ever release, the out-of-print First Hand Accounts compilation), Sometimes Seven, and Jet Lag Superstar (who graced Vol. 5 of the 3WSC). '78 Camaro continues a long thread of "classic" indie rock in Avalos' musical career, that hackneyed term referring to the joyful DIY years of labels like Merge and Touch And Go, whose inspiration can be directly credited for what ITAV tries to do.

We're also pretty excited to showcase Drum Kit, a band fronted by former Michigander Aaron Nemec (whose former nomme de plume "Animal" also had a track on First Hand Accounts). Here, Drum Kit delivers the clattering bedroom rock of "When All Your Weed Is Gone," a song whose detail is belied by a lo-fi approach. It's so good to travel full circle with musicians like Aaron and Phil, to check in on what they're doing currently and to fill your ear-holes with their distinctive brands of din.

Phil, in fact, introduced us to The Lost Ambitions, who make their first appearance on an ITAV release here -- the third and final first represented by Vol. 21 -- and we couldn't be more pleased to make their acquaintance and deliver the fabulous "Little Lies" directly to you.

Thank you so much for listening, and stay tuned to here for upcoming news and our next moves! Don't hesitate to share links to these songs, music is for hearing!

October 2nd Release Date for 3-Way Singles Club Volume 21!

This is a public service announcement to let you know: 3-Way Singles Club Volume 21 will be released on Tuesday, October 2!  Featuring an all-Hoosier cast, Vol. 21 marks the first time that an ITAV release hasn't had at least one Michigan artist on it (although we claim Drum Kit's Aaron Nemec as a Michigander... so there!)

Brand new glorious tracks from The Lost Ambitions, Drum Kit, and '78 Camaro!

3-Way Singles Club Vol. 20 Released Today!

One of three 3-artist singles vying for release this summer, Volume 20 gathers together some of my oldest musical friends in one place!

[ click the pic to be transported directly there ]

Sam Corbin, whose song "Election Day" exhorts us to civic duty even while it underscores the corruptions and negligence that can frustrate us into complacency, also had the closing track on It Takes A Village's first-ever release, the 20-song CD-only compilation "First Hand Accounts, Theories, And Their Repercussions," which was released in 2006 (ltd. ed. of 1,000, sold out, sorry!).  Since then he's gigged and played consistently, dived deeper into Americana with his fantastic "Michigan Waltz" album, and gotten married.  I met Sam through my friend Daryl Dizon, who brought him by so I could do a little layout help on his first album and we've worked together periodically ever since.  Once again, he provides the musical punctuation mark with some elegant fingerpicking and a message that stays true.

By the way, TODAY August 6 IS AN ELECTION DAY, local stuff (the important stuff!) -- go vote!

Joshua Davis, whose solo career has blossomed alongside a longstanding engagement as the guitarist/singer of Lansing-based Steppin' In It, has released three albums worth of original material, including his latest "A Miracle Of Birds," which was written in Palestine during a long visit while he immersed himself in music and the challenges of helping forge peace in the region.  I have many memories with Josh, but here are a two of them:  1) The night of my graduation from college, I threw a party at my house and invited Steppin' In It to come play. They had a paying gig somewhere, so they let me know it was an outside chance.  The party wound down as it got dark outside and I assumed that their gig had run late or they were too tired to come... but I was wrong! About midnight the band set up in my side yard, with founding fiddle player Jonathan Price still along with them.  Bassist Dominic John (currently in Jack White's band) steadied his upright on a tree-ringed slice of wood.  Due to the late hour and the mixed nature of my neighborhood, they played the quietest set I've ever seen them play, mellow and magic.  2) It came time for my wife and I to move, somewhat suddenly and unexpectedly, from our apartment. We were not really financially prepared for it, and had lots of artwork and other stuff to deal with, so the Toyota we shared was not going to be adequate for all that we had to move. I called some friends, but with fuel prices rising and rising, it seemed no one owned trucks anymore! So I put out a general call for help, and Josh responded right away -- yes, we could borrow Steppin' In It's tour van, a big Econoline.  So we carefully moved all our stuff with the van AND with Josh's vintage left-handed guitars in hardshell cases still inside it, all for the price of a tank of gas.  Now Steppin' In It harmonica player/multi-instrumentalist Andy Wilson lives directly across the street from me, and I get to see that van pretty often.  Always makes me smile.

Generosity, friendship, and trust characterizes everyone represented on this Volume of the series.  I first met Carmen Paradise of The Marvins through some mutual friends, and later frequented her hair salon on Michigan Avenue.  It was great to see her and Peter Marvin (from a band called With Special Guest that practiced next to my friend Tom's house) fall in love and get married, become instructors at The School Of Rock in Detroit, and begin making music together as The Marvins.  Just this past month they pulled up their roots in Michigan and moved to Oregon, selling their house here and closing on a new one there the same day. I wish them tons of luck and happiness in their new home; but boy are we going to miss them back here.

I hope you enjoy the sounds of old friends making finely-crafted acoustic music as much as I do.  Please feel free to share these songs on your blog or social network, I think they make the ideal companions on soft summer nights!

New 3-Way Singles In The Works!

I've just finished the artwork for an unprecedented all-Indiana 3-Way Single, featuring The Lost Ambitions, '78 Camaro, and Drum Kit.  Expect indie rock in heroic doses!

We have a few singles in production right now, each vying for which will be released first: will it be the one described above (and by the way that "river" shape started life as a photo of a lightning bolt!), or will it be the contemporary americana and folk of Sam Corbin, The Marvins, and Joshua Davis?  Then again, could it be the ear-scarring dirges of American Gothic, BerT, and So Long Naota?

It remains to be seen. Drink plenty of water and get some fresh air so you'll be in tip-top shape when the next release drops.  And thank you for joining us for this musical hike.

Regardless of who gets out of the gate first, we've got some great songs lined up and are putting the finishing touches and final polish on a great collection of summer music that spans the gulf between endearing duo folk and paint-melting noise rock. Its a unique honor to curate such an open-minded (and open-ended) series, and I look forward to unveiling each installment as it comes to fruition.  This is an artist-driven project and nothing is more satisfying than hearing the results of creativity unfettered by the usual music biz bullshit.

Of course, I take special pleasure in doing the artwork (minus some occasional great guest artists like John Praw).  In my cluttered office garret in leafy Lansing, Michigan, I collage, I color, and I daydream of you out there beyond the electrons, stumbling across a song or an artist and finding in it a new best friend.  Music is a lifelong romance.

-- Peter

3WSC Volume 19 Has Arrived!

...and without further ado, we invite you to grab something solid and click on the album cover to the right of these words.  Brace yourself for three brand new tracks from the likes of Honah Lee, Language, and Decades!

Mega-Subscribers, your songs are cozily nestled in your subscription folder! (What's a "mega-subscriber?"  See the sidebar on the right of this page.)

Want to share a link with friends or on your own blog?  Here: http://music.itavrecords.com/album/3-way-singles-club-vol-19

Funny story, when I first posted these songs earlier today, I quickly got a note from Honah Lee's Tim Hoh indicating that their track was sounding wack.  Well, I don't pretend to know everything, and today that was brought into sharp relief as one of the great mysteries of audio mastering was made known to me:

Nearly everything we've put out in the last two years has been mastered at 44.1 kHz, a fact that had remained vague to me because of its very ubiquity.  But Honah Lee's track (clearly marked in sharpie on the CD-R, no less) was provided to me at a higher resolution 48 kHz.  Not really understanding the difference, I ftp'd the audio file over to Mohnish Das to master in the scrupulous manner that he's been doing since Volume 10.  I didn't include that vital bit of information, thus setting off the chain of events that led to Tim's e-mail.  A quick phone call to New Jersey brought the issue to light: the track was about 12 seconds longer, and slower, due to being mastered at 44.1 kHz along with the other two songs.  Everything was pitched down slightly.  The song's original breakneck tempo sounded like it had been enjoying some of Lil Wayne's fabled purple drank.

Mohnish immediately set to work on a fix, and since he wisely keeps notes of his mastering settings, we were able to have the corrected track back up by this evening.  Thus the disabled download for part of this afternoon, and I apologize for any inconvenience that may have caused.

But you didn't know that about audio mastering either, did you?  Or, maybe you did?  Looking at It Takes A Village's subscriber list it strikes me that some of you probably did.  You're an erudite lot.  Well, now I do too.  I have to admit, I mostly understand now, it's all still a little fuzzy as to what the difference is.  And I even read Tape Op!  I apologize to Honah Lee for almost releasing a compromised version of their song, they were very gracious about it.  Tragedy narrowly averted.

People could assume that because I'm behind the scenes, I know how to do everything involved in putting professional quality music out. The truth is, I couldn't do it without a lot of help.  I'm good at organizing projects and bringing them to fruition, but without all the talented musicians and engineers that have taken part in the 3-Way Singles Club none of this would happen -- at least not at the level we've been able to maintain.  Today we released the 55th, 56th, and 57th singles in the series -- that's as many songs as Heinz Ketchup has varieties of pickles.

Learning is a process, we are never experts.

Rather than crippling, I find that epiphany inspiring.  There's no reason that anyone can't make great recordings if they are starting with the most important ingredient: great songs.  My own flounderings in my home studio recording as Stargrazer with my 4-track and Garageband have evolved from "unlistenable" to "charmingly lo-fi" in a relatively short amount of time.  With continued good fortune, good teachers, and yes even hiccups and mistakes, I hope to improve my personal skills and knowledge; and I'm grateful not only for the vast supporting cast that makes It Takes A Village Possible but also for the people who listen and for those who eagerly anticipate our next offering.

More about that later.  Go rock out to the new single.

3-Way Singles Club Volume 19 drops April 2nd!

We have a tendency to seemingly go dormant, and then come storming back as projects come to fruition.  "Storming back" is perhaps the perfect description of Volume 19 of the 3-Way Singles Club, which will be released Tuesday April 2nd!  Featuring brand new tracks from Trenton, New Jersey pop punkers Honah Lee, moodier post-punk propulsion from Lansing's Language, and a rocking self-dissection from the increasingly hard to pigeonhole indie punk band Decades (also from Lansing), Volume 19 of the series is a rush of energy that never lets up.

My own contribution to things is often in the form of artwork, which I usually complete in advance of receiving any of the songs, sometimes as a spur to bring the project to completion and sometimes as a teaser for those of you out in the internet hinterlands -- a sort of flier tacked to the weathered telephone pole of this blog, on its own little patch of street corner in a backwater of the world wide web.  In the case of Volume 19, I took some visual cues from PiL's "Second Edition" version of Metal Box, using a blurred photo of something vaguely resembling a face made of smoke (it may actually be the pull-cord of some venetian blinds) that I snapped the very day I got my first new digital camera, maybe 10 years ago.  I still have that camera, even though these days my wife's phone takes way better pictures.

What the photo truly is, I don't remember, but I walked around the house I shared with 3 roommates snapping away at lampshades, plastic skeletons, wallpaper textures and closeups of paint cracks.  I took nearly a hundred shots, and I still pull from that batch of photos frequently for abstract fliers or digital collages.  On reflection, maybe the art is a little dour for the music within? But these are the risks of creating cover art in advance, as my own visual "song" to add to the proceedings, and I accept those risks.

Without any communication between bands, as is (surprisingly) often the case, a loose concept develops over the arc of this little three song mixtape.  Honah Lee's "The Accommodator" offers to shape to any of the listener's desires, a hyperspeed offer of complete (and quite probably, disingenuous) codependency replete with gang-choruses through what sounds like a taxi dispatcher's microphone.  In fact, a second listen proves that the song has nearly the opposite meaning.  A friend of Honah Lee's described the overall sound of their newest songs as "Green Day being butt-fucked by the Foo Fighters," which may be more crass than the measured prose we typically use here at It Takes A Village To Make Records, but, oh well, it fits.  Language responds with "Limits," a metaphoric landscape of guitar chime, speed limits, and dissolving boundaries.  Musically, it's a churning diorama of motion-blurred headlight rivers and cities streaming by, while Christopher Minarek sings "who knows where the city goes when I'm with you?"  Beneath, it melts away into disintegrating guitar textures and a galvanic bass line.  Decades caps the three songs with "Piling It On," a personal and impassioned inspection of experience as the greatest teacher, and of physical and emotional distance as a tonic to past relationships.  From frank and confessional, conversational singing to a throaty howl, "Piling It On" moves on in a crunching and melodic way that steps through several mutations of its song form before gently landing on a slightly resigned, slightly relieved note. 

So there it is.  A preview in words of what you can expect in sounds, and we're excited to post the link for you to hear it in its unvarnished glory one week from tomorrow!

Artwork For Upcoming Releases!

Here is the artwork for our next three releases in the 3-Way Singles Club.  Over the last few months we've transitioned the series out of being on a strict monthly schedule and into a project-by-project schedule.  Each of these releases is well underway, and they'll all be dropping late winter/early spring!

BerT
American Gothic
Unworship

Joshua Davis
The Marvins
Sam Corbin

Honah Lee
Language
Decades

We Are Back. Did You Know We Left?

It is with relief and elation that ITAV returns to the internet, after a prolonged and unplanned hiatus that began last October.  Many a hiatus occurs over something like lack of funds or "artistic differences" or even just simple ennui, but in our case it was a literal miracle:

My good friend Ande was diagnosed with a genetic polycystic kidney disease when we were about 14.  He was on a class trip and took a tumble down a steep hillside and got a little banged up, and in the process of checking him out and patching him up, they discovered the cysts.  This led to his mom also being diagnosed -- she had been living with the condition, unaware of it because it hadn't presented itself yet.  Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) leads to eventual kidney failure, usually around the age of 40 or 50, but it could be that Ande's injury back in 1987 accelerated his condition a bit, and this past summer he went into kidney failure.  Due to his blood type, his wait for a transplant would have been 7-8 years, a virtual death sentence.  Several people volunteered to be tested as a possible match, but my wife was the first and she was a positive match!

We began making preparations for the transplant in February of 2013, but, surprise, it was scheduled for October 19 of 2012!  We arrived at the transplant center at U of M Hospital around 5:30 AM that morning, and by 7:45 Randi was being prepped for surgery.  By about 10:45 her kidney had been removed, and about 3 hours later it was in Ande and had begun processing the built up toxins in his body.

The next two months were a long, slow period of recovery, but both patients were doing well.  I played nurse, helping her stand up and get back into her coccoon on our couch, administering medications, running errands, and cooking.  My employers generously let me take two weeks off, which let me be with her 24-7.  Many friends came by to visit, bring food, cards, artwork, music and other things.  It was like being in an envelope of love and hope.

Randi has been back to work for about a month now, and Ande for a little longer.  ITAV took a couple extra weeks to reorganize, but we have re-entered the fray with Volume 18 of the 3-Way Singles Club, which can be streamed or downloaded here:  http://music.itavrecords.com/album/3-way-singles-club-vol-18

The single features an exclusive version of Wisconsin indie band Pushmi-Pullyu's song "I'm In Love Again," captured in a crystalline live rendition.  Also appearing is a fantastic neo-soul tune, "Never Noticed" by Surgeons In Heat, a band that shares members with the more indie-folk inclined Pioneer, who you might remember backed up Small Houses on their great reading of Paleo's "There, At The Top Of The Stairs" all the way back on 3WSC Vol. 10.  "Never Noticed" first appeared on their self-titled album back in April, which you can hear in its entirety here.  Closing out this edition is the first musical offering of 3 Trains And Me, a collaboration helmed by longtime Lansing-area musician and musical supporter Augustine Jay.  Here he works with members of Narc Out The Reds and The Hat Madder to hatch a slide guitar-infused piece of dark swampy blues called "Born Under."  A pretty fantastic triad of songs, if I do say so.

It also features a brand new piece of exclusive artwork made for us by John Praw of Pushmi-Pullyu.

This follows the equally exciting raw nugget  of rock power we released in October, 3WSC Vol. 17, which featured great songs from the rising Racket Ghost, pulsating angularities by the Mind Guards, and a left-field piece of gospel lo-fi from Chaz Brackx and The Big Bucks.  Go get it here: http://music.itavrecords.com/album/3-way-singles-club-vol-17

Along with change of the life-altering variety comes, well, more change.  The 3-Way Singles Club began in May of 2011 as a monthly series, "3 songs, 3 bands, 3 bucks."  Proceeds from the sales of the series and the Mega-Subscription (see the sidebar on this page, to your right) have helped to generate a fund called the Independent Musicians Fund, which currently holds $229.72 -- not a princely sum, but impressive in its own right as it was generated solely through the sale of independent music.  The IMF continues to be a sacrosanct fund for independent musicians, see the tab above to learn more about what it does, and why.

Where the change occurs in the 3-Way Singles Club is not in its priorities -- great songs in groups of three, benefiting the very community that they came from -- but rather in its scheduling.  Rather than be a metronomic monthly installment, the series will transform into a project-by-project event, allowing artists greater freedom to make bold statements without the artificially imposed pressure of the monthly deadline.  We look forward to bringing you the best exclusive songs we can find, in manageable bite-size capsule form, to be taken as needed when you have a fever for great new sounds from hard-working artists who labor without the benefit of media attention or large promotional budgets.  Thank you for accompanying us as we continue this journey!  And stay tuned for announcements.

The Perils Of Expectation / The Tyranny Of Time

Into every two-year long project, a little chaos must creep...

There are many, many challenges to coordinating a multi-faceted project like the 3-Way Singles Club, and if ITAV had an intern, no one would ever feel their effects!  But we don't, so you do.

Many of you have been waiting patiently for the unveiling of 3-Way Singles Club Vol. 17, the September edition of the series featuring three artists we are very partial towards: Racket Ghost (who play tonight, at Mac's Bar, by the way, with The Plurals, Decades, and Honah Lee, oh my!), Chaz Brackx and the Big Bucks, and The Mind Guards.  Since we released it stealthily, with no mention, on the 30th, you may not be aware that you can experience it here.

Well, mostly.  If you are a member of the 3WSC Mega-Subscription, you'll know that the new songs haven't made their way into your subscription package yet.  And if you're sharp-eyed, you'll see two things about the single in its present state that are... well, obstacles.

First:  You can't download or purchase the tracks.  Yet.  But you can stream them, enjoy them, share them, etc.  This will be rectified when the single is complete, which brings us to...

Second:  There are only two songs!  So far.  There have been some technical difficulties that have stopped us from posting the Chaz Brackx song yet -- but we're just about through remedying the minor issues that have held up the song.  The comparative simplicity of the fix was complicated by conflicting work schedules and life interference.  Small things, really, but worth the time.

I'm grateful for your patience, and honestly just this side of thrilled that our first major hiccup of any noticeable scale took over a year and a half to occur!  All the artists of the 3WSC are donating their time and talents, and in most cases giving us completely exclusive material; so we are also very honored by that.  We're taking advantage of the delay to work ahead on the series, and if you've been visiting the 3-Way Singles Club Page you'll see that many exciting and interesting additions have appeared in the last few weeks.  There should be a more comprehensive schedule as time allows.

I hope this addresses any concerns that might be floating around out there, and I assure you that as soon as the final piece drops into place, we will give this excellent single the fanfare it deserves!  And it will magically appear for subscribers.

I wanted to acknowledge everyone's patience and let you know what was happening.  This should be an isolated occurrence if all else goes as planned.  Please never hesitate to let me know if you are having issues with any aspect of the 3WSC, or if you'd like to get involved somehow.

Peter
The ITAV guy.

October Artwork Preview!

Although the elk is probably my favorite ungulate, it was an honor to work with this moose to create a spectral, time-shifting apparition or manitou for next month's 3-Way Single, which will feature heaviness from Madlantis Records' flagship band BerT, noisy hardcore/hardy noisecore from Lansing eardrum destroyers American Gothic, and a mystery band (dubbed "Golden Rulers" below, however it is possible that their name could change several times in the next few weeks).  The Plague Years were originally, tentatively slotted onto this single but couldn't participate this time around -- we look forward to working with them down the road a ways, as they are an amazing band.

 

October's single will be a ferociously grounding slab of heaviness, something we've been wanting to bring to the 3-Way Singles series for a long time now.  We're developing the next 12 months worth of singles, and welcome your suggestions and recommendations of artists to invite!  Thanks for having open ears... 

(and you can visit this moose skeleton in person at the Chicago Field Museum, hyperspace portal not included).

Psychedelic Back-to-School Special!

We're gearing up to release Volume 17 of the 3-Way Singles Club, this time out featuring brand new exclusive tracks from The Mind Guards, Racket Ghost, and Chaz Brackx And The Big Bucks.

While the back-to-school theme is mostly a jest among the artists and myself, the songs do have a certain grainy vigor that might, uh, stimulate some brain cells or be the perfect accompaniment for... studying.  Yeah, studying.

Release date TBA -- if you know us, we'll spring this one on you in the dead of night, about a week and a half from now.  Those of you who are members of the 3-Way Singles Club Mega Subscription (see the sidebar to your right) will have the new songs magically appear, and for anyone else everything will be easily accessible here.

Volume 16 of the 3-Way Singles Club!

Last night we were honored to have an interview slot and spin some songs on WDBM 88.9 FM The Impact. We debuted two new songs by Middleman and Regretters, and also played hot tracks by The People's Temple, Drinking Mercury, Calliope, CrookedSound, Small Houses with Pioneer, and Jory Stultz.

It was good to meet Kyle, the new host of The Basement, and to run into Language and Racket Ghost on my way out of the studio. They were there to promote Language's new E.P. and also their show together with The People's Temple and Decades next Thursday at The Loft.

Racket Ghost, by the way, will be on next month's 3-Way split with The Mind Guards and Chaz Brackx!

So, click on that graphic above to be whisked away to our latest single, featuring brand new exclusive songs from Jake Simmons & The Little Ghosts, Regretters, and Middleman.

Or just click here.

Cover Art For The Next 3-Way Single REVEALED!

...and it's equal parts Julian House/Ghost Box and the Germs' (MIA)!  I can't tell you how excited I am to unleash this 3-song split.  Coming to speakers near YOU later this month.

3-Way SIngles Club Vol. 15 Is Freshly Published!

Featuring incandescent new tracks from Jory Stultz, Firebrands Of The Revolution, and The Break-Ups, Volume 15 of the series sounds like a great radio station and dovetails perfectly with the sunlight, cool breezes, and 70-80 degree weather that has been plaguing Lansing!

Welcome aboard if you're new here, click on the link below to get the goods!

http://music.itavrecords.com/album/3-way-singles-club-vol-15

Next month's single features more brand-new exclusive music from Middleman, Jake Simmons & The Little Ghosts, and Regretters!

3-Way Singles Club, Volume 15!

Coming soon (since the clock is ticking on July 2012), we'll have brand new exclusive songs from GTG Recordings' The Break-Ups, as well as Firebrands Of The Revolution (the solo project of Luke Schmidt from the mighty XU) and Jory Stultz (formerly of The Sunset Club).  Wow. 

Keep your ears peeled for these sonic capsules of pure, unadulterated music.  And remember what David Crosby says on his masterful and ghostly 1971 elegy for the hippie dream If I Could Only Remember My Name, "music is love."

Everyone's saying it is.

3-Way Singles Club Volume 14 Arrives! FREE download til Tomorrow at Midnight.

Until tomorrow night at midnight, you (yes, you!) can help yourself to a free download of brand new, exclusive music from Calliope, Curent, and Stargrazer!

Right here.

And even after the bell tolls midnight tomorrow, rest easy in the knowledge that your purchase of the single or of the Mega-Subscription (see the right hand sidebar of this page) goes to support the Independent Musicians Fund.

We're honored by your continued patronage, and hope you have a fantastic summer!

Artwork for the June 3-Way Single!

Imagine yourself night swimming, underwater in Lake Michigan.  You break the surface to see Ursa Majoris overhead...

Featuring brand new tracks from East Lansing indie space-rock legends Calliope, the debut offering from Auburn Lull spinoff project Curent, and a freshly written and recorded track from Stargrazer (full disclosure, Stargrazer = me), 3-Way Singles Club Volume 14 (!) will drop Tuesday, May 19 -- and will be a FREE download until midnight May 20!  Wowee Zowee!

Mega-subscription members will see these three brand new tracks magically appear overnight.  For the rest of the world population, we will publish the link to stream/download the tracks here on this blog as well as through our Facebook presence.  Boom shacka lacka boom.  Thanks for being along for the ride!

3-Way Singles Club, Volume 13 Drops Today!

Three brand new, exclusive tracks by Sylvan Lanes (a.k.a. Matthew Milia of Frontier Ruckus), Gifts Or Creatures, and White Pines... available as of right now!

With the release of Volume 13, we enter our second year of releasing an exclusive, 3-artist, 3-song triple digital single of brand new independent music every month! Thanks for being along for the ride. You can download/stream the latest single here: http://music.itavrecords.com/album/3-way-singles-club-volume-13

3-Way Singles Club Volume #13

It is with great excitement that we announce the next installment in the 3-Way Singles series, and the inaugural release of year #2 of issuing monthly 3-artist digital singles.  This Tuesday (May 22nd) the curtains will be drawn aside, and brand new tracks from Sylvan Lanes (which is Matt Milia of Frontier Ruckus' solo moniker), Gifts Or Creatures, and White Pines!

Early listens to these three tracks, hyperbole aside, promise impulsive stabbing of the repeat button during summer front porch reveries, tree-lined drives on nameless county roads, and reckless plunges into wooded pools from rope-swings of dubious structural integrity.  It's music to float in mid-air to -- however ephemeral such an experience may be; after letting go of the rope, time dilates infinitely into memory.

We had hoped to have this single out on the 15th, and in the interest of avoiding pretensions of being anything other than a small, hard-working label composed of one guy with a full-time day job, we shall blame the 7-day delay on some guy named Wayne.*


* There is no guy named Wayne.  Wayne is the personification of all the daily delays, technological inconveniences, accidental misinterpretations, lost e-mails, and unplanned naps that conspire to sideline even the most committed projects.  We are at war with Wayne. 

3-Way Singles Club Volume 12! One Whole Year of Singles!!

With the release of Volume 12 of the 3-Way Singles Club series, we complete the first cycle of releasing 3 brand new, exclusive songs by 3 different independent artists every month, for a year!  This volume includes a fresh song from GTG Recordings' Drinking Mercury, as well as newly recorded material by Veloura Caywood, and Idaho-based Michigan expat Geistlos.

                     http://music.itavrecords.com/album/3-way-singles-club-volume-12                     

The 3-Way Singles Club is an effort to pioneer several musical models at once, while the industry proper flounders around trying to find a way to stay relevant as a gatekeeper between artists and audiences.  Increasingly, traditional labels and distribution models are falling by the wayside.  This can be a little sad to watch, as historic studios and beloved record shops close their doors.  There's a certain David-and-Goliath quality to it, though, too.  The stereotypes of the cigar-chomping corporate exec gunning for another mega hit; or of the "svengali" grooming impressionable, ambitious youngsters into a veritable brand name cash machine, are enduring images for a reason.  Those guys really exist.  But they've expense-accounted themselves right out of a profession, as artists and online resources have partnered to form effective direct-to-audience business models. 

Is there a happy medium?  Sure, and I think some of the smaller and medium labels are doing an excellent job of farming quality artists, giving them creative free rein, touring them diligently, and introducing new talent.  What the big guys should have been doing all along.  I frequently look to a label like Merge for inspiration, speaking personally.  I love their bands, I buy their records and CDs, and I read their book "Our Noise" and wanted to immediately climb in my car and go on tour.

The 3WSC (3-Way Singles Club) glances backward to the glory days of vinyl singles, when upstart labels would offer mail-order single-of-the-month clubs.  Every month, you could unwrap a brand new slab of black wax.  There was mystery, a sense of discovery, and the cachet of being in the know about the latest sounds.  The 3WSC is a contemporary variant, using the internet as its post office and digital files as its medium.  Artists record brand new songs, sometimes written specifically for the series, and bonus tracks or free downloads pepper things up for listeners keeping track.  The motto "3 songs, 3 bands, 3 bucks" encapsulates the basics of the club, though there is the option to subscribe to the 3WSC as a whole (see the sidebar to the right of this column), paying a flat fee of 30 bucks that unlocks the veritable Pandora's Box: to date 33 songs, 4 secret bonus tracks, and the 3 new songs listed in the first paragraph on the way any hour now!  As the 3WSC's catalog grows, the per-song investment diminishes.  Already, it's below the internet-wide standard of 99 cents per song, if you're of the accountant mindset.

Since last May we've released unheard music from Double Saginaw Familiarity, Joshua Barton, Stargrazer, RxGibbs, Rachel Yezbick, Lost Leaves, Narc Out The Reds, The Playback, The Hat Madder, The Plurals, Terminal Girls, Cavalcade, Frank And Earnest, Jet Lag Superstar, New Venice, Sleeping Timmy with Aly Rose, Flatfoot, Drunken Barn Dance, The Hunky Newcomers, Josh David & The Dream Jeans, Cat Midway, The People's Temple, Jackpine Snag, Nocturnal Aviators In Action, Seth Bernard, Steve Leaf, CrookedSound, Sunil Sawani, Teag & PK, Small Houses featuring Pioneer, Tin Window, Brooks Mosher, and Benoît Pioulard! 

Additionally, our second year is shaping up to be even more exciting than the first!  We'll kick things off in May with a three-fer from Sylvan Lanes (Matt Milia of Frontier Ruckus performing solo, just prior to the release of their brand new album Eternity Dimming!), Lansing's experimental folk duo Gifts Or Creatures, and Akron, OH-based White Pines (who just issued the marvelous Plume Of Ash E.P. on Yer Bird).  That's just the first month!  We have plans for great tracks from Calliope, The Break-Ups, The Mind Guards, Racket Ghost, Middleman, Regretters, Caleb Dillon (from the Bob Pollard-approved Starling Electric), Onondaga, and much more to follow over the course of year two!

So there's the ongoing effort to release three new songs per month.  There's the subscription deal, which gets more generous the more songs we release.  And finally, there's the tongue-in-cheekily dubbed IMF (Independent Musicians Fund), which is where all those 3-dollar download charges and 30-dollar subscriptions go.  The IMF is a sacrosanct fund set aside for musicians in need, to help defray the nickle-and-dime costs that can interrupt the flow of creativity.  Growing in small increments, the fund has worked its way into the triple digits, and our goal for 2012 is to triple the size of the fund.  What altruistic cause our independent panel of judges will choose to grant or loan the contents of the fund to remains unknown even to me (I've excused myself from the panel to avoid any perception of cronyism or conflict of interest); but we'll be getting to know our panelists and discussing more about how your support of the 3WSC feeds back into the musical community over the next 12 months.

It's with extreme gratitude and barely-restrained excitement that I embark on this coming year of music, and it has been so wonderful to have you along for the ride!

-- Peter