Inside The Label: Anchor Brain

Some of the Internet’s effects on the music world are undeniable. More than ever before, it’s easier to share/steal music. Direct communication between bands and their fans has become the norm, not the exception. And music has manifested itself into an invisible product - it’s no longer only confined to physical forms like compact discs and vinyl records.

One thing that’s still not yet certain, though, is what effect the Internet will ultimately have on one other major pillar: local music scenes. Are cities’ own indie circles evaporating thanks to global interconnectivity? Are bands having to spend so much time on the road in order to survive that they’re unable to foster local followings at home?

Take Seattle grunge or Chapel Hill indie-rock, for example: Would those movements have happened if those bands had had resources like MySpace pages, Web sites (and Pro Tools, for that matter) at their disposal? Would the bands have found that they also had much in common with bands in other cities, making it less important to act locally?

And that’s not to mention that some musicians don’t even have to be in the same place to be a band anymore. For example, we recently spoke with one group, Cougar, whose five bandmembers live in multiple cities, and who craft most of their material remotely.

On the other hand, as we discussed yesterday in our interview with the Horse’s Ha, there are some “magical” places, like Chicago, where music scenes are very much intact, despite the boom in technology. Brooklyn also comes to mind. Some bands find that having a local community fosters innovation and collaboration, and provides them unique ways of, well, “banding” together.

That’s also the case in another, smaller market: Providence, Rhode Island. It’s there that an artist collective is taking a whole new approach to surviving in the digital era: by combining the power of the Internet with the power of the local community.

Welcome to Anchor Brain, the brand-new home of Providence’s gritty dance post-punks the Chinese Stars, video artists Sensitive Hearts and confrontational synth-skronk legends Six Finger Satellite. These bands aren’t just “on” the label - they are the label. The employees and clients are one in the same.

By relying upon the artists’ various talents - and by developing some creative new marketing and sales strategies - they’re getting rid of middlemen like A&R reps and product managers, and DIY’ing it in a whole new way.

“The goal is to bring Providence bands into Anchor Brain and that they’ll be part of the label so everyone will be invested in it,” vocalist for the Chinese Stars (and formerly Arab on Radar) Eric Paul told IndiePit yesterday. “So it wouldn’t just be, ‘We’re going to sign you.’ We want it to be a more cooperative effort. We’re all in it together.”

We’re hesitant to call Paul the label’s chief because, well, the members of the Anchor Brain collective don’t have job titles. That said, a new loft space he just bought is doubling as the label’s HQ, so he’s the one holding down the fort, both literally and figuratively.

When we spoke with Paul, it was obvious that the label is still getting its sea legs. While the first Anchor Brain releases have been lined up, as well as the label’s digital and vinyl distributors, Paul had just met with someone to discuss packaging methods and freely admitted that “some of this hasn’t been mapped out.”

But set in stone was the Anchor Brain mission statement, which Paul described as follows: Bands spend their own money - or get financial help from other members of the collective - to record their music. Then it’s incumbent upon them (and Anchor Brain) to recoup the costs. Additional profits can be used toward the band’s next record - or to give a boost to one of the collective’s more developing artists.

“The kind of music we make, we know there’s not a lot of money in it - and we’re not really so much interested in that anyway,” he said. “It’s more about having this medium to keep putting out music.”

Just as Paul is thinking realistically in terms of how much money the underground bands have the ability to make, he’s also thinking small in terms of the collective’s size.

“The goal of it is to keep it rather small in terms of the number of people involved. It’s more or less about having a home for the rest of the Chinese Stars and Six Finger Satellite records, and then any new bands that come onboard, setting up a camp for them. But it’ll probably stay to Providence-related bands and stay to bands that we feel comfortable with.

“[Another] goal is for the first two records [by 6FS and CS] to do kinda well, so we have a good starting point.”

Once that foundation is laid, the idea is that the Chinese Stars and Six Finger Satellite will have the financial ability to bring new bands into the collective. And as those younger acts come in, it would be up to them to decide if they want to reinvest their profits in a future record or in other Anchor Brain talent.

In some senses, these communal aspects of being in an artist collective - like pooling resources and sharing talents - aren’t entirely new to Paul. He was also involved in Fort Thunder, a previous Providence artist collective that was based at a large loft and where bands silkscreened their own records. From the mid-’90s until 2001, the venue was the linchpin of the city’s independent-music scene, hosting gatherings, concerts and more offbeat forms of entertainment, like Halloween mazes and masked wrestling.

And Fort Thunder wasn’t just a destination - it was also an actual place of residence for bands like noisemakers Arab on Radar and Lightning Bolt.

“Providence got really well-known for having Fort Thunder and a lot of the artists that came out of it, so we’re trying to bring back that era” with Anchor Brain, Paul declared.

One of the ways Paul hopes to reanimate the Providence underground and help its artists get exposure beyond the city is by applying one of Fort Thunder’s distinctive traits to Anchor Brain.

“Silkscreening has been a big thing here in the city. Our Arab on Radar records were all done on hand [at Fort Thunder]. That was a pretty unique time, and we’re thinking about revisiting that. It’s getting harder and harder for people to buy music instead of stealing it, so we figure if we put [in] a little more care, maybe people wouldn’t look at it as a simple prepackaged thing. Maybe they’ll want to own it.”

The silkscreens aren’t just limited to music, either. Anchor Brain also plans to put out limited-edition silkscreen posters that contain download codes for records. Also in the works is a subscription model, through which the label would issue demos, four-track recordings, outtakes and other obscure material that would appeal to the diehard fans.

“Six Finger Satellite has a bunch of four-track studio demos and stuff,” Paul said. “We thought about releasing that just in a digital format to subscribers. Not too expensive, but a few bucks, like, ‘Here you go, you get the outtakes.’ ”

Another plan is for a series that would dissect how a song was made by presenting the track in its various stages of development, from its earliest incarnation through to its final recording.

Anchor Brain’s creative approach to figuring out new incentives for fans to buy music reminds us a whole lot of what another recently featured “Inside the Label” subject, Pirates Press Records, is doing with their various puzzles, holographic gatefolds and other innovations. Also, like I’m Better Than Everyone Records, who we also profiled recently, AB has no plans to release CDs.

But the Anchor Brain model seems like it could not be more different than a strategy pursued by another recent focus of the IndiePit Blog: Renminbi. By releasing the digital version of their new Surface EP for free, the New York trio are hoping to gain a wider audience that will ultimately prove rewarding in the long run.

Contrast that with Anchor Brain’s mission, which is in part “to curb the rampant downloading theft of independent music and reaffirm the respect that listeners once had for the blood, sweat and tears that went into making records.”

At present, members of the Anchor Brain collective are in the process of pouring their BS&T into the label’s first triptych of releases, which are due in October. Paul went into detail about them for IndiePit (and allowed us, regardless of the above paragraph, to post some free downloads).

Six Finger Satellite’s A Good Year for Hardness:

Almost 20 years after forming, 6FS are now reassembled and ready to wreak havoc on eardrums all over again. This year, they put out the rarities collection Half Control on Load Records, but now they have new stuff up their collective sleeve.

“Very, very in-your-face freak-rock,” Paul said about their upcoming full-length. “It has a no-bullshit sound. Mostly heavy guitar and fuzzy bass.”

Lending her vocals is Rebecca Mitchell from Made in Mexico, another Providence band. To give you an idea of the incestuousness of the city’s underground scene, MiM features Arab on Radar guitarist Jeff Schneider. (Stay tuned for our soon-to-be-published interview with all four members of Made in Mexico.)

“Rebecca sounds fucking great on the record,” Paul said.

Download “Wilson P.,” which sounds more upbeat, clean and dancey than what we’re used to hearing from 6FS:

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(Coincidentally, it even sounds like furious frontman J. Ryan is saying, “I’ve got an anchor in my brain,” right around the 0:38 mark.)

The Chinese Stars‘ Heaven on Speed Dial:

The band’s third record “summons some of the old, noisier vibe of our older material,” Paul said. “It’s mostly synth and guitar, very little bass guitar. We have no guests, just the crazy voices in our heads.”

Reaction to some of the leaked material has been strong over at the Three One G forum.

Download “Rabbit Face,” a smoking rock track that many fans of Paul have been likening to his older Arab on Radar material:

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Sensitive Hearts‘ “The Video Drum Machine” DVD:

The video will collect clips from the duo, who “make music and videos but not necessarily music videos,” according to their Anchor Brain bio. Paul said Sensitive Hearts are also putting the finishing touches on a yet-untitled record that’s slated for a winter release.

Download the Hearts’ “Scratchy,” a tongue-in-cheek track about a dog (and a guy) named Scratchy. The mystical voyage is heavy on electronic elements but also weaves in some acoustic guitar:

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“And from there, we’ve been talking to other bands in Providence, but nothing has been agreed upon,” he said.

Don’t miss these previous installments of “Inside the Label”:

Pirates Press Records
I’m Better Than Everyone Records
Bloodshot Records
ADD Records
Prosthetic Records
Ipecac Recordings