The industry is changing, but the bands play on

When Lynne Angel of the local band Tartufi was a kid, she wanted to be a rock star. "Def Leppard," she answers quickly in a phone interview from the Midwest, where she is on a two-month, 55-date tour of the country. "I definitely wanted to be Def Leppard."

Driving around the country in a van with only her bandmate, Brian Gorman, and without the financial support of a record label, Angel says she is living that dream. It's just that being a rock star doesn't mean handlers, limousines, buckets of advance cash from a record company or groupies. It means being able to tour the country and play music.

Thanks to MySpace, Tartufi has 18-year-old fans from Australia. The group also can pay for studio time and release albums themselves, and it even has a press agent to send out e-mails and letters. Like many bands, Tartufi doesn't expect to cover tour expenses through record sales in stores; they spread out their homemade T-shirts and CDs at concert merchandise tables and hope they get enough draw to stay out of debt.

"I don't want to sound like a douche, but really, I do feel like a rock star," Angel says. "I didn't expect to be able to do this, but we're doing it."

In some ways, options abound for today's striving musicians. But they face hard choices: If they aim for a major label and the reach it still provides, they may be signing away artistic control as well as the rights to their music. Going with an independent recording company can lend credibility and marketing support, but not much else. On the other hand, doing it all oneself is a full-time, unpaid job.

The democratization of production - anyone with a laptop, a microphone and a few programs can record a near studio-quality record - and, of course, the plethora of free downloads mean that while anything is possible, nothing is profitable. Today, most musicians can't count on selling records to make a living.

Reports of the demise of the recording industry are everywhere: According to Nielsen SoundScan, the 10 best-selling albums in the United States sold a combined 60 million copies in 2000; in 2006, it was down to 25 million. U.S. consumers bought 785.1 million albums in 2000; last year, they bought 588.2 million (a figure that includes both CDs and downloaded albums). More than 5,000 record label employees have been laid off since 2000. In 2006, the iconic Tower Records shut its doors and parent company, Music land, of the favorite mall store Sam Goody, filed for bankruptcy. Major labels have cut their band stables by a third, Recording Industry Association of America CEO Mitch Bainwol told Rolling Stone earlier this year.

Meanwhile, some of the biggest acts have been pursuing new roads to revenue. British band Radiohead made headlines last month for its two-pronged solution to this problem. They self-released their latest album, "In Rainbows," as a pay-what-you-want download, and simultaneously announced a pricey box set to be released in time for the holidays. Madonna recently eschewed a deal with her long-standing record company, Warner Music Group, to sign with Live Nation, a music promotions company, which signals an awareness that concerts and merchandise are the real money-makers. This past summer, Prince gave his album "Planet Earth" away for free in the United Kingdom, tucking it into a copy of the British tabloid Mail of Sunday and calling it "direct marketing."

Some, though, say major label decline isn't completely bad. "The positive aspect is that the fall of the record industry has weeded out a lot of the crap," says Live 105 DJ Aaron Axelson. "With the industry on the ropes and going through so many changes, it's about having momentum and development as a band, having substance already in place. It's going to help the consumer."

Independent labels have been building impressive rosters from local talent. San Francisco's SMC Recordings, for instance, has put out many of the hip-hop hyphy hits over the past few years. Absolutely Kosher Records, Birdman and Alternative Tentacles are three more prominent local indies that have stayed afloat while record sales drop.

To get a sense of how the changing business is affecting Bay Area musicians, The Chronicle talked to three different kinds of bands: Flipsyde, a hybrid hip-hop/rock act from Oakland signed to a major label; Wooden Shjips, a folk-psychedelic band that built a fan base and buzz by giving out free albums; and Thread Productions collective, a group of five bands, including Tartufi, that pooled their talents and time to better their situation.
The major label

When Oakland MC Jinho "Piper" Ferreira started writing songs with guitarist Steve Knight, he thought he was done with music. "I'd been rapping for 10 years and nothing was coming out of it," Ferreira says. But in 2003 when the duo met Dave Lopez, a Chilean guitar player who was working at their practice space, Oakland's Soundwave Studios, they all began jamming. Flipsyde, a Latin-rock-hip-hop hybrid, was born.

It was a quick trip from a jamming session to a major label contract. Within four months of a taped practice session, the band was standing in front of Interscope records honcho Jimmy Iovine and signed to an Interscope offshoot, Cherry Tree, on April 20, 2004.

Flipsyde's music combines so many appealing elements - hip-hop beats, Santana-like guitar work, politically charged lyrics, charismatic performers - it's not surprising a big studio could see broad appeal in their work.

They went into the studio immediately after signing, and then toured in Europe with Snoop Dogg. That led to tours with Black Eyed Peas, and then the rapper The Game. "We played so much in Europe, that in Italy and Germany people were recognizing us," Ferreira notes.

But, still, the record ("We the People") wasn't pushed hard in the United States, even though one song, "Someday," was chosen as the theme song for the 2006 Winter Olympics. The band suffered a big blow when Eminem dropped out of his European "Anger Management" tour in 2005, around which they had scheduled their U.K. release date.

"When Eminem fell out, that stopped the momentum, bang, all for nothing," Ferreira says. If it weren't for an unofficial release, a mix tape, featuring the song "Happy Birthday" about Ferreira's experience with abortion, which got radio airplay, it could have been the end of the road for Flipsyde.

As Ferreira points out, modern music is littered with cautionary tales of bands who signed to major labels only to be ignored or dropped when they failed to quickly make sales quotas.

Ferreira says the label was having trouble figuring out how to market a multiracial, genre-crossing band like Flipsyde. While in Atlanta, they caught the eye of the rapper Akon, who recorded and produced a second Flipsyde album that comes out next year.

Access is still the gift of major labels. What bands lose in control, they gain in reach. Ferriera says being signed to a major label is like joining a secret service since "they just call you at, like, midnight and say, 'We need you in Japan for a show next week.'"

But Ferriera says that while he respects the hustle and style of the independent labels, it's not for him. "It's like, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to it major - on stage in Italy in front of 70,000 people."
The indie label

Some bands dream of lighting up stadiums. Others never expect to play live shows at all. Wooden Shjips, a hypnotically rhythmic psychedelic band that signed to the respected independent label Holy Mountain in 2006, never intended to become a "buzz" band. They never planned to perform in clubs. And they certainly never thought of going to industry showcase events like South by Southwest and last month's CMJ conference in New York City.

They also have no illusions about the profitability of their music.

"When we started doing stuff, the idea was that we were more interested in making records," says frontman Ripley Johnson. Parts of the Shjips had been playing together for years, but the band came together in earnest in 2006. "The inspiration in many ways came from private press and forgotten records from '60s, '70, '80s, the ones that have been rediscovered and more recently reissued," he says.

After the Shjips recorded, they began releasing only in vinyl. They sent limited-edition albums to friends and people in the music scene who might be interested in their heavy psychedelic sound. Music bloggers and magazine writers gave rave reviews to this mysterious new band. "I am a record geek myself, so I knew where to send them," Johnson says. The Shjips also gave away records to whomever requested one. (Now, those albums are trading for hundreds of dollars on eBay.)

"What ended up happening was that we underestimated the power of the Internet, the power of people to communicate," Johnson says.

As interest in the record exceeded supply, the Shjips were asked to join labels and play shows. Their first show was in January at Cafe Du Nord, and soon they secured a slot opening for offbeat legend Roky Erikson at Austin's South by Southwest festival. They also have been covered in Rolling Stone and other national magazines.

Holy Mountain, a respected label of esoteric and intermittently popular music like the Shjips, re-issued the band's sold-out self-titled first album. Signing to a small label like Holy Mountain doesn't promise big advances, but such companies do handle the production and distribution of records.

For all the industry attention they've gotten, the Shjips interest is still simply recording albums. Johnson says he and his band members have no designs on a full-fledged music career. All have day jobs that they don't plan to quit.

"It's hard because we all work, we're not trying to make money," he says. "Actually, we lose money, we don't make money."
The Collective

Once a trio, now a duo, Tartufi has been bouncing around the Bay Area music scene for five years. Angel and her bandmate, Brian Gorman, describe their sound as "epic," with noisy guitars and drums looped and layered over Angel's rangy voice. But even with significant support from the local press (they were voted Best Indie Band by the Bay Guardian in 2007) and fans, no labels have called. Like many bands, Tartufi has been doing the work of a label - releasing albums, writing press releases, booking tours. Angel says it takes energy away from what they really wanted to do, which is make music.

Enter the collective. "We started talking about it a year and a half ago," Angel says. "We had met two bands who we thought were awesome, and ... thought it would be good to pool our resources, gain access to certain information."

Five local bands - Tartufi, Silian Rail, Birds and Batteries, Low Red Line and Sky Pilot - now make up Thread Productions.

Although there are no hard and fast rules, the general guidelines are to support each other by going to each other's shows, to mention each other in interviews and to share booking and press contacts. "Even if we've spent a month putting together one press spreadsheet," Angel says, "we have to share it." They have also put out two compilations of music from all five bands to give out at shows.

Being part of a collective seems to have helped band members psychologically as well as logistically. "Generally, we think about more being possible for us," says Eric Kuhn, drummer from the duo Silian Rail. "Our band is fairly nontraditional and being within a music community that thrives makes us feel less like an ugly duckling."

But all worry that as they do the work of labels to find their audiences, they sacrifice time that would otherwise be devoted to music. Angel says that booking a national tour, for instance, can take four months of doggedly contacting venues and juggling schedules. On the other hand, they maintain control of their image and their musical choices.

"Being signed by a label was very important to us three years ago, when we were more green," Angel says. "We know people who have been signed by a mid-level indie and it doesn't do them a lot of good.

"I wouldn't say we'd never sign to anyone, if the conditions were right," she continues, "but we're definitely not hunting for it."