Distributor Offers Artists an Alternative to Big Labels

Andy Allen has a rare confession for someone in the music industry. “A lot of the records I put out,” he says, “I hate.”

The president of Alternative Distribution Alliance is too much of a businessman to name names. Besides, as head of a company responsible for making sure that record stores are stocked with obscure, odd and even downright bizarre music, his job is to deliver it, not like it.

Allen’s 5-year-old company has filled a niche by capitalizing on two divergent trends in the music business: the consolidation of production in the hands of a few large companies, and the fragmentation of public tastes into dozens of genres that have little to do with one another.

The Alternative Distribution Alliance, based in New York City, delivers the work of 50 independently owned record labels to music retailers across the country.

These small labels represent music’s grass roots, the place where young artists can be nurtured into tomorrow’s stars and experiment with music not expected to sell to millions of people.

Many artists prefer this atmosphere to that of music conglomerates, where they can get lost behind the Spice Girls and Celine Dion. Increasingly in the 1990s, artists signed by major labels get one or two chances to succeed and are dropped if they don’t.

The disadvantage is that these small labels don’t have the reach of their corporate cousins. If their artists become successful, the independents often lose them to a major label. ADA gives them an opportunity to survive.

Among the labels ADA distributes are Tommy Boy, a leader in rap music; Sub Pop, the Seattle-based rock imprint where Nirvana started; and Mayhem, a home for heavy metal and hard rock bands.

Better Than Ezra and Squirrel Nut Zippers are two bands that grew out of the ADA network to greater success.

One of the labels distributed is Bloodshot Records, run by three friends in a basement apartment a block from Chicago’s Wrigley Field. It began simply as a way of distributing some of their friends’ music, and has blossomed into one of the leading players in the alternative-country movement.

Acts at Bloodshot range from the semi-obscure, like Texas songwriter Alejandro Escovedo and the wild Waco Brothers, to the very obscure: Grievous Angels and Split Lip Rayfield.

One year with the Alternative Distribution Alliance, and Bloodshot’s sales have doubled. Its product has reached stores that three people in a basement couldn’t possibly have reached, co-owner Rob Miller said.

“It’s made a big difference,” co-owner Nan Warshaw said. “It’s given us serious national distribution. We can safely tell our bands when they’re on tour that their stuff is going to be in stores.”

ADA, which has offices or distribution facilities in New York, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Chicago, provides an alternative to conglomerates even as it’s being bankrolled by one. Warner Bros. owns 95% of the company, and Sub Pop owns the rest.

For Warner, the arrangement allows it to encourage the development process--much as major league baseball does with the minor leagues--at a limited financial risk. Distribution companies like Red and Caroline serve a similar purpose.

These companies also can more easily reach the small, independent music stores than most big record companies, which tend to be more interested in the major chain stores, he said.

Swing music may be hot now, but running this company requires Allen to keep his ears primed for what’s next, for trends that may be years from showing up on the mainstream music charts.

His prediction: Don’t give up on rock ‘n’ roll yet.