One thing I didn’t mention about The Format, is that they basically do something similar to what you are describing. They have a distribution company that they “employ” to give them the resources to mass distribute their music. The company also helps in implementing street teams for their artists, which is very similar to what Rick Rubin is trying to get going at Columbia.

Record labels will probably start to fill a similar role.

As for the future, I think it’ll be radically different from artist to artist so it’s difficult to predict. I don’t think record labels are gone for good, I just think they’ll undergo a bit of a makeover and the power will shift in favor of the artists. It’ll be the artists who employ the record labels to take care of business, not the other way around.

I included you because I feel that many people are unaware of what happens in the music industry at a grassroots level. It’s musicians like you who change the rules to survive , and in doing so change the rules for everyone else.

For all we know Radiohead could have gotten the idea to release their CD the way they did from a lesser known band.

I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on all this. I just quoted a small piece of something you said in one of your forums, so I may not have put all expressed all the thinking you’ve done on why giving away your music is the path you have chosen, and where you see the industry going in the future.

By the way, wouldn’t we all like to be pulling down the cash that Rubin is .