Newsletter -The time a NYT article sold just two extra records 🧠 w/ Nick Rennis of The Business

The best conversation I've had in ages, folks. This week I sat down with Nick Rennis of The Business, the distributor/record store out of Anacortes who handles my physical fulfillment and knows more about what actually moves records than almost anyone. We dove deep into the stuff nobody wants to talk about: why that massive New York Times feature for Mount Eerie sold basically nothing, how streaming has trained people to never take chances on new music, and why your core 40 fans matter more than any Pitchfork review ever will. Nick runs one of the most interesting operations in indie music. They're not just a store, they're doing custom label services, helping with international fulfillment, and basically solving whatever problems small labels throw at them. It's the kind of "what can we actually do now" thinking that I'm obsessed with. We also get into the harsh realities of physical manufacturing costs, why cassettes are an operational nightmare (sorry tape labels), and how the industry splits into "legacy artists who got in before the door closed" versus everyone else trying to figure it out from scratch. Plus I preview some Steve Eldon Kerr from the YIELD roster. This whole conversation has me more convinced than ever that we need to stop chasing the old playbook and start building something that actually works.

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-S-

The Business

https://thebusinessanacortes.com/ 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJH4X2IzmGo/ 

Outro Track: "Hummingbird" - Steve Eldon Kerr (unreleased)