Rough week at Debacle HQ + What's next for physical releases?

Well, it's been a week, folks.

This one's a bit more serious than usual - between actual bullets coming through my walls (not kidding, my mic has a bullet hole in it now) and discovering the new 30% tariff on vinyl from overseas, I'm feeling the pressure from multiple directions.

I dive into the tariff situation and what it means for small labels like mine. My friends at Mobineko (who I've worked with forever) have been incredibly transparent about the challenges, but the reality is stark: physical production costs just jumped significantly with no real alternatives. Want to onshore? Well that PVC for your records? It all comes from overseas anyway.

This has me questioning the future of physical releases. What if instead of dumping money into vinyl that rarely recoups, I offered artists two-thirds of that budget for something more creative? Music videos, art installations, unique merch - anything besides another record that sits in my storage unit that get’s more expensive by the month.

I'm not abandoning vinyl completely (especially for touring artists), but it might be time to reimagine what a record label can be. More thoughts on this next week, but I'd love to hear what you think.

Oh, and there's a preview of the upcoming Enter Ear project (Ian Hawk, Mike Meanstreetz, Greg Fox) at the end of the video. It absolutely rips.

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