The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Independent Label: The founders of AntiMI Records, from left, Adam Pfeffer, Kathy Sasseen and Eric Diel, aim to "build a friendlier musical kingdom" by granting artists on their label total creative control.

Record label harnesses the Internet to promote independent musicians

Business lobbies for musicians' creative control

By Maggie Benson

AntiMI Records founders say there's a better way to promote music, and they think they've found it. Harnessing the power of the Internet, the folks at the Willow Glen-based record label have launched a campaign to change the way the public digests music--one that is unadulterated by the tinkerings of high-up music execs.

"One of our biggest frustrations is that if you want to get money from a record label, you have to compromise your music," founder and chief executive officer of AntiMI records Kathy Sasseen explained. "We wanted to be nonjudgmental and nondiscriminatory in that way."

Four months ago, the company began distributing 12 CDs over the Web, including several created by Adam Pfeffer, Sasseen's husband and a founding member of AntiMI. A goal of the company is to provide a forum where independent musicians can publish their music without dealing with large record labels.

"This record company was created, simply put, to get music recorded and out to the world. . . . [We are] building a much friendlier musical kingdom," AntiMI's Web site states.

The problem, co-founder Eric Diel explained, is that big record labels pick up the music of only a few artists, and that music has usually been altered to fit the requests of those financing the projects. In an effort to break through that wall, Diel, Sasseen and Pfeffer developed AntiMI, or Anti Music Industry Records.

"If you have small, independent musicians, they can get a CD made for a couple of thousand dollars," Diel explained, "but you can't get them in the record store. So what we do is we give them a storefront on the Web."

In addition to allowing artists 100 percent control over their product, AntiMI provides worldwide visibility because of Internet technology. In fact, according to Diel--who created and monitors the site--a browser from Croatia dialed in the other day.

"It definitely reaches a wider audience," Pfeffer commented. "But it's going to take more time before it makes more impact on the world."

Pfeffer explained that people have to get used to buying merchandise over the Internet before the concept really takes off and before his company can start competing with the major distributors.

When that happens, according to Pfeffer, independent artists, like his band SpitKiss, will have more access to listeners in the music world than ever before.

"The Internet has the ability to put the control back in the musicians' hands and out of the hands of the bigger companies," he explained.

Paul de Benedictis is one artist that decided to give the new method of distribution a chance. AntiMI placed his CD Power of One on its Web site a couple of weeks ago. Though it's too soon to gauge results, de Benedictis said he's optimistic.

"It just seems like it's a possibility for wider exposure than through the kind of sub-independent distribution [method] which I've used before," he commented. "It's like a 24-hour-worldwide listening station. I'm really just testing the waters with it. I think it's an interesting thing."

De Benedictis pays less than $100 every six months to AntiMI. In return, the company handles CD and merchandise sales and marketing--all via the Web site. Potential buyers can also listen to one-minute sound bites of the music.

The site is made more powerful, according to Diel, because it is linked to all the major search engines and to the most popular music site addresses.

"It's a neat way to go for independent musicians," de Benedictis explained. "It gives us a new forum."

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