Celebrating four and a half years as a loose concept, we here on the Rainsoaked Crew are happy to announce the official launch of rainsoakedrecords.com. The little free-music machine that could.
Official Mission Statement:
Rainsoaked Records is an independently owned and operated record label out of Southwest Michigan whose focus is to release high-quality music in digital format and make it available to the public at no cost. Just as we believe music should be.
We here at RR realize that the way people access music, as well as the social attitude towards music and the record industry, has changed dramatically in the past ten years. We aim to establish a modern (yet still commercially viable) method for listeners to receive the entire spectrum of an artists work without having to dig into their pockets or risk downloading with illegal, and often virus / spy-ware addled, Peer-to-Peer services.
It’s no secret in 2008 that the way the music industry operates is often times detrimental to the artists who work so hard to bring people such a beautiful gift. Those with the checkbooks tend to call the shots and, unfortunately, that’s usually not the fans or the artists. And granted, there is a reason for that. Producing quality records and getting them heard by the public is an expensive process, but we here at Rainsoaked believe that there are alternatives.
Sponsor ads, public donations, and merchandise sales are just a few ways other industries have thrived for years and years while still bringing their content to the public for free. (Heck, television has been ahead of the curve half a century.) And, while many streaming music sites have set a lot of groundwork for the idea, we don’t want people to only be able to listen to the music while visiting rainsoakedrecords.com. We want fans to have access to our artists’ free releases for their home playlists, on their iPods, in their cars, or anywhere else. Just as if they’d purchased the albums from their local music store or off an online downloading service.
We also believe that the way industry functions presently, while not only a strain on people’s wallets, is detrimental to the environment as well. To keep up with the high cost of CD pressing and recording many lesser-known artists have to tour excessively in order to make back that money, either for themselves or their respective labels. However due to changes in technology and the means artists have to promote themselves, this has become somewhat of an antiquated practice that simply costs too much in fuel and electricity. Don’t get us wrong, we love live music (in fact you’ll catch our staff scattered across clubs from Chicago to Detroit on any given weekend), but venturing all across America just to break even is crazy.
So, with CD sales plummeting and the cost of life constantly on the upswing, we think it’s time for a change. Music is a beautiful thing that should be shared with friends and loved ones. It’s the soundtrack to your life. It can inspire, make you laugh, make you cry, or make your whole day brighter (or darker, if that’s what you’re into.) We don’t think anyone has the right to tell you what you can or can’t listen to, or that you need to pay them for the right to hear it.
Rainsoaked Records is just a small part of the movement to get music out of high-rise offices and into people’s hands where it belongs. Which is an idea we couldn’t be prouder to be a part of.
Rainsoaked Records & Friends, vol. 1
Various Artists
Released: July 18th, 2007
01. "It'll Never Be Yesterday" by AJ Draper & tFoN
02. "Kimberly Vegas" by Radio Pirate DJ
03. "Quiet Down" by Tim Treder
04. "After Twice" by The Savoy
05. "For Lydia" by Pickering Pick
06. "Sex & Drugs" by AJ Draper & tFoN
07. "Dancing In the Rain" by Radio Pirate DJ
08. "Just Wanna Walk With You" by Matt Blasco
09. "What Are We Fighting For?" by The Implodes
10. "Another Saturday" by Tim Treder
Download Now (follow myspace link to rainsoakedrecords.com)
Radio Pirate DJ Hollywood Endings
Release Date: June 12th, 2008
01. If This Is Goodbye, Good
02. Dancing In The Rain
03. It's All In the Wrist
04. Well... Aren't You Special
05. Bad Weather
06. Kimberly Vegas
07. Hollywood Endings
Download Now (follow myspace link to rainsoakedrecords.com)
We’re in the process of advancing our download process into something a little more sleek, but for the time being, here’s how it works: Simply right-click on the download button and choose "save target as…" (or whatever variation your browser has.) You’ll be prompted to save a .zip file. [This is a SAFE FILE, we do not fill our album .zips with any adware, spyware, or equally awful crap.] If you’re running Windows XP or higher, you’ll be able to open that file like you’d open any other folder and you’ll see a bunch of mp3s. Drag them to wherever you keep your music files. Then just drag them again into iTunes, musicmatch, winamp, or whatever program you use. Simple as that!
The music hosted by the Rainsoaked Records myspace and website is solely owned and copyrighted BY Rainsoaked Records. These are freely distributed songs. We encourage the file-sharing and p2p downloading of our music. So, basically what we’re saying is you need not worry about the RIAA hunting you down or sueing your grandmother.
Thanks for the add. Support the Michigan local music scene or promote yourself with a free signup at localmusiclife. com. Check out our Resources section for labels, studios, shops and more.
No problem. Eventually, it will definitely happen again and when it does, it will be at least twice as marvelous as all of my other lame-ass flops i call parties. Also, we'll all be wearing balls.
