Amie Street Hits The Road

The newbie digital music service Amie Street is about to head out on its first ever tour. Three of their most popular artists will be co-headlining the event that will take place in the artists respective cities. The Dead Trees will be representing Boston, The Epochs will be representing New York City and Middle Distance Runner will be representing DC. There will also be an additional local artist on several of the dates. The itnerary is as follows:

3/19/07: Great Scott, Boston, MA
3/21/07: Piano's, New York, NY
3/22/07: Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, NY
3/24/07: Rock and Roll Hotel, Washington, DC

I'll be at the DC show, so stop by and say hi. If you don't remember what makes Amie Street so unusual or you want to sign up with some free money, read the post that I wrote in January.

The Dead Trees - Shelter
The Dead Trees - Television
The Epochs - Mouths To Feed
The Epochs - Tug Of War
Middle Distance Runner - Man Of The People
Middle Distance Runner- That's A Lie

Introducing Amie Street

So things have been quiet around here lately. Yeah, yeah... what's new, right? Even when it does not seem like it, I am always working on something. Today, I wanted to talk about one of my projects and a special deal that I negotiated for all of you.

Over the past couple of months, I have been sharing some ideas with an upstart digital music store. The site is called Amie Street. I believe so much in what they are doing, that I agreed to contribute to their site. I am writing some features for them and providing a weekly recap of the best indie tracks of the week. Chris is even going to pitch in when he gets the chance.

The thing about Amie Street, is that it isn't your normal music store. There are several things that set them apart.

To start off with, they are all about the underground. Most of their artists are unsigned or on labels that you have never heard of. To give you an idea, their best selling indie track of all time is "Naturally" by Middle Distance Runner. This is really cool, because they are promoting these bands and only these bands. The quality acts are being exposed on the main page, the way Justin Timberlake and Foo Fighters are exposed by iTunes. They cater to all genres as well.

The artists retain the rights to their music and they don't have to sign an exclusive contract. Amie Street keeps the first $5 a track makes and the artist gets 70% of all sales after that. They also offer special deals for the artists to extend to their fans, which also helps the artists gain stature on the site. The artists can put a couple of tracks up or their full body of work. It is entirely up to them and they can add more, whenever they desire. There is no waiting around for the music to post either, it's immediate. Even cooler, is the fact that they can reach fans all over the world.

You can test out new artists without it costing you very much. Every track starts out free and stays free, until it has been purchased 15 times. As the track continues to sell, it goes up in price. Each track maxes out at 98 cents, after 85 purchases.

It is actually possible for YOU to profit off of a song. When you purchase credits, you receive REC's. You use these to recommend your favorite tracks. If you recommend a track when it is free and it goes up to 98 cents, you can cash out and get 98 cents credited to your account. If you recommend a track when it is worth 5 cents and you cash out at 35 cents, 30 cents is credited to your account. How you do it, is entirely up to you.

When you purchase a track, it is yours. You can download it as often as your would like, wherever you would like. Plus all tracks are unprotected mp3s, so you can play them anywhere and on any device.

The system rewards good artists and fans with good taste. That sounds like all of you, right? Now the question is, do they have any good artists? The answer is yes. Just to start off, I will tell you that you can purchase music from IA favorites like Middle Distance Runner, Cedars, These United States, The Epochs, The Jaguar Club, The Payola Reserve and Saturna. The really cool thing, is that you will be buying their music for much less than you would pay anywhere else and they will receive most of the profits. If you catch it early enough, it's free.

Since I love my readers, I negotiated a deal for all of you. When you sign up, enter "instrumental" as your promo code. This will hook you up with free money and REC's, that will allow you to start exploring the site with zero risk. To make it easier on you, I am writing a weekly recap of my favorite songs. So check that out on their main page and you should be all set. I will be updating that early each week. If you are an artist, I'd love to see your music there. I love to access music as soon as I want it. Alright, I am done. Go explore. If you join, look Chris and I up and be our friends. Our user names are joepcas and chrisanalysis.

Questions? Comments? Fire away...

Tracks that you will find on Amie St.:
Middle Distance Runner - Naturally
Cedars - This Century
The Epochs - Mouths to Feed
The Jaguar Club - The Sirens
The Payola Reserve - Lay In Wait
Saturna - Blanket of Stars