Good. For those who have been around for a while, a lot of things feel like utterly obvious. Just things you think absolutely everybody knows, but soon turns out that as simple thing as "tape label" is for a lot of (younger) people something they just really found out about and give it a try, without knowing what it really takes. Especially these days.
I think one thing what should be underlined, that as much as one can and should listen good advices, there is also element of conformity in it. You can do label well "by the book", so to say, but there is absolutely possible, and even mandatory to break that conformity. When you got friends and other labels bosses saying, "It can't be done", "this is not going to work out", or other type of talking sense, sometimes it is exactly the senseless what will put the label as topic of noise folklore.
One may think things like MERZBOX. Think era when CD's were expensive and difficult to make, and one label thinks 50xCD box of Merzbow should be done. Now, that would be almost like routine batch thing. Why not. Why not 100xCD box! But back then, idea of 50xCD box priced at 500+, I would assume most said its not going to work out.
Or who would have come up with something like MSBR Records early works. Where you gonna sell them? Who's gonna buy them? Make no sense. But now, its like one of things that define noise as genre.
Examples could go on and on. But also when not being about obscurity, but about attempt to popularize noise. We got just about everybody saying the ceiling of noise release is like... 100? 200? 300? If you would have guy saying he'd about to press 500 or 1000 copies, we all most likely would say it is senseless. But in other hand, it really ain't. On Freak Animal there are multiple releases that have moved about 1000 copies. Of course it takes years to do it, but it is doable in some cases. What may seem senseless to every "noise scene label", may suddenly absolutely make sense when you step out of the smallest core of devotees and start to reach more random buyers who are not noise hoarders, but would like to get good noise CD one in a while, if it was priced nicely and available in place where you repeatedly just see it. For many noise labels this would seem senseless. Why have your CD at record store where some old rock'n'roll buyers are looking for Rolling Stones represses? It might be senseless, but in other hand, we just might be so stuck in "how it is supposed to be", that the other way of doing it is beyond imagination.
That is something I urge for. I don't know how many more labels one needs to have bandcamp, IG and publish same acts as the other label with bandcamp and IG? So one could realize even is 2022, you got options.
