The Great Indie Fire of London

I'm sure everyone here is horrified to see what has happened with regard to the Sony/Pias warehouse fire. Most of the indie labels distributed by PIAS have had their entire stock, records/cds/tshirts/posters etc destroyed.

With no stock, current or back catalogue to sell they will be crippled and will go to the wall well before any insurance payouts to Sony finally trickle down to them. There is a fund set up by PIAS which you can donate to to help the labels via the PIAS website, which is great. (see also twitter #labellove) However it's only part of the problem.

The economics of indie distribution is a symbiotic one with the independent record shops whose financial situation to hand to mouth one, existing from month to month on a weekly or monthly cashflow. If the stores, whose existence is precarious enough since Woolworths and their distribution arm went to the wall, have two or three bad weeks, they too will fail, and losing the current orders and the drip drip drip of back catalogue orders from PIAS may see the whole sector go, with ramifications for all
indie labels, PIAS distributed and others, who depend on these stores and their knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff to promote the unknown the obscure and the new. Without these stores, those labels that can limp along until the insurance pays out may not be able to market themselves quickly and effectively without the support net of the stores network.

Buy indie this week, next week and next month, and buy at your local indie record shop, check out CWNN or Last Shop Standing for you nearest if you don't know it. If you can't buy from a store, buy direct from the label via a download from their website - but not amazon or itunes please - lets get the cash where it's needed, into the indie infrastructure.

Share links for stores, ideas for indie downloads and back catalogue purchases on twitter with the #saveourindies tag.