Bridge Nine Records
Karl Hensel
Scene Point Blank: What are your top five albums that were released in 2007?
No particular order-for non-hardcore jams because I'm biased.
- Attack In Black - Marriage
- Attack In Black - Curve Of The Earth
- The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour
Scene Point Blank: How will you remember 2007? (In terms of music)
The year I finally saw Shane McGowan sing for The Pogues and the year some kid on the B9 board tried sending me a Sendspace link to one of our leaked records saying, "Consider yourself hooked up, bro. It's the best record of the year."
Scene Point Blank: What kind of impact do you think donation-based releases like Radiohead, Saul Williams, etc? will have on the record industry?
I think it's a great publicity stunt, and it's an awesome statement of "We'll leak our own damn record." It's great when you make money to their level and can exercise that control. I think a lot of bands will do their own P&D deals with major distributors in the future for the copyright and control over their band, but how do you release an album for free when no one gives a fuck about your band in the first place? For Radiohead, they have a built-in network of millions of people who care, me being one of them. They can tour and sell tickets for $60 each and have people offering them $70 just for the chance and they've earned the ability to make money offering something for free.
Scene Point Blank: 2007 saw the decommissioning of two prominent file-sharing groups - Demonoid and Oink. What kind of impact will the increased crackdown on file-sharing have on the record industry? Did it personally have an effect on you?
It had no impact on me. I don't use Oink or Demonoid and in 2000, I looked at Napster the way my grandparents looked at color TVs. "What the fuck is that and how does it get me free music? I have to convert it to WAV? What the fuck is a WAV?" I might have downloaded a U2 record or something and then I gave up. I did get a Demonoid invite once, but I gave up on that before I even got rolling. I think you'll see a much bigger effect if you eliminated Sendspace, Rapidshare, or Mediafire links from working on places like Blogspot. That would REALLY piss people off.
Scene Point Blank: What can we look forward to from your bands in 2008?
Lots of tours, lots of records - some of which people will try sending to us before release date.
Scene Point Blank: What three records are you looking forward to most in 2008?
Excluding the B9 releases, the new Dillinger Four record had better come out.
Homepage: http://www.bridge9.com
