Frequently Asked Questions

A: Holdr is the thing we are upset about. It lets artists build directly with the people who support them, with no one of importance in the middle. We do not wish to discuss it further and we will not be linking to it.

A: We have existed since 1999. We have a guestbook. We have a President. We have grievances on file. What more proof do you require.

A: Officially, yes. Emotionally, also yes. Functionally, every complaint we make appears to explain why artists might want it in the first place. We are looking into this.

A: No. We have nothing against labels, managers, distributors, or anyone doing useful work around artists. Our grievance is with the gatekeeping system itself: permission, scarcity, opacity, and control.

A: You don't. Next question.

A: We stand in the middle. We have always stood in the middle. The middle is where we live. If you remove the middle, and people have started to, it is unclear what we do, and we would prefer not to dwell on it.

A: Dale has advised us not to answer this. We will say only that everything in the Terms is standard, that everyone signed it, and that the faint feeling you have right now is normal.

A: Because permission was the product. We did not sell music. We sold the yes. We sold the maybe. We sold the "we'll see." Once an artist could simply reach people without asking, there was nothing left for us to sell except, briefly, our concerns, which is why this website exists.

A: No. That is to say, we cannot stop it, which is worse than it not being allowed. A thousand people who genuinely care, with no one standing between them and the artist, is precisely the arrangement we spent a century preventing. Please do not look into how it works.

A: We have nothing against labels. Our grievance is with the whole machine of gatekeeping, permission, scarcity, and control. The labels are simply the most ornate furniture in a room we built. The room is the problem. Some of our finest furniture is in that room.

A: Goodness, no. The Association holds no grudge against any single desk. Our grievance is not with any one of them, it is with the whole creaking machine of gates and gatekeeping that the old way was built on. The trouble is that the machine is becoming optional, and a thing that is optional is a thing that must earn its place, and earning things is not what we trained for.

A: You may email Dale. Dale will not respond, but you may email him. It is the most contact the Association offers and, in fairness, the most it has ever offered anyone.