As many of you know, I love music, I love seeing and listening to new bands, and I am lucky enough to live in the bay area. We have a rich tapestry of local talent and local indie labels to support and distribute said talent. But in recent events one of my favorite labels has fallen on tough times. Lookout Records out of Berkeley have been having money problems for sometime now due to miss management and poor money handling. It was known for years that Green Day’s first two albums 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours and Kerplunk kept the label afloat for years. But with Green Day pulling the rights to the albums because of Lookouts inability to pay royalties, the label has lost its main life line. Although I agree that Green Day has the right to pull there albums from the label they have been supporting for years, local label Lookout has fired half it staff and is doing its best to pull itself out of debt and turning out music again.

I have been thinking about this a lot because local music is something that the bay area has always taken pride in and should continue to take pride in. But in recent years it has been harder to get converge if you are a local group, and sometimes local groups are far better and far more entertaining. Going to local shows also are far more fun to go to. Not only do you get to hang out and hear good music, but you get to know the bands better and can get a good feel for their sound in smaller venues. Also, seeing local bands is a lot less expensive then going to a show of a mainstream band.

But ask yourself, “what can you do about labels like Lookout or local bands who find themselves in times of trouble?”. Support your local labels and groups; don’t download an indie-band’s album, go out and buy it instead! Because honestly, record sales are what keep small bands afloat. I understand the urge to download. In fact, I am down with downloading, but as long it’s kept to a minimum. Download only when sampling new bands out, then decide if it’s worth getting the album. Because if you like a band enough to download 28 of there songs off Kazaa.com, then you must like them enough to want to hear new material from them. So toss a couple bucks their way and pick up the album or single so they can keep pumping out the jams.

Now I know it was bad business choices that have put out in their current funk, but aloof small labels have this problem because its hard to compete with the likes of Sony or Warner Brothers, so show some love for your local voice and support the little guy every now and then by going to local shows and picking up stuff from indie labels, because honestly, it’s a better way to get exposed to a lot more music by buying locally than supporting a major label.