Monday, November 19, 2007

Shrevester.com: John Rossitter gathers musicians to create a site for sampling and buying regional recordings


Jerry Beach
Originally uploaded by trudeau
Musician-producer John Rossitter writes, "I have started a new Arklatex music download site called www.shrevester.com. We are a pay site, like iTunes, but we actually pay our artists a 50% royalty on each sale. And all users are welcome to preview every song before they buy."

From the web site:
Why Shrevester.com?
Let's face it.
The music industry is broken.
Artists spend their lives making the soundtrack to yours, and barely get by doing so.
We know you don't want to pay for music downloads.
Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free right?

Well, we made this site because we believe otherwise.
Simply put, we believe that given the opportunity to support your favorite local artists, you would be willing to pay on average $1.00 per download.
Your willingness to participate in our program would be based on your knowledge that:

1) When you buy a track from Shrevester.com 50% of that sale goes directly back to the artist.

2) Other music download services (like the one that rhymes with iTunes) often don't even pay the artist directly. They pay into a fund and artists have to hope to get a royalty

3) When you buy local music, you are supporting the musicians who enrich your lives.

So don't buy local music out of guilt, buy local music because you believe in it.


Shrevester is easy to use, in my brief experience. Quite a few of the recordings there, such as cuts from Rossiter's Photoelectric Defect, help me fill in the gaps in the local musical story.

What's more, Chris Alexander is a supporter, it seems, of Shrevester. Also a musician-producer, Alexander has his own local download sales site at whythehellnot.org. Looks like the two sites are complementary rather than threatening. Not a bad situation, eh?

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