The Indies: New Label Green St. Celebrates Champaign Scene

Plenty of indie labels get started because their operators love their local music scene.

However, not many labels get started in a Big Ten university dormitory.

"We were in our dorm room one night, thinking up crazy stuff," says Josh Morton, who co-founded Green St. Records with Jason Drucker, his roommate at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.

Morton, Drucker and friends Aaron Rosenthal and Jon Rozen—all of whom are musicians who attended high school together in the Chicago suburb of Lincolnshire—formed Green St. late last year to promote Champaign's local scene.

Morton had learned that Boston's Berklee College of Music had a student-run label. He recalls thinking, "Why can't we do that here?"

Green St. was set up with 12 volunteer staffers as a registered student organization on the Champaign-Urbana campus.

The label's first release, "Emergence," is a compilation of 13 campus-based acts.

"The talent here is so amazing," Morton says. "It's such an untapped area."

The label partners reviewed submissions from bands. The one proviso for inclusion on the project is that at least one-quarter of a group's membership must be U of I students.

Green St.'s partners recused themselves from appearing on the compilation. "We made it a rule that if you're on staff, a band you're in can't be on the album," Morton says.

Unusually enough, the school's student fund board provided 60% of the financing for "Emergence."

"The total cost of the project is about $4,000," Morton says. "They gave us a large amount of the money, and we funded the rest with a couple of benefit concerts."

"Emergence" is being launched with a concert by seven of the album's featured acts on April 10 at the Illini Union on campus.

No one's making any money from the project: The university made its contribution with the understanding that the album would be given away.

But the experience has proved valuable for Green St.'s founders, since the U of I does not have a music-business program.

"I was trying to figure out how to start my own major here," Morton says.



CUTS AT ADA: As part of the widespread manpower parings following the ownership change at Warner Music Group, Warner indie distribution arm Alternative Distribution Alliance let five staffers go the week of March 1.

ADA VP of sales Bill Kennedy and three other staffers in Los Angeles were laid off, and Minneapolis-based Midwest sales manager Noele Sutherland was also cut loose.

ADA president Andy Allen could not be reached for comment.



ARTSY: Ryko Distribution has added another left-of-center imprint to its growing list of video lines.

Ryko has picked up North American distribution rights to artsmagicdvd.com, a U.K.-based home-video imprint specializing in eclectic Japanese film.

Ryko will share Canadian distribution with VidCanada.

The deal commences in May with the release of the feature "Full Metal Yakuza" by eccentric Japanese director Takashi Miike ("Dead or Alive," "Ichi the Killer"). Releases of Miike's films "Sabu," "Young Thugs 1 & 2" and the "Black Society" trilogy will follow.



WIRING UP: Atlanta-based LiveWire Entertainment Sales & Marketing has established a new sales team, with the addition of several industry vets.

LiveWire principal Alexis Kelley has brought on Clay Pasternack, formerly with M.S. Distribution and Action Music Sales; Ron Barnes, previously with M.S. and Southwest Wholesale; and Ric Curtice, an alumnus of MCA who is currently a freelance indie sales rep.

Pasternack is servicing Midwestern and Northeastern accounts, Barnes will handle the major Minneapolis-based chains and Curtice will cover the West Coast. Kelley will function as the Southeastern and Southwestern rep.