Last week on Accident Hash, C.C Chapman did a very interesting interview with Munk. Munk had some very interesting things to say about the music industry. Basically, he is making a good living as a full time musician, with no big label record deal, and no real physical distribution. He said that he may well never release another physical CD. He records all his music at home with a laptop computer, simple mixer, his guitars, bass and keyboards. He also has someone play drums sometimes. Take a listen to Munk’s music, you can hear it at emusic. It sounds as good as anything ever recorded in a big studio. The big music companies sign bands then take them into an expensive studio to record. Once the CD is released the costs of recording, promotion and distribution get deducted from the band’s royalties. The dirty secret of the music industry is that the vast majority of bands with recording contracts with labels never actually make a dime from record sales and often end up owing the label money. If they make any money at all it is from ticket and merchandise sales. Today with digital recording and downloads of music, a musician or band can record their own stuff and then distribute it on-line for a tiny fraction of the cost of actually pressing cds and getting them into stores, where many of them may sit unsold. There is also the issue of payola (money that record labels pay to radio stations for airplay).

Munk has bypassed this system completely. He sells his music directly through sites like emusic, itunes, and cdbaby. He has also had his music played on commercials and TV shows like The Sopranos. His songs have gotten lots of play on podcasts, and he doesn’t have to pay podcasters to play them. Go listen to the interview and you can hear what he has to say and also hear some of his music.