Charlie discovers good record company

I'VE WRITTEN SEVERAL things about the RIAA before, usually at 3am when I have just read something about how they are trampling the rights of those who can't afford to defend themselves, or just buying lawmakers one cash stuffed suitcase at a time. Oh, I'm sorry, that should read generous campaign contributions, my apologies. Since then, they have matured greatly, raising the minimum age for legal attack from 12 to 15, and learned that slipping legislation in behind the scenes is less antagonistic. Nothing to rant about there.

What the RIAA and the record companies they represent don't get is that teeing your fan base off, and then offering them a vastly inferior service at a higher price is not a good long term survival strategy. Record sales, already in the toilet, are showing no signs of recovering. Each time they go on the offensive and release a new statistic showing how they are being wronged, P2P is evil, or how the latest rapper can't make his gold tooth cap payments, they lose more people. Some, especially those who understand the numbers are lost because they fall out of their chairs laughing, hit their heads, and come to their senses. Others simply don't like being abused.

Either way, the brilliant campaigns they are inflicting on us, one by one, are causing no measurable increase in record sales. Personally I swore off ever buying a CD three years ago, and haven't looked back, the vast wasteland that poses, and I do mean poses, as modern music has nothing to interest me any more. All record companies are evil, when they dry up and blow away, I will celebrate.

Well, all except one. After I wrote one of the happier articles comparing the RIAA to diseased leeches or something, a PR person from a record company wrote me. Oh, this was going to be a fun exchange of e-mails, I could just feel it, I was just about drooling. This could be as much fun as debating the MS trusted computing person at IDF!

I was wrong, it was fun, but for all the wrong reasons. Let me introduce you to Go-Kart Records ( here), a smaller record label with a mostly punk and real, old fashioned rock catalog. By punk, I mean old school, real punk, attitude, marginally played instruments, and all the trimmings that made the Sex Pistols so great. The rock is more in the vein of the White Stripes, but without the 93 record company 'fixers' making it palatable for FM. None of this emo garbage either. If you put just about any band on this label in a room with a modern 'punk' band, there would be carnage, and few survivors, all of them Go-Kart artists. Anti-Flag, King Prawn, and the Lunachicks have all called Go-Kart home at one time or another, along with a raft of other bands. Basically, truly rancid music, pun intended, that makes you smile.

But they are still part of the nebulous 'them' that are desperately trying to make our rights vanish in a cloud of pay-per-play music, right? Nope. They hate the RIAA as much as you and I do, read here and see for yourself. They are not a member, check out the membership page, which, like their site, is down now if you don't believe me. An enlightened record company, or at least a non-evil one, what a concept! But they still sell CDs, right, and who does CDs any more, MP3s are the future.

Here is where the enlightenment part comes in. Go-Kart records sent me something called the Go-Kart MP300 raceway ( here) a few weeks ago, it is their dual CD MP3 collection. This little gem features 300 MP3s from 150 artists, all pre-ripped on two CDs. No copy protection, no click-through licences, just a little player with what amounts to liner notes built in. When the music plays, you get the band bios in a side window. Drop the CD in, and you have hours of raw punk music, I won't say soothing, but it is good stuff. If you have a preferential MP3 player, just use it, there is a directory called MP3 right there out in the open, no games, just like they promised. Can you believe it, all this only costs $9.99!

So, how is the music? Well, damn good mostly. With 150 artists, there are going to be some that clash badly with your musical tastes, and others that just plain stink. I put CD1 in, dragged the files onto winamp, and hit random play. A few hours later, I only needed to jump for the next track button a couple of times, mostly I was just happy. If you like punk, there is a lot of good here. If major label, focus group engineered boy bands are your thing, well just go away in general. You will most likely never be caught dead in a place cool enough to sell this collection, so fear not. If you want to hear it for yourself, just go here and get six full albums, and check them out.

The compilation is one that you can put one disc in, hit random, and never hear the same song twice in a work day. If you work overtime, there is CD2 to agitate you, this is not soothing music. I have been listening to the CD1 off and on for 2 weeks, and get surprises each time I put it in.

This will be part of my permanent MP3 collection, and if Go Kart Records keeps putting things like this out, I might just have to start buying CDs again. There is only one question left hanging. The review copy I got only had the first CD in it, and a note saying 'write us if you want the second one'. My question is, what are they going to do with a stack of unwanted Go Kart 300 CD2s, sans cases?