When 99% of people, mainly money hungry record labels, seem to think that giving away songs on the internet for free is a bad thing, in comes Thurston Moore to continue fighting the “free music” fight. The Sonic Youth front man has started a record label that will post free MP3s called Protest Records. The site is currently filled with anti-war anthems from Cat Power, the Beastie Boys, Stephan Smith, Eugene Chadbourne and Sharon Cheslow. Since the word has spread about this underground uprising, a mob of artists have contacted Moore with interest. Everyone from R.E.M., Mudhoney, and Zack de la Rocha, to the Fugs, Christian Marclay and even Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye have showed interest about submitting songs. Either all of these artists are against the current war in Iraq, or they have been sitting on a pacifistic collection of audio gold for the longest, and finally have an outlet to release their music.
Thurston Moore told the NY Times, “I thought it would be great to be in a band that made millions of dollars that could do something like that, but it never panned out… I liked the idea because it would drive retail stores crazy. Originally the ideas were more far-fetched, like hiding the records around the city so that people had to find them.”
Source: Jason Anfinsen
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