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24 Hour Service Station is distributing a new tribute album to Atom and His Package entitled Up End Atom.  Released on Hartless Hind Records, the album is a non-profit project whose proceeds will benefit the American Diabetes Association. Featured artists include mcchris, the Zambonis, MC Lars, Worm Quartet, Math the Band, Zolof the Rock 'n' Roll Destroyer, and others. The album will be available digitally and physically on July 14th via MVD Distribution.

Why pay tribute to Atom and His Package?
In his six year career, Atom not only made a massive amount of friends touring the country, but also influenced hundred of kids to start bands.  His DIY ethics and relentless touring schedule made him a folk-hero in the underground scene, and he has released albums on No Idea Records, Fearless Records, Sub City and many other record labels.  His nerdy looks and quirky sense of humor made him a beloved character.  Five years after the "break up" of Atom and His Package in part due to the mounting health concerns of dealing with diabetes, a tribute album aimed at Atom benefiting the American Diabetes Association seems incredibly appropriate.

http://www.atomandhispackage.com
http://www.diabetes.org
http://myspace.com/atomhispackage
http://www.myspace.com/hartlesshindrecords

For more information, please contact Sonshine Ward:  sonshine@24hourservicestation.com

Joran Oppelt - Creative Loafing

The Beauvilles‘ 6 p.m. headlining showcase at B.D. Riley’s had gotten moved, and I was well on track to at least making an appearance at the rescheduled rooftop show at The Wave. Creative Loafing was the official band sponsor, so I at least needed to show up and buy a couple drinks.

The Wave was a small little tourist trap of a bar, and you had to force your way to the back of the room, then squeeze between the sound board and the left side of the stage in order to access the stairway to the second level. This level was also standing room only, and I was greeted upstairs by none other than Shawn Beauville himself.

“You’re just in time to see the band from New Zealand with a #1 single that just got signed to Warner Brothers,” he said.

I actually couldn’t tell at first whether he was being sarcastic, but after Midnight Youth played their first song, it was obvious to everyone that these guys were tight as hell (If you can imagine a cross between Spacehog and Night Ranger). Yeah, maybe not the greatest example, but you have to give their new single, “All on Our Own,” at least one listen.

Our boys were under some palpable pressure to follow up with a really strong performance and it didn’t help that the patio was so small that the sound man ordered everyone ”away from the stage” to do the changeover. Once in position, Shawn wasted no time, immediately taking control of the sound check, and starting to get everyone back into the room for the impending rock show. Before they began, Shawn leaned down to hand me his camera and said, “We’re going to wreck shit.”

 

And wreck it they did.

The sound carried off the roof and filled 6th Street. Shawn snarled lyrics into the mic about Ybor City and Tampa cab rides, and girls in cowboy boots and sundresses screamed right back at him. The guys in the crowd were banging their heads with half-closed eyes. Shawn offered CDs to the crowd for donations, but the dancefloor was so tight that we had to form an assembly line of money to the front of the stage and an assembly line of CDs back out to the crowd. Eventually, as Shawn was off tangled in cables atop the kick drum, soloing with a bottle of Lone Star, John yelled, “Fuck it,” and handed the entire box of discs to the girls in the front row, who proceeded to fling them into the screaming crowd, who all dove and fought for the discs as if they were candy. I wondered where the rest of the Tampa people were at, but found out the next morning that the BAAMO crew couldn’t even get in because the fire marshall stopped letting people into the building.

When the show was over, the sweat-drenched band signed autographs and took photos with the crowd until the last-call lights came on. As I left, I heard one of the band members say, “Best. Set. Ever.”

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/tampacalling/2009/03/22/south-by-southwest-day-8-pj-harvey-midnight-youth/

 

Win Win Winter, looking especially spry in the opening slot (the band has two new members, and frontman Tommy Simms had dropped some major pounds), performed its warm, alt-pop tunes and ripped through some more aggressive new stuff to dancers' delight.

Photo of the new Win Win Winter by Gene Shaner

 

To coin a phrase: My, how things have changed.

These days, Dickson runs 24HSS with his fiancé Sonshine Ward and consultant Michael Cornette under a substantially revamped model. It's still a record label that signs and markets new product by mostly Bay area bands. Geri X, The Beauvilles and Car Bomb Driver are among the acts on his roster. But the company also includes 24 Hour Distribution, which acts as a conduit to major online retailers like iTunes, Rhapsody, amazon.com and a slew of smaller ones. 24 Hour's middleman to these consumer delivery systems is a San Francisco-based firm called Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA).

The upshot: Acts affiliated with 24HSS get their product on a plethora of "e-tail" sites. But it's not just Dickson's signed acts. He has a roster of smaller labels that go through his portal -- roughly 20 imprints that total around a hundred artists. They range from a U.K.-based label that specializes in a form of Island dance music called soca, to an outfit that distributes ambient sounds of trains, waves and waterfalls to help people sleep.

"I'm definitely dealing with volume, trying to get as many lines in the water as possible," Dickson, 39, says. "Hopefully, we'll end up getting a lot of bites."

That hasn't happened yet. But Dickson says his digital downloads, from which he makes pennies, are steadily on the upswing, and expects that his 24HSS enterprise will continue to provide him a living, if not make him well off. "You find something you love and call it work," he says.

Dickson has embraced this brave new music world -- he understands he didn't have a choice -- but admits that the whole thing is in major flux. Online retail is full of opportunity, but fraught with something akin to chaos. "From my point of view and the artist's point of view, it's a better world in a sense," Dickson says. "The gates are open. But it's a worse world in that the gates are open but the fence is down and everyone's rushing the stage."

It's crucial that indie artists and labels do whatever possible to stand out amid the clutter. That routinely entails exhaustive online outreach in an attempt to make the music go viral. Sure, talented artists can try and try and never see the light of day, but Dickson maintains faith in the new musical meritocracy. "It happens organically, not because an A&R man chose you and you're on MTV, but because you're good," he says. "It takes longer to get there but it's more genuine."

Indie online distribution provides one major advantage to artists: They make roughly 50 cents on a dollar with downloads, compared to a fraction of that if they happen to be on a major label. It also offers advantages to 24HSS. "With digital, once you have the mastered recording, there is no real overhead," Dickson explains. "No damaged copies, no returns."

He says that 24HSS still provides recording budgets -- albeit small ones -- for the acts on its roster and even presses a limited number of CDs to be sold at gigs. But by and large Dickson's day-to-day workload take place in cyberworld. One of 24HSS's major jobs is to promote the product: distribute "sell sheets," bios and press materials; reach out to critics and bloggers and other tastemakers by sending them promo material and links to mp3s. "For instance, we might give away a song to 850 people and 150 people buy it," he says. "We can live with that."

Even though Dickson is functioning in a far different fashion than even a half-decade ago, he's still an A&R man, still choosing the acts he signs and distributes. He accepts unsolicited submissions and samples most all of them. "There's so much chaff you gotta get through," he explains. "But it's really just a matter of clicking a link. You can feel [if it has potential] right away. You're looking for bands that have a good website, 30,000 friends and four or five albums out but can't break through, rather than a band with 14 friends and mom's calling them for dinner."

A line on Dickson's resume helps him navigate the new paradigm: For eight years, from the late 1990s into the 2000s, he worked for Sony Music in marketing, sales and graphic design. "I came in just as the big spending was ending," he says.

Even though Sony considered his running 24 Hour Service Station a conflict of interest, Dickson kept it alive on the down-low. When it came to digital awareness, he was way ahead of the curve at Sony. "I bought a CD burner and was downloading music in the office," he says. "I'd say, 'Y'know, the new Pearl Jam is out there [online],' and people would say, 'How'd you get this?' I was on the cutting edge of what was happening in digital transfer. I was totally on board with Napster. I realized that the genie was out of the bottle and you couldn't put it back in."

After Sony laid him off, Dickson resumed running 24HSS fulltime. "I learned from what the majors did wrong," he says. He has also learned to have patience. Not long ago, the now-defunct Rosewater Elizabeth's 15-year-old debut album, which the label still makes available digitally, recouped its costs. Any future sales are pure profit.

Visit 24 Hour Service Station online.

Tags: music, 24 hour service station, record labels, marshall dickson, Sonshine Ward, Michael Cornette, Tampa Music, Local Bands, Tampa bands

 

 CLICK HERE FOR OFFICIAL ALBUM SITE - NEW ORDER TRIBUTE.com

 

Florida independent record label, 24 Hour Service Station, has assembled a tribute album honoring the music of New Order entitled CEREMONY: A New Order Tribute. The double CD and digital albums are scheduled for release February 20th 2010 to honor what would have been Tony Wilson's 60th birthday. Participants include Rabbit in the Moon, The Cloud Room, Kingsbury, Allegra Gellar, The Beauvilles, Kites with Lights, Detachments and many more!

A portion of the proceeds from record sales will go to the Salford Foundation Trust’s Tony Wilson Award, established in memory of Tony Wilson, the founding father of landmark independent record label Factory Records, who died of cancer in 2007. The trust will benefit children and young people who can demonstrate a special talent or ambition in the arts or creative skills. Factory Records was the home to New Order, Joy Division, Happy Monday, The Durutti Column along with many other artists, and gave unique bands a chance they may not have received at a regular record label.

Former New Order bassist Peter Hook, a patron of the charity, says:


“To see so many indie bands interested in replicating the work of New Order as a tribute to Tony and to help raise funds for Salford Foundation Trust so that it can continue its fine work with young people is just fantastic. Through the Trust’s Tony Wilson Award, young people can access grants that can help them to pursue music, drama, dance and the creative arts."

For more information contact Sonshine Ward at 24 Hour Service Station: sonshine@24hourservicestation.com

Official Site  NewOrderTribute.com

Supported By  New Order Online

Benefitting The Salford Foundation Trust  SalfordFoundationTrust.org.uk/tony

 

-    AVAILABLE NOW    -

 

TWO ADDITIONAL DIGITAL ONLY RELEASES

CEREMONY - THE DIGITAL ALBUM - 16 TRACKS

iTunes / emusic / Amazon mp3

• Mr. Disco
Marc Deon


• Chosen Time
Manumatic


• Everything's Gone Green
CBentley


• Waiting For The Siren's Call
Lush Progress


• Love Less
Jimmy Oakes


• We All Stand
The Artificial Sea


• Truth
Truth


• Angel Dust
Fornever


• Your Silent Face
Wedgepiece


• Face Up
Last Year's Model


• Doubts Even Here
Razed In A New Division Of Agony


• Love Vigilantes
Turbovamps


• Procession
The Thin Boys


• Run
The Sheaks


• True Faith
Against The Stars


• Confusion
Marc Deon

TWELVE VERSIONS OF CEREMONY - 12 TRACKS

iTunes / emusic / Amazon mp3

• Ceremony
Christian Webb & Adam Knowles


• Ceremony
Yes But No
(Kites With Lights REMIX)


• Ceremony
The Bedford Incident


• Ceremony
Razed In A New Division Of Agony


• Ceremony
Fornever


• Ceremony
Glomag


• Ceremony
The Milling Gowns


• Ceremony
The Sheaks


• Ceremony
Yes But No


• Ceremony
Kingsbury


• Ceremony
Marc Deon


• Ceremony
Last Year's Model