UK rioters burn down distro - 150 indie labels affected

[lifeindeadtime]

Not sure if you guys heard about this, but a warehouse was burnt down on Monday night that housed stock for PIAS - a distribution arm that worked with over 150 independent labels in the UK.

I contribute to a music blog and wrote a piece about it. I'm shamelessly self-promoting, but for a good cause. You can learn about the situation, what music fans can do to help, and read what Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello thinks about the UK riots.

[hmxhenry]

Thanks for posting this. I've heard bits and pieces about this all day and it was great to finally get a full run down of what happened and who has been affected.

This is potentially crippling for some of the indies listed in the Pitchfork article, and it hits a lot of labels we've worked with professionally and that I've worked with personally. Some of the estimates list 10 days as the turnaround for replacement CDs and 3 months for replacement vinyl, but it's safe to assume some of those labels don't have the necessary funds to replace that stock, and it's uncertain how long it will take for insurance to pay off.

Even our RB Artist of the Month, August Burns Red, has been affected. On their Facebook page they've asked people to help show support by bands hit by this by purchasing digital downloads of their work. It'll give a lot of them a much needed boost, and in some cases it may be their only source of income until their physical media is replaced.

[raynebc]

I just happened to read about this in connection to Flight of the Conchords. My condolences to all those affected.

[afterstasis]

I've only heard a bit about this, sounds like a major bummer.

I've run two microlabels and been friends with quite a few individuals who were involved with larger indie labels and it's a much bigger pain in the ass than most would ever imagine (and yeah, rewarding too but hey hey hey).

[Lameboy19]

damn, some favorites of mine were affected, sucks big time.

[Mystlyfe77]

I bet that dust sounds glorious.