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Irish Punk//Hardcore

Ok so as said I plan on doing a lot more different stuff with new ideas bridging stuff from previous activities to future, some of you know I need time away from releases and distro so this is a project that will take time to build in the meantime. It is a site on Irish Punk//Hardcore and everything that comes with it. For now, it is a subdomain of distroyrecords.com called irishpunk.distroyrecords.com I have not thought of a name for it yet, as Eircore was already taken, hence the crappy subdomain. At first, it will be just reporting the news and archiving the happenings of the scene.

http:// irishpunk.distroyrecords.com

The aim is to create a resource for the scene of punk//hardcore in Ireland with the idea of building and creating something bigger and stronger.  A website that will document the scene and hopefully provide some sort of future archive as bands come and go.

You will find links to the latest news and new music and links to support bands and others, on the sidebar you will find a link to buy the Karate Klub compilation 12″ all proceeds will go back into the Karate Klub Practice Space in Dublin.

How do we plan on doing this:

  • News site giving info of latest happening in the Irish punk scene and things that cross in and out through the scene. 
  • A funding source to help support projects whether it be spaces, releases, tours and even new ideas. (more info on this to come)
  • Distribution for bands through Distro-y online store – distrotable.com 

Get involved and support your scene, the scene needs people to get up off their asses and do something in the spirit of DIY.
Get in touch if you want to contribute in some way Contact Us

email news and get in touch to find out the greater plan of the site at: irishpunk@distroyrecords.com

List of stuff that needs to be done for this project:
1. Come up with a name for this website!!
2. Create a logo with new name!!

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Running Costs

So in the last post I said I wanted to explain how I ran Distro-y and give you a look into how it was run and I continue to run it. I look it as a hobby I do just like posting punk news on D-Beat Beater and doing BJJ another hobby of mine. Some hobbies cost more than others. So I wanted to give people who care a look into what are the running cost of Distro-y and how I do stuff and why I do it as maybe a way for people to learn and make others think.

I started the distro as something small that could be kept at bottom of a wardrobe but things change which meant needing more space so teamed up with another Irish label Art For Blind also based in Sligo, and rented an art studio designated for music, which my share costs €75.00 a month (€900 a year). The studio is on my way home from work so if I finish work at a reasonable time I can quickly grab a few orders and ship them that day as the post office is also on my way home thats why people in Ireland get next day delivery and I make Amazon look slow. Buying crappy laptops and external hard drives that broke meant, I kept losing files so I wanted access to all music files so I pay for cloud storage (Google Drive) to store all those big WAV files which is €2.00 a month (€24 a year) and I can access them off my phone and share them where ever I want and don’t have to worry about losing the files when my computer broke again.
Websites/Domains/Hosting so for me to run this blog for Distroyrecords.com costs me €10.00 a year for the website domain. I used to host the distro on webshop system called prestashop and needed hosting to do this cost €75.00 however I no longer use that system but still pay hosting for this blog and other projects D-Beat Beater and some more stuff
I stopped using prestashop as the version I was using became outdated, and the newer version didnt work well for me so I switched to Shopify which the Distrotable.com store is ran off at the moment and that cost $29 or €26.3 a month ( €315.60 a year) which I hate the idea to pay, I decided to switch to Shopify 18months ago due to issues with my own webshop crashing and having to take countless hours trying to figure out how fix it, plus Shopify was optimised for your phone which I think more than a quarter of online orders come from these days for me, there is also an app which enabled me to run the store easily from my phone. I used to also pay for other services such as bandcamp for labels which I thought was a good idea at the time but regret it big time now and another service Haulix which would send digital promos to reviewers. But no longer use them services.
So in review how much would it costs for me to run my little label:
Rent: €900.00
Shopify: €315.60
Website/Domains/Google Drive: €109.00

Annual running costs for Distro-y: €1,324.60

That’s before I bought in distro stock and released records and whatever else most of this money came out of my own pocket, as I said a hobby. This was a post about costs of running stuff for a small time label and a post to say support those who try t do stuff for the scene it doesnt have to be with money but a thank you goes a long way when it comes to effort. I still plan on not changing any of those overheads as I progress to the next stage of Distro-y which I want to progress to something more than a distro and label. I started Distro-y to help bands and to help archive music and that’s where we will go to next stage.
I hope you found this as a bit of an insight and if people want to comment and stuff I do/did to run the label message me at alex@distroyrecords.com

Thanks for reading – Alex

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This Is Distro-y

Distro-y has been a pretty much a one man operation from distro to label to whatever else has came out of it, which includes other webzine, sub-label a few bits of gig/tour promotion. This is what I do as a hobby and enjoy doing most of the time, a few years ago I said ‘fuck it’ and sold off the distro and 6 months label came back refreshed and more eager than ever.

However some times life happens and for now I have to finish the distro and scale all my activities back for reasons, I wish not to get into at the moment, but for those wondering its not due to burn out or for loss of love of doing it nor for the money side of things cause after years of doing it I finally figured out how to actually make things financially work in terms of running a distro 2.5 hours away from any punk scene and operating completely online.

So what now…… well for the last few weeks there has been a permenant distro sale as to clear all stock in distro I will hold on to most releases I have done and finish one last release currently at press Fatum 12″. I will still dabble in distribution and even a small bit of dealing on discogs or something I think as still love helping spread music and ideas.

Anyone reading this blog post on the Distroy website will notice a fairly basic kind of website. I plan on developing this website slowly and surely into a nice looking website as an archive of Distroy which I will post about as I add to it as I want t archive the music I love. When I think of the music I love DIY punk/hardcore/crust I also think of it as being progressive in terms of ideas and ideologies however I feel the way it is done is the exact same way as it has been for the last 30 years which I dont think is the way that today is. I think of DIY music of that of something progressive and open to new ideas and with that said I also plan on using Distro-y Records blog and website as a way of communicating some new ideas and how I ran Distro-y and what worked for me. Not as a lecture on how stuff should be done just more rambling on my thoughts and ideas and reasoning around. Some of you won’t care other I hope it helps give some ideas to.

Anyway I will wind down everything into something more manageable as something quiter hopefully more progressive and hopefully for you really interesting for now. Thank you for all the support and not gone completely away but pick up some records with 35% off at the distro: distrotable.com