University of Montana Kaimin
June 2, 2004

Folk rockers making file sharing work for them

In 1999, while many of their Stanford colleagues were jumping onto the dot-com bandwagon that was rolling in the Silicon Valley, identical twins Justin and Jason Munning felt a different calling: music. But that's not to say the brothers and four other Stanford grads who make up the folk-pop group Ten Mile Tide were out to lunch on the technology-boom going on in their backyard.

They recognized the great opportunities that an online society offered their band and capitalized on them.

Like many unsigned groups, Ten Mile Tide saw radio as an inaccessible medium for their music to be heard on.

"Major commercial radio is completely controlled by major labels," said Jason Munning in a phone conversation from San Francisco. So the band turned to the largely unexplored region of peer-to-peer file sharing on the Internet. Using the file-swapping program Kazaa, Ten Mile Tide was able to get its music out to masses without signing onto a label or leaving the Bay Area.

This tech know-how combined with a great sound led to a nationwide fan base for the band. As of today, people have pulled 10 million Ten Mile Tide songs off Kazaa. According to Munning, the file-sharing strategy has "taken us from a local San Francisco band to a nationally touring band."

They are planning to embark on a tour of the western United States that will bring them to several Montana venues to support Vancouver-based folk group The Clumsy Lovers. Both groups will be in Helena this Wednesday at Miller's Crossing.

Even their tours are tech-supported, as fans can sign up to be on the "Street Team" on the band's Web site, www.tenmiletide.com, and promote the band in their communities. This gives the band free promotion and the ability to see where they should tour.

Munning said the strategy they pioneered is now gaining speed. He says they have been frustrated by the recording industry's crackdown on file sharing, which has diminished Kazaa users by 30 percent, but says it's "only so long that those scare tactics can work."

He said the band is not worried about loss in record sales due to downloading. As with most bands, he said the majority of Ten Mile Tide's income comes from touring, not record sales, and added "people still want to buy CDs if they like (the music)."

With all the press the band has been getting (they have been featured on CNN, in The Denver Post, and other major media outlets) and the fan base they have amassed, Ten Mile Tide has been the object of affection for some major labels. But so far, efforts to sign the band have been unsuccessful, as Ten Mile Tide has opted for the freedom of doing their own recording and promoting. If more musicians get keen to Ten Mile Tide's approach, music fans may be seeing more artists reaching them without going through the record labels; this is good news if you are into the artist-made-music and CDs that cost 10 bucks.

This is not so good news for the recording industry. It looks like it better come up with some better scare tactics, and fast, lest it become obsolete, and judging by the creativity shown in the past by the recording industry, my bet is they won't come up with much. Ten dollar CDs, here we come.