Zunior achievers

BY HOWARD DRUCKMAN

If you want something done right, do it yourself. If you're a Canadian indie musician with no manager, agent, record deal or desire to take on the hassles of selling and distributing your music, do it with Zunior.

Zunior.com, a web-based record label, functions like iTunes or PureTracks, selling downloads of full-length albums for $8.88 and individual songs for 88 cents. The difference is that the artists get all but 15 per cent of the sales, which goes to PayPal for the credit-card transactions. And Zunior works with musicians that iTunes and PureTracks wouldn't touch (or those who wouldn't want to touch them).

Zunior is the brainchild of Dave Ullrich (formerly of Kingston indie-rock duo The Inbreds), who's neatly combined his experiences making music, running the Inbreds' old PF Records label and developing software into this do-it-yourself label. In its first six months, Zunior has offered music downloads from Ullrich's former Inbreds partner Mike O'Neill, as well as The Golden Seals, David Celia, The Dinner Is Ruined and tonnes of unreleased Inbreds material.

The obvious advantage of an online-only label is that struggling indie musicians don't have to spend time, money and energy pursuing all sorts of non-musical activity: like pressing a minimum run of 500 CDs; trying to distribute an album across this geographical nightmare of a country; having to monitor sales and collect income from retailers; or even having to sell the music from their own websites.

There are unexpected advantages, too. Like Radio Zunior, a feature on the website that plays tracks by the acts on the label. "I know that people who've gone in to buy one specific thing, after listening to the radio, have downloaded single tracks by other artists," says Ullrich. "For 88 cents, they're willing to try it."

Another advantage is that musicians can control the timing of their releases. Just ask Mike O'Neill, whose excellent album, The Owl, was the first recording available exclusively through Zunior. "I spent about two years making this record," says O'Neill. "With Zunior, I can put out anything I want, whenever I want. I can release a song the day I finish the mastering."

O'Neill appreciates having more control of his music, as suggested on one of the best songs on The Owl, "I Don't Want to Go." Sample lyrics: "This one's all mine ... choose yourself and don't let the other people decide / They don't know what you're like and you won't wanna go."

"It's about Perimeter [Records]," says O'Neill of his former label. "Which was actually a good experience, but things would still end up happening that wouldn't be my choice of how to do it. It wasn't... satisfying." Clearly, he's found Zunior to be much more so.

The only major challenge for participating musicians is how to drive their listeners to the Zunior site. If a musician were to tour with no CDs to sell (losing the crucial possibility of impulse buying at shows), they'd have to convince the people in the audience to visit Zunior.

To that end, Zunior will present a label showcase this week. They're also giving away a free holiday album download of the label's artists doing seasonal songs, to every person who's purchased anything from the website this year.

"The next step would be to hire a publicist, to work for whichever artists want it," says Ullrich. "Someone who's really interested, to bring people to it."

Call me, Dave. Let's talk.