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The Long-Tail Gets Longer, and Indie Folk-Pop Artist Steven Alvarado is Helping it Grow

Without the help of a major record label, celebrated indie artist Steven Alvarado toured Europe this summer, got his music on the hit PBS television show Roadtrip Nation, and has a new studio album in the works with mass distribution. How did he do it? The Long Tail.

New York, NY (Billboard Publicity Wire) March 7, 2007 -- New York City singer-songwriter Steven Alvarado has been on tour, selling downloads on iTunes, getting his music on PBS television, and carving out a place for himself on the international music scene. Not bad for an artist you may have never heard of. Principals of the now famous Wired Magazine news article and book The Long Tail by writer Chris Anderson are clearly at work here.

In spring of 2005 Steven Alvarado released The Howl Sessions on his own upstart record label Mott Street. By summer of 2006 the album had amassed an enormous amount of good press heralding him as one of the greats with comparisons to the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. Quotes like "A truly excellent release." -Zeitgeist-Scot (London), "Alvarado is a salty, epigrammatic, storytelling poet." -Chris S. Witwer, GayWired.com (USA) and "Startlingly gorgeous and cohesive." -Stephanie R. Myers, The Deli, (New York) became the norm. By fall Alvarado embarked on his Howl Sessions Tour, which started in NYC and took him to England and France and back to the U.S. with a final stop at The Hinge Café in Philadelphia, PA. The tour named after his critically acclaimed album played intimate venues across Europe including London's world famous Troubadour where Bob Dylan once played on his first UK visit.

every piece of recorded music that exists to be included in the iTunes catalogue.

Alvarado is among the growing number of artists who have decided to take matters into their own hands and forgo the typical major-label path to success. As various avenues of distribution become increasingly available, more and more artists have opted to bypass record companies altogether. The number one culprit in this mutiny? The Internet. Websites like MySpace can get an artist noticed and help them build a substantial fan-base. MySpace has become the standard for all musicians major or minor for maintaining a presents on the Web. They offer free web space that includes streaming music, video, photos, and Blog space.

CD Baby has quietly become the number-one distributor of independent music in the world. About two years ago they signed a deal with the wildly popular Apple iTunes for digital distribution. Deals with every major digital distributor including Rhapsody, Emusic, AOL and MSN Music soon followed. Super D/Phantom Distribution, the largest CD distributor for both major and independent record companies in the world came next and offered CD Baby a better deal for its' artists than any other label they distribute. Under this exclusive deal there are no returns, a feat previously unheard of. These deals give artists on the CD Baby roster the same distribution that any major can give and makes the entire CD Baby catalogue available to easily buy digitally or in traditional brick-and-mortar stores.

iTunes, the most influential music distributor in the music business just announced they are now the fourth largest music seller in the world. They are poised to become number one as CD sales continue to drop, and downloads and iPod sales continue to rise. The staggering success of the iPod and iTunes has without question shifted the way all music will be distributed in the future. In true Long-Tail ideology of make everything available, Steve Jobs himself said he wants "every piece of recorded music that exists to be included in the iTunes catalogue."

As a result Mercy Alvarado's debut album, Bleed, the follow up, 2005's The Howl Sessions, and the 2006 release of Howling Live in New York Alvarado's first live album are all available on iTunes. To his credit, Alvarado drew an impressive group of musicians to play on The Howl Sessions including Rob Burger (Rufus Wainwright, Norah Jones) on an assortment of vintage keyboards, and Joe Quigley, (Shawn Colvin, Lisa Loeb) on bass.

The album drew attention from the get-go. Former MTV Veejay Adam Curry played the title cut Howl (pushing up daisies) on his groundbreaking Podcast Daily Source Code resulting in thousands of hits to Alvarado's Website and sales on iTunes. Taking further advantage of the internet, Alvarado began emailing his Electronic Press Kit to various contacts and got a song featured in two episodes of the PBS TV show Roadtrip Nation, which airs weekly.

Alvarado is currently at work on a new album and has once again drawn well-known musicians to play. Grammy-nominated drummer Kenny Wolleson (Sex Mob, Lisa Loab, Rufus Wainwright) and guitarist Smokey Hormel (Beck, Johnny Cash, Rick Rubin.) The album is expected out this summer along with a tour.

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