Is there any honor in the recording biz? John Curley, recording engineer and former bassist for the Afghan Whigs, thinks so, and he’s hooked up with a handful of investors to form The All Night Party (ANP), a music-services company that believes there’s money to be made fair-and-square in the Cincinnati music scene. ANP is not exactly a label, though it has worked with local indie bands like The Sundresses and Mallory on their recent albums. Instead, the company offers its services a la carte, at flat, upfront rates. A band can contract for something traditional, such as mastering a CD, but the focus goes beyond stamping out CDs to things the average band might not consider or try on their own, such as “musicating” merchandise with song download codes or placing a song in a television commercial. “Infrastructure-wise, a lot of those opportunities get left alone and bands don’t exploit them,” says ANP’s Dave Davis, a Grammy–nominated mastering engineer and digital designer who teaches at UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. “We want to raise the level of the lake for regional artists in terms of pay, opportunities, and awareness.” Curley concurs, and he ought to know. “The traditional label model, where they would recruit talent, develop artists, pay for recording costs, promote the artist, and then usually take all the money—we don’t think that that’s working anymore,” he says. With ANP, Curley hopes that great local bands won’t have to leave town to prove they’re great.

Originally published in the December 2009 issue.

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