By Eric Larson
For the past year, in a corner office deep in the guts of the Fawkes building just off of Loring Park in downtown Minneapolis, Dan Carroll and his meager staff of two—give or take 18 consultants and a few programmers from around the world—have been painstakingly preparing to revolutionize the way independent artists distribute (and consumers consume) music.

The office itself doesn’t reveal much—a few computers on top of tidy desks; a box on the floor, overflowing with Cds—but Carroll, a clean-cut 29-year-old former English major from St. Olaf, is beaming with the excitement of someone holding the sweetest bit of gossip he’s ever heard.

“The music marketplace,” he declares, “is about the change.”

This change, he hopes, will be catalyzed by the launch of his outfit’s Intelligent Media Player (IMP), a deceptively simple, user-friendly, free software program that will allow any artist, anywhere, to upload material to a massive database, where any listener, anywhere, will have immediate access to it, and have the ability to share the material in the time it takes to send an e-mail. The effect it could have on the independent music scene is inspiring, and Carroll says it could realistically result in “a solid middle class of artists supporting themselves by doing what they love.”

The Web site (www.playimp.com) is Google-esque in its simplicity. The logo is written in clean, black text, and underscored by three words: taste, track, share.

Ideally, artists will upload a couple of free teaser tracks, and then charge a nominal price (say 99 cents) for anything else in their repertoire they want to make available. By way of a Real Simple Syndication (or RSS) feed, artists’ fans can also choose to receive automatic updates every time the favorite artist uploads new material onto IMP. With no record deals necessary, no marketing budgets required, worldwide (or Web-wide) distribution, and 75 to 80 percent of profits going directly into the artist’s pocket, it’s what the indy music has been poised for since Sean Fanning—the creator of Napster—“shared” his first MP3 track back in 1999.

This time, though, it’s legal.

In fact, it is a licensing deal between IMP and SNOCAP—the legitimate peer-to-peer file-sharing network created by Fanning, post-Napster—that will likely provide IMP users with an all-access pass to an already existing library of millions and millions of songs.

Add to the equation the 26 million-plus users that Napster had at its peak in 2002, and there is plenty to be excited about.

Independent Voices
Carroll and company have been working stridently toward creating something like IMP since 2002. That’s when Carroll launched a company called InRadio from this spare office space at Utne magazine, where he had worked in the online and circulation departments before going off on his own.

Conceived of as a way to bring independent voices to listeners who are disenchanted with commercial radio, InRadio has since distributed 12 issues of its bi-monthly audio-magazine, each of which features about 15 separate artists, from Appalachian fiddlers and jazz cellists to local rock acts like Halloween Alaska, the Honeydogs and The Olympic Hopefuls (now just The Hopefuls).

“I tried to convince [Utne] to do [InRadio] when I was an intern,” says Carroll, “but the timing wasn’t great for them. After three years, I said, ‘If you aren’t going to do this, I am. If you’d like to partner with me, that’s great.’ So they did, and we’ve operated under the Utne umbrella; using their office space and advertising in the magazine.”

Carroll says that InRadio was largely influenced by Utne’s unconventional approach to independent media; to expose the myriad voices under-represented in the mainstream corporate media to the widest possible audience in a single venue.

Among the most exciting prospects, to Carroll, is the way that IMP can be utilized by other media outlets. “[IMP] will offer media organizations like Utne the opportunity to automatically distribute packets of media to their subscribers, through the software’s ‘taster’ function,” he explains. “Think about all the music Utne talks about in every issue. Now, instead of just reading about it, you’ll know that in your [free] software, they’re going give to you any audio, or podcasts, or clips of movies they have highlighted in the magazine.”

The “taster” function is, essentially, a streaming version of IMP, which paying members will be able to put up on their Web site. A local club like First Avenue, for instance, could pay to add a taster bar to their Web site, allowing them access to the music library. They could then pick songs they wanted the taster to play—from bands that are playing at the club that week or that month—and load them to the taster. A user on First Avenue’s site could then click on the taster, listen to the sampler, and decide whether they want to attend the show.

Music and Mission
Underlying all of this seems to be Carroll’s abiding belief in the power of the little guy to make a difference. It’s a belief inspired in part by his own experiences studying and volunteering abroad, working at Utne, and working in the field of social justice and union organizing. Indeed, it’s a belief strong enough for him to have given up a steady, feel-good social justice job last February.

“[InRadio and IMP have] everything to do with my background in organizing and social justice,” he says. “The original mission was to remake media as a force for change; through giving a voice to independents. All of this had been done with them in mind, to give them the tools that major labels have had for years.”

People have long been trying to come up with better means to get independent music heard, and InRadio has managed to do just that. In three years, they have attracted some 3,500 subscribers. It might seem like a modest number, but it’s an impressive one, considering their no-budget beginnings, and the fact that the number has doubled each year.

Carroll sees IMP as part of a broader shift from the information society to what he calls an “attention” society. “All that stuff you used to hear about a time when we’d have everything available to us at the click of a button; that’s already here,” he says. “Now, the only limiting factor is who you trust to feed you that content.”

With the relative success of InRadio, and the relationships that they’ve fostered with artists and labels over the past three years, Carroll is confident that consumers will count them among the trustworthy.
“There are a couple things that have kept us going,” he says. “First, is how great independent musician and labels are to work with. They’re down to earth, and they just appreciate the chance to get heard. We’re not critics. We exist solely to celebrate all the great music out there that isn’t getting heard.”

IMP will be officially launched early next year, but Minneapolis Observer readers are invited to be part of the “beta test group” starting now. Just go to www.playimp.com and let them know you’re interested.