Main  Pressing plants  Pennyroyal Tea  Test pressings  Collection

Distribution
Most Geffen releases were distributed by various divisions of BMG, and later by Universal themselves. There's not much interesting to say about major label distribution, so this document investigates the companies which distributed the Sub Pop and Tupelo releases.  UK: Cartel In the early 80's there was a boom in independent labels in the UK. The major labels were ignoring the bands who were creating music "alternative" to what the majors wanted. These bands were instead signing to local labels, formed either by local record retailers, the bands themselves or their management. These labels needed to get their records into the record shops nationally. Regional distributors sprang up, each offering manufacturing and distribution deals to these new "alternative" labels. Record retailers did not want to buy from seven or eight small distributors so each of these small local distributors started offering each others releases to the retailers in their geographical area. This meant that stock was held in each distributors warehouse and each distributor had its own sales team. It also formed the foundations of the Cartel. The main Cartel members were Rough Trade, Backs, Nine Mile, Revolver, Red Rhino and Fast Forward. Rough Trade had a string of hits with the Smiths making them cash rich enough to buy a large warehouse in Collier Street in the Kings Cross area of London. The Smiths also saw the need for every record retailer to stock Cartel distributed product and no longer leave it to the small independent retailers. As more high street retailers opened accounts with the Cartel more and more independently distributed recordings became available through mainstream retailers. Many of these retailers provided sales information for the chart pollsters gallup and so more indie releases featured in the charts, generating airplay and more sales. The increasing success meant a restructuring of the Cartel. The regional distributors only provided stock to Rough Trade and it was despatched from London to the retailers. The regional sales offices were retained and forwarded the orders to Rough Trade for distribution. The regional distributors concentrated on signing independent labels to manufacturing and distribution deals and the product was distributed by the newly formed Rough Trade Distribution. Rough Trade Distribution had a sales force of reps who called on the retailers and presold forthcoming releases to the shops. The reps brought test pressings to allow the retailers to decide what to order. A test pressing of releases being worked by the sales team would go to each rep (10) and to each sales office (6), each would receive a sheet with release information, but may have received more than one test pressing. A person working for Mayking (where Tupelo placed their vinyl orders) claimed that their usual quantity of test pressings for a release that they thought would sell well was 25, 12 if they thought they would only sell 1-2000, and 3-6 for little 1000 run pressing. So, the test pressings with Mayking/ MPO test pressing labels and release sheets (Bleach, Blew EP, and Sliver 7") were not used for promotion, but to gather advance orders from retailers. White labels were ordered for the Sliver 12", these were probably used both to gather advance orders and promotion (in other words for radio play and press).  USA: ADA (Alternative Distribution Alliance) Alternative Distribution Alliance was formed in 1993 by Warner Music Group (owns 95%) and Sub Pop (owns 5%, though WMG again owns 49% of Sub Pop), to focus on the independent music market. Today, they are the leading distributor of independent record labels in USA. ADA UK was formed in 2006, to distribute independent music labels in Europe. Before forming ADA, Sub Pop was mostly distributed by Caroline Distribution. Releases which claim to be distributed by Caroline should have been released pre-1993, though the Caroline text may not have been removed when pressing reissues, so it's not always certain. On a re-release of Sub Pop 200 (SP25b), an ADA sticker has been stuck on the back insert, over the "Distributed exclusively by Caroline inc." text, though a Caroline "logo" can be seen under the Sub Pop logo (image 1). Sub Pop is still distributed by ADA in USA.  USA: K Records A K Records sticker (image 2) can be found on some of the original plastic sleeves that the Love Buzz 7" singles where released in. It turned out that K Records did distribute a limited number of the singles, as Calvin Johnson, founder of K Records explains: "K did distribute a lot of the early Sub Pop catalogue, including the first batch of 45s by Blood Circus, Mudhoney, Tad Swallow, Soundgarden and Nirvana. The Sub Pop singles club started at the same time that the Go Team singles subscription started, January of 1989. Often we were still distributing these records in cases there were excess copies. The Nirvana 45 was released before the singles club began. We distributed at least 50 copies of this record, probably more. It was listed in a couple issues of our K News, a newsletter and mail order catalogue. On a side note, I reviewed that 45 in my fanzine, Sand, which was printed in May of 1988. As far as I know, that was the first review of a Nirvana record (or maybe Nirvana, period) ever published."  USA: UNI Distribution Corp./ Universal Music & Video Distribution In 1966, MCA formed UNI Records (short for Universal City Records) in Universal City, California. UNI merged with two other MCA subsidiaries in 1971, Kapp Records and the American Decca Records, to form MCA Records. The three labels individually issued new release for until 1972, when new releases started to appear on MCA Records only, and shortly after the back catalog was transferred to MCA as well. UNI was briefly revived by MCA Records in 1988 as a niche label, but by 1989 all the signed bands were returned back to the MCA Records label. UNI was also the name of MCA's music distribution network, and they distributed many Geffen releases. After Seagram's purchase of MCA in 1995, UNI Distribution Corp. was renamed Universal Music & Video Distribution, Inc. In June 2001, it was renamed Universal Music & Video Distribution, Corp. It was changed again in 2006 to Universal Music Distribution.
1. Caroline text and ADA sticker 2. Distributed by K Records sticker Thanks to John Andrews (first four Cartel paragraphs), Chris S., K Records, Enrico Vincenzi (image 1), and Wikipedia.

Main  Pressing plants  Pennyroyal Tea  Test pressings  Collection