Pete Molinari surveys the scene at Glastonbury. Photograph: David Levene/Guardian
The sales figures for downloads of Big Bertha's first release, A Virtual Landslide by Pete Molinari, came in recently, almost four months after the single came out. I knew that I would be lucky to break even on vinyl (and I haven't), but was hoping that downloads - which cost nothing to manufacture since they only exist in virtual form, like the disembodied soul of a robot - would make some money back for the company.
"From the first batch of sales on iTunes," says Joe Bangina, head of digital distribution at Cargo Records, who are looking after Big Bertha's releases, "you've made $27."
I'm amazed it's so low. Molinari's career has been taking off since the release of the single, with a big management company taking him on board, meetings with major labels and plenty of sold-out gigs. Remarkably, Bangina thinks that this is quite good. "There's a misconception about downloads," he continues. "They're not really replacing records and CDs; they currently only count for 5% of music sales since the vast majority of them are illegal. But personally I think illegal downloads are great since they act as a massive marketing tool."
While it is harder than ever to make a return on putting out records and CDs, the download age has created a new era of possibility in terms of getting your music out there. The 23-year-old classically trained, Brighton-based, folk-tinged singer Kate Walsh recorded an album at a friend's house and put it up on the internet. She contacted iTunes and persuaded them to sell it, and this summer it went to number one in their album charts. Without any record company involvement her music was being heard all over the world, a few months after she recorded it.
But iTunes is something of a lottery. If you're an unknown that's not one of the lucky few featured on the iTunes opening page, it's a fluke that your music will be picked up by the legal download-buying public. Next week comes Big Bertha's second single release. London Cherry by Teddy Paige, a former Sun Studios session man turned medieval troubadour turned psychiatric institute inmate, is a catchy rockabilly tune with heaps of charm. With the instant accessibility of downloads it's possible that London Cherry might become a cult hit anywhere from Dakar to Lima - extremely unlikely, I'll accept, but possible. It's that dream, that possibility of a smash hit, which keep struggling independent labels from giving up the ghost.
