It began as an experiment to see if DJ Shadow could engage and empower the online remixing community. Eighty or so submissions later, he started thinking “Hmm, maybe we should open this up a little!”.

Interview with Michael Fiebach, of DJShadow.com, below:

What was the original idea behind the contest ?

Shadow wanted to see what sort of response we would get if we started to engage the online remixers. We got so many submissions, and surprisingly, a lot of them were really good! We decided that a CD, free with physical purchases at the store at DJShadow.com, would be a cool, unique, and fair way to release the best remixes as a cohesive product. So far it has been extremely successful. Actually we are really close to being completely out of stock in the CD, so if you want one, act quick!

Were you surprised at the quality of the submissions ?

We were very surprised. I think it really inspired Shadow too, I mean he ended up using a lot of the remixes in his live set in his tour through Europe, which says a lot. Neither of us expected to have trouble choosing the best tracks because of how many good remixes there were. I think both of us assumed we would have trouble finding good mixes, which was not the case at all.

As a label manager, what are the biggest changes you saw happening the past few years ? And how did you respond to some of those changes ?

It is funny because I am not officially a label manager, but what I do is very similar to running an indie. I run Shadow’s online operation, his merchandising, and I do project management; but under all of this falls running an indie music operation that releases, promotes, and distributes music, so in many ways the fact that I am running DJShadow.com is much like running a label. The biggest change I have seen is the need to become very creative with music marketing. Creativity was a plus before, and now it is a must. The music marketplace is so over-saturated you need to come up with new and creative ways to release and market music, or else people will simply not care, and therefore won’t purchase. Shadow has always had innovative ways to market and release music, so we just had to take it to the next step and become even more creative! Which I think we have accomplished with this Remix Project, the relaunch of the site and store (which was Webby nominated in 2009), and the various Direct To Fan offerings we have come up with recently.

How do you see the future of the vinyl format ?

Vinyl will be viable for a long time. The market has expanded in the last 5 years. DJing and even vinyl collecting is VERY cool now! But vinyl sales is still a very niche market; I believe vinyl is like 3% of the entire music marketplace. Vinyl will never again be a main source of income, but it can continue to grow, and continue to be a useful revenue stream for labels and retailers. Vinyl has the potential to stick around longer than CDs, because they have that physical product aesthetic that will always be relevant for collectors. CDs don’t have as much tangibility. Also, you can pretty much get the sonic equivalent with a CD that you can get with a download; but vinyl is something that cannot be replicated sonically by playing it digitally. I don’t care what plug-ins you use, it isn’t the same.

Any new music from the bay area we should know about ?

Check out Z-Man’s FREE EP.
 Also, Lyrics Born has some new tracks out, and I believe Quannum is working on some new releases.
And of course Shadow’s new record will be coming in 2011….

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