took out some ads and did his own marketing. As
he continued to expand and sign
new talent, he made distribution deals, first
with Rounder Records, then with
Polygram. He realized the enormous potential of
Internet sales, and Anderson
decided that a single distributor was not the
way of the future, opting instead for
multiple independent distributors by region.
Little Dog releases represent a wide
range of American roots music ranging from
honky-tonk, blues, country, and folk to
rock and Latin. Anderson also released his solo
projects "Working Class," "Dogs in
Heaven," and "Daredevil" through the
label.
In addition to playing and producing his own
blistering solo recordings, the
Grammy Award winning Anderson has produced such
artists as Michelle Shocked,
k.d. lang, Sara Evans, Lonesome Strangers, Joy
Lynn White, and Meat Puppets.
www.peteanderson.com and
www.littledogrecords.com
CHRIS FARREN, PRODUCER/WRITER AND PRESIDENT
COMBUSTION MUSIC
Chris Farren discovered that music exerted a
powerful force over him at a very
early age. From the piano lessons he began at
four years old, to the guitar, trombone,
and saxophone, which he later mastered, to the
club bands he played in during high
school and college, his entire life was
consumed by music. "Music just had a strangely
powerful allure for me." He enrolled at East
Carolina University, but when the course
work began leading him toward classical music,
he switched his major to English, and
focused on creative writing as a way of
advancing his interest in writing songs. He
graduated in 1981, moved to Los Angeles, and
supported himself playing club gigs
and as a session singer on demos, jingles, and
backups. "I thought I was going to be a
star. I thought I would pay my dues and be
discovered. It was a lot harder than I
thought."
Farren signed an artist/writer publishing deal
with MCA in 1983 and created a
niche writing for film and television during
the mid-1980s. Advised that he did not fit
the techno/heavy metal/glam rock image then
popular, and that Nashville was the
only place then embracing the
singer/songwriter, he made the move, despite not con-
sidering himself a country artist. Between
cutting his own albums, playing guitar and
singing backup on other people's records,
co-writing with some of the city's best
songwriters, and the session work he continued
to do in Los Angeles, Farren was able
to make a decent living. He honed his skills
while engineering demos of his own
songs, and he added to his income by
engineering and producing demos for other
artists.
Between the demos Farren did in Nashville, and
the film sound track work he
continued to do in Los Angeles, he found
himself increasingly drawn to producing.
Able to write and sing the songs, play all the
instruments, and produce and engineer
the recordings, he found that film companies
liked working with him because with
CASE STUDY:
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