The Blue House (www.thebluehouse.org) is a non-profit online store for local artists, focusing primarily on music. Shaw-han Liem, of I am Robot and Proud, started the project in the spring of 2004 and it has since gained a sizable and impressive catalogue and spawned a compilation disc. Liem exchanged some words electronically with Ryan McLaren to explain how it all started and how it works.

CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT WHAT THE BLUE HOUSE IS AND WHY YOU CREATED IT?

The blue house is an online co-op shop. It is a place where you can find cool things like records and the people that make them. Basically the idea is to connect with people that are doing interesting things.

WHERE DID THE IDEA FOR THE BLUE HOUSE COME FROM?

The strange truth is that I started the website on a whim one afternoon. I came home from work with an idea and talked about it with my housemates (at the time, Kristian Galberg, Jim McIntyre and I were playing in a band called Sea Snakes and living together in a blue house). We all were involved in various musical projects and were running a record label called die!venom out of our basement. It seemed like a natural progression of what we were already doing.

WERE YOU INFLUENCED BY RON HAWKINS' (OF THE LOWEST OF THE LOW) VICITMLESSCAPITALISM.COM OR DAVE ULLRICH'S ZUNIOR.COM?

I talked with Dave Ullrich a short time after The Blue House started and I think it's safe to say that we share many of the same motivations.

SO THIS IS A CO-OP, RIGHT? HOW DOES IT WORK?

It is a co-op in the sense that the 'œwork'? (maintaining the catalogue, shipping orders, etc) is shared amongst the various sellers on the site. The money also goes directly to the artists. The Blue House itself does not make any money from sales. It was setup in that way deliberately.

BUT NOT ANYONE CAN SELL THEIR STUFF, IT'S A BIT EXCLUSIVE. WHY IS THAT?

We try to keep a fairly open policy with regards to what is included in the catalogue. The reason for not letting 'just anyone' to sell on the site, is that we want to keep the catalogue unique and maintain a reasonable level of awesomeness.

WHAT KIND OF GOALS DID YOU MAKE FOR YOURSELF OR THE SITE WHEN YOU STARTED IT? HAVE YOU REACHED THOSE GOALS?

I think we had and still have very modest goals. The site is meant to support the other things we like to do (making and putting out records), and to help our friends and like-minded people do the same.

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE SITE AT DOING WHAT YOU SET OUT TO DO?

We're getting there.

WHAT KIND OF WORK IS INVOLVED IN MAINTAINING THE SITE? ARE YOU DOING IT ALL YOURSELF?

Basically the site is maintained by all the sellers. And of course there is a lot of technical nerd-type stuff going on behind the scenes that I handle with varying degrees of success/frustration.

THE INTERNET SEEMS TO BE FILLING A NEED FOR DISTRIBUTION AND RETAIL CENTRES FOR INDEPENDENT ART. WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES OF DOING IT ONLINE?

The great thing about the internet is that it costs very little money and can be undertaken by a bunch of dudes with no business acumen.

DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER PLANS? ANY OTHER THINGS YOU WANT TO DO WITH THE SITE IN THE FUTURE?

We've started to consider offering albums as MP3s (like Zunior, iTunes, etc.). According to one of the guys in U2, this is the way of the future.

DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE IT'S A CHALLENGE TO GET THE WORD OUT ABOUT YOUR ART, LIKE I AM ROBOT AND PROUD, OR THE BUTTONS AND T-SHIRTS ON YOUR SITE? THE BLUE HOUSE HAS TO MAKE GETTING THE WORD OUT A BIT EASIER, BUT DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE THE CURRENT RETAIL MARKET IS GEARED AGAINST SELLING INDEPENDENT WORK?

A traditional 'œretail'? model rewards things that are big. Big factories, big distribution networks. That is great if you are selling cans of soup, but it's not a good way to encourage interesting art.

DO YOU THINK THE BLUE HOUSE COULD EVER TAKE ON A PHYSICAL FORM, LIKE SAY A SHOP ON BLOOR STREET?

I don't think any of us have the will or desire to do things on that level. It was never about 'œrunning a business'?. It is about allowing us to share the things we love doing with other people. I know that sounds cheesy, but really, that's the truth.