Dot.Comedy: Dolan releases first stand-up album online.

Michael J. Dolan

Comedian Michael J Dolan has released his first live comedy album online – and it’s free.

North West stand-up Dolan recorded his 2011 show Dress to Depress at the Platt Chapel, Manchester, in April, and this week made it available to stream on both Spotify and his website. However listeners also have the option of downloading it for a small fee.

Dolan explained: “The record will work the same way the live show did at last year’s Fringe – you can listen to it for free and then if you want to you can pay me money for it. I’ve tried to make getting hold of it as easy as possible, so you can stream it directly from my website or on Spotify, and then you should be able to download it wherever is most convenient.”

He added: “I’m not going to the Edinburgh Fringe this year on account of it being massively, unreasonably, and prohibitively expensive, so I figured I’d do this instead. The show last year went really well, but the room only held about 40 people so I reckon in total only about 800 people saw it.

“I think I can get at least that many people to listen to me this way, and without it costing me literally thousands of actual pounds.”

Dolan follows a growing trend of artists releasing material independently on the web rather than through third party agencies.

You can listen to Dress to Depress here, or purchase it from iTunes, Amazon or Bandcamp.