If Track 7, “The Denton Polka,” that spunky ditty Brave Combo composed for the city’s sesquicentennial, doesn’t make Polka’s Revenge a must-have collectible, the long-term prospects for the compact disc just might.

Brave Combo band leader Carl Finch said Revenge could be the band’s last CD.

Courtesy photo

Brave Combo – from left, Ann Marie Harrop, Danny O’Brien, Alan Emert, back, Carl Finch and Jeffrey Barnes – celebrates the release of “Polka’s Revenge” at tonight’s show. The 20-song disc includes two tunes written in honor of Denton.

“The medium is on the way out,” Finch said, adding that the band members debated whether they should even release the current album of four new tunes and 16 new arrangements on CD at all. “The question really is whether to make it tangible.”

Like thousands of other musical groups around the country, Brave Combo is doing its best to make the leap to the digital age, since the recording industry doesn’t seem able to, Finch said. The band’s current albums are available on iTunes, and they’ve been working for several years on a homegrown distribution system for their music.

He imagines one day soon, instead of selling CDs at a table after a concert, they’ll encourage people to download from their Web site instead.

But for the time being, Brave Combo is holding off. That’s because even as downloading increases in popularity, sales on the Web aren’t offsetting the precipitous drop in CD sales.

“People just don’t collect like they used to,” Finch said.

But Recycled Books Records CDs employee Trey Price, who himself has a 1,000-plus titles in his collection that includes local music, said the store is still buying and selling CDs.

“There’s a certain quality of music — album quality — on CDs,” Price said. “It’s just like old LPs. People still collect them.”

Finch thinks several factors contributed to the sea change in music distribution, illegal file-sharing notwithstanding. First, public radio has all but abandoned its broadcast of alternative music, going to an all-talk format.

“That was 200 stations with airplay all over the country to 20, almost overnight,” Finch said.

Plus, the recording industry burned people on collecting when it converted to CDs and “got greedy” with the pricing, Finch said.

Now even outlets for selling music are diminishing rapidly, which he hears as the medium’s death knell.

For that reason, Brave Combo deliberately packed 20 tunes on Polka’s Revenge, and for the first six months, will sell the CD for $10.

While many bands depend on album sales for income, Brave Combo’s reputation as a live act remains its bread and butter.

Still, Finch wonders how people will find the art and music they like, given that people stay home, plugged into their computers more each day.

“We’ve become a culture of isolation,” he said. “It may take a couple of generations to change that.”

For those not consumed by Harry Potter-mania tonight, Brave Combo will have a CD release party at Dan’s Silverleaf, 103 Industrial St. Popular local western swing artists Bonnie and Nick Norris will open, and show time is 10 p.m. Tickets are $10.

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address is pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com.

BRAVE COMBO

What: Brave Combo’s CD release party, with opening act Bonnie and Nick Norris

When: 10 p.m. tonight

Where: Dan’s Silverleaf, 103 Industrial St.

Details: Tickets are $10. For more information, call 940-320-2000 or visit www.brave.com/bo or www.danssilverleaf.com.