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Happy
Spring to you all!
Spring has been teasing us in the northeast by
giving us a few warm days and then
disappearing under the cover of cold, snowy
ones. Did ya ever notice our careers can begin
like that too? You may taste a lick of success
one day and then feel discouraged as people
who souped you up don't return your calls. But
just as spring will eventually come, so will
the fruits of your hard work, if you push
forward. While I could do without damp and
cold weather, it gives me the opportunity to
stay in and catch up. Use each moment to its
advantage. If you're waiting for all sunshine
to light your path to a music career, prepare
to keep waiting. Life doesn't give us 360 days
a year without clouds. Turn on bright lights
as I do and get through the gloomy days.
Create your own opportunities!
FINALLY finished my new, completely re-written
edition of Start & Run Your Own Record
Label. It will be out this fall and you know
I'll tell you when! : ) I'm now catching up on
other projects before beginning my next title
- I Don't Need a Record Deal: Survival Guide
for the Indie Music Revolution. I'm gathering
names of people to interview in a few months.
If you're a musician who's earning a living
without a record deal, or you know of one,
please let me know. I'm also open to any
suggestions from you as to things to include
in this book. I'll be putting out calls for a
variety of resources over the next year. Right
now, if you know of a local organization that
supports musicians well, no matter where in
the world you are, I'd appreciate you sending
me their info. If you tell me specifically how
they help musicians, your quote *might* appear
in my book. This will be a book that every
musician will want!
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send me an email that says
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You may have noticed that I now label this
newsletter with an issue number instead of a
month. I was thrilled by how many people wrote
to ask when the next one would be out. Glad to
know you're reading it! : ) Since I write it
mostly by myself, it takes days to do.
Therefore it comes about about every 6 or 7
weeks. Forgive me for not being more regular
but I do my best. The next one should be out
by the end of May. I'm excited with the 2
guest interviews below. Dave Roberge, founder
of Everfine Records used his micro-marketing
strategy to elevate the career of O.A.R. and
sell over 300,000 records. He did it the
old-fashioned way - by learning from
experience and reading whatever books he could
(mine in particular!). And Darren Doane shares
the latest on making MTV quality videos for a
small fraction of the cost. This is great news
for indies!
Revenge Productions
http://www.daylle.com
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1. The gift of patience
2. Interview with Dave Roberge
3. My next seminars
4. Free online newsletters
5. Minding your music biz
6. Making a top quality video on the cheap -
Interview with Darren Doane
7. Using postcards to promote
8. Music industry events
9. Take A Step Up!
1. The gift of patience:
Benjamin Franklin said, "He that can have
patience can have what he will." In The
Real Deal I talk about patience as the top key
to success. When you feel ready to do your
music, you may feel an urge to push fast to
the next level. But often you're not ready.
You need the patience to hone your craft so
that your music shines like a star. You need
patience to perform in front of a small group
and slowly build a larger following. You need
patience to not approach A & R people,
management, agents, etc., before you're ready.
You need patience to wait until industry
people return your calls, because they can
take their time. Take your time. Appreciate
each baby step on the road to a music career.
Abe Lincoln said, "Nothing valuable can
be lost by taking time." In the interview
below, Dave Roberge emphasizes the importance
of going slowly, one baby step at a time. He
built Everfine Records and the career of O.A.R.,
one market at a time. Please don't rush your
career objectives. You have your whole life to
reach them. Be patient and develop your career
a little at a time. That's the best way to
increase your chance of longevity.
2. Interview with Dave Roberge:
When I met Dave, I was honored when he said my
books were instrumental to him when he opened
Everfine Records in 2000. By then they'd moved
about 35,000 units of the band's first
self-released CD and 20,000 of their second.
They sold out big venues with no radio single
or video. While not ready to sign, they
developed a solid relationship with Lava
Records, which led to a pressing and
distribution deal with ADA in February 2001.
Dave began working with O.A.R. in 1999 as a
fan, doing anything needed. The band were
freshman in college and determined to
graduate. Dave booked around their schedules.
He says, "We drew a 3-hour radius around
Columbus and picked the markets that we could
develop." Dave says Everfine Records went
from being a concept to a fully functioning
label, with marketing, promotion, publicity,
sales, consumer and trade advertising -
functioning like an 8 or 10 department record
label, though still a one man operation. They
now have a staff and have sold over a quarter
of a million records! Dave gave me so much
great material for my book it's hard to
squeeze even a small piece of it here.
Why did you start Everfine Records? "We
started the record label in order to give the
band higher visibility. They were seeking an
identity with regards to having a label. More
or less it came down to a higher level of
presentation in terms of the packaging and
things like that. When we first came up with
the concept, it was [to create] the impression
that the band had a record label. From that,
the record label manifested into a much more
real situation."
How do you see Everfine Records' model? "Everfine
Records, in my mind, is almost like a hybrid
company in that it's a cross between an artist
management company and a record label. We try
to develop an infrastructure that could truly
support a career development model."
What motivated you to succeed? "O.A.R. is
a band that was constantly told, 'You don't
fit what the industry standard is.' They use
this to add fuel to the fire. Tell us we can't
do it and we'll prove to you that we can.
That's my mentality too. I'm not afraid to
take on challenges and think of new ways to
approach situations. If you fail, you fail,
but you learn from your mistakes. . .You
succeed by failing at first and it shows how
resilient you are."
What's helped you to succeed the way you did?
"When the band first started to create a
buzz, it was in specific areas of the country.
When we first tried to acquire consignment
accounts, we looked at is as a micro-marketing
strategy. It made sense for us to spend ad
dollars in a region by region level. With that
approach we kind of look at it almost like a
spider web. You start in the center somewhere
and go part by part and build it, almost like
a web. If an artist's strength is in the
Carolinas, we're going to employ a
micro-marketing strategy that focuses on the
Carolinas. We'll develop the Carolinas before
we move into Atlanta and as far north as
Virginia. It's about mastering that one market
and creating a presence in that market,
because without that one market, you're not
going to be able to get to that second and
then the third market. A lot of stores we
spoke to in the beginning were only impressed
when they heard about that second store
carrying the product [and so on]. A lot of it
is going out there and proving yourself. We
started small with baby steps. You're not
going to go from X to 4X overnight. You have
to start somewhere and go from X to Y to Z. We
weren't in a position at that time to spend 2
million dollars at radio to push a single to
make the band go from Columbus Ohio to a
national phenomenon. It had to take
time."
How did you get records into stores in the
beginning? "The first way to do it is by
making champions of retail stores and entering
into consignment accounts - proving you can
move product off the store's shelf. Retail is
becoming more and more competitive. You can
have major label distribution but it doesn't
mean your product will be on store shelves.
It's become very tight. So our focus was
independent stores first and making an impact
with the people that we really felt understand
and care about music."
What's your best advice for someone starting a
label? "You can't take the approach that
things are going to start happening for you.
In this day and age, you've got to make it
happen for yourself. . . The first thing you
have to do is learn the business that you're
trying to break into. If you don't try to
educate yourself and go into it with the
"I am a sponge" mentality, you're
going to hurt yourself. I see a lot of people
come in and think they know everything. That's
very difficult - every day the industry is
constantly evolving. You have to be adaptable
to change and innovative, to be on the
forefront of identifying when that change is
going to come. A lot of times, by being there,
you can turn it into a competitive
advantage."
Dave Roberge sure did learn and made his label
successful. Everfine Records just had entered
into a strategic partnership with Lava
Records. Dave is an inspiration to anyone who
wants to believe that it's possible to sell
tons of records, and get taken seriously by
the industry, without the big corporate bucks
for radio play.
http://www.everfinerecords.com
3. My next seminars:
I just booked the dates for my next round of
seminars. Start & Run Your Own Record
Label: October 4, 2003 and February 28, 2004
I'm changing the name of my other seminar to
Artist Development 101: How to Get a Record
Deal - or Do It Yourself. That one will be on
November 22, 2003.
I'll let you know more details as they get
closer. For now, save the dates! : )
4. Free online newsletters:
Last month I listed free online music industry
newsletters that Harmonica Kao
helped me compile. Here's the rest.
http://bob-baker.com/buzz/index.html
Bob Baker puts out The Buzz Factor, with free
tips each week.
http://www.justplainfolks.org/join.htmlJust Plain Folks is a great organization and
it's free to join. They have a free newsletter
for their members.
http://www.discmakers.com/music/ffwd/subscribe.html
DiscMakers offers their own newsletter, Fast
Forward, which gives you tips on how to
promote your music.
http://www.serge.org/musicmorsels.htm
Newsletter that gives tips on how to advance
your career and has interviews with
songwriters, producers and musicians.
http://www.lyricalline.com/newsletter.html
This newsletter gives valuable tips on
songwriting and the industry.
http://www.umo.com/umonewsletters.htm
Number One resource for music community in
Greenwich Village.
http://desktop-radio.com/newsletter_sign-up.htm
Gives updated info and news from the Music and
Radio Industry.
5. Minding your music biz:
One of the first lessons I learned was one
must always protect one's ass. That applies to
your music too! While a song is copyrighted
once it's put in a fixed form, you have more
protection and an easier time suing for
copyright infringement if you register your
songs with the Library of Congress. If you
can't afford to register each one
individually, at least register a group of
them as a compilation for the same price as
one. You can register individual songs later,
if necessary. If you're putting out your own
CD, register it using the SR form, which
protects the Sound Recording too. Get more
info and download the forms at
http://www.copyright.gov/
If you're planning to market your music out of
the US, you might check on The World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO),
which is an international organization
dedicated to promoting the use and protection
of intellectual property.
http://www.wipo.org
6. Making a top quality video on the cheap
- Interview with Darren Doane:
For years I've been saying how expensive it is
to make a video. I interviewed filmmaker
Darren Doane (http://www.darrendoane.com) for
my book and discovered things are changing
quickly. New technology is now making
inexpensive videos very possible. I want to
share some of what Darren told me, as it may
help those of you who thought a video was way
beyond your means.
Is a digital format making videos cheaper?
"I want to clarify what I mean by
digital, since everything is digital now. If
someone says 'I shot this video on digital,'
you don't know what that means. I mean 24P
technology - a digital format that shoots the
digital at 24 frames per second, which is what
film does. It's mimicking the structure of
film."
How do you think it's going to change
everything? "[Soon] we're gonna see a
huge shift in the entire video production side
of things with the music industry -
eliminating film and about 10 processes. This
technology will be available to every single
person."
Why does it substantially lower the cost of a
video? "I shot my last 3 MTV videos with
a new camera that Panasonic just released
called the DVX-100. It costs $3500. Everything
goes from my camera to my Mac. I do the edits
into my computer. I spit that out to a tape
which goes to the label to make a dub that
goes to MTV. We've just seen the end of what
we traditionally know as music videos."
What's the best thing about this? "The
power has been given back to the consumer.
It's going to create really exciting things.
Now you're taking out film developing and
transfer costs. It goes right into the
computer. It's so exciting. In the next 2
years, we are going to see the wild west of
film production because what you'll be paying
for is truly somebody's talent. A 16-18 year
old kid can show their work and get hired.
He'll go with his camera he paid $3500 for and
make the video. With a computer and the
camera, you have everything you need to shoot
a video, minus lights. Technically, if you had
a completely exterior video, you have
everything you need."
How will this change the nature of filmmaking?
"Film has this very big 'you can't be
here' attitude. But now that the technology is
being put back into the consumer's hands, a
lot of talented people will take advantage.
There's a new generation that can learn these
camera's inside and out and start creating
things. It will be very, very exciting. New
technology is now evening the playing
field."
How much do you charge for videos? "As a
director, I do videos for most indies from
$3,000 to $15,000, MTV quality. I never give a
label a price. A label will come to me and say
"Here's what we have to spend." They
tell me how much money they have budgeted.
They're dictating what they feel is a safe
number to spend. If a label comes to me and
says they have no money but they send me their
CDs and I think the band is amazing, I'll do
the video for free. As a director there is
nothing I can do except shoot and get
better."
Darren Doane has done videos for all budgets,
from many teeny indies up to Blink 182 and
Jimmy Eat World. He warns that getting it onto
all the local video shows across the country
can cost up to $6,000 in hiring a promoter and
making/sending copies. He says there are many
directors like him who are getting these
cameras and doing videos on the cheap. YEAH!!!
7. Using postcards
to promote: I've been pushing postcards for
years as a terrific promotional tool. Now
they've become very common, and are still
valuable. When you have events or successes to
announce, color postcards are a good vehicle
to let people know.
http://www.1800postcards.com offers 5,000
small color postcards (3.5X5.5) for $250, if
you provide camera ready art. For a little
more you can get larger ones. If you mention
The Real Deal when you order, they'll give you
10% off of your first order. I recommend
putting a CD or logo on the front of the card.
Great (really great!) photos can work too. On
the flip side, include relevant info at the
top: your website URL, contact info, quotes,
and info on how to order stuff. Leave the
lower half blank. When you do a mailing to
announce a gig or something noteworthy, print
the news on self-stick labels that just fit
the space left on the card, and paste them on
the amount you need. If you're trying to find
a record label, booking agent, manager, etc.,
create a target list and send them a card
whenever you have something to announce.
Industry people may get familiar with you as
they get those cards regularly. Consistently
seeing the mailings with the same CD, picture,
or logo, helps brand you. As people see the
same name over and over with new news, they
may start to pay attention. These can also be
handed out at gigs or events that you attend.
They're nicer than homemade fliers. If you
only have generic info on the card, they can
be used for years, with new labels for each
announcement.
8. Music industry events:
The Songwriters Hall of Fame has 4 different
10 week songwriter workshops in NYC beginning
on April 21nd, 22nd. 23rd, and 28th. Their
next monthly networking event is on Tuesday,
April 15th at the Triad at 6:30, featuring
Martin Folkman, Publisher of The Musician's
Atlas, http://www.musiciansatlas.com/dds.html
followed by an open mic. For more info, call
Bob Leone at 212 957-9230.
The Film Music Network has announced the
launch of 2 new chapters. The new chapter is
headed by Nashville composer, orchestrator and
musician, Rolin Mains, with monthly events at
The East Nashville Center for the Creative
Arts. It's already started. rolin@filmmusicworld.com.
A new chapter in Toronto will be headed by
composer and songwriter Neil McConachie, with
monthly networking events and educational
seminars beginning in May. neil@filmmusicworld.com
The New York chapter has it's next monthly
meeting on April 23rd, 6:30 p.m. at Carroll
Music 351 West 41st Street b/w 8th and 9th
Aves. The panel is called THE THRILL OF
VICTORY: Music for Sports TV. It has an
illustrious group of panelists talking about
how to get your music onto sports shows, such
as ESPN, the X Games, World Wrestling, Monday
Night Football and much more. I'm planning to
catch this one! Admission is $15 for
non-members. RSVP to 212-592-3600 or rsvpny@filmmusic.net.
For those of you who've been trying to figure
out how to get songs critiqued by people who
know how, The Film Music Institute now has a
new custom service for composers and
songwriters who are interested in hearing
objective, candid industry feedback on their
music and demo packages. The Film Music
Institute Demo Critique Service provides
direct, very specific feedback about from top
Hollywood indie film and television music
agents Jeff Kaufman and Lesley Lotto. Those
who have their demo packages critiqued will
receive a cassette tape with specific comments
directly from the agents, who will each
critique the package separately. The cost of
the complete demo critique package including
comments from both agents is $159.
http://store.yahoo.com/fmstore/indecrpa.html
9.TAKE A STEP UP!
The following story appeared in the e-news
monthly at http://www.5-starproductions.com
and was submitted by Shaun Salen, a
photographer and award winning hairdresser
http://www.5-starproductions.com/4u
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One day a farmer's donkey fell down a well.
The animal cried for hours as the farmer tried
to figure out what to do. Finally he decided
the animal was old, and the well needed to be
covered up anyway; it wasn't worth it to
retrieve the donkey. He invited his neighbors
to help him. They grabbed shovels and began to
shovel dirt into the well. At first, the
donkey realized what was happening and cried.
Then, to everyone's amazement, he quieted
down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer
finally looked down the well, and was
astonished. With every shovel of dirt that hit
his back, the donkey was doing something
amazing. He would shake it off and take a step
up. As they continued to shovel dirt on top of
the animal, he would shake it off and take a
step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as
the donkey stepped up over the edge of the
well and trotted off!
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds
of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well
is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of
our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get
out of the deepest wells just by not stopping,
never giving up! Shake it off and take a step
up!
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It's really is true that when things don't go
your way you can whine and complain, give up
on your music, or find ways to use what's been
thrown at you to your advantage. If people say
your songs aren't strong enough, find out why
and make them stronger! If people turn you
down for things, keep getting out and sharing
your music. When I was rapping, people
laughed. NOBODY took me seriously, except ME.
So I had to prove them wrong. Let negatives
motivate you to show people what you're
capable of. When it feels like you' being hit
with dirt, remember the donkey who used it to
step up. NOBODY can stop you but YOU.
I hope that you have a prosperous spring full
of bright blossoms. If you have anything to
share, please send it. Until the next
issue.....
Keep your passion strong,
Daylle
Revenge Productions
http://www.daylle.com
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