Re: About the elusive record deal

On May 18, 5:18 am, Cynthian...@xxxxxxxxx (Cydne Singer) wrote:

Cydne

I read your post with interest. I get a lot of Emails from guys
exactly in your position ... they rarely like my comments.

<<<<<<<<I can remember being approached by a song publisher>>>>>>>

It is a fact of life that any publisher will sign up any writer ...
fact of life! It is only a piece of paper. No advance, no non
recoupable signing fee [that is where you really know they want your
material].

They will then sit on your material until you get fed up with their
inactivity on your behalf and you get out and do the job properly -
yourself .. as you should have done in the first place. When the
success comes, if it does come, after you realise you should write
stuff that the public actually want to buy, then the original
publisher will suddenly appear out of the woodwork and claim his 50%.

My advice is to always do it yourself from the start ... learn the
business, then start your own music publishing business ... not a plug
- but go to http://www.makehits.com/publishing.htm and see how cheap
and easy it is.

<<<<<<<<Once the internet started to happen I told folks they needed
to do it themselves and get their material online.>>>>>>>

Sadly that advice is flawed. It encourages music makers to upload
their stuf and then sit back and 'wait for the phone to ring' ... same
scenario as having your music with a publisher. The Internet side of
any business is only an adjunct to the bricks and mortar side. It
cannot and will not stand on it's own.

I was speaking with the boss of Universal, in the UK, the other
day ... he said "Dec, can you send that over to me" ... I said "you
don't use MP3?" ... "are you serious?" was his reply ... "just
checking" I said ... you see, no one in the real business has got the
time to listen to computer stuff .... Emails get lost ... attachments
are dumped into thrash files ... no one will open attachments [too
dangerous]... So the whole idea of conducting business on the Net is
flawed .. at least at the top end.

The quality if 'iffy' ... download links are 'iffy' ... in fact the
whole Net music scene is 'iffy'. ?We all know the quality from a lap-
top? which is the preferred work place for any executive [I use one
all the time]

<<<<<<bands STILL want that record deal>>>>>>>

Quite right. It is the bands responsibility to sell the first 20
white labels ... then 200 ... then 2,000 ... then country wide sell
20,000 .... it is then the record company's job to turn that 20,000
into 20 Mill ... that is where the power of the record company comes
in. But it is the band/artist's job to sell the first 20 ....

<<<<<<< In the beginning everyone expects all the perks >>>>>>

We got none, and expected none ... our first contract [I still have
it] is on one small page of A4 paper ... just about six paragraphs....
end of story. We starved and froze our butts off ... but when the
time came we were glad we did .... we then made serious money....
Guitars provided by Gibson ... amps by Selmer [at the time, state of
the art] ... clothes by Hardy Amies [the Queen's designer]. We still
have the majority of our equipment provided. The boss of Fender drove
down to my home the other week to take my Strat and have it
refurbished to showroom standard .... totally free!

<<<<<<< if we were only 23 and knew coding and could put up a spiffy
little website like yahoo or facebook or myspace that would translate
into a billion dollar plus payoff>>>>>>>>

Sadly pipedreams!

<<<<<<<<He who owns the company is he who makes the money>>>>>>>>>

So, why not own the company? That is what I did! But name me a
musician willing to work the 16 hour days that I do?
Put up with the aggravation, the problems, the insults .... but at the
end of the day, end up with the dosh and the sheer thrill of knowing
that what you do is so appreciated by so many.

As I always say: "it is only hard work". And always remember that
success, fame and fortune will bring the hatred and the jealousy!
Fact!

Who said it? "I've tried rich and I've tried poor - I prefer rich
everytime!" [Bette Davis?] And the music industry is still the
easiest way to get rich. But you have to have the knowledge to get
rich.

Dec [Cluskey] "It's not boasting when you can back it up" - Muhammad
Ali
.