Any insights much appreciated.

Adios,
Pete

Yes, a few years ago I sent some songs.

The review of the songs was certainly worth the cost. They had definitely listened to the songs and made useful comment and observation.

Most useful was an unknown 3rd party making the comments - other people involved in the music couldn't dispute it or dismiss it in the same way they were when I made the comments

Don't know anyone who's been passed on or signed through them.

Anyway, I was pleased and felt I got my money's worth. i did recommend them to others but can't recall anyone else bothering.

Caragan are/were alright.

That's great feedback Zooloo, thanks for taking the time to respond.



Think I'll give 'em a whirl. It's not as if they're charging a fortune anyway...

Adios,
Pete

Keep us posted, Pete

Hi all,

I found your thread after I was researching on Caragan Music Agency. The one I was going to go with was A&R Select, but there were really bad reviews and they were meant to be like TAXI - not to use them... I don;t know... so I found this agency...

Guess its worth trying then?
Thanks
Ross
www.rosspomfret.com

"U Mania" has potential, re sing it/re-mix it and give it some welly mate!

Also, your website needs to point out to people that the previews are available on Indiestore, I could not find a button there except sales.

A good start.

Ross - spellcheck! The blog page... "absed", About page "alot".

I'd add "Three Wishes" to Mart's comments. I think there's potential there, Mart's comments applied.

Other than that; good luck and go for it!

(BTW Mart is one of the most qualified to comment people here)


A&R Select, online comments don't look exactly encouraging

Yes.. They recently reviewed three of my tunes in exchange for

I have used Caragan, the service they offer is a complete scam. I was sent a standard computer generated letter that contained no actual assessment of my submission. The appraisal was packed with NLP structure trying to imply that you were receiving individual comments. The letter did not contain the name of the person assessing my work or a signature. No good!!! Don

They are a waste of time AND money. Don't waste either!!!!!!!!

I have no knowledge as to why Lee has revived this thread but it's interesting that it's been read by over 35,000 people in the last four years. How things mount up.

!!!THIS COMPANY IS A COMPLETE SCAM!!!

I sent my demo, lyric sheets, pictures, a cheque for £29.99 to Caragan Music Agency on the 23rd August '11.

I emailed Daren Walder on the day I posted it. He then rung me the next day, and all he really asked was if I had enclosed the cheque for £29.99. Bit weird but I didn't think anything of it.

17 DAYS then passed, and I was beginning to wonder what was going on, so I emailed him asking whether or not he had received the demo yet, and he replied "won't get a chance to check as not in the office till tuesday but will let you know...". No hello or anything, just that sentance. I received this email from him on the 9th SEPTEMBER '11. So I eagerly waited until Tuesday, but heard nothing.

Come the next day I logged into my online banking only to find that the cheque for £29.99 had been cashed way back on the 2nd September '11. So I gave him a call & he claimed nothing had shown up still, even though the cheque had been cashed. He then told me not to worry about the money, and that I should just email him the tracks & we'll go from there?! So I did exactly that! By this point I was thinking what the hell is going on, but also that maybe, just maybe, my package had got lost in the post & that I was just jumping to conclusions. Here's the tracks I emailed him:

Master Of Her Trade
The Dealer
Same Old Story

He then emailed me a day or 2 later saying just this "Got the demos, please can you let me know where you would like the correspondence to be sent..." I emailed him my address THE NEXT DAY at 11:05am.

I got home that same evening to find that my 'Demo Critique Form' had arrived in the post earlier that same day... ? Post isn't that quick is it!??! NO ITS NOT.

The form critiqued the following tracks:

Master Of Her Trade
The Invisible Man
Same Old Story

Which bizarrely, are the ones that they never received. (Notice the different track!)

I emailed him asking to explain all this and this was his reply:

"sorry for the confusion….we have had some computer issues over the last few weeks and some demos were processed on another system and this is where the confusion has been in that we did indeed originally receive your demo obviously as a critique was sent out to you but when we tried to find it on the other system the problem was that it wasn't logged in and thats why we thought we hadn't received it. Sorry for the confusion"

So he received the demo, opened it up, saw all my lyric sheets & pictures, cashed the cheque, listened to my tracks, wrote what he calls a 'critique', of those tracks, then posted me the relevant documents with his feedback, right?

Then he tries to tell me that just because my demo wasn't correctly logged into his system, that he had NO IDEA whether or not he'd received it? Even though he had already cashed the cheque, listened to all 3 tracks, written a critique on those 3 tracks, AND posted it to me?

HE NEVER LISTENED TO THE TRACKS, HE NEVER WROTE A CRITIQUE. ITS AN AUTOMATED SERVICE WHICH TAKES YOUR MONEY & SENDS YOU A NLP STRUCTURED LETTER WHICH IMPLYS THAT YOU ARE RECEIVING INDIVIDUAL COMMENTS, BUT YOU'RE NOT.

To top it all off, I found this on the internet-

It's part of a review from the Caragan Music Agency of this guys album.

IT IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS MINE JUST WITH ARTIST NAME & SONG TITLES CHANGED.

Stay clear of this company & spread the word about it being a scam so no one else gets screwed over.

Sounds disgraceful; perhaps Caragan would care to put their side of the story?

I would welcome their/his side of the story. (I'm pretty sure he is the only person that runs it, I googled the other 3 people & considering they are all supposedly grammy nominated singers / songwriters / producers etc who have worked with some of the biggest names in music, bizarrely there is nothing about them on the web! hahaha).

On a more positive musical note, I have a free download up at if anyone fancies it!

How can anyone really Critique Music as one mans food is anothers poison sounds like rather a waste of money regardless.

If someone sent me a Beatles tape to critique I would listen to 2 seconds laugh and throw it in the bin as in my opnion they are devoid of any musical talent, but how wrong am I according to the masses

Thanks for the info you supplied Robbie. A very interesting read!! This Caragan guy needs to be exposed then by the sounds of things. Complete Scam.

Oh by the way, love your tracks on your website Robbie. Great vocal and a good songwriter too. I hope you manage to get some genuine feedback from the genuine people on here

Interesting - looking at the website I see Alex - from Katrina and the Waves - is involved. I always found him very honest and decent.

Evo wrote:
How can anyone really Critique Music as one mans food is anothers poison sounds like rather a waste of money regardless.

If someone sent me a Beatles tape to critique I would listen to 2 seconds laugh and throw it in the bin as in my opnion they are devoid of any musical talent, but how wrong am I according to the masses

Thats not really the point, although i understand what you're saying. If the company wasn't a complete farce, & they had liked my music, they may well have sent it on to other people in the industry, i.e. labels, booking agents etc. Which is far from a waste of money, in fact that sort of exposure is worth every penny. Especially seen as most labels & management do not accept unsolicited material these days. Its gradually getting harder & harder to be a musician, soon we'll all be gone and people will wonder why! haha

JK2006 wrote:
Interesting - looking at the website I see Alex - from Katrina and the Waves - is involved. I always found him very honest and decent.

I only dealt with Daren Walder. So it would be wrong of me to say anything bad of Alex, because he was not involved from what I could tell, & the last thing I want to do is slate anyone in the industry unless i feel i have good reason.

So yeah by all accounts, Alex is very honest & decent, but he needs to get his name off of that website asap!

As for Daren Walder, I think my first post about my experience with him proves it is a complete scam. So it does seem weird to me that the other 3 people supposedly involved are actually successful industry professionals?? I wonder if the other 3 have just been put up there without them knowing.

I found the Caragan Music HQ too, its a shitty house in Ipswich, Suffolk. The house that Walder refers to as the Caragan Music Agency Office.

kamloops wrote:
Thanks for the info you supplied Robbie. A very interesting read!! This Caragan guy needs to be exposed then by the sounds of things. Complete Scam.

Oh by the way, love your tracks on your website Robbie. Great vocal and a good songwriter too. I hope you manage to get some genuine feedback from the genuine people on here

Yeah Im pretty convinced its a complete scam. I don't see how I could be wrong, the evidence is overwhelming. That's what happens when dumb people try to scam others! They get caught out! The only reason i fell for it is because i was blinded by my excitement at what the company had to offer! How foolish of me to think that somebody would actually want to help out budding musicians.

Ahhh glad you like the tracks! Really appreciate that. Just hard work getting enough people to hear it innit!

If anyone else wants to download my free track, go for it!