I know many of us have discussed on the web and in person that the new model is not in place yet and we have found no solution.

What we have done here, is follow the ethics of the simple and effective Co-Op supermarket and got all the bands/acts to submit their wares , do their own paperwork and have the same "branding" name appear on their work,(ours) which makes it easier to promote music as a label or "brand".
With this DIY format, I fail to believe that people need another "I Did It In My Shed Records" etc.
We still A+R the work and pick particular bands that we are into, but people want to be involved and do not expect to be spoiled and like the team effort.

Two more acts applied today to be part of this project, it may be vanity to look like a label represent your work, I do not know.
In radio plugging, it makes life a lot easier for me , to have all my fave acts with a "brand" name.

Variety? royalties?

Increasing.

I like the branding and "label" approach, however, why not focus on a couple of acts and really do the business with them in terms of production and promotion?
Surely you could run into the problems of, "oh, everybody's on that label", rather than a more exclusive approach.

Yeah, I'm being subjective, but I'm hoping others will share thoughts and perspectives. There are a few operators out there that are really beginning to get things together.

Maybe , and good points Big end.
We promote the acts that need the push at the time required, biggest.
But the last thing we want, is acts , sitting back on their laurels assuming that they have cracked it by our "branding".
If they want to be a part of the project, they have to understand that they are now fully behind their own work as we cannot supply a magic formula without the acts` total commitment.
We believe in the total honesty of our acts, the same as we will tell them. If it` s crap or not at least interesting, they should dig dig elsewhere.
If the act actually wants to make a groove through this current mire, with a focus and a product, albeit sometimes, half baked, come aboard , as long as they realise this is not a project they can walk away from.

Film actors often have to promote a film they made two or more years back, musicians , I am afraid at grass roots do not have this ethic and seem to await lottery winning advances.

Glad to say i agree with you here Mart.

Having an umbrella brand is a very good idea.

It could be a nostalgia thing with the label like Virgin, Stiff or Two Tone (Harvest and Vertigo too) where the label actually had an identity.

It is one of the things missing and without there isn't a feeling of "belonging" for music punters.

Sincere good wishes Mart.

Perhaps I should revive UK Records Zoo

Stiff records were the benchmark Zoo. I missed their early days, so I am doing I feel they would have done, hardly any finance, all are mucking in together.

JK? UKdigital could work, failing that our "Umnberrlaa" is(sic) watertight and you are welcome aboard if you wish.

Not quite sure what you are doing Mart. You need to explain a bit further. Are you the label for these acts ? Or distributor ? Also what's your website address where it is all happening ?

The theory behind what we are doing is quite simple.
We have always helped any bands we liked and advice if free but ultimately amounts up to a lot of time.

To any acts we liked, we began to say, "Ok, we will help you with all that, if you join our label."
Thereby, our digital release roster grows and grows and attracts more attention to all the music as a result, as people begin to actually seek out and "collect" work from our brand name,thereby with the hope of achieving the "collectable MP3".

This then knocks on to the odd live show, in which bands on the label play together.
One main rule we have laid down is that we are not interested in physicals.
If an act requires this, they pay for it, I have no wish to store stock and distribute it anymore.

There is an obvious theme and style that runs through our chosen acts and also in the ones that chose us, knowing that their music would fit in nicely with what we are starting to represent.

The bottom line is, how fed up are the public with trawling through download sites and seeing yet another "I Made It In My shed" records, or similar?
There is a lot of sloppy stuff that is sneaking out and by looping stuff to a labelling brand it will make it easier for the consumer to find products that they will probably enjoy, if that is the style of music they desire, by narrowing down their searching to label searches.

I see no need for a flash website currently and am using all the free ones that are out there to keep costs realistic.
This will change as we grow.

I hear you on the "identity" labels i.e. Two Tone for ska, Stiff for punk/new wave and so on. However, all the acts were of a particular style and the record buying public knew what to expect. Niche markets that went big time for a while. And it could happen again.

I'm still dubious as to whether or not a broad variety of acts under the same brand could enjoy that kind of success. Discuss?

One of the reasons for having a label is that people in what other industries call the "value chain" recognise and know what it stands for (in this case, distributors, record stores or radios). The danger is that you might dilute it by having a all-welcome approach.

Knowing that most bands' sales are in concert, try and get them to sell other label material as well. That way you'll have multiple salesmen out there every Friday night. That would be the true spirit of co-op.

Apart from that: good luck!

JK2006 wrote:
Perhaps I should revive UK Records Zoo
There is a gap for it I believe.

When people spoke of the "new model" I misunderstood and took it to mean a new model for the [physical] structure of the labels not the type of contract - this "branding" was what I had in mind.

There is no "all welcome" approach Michael and well pointed out.
Certain acts are welcome and some acts have been politely declined.
I`m not interested in anybody that does not fit the sound criteria I want to fill a void with and also not interested in any act that expects to walk away without any hard work to follow in promotion etc.

Thanks Mart this is a fabulous idea and one which I can relate too but what i'm doing is a wee bit different in that I am interested in singers and developing them, funnelling them in-house. I do think that you should do physicals on an on demand basis and you could do this via your website for those people who must have something to hold on to.

What I do strongly believe in now is the importance of an album. It could be a compilation album serialised but you need to do this.

Instead of releasing actual digital singles, you make radio or promotional singles with vinyl or CD-R just to "officially" have a single but as far as digital is concerned this is released on iTunes with the album so when people look for the single they are faced with the album and may go on to buy more tracks.

You need your own website mate and this is more important if you want to brand a label identity. It costs next to nothing, you can use Drupal for content management and you can put adverts thus monetising your freebies.

Cheers KZ.
Re "Compilation Album".

These , I forgot to add will be printed as small runs which will highlight the songs we think should be played to radio stations.
I know for a fact, that when I plug stuff to stations, they really do not need a physical copy lurking around and I often walk back away with them after they have added them to their database.

After the summer, there will be more major news on this project, which I cannot reveal quite yet.

All will be revealed as to why there is no official dedicated website soon.

(some readers may have worked this out!!lol)

DJKZ wrote:
...

You need your own website mate and this is more important if you want to brand a label identity. It costs next to nothing, you can use Drupal for content management and you can put adverts thus monetising your freebies.
I recommend Wordpress over Drupa, which is very very clunky to get used to in the early days. I also had issues getting the pages indexed due to the way it generates "pages".

I know there are work-arounds, but it's a nuisance unless you know what you're doing.

Cheers Michael for that. I will investigate. I have just got used to Drupal now and yeah it's indexing issue is a bit annoying.

After sleeping on the website idea, I shall delegate it over to one of the acts this weekend, so nice one and thanks guys.

When you add it up, the "staff" numbers are about 70.
One of them, will inevitably be siting on their arse all weekend and they can throw some of their time in.