Releasing the Single

Kelter

Just had a chat with a venue booker and he asked me if the single we were claiming to be releasing on the night of the gig I was trying to book was going to be a full release or just a small thing. Did we have our distribution sorted out like. So of course trying to sound like a big shot and get a saturday night, that we have a distributor.

So... now... i need a distributor.
Can anyone help?

MagnumForce

Kelter wrote:

Just had a chat with a venue booker and he asked me if the single we were claiming to be releasing on the night of the gig I was trying to book was going to be a full release or just a small thing. Did we have our distribution sorted out like. So of course trying to sound like a big shot and get a saturday night, that we have a distributor.

So... now... i need a distributor.
Can anyone help?

So......you went ahead and organised a Single release event and are planning to release it on the night, without actual having any distributor to release it? will it even be in any shops or are you just selling it at the gig, cos that doesnt really count as a release.

miju

neither does just throwing a box into tower records (though a fair few bands would tell you otherwise LOL )

answer these questions:

1: how many cd's have you got PROFESSIONALY duplicated
2: how many are you guys realistically planning to sell
3: how much promotion have you guys done?

if the answer to any of the questions above is not alot then a distributor wont wanna know or is gonna charge you up front with fee's

Page27

Id be more concerned about promotion than the actual logistics of releasing.....
afterall a download on your website can be considered a release....just register it so you can count sales with the barcode..i.e you sell 100 cds over 1 month @ gigs, ring em through a till & use the receipt as proof with rmg chart...next thing you know you are in the top 30 then people start buying your cd so make sure its in the record shops...its just leg work & a lot of promotion...i think

miju

if that was the magic recipe then everyone would be at it Page27,

it's a tad bit more complicated than that

miju

miju wrote:

if that was the magic recipe then everyone would be at it Page27,

it's a tad bit more complicated than that

Anyone know of a good site that we can read up on this stuff?

miju

to be honest IRMA don't give out alot of info about how the charts operate and what stores have the cahrt track machines installed for obvious reasons

have a look see at www.chart-track.co.uk for a bit more info (these are the crowd who look after the irish charts)

sei046

I wouldnt mind a lot of that kelter..... Whats important is people hearing the music, not if its official etc. If your stuff is good you wont have a problem and shouldnt worry about that stuff. All the formalities are for beginners who dont understand how it REALLY works which is just : Make sense to be these guys distributor? Yes, No?. Not : If any of these boxes are not ticked you amy leave...

MagnumForce

sei046 wrote:

I wouldnt mind a lot of that kelter..... Whats important is people hearing the music, not if its official etc. If your stuff is good you wont have a problem and shouldnt worry about that stuff. All the formalities are for beginners who dont understand how it REALLY works which is just : Make sense to be these guys distributor? Yes, No?. Not : If any of these boxes are not ticked you amy leave...

First of all, that last piece doesnt seem to make sense to me. But anyway...The issue isnt whether or not his stuff will be popular and sell, the issue is that he's organised a Launch gig for a single which isnt actually being launched or, as it seems without evidence to the contrary, being sold anywhere except at gigs. And for a single or album to infact be launched, these "beginners" formalities must be gone through.

sei046

A release is usally to announce that a band has a cd or single or whatever available as of then. Whether it be at gigs or in shops is not of consequence. It seems strange that he kind of did things backways though. If you have a product to show that night then i wouldnt worry. Let the people know it exists

miju

seriously, forget it lads

MagnumForce

miju wrote:

seriously, forget it lads

Word!

Good luck with sales Kelter!

Tommie C

What exactly are ye looking to get out of this??? So ye are releasing a single, right? But ye have done nothing other than record the song?

That's good, but basically ye have recorded a song that ye will be selling at gigs. Which is fine, but it's certainly not a single release. I'm in the middle of releasing a single with my band, Silver Trail, and the amount of stuff that has to be done to 'release a single' is crazy. Ye need a distribution deal (RMG is the best, but hard to get), to get a distribution deal ye need to prove the song will sell. So ye have to have a lot of promo like radio and newspaper interviews, posters, airplay and a lot of gigging. You need to have as many radio stations as you can backing the song and put it on their daytime playlists. To get all this ye will have to hire a PR company coz most radio stations and other media people will ignore something that comes directly from the actual band. Also, is the song well recorded and good enough? Did ye hire a producer to work with ye on it? It mightn't seem important but it makes a huge difference, an outside opinion of your music is always important.
Basically ye need a good team of people helping ye and a good bit of money to get off the ground. If ye do all that and the song is good enough then ye might make the charts! Of course not everyone wants that.

Bottomline....... bad idea to book a gig to launch your single, but if ye step back and take yer time ye can do it right.

Best of luck either way


http://www.silver-trail.com
silvertrail.bebo.com
info@silver-trail.com

Kelter

Hey guys

Thanks for all the comment etc, I appreciate the time you’ve all given, but just a comment.

My band have been together for 2 years. We’ve played small venues, we’ve taken part in battle of the bands, we’ve played on bands forums gigs. In that time we’ve moved forward hugely, and I can’t deny that we are better than we were a year ago, so taking our time has been worthwhile.

Since the beginning the plan has been to finally get to a point where we could play the venues where we really wanted to play. At every practice it would come up but the feeling was that they would tell so to buzz off as they had never heard of us. We also assumed that if they did agree, it would be on a rubbish night. This has meant that we haven’t even tried to get these venues… until last week.

I just said f*ck it, and got the contact and rang. “Act as if” gets you a long way. So I wasn’t completely honest in the cv I told the guy, all he cares about is a crowd really, and things like single launches are really just ways to let him guage if we will bring one.

I accept that releasing a single is a lot of work, and I accept that successfully releasing it is even more, but taking an attitude that everything needs to be in place before you do anything is a bit defeatist. I mean it music, its meant to be fun…

Thanks for the advice, but if I had listened to this sort of advice before booking us the gig, I wouldn’t have booked it. Our aim all along has been to play the good venues, now we are (hopefully) going to.

The advice given has all been good and sound, but is that really what it’s all about?

miju

appreciating the rut your in Kelter, but ask yourself this:

what happens if you get a **** crowd at the venue? do you think you'll get a date there quick enough again? promoters / bookers talk to each other you know

not trying to shoot you down man just trying to show ye the flip side

SundayGirl

it's the blaggers that make it in this biz, gotta take some chances