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Promising
Local Band Hits Choppy Waters
When Its Debut CD Is Recalled
~a cautionary tale for the band about to take the
plunge~
by Pete Brush |
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Shopping for CD manufacturing over the web?
Start with these URLs:
cdrealm - the inimitable Christine will work with you and
her printing problems with some presser in texas seem to have been
cleared up http://www.audiosphere.com
indie music dot com - this site generally is loaded with
info; on making your own cd surf to:
http://Indie-Music.com/cdmanufacturing.htm
indiecentre - listings for compact disc manufacturers http://www.indiecentre.com/
And a few tips:
· The golden rule: when in doubt, ASK!
· Get all pricing info, including shipping and production add-ons.
· Haggle. The first price you hear can be brought down.
· Shop Around. Use your pricing info to bargain knowledgeably.
· Find out whether your CD manufacturer does her/his own pressing,
or whether that work is contracted out.
· If you can, have a friend do the CD layout. That way you're in
control AND you save money.
· Usually, the first 500 Discs are the most expensive; so if you
can, order in increments of 1,000. Your profit model will expand.
_______________________________________________
NEW YORK - The CDs arrived; they were everything we wanted them
to be. We started circulating them. We were in a blissful state
of bandhood.
The best analogy I can think of is the way a married couple acts
when its first baby arrives. Married couple stops reading the paper;
the NY-inspired urban cynicism wanes; daily trifles recede into
the background; days become consumed with the happy business of
watching for baby's first smile.
As a band, we were in a similarly rarefied state. We were circulating
our "baby," working under the impression that sooner or later good
fortune would smile upon us in the form of a record deal, radio
play, or a groundswell of support to make Ani DiFranco look like
the opening act at the Spiral Lounge on a Tuesday night.
In short, confidence was high.
Then one day, a few weeks into things, our drummer got a call from
a friend out west. "I really don't think this is you guys on this
record," his friend said.
"What do you mean?" our drummer asked.
According to his friend, the CD jewel case, and even the disc face,
looked exactly as they should have: our graphics, our song list,
our insert.
But listening over the phone, drummer's stomach sinks into the pit
of his knees as some scratchy hardcore strains come over the line.
Allow me to try and re-create them here: "duh nuh nuh hun reeowwwrrrrrrr
duhn duhn...."
"That's on our record?" drummer asks.
"Yep, " friend says.
I myself hear about the mishap minutes later and put in a call to
our CD Guru, the inimitable Christine who works at a place called
CD Realm down in Florida. She in turn puts in a call to the Texas-based
pressing plant she contracts to have discs mass-produced. They assure
Christine there could not have been more than one or two bad discs
at the most. Christine assures me. I assure my drummer.
And so we continue our promotional gyrations, except that now there
is this nagging thought in the back of our heads: Somewhere Out
In The Great Cosmos there might be a hardcore music album masquerading
as the Help - our band.
And what if, for example, we sent that one bad disc out to an A&R
Department somewhere? Well, our already small chances of success
would then become nil. But we pressed on, thinking of things like
Karma and that kind of thing. We even considered having a contest:
whoever found the other bad CD would get a prize.
A couple of weeks since the initial revelation went by, however,
and things start getting worse. Another bad apple turned up. And
another. By some quirk of fate, our drummer keeps getting the bad
news. He is a sensible guy, and he is becoming very agitated.
The inevitable is fast approaching: a CD Recall.
When General Motors recalls eight million minivans, one shrugs one's
shoulders and says "serves all those boneheads right for buying
minivans," but now I know how those car guys must feel. It's like
having your kid kicked out of college.
What happened, I'm told, was that, in order to "line up" the image
of the Help's choosing on the disc face (during the original pressing),
the contractor in Texas used a couple "dummy" discs - usually some
piece of junk lying around from a previous pressing. And somehow
those "dummies" ended up packaged in our batch, looking exactly
like the Real McCoy but sounding like something out of Spinal Tap's
worst nightmare.
At this point, with four confirmed bad records in the batch, and
we the band sending dozens out to record labels and radio stations,
the situation became untenable. And like that grudging moment when
your alarm is ringing at 8 a.m. on Monday morning and you know,
with finality, that the weekend is over, we knew that the remaining
boxes of CD's - about 550 in all - had to go back to Texas, get
unwrapped and checked for quality assurance, and then come back
to us.
Christine the CD Guru, disappointed, was a straight shooter. She
paid for Fedex to come pick up the boxes. And 14 days later, they
were back.
I'm told that two more bad discs were found by the boneheads in
Texas and removed, and that the remainder of the records, now back
in our possession, will be okay for public consumption.
But you know what they say: Once bitten, twice shy. I myself am
just waiting for the phone to ring again.
_________________________________
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Read
Pete's column on how to market your independent record on the Internet:
"You've Made a Record,
Now Use the Internet to Sell It!"
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_________________________________
Pete Brush is a writer, editor and musician. His band, the Help,
can be heard at http://home.att.net/~thehelp
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