Re: What does it mean to you, to "release a record"?

["mark francombe" <mark@markfrancombe.com>]

I agree with you Rick... Nowadays many of us are doing extremely
varied musics, and  I think it can be helpful to give each style you
do a different er... pigeonhole.
The closest I came recently to getting a new deal was for a CD I
recorded.. damn its 6 years ago now, called the Last Vestiges of
Taste. It got great reactions from the people manager (at the time)
played it to, and some weird connections (Dave Stewart loved it, Nina
Hagen loved it, and weirdest of all Boy George loved it!!! He even
inviting me backstage at a London show of his ... I didnt go...
make-up wearing Junkie.. ha ha) THE MAIN CRITICISM I got for it was...
"its too diverse!" Like THATS an insult!!!

I pretty much gave up after that, it was a lot of work doing the
marketing and sending it around and nothing came of it.

Since leaving the industry 10 years ago, the music business has
changed so much for me that I find it difficult now to know what one
is supposed to do. I for one am prepared to stand up and admit that
nowadays I am selling exactly NO records... despite having a
reasonable distribution for my CDīs thru an underground network here
in Norway (Looop - purely coincidentally named), a few things on
iTunes, a website (ok a crap website - after looking at
www.lorenclaypool.com fuck Loren.... NICE site!!! )
Well I DO know what I could do, and Per has laid it out so correctly
in his post, as do others...
I have read Krisīs recommendations of CD Baby for a while, and been
impressed, I am only releasing burned to order CDRīs tho so last time
I looked it was a problem... maybe not now... whats this Kunaki.com
thing.. gonna check after this... see Im so outta touch...

BUT as for concentrating on one perfect thing... well not in the area
that I am mostly listening.. as in noise.

My good friend Lasse Marhaug releases between 5 and 10 albums a year
with different people, and Merzbow has so many albums one could NEVER
collect them all (Im currently half way through a MEGA 11gb torrent
download of his stuff, half the torrent is ONE release.. Merzbox,
comes as 50 CDīs in a leather case). There is NO doubt in my mind that
given the type of music, that hyper overload of releases is really the
only way one can make a living in that genre. Im sure that every
record company Lasse releases on is sending out limited releases of
100 or so copies or less. The hardcore fans buy what they find, but
that is still the tip of the iceberg. Lasse meanwhile is a non
drinking workaholic who spends more of the year away doing shows than
at home, so his girlfriend moans to me.. ha ha

m