How To Properly Start A Music Business (Record Label)

How To Properly Start A Music Business (Record Label)

Nowadays, the many barriers for entry when it comes to starting a record level or almost nothing. Anybody can start a record label, as long as you have certain things. A lot of labels have actually been formed by somebody saying something very simple, along the lines of, “I feel like starting a record label”. Well, it is just that simple, but there are certain things that you need to consider. It is obvious that the wonderfully gigantic music industry is going through a lot of changes and success. The internet, streaming services and shifting patterns of consumption have actually make sure that record labels cannot function the same way they did in the past couple of decades. When we are talking about major record labels, it is quite easy for them to go through these transitions because they can afford to go through it. When we are talking about independent labels, it does create a little opportunity for them.

music industry

If the record label is small or nimble, they can use the transition as an advantage and make sure that they start the label in a way that would fit the current trends or changes. If you really want to give yourself a good chance of success, not even mentioning the protection of your investment, you should go ahead and set up a process which is quite important for yourself.

    1. Firstly, you need to pick the name for the label. The very first step is taking the name. Make sure that it is catchy. Do not copy from anywhere. How about brainstorming it with someone you trust?
    2. Secondly, you need to start selling the merchandise with the name of the label on it. It should be T-shirts, mugs, et cetera. It can be a lot of things. We should make sure that more and more people purchase it.
    3. Thirdly, you need to properly decide on a structure for the business. A lot of indie labels and some other inexperienced labels always skip these formalities. You should form a legal entity that would cost money. You should make it legitimate.

  1. You need to make sure that you are running an actual legal business with a proper connection to a bank or even a credit card. It should be taxed every single year and, you need to make sure that you are paying your taxes regularly.
  2. The next thing that you should be worried about is finding talent for your label. You need to be representing some talent, if you want a successful record label. If you’re going to be in the music business, you need an artist to sell the music that they are making.
Charles Potts Magic Windmill Band

Charles Potts Magic Windmill Band

Charles Potts Magic Windmill Band’s song “I Live In My Car” has been selected to appear on National Public Radio’s Car Talk album entitled, “Car Talk Car Tunes Volume 3: Stairway to Heapdom”. The CD will be released summer 2009.Stay tuned for more info on how you can get a copy!!!

How To Start Your Own Music Business

How To Start Your Own Music Business

For a lot of people, the idea of starting a record label is actually something that they are hearing or thinking about after hearing some amazing music. Great music is something that will make a person who is really into music, start a record label. If that is the case, you can actually start thinking about the next steps. If you really want to start a record label or a Music business, you will need to have a few releases, and you will need to be representing some talent. It means that you will have to be representing an artist who is either a singer or a musician. Since the entire music industry is mind-blowing Lee competitive, it would take time and also it will take some experience when it comes to picking out the right people. Music is something that would bring the attention of millions of individuals. You need someone who can put out talent, a talent that would attract some noise.

Music Business

4 Ways to Start a Music Business

  1. You can buy a music business. Jonathan Jay from Dealmaker’s Academy suggests it’s the best way to own a business.
  2. Next, you need to release music that you absolutely believe in. The music should come first and then; you need to think about your profits. You must always think about the quality of the music, more than the quantity of songs that you release in an album. Make sure that you always establish your own lane. You do not have to follow any trends. Real talent will definitely be recognised.
  3. You always need to keep in mind about artist deals and also the recording contracts. The artists will obviously want to be paid. You need to represent them and, you need to represent their best interests. You need to always think about the earnings from the releases and, you need to be negotiating with the artist how much of the earnings you will be splitting with the artist and how much the label will consume.
  4. You need to think about the distribution of the music. When you represent an artist, you will be distributing their music. You will be completely responsible for it. Distribution is something that a lot of record labels usually worry about. Record labels distribute thousands, even millions of copies all around the world. Nowadays, streaming is rampant. That is why distribution is something that you will not have to invest too much money into, because people are streaming music. I would suggest creating an application or even getting your music onto popular streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music and more.
  5. You must always promote your music in the most positive way possible. Do not put on any sections of the society just to promote your music.
Drug Punk Votes Cavedweller Top Album of 2012

Drug Punk Votes Cavedweller Top Album of 2012

I don’t know why this guy isn’t huge, or at least a cult sensation. Dirk Michener, the brains behind Cavedweller, has been making cool, down-tuned acoustic blues that stick with you in a mellow sorta way since 1994. 2016 II & III was my introduction to this guy’s work, and I’m a believer. There’s very few frills, and absolutely no flash, to Michener’s work. He settles into a groove, and mines it for all it’s worth.
Michener specializes in lightly distorted, heavily reverb’d lo-fi blues that I hesitate to to call country only because that word conjures up images of Garth Brooks in a lot of peoples’ minds. Yet this is country, in a good sense: music for driving down a desolate, lonely highway somewhere deep in the American heartland, with nothing but your memories, heartbreak, and Dead Moon tapes to keep you company. “Kevin grows Gills,” despite being about that wretched Kevin Costner flick Water World, hasa ghost town vibe all its own; “Stacy” is a jangly, bittersweet ode to.
You get the idea. This is a record for the long morning after New Year’s, when you’re sitting around your apartment, gutpit depressed, facing another new year with not a whole lot of options and even less faith in the world around you. Slip it on and focus on the groove. Michener’s such a nice guy, you can download it for free, but really you should buy it!

Cavedweller Feature!

Cavedweller Feature!

Dirk Michener is lyrical riddle wrapped inside an enigma, a long beard, and a galaxy of other musician and artist friends who orbit around his gravitational personality. Keeping his personal life separate from his recording efforts, he prefers to form musical collectives while sitting in the background letting things take shape organically, the consummate Man Behind the Curtain. This role fits him to a T, and has driven his musical career since his formative teenage years.

When I visit him, Dirk is perched atop the steel grated landing that leads to his apartment bungalow. He’s wearing a flowing tunic top, quietly sipping a Lone Star, and reading a library book, I Served the King of England. His apartment is a musician’s dream: multiple guitars, amps, an electric piano, and various pieces of recording equipment fill the space alongside bookshelves stacked with paperbacks and LPs. At 5’5 barefoot, Michener precariously climbs to his roof with drink in hand, as Hyde Park wakes up and shakes off last night’s hangover.

Live Music Capitol | Cavedweller

With his band mates, he’s been creating a unique brand of psychedelic folk rock for over thirteen years (and from Austin since 2002), under the name Cavedweller. The tongue-in-cheek storytelling, simple melodies, and bedroom recording aesthetic can often be heard gracing the stages of Beerland, Emo’s, Mohawk and clubs across Texas. Just as his music evokes an air of reticence, his path to becoming a musician and an uncomfortable partner with the music industry is full of starts, stops and detours. It begins traditionally, but, without a manager directing traffic or much in the way of PR, it soon takes a more grassroots road.

“The formal part/business stuff brings me down. It’s what kills it for me. Hiring a manager, is something that you’d need to do to go to the next level otherwise you’d have to do it yourself, and I’m just not motivated to do that I guess. It shouldn’t have to be that way, really, artists and musicians shouldn’t have to worry about it. Music really shouldn’t be something that should have to be sold – a commodity.”

And yet, without the typical industry hubbub, Cavedweller has managed to build a strong following and climb to the upper echelons of the Austin scene, performing regularly with The Black Angels, Basic, Yellow Fever, Horse+Donkey, The Strange Boys, The Strip Cult, Baby Robots, The Silver Pines, Headdress and ST37.

“My favorite venue has to be Emos. I know a lot of the folks that work there. We do a lot of shows at Mohawk and they are really accommodating. Most of the places we play now are really good, but before, we used to play a lot of places regularly just to play. It was nice for a while, but then it got to the point where we just had to become more selective. Like the Carousel [Lounge], I just don’t ever want to play there again. It used to be nice because they would let us be in total control – telling us to just do whatever we want. But they close at midnight, their PA system generally sucks and there’s a manager who tries to censor what you sing while on stage. One time she interrupted a show and told the band that they can’t sing profanity in her establishment. It was nuts. So we are more selective in the venues we choose.”

The name Cavedweller suits Michener well. Like most of his career moves, it wasn’t a decision that was labored over.

“I’m not sure where it came from really. I suppose it had to do with the fact that when recording, you are in this cold, dark space and the sound that is produced is relatively primitive with minimal arrangements. I found out that there are three previous Cavedweller bands, most of which are defunct, but in 1996, after I had been using the name for a year, I found another Cavedweller and had made plans to contact this guy. They were playing a sort of grunge rock sound. Somehow I found out that he was a member of one of the big grunge establishments like Pearl Jam or the Smashing Pumpkins or something and I was like, oh shit, I don’t want to have to deal with this stuff. So I considered changing my name to something ridiculously long, I tend to like really long band names and titles, but then they broke up and the emo industry started doing the whole long band name thing, and so Cavedweller just stuck.”

The group has been compared to the likes of Elliott Smith, Sebadoh, T. Rex and the Violent Femmes, favoring simplicity and pure storytelling. His songs are often tales, usually based on a movie or an event that inspired him. During conversation, he often throws irony at the listener just to see if you are listening.

“I try to keep it light and vague; I don’t like to get sappy and hear sappy things. It boils down to what I like to hear from other bands, so I prefer some songs to be very obtuse and open to interpretation whereas others will be incredibly specific with no room for analytical interpretation.” His latest release, 2006’s The Best Recording of Gloria that there Ever Was, in pure Michener form, has no cover of Gloria on the album.

At the age of ten, while living in Ft. Worth, Dirk’s father lent him his 1960’s Silver Tone guitar, and the world of music soon unfolded. Along with Smoky Farris, a friend from school, he began to explore record stores, drawn especially to the alternative LP section. The duo would pull out any record to buy, go home and listen to, and become immediately influenced to record something that sounded similar. They were determined that “their” music would one day end up in the same section.

Live Music Capitol | Cavedwellerphoto by Travis Catsull

“We were really into music by the Dead Milkmen, and quirky early 1980s and late 1970s punk rock, finding inspiration from indie labels and SST at that time.”

Homemade cassette tapes of Michener and Farris’ jamming efforts were sold around town to friends and fans. “Over the years more and more people were interested in starting bands with us and we never took anything particularly seriously, it was more just for kicks. Nothing was serious. BUT, we took the aspect of recording very seriously. We wouldn’t particularly write songs, we would just get together and press record and just go and whoever was in the room playing would be that band, so we’d dub tapes and name the band. And we’d do it again. And even if the lineup changed by one single person, then it would be have to be called a different band. And we’d sell those. And in 1994 we started calling it Business Deal Records. It was essentially just ten dudes, but it was just us with a bunch of different folks, a mix and match of sorts. Today there’s probably about thirty different individuals involved.” Originally created to allow a space in which Michener and the other core musicians to release their own music, over the years it has expanded to increase production.

Bill’s Ranch Show!

Bill’s Ranch Show!

Business Deal Records @ Bill’s Ranch on Friday November 14th!!! Sponsored by Live Music Capitol.com, Business Deal Records, Austin Underground Film and Drippings Springs sponsor a night of psychedelic music and film. Films shown between sets. Keg beer, vodka and campfire provided. Donations will get you merchandise provided by Business Deal Records (comps!) and shirts from Live Music Capitol.com

New Cavedweller Album Out

New Cavedweller Album Out

Press Release for Cavedweller – 2016 pt II & III

Cavedweller is gearing down to put out his 10th album in June of 2012. This Bandcamp.com exclusive will include the option to purchase a limited edition cassette tape along with the digital. 2016 pt II& III was recorded during 2011 after moving from Austin to San Antonio. The feel of these recordings is different from the “traditional” 4-track tape sound that Cavedweller has been producing for the last 20 years. The shift hasn’t so much increased sound fidelity but rather deepened the lo-fi intensity with many layers of tracking and double tracking. This long awaited release is an essential step into the psychedelic folk rock arena Cavedweller fans have eagerly enjoyed since the early 90’s.