29/11 – The big day!

Today the first CD – Tree full of People’s Release of all colors – will arrive from the factory i the Czech Republic, and we will throw the release party tonight. Our marketing has turned out fairly good, and there has been a lot of buzz in different contact forums. I think we are on the way now.

Intensive day

Yesterday was an intensive one, with interviews in both TV and magazines. It is a little hard to market both the record company and the band Tree full of people at the same time, but I think the reporters got it all right. Here is a TV clip – in swedish though:

http://tv4.se/klipp/183544/170794.html

Marketing

I wrote a short and soulful press release last week and sent it to lots of magazines and TV stations. I also sent it to people in politics, since these ideas are somewhat new and might interest them. The response is very good so far: A national music magazine will cover us, the local newspapers and TV stations are doing interviews this week and also, Rick Falkvinge, head of the swedish party “Piratpartiet” has written lots about us in his blog. Its a beautiful text, just the kind of response I hoped for. And I really appreciate the comments at the bottom of the page:

http://www.falkvinge.com/2007/11/nytt-intressant-skivbolag.html (in Swedish)

Its very easy to get the interest of the media, I think. Ever since my early attempts, the papers have always been keen to write about new, interesting stuff, and when an idea like this comes up, its even easier. However, I think some people try the wrong approach, when trying to impress or being cocky about their attempts. I write very humbly about the releases and about the compay ideas, trying to work from a polite and “nice” point of view. Its not my job to tell everyone else that this music is the best ever composed or that this company is the coolest ever. Its up to the audience.

Music in webshops

Yesterday was a stressful one: I was supposed to do lots of other things, but the day started with a happy occation: Tree full of people are now in the first web shops. I found it on the top of the front page in a norwegian store, which are in the distributor phonophile’s network. So people can now start to buy it. Which rendered an intensive work for me: I sent pressreleases, updated the web site and made a newsletter post to all our buddies, telling about the start of the music publishing and release party.

I also put the album on Last FM, and a radio play with Tree full of people as the station will mix lots of beautiful bands I love. Now we are just waiting for the CD:s to arrive, all the other web shops to put it up. itunes are slowest – it takes up to five weeks.

Also we are rehersing for the release party. And it sounds better than I dared to think.

Pressing CD:s

What does people think about CD:s nowadays? I am a little uncertain myself. I really like to have good music on a physical format, but it is hopeless to do them: slow, bureaucratic and all that. We had to have a lot of permissions from copyright organizations and all that, and the pressing is a little special. It was not expensive at all though: 1000 CD:s for 1100 euros. Not bad at all. But it takes a month from sendig the master to recieving the parcels. Will people buy them?

I got one insight last week: You cant send a bunch of MP3:s as a present to someone. It is just not a valid thing to do. There is no work involved, you probably havent put any money in and its very boring. “Here you go – a zip file. Happy birthday!”. No, there you need a physical format. Ok, a burned CD with former MP3:s, just like the old mixtape we used to share. But a real, expensive, pressed CD that smells of ink and glue. Isnt that nicer?

To little time: Everything is ready

The two first records are now sent to Czech republic for pressing. We are putting it up on all the large web shops and preparing the release parties. The first one to be released is Tree full of people – Release of all colors. You can listen to it on our official site www.grammofon.com, or at myspace or at Last FM. These are really great methods of publishing.

The second one is The Modesty – Heads in our hands. Listen to them at exactly the same places.

Our record company, Gramtone, will be up and running with the releases of these two albums, and plan to release more music soon. We are also promoting our ideas of Mu07 as mentioned earlier here. I will probably do some lecturing at the university about this business idea.