50% OT: A Boy and His Question - The Tale of a Cassius

[1111000]

Hey everyone! It's time once again for cassius to present this sage forum with a very noobish question.

 

The history:

My band recorded a CD six months ago. We worked up the money to publish it through Crystal Clear CDs. We now have 1000 copies.

 

The plan:

To sell this sucker through cdbaby.com, and let cdbaby send it along to iTunes and others. Unfortunately, we bumped up against yet another thing we hadn't considered: publishing.

 

The problem:

To digitally distribute our music, and apparently for us to collect any royalties on our work, our music has to be published by a publishing company, be that us or someone else. Since we have faith in our music--and it may be blind faith, but we do--we kind of want to publish it ourselves so we can have full control. We already did a big art workup and everything by ourselves.

 

The question:

How could we set ourselves up as our own publishers, and is this a good idea despite the upfront $300+ I've heard it costs?

 

The other problem:

I'm not sure how to distinguish songwriter's royalty from publisher's. The guitarist and I ended up at 50-50 songwriting credit across the album so this is somewhat important to figure out.

 

The other question:

If we get published, is there yet another step--i.e., is getting published as a songwriter a different, separate stage?

 

 

 

...And back the noob descends into the shadows... thanks all.

 

cassius

[DavidMPires]

Email steve Lawson he publishes his cds through his own label, He should show you the way.

 

sorry i don't know more than this 0.02$

[1111000]

Steve Lawson? Not familiar with him, is he a forumite?

[jeremy c]

Steve used to be on this forum a lot.

You should check him out.

 

My brother and I both have cds on cdbaby and people seem to be buying digital versions of the albums and individual songs. I don't remember hearing anything from cdbaby about publishing.

[Phil W]

Steve's playing at The Greenbelt festival with his trio this weekend. PM him. He's doing a bunch of web streaming from the festival site.

 

http://www.reverbnation.com/controller/fan_reach/pt?eid=859829_2726033&url=http%3A%2F%2Fqik.com%2Fsolobasssteve

 

Here's a quote for you:

"Steve Lawson is a brilliant musician. I've known about him and listened to him for many years. He may not be one of the most famous bassists but he is definitely one of the most talented." - - Victor Wooten

 

Check him out.

[1111000]

I will check Steve out, and PM him if you give me his "handle" on this forum. (I'll try Steve_Lawson for kicks.)

 

Jeremy, cdbaby definitely requires us to have our songwriters and publishers established to get on iTunes/etc. They say a lot about their policies being non-retroactive, though--maybe you signed up before this became a big deal?

 

Either way I'd like to get a handle on this in case Applebee's wants to do a jingle version of one of our songs so they can highlight their chicken strips (hey, you never know).

[jeremy c]

I'm waiting for the phone company to pick up my song, "Leave a Message". I've been waiting for 15 years, but I'm a patient man.

[Davo-London]

It's Steve Lawson.

 

Coincidently I'm going to Greenbelt today and Steve is playing so I'll give him a nudge for you Cassius if I can.

 

Davo

[Davo-London]

Yeah I saw Steve and he suggested Cassius that you PM him.

 

Unfortunately I missed his set, which was a real bummer but the 11:30 pm start was too much for us as we had a 2 hour drive to get home.

 

Davo

[1111000]

Davo, thanks for the referral. Mucho obrigado.

 

Jeremy, if they never call you on "Leave a Message", consider writing a song about text messaging or voice mail. "T3xt M3" might be a good start...

[_Sweet Willie_]

I'm waiting for the phone company to pick up my song, "Leave a Message". I've been waiting for 15 years, but I'm a patient man.

 

De La Soul might have beat you to it. Can't remember the track title, but (I think) I remember the lyrics...

 

"Hey, how ya' doin'?

Sorry you can't get through.

Leave your name, and your number,

and I'll get back to you."

 

I think it's off of Three Feet High and Rising.

 

Peace.

--s-uu

 

[jeremy c]

Yeah, and Hank Williams, Jr. had a song out called, "Fax Me a Beer."

 

How about, "I got my wi-fi working, but it just don't work on you" or "ain't too proud to call customer service" or "she provides bundled services to me."

[Big Red 67]

Yeah, and Hank Williams, Jr. had a song out called, "Fax Me a Beer."

 

How about, "I got my wi-fi working, but it just don't work on you" or "ain't too proud to call customer service" or "she provides bundled services to me."

 

Oh the corn of it all.

[1111000]

For those curious, I guess you can register through ASCAP, BMI, etc., as a writer or a publisher. But there are stipulations, such as having your limited partnership registered if the publisher=the band. Oh how I love red tape.

 

No word from Steve yet, bound to be soon.

[jeremy c]

Another song title:

 

"Beachwood 457.com, you can post a comment on my blog...any old time."

[Tom Capasso]

When my son was in grade school, their chorus did a song that was four different answering machine messages set to music. At the end of each one, all the kids went "beeeeeeeeep". The song(s) were great, but watching the kids do the beep put it over the top. I'll have to get the name of that piece.

 

J - nice on the Beechwood thing.

 

Tom