Start label for other artist?

[mrx]

This may seem better suited to the promotion forum, but that's become a 'Thunderdome' for spam...

There's a singer/songwriter that comes through my area every month or so who has recorded several CD's on his own and ekes out a meager living just playing music. He strikes me as a unique talent - one where I've asked whose song he just covered and it turns out to be another of his. His only outlet appears to be selling CD's at gigs - he said his attempt at a website didn't generate enough sales/gigs to be worth the cost.

I'm sure I could work out a deal where I take a piece of each existing CD I sell, but it's the 'gray area' that worries me... Getting caught up in complicated contracts is ridiculous at this stage, yet I have that nagging fear of being able to get this guy to a wider audience and getting trampled in the process. (There are endless tales of simply helping someone else being the best thing one can do for a career, but somehow I alway remember the horror stories...)

Has anyone here tried taking on the sales/promotion of another artist?

 

[Garry Sharp]

Yes, although helping with gigs rather than recordings. My partner (the singing bird) and I launched a monthly showcase for singers about 3 or 4 years ago. I also worked briefly for a record label in London in the 1980's. I also had dealings in another world with some fairly well known TV comedy people. Never again, to any of that. I completely understand how artists feel ripped off by record companies, but the view from the other end of the telescope was pretty unpleasantly enlightening. There is no correlation between talent and user friendliness, I know from bitter experience.

The odds are your altruism will leave you wounded. Be careful mate.

 

[mrx]

Garry -

(You ever vist the Rope? Similar to this board, but catering to unemployed used car salesmen that fancy themselves record producers - a case study in the unsavory aspects of the fringes of the music business.)

Good point - there are reasons this guy hasn't made a bigger splash on his own, and my involvement would simply make 'his problem my problem.'

The safest (and most profitable) bet is probably the least creatively satisfying - give him a couple bucks for each CD I can sell through my own channels and leave it at that - everyone gets paid, no one gets hurt.