The next thrilling installment of this gripping serial deals with the ins and outs of independent record companies.

During last month's article in this series we interviewed an ex-A&R man turned freelance and touched on the relative financial advantages and disadvantages of signing up with larger or smaller record companies. But there are other arguments besides monetary ones that could influence your decision. For instance, you might not want to become involved in the machinations of a large company. Or else you might feel that your music should develop to the point where your bargaining power is enhanced by greater experience, and self management with some degree of success. On the other hand the prospect of being down and out in London pales in its attraction, when you realise that the only thing likely to keep you warm at night is the mountainous pile of rejection letters. In cases such as this, the attraction of having your own record pressed and on the market through an independent distributor can have a great amount of appeal.

State of Independence

The independent scene has gained so much distinction since the heady days of 1976. Born out of frustration with the blandness and general stasis of the established companies' stranglehold on the market; the indies now have an international influence on the record business.

Nationally, Stiff is the model of independent success, (although their more recent history is less so), and it began with Nick Lowe's 'So it Goes': their first single, released in August 1976.

Dave Robinson had built a studio above a regular 'pub rock' venue, the Hope and Anchor in Islington, and had begun to amass tapes of bands. He teamed up with Jake Riviera, then managing Dr. Feelgood, and with a great deal of help from their friends, they put the meagre sum of £400 to work.

Through much devotion and effort Stiff became a well-respected label which featured The Damned, Ian Dury and Elvis Costello amongst others. Elvis (or rather Declan) having already touted his 'bedroom' demo, featuring nothing but voice and acoustic guitar, around the majors without a nibble. Together with Jake Riviera he went on to put the F-beat label on the map.

Stories such as this invite you to ponder what majors A&R departments may have missed in the past. The high expectations they appear to have of the quality of demos does not instill much confidence in their judgement. After all, the Beatles were turned down by Decca, and recorded Sergeant Pepper on a pair of 4-track machines. Both Can and Joe Jackson have recorded live onto a stereo machine too.

Package Deal

The idea of getting a record pressed and packaged can be a useful promotion tool in it's own right, even if you only sell it at gigs and attempt to get radio play for it without arranging distribution for sale in the shops. It will demand a lot of effort to make a profit, of which you have only an outside chance. Your compensation will be a lot of satisfaction and perhaps some serious interest from those parts of the industry that tapes have failed to reach. If you do eventually 'break through' you will have a much greater degree of control over what you do, which in the event of you getting a major's interest, will probably mean greater leverage in negotiation and more control later.

The majors tend to recognise only the predictable chart successes, (or imagine that they do), but the Indies are working in a specialised market that is much less predictable. If you have enough confidence in what you are doing, and others, such as your dedicated gig followers, are very supportive, why not do it yourself?

The mechanics of record pressing were covered in Carl Anthony's series in the January-March 1985 issues of HSR, so let's consider what you need to do apart from that.

Record pressing often comes as part of a package deal with cutting and sleeve printing. A typical price for 1,000 singles might be £385 excluding VAT. This would the include cutting of lacquers, test pressings, two-colour labels and white bags. Extra costs would be incurred for colour/picture sleeves, coloured vinyl and the like. The possibility of making a 12" is worth considering, even if it is not of full album length. The increased costs would be covered by the retail price, even at around £2.99, and the amount of promotion and advertising would be the same.

If you choose to cover someone else's song it needs to have been available on a retail basis in the same countries as yours will be available, otherwise you will need the permission of the publishers or copyright owners to do so. The writers and publisher will need to be credited on the record label (eg. Ecstasy/Hogwash © 1986 Sictunes).

Ensure that your final master tape has exactly what you expect of it. It's surprising how a session sounds so different when you play back the mix the following day, so, to be on the safe side, check it out a week or so later! Once it is committed to vinyl you'll be living with it forever more.

Into the Shops

Approach various distributors before having your record pressed. This may sound similar to the A&R of a major, but the indies' criteria for acceptance are appreciably different. They should be more than happy to discuss the idea of your own record, and might even arrange artwork for the sleeves, or pressing, printing and publicity for you. Naturally this will mean you won't earn as much from the sales, but equally you won't be working as hard at the many time-consuming tasks involved.

A distributor will expect to earn between 26% and 30% of the wholesale price (ie. the price the shop buys in at before adding their gross profit). There are labels who agree to a licence deal with a major for distribution, but the label would need to be of some importance in quantative terms before this takes place. In this instance the major's marketing departments would promote the records. Some Indies have had disappointing results with this arrangement, feeling that their releases have suffered due to most of the attention being given to the major's own fully contracted artists.

In the past, an indie used this form of distribution to ensure their records were available in as many shops as possible. With the rise of the Cartel, Pinnacle, Making Waves etc. it's no longer essential to go this route.

To assure themselves that your record will be worth handling, a distributor will be keen to know what you plan to do about promoting it and you will need to attempt to get reviews of gigs and the record in the music press and other local papers. To do this you should write a press release to be sent out to all the relevant people, containing information about the band, future gigs and of course the record. Type it with double spaces and wide margins for ease of reading, and remember to include contact names and telephone numbers. With the music press it is wise to assess the most likely journalist to review it, if possible, and from all the candidates for it's appraisal you can generate a mailing list. Persistence pays, so this will ease the burden of repeating it at regular intervals. Even if you ultimately fail to get a review or airplay you will become memorable!

Think about whether photographs would be an advantage; the Instamatic snapshot is not advisable, but something more professional, either of the band on stage or close-ups. Look at the kind of thing already featured in the Press and create innovative visuals. Large business is dependent on advertising and is prepared to spend a lot on it for one reason; if done properly it works. Of course your budget won't be so large but you can undertake some very effective schemes relatively cheaply.

If you're tying in the publicity push with the record it is obviously crucial that the record is available in the shops when or if it gets airplay. Ensure the pressings are good before the promotional material goes out. A batch of duff vinyl can mean a great waste of effort and money. Check all processes at each stage. Are the sleeves and labels the right colour? Is the information on them correct? Check the printer's proofs before you go ahead with the job. Visit the pressing plant before you choose them for your record, and select a record at random that they are already working on, listen to it, and so judge their quality control.

Airwaves

Prospects of getting radio play will be heightened if you pitch the record at the programme producers and presenters most likely to be both sympathetic and interested in the indies and your music. At the recent UK Music Radio Conference, the report in the broadcast magazine read, 'Peel spoke of specialist presenters as 'superfans' wielding the power of 18th century patrons of the arts.' He further dismissed an assertion by Simon Bates in the conference programme stating that popular music radio should not be 'seduced by any unhealthy longing to be credible to the minority. We need to maximise our audience, not to drive it away by being musically elitist...' Observed Peel: 'That seems to me as eloquent a plea for cultural fascism as I've ever heard.'

Radio 1 producers are credited against each programme in the Radio Times and you should check with the local radio stations for details of their producers because in most cases these will be the presenters. Music radio, particularly of the format you will need for publicity, is inextricably linked with the recording industry and you will be competing with the professional pluggers. They are endlessly attempting to bring records in that will interest, and therefore get the attention of, those who'll have the power to play it on the air.

The actual amount of time allotted to recorded material that can be featured on radio (the 'needletime'), is a contentious issue. The very organisation that negotiates, and some would say, dictates, such needletime agreements is the same as that which gathers the writer's royalties for that airplay: the Performing Right Society (PRS). The paradox is that the needletime restrictions prevent writers maximising their income from more airplay because, so the argument goes, it would ultimately have a negative effect upon record sales(!). So by limiting such needletime, less opportunity is given to the promotion of a new record.

But would increasing the amount of needletime enable radio stations to give up the policy of maximising audience figures by mainstream music programming? Probably not in the case of commercial radio, where large audience figures are attractive to advertisers, and consequently the rates they are charged by those radio stations. Public Services Broadcasting, (ie. the BBC) would probably be more amenable.

The Horse's Mouth

But what makes an independent label tick? Is there more to it than making money?

Ex-NME writer Paul Morley together with Trevor Horn, were principally responsible for the signing of Frankie Goes To Hollywood to ZTT records. Recently on Radio 4 he was discussing the differing attitudes that he found people adopted towards him.

'Whatever field they're in, some people have a stubborn commitment to the golden ideal of quality, and fight against mediocrity. Come what may, that attitude will make you a lot of enemies. A lot of people feel safe with mediocrity...'

This attitude lies at the heart of many indie operations and they're now getting the attention they have long deserved. The Cartel, Pinnacle, Spartan and Making Waves along with with a number of smaller companies have formed Umbrella which is an organisation to promote their interests as distributors, and they have recently managed to reorganise the methods by which the independent charts are compiled. This higher profile and a bigger voice will ensure that their presence is felt more strongly in the future.

The Cartel forms a chain of Indies — distribution and labels, each of which deals with specific areas of the country. The advantage of this arrangement is that they're more in touch with what's happening in their own locality. Derek Chapman of Backs Records (Norwich) and Alan Maghee of Creation Records (London) gave me some of their views.

Derek: 'Backs originally started as a retail shop, but has grown from there due to a lot of good local music being ignored. Now we distribute all kinds of records within Cartel. In deciding what to distribute, personal taste isn't always a criterion; it's decided by a committee. We'll even put out heavy metal... if it's a good record.

'There are various ways we get to know of bands: recommendation from contacts, going to gigs, or being approached with a completed record. If a band can back a record with good publicity and promotion it's more attractive as a distribution deal, and we want them to be committed to something like that on the long term because it can take some time to get the sales moving.'

Alan: 'I see the role of Creation as being transient. I don't have any overall plan other than the fact that you should always put out records that you'd buy. That's how I run Creation. It's probably not the most financially sensible way to run any company, but it works for me. I hear about bands through the grapevine and there are certain people's tastes I know I can trust.'

Derek: 'Our distribution covers major chains like W.H.Smith, Our Price and so on, though it's hard work to get them interested in new bands. But independents have proved that it can be done. One has only to mention Fuzzbox.

'It's difficult to be specific about the kind of contract we offer or negotiate with bands because each one tends to be different in some aspects. There was a time when we'd only be very loosely involved, but these days we tend to have tighter arrangements because a lot of work goes into developing record sales and interests.'

Alan: 'I think one important thing that has a detrimental effect on the consumers' awareness of music is Radio 1. You've got some really good people there; Janice Long, Andy Kershaw and John Peel are very supportive, but I think the rest of the DJs, and more importantly the producers, don't really take the chances they should.'

Derek: 'Independents are able to allow a new band to develop at their own pace, and I believe they benefit from that. With our experience and our advice — for what it's worth — we can help people get a record out, and then it's up to them to progress. To screw £4 million out of the record company isn't necessarily the best way for the band to approach things. If a band succeeds in doing that, their expectations will be raised and they almost expect that success is waiting for them around the corner.'

Alan: 'People used to say I was crazy; but obviously the different successes we've had has proved a lot of people wrong.'

Derek: 'It's hard work. Ask anybody who has made it. A lot of effort, a lot of dedication is involved. We just ease people along as best we can.'

Creation records have a roster of four bands, the most significant of which is the 'Weather Prophets'. The small number of bands allows the company to be reasonably attentive to each, a benefit denied to bands signed to the majors. Backs Records have a larger number of interests and have perhaps correspondingly less involvement with them, but the future of their recent involvement with 'The Bible!' appears promising.

The different distributors on the independent scene have their own methods of arranging a deal. Backs for instance, require 25 copies of the record for promotional purposes. These go out to contacts in the Press and the media, but leave national music press and radio plugging up to you. They also mention bribes in their information sheets -'preferably alcoholic.'