Here at O.I.E. Records it’s an exciting time for us, so I thought I’d write my first article for NR.net providing the readers with some insight into what goes on when a small label tries to compete with bigger labels, even the majors, and how we’ve been able to take our bands from the Central Illinois cornfields to the world.
Even if you’ve never heard of any of our bands, that may be because you’re not into the various genres we deal with. The entire biz is genre-oriented today, so if you’re not into instrumental prog/ambient rock, there’s no reason you would’ve heard of VonFrickle, but if you’re really into prog, chances are we’ve reached you somehow and you’ve at least heard the name, maybe heard a song or two. If so, we’ve done our job.
While I’m proud of all our artists, Backyard Tire Fire is our “biggest” band as far as sales and a growing global fan base. We’ve worked hard for 3 years to take BTF and the rest of our bands to the world, and it’s been exciting to watch the things we do actually have the desired results.
When Ed Anderson (BTF singer/guitarist/songwriter) and I met 3 years ago, I knew they had the ingredients to be huge, but how? Ed and I knew there was a series of events that had to take place for them to make the jump from regional touring band to multi-regional touring band, to national touring band to international…you get the picture.
Very few bands skip these steps, it starts local, then spreads throughout the state, then the region, it takes a long time to build a band up to the point where the orders on your site are from all over the globe, not just in your home state or region.
When I met Ed, they were playing 2-4 nights a week from Bloomington, Il. (home) to Asheville, NC (where they founded the band), and everywhere in between, with Ed doing all the band’s booking, and booking solo acoustic gigs for himself on the side. Travel was tough, as the money from the show was rarely enough to get to the next show, or get home. If there was a breakdown or another problem, the expense would put them at a loss for the week. They’d been doing this for 2 years at that point.
In Jan. ’05, we released their 2nd album, (1st with us) called Bar Room Semantics, recorded, like all their albums, entirely in analog to a 2” Sony tape machine at Oxide Lounge in Bloomington, Il with our good friend Tony Sanfilipo. We sent out over 500 copies to press and radio, while the band continued to tour, and we got lucky, as the band toured enough to create a buzz in the Midwest and the Southeast, and sold enough CD’s at shows to keep themselves going, so we were able to attract Redeye Distribution, who released our catalog into retail and digital distribution in Nov.’05.
Obviously, having the Redeye name attached to our label gave us a lot more visibility and credibility, so getting press became a little easier, the shows got a little better, and paid a little more, but not enough to make a real difference. There was no way Ed could continue to do all the booking and management for the band and be able to play an expanded schedule, they needed a manager.
Geoff Harrison is a dynamo, the kind of guy who was going to be a success at whatever he chose, very organized and disciplined, and honest, making him a rare find. He saw the band at a show in Chicago while working for a major online music promo company, and loved them right away. After meeting the band and hitting it off on a personal level, he saw the ingredients for success the way I did, and saw the need for someone like him to come in and help them get to the next level. Geoff had never managed a band before, but had seen it done, had dealt with the people who were doing it for other bands, so he came aboard in Spring ’05.
While Geoff hadn’t intended to become BTF’s booking agent, it was the job that needed to be done most at the time, and he stepped up. Anyone who’s ever done booking will tell you that it’s probably the hardest part of this biz, let’s face it, dealing with booking people for most clubs is a depressing, jading experience, and many of them, for whatever reason, love to make it as hard as possible on touring bands. After a slow, steady start, Geoff ended up booking the band to #13 in the US for dates played!
The realities of capitalism require money to promote something you want to sell to the public, and it can’t be done without it, period. While Geoff was working hard to book the band, he was also courting bigger booking agencies to pick up BTF. Once we signed with Redeye and got the catalog out there, we had to advertise it, which costs big money, so I was looking for funding. Thankfully, I didn’t have to look very hard, because the father of one of my good friends saw what we were building with the label, and he believed in us enough to invest what we needed to go to the next level. None of the great things that are happening to us would be happening without their investment. You can have the best band with the best album, the best manager, the best label, following the best plan but without money, it’s just a car without gas.
Once we got the money to advertise in the various magazines that cover BTF’s genre, we were able to attract The Agency Group, a major agency, to book BTF, and the band started to play better venues, for better money, and now they ride in a new van with a new trailer, they have the new gear they needed, they’re playing shows with some of th biggest names in their genre, some legends like Government Mule and the Allman Brothers, and life is looking good.
I’m writing this at 5am the morning of 02/06/07, the day we release BTF’s new album worldwide. We’ve been paying a well-known publicist for 3 months, a well-known AAA radio promoter, a well-known college radio promoter, we’re getting airplay around the country, we’ve done everything a label at the mid-size level can do for a band and then some, but is it enough? CD sales are way down for every label, digital really doesn’t pay enough at our level to sustain a business plan, so it’ll be interesting to see over the next few months what happens. I believe by October we’ll have sold enough copies to be even for the release. I’ll use this column to chart our progress, I hope this is helpful. Thanks for reading!
PS. Please pick up the March ’07 Guitar Player Magazine, they did a great feature on our label. It was a long time coming!
John McGlasson hails from Central Illinois, where he heads O.I.E. Records,Ltd., the label he founded in 2003. John is a life-long guitarist, producer, and writer on the topic of the changing music industry, guitar, music, guitar music, and various other topics that strike his interest. John fronts the instrumental rock/prog band Sons of Science.
Through this column, John hopes to provide artists, managers, and anyone else who wants to know, some insight into the indie music biz from the label’s point of view, inside the inner-workings of distribution, retail, digital, live shows, booking, and everything else we do that may be interesting. Please feel free to contact John with questions, comments, suggestions for future articles, etc.