Articles
Running your own label...
by James Davison - Eyesore Record on 11 December 2003. Read 564 times.
James - Eyesore Records - Running Your Own Label…
Another issue of this here fanzine has arrived, and the people that are have been kind enough to grant me some space to write a column for this little publication! Introductions….well my name is James Davison, I’m 19 years old and I co-own with 1 partner and run a small independent record label called Eyesore Records (www.eyesorerecords.co.uk), which is based in Solihull in the West Midlands (Near Birmingham for those not in the know!). We’ve been going since November 4th 2002, and it hasn’t all been roads paved with gold on the way to where we’re at right now! So this issue’s column is about starting your own label and generally what has happened….!! Enjoy!!
I was sitting at Lancaster University not really digging how courses were ran, and feeling a bit bummed by it all, so basically I decided at the end of the first term I’d jack it all in, which was about 1 month later (Left time for partying!). I thought about what I was going to do, and I’ve been passionate about punk/rock/emo music for quite some time, buying CDs off import (www.play.com and www.interpunk.com are 2 sites to checkout!) and going on punk websites constantly (www.punktastic.com and www.absolutepunk.net are the main 2!). However I can’t play an instrument….or sing!
So what was I to do….a label was the last remaining option in the industry for me. It didn’t seem hard, and sounded like fun, but boy oh boy, no one knows the amount of pure graft that goes into just putting together a compilation! On the 4th of November 2002 Eyesore Records was born, just me e-mailing people like Lobster Records from my University room and hotmail account telling them my sad life story! I soon got in my friend and musical soul brother Paul Bousfield involved and became a partner ship, 50/50 straight down the line. Things began to snowball with the label, people really seemed to open up to me and offer me things I never dreamed of. Steve at Lobster Records is a particularly awesome guy and I admire him a hell of a lot, so anyone wants a hook up just say Greetings to him and tell him James at Eyesore sent you! I decided my first project would be to make a compilation, but not all the same UK bands everyone was doing, like Capdown, 5 Knuckle, etc etc, but to do a UK compilation of all USA bands, anyway after doing random things like trademarking the name Eyesore Records (So don’t steal the name or I’ll sue your ass!!), and getting our own website (www.in-veritas.com thanks Marc!), we managed to get 20 tracks from some amazing bands we loved! This compilation came out with like no distribution on March 10th 2003, and we’ve sold it really really well, with a little cult following of our own! We love our fans, now affectionately know as Eyesoreites!
We’ve taken the policy of being nice guys, I write to people, e-mail them, text them, phone them yadda yadda yadda and I would appreciate some kind of reply, so when I get a demo CD through the post or e-mail saying checkout our band on MP3.com I do just that! I appreciate people taking the time to find out about us and pay to send us things and take time out to do so, so the least I can do is respond, even if it’s a thanks but no thanks I do that, because that’s what I’d like! We were actually put down in a review once as being the nicest new label around, and that made me feel good!! People appreciate niceness, and in the DIY scene of today we need to stick together! We didn’t want to sign a band just for the sake of signing someone, we were in talks with a few bands, but it fell through for various reasons, 1 being our now best friends in My Awesome Compilation (ww.myawesomecompilatiom.com), but they’ve got Sony and Epic and alike meeting and greeting them, so we were slightly too small scale right now, but we still work closely with them and generally watch them live at least once a month, which is cool. We are in the midst of signing a band right now……so keep your ears open to see who that is!! They rock like Jimmy Eat Word meets Dashboard Confessional having sex with Taking Back Sunday….hope that sounds like fun to you!!
Our new compilation is soooo good, but I’m not just saying that! We have a barcode on it, which might not seem like a big deal, but when you have your own 9-digit barcode in all this craziness the small things make it all pretty damned satisfying! We used focus groups to get the best 20 tracks we could on What’s Across The Pond? Volume 2 and boy oh boy is this a good one! Fully mastered and artwork done by the amazing Adam Tickle (www.culturaldomain.com) it’s more than I could hope for! I’ve had plenty of late nights up till 2am trying to e-mail 100 people who have sent me links to MP3.com sites to try and get on our new compilation, so now it’s all finally done after 11 months of working on 1 compilation I feel like my heart can slowly calm down back to a normal thump thump pace rather than THUMP-THUMP-THUMP if you get what I’m saying!
A lot of people e-mail me asking how did I start the label…and what should they do as it seems awesome! Well it is when a kid says I bought an album of so and so because of YOUR CD, and knowing people in Japan and Canada have our CD and are rocking out is quite a cool thought, but be aware it takes some serious £££, so get a full time job apart from it and passion is a must, if you didn’t have a passion for what you’re doing it’s a waste of time as what you get out of it in monetary terms versus the amount of work you should do for it to be successful is not worth it if it doesn’t make you go all fuzzy inside when something good happens!! I mean I started giggling with happiness when the new compilation CDs arrived back from the pressing plant!
Here’s some people I recommend if you want to get into it:
Pressing/Mastering CDs: Sound Recording Technology (www.soundrecordingtechnology.com)
T-Shirts: ShirtySomething (www.shirtysomething.com)
Artwork: Adam Tickle (www.culturaldomain.com)
Badges: Best Badges (www.bestbadges.co.uk)
Stickers: Stickerchap (www.geocities.com/stickerchap/)
Website: Easyspace (www.easyspace.com)
Packaging: Auction Pax (www.auctionpax.co.uk)
Trademark: The Patent Office (www.patent.gov.uk)
Studio: Deadline Studios (www.deadlinestudios.co.uk)
There’s no easy way to get into all this, or a course you can do that tells it to you all!! Just make some good friends through it, have fun, and learn it your way! 
Get in contact with me at James@eyesorerecords.co.uk if you want any help or just to chat or tell me how crap my column is!! Till next time……
P.S Eyesore Records CD compilation, What’s Across The Pond? Volume 2 out November 3rd 2003 for just £5 with a free badge! Checkout the website at www.eyesorerecords.co.uk for more details!! ROCK ON!