As an independent DIY songwriter and musician, I have found that there are many things that need to line up in order to get your music to the people that are looking for it whether for licensing in film, a producer or record label looking for a song for one of their artists, or a company looking for memorable music to use in advertising. This all falls into place when you combine several factors that make all this happen.
It isn’t enough to just have good songs, or good music, you have to be able to get it to the right people. When I say “the right people”, I don’t necessarily mean top industry contacts. Instead of saying “the right people” let’s replace that term with “the right path”. For example: a far-fetched example of the right path could be that I mail a compact disc to a record label and the A&R person opens the package and throws the disc straight into the trash can. That night the trash is removed from the building but the cleaning crew didn’t tie the trash bag shut and it falls open on the street corner causing the CD case to fall to the ground, open up only to be run over by a passing vehicle as the disc breaks free from the case and rolls a mile down the road ending up at the front door of a small, local radio station.
The next morning the station’s DJ pulled up to the station, parked and headed toward the entrance. He spots the CD on the ground, picks it up and takes it inside the studio. The station intern arrives a few moments later, he spots the CD on the counter and sets his coffee down to have a look at the disc. Picking it up, turning it over and studying the writing on it. It wasn’t a band he had heard of, so he asked the DJ if it was something new they had received from a label. The DJ takes the disc from the intern and throws it in a pile of CDs he’s received over the years from artists all over the world. He barks that it’s nothing and laughs as the disc lands in the pile of hundreds of CDs in a box in the corner of the studio, some of them not even opened. The intern asks if it would be okay if he borrowed the disc to check it out. The DJ tells him to take the damn box, it’s full of bands that aren’t going anywhere. When you’re done with them you can toss them in the trash.
The interns name is Jake. He digs through the box of CDs and puts 3 of them in his backpack, finished his day of work at the studio and then he hops on a plane with his family for vacation in the United Kingdom. The flight from LA to the United Kingdom was uneventful and Jake had slept most of the flight. On his first day there he and his family stumbled upon a thrift store and Jake found a portable CD player that was like new and of course he had to get it to listen to the discs he got from the box of broken dreams in the radio station corner.
Jake felt a rush of emotion when he put the CD into the second hand compact disc player and pressed play. It only a few moments for him to realize he had a demo disc from one of the biggest bands in the world. It had been sitting in a box at the radio station for more than 15 years according to the date on the postage stamp on the envelope. The band on the disc had made it big a few years ago and is now a household name. They had 3 multi-platinum releases under their belt and a new album due out soon.
How many CDs are sitting in a bin in the corner of a radio station unopened… How did this band make it after being overlooked by so many people. The songs on the demo Jake had in his CD player were indeed the same songs that the band has since rerecorded and many of them were unchanged.
Coffee & a Playlist 