Chris Preston and New Aquarius Online

I remember when Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, wrote this last year.

http://sivers.org/bye-bye-baby

It shook many CD Baby members up because they immediately saw the potentials for conflicts of interest. If Tony Van Veen was at the helm of CD Baby and Disc Makers, an omnipresent CD manufacturer for the independent recording industry, it would look an awful lot like the beginnings of one-stop shop that could ultimately fail to serve the independent recording artist adequately.

Then came July 11, 2009. The beginning of the end. Right after CD Baby president Brian Felsen declared the redesigned site to be stable and live, the dark times began and they continue to today. (Note for the record that Rick O’Neal at Nimbit says that their membership is exploding now. Why do you think that is?)

Tony Van Veen, president of Disc Makers posted a blog entry this week. I’m starting to understand why the decline of CD Baby may have happened.

http://blog.discmakers.com/2009/09/whats-next-for-independent-music-retail/

Derek Sivers always seemed to immerse himself in the life and motives of the independent artists he sought to service with CD Baby. He wrote extensively about how to have a successful independent mindset. Derek was always positive. He tried to be helpful. Most importantly, I always got the impression that he thought of being an independent recording artist as a choice, not an alternative to signing with a major label.

Derek seemed to believe in empowering the independent recording artist and was very successful as a result. How Derek could have said, “I chose Disc Makers as the new owner (of CD Baby) because their president Tony Van Veen has been one of my favorite people for years, and I always felt they’d do a better job of running CD Baby than I would.” will always baffle me. Oh well. It was his company to do with as he pleased. 

Tony’s World

Let’s contrast the attitude and and mindset embodied by the blog post of Mr. Van Veen, which concerns brick and mortar distribution. He paints such a bleak picture of the industry based upon brick and mortar distribution, which I have to admit, I never, ever think of. It would be like a bistro manager sweating the golden arches. To the McDonalds regular, the bistro doesn’t exist. To the bistro patron, McDonalds doesn’t exist. They both sell food, but their potential customer pool is not simply “people who eat.”

Van Veen’s picture is only grim to those who will no longer be able to profit from an old business model. He starts his post with “I was talking to the CEO of a well-known music distributor the other day, when the topic of the future of independent music distribution came up.” If that opening line doesn’t come with a shirt and tie, it should. I wonder if cigars were involved. I don’t seem to remember Derek Sivers ever writing about chatting up CEOs while keeping their names out of it.

It’s clear to me that Van Veen is far too removed from his target customer to do any good. In fact, he doesn’t seem to understand them at all. I believe that his apparent distance from the true nature of the independent recording artist  in 2009 is perfectly line with the current state of CD Baby, which Disc Makers is widely believed to have ruined. (Though in this piece, he claims to believe that it will thrive.)

It safe to assume that a large portion of Van Veen’s profits are based upon a huge population of independent recording artists. They manufacture CDs at Disc Makers and sell them on CD Baby. But, few to no Disc Makers/CD Baby customers would ever benefit from his blog post nor would they share any concern about its subject matter. If like many in business, Van Veen’s attempting to create blog content to engage his customer, he’s missing the mark. In short, I don’t believe that any independent artists ever cry about this stuff.

“Less acts signed, less product into distribution, less product at retail; what’s an independent artist to do?” (Actually it should be fewer acts signed. Bad grammar is just a pet peeve of mine.) The answer? I don’t know… succeed like never before? Try to stop using words like product? I’m just spitballing here.

I don’t know any independent artists who care about brick and mortar distribution. Much less any that believe the state of CD sales by major retailers to be unfortunate. In the independent world, it’s a non-issue. I know of no one serious about independent success who is "aspiring / hoping / dreaming of a distro deal." "…the old dream of nationwide distribution dies hard for musicians." Huh? In 2009?

Where has Mr. Van Veen been? Perhaps in his office.

“Borders is reducing floor space for music by 70% over the next 90 days.” This happened last spring. I read it in the New York Daily News.

Claiming that the future of independent CD distribution will be online is such well-traveled territory that it’s almost laughable to give it a bullet point. "…digital is where all the growth is these days…" is remarkable, dusty, old perspective. He actually says, “In fact, my distribution scenario above is already playing out across the U.S. and Europe.” Am I nuts, or does he actually consider himself a forecaster of trends?

This period in the industry is simply overflowing with potentials for the independent artist. To expand upon my earlier simile, an independent artist has the opportunity to be more successful with a bistro now and doesn’t even have to consider managing a McDonalds. An independent artist can build a career with a more selective pool of “customers” because fewer CEOs will be able to take a piece.

An interesting tidbit about Disc Makers and Oasis that I’d like to share.

I’ve used Disc Makers in the past. Not good experiences. I have been thinking about a manufacturer I might use for my next album. Oasis seemed to be similar in service offerings and they send me catalogs all the time too. I sent a bunch of the same questions to Disc Makers and Oasis to see what kind of response I would get.

Neither of them responded. For all they knew, I had money burning a hole in my pocket, just waiting to give it to them. They just seemed to ignore the questions I sent to their web sites’ general e-mail addresses.

I sent an e-mail to Micah Solomon, the president of Oasis, and he answered me promptly and personally. Exactly what I wanted to see. They got a gold star that day.

Now maybe I’m a little slow on the uptake, but recently I noticed that both companies were located in New Jersey. Hmm… The addresses?

Disc Makers

7905 N. Route 130

Pennsauken, NJ

 

I knew about that one.

 

Oasis Disc Manufacturing

7905 N. Crescent Boulevard

Delair, NJ

 

Where the hell is Delair? I’ve lived in Jersey my whole life and I’ve never heard of it.

 

Some Googling revealed that it’s the same town. Delair is considered a Pennsauken neighborhood. And N. Route 130 is N. Crescent Boulevard! It’s the same building! What the hell is going on here?

I called and asked Oasis about the incredible situation of having two mailing address with the same front door. After holding for a while, the guy came back and told me that even he didn’t know the answer to my question, since he worked in a call center outside New Jersey, but he had found out. 

They’re owned by the same parent company.

Eeew…

In my last piece I concluded with a joke I often use that goes, “He’s just been added to the top of the list of people I’m glad I’m not.” Though I must assert that I’d never want to be anyone but me, I thought it might be an interesting exercise to make that list. I can’t ever finish the list, nor can I put it in any order, but I’ll start with just a few that I know I’ve made my little joke about. Please feel free to add to this list. It can be very life-affirming. :~) Here goes…

Tony Van Veen

Tony is the president of Disc Makers, popular manufacturer of CDs for the independent recording industry. Disc Makers has been doing it for a very long time and countless independent artists have manufactured their CDs with Disc Makers. I’ve used them too (with more than a little difficulty). Tony thought it might be a good idea to expand the empire by acquiring the top independent music store online, CD Baby. Think of the packaging possibilities! Since the Disc Makers age began, CD Baby has been on the Hell express, taking years of goodwill, trust and brand confidence and wiping their asses with it. The CD Baby redesign/overhaul is the business blunder by which all future blunders will be measured. A perfect example of what happens when a great independent company changes its motivations from passion to profit. I’m thrilled that solving that problem is someone else’s job.

Gene Simmons

I’ve been a Kiss fan for all of my conscious life. Gene used to say things that I found inspiring. In the early days of my music career, the confidence that Kiss had in their outlandish stage show and in their own convictions saw me through many times of doubt. At least we weren’t being laughed at like Kiss, and those guys made it through. Gene was a big purveyor of the “fake it ‘till you make it” approach to self-promotion. It was fun to emulate that too.

I’ve acquired some wisdom and experience in my life and I know what it’s like to have your big mouth get you in trouble. However, it seems that Gene Simmons has gone from promoting himself to working very hard to make sure that no one could possibly like him, just so he can say that he’s rich and that he doesn’t care. What a trap he’s built for himself!

If you lie enough, there is no truth. If you talk a lot about how big your penis is, everyone knows for sure that you have a small penis. If you say you don’t care what people think enough, it become apparent that nothing matters more to you. Gene has just turned 60. He has to find a way not to hear everyone laughing at him. With each passing year, he will have to find more ways to boost his ego all by himself, since fewer and fewer people will be willing to help him. I’m glad that unlike Gene Simmons, I don’t have to be right all the time. Keep the house and the TV show and who knows what else. I’m thrilled that I’m not Gene Simmons.

George W. Bush

How could I not mention this guy? A failure in mostly everything, so notably that there are countless books about it. They may even mention his arrogant stupidity and ineptitude in our children’s history text books. Only time will tell. As I consider all the time W. surely has on his hands now, I’m reminded of how glad I am that I’m not an alcoholic, have never used drugs and have never been arrested.

Any game show host

I don’t have a name to go with this one because I don’t watch enough television, but I would definitely not want to be one of these guys. As I understand it, many of them are actors. I know what it’s like to aspire all of your life to some creative and artistic height. As a musician, it keeps me going. However, as an actor, if you take that job in Hollywood, just for the money, just for now, and the game show takes off, you become the game show. Good Christ! I’ve heard about how all the Family Feud hosts have committed suicide. No Shakespeare, no Academy Awards, no transition to director. No, you’re the Wheel of Fortune guy.

Notable cool exception: Chuck Barris. Chuck was awesome. I wouldn’t want to live with ol’ Chuck’s demons either, but he was awesome.

 

A little while ago, I wrote a piece about how much of a disappointment CD Baby had become after their site overhaul. I was almost immediately contacted by Kevin at CD Baby, who offered his personal e-mail address to solve my problem. (My problem was that on Emusic, my second album was classified as soundtrack/ambient or something, which virtually guarantees that no one will discover it.) Here we are, weeks later, and the album still hasn’t been correctly categorized on Emusic. Oh well, so much for the personal touch.

Someone searched for “CD Baby disappointment” and found my blog. I think that’s hilarious. She commented to detail her own problems with CD Baby and I tried to put her in touch with Kevin. He suggested that she write to help@cdbaby.com because he was going out of town.

I’m watching the forum for CD Baby members and a lot of us are going over the side, looking for other distribution services. I know I am. People are telling stories about over two hour hold times for a call to their support line. People have even resorted to using the forum for support communications because they feel that their e-mails are being ignored.

It occurred to me that CD Baby made good sense when we didn’t have so many tools available to us to sell our own recordings online. CD Baby and other online stores are good for the discovery of new music. If you’re there, anyone browsing for new music could find you. For that, it’s valid, but as CD Baby continues to erode its own credibility on all fronts, I think it’s time to consider handling some of the CD transactions myself. Maybe all of them. Why not? I’ll be looking into that and other digital distributors in the coming weeks.

I’m just glad that I don’t have a new album coming out right now. I’d rather figure out all of this ugly business stuff now before I have a new release to promote. There are a fair number of people who have a new release right now. Since many of these artists have grown accustomed to CD Baby coming through for them, they are being seriously sabotaged.

One person on the CD Baby forum had a great idea: Roll the site back to to its previous incarnation. It’s probably the best thing they could do. Just restore the site to when it worked and spend the next year testing your “overhaul” until it actually works. Seems to make sense to me, though there are probably details I don’t know about that would prevent such a simple solution from being implemented.

There’s this psychological encouragement exercise for people who are complaining about their lives. It’s said that if everyone could lay their problems out on the table and trade them for someone else’s, everyone would see what’s out there and end up taking back their own problems.

This has never been more true in this situation with CD Baby. From a business perspective, Tony Van Veen, the DiscMakers president who took over CD Baby, has been added to the top of the list of people I’m glad I’m not.