The Pelican’s Perch

LemonDrop Records Homepage

Well, all of Charlie’s hard work is starting to pay off.  He’s got the website up and running and our first band, the Spacetones, and Charlie’s good friends, are being recorded as we speak.  I honestly could not be more excited to get this all started.  For the time being, the site will be mostly following the recording of the Spacetones and whatever other stuff Charlie wants to give us updates on.  This is merely the beginning of a long journey for LemonDrop.  I wasn’t planning on revealing the website until we got some bands recorded and were for sure ready to go, but what the heck.  Expect the actual LemonDrop music and podcasts, etc. to be up and running more towards the fall.  But with Charlie moving into a loft apartment in downtown Springfield, and setting up his home studio, he’ll be keeping everyone up to date throughout the summer with progress posts on our site and there’s no reason not to have you guys on board with us as we go from two guys with ideas about our record label, to the full fledged working record label with bands and all.  I get goosebumps just thinking about it.  Should be a good time.  Below are a few selling points on how we’ll work and why we’re trying to revolutionize record labels as you know it.

Complete fan control:

• All our music will be available for download the minute we get them recorded.  This means no more liking one song on an album and having to take a risk on the rest of the album not knowing if you’ll like it since you can’t hear the rest.
• All of our music if offered under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial (by-nc) License meaning that people can share and remix our music under the condition that they attribute the original work to the artist and release it non-commercially.  This means remix contests for aspiring musicians with the ability to record, the ability to make music videos of our songs if you’re an aspiring filmmaker and if it’s good enough, your video and your name will be attached to our band’s music forever and you’ll get the recognition you deserve.  And there’s so many more possibilities with the Creative Commons License we’ve just barely touched on.  No longer will you need permission to use our songs in your films as you’re test screening them.  Only when anyone wants to make money with their creations using our songs, like selling CD’s with the remix on it, or charging admission for the film with our song on it will we ever ask for a license fee.
• You decide the price of our albums.  Gone are the days of charging $15 for an album.  With bigger labels, they had to pay the publisher, distributor, themselves, and the band with that $15 and thus the overpricing was somewhat justified.  Since we’ll most likely act somewhat as the band’s manager, publicist, booking agent, and audio engineer at first, all money is split 50/50 with our bands.  That’s unheard of in the record industry with most bands barely seeing 15 cents for every $15 album sold.  Eventually we’ll have something set up like Magnatune does that is a variable pricing system for our albums where you can pay anywhere from $5-$20 for an album.  All of our music will be available free to download as low quality mp3’s.  Album quality mp3’s will be something like $1 each to download, and the variable pricing will be for downloading a whole album digitally as high quality mp3’s, or for the actual physical CD.  At 50/50, the more you choose to pay, the more the band you’re supporting receives.  It’s a simple fan controlled system and research has shown that as long as fans know they’re supporting the artist, and not the big label that’s screwing the artist over, then they’ll pay an average of $9 for an album. 
• Podcasts will be a regular staple of LemonDrop.  Whether it’s Charlie and I sitting around talking to a band about the adventures of recording their album, going on tour, or anything else we can think of, or a video of me in the studio recording a song with my friend the cello player, you as the fan will get full access inside our studio and inside our band’s heads as they journey from recording studio to live performances. 
• and so much more!

Since songs are available for download, some of our artists (me in particular), can choose to release their album one song at a time as we get them recorded.  In my case, since I know most of you have been wanting to hear studio versions of my songs for a long time, it’d be foolish for me to wait until March of next year or so until I get 13 songs recorded to finally release those song.  So, I’ll just let you guys join me as my album slowly gets recorded and let you listen to or buy the individual songs as they come out.  Then once an album’s worth of songs is finally recorded, then we’ll make album art and order CD’s, Vinyl, and Cassette Tapes for you to collect and share with your friends.  Yes, I said Cassette Tapes.  We’re old school like that and I’ll even individually decorate each cassette tape that’s ordered.  How about that?

So there you have it in a nutshell.  The site will probably get changed around a bit until the fall, but join Charlie and I as we record bands, get the business side all set up, and simply get LemonDrop records up and running.  I have no doubt we’ll at least make a little profit since both you guys and other people I’ve talked to all are more than excited and willing to help support us and our artists.  Check LemonDrop’s site often for what Charlie’s up to as far as recording and set-up go, and I’ll try to throw a few posts up there as well, but most my updates will be here.  It’s going to all be very exciting to see unfold, but for now here’s your heads up.  LemonDrop has arrived!