The Pelican’s Perch

Long time readers should be more than excited to be reading this post.  My record label, which I started almost exactly a year ago with a friend, is one week from being officially up and running.  What took so long?  Well, a ton of stuff came up on our quest to get the label running and we ended up using this summer not to release the site like planned in June, but to build from scratch and refine our pay what you want download model.  We focused mainly on the local scene all summer, helping our bands get gigs and whatnot, so we were antsy sure, but plenty busy with the label to get too worried.

So, what can we expect from the label you may ask?  A lot of new, exciting, and very experimental stuff if all goes according to plan.  I’d recommend going to our about section to read my “official” thoughts on where we think the label will go, but for now I can give you a brief run-down on who LemonDrop is and why we’re different.

“Name Your Price”
-All downloads of our bands’ albums will be pay what you want style.  Yes, like Radiohead (but we thought of it first).  Having a pricing model that lets fans choose what they think the music is worth has already proven to be viable and successful by Radiohead, but we’re taking it a step further and basing most of our label on this concept.  The best part, and the main catch, is that the artists get 50% of whatever price you choose, so we’re hoping fans that visit Lemondrop will take this fact to heart and pay a little more since the band is getting half of it.  Of course, you can also choose to pay nothing, which we’re fine with too, because being as small as we are, that just means more ears hearing our tunes, and isn’t that really what making music is all about in the first place?

“Preview Full Albums”
-Pretty self-explanatory, but gone are the days when people bought albums on a hunch after hearing a single song.  Those people are still out there, but they’re very rare.  Instead, most turn to P2P download programs or torrents to hear the whole album, since most labels don’t let you stream the whole album, and we just want to save you the trouble and let you listen to the album online and hope you like it enough to download it.  Simple as that.  No need to be all secretive right?

“Purchase Merch”
-This is something we were planning on adding after the website launch, but because of the delay, we’ve had time to buy most our bands t-shirts, and even better, have them designed by some of Springfield’s finest artists.  In the very near future we’re planning on adding an art section to allow artists to shine along with our musicians, but until that day, I’m doing all I can to make the artwork at LemonDrop, whether it be cd covers, show posters, or t-shirt designs, be some of the most creative stuff around.  That, my friends, is something I can promise will happen, and maybe one day, if all goes well, we’ll be known for our artwork as much as we are our music, much like Sub Pop is.

“Support Through Donations”
-We may be the nicest guys you know, and are completely in it for the music, but every cent counts, and we’ll have some sort of paypal donation thing you can click and throw a few bucks at every now and then.  This is probably the most I’ll ever talk about this section, but most of you have read my blog for almost three years now without me making a single cent the whole time, so I only feel half bad finally saying, care to spare some change now that I’ve started a label.  But like I said before, this is the only time you’ll ever hear me talk about it.  Which is how it should be.

“Access Lyrics and Credits”
-This isn’t too big a deal, but our little player/download thing is pretty dang fancy, so I’m bringing it up.  There’s a brief screenshot above in the picture showing you a tease of what it looks like, but I can tell you one thing, I’ve seen Charlie (the other LemonDropper) build this thing from scratch all summer and am still blown away by it.  If there’s one thing I hope you guys take away from visiting our site, I hope it’s you telling your friends about the download section and it’s accompanying flash player, with all it’s scroll bar, fading in and out, streaming goodness.  You’ll know what I’m talking about once you see it on September 1st, but I get you guys all excited about the music I’m liking in my reviews, so why not do the same for our media section over at LemonDrop.

“Creative Commons Based Label”
-This isn’t on the bulleted list, but it’s by far the most important aspect to our label.  We went into the label knowing first and fore-most it would be based around the Creative Commons license.  For those of you that haven’t heard of it, it’s basically where we think the music industry is heading.  The CC License basically says all music our bands release will be creative fair-game for anyone as long as you don’t make any profit from your creation.  So, if you’re a DJ or aspiring musician, you can remix any of our songs to your heart’s desire.  We want people to remix our bands’ songs and the best ones you can bet we’ll feature on our site.  Want to make a music video to any of our songs?  Do it!  Seriously, the “official” music video we end up with for the band’s single shouldn’t be the only one out there.  I know plenty of aspiring filmmakers among my friend group, and among people I’ve met through this blog that I know would love to make a music video/animation/etc. for their favorite LemonDrop band to not only show what they can do, but also get some well deserved recognition for their skills.

The same goes for filmmakers wanting to put LemonDrop music in their films.  Most directors find themselves in a bind because to even have a song in their film while they’re shopping it around costs them big bucks.  With the Creative Commons license, all we want is a heads up you’ve put one of our songs in your movie and we’ll be more than happy to hear the good news.  It’s only when your film gets picked up, is distributed, and you start making money off of it with our song in it that royalty talks will happen.

The possibilities are really endless with this license attached to our songs and whatever a fan can think of is honestly fair game.  LemonDrop is about creating a fan community around our bands, which is something labels have simply ignored lately, and it’s our hope that involving our fans through forums, letting them have creative freedom over their favorite LemonDrop band’s songs, and being able to choose the price for your downloads, will get people talking, both to other LemonDrop fans, and spreading our music through word of mouth as well.

I’ll end my long LemonDrop rant here, but I hope you guys are even half as excited as we are, because that would still be excited as ever.  I’ve gone out of my way over these past years to let you guys know how much I appreciate each and every one of you for stopping by the Perch time and time again, and I couldn’t be happier to have my readers along for the ride as LemonDrop finally goes online.

Oh the excitement!  See you there September 1st!

LemonDrop Records official site / LemonDrop Myspace

Our band’s myspaces:
The Verbs [Redux]
The Spacetones
[Reset]
Jimmy Spits

And sometime in the near future (maybe early next year)…my band Honest Artist!

Honest Artist