Update - D x 4

I guess we are now investigating launching our own record label. Daniel came to rehearsal today with his music, "Two Silhouettes", and a CD of piano music his aunt recorded last year. After rehearsal Daniel asked us all to listen to the CD. It was absolutely beautiful. His aunt is an artist, she conveys feelings through her music like I don’t think I have ever heard, or felt, before. After we listened Darrell said what we were all thinking, "that was nice, but why are we listening to it?" Daniel’s response was interesting. He said, "my aunt made this CD last year as a Christmas gift for family and friends. Since then she has had several people tell her that she should get an agent and get a recording contract with a label. She hasn’t really done anything with it, she doesn’t know where to start. I was thinking about her the other night while looking for music for us to sing. Aren’t we basically talking about starting our own record label to produce our CD? If so, I thought, maybe while we’re working out the logistics of our CD we could also look into doing something similar with my aunt, what do you guys think?"

My first thought was this was just supposed to be some fun and now it’s starting to sound like a job or something. But before I could say that Dwight spoke up. "Daniel, didn’t you say your aunt has already recorded one CD?" Daniel responded with a "yes", and Dwight followed up, "so she has one finished CD that could be produced, copied, and then just needs to be distributed right?" Again Daniel responded, "yes". "So", Dwight continued "couldn’t we use that finished CD as our test product to try some different marketing?"

As I looked around I could see that everyone was getting into this idea. Could we launch, and run, a record label? What would we need?

Doubts were still running through my head but each time I started to voice them one of the other guys would start talking about another idea. The next thing I heard clearly, I think it was Daniel, was a comment on marketing and distribution. I was pulled from my own thoughts by Darrell asking me a question. "David, David," it took me a moment to respond with a mumbled, "what?" Darrell poised his question again, "David, don’t you already have a website?" I was to embarrassed to admit that my ‘website’ was nothing more than a domain name that I paid for each month. Before I responded Dwight said, "Yeah, I saw the notes on that, isn’t it davidlsullivan.com?"

Finally I found my voice. "Okay guys", I began, " I have a domain name already registered but I’ve been dragging my heels getting it operational. I don’t really know anything about building, or operating websites. So, it’s just there." Now the guys were all smiling at me. "What?", I asked feeling a little defensive. Darrell was the first to speak, "so we have a domain that we can build on, what do we need next." The next two hours flew by as we talked about what the website should look like and how we could use it to launch our record label.

So, I hope that in the next few weeks I can announce the launch of our new website, davidlsullivan.com which will be our marketing and distribution for our as yet unnamed record label. I almost suggested we could be consistent and launch davidlsullivan records, but I am really not that egotistical.