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UCLA: New 'UnLabel' brings a la carte service to bands
(U-Wire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge)
By Patricia Guzman, Daily Bruin (UCLA)
LOS ANGELES -- In the music industry, it usually seems like record
labels call all the shots, but on Nov. 14, MilkBoy Recording announced
the launch of the UnLabel, an untraditional label that guides bands
without ball-and-chain contracts.
Sleeping Naked, formed by UCLA third-year student Holden Seguso and
Vanderbilt University student Craig Tallent, is among the bands taking
advantage of the UnLabel's professional support. With the help of the
UnLabel, Sleeping Naked has been able to keep artistic control while
still enjoying a label's innovative marketing.
"Instead of us being the boss of the band or us signing a band, the
band is actually in control of what they want," said the UnLabel's
director, Tom Laskas.
A traditional record label signs a band as an investment, actually
owning a portion of what the band produces. But bands like Sleeping
Naked, which works with the UnLabel, choose the services they need, pay
a fee to the label and still maintain financial and artistic ownership
over their music.
"It allows a certain amount of creativity too; the band gets to create
the product that they want, and there is no format that they have to
stick to other than what they want to hear, what they want to produce,"
Laskas said.
"Especially with marketing, it gives us the freedom to do some more
creative ideas in getting a product out there," he added.
Professional marketing is just one of many services the UnLabel offers.
The UnLabel, run by Laskas and co-owner Jamie Lokoff, also assists
musicians with promotion, recording and production, Web and graphic
design, general management, tour management, and distribution.
Laskas attributes the viability of these services to the Internet's
profound impact on the accessibility and distribution of bands' music.
"It's the Internet which has changed the scope of the music industry
because it used to be that the only way a band could be heard was for a
record label to sign them," he said.
Because bands can now get their music onto iTunes or sell their CDs
through CD Baby, distribution has become available to anyone and
everyone. Through social networks like MySpace and Facebook, bands can
reach people on a global scale.
"Sleeping Naked is selling music in Europe; they're selling music in
Canada, and that's because of all the social networks we've created for
them," Laskas said. "Their outreach goes way beyond UCLA where Holden
goes to school."
As college students and musicians, the members of Sleeping Naked sought
the help of the UnLabel to accommodate their hectic schedules. The
UnLabel manages a strong Web presence for the band to compensate for
the band's inability to tour.
The UnLabel's marketing campaigns have helped Sleeping Naked extend
beyond the college audiences and generate a larger fanbase. Lokoff said
it didn't take much time for the band to accumulate more than 50,000
plays on MySpace, and this is only one of many social networks that the
UnLabel has organized for the band.
"What we try to provide for (the band) is just a plan, an outline and a
focused goal, so all they really have to focus on is making their
music, showing up and bringing a great product," Laskas said.
"That is the biggest complaint we hear from bands," he added. "They
come in the studio and say, �All we want to do is make music, go on
the road, sell our CDs and keep launching ourselves.'"
The UnLabel has especially worked to accommodate Sleeping Naked's
college listeners. With the release of Sleeping Naked's new single
"Straight Chillin'," the UnLabel created a video scavenger hunt
embedded with trivia where viewers could win an iPod Touch. Fan-based
interactive games such as this video contest are changing the approach
to music video production.
"These guys (Sleeping Naked) are young and really talented, and we're
able to really focus on the college market and come up with things like
the video scavenger hunt and programs for college students to get on,"
Laskas said. "It's a really great group to work for because they have a
great demographic."
Since its recent launch, the UnLabel has made it possible for
independent musicians to be their own creators, while still providing
these bands with the marketing guidance needed to get their creations
out and heard by the public.
As the music industry continues to change and evolve in the face of
declining traditional album sales and the rise of the iTunes and
MySpace generation of music advertising and sales, the UnLabel is still
getting the ball rolling for musicians of all influences and
backgrounds.
However, in this day and age, it's the chain attached to that ball that
is undergoing the biggest revisions, and the results await to be seen.
##30##
((Distributed on bahalf of U-Wire via M2 Communications Ltd -
http://www.m2.com))
((U-Wire - http://www.uwire.com))
Copyright ? 2009 U-Wire
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