About

 

The story of Channel 9 Records...

Channel 9 Records was founded in 2015 by me, Danz CM. Prior to the formation of Channel 9, I had been self-releasing all of my own material (which I'm still essentially doing) but I'll explain further. 

When I was first starting out in the music world, I was stubborn when it came to getting a record deal. I didn't want to sign with just anyone. I also didn't want to give up half of my rights (of my recordings) when I wasn't sure how much that label would invest in me. I didn't want to lose any creative control. When you do absolutely everything yourself to begin with, it's hard to give up control unless you know that you're in the right supportive hands. And unfortunately, the right supportive hands are difficult to find when your expectations are "high". 

Instead of waiting around for the 'perfect' deal, I self-released my music. I designed my own album artwork, got the vinyls manufactured, booked my own shows, took my own promo photos, etc. I thought to myself, "Why can't I just start my own label?" I was doing what a label would be doing anyway and I thought having a mysterious label name attached to my records would validate them in a way. So that's what I did!

And that's how Channel 9 Records was born, funded with money I made from licensing one of my songs for a Lexus ad. I quit my restaurant job, spent all my money on making music music videos, touring and vinyls for Davos (2015). I figured out everything by trial and error; i.e. "Oh, you know what? It's getting difficult lugging these vinyls to the post office and buying boxes each time I ship something out, I wonder if I could just buy vinyl mailers in bulk", and that's how I discovered ULINE. "How do I get my songs on the radio?" You have to hire specific radio PR. "How do I get my vinyls into a record store?" You have to sell them to a distributor wholesale. And so on. It's a lot of money and a lot of time. Labels do these things for their artists so their artists can focus on making music. It's a lot of work. And that's why they take 50% or whatever percentage it is these days. LMAO. I understand that now. I didn't then, but I guess I had to do it myself first to understand the value of what signing with a label could bring. I had no idea what I was doing or getting myself into with Channel 9, but I slowly 'figured' it out as much as I could.

The name Channel 9 Records is a homage to an early Computer Magic song entitled, Science Channel 9.

Running a label, there's release schedules to sort out, tours to plan, music videos to shoot, promo to be sorted, vinyl pressing plants to place orders with and shipments to physical distributors to be made...

Albums must be mixed and mastered and merchandise must be designed and printed, and you hope that the vinyls will arrive in time for a tour. Then there's tracking inventory, shipping out merch, ordering shipping supplies, submitting songs to Spotify playlist curators, updating social media profile pages to reflect the new releases, building websites, updating those (I run the Channel 9 Records site, the Danz CM site, and the Synth History site, which is a whole other thing...), wild-posting (outdoor advertising), digital marketing, hoping you invested enough money to make money back, and you probably won't. Because you don't have enough money to overcome certain thresholds. Why do you think movie studios spend millions on marketing their films? Ninety-five percent of the time a marketing budget is just as important as the movie itself. You can have a shitty movie but enough people will watch it if it's marketed correctly. The same thing happens with music, which is why there is so much shitty music out there. If a major indie label spends $100k+ on promotion and promotional material for an album, you'll probably listen, because you'll see it everywhere and be curious. A lot of "indie" artists are not "independent" at all, they're just marketed that way to seem more relatable to you. It is a music "business", after all. I can't even fathom what a major label might spend on marketing a record.

I went off on a tangent.. but my point is, it's hard work. Having creative control and creative freedom is fun, but it's hard work and I'm not a business person. I'm an artist, and I wish I could just focus on making music and art and have a record label who believes in me release my material, so I wouldn't have to worry about logistics, but the right one never came along and so I just continue to do it myself. Sometimes you just have to do it yourself because no one else will. And when it comes to making music, I write, record and produce all of my own songs, too. It's a complicated, multi-faceted existence.

Because I truly value the tangibility of music, it has always been important for me to have my songs available in some kind of physical form. Like the idiom, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" My thought process is, 'if I release an album without a physical counterpart, is it even real?' Well, the answer to that is, 'of course it is', but if the internet went down tomorrow vinyls will still "exist". The batches are small because I don't have major (or even indie) label money. But in actuality, I love limited edition vinyls and I hope you do too! Maybe the scarcity makes them more special.

Without going too far down the rabbit hole, I was an avid collector of vinyl growing up. I loved multi-colored vinyls, limited edition stuff, special b-sides and so on. So it just made sense to do this.

Tldr; Channel 9 Records releases high quality limited edition vinyls and cassettes and is artist run. A unique case where you can be 100% certain that all the profits are going straight to the artist, because I am the artist and the sole owner of Channel 9 Records.

Thanks for reading, hope you collect them all, and more releases coming soon!

Danz