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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | Jonathan Rundman <rundman@msn.com> |
| Subject | Tributemania: Styx! |
| Date | Wed, 01 Sep 2004 10:18:27 -0500 |
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I just celebrated the one year anniversary of a tribute album that I
produced: "Too Much Time On Our Hands: A STYX Tribute Album"
http://www.saltlady.com/tribute.htm
I got a bunch of cool power pop and Americana bands to record their favorite
Styx songs. Power Pop highlights include guests like Jon Brion (playing with
Tom Freund), Minneapolis melodica whizzes Alva Star.
Man, it was a lot of work putting together a tribute album! It was the first
one I had done, and it took FOREVER to assemble. It's also quite expensive.
Because I wanted it to look professional and be beneficial for the artists
involved, I'm paying each participating artist $.10 per CD sold (and that's
13 bands per CD), PLUS paying the standard $.08 royalty per song (for 13
songs per CD) to Styx's publishers, so that stuff adds up. In a year, I've
sold almost the entire order of 1000 CDs that I manufactured, and when
they're all sold, I will break even, and maybe make a couple hundred bucks.
Not much though. I was trying to decide if I should re-order when they sell
out, but now I've got a deal getting it up on iTunes, so maybe that'll be
the only way it'll be available in the future...that way I don't need to
manufacture any more copies.
I find that a lot of Tribute albums never get off the ground. A couple years
ago I read about someone doing a tribute to Lisa Germano. I love her, so I
recorded a version of her song "Guessing Game" and submitted it...the
producer of the project had cool album art completed and everything, but the
project just died. I was disappointed...that would have been an interesting
record.
The coolest thing about the Styx Tribute album was that I was able to have
it delivered to all the guys in Styx. I got very brief, but positive
feedback from them, so that was fun. I'm glad I did it, but probably won't
put forth that kind of effort again in the future.
Jonathan Rundman
Salt Lady Records
http://www.saltlady.com
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