Friend Sourcing

Note: Arul "Ta'fxkz" Baliah died on 8th October, 2011. This post (including the associated tags) was found in its unfinished, and unpublished form within his website. From what can be gathered from the draft, this post was typed up on 2nd June, 2011 at 3.25 am. Ta'fxkz had many ideas to "get the word out" for his songs; many of them path-breaking and stark raving mad. Friend and family are currently looking at ways to make his music more accessible and available. Meanwhile, this post provides a good idea of his attitude toward his music and how he planned to take its distribution. --- Cousin to Ta'fxkz, Dan.

All songs: All Rights reserved; Used By Permission; International Copyright Secured. (but anybody who sings these songs is a friend of mine)
- Michelle Shocked [Source: Short Sharp Shocked (album notes)]

 from Derek Sivers 2000 archive of Music Thoughts

Since recording From Another Morning friends have been asking me where they can buy the album. Some have promised to buy it if I put the album up on CD Baby. 

Now wait a minute, if I put an album on CD Baby and set it to cost 10 USD, I will get paid 6 USD. Now this is a great way to reach people who I would never otherwise be able to reach with my music, but this is no way to treat friends. I would rather tell you that the album is already yours and take way more than that the 10 measly USD as I anyway do, regardless of if you like the album. I appreciate your generosity, and I want it all.

All this is really convoluted speak for what I am really trying to say. I madly love anybody who says s/he wants to buy my album. I love them too much to sell anything to them. I have to just take their money off them and not give them anything in return, ah yes- the songs already belong to them. 

The only person's left to do business with are those who are not my friends already.

I am opening up investment options for friends to make money off my music. I hope you find it easy reading when compared to the reams of arbitrary crap some people click on "i agree" just for a social networking or an email service.

• Get Physical - sponsor CD/DVD burning and cover printing, in numbers starting from one to a few thousands and give it away or sell it or put it up at local music stores with a couple of promotional posters. The catch is, the songs are already free any money you make is for the effort of getting it physically available. You pick the price and decide how much of your profits you want to share with me.

This option is NOT open to corporations and businesses.

I am open to better ideas than my own, however I am anal about my art and I insist that you need my approval for any changes you make to the cover art/content. 

Alternatively you could just sponsor the physical production expenses and leave me to my army of friends to distribute (sell or give away) it for a negotiable commission/revenue sharing. 

You can invest anything from a hundred to an infinite rupees in this venture, but but let's go easy on the infinite because I am not a fan of increasing the planet's rich resources of e-waste. The use of physical CDs is purely to reach people who are not yet musical digitalphiles where touch and feel is still a vital component of interacting with music; let's keep the physical CD so minimal that they are collector's items, serving antiquarian market needs in the new media era..

• 1/3rd a CD Baby - 3 friends will be expected to divide the cost 65 USD equally between them, rounding up the impossibility of splitting 65 in 3 equal values of 21.666666666666666666666666666667 USD, to 22 USD each. This expense will put my 5 songs out on several digital and physical distribution channels. There are a lot of chances that these may not sell, but if they do each of the 3 investors get 20% each from any monies I get from CD Baby post taxes and I keep 40%. The 0.999999999999999999999999999999 USD (from the above round off) will be go into a black hole and will remain unaccounted. Now this deal can be boosted with publicity drives like Jango Airtime and plain old word of mouth. I am not considering offering any rewards for spreading the word, I think I do not want to dilute the chances of an engagement being an act of love and nothing else. Those who know me will know that if their activities paid off, I'd be the first off to pay back.
• Old Recordings Baby - There are some old recordings that kinda want to be out the way they are SingVocation

• Taxi . Com - 

I want to Jango

Jango is this awesome internet radio that helps songwriters like me get played back to back with the top artists of my choice.

For a long time it sounded like a cheap piggyback option, but over the last 3 years of studying how music is discovered I realized I would have never heard of Bohemian Rhapsody if it had not been played late one night on MTV Classic, the only MTV show I ever watched. I watched it at 11 PM and again watched the rerun at 6 AM the next morning, before I downloaded it on napster at work back in July 2000.

Here is what Jango will charge to put me up with the likes of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave and Tom Waits.

• $10 for 250 Play Credits

• $30 for 1,000 Play Credits

• $100 for 4,000 Play Credits

• $200 for 8,000 Play Credits

• $500 for 20,000 Play Credits

• $1000 for 40,000 Play Credits

I offer you no gains.

This is not an investment option. You will get no returns and no reward from supporting this. This is purely a black hole into which you are welcome to put your money.

If you think these songs have to be commercialized for their own sake, and if you insist on supporting this inanity - who am I to stop you.

Put me on Jango bitches!