Important, Please Read: About Kekal's next album

spitonself · Number of posts: 105 Location: Earth Registration date: 2007-12-30

Ok.. There have been some thoughts here, some serious thoughts, that we are planning to make our next album as a "pay-as-you-can-and-if-you-don't-wanna-pay-you-can-get-it-for-free" download.. The idea is that everyone is free to download and to re-distribute the album on the internet (via bit-torrent, soulseek, last fm, megaupload, etc. etc.) for free.. Everyone can support us by sending us some $$ too (of course we need financial support), so we will be accepting donations.. Internet will be the main medium for both the promotion and distribution of the album..

Radiohead did that in the mainstream with "In Rainbows" album, and it has been a successful method.. And I think that the free-download weekend by Open Grave was also successful..

We believe that music should be available to everyone for free and should be shared to as many people as possible, just like all the street musicians who play their songs on the sidewalks, at subway stations, etc..

Aside from that, we might also press a limited edition CD as a "physical merchandise" to anyone who wants the CD as the personal collection..

Tell us what you think.. Your comments or inputs are much appreciated..

_________________
Download "Acidity" album for FREE!!
http://opengraverecords.forummotion.com/kekal-f6/download-acidity-album-for-free-t2233.htm

KEKAL
http://myspace.com/kekal
http://www.kekal.org

Guest

I think its a fantastic idea. And, yes you could say that the "free download weekend " on open grave was a huge success but...not in the donation dept. Only time will tell how successful it was , as far as, "exposier" goes. Maybe some input from James on that?

James

When I've said I considered the download weekend a success it's because I believe it brought more attention to the bands that had a part in the download weekend as well the label. Financially I would say it had no benefits. Only 3 or 4 people donated anything out of 10,000 downloads, as well each of those downloads came with a coupon to the online store, I believe we only had like 2 people redeem them. So financially in the short term, it didn't amount to much of anything.

If you would like to go about it with downloads we'd be happy to help in any way Jeff.

If you have any questions about the download weekend please feel free to ask as well.

Blooddrift · Number of posts: 1076 Location: Land of Beer Registration date: 2007-12-30

yeah what they said ...
I'm looking forward to a lmtd edition cd though Very Happy

Guest

Re-distribute? Thats scary! affraid

I understand sharing with your "personal friends" to a certain extent but the entire world...not at all. Free shows are understandable but giving your music away like that...

The thing is , noone has a true appreciation. All they want is free free free. Wil lthey talk about it? yes ...cuz its free. not because of your talents. Dunno Question

spitonself · Number of posts: 105 Location: Earth Registration date: 2007-12-30

Thanks a lot for the first comments & inputs.. I appreciate it..

@ James:

Oh yes, when all of this becomes positive, we would need the help from Open Grave for sure (for hosting and/or spreading the news).. Thanks for the offer.. Please keep in touch.. I'll e-mail you..
I still don't know for sure at this stage though.. Still need more time to calculate..

@ PsychoG:

Yeah, that's true.. It IS scary.. And this one is the toughest part.. Our current 'state of music' now is changing drastically.. So now everything should be back to the basic on what we would define "recorded music".. Is the recorded music working as an 'intellectual property', or mainly 'artistic expression', or both.. or perhaps a commodity..?

If it's an 'intellectual property', it does require some sort of 'legal appreciation', and transactions with money (or something that can be calculated based on price) should be made, as "giving away your brain" doesn't sound fair..

If it's an 'artistic expression', then it is ok to be shared for free, as long as the copyright is maintained.. It's like putting a painting or sculpture or art-photo in the gallery..

If it's a commodity, then we should go emo, have some more tattoos and 'that' haircut and sellout.. lol!

Honestly I don't really mind about giving away my music as long as it would reach the right people.. Music will stay as music, nothing will change.. The only thing that change is just the way it gets distributed and marketed.. If someone likes the music on the album, he/she won't lower his/her appreciation to the particular album and to the band even though the distribution has changed.. Appreciation will come if someone loves the music, whether he/she got it for free or by paid.. There will be enough people that will donate for the album if there is enough who appreciate the music, the same way that they would rather buying the digital from the legal stores than download illegally.. That's my point of view about the current state of music.. Even though I still believe that music is also an intellectual property (that's why we should put an option of donation, just to make it fair for the ones who really want to show their appreciation by giving the $$ to the band), but it's still a bit silly to keep it and to fight for it, while it does leak everywhere and some people started to know and love the music based on the leakage and not from the legal source.. How would we reach the right people in the midst of the thick jungle of thousand options is the most important one, and media reviews aren't enough.. sometimes we need free, 'social-distribution' and guerilla marketing (such as street team) to make it happen..

About the CD, yeah, we live in a world of transition on how we see the CD.. Right now, to me, CD is nothing more than a band merchandise.. It's the same like band T-Shirt.. It's a physical stuff made for personal collection, although it contains the music inside, it's not the music itself.. The music itself is the music that works for the listeners or not..

But yeah, all of those are still in the "thoughts".. This might not happen, or might happen.. Smile

....the scariest part is still yet to come..

When I was in the Audio college last year, one of my lecturers warned all of the students about the music industry that would possibly happen in next 10 years.. These possibilities scared us all.. because record labels would turn into either merchandise retailers (selling CDs as merchandise alongside other merchandise), or marketing/communication service (offer some 'street team' & networking service to artists) as well as band management and/or booking agent for shows, or become a net label offering free music downloads with the income mainly from banner advertisements (just like MySpace or other similar sites)..

...and what turned us all down is that recording producers and engineers would get out of job, and studios will get bankrupt, because recorded music will become home-based, and recording/production costs would become really cheap..

_________________
Download "Acidity" album for FREE!!
http://opengraverecords.forummotion.com/kekal-f6/download-acidity-album-for-free-t2233.htm

KEKAL
http://myspace.com/kekal
http://www.kekal.org

James

spitonself wrote:

....the scariest part is still yet to come..

When I was in the Audio college last year, one of my lecturers warned all of the students about the music industry that would possibly happen in next 10 years.. These possibilities scared us all.. because record labels would turn into either merchandise retailers (selling CDs as merchandise alongside other merchandise), or marketing/communication service (offer some 'street team' & networking service to artists) as well as band management and/or booking agent for shows, or become a net label offering free music downloads with the income mainly from banner advertisements (just like MySpace or other similar sites)..

...and what turned us all down is that recording producers and engineers would get out of job, and studios will get bankrupt, because recorded music will become home-based, and recording/production costs would become really cheap..

This is the future of the industry I believe that 100%. It leans this route more and more every day. Sadly it may be closer than we think.

spitonself · Number of posts: 105 Location: Earth Registration date: 2007-12-30

James wrote:

spitonself wrote:

....the scariest part is still yet to come..

When I was in the Audio college last year, one of my lecturers warned all of the students about the music industry that would possibly happen in next 10 years.. These possibilities scared us all.. because record labels would turn into either merchandise retailers (selling CDs as merchandise alongside other merchandise), or marketing/communication service (offer some 'street team' & networking service to artists) as well as band management and/or booking agent for shows, or become a net label offering free music downloads with the income mainly from banner advertisements (just like MySpace or other similar sites)..

...and what turned us all down is that recording producers and engineers would get out of job, and studios will get bankrupt, because recorded music will become home-based, and recording/production costs would become really cheap..

This is the future of the industry I believe that 100%. It leans this route more and more every day. Sadly it may be closer than we think.

Yeah.. I believe that it will be as close as 3 to 5 years.. but that would depend on all the major labels direction, because they who dictate the way of the music being marketed and distributed nowadays (as well as setting up the price tags).. If they still depend on the albums as their main source of income (that means they still sell overpriced CDs and fixed-price per download), it would take some more time for the whole industry to change completely.. even though right now some underground electronic music-based labels have turned to the Net-Label, offering pay-as-you-can download, the impact to the whole industry is still very small.. It needs some more mainstream/million-album-selling bands like Radiohead to do that to ever initiate the change in the system.. Let's see..

_________________
Download "Acidity" album for FREE!!
http://opengraverecords.forummotion.com/kekal-f6/download-acidity-album-for-free-t2233.htm

KEKAL
http://myspace.com/kekal
http://www.kekal.org

IronHorse · Number of posts: 21 Age: 37 Location: PA, USA Registration date: 2008-01-02

Like Blooddrift said... limited edition CDs kick ass. Put me down for one...
Free stuff is good too, though.

Guest

Free downloading is kind of iffy for me. I have found in my experience that I tend to appreciate music less the more of it that I have obtained for free. I have found that people become more concerned with the size of their digital collections than with the quality of music they have obtained. It leads to this mentality that one has "heard it all" even if they have heard very little. I have met people online who have thousands and thousands of albums downloaded(mostly illegal) and they listen to most of them exactly never. It bothers me to see the industry going in this direction.
I for one would want a physical CD if you press one.

Guest

I guess the physical CD should follow later, intentionally for collection.. It's not wise enough (for now) to release the album without the option of pressing the CD as the most viable physical format for audio (up until the point that.. who knows in next 5 years.. the CD format gets replaced by custom USB Flash Drive with an album in it)..

Learning the Radiohead's "In Rainbows" phenomenon; After some months of download-only version (and it has also been re-distributed on the internet illegally), they also released the physical CD (2CD boxset) last month.. and surprisingly, it turned out to hit the chart again after being available everywhere.. and I still believe many people got interested to buy the boxset CD after hearing (even illegally) the download version..

Jeff

James

kekal wrote:

I guess the physical CD should follow later, intentionally for collection.. It's not wise enough (for now) to release the album without the option of pressing the CD as the most viable physical format for audio (up until the point that.. who knows in next 5 years.. the CD format gets replaced by custom USB Flash Drive with an album in it)..

We have been considering test running the USB Flash Drive release of albums.

spitonself · Number of posts: 105 Location: Earth Registration date: 2007-12-30

James wrote:

kekal wrote:

I guess the physical CD should follow later, intentionally for collection.. It's not wise enough (for now) to release the album without the option of pressing the CD as the most viable physical format for audio (up until the point that.. who knows in next 5 years.. the CD format gets replaced by custom USB Flash Drive with an album in it)..

We have been considering test running the USB Flash Drive release of albums.

Yeah!! This is the format which I think will replace CD.. It's fairly reliable, with printed band-logo & album title on the drive, and all the artwork images/lyrics/pics would be placed inside the drive itself, and 256mb is enough for all contents..
The shipping cost for USB Flash Drive is much lower than CD, and it might come with some boxset too with traditional booklet..

Well.. If you ever really do that test running, Kekal surely want to be part of the test.. even as the first release.. Wink

_________________
Download "Acidity" album for FREE!!
http://opengraverecords.forummotion.com/kekal-f6/download-acidity-album-for-free-t2233.htm

KEKAL
http://myspace.com/kekal
http://www.kekal.org

Blooddrift · Number of posts: 1076 Location: Land of Beer Registration date: 2007-12-30

it is interesting,
Do whatever you want and I'll surely check it out,
whatever format it's on.

I just like the cd as a whole piece of art,
you get art for the ears (the music) and art for the eyes (the booklet)

spitonself · Number of posts: 105 Location: Earth Registration date: 2007-12-30

It is 90% - 95% positive that we will make the next KEKAL album free to download (with the option of paying some donation), alongside the physical version (CD) that works as the 'merchandise'.. The physical version, which is not free, will have some extra stuff like bonus songs as well as video(s).. Let's see.. I'm thinking of making the enhanced CD with some bonus videos as well..

Giving album for free download has become more on the 'trend' lately (NIN, Radiohead, etc.).. Not to say that we're kind of following the trend or something, but it is just something that we believe..

We will announce the album title very soon..

_________________
Download "Acidity" album for FREE!!
http://opengraverecords.forummotion.com/kekal-f6/download-acidity-album-for-free-t2233.htm

KEKAL
http://myspace.com/kekal
http://www.kekal.org