[SeSawaya]

My band is now on iTunes! I was looking for a version of "poncho and lefty" today and my CD came up! We submitted it through CDbaby.com a few months ago but I didnt think they would be able to get it on iTunes for digital distribution. Every track too.

I dont know how I'll know how many songs we sell (if any) or how to track how many times its been listened to, but I'm sure there must be a way.

Anyway, if you want to see it, type in" hillbilly winos" at the store. (feel free to buy a song or two)

just thought I'd share my excitement.

Heres the link
thanks gorickey for the link, I dont know how you did it!

[dracoleb]

Nice! Link!
edit: opps, NM, I can search for myself.
again, very cool

[gorickey]

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/M...listId=5095474

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
My band is now on iTunes!

That's awesome!

[MacGorilla]

Awesome! Not really my kind of music but I bought Asphalt Skin, which is a pretty nifty song.

Great work!

[residentEvil]

good whiskey drinkin'/campfire sittin' music

[ASIMO]

Is it just me or is the store down as of 4:28 PM PST (or is that PDT?)?

Hey, never mind, it is working, now. Congrats, man. Much success to you.

[SeSawaya]

thanks guys!!!

thanks MacGorilla for the purchase man. I really apprecieate that. Free live song for you

Heres hopeing something happens as we are unsigned still.

Cheers

[typoon]

Congrats!! definitely exciting news. Pretty Good song.

[OwlBoy]

neat!

-Owl

[ghost_flash]

I enjoyed your song very much, and it is whiskey drink'n fireside listening music.

Well done! Good luck man.

-GF

[chris v]

Where you guys been? I bought the old-school CD version three months ago! Great stuff, and the iTunes thing is :tehthumbsup:

[SeSawaya]

residentEvil and ghost_flash said the same thing
"good whiskey drinkin'/campfire sittin' music"

well thanks guys, i always considered it good driving music since thats all I ever do. (People have told me that too)

it was all recorded in a livingroom by me so thanks a million. Its amazing what oyu can do with very little equipment

[spatterson]

Originally posted by residentEvil:
good whiskey drinkin'/campfire sittin' music

YEEEEE HAAAA

[Eug Wanker]

Very good.

[mishap]

happy day!

[Arkham_c]

That's really cool. Congratulations! I'm not really a country fan, but it's more mellow than country to me. Anyway, I like "Asphalt Skin" and bought it to support a talented fellow MacNN'er. I hope you actually get some cash from the sale.

[ironknee]

nice work and nice music too

very impressed

[Ratm]

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
My band is now on iTunes!

\

You guys sound awesome and the song "Freight Train" is very soulful. And this is coming from a person who primarily listens to Hip-Hop, Blues and a bit O Metal. Much success and fortune to you.

[funkboy]

What do you play/sing?

And I'm extremely impressed, awesome that CDBaby is really distributing like this now! Woo! You made up the "Hillbilly Winos" label, right?

Oh, and I thought the thread name meant you finally downloaded iTunes

[waxcrash]

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
My band is now on iTunes! I was looking for a version of "poncho and lefty" today and my CD came up!

Isn't "poncho and lefty" a Townes Van Zandt song? His album Live at The Old Quarter, Houston, TX is really good.

[dampeoples]

Originally posted by waxcrash:
Isn't "poncho and lefty" a Townes Van Zandt song? His album Live at The Old Quarter, Houston, TX is really good.

I thought it was Willie Nelson or something. Either way, it's cool you are on iTMS.

[sworthy]

I liked "on the road" In any event, I bought the album, sounds like good study music to me, nice sounds but not too distracting.

[effgee]



Originally posted by SeSawaya:
I dont know how I'll know how many songs we sell (if any) ...

Well, whatever that number might be up to by now - add 14 to it - I just bought the album (my 1st iTunes purchase, too and downloading as we speak)



Love the cool, bluesie sound. Great job guys - good luck!!!



P.S. "Freight Train" is very cool, too (time to rename that mp3 from "Frieght ..." to "Freight ..." )

[Xeo]

Congrats. What role do you play in the band?

[edit] If you wrote that article, then I assume drums. That right?

[RooneyX]

Congrats. As long as you're not one of those morons who bought that stupid song that hardly resembles music by a guy called Outkast. I wish he would get kast out.

[SeSawaya]

thanks again guys - especially those of you who have bought the album or some songs.

I think a lot of people on this board would like "john Dillinger" even though the snipet on itunes is a bad sample. "105" too. I dont know who decides what part of the song to put on. Clcik the link above to here my snip.

you can hear more of each song here on our sounds page.


I play percussion in the band. I also recorded and mixed the CD. The singer/songwriter is Jeff Ham .

"poncho & lefty" is a Townes Van Zandt song that Willie Nelson made famous. There are 3 other cover tunes on the album and the rest are originals. its up to you to figure out which ones

I'd like to know how one is supposed to track things on itunes or if w have to go through CDbaby to get any info.

If you know someone who might like this type of music, please spred the word. Indy music is our only hope!
We are not on any lable.


thanks guys

[KeyLimePi]

I think it's great that iTunes carries indy artists, and your stuff sounds really good. Really nice job mixing. If the quality of all the indies are this good then I'll be buying more new stuff.

Congrats, man.

[chris v]

Heh, I just recalled-- years ago, had the privelege of getting drunk with Townes Van Zandt's daughter at The Hole in the Wall here in Austin. He was playing down the street that night at the Cacus Cafe,

I said something like "He's a hell of a songwriter,"

And she said "Yeah, well, he ain't much of a father."

He died about a year after that,

CV

[SeSawaya]

thats a good story ChrisV, I'll tell the guys tonight at the gig.

I just went to CDbaby digital dis page for us and found the listing of money breakdown. I guess we are on Musicmatch too right now. Others are pending.


Good point effgee, I am taking down the breakdown now.


thanks for checking it out guys!

[effgee]

... not to be a party pooper - but have you checked whether or not you're allowed to post this kind of info publicly?

[waxcrash]

Originally posted by effgee:


... not to be a party pooper - but have you checked whether or not you're allowed to post this kind of info publicly?

I think the only think SeSawaya has to worry about is if the copyright owners of the songs that his band has covered come after him for royalty payments. That's if he didn't get permission to cover the songs.

[SeSawaya]

ahh,
well of course that was done twice, once for recording the songs and once through the digital distribution process. So no worries!

[Arkham_c]

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
thats a good story ChrisV, I'll tell the guys tonight at the gig.

I just went to CDbaby digital dis page for us and found the listing of money breakdown. I guess we are on Musicmatch too right now. Others are pending.

I'd love to hear in 30 days or so how many songs you've sold on iTunes vs. MusicMatch [sic]. Could be an interesting statistic for indie artists interested in selling online.

[effgee]

Goodie. I was refering to the payment info above - I was gonna check CDbaby's site before posting my question but I only got a time-out error. Sometimes companies can get their panties up in a bunch when it comes to payment details, pricing structure etc. Was just a thought that popped into my head after reading SeSawaya's post.

Anyway, I hope a lot more NN'ers (and others, of course) are going to spring for the album so you guys get paid some decent money for the great work!

[SeSawaya]

thanks effgee for the thougts.


What better way for the Macnners to use a cap or two than to suppost a Macnner during the promotion. Wont cost them a cent!

Anyway, I hope it dose well. CDbaby has been good to us as has our web site fr selling discs, at least this dosent require any "inventory"

[waxcrash]

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
CDbaby has been good to us as has our web site fr selling discs, at least this dosent require any "inventory"

A colleague of mine has a band and they also sell their CD on CDbaby. If you have the time, please PM me how you got CDbaby to add your album to iTunes. I would like to pass this info on to my friend.

[funkboy]

Add another song purchase - Drunk on the Moon. Funny little song... or is it sad? I can't quite tell... have to listen more closely to the lyrics

I like the name of the album, too... hahaha. Get out of there, Uncle Frank!

[SeSawaya]

thanks Funkboy, If you need the lyrics to the songs go here
http://www.hillbillywinos.com/lyrics.htm

and get lyrics to all the original songs.


thanks a million guys, keep up the downloading!!!!

[MacGorilla]

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
thanks guys!!!

thanks MacGorilla for the purchase man. I really apprecieate that. Free live song for you

Heres hopeing something happens as we are unsigned still.

Cheers

Thanks, man!

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally posted by RooneyX:
Congrats. As long as you're not one of those morons who bought that stupid song that hardly resembles music by a guy called Outkast. I wish he would get kast out.

Was this a dis on Outkast? I hope not. I certainly hope not.



greg

[aleph_null]

If you're still in a buying-MacNNers-music-on-ITMS mood, check out Waking Hour. Vienna is often compared favorably to Sarah McLachlan. "The Tower," "Gravity," and "Between" are the most radio-friendly tracks, but "Daughter" is my personal fave. She kinda kicks a**. Anyway, I have co-production, mixing, and performance credits on the CD.

*Really* nice sound on your tracks, SeSawaya. What kind of gear do you have? Analog or digital mixing?

[SeSawaya]

hey aleph_null, nice stuff, she DOSE sound like Sarah a lot. i mean that in a good way of course
I'll have my wife listen to it when she gets home, shes a huge fan of Sarah.

To see what I used to record the album click HERE.


So CDbaby is paying about 59� to the artist per song through itunes. This is the highest of these that we are on or soon will be.

Rhapsody
Napster
Musicmatch
BuyMusic
Emusic
MusicNet
AudioLunchbox

they are all very close though in artist payment.
If everyone in America just bought 1 song of ours!!!

[funkboy]

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
thanks Funkboy, If you need the lyrics to the songs go here
http://www.hillbillywinos.com/lyrics.htm

and get lyrics to all the original songs.

Silly me, I had never heard that song before. Only just discovering Tom Waits recently.

I have a question, though: how do you get the rights to include a cover of a song on your album for sale? Do you have to pay the original songwriter a little something for every sale you make? Or did you just kind of buy the rights? Or do you have no clue and are just doing it anyway?

I'd like to record some covers of my favorite songs, but I don't know if it's legal to or not - distribute some new versions on iTunes, make a little cashola and a name for myself

[SeSawaya]

when you do cover songs for an album, the rights to those songs have to be purchased. They charge depending on how many CDs will be made. 0-2500, X amount of money, 2500-5000 X+ more amount.


Thats why its a REAL good idea to write songs that make it big as opposed to being in a band that did a cover song that made it big. the songwirter makes 1/2 and the record company makes 1/2 and pays the band (or takes it off what the band owes them for recording in the first place.) That example is for big hits though.


Harry Fox agency is a good place to start. I think we paid somewhere around $110 for the rights to record Drunk on the moon. Now if we make over 2500 CDs, we have to pay more. So if you do a album with many covers, you end up paying a LOT of money for the rights and it takes a lot of CD sales to just break even in the rights department, much less production/recording cost.

Its a hard road as I'm learning. Wanna buy another song?

[funkboy]

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
when you do cover songs for an album, the rights to those songs have to be purchased. They charge depending on how many CDs will be made. 0-2500, X amount of money, 2500-5000 X+ more amount.
...
Harry Fox agency is a good place to start. I think we paid somewhere around $110 for the rights to record Drunk on the moon.

So... does one song sale on iTunes count towards one of the CDs you've made? Sounds like you may have found a way around licensing

Its a hard road as I'm learning. Wanna buy another song?

You know, I was wondering if we could get people to all buy the same one of your songs at the same time, to see if we can break it into the Top 10 most popular singles of the day. I have no clue how many sales it would take... but..

How about we all purchase "The Grind" tomorrow (Friday) at 10 a.m.?
(no, I'm not being paid by him to promote his songs )

[SeSawaya]

haha!, that would be funny for a no name band to be in the top downloaded artist. I wonder how many it dose take?

I doubt we could ever crash their server though, but I am will for everyone to give it a try!!!