Sentric Music guest column: on independent music publishing

The music industry. Isn’t it a whole barrel of fun? There are shedloads of sites that promise ‘to get your music heard by thousands of potential fans’ and whatnot, but how many of them are actually much use? Well that’s where the good people at Muso’s Guide come in; to separate the wheat from the chaff and that’s why I’d like to think they’ve asked me to write a few humble words about what we do over here at Sentric Music.

When someone asks me what my ‘average working day’ is I always have somewhat of a battle with my conscious regarding how honest I should be. Should I squeeze in every exciting thing has happened over the past couple of months into a barely believable nine hours? Or do I talk about that week where I did nothing but stare at various PDFs and Excel spreadsheets whilst doing accounting? Let’s go for a healthy mix of the two eh?

I’ve been at Sentric Music since we signed our first artist back in August 2006 (good old Clipe Sexo Amador, new material coming soon!) and I’m still here three years and a thousand artists or so later. Getting new artists on board can be incredibly easy or bafflingly difficult depending on whom you are speaking to. There are artists I’ve approached where I’ve informed them that if they “go and sign up on our site, which will take no more than fifteen minutes, we’ll be able to get hold of over a grand for you” and they refuse to do so for some inexplicable reason. “What’s the catch?” you might argue; well, that’d be our 20 per cent. Some artists on the other hand are happy to receive anything upwards of a fiver, or ‘beer tokens’ as they’ve been referred to before.

We are an independent music publishing administrator home to over a thousand unsigned and independent UK based musicians offering a number of services including:

·         Royalty Collection from the PRS/MCPS for Live Performances/Radio Airplay/TV Exposure

·         TV/Advert Placements for worldwide marketing campaigns and UK and US TV shows

·         iTunes Distribution (optional)

·         Industry Advice in the form of the Sentric Music blog at www.sentric.wordpress.com

·         No Sign-Up Fee; Sentric Music takes a 20 per cent administration cut.

·         No Lengthy Contract; the artist can leave whenever they wish keeping their full copyright

Within the broadcast media:

·         We have an ongoing relationship with UK terrestrial channel Five TV, offering them music for idents and inhouse adverts

·         We also have an ongoing relationship with Lime Pictures, regularly having music featured on the teen soap Hollyoaks

·         We’ve had music featured on Channel 4 trailers and on BBC productions (Eastenders/Strictly Come Dancing)

·         We’ve had music featured on various US productions (One Tree Hill, Veronica Mars, Cold Case, Paris Hilton’s BFF, VH1’s Celebrity Soberhouse, Burn Notice)

·         We’ve had music featured on advertising campaigns within the UK and internationally (Lexus, De Montfort Uni, Stockland Estates)

So that’s what we do! Quite simply; if you’re unpublished then you’ve no real reason not to join our fantabulous service although I may be a tad biased myself of course, but if you have a look at our website you’ll find quotes and testimonials from a selection of roster of artists which is over a thousand strong and includes Post War Years, Sound of Guns, Kowalski, XX Teens, The Thirst, The Second Hand Marching Band, Sea and a bucket load more.

Recently we’ve had some really strong artists come on board including an artist who I’ve been in love with for a couple of years now; Grammatics. Being able to say I work with music I genuinely love is something I’m rather chuffed about, I just hope I do them proud.

The majority of my time is taken up by pushing our artists’ music for various synchronisation placements all over the world. We’ve had quite a bit of music on US TV shows which is great exposure for our artists, but a bitch for my working hours at times thanks to the time zones. There is something rather satisfying in landing a synch placement especially one when you’ve put in the time and effort. Last week I spent pretty much a full working day listening to the music used on the entire first series of 90210 and compiling a batch of our music to send to the supervisor for consideration. That’s not me complaining by the way; I get to listen to music all day, screw you Business Studies AVCE teacher.

Another area that takes up a lot of my time is the whole social media malarkey. The Sentric Music blog offers advice to unsigned/independent artists covering all the areas you need to know. Topics have included ‘The Top 8 Things Unsigned/Indie Artists Do Wrong’, ‘9 Twitter Tips For Artists’ and ‘No More Mud For 9 Months!’ where I discussed my festival shenanigans including the time I got two bits of fish for the price of one at the Latitude festival. Now that, my friends, is stuff you just need to know if you’re going to make it in this industry. You can find us on Twitter as well but do be aware; the second I get a Tweet directed at me by Stephen Fry I’m going to delete my account as I’ll have reached the Twitter zenith.

Thank you and goodbye!