JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Ever hear of Hookhunters Music Publishing

I have a chance to sign some songs with them. Any one here ever deal with them.

Google search:
https://www.google.com/search?q=hoo...897j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Lots to read.

Most strategic is the 'Reversion Clause' in the actual contract, specifying when the 'contract' ends if they don't get these specific Songs to market, the Publishing Royalties rights reverting back to you.
At that time you would be legally enabled to market the Songs to another Publisher.

They appear to be rather new Everette. Maybe just formed this year. I'd ask them to mention some of their success stories.


Best, John

Yes they seem fairly new but those involved have been around the music scene for years. The older companies are harder to get into so being new may have advantages and disadvantages. Being new they likely won't have history of success to point to but they just might work their catalogue that much harder..

Possibly Everette. But it takes time to make good contacts in the Music Industry. I wish you luck.

John

Thanks John. The owners worked within the industry and they may have contacts and know how from that experience. Anyway I'm taking a chance on 13 songs, doing nothing for me now, maybe now they will be brought to someone's attention.

I found their website and clicked on "Roster." They seem to have three artists. Obviously, this suggests that they are very new. As you and others have said, this could be good or bad. Being so new, they might not make it and go out of business as a lot of new ventures do. On the other hand, they might be more inclined to focus on the writers they work with and getting in on the ground floor has its advantages. How did you hear about them, Everett?

I saw their ad on a site that they were looking for songs, I clicked on and told them that I wrote songs, they wanted to listen to my catalogue, I gave them the link, they listened and picked out 13 songs. Lets hope they can come through.

Everett,

I hope they can help you, I really do. But a couple of red flags go up on these for me. First of all, anyone who have been around the music business for anytime that says they are "looking for songs" are not around songs or songwriters much. Because songs and songwriters are EVERYWHERE. If theu have been in the business, they would already have songs, already have writers already have a working knowledge, as a matter of fact ,most new companies are usually built around one or two established writers to begin with.

The biggest problem "new" companies have are ACCESS. They don't have access to the artists, to the producers ,to the labels. Many times, you will have someone who has worked in the publishing side, have contacts, etc. But when they start over, they start over, and those contacts go away. So it takes time, usually many years and a LOT of money to get re-established. Most of the business is seeing who is going to be here in 3-5-10 years.

I'd ask who they are pitching to, what artists, producers, etc they are having SIT DOWN meetings with. I'd want to know who they socialize with. What their previous track record is even if it is a new business. And if they are going to facilitate opportunities for you to write with their artists and writers. That is really the key and what everyone misses when they are just trying to get songs "out there." They are "out there" all the time. But getting "out there" to real people that can do something with them is the hard part.

Id just say keep your eyes open and a tight fist on your wallet. If they start telling you that all your songs have to be redemoed in their studio and they have to have more in fees than previously discussed, I'd back out gracefully.

MAB

Yeah the ole "were really a recording studio posing as a record company" gag.

I was just out of high school and saw an ad for a company in a local music paper called EC Rocker. Saw it abut a hundred times before i actually sent a demo. Exactly 6 weeks later a record contract came to my door...lol. Company was called Rainbow Records, and it showed, the contract was glossy blue, looked so classy and upscale.


Im jumpin up and down, calling people and telling them i was offered a deal. Then my dad took a look at it, and he says "that thing aint worth the paper its printed on" "What do you mean dad...", they want you to pay them money, shouldn't it be the other way around?

I looked, and there it was "We really liked what we heard, and we'd like to offer you a contract on your song" (they pick the first song on the demo thinking that YOU think thats the best one) SO they had the song title typed in already.

We think it could be a hit with the right production... for just 1500, well produce this song into a hit record, you can pay two installments of 750, or 3 instlalments of 500.

Back in those days no internet, so you couldnt just look them up, they were hoping to catch you starstruck.

Well, I had to call everybody back up... lol

I was offered two different contracts by tiny legit companies I found in the songwriters market. Which i didnt sign either, in retrospect, i prolly should have signed, The songs still sit with dust on the casette cover doing absolutely nothing, and ive written probably 1000 songs since, it wouldnt have made any difference if i did or not, wasnt going to make any money.

Remember that book songwriters market? The publishers and record companies in there would be out of business before the book was even printed for the new year. I never realized how many small time record companies there were.

Ahh well. My mom still always told me I was handsome....

This all sounds familiar to me from back in my novel writing days. All those agents and publishers who replied to my manuscript submissions with how brilliant it was and they were dying to represent me or publish it. Of course, they were sure I would understand, there were certain costs associated......etc., etc.

The best response I ever got was from a very reputable agent who told me how great he thought it was, how the main character was a "brilliant comic creation," blah, blah, all the usual fluff, but then, totally unexpectedly, given what had gone before, told me that he wasn't the agent to represent it and wished me luck finding someone who was. Paradoxically, that rejection restored my faith in the legitimate business that had been destroyed by all the "acceptances."

We all have a target on our backs.

This is not to say that Everett's folks are not legit. I have no way of knowing that. If you go in with your eyes open and tread carefully, then why not?

Yeah the ole standard rejection letter dear (insert name here)

I used to look at the back of my favorite albums and see the address of record companies, and mail the tape to that address... I think I saw Warner Brothers on the back of the who album... lol I frickin sent a horrible demo to warner brothers lol... thats how naive I was. No chance it was even heard.

I did get some interest from companies in songwriters market book, which doesnt exist any more. I think my dad knew a lawyer who looked over the contract offered, and said that he didnt think they had any business to speak of to be offering a deal. They were as desperate as the artist was to get a deal.

But beyond that I have never been a demo pitcher. I havent pitched a song...ever. It was always for me to be the artist, which I stopped doing 30 years ago.

I think i always THOUGHT id pitch them, but never did. It was impossible anyway, so I just kept writing out of habit

Think alot of people here do pitch, i have never done it, if i get somewhere near i want to be for a decent demo, I may just go on youtube and spotify and join the frey

Yup, I got this from A Christian Label back in the 90's when I cut my first 13 song cassette. At the time I only did Christian Music...Did the whole album in a studio for 3-4 K...Now this Company wants to Re-record these songs at 1-2 K per song. I was young and I was stupid, but NOT THAT STUPID...

After all, why would they make me re-record a 13 song cassette that had at least a 1/2 dozen #1 hits on it ???

Here's a story I've told before but not in a while, because I didn't think about it till now. I call it "The Fed Ex Man is Here."

About ten years into Nashville I was running in some pretty heavy hitter songwriter groups. I was writing with a lot of people and actually a lot of talk about me around town as to being close to a record deal. Which I was on three separate occassions. Welcome to development hell.

One day I was at EMI. a HUGE PUBLISHING COMPANY, one of Nashville's biggest. I was writing with a friend of mine who had a deal over there, and had gone through a stream of four or five big hits. We are sitting around one morning, having coffee, and suddenly hear on the public address system, "THE FED EX MAN IS HERE!!!" This was followed by what sounded like a thundering herd of Wilderbeasts, running down the halls. There were sevearl women, probably ten, headed down the hall to the receptionist desk. It was pretty interesting and I asked my friend, "WHAT WAS THAT?"
He said, "wanna see?" I said "Sure."

So we headed down the hall to the receptionist's desk. Huddled around the desk were the women.These were all assistants, secrataries, etc from all the offices in the building. They all were standing like it was Christmas day. I watched in amazment as they opened up this very nice Fed ex package. Inside was this basket, kind of like an Easter basket with a CD in the middle, a very expensive ebossed black folder, with the artist's name on it, and all kinds of miniature liquor bottles, candies, all kinds of little nick nacks. It was like feeding time on the sarengetti, as they decended on it, took turns going through it, some taking Candy, some taking things like pens, and office supplies, of course the most popular were the liquor bottles.

AS they walked off, the receptionist in one very smooth move, popped the CD out of the case, and threw it into the trash. She then popped the case,pulled out the artist's information, pictures, and tossed the cd case into a box by the desk with several others in there. The folder. with his picture, bio, etc. went into the trash as well. The whole thing took about 20 seconds. They had done this before.

My friend turned to go back to the office, and I said "You guys don't listen to that stuff?" "Nope. he said. Wanna see why?"
He grabbed the package and the CD and we went back to his office.

He sat behind the desk and I started reading the bio and looking at the pictures. It was basic cowboy hat, pressed jeans wearing country Dude 101. (This was not long after Garth took off, so everyone was looking just alike. The story on the bio was how great he was in his home town (fill in the blanks there) with a bunch of press clippings, and all the basic stuff. My friend sat behind his desk and looked at me. He put the cd in the cd player, and it started. It was the classic Nashville production, and really sounded good. Then he started to sing.

OWWWWW!! IT WAS LIKE EVERY REALLY BAD KARAOKE SINGER YOU'VE EVER HEARD!!!! The song sounded good, obviously recorded at a quality studio with great players. But the lyrics were mediocre at best, no real hook, no real story, just a lot of NOTHING. WE got a verse and chorus in and my friend, who had never taken his eyes off me, pushed the remote button to the next song. Same thing. Good production, only thing they forgot was TALENT. Another verse and chorus and to the third song....SAME THING. Then he said "Want another?"

"No Thanks." The deal was, the better the packaging, the worse the product. And if they don't know you ,there is usually a reason for it. Most songs are not there, most artists are not there. Most writers are not there. They are not around enough of the business to even know they are not there because they don't have anything to compare it to. And the songs and artists, CD's, packages, web sites streams, etc. come in ALL THE TIME!

So when someone is advertising in a magazine, online, that they are LOOKING for songs, there is usually a reason. They are not really in the game.

In the music business, while very large, is actually very small. Everyone knows everyone. And yes, there are new people that break in all the time, but songs are relative. RELATIONSHIPS are what is real. And if people don't take the time to get to know the people in the business, they are not going to take the time to know you. It's sad, it's self defeating, but it is what it is.

Going with companies like this, is no problem really, a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while. But I'd make sure my expectations are not that high. Anything that happens, cool, enjoy it and hope it opens other doors. But if it doesn't, don't let it hit you too hard.

Just the way things are.
MAB

Funny stuff, i think nowadays it be harder to get away with things cause you can check everybody out on line. First thing people do now is google...

Yeah imagine as you say needing to know somebody, here I am sending tapes to WARNER BROS.... no name, just mail it to WARNER BROTHERS lol.

At least the songwriters market had a contact name to mail it to.

Ahh well no harm done. Whats the worst that could happen, they like it?

In songwriters market they suggested you enclose a index card, with a reason why they rejected it....

I got alot of "we already have a Springsteen," "It's not even close to what were looking for but keep trying!"

Needs work musically and lyrically... occasionally something nice came along, like "everything is good, but what we need is GREAT to compete...

But hey, these guys probably never got their companies off the ground either. So...
Looks like last edition of songwriters market book was 2016, i woulda thought it had been gone long before that, i used it in the 90's.

https://www.amazon.com/Songwriters-Market-40th-Where-Songs/dp/1440347794

Right on cue, I got this email today.

Hey Gavin & The Mysterious Beings,

It's Percy from Beige Records.
I wanted to reach out to you personally because we're looking to add a few new Artists to our roster ASAP. This year is all about growth for us and we want to start off 2021 right. We've been scouting across SoundCloud for the past few weeks and we came across your channel. We usually reach out directly on SoundCloud but we saw your email on your profile and figure it would be easier to reach you here. We hope you're still making music because we believe your specific sound has high potential and deserves to reach a wider audience.

Here at Beige Records we're all about helping Artists make it in the industry. We've made getting the support you need more streamlined and less complicated. We have plans set up that allow you to keep up to 100% of your royalties, with absolutely no long term contract locking you down. The last thing we want to do it limit your creativity. That's not our style.

We would take care of your Distribution, Design, Promotion & Artist Development. That way you can save those crazy high distribution costs, stop paying that designer on fiverr hundreds of dollars for an album cover, and stop spending hours submitting your music to different promoters online. We got you COVERED! We understand that we're not as big as Sony, or Universal - but on our journey together our goal is to help shape you into an Artist that the major labels would be fighting for.

All we need is for you to click the button below and submit either some unreleased or recently released music. This helps us confirm you're still actively making music and hopefully gives us a chance to hear something brand new that we can't find on your channels. It doesn't have to be a finished version, demo's are fine.

Once submitted the team will give it a listen and get back to you within 48 hours with the next steps. Whether approved or not we WILL get back to you. If you have any questions the responding team will be able to answer them after they have reviewed your submission. Each of our Artists maintain full rights and 100% ownership over their master recordings & creative rights. It's completely free to submit your music and you are not agreeing to anything by doing so. If you've ever wanted to chase the dream of making a living out of your music, the time is now. We look forward to working together!


SUBMIT YOUR MUSIC


Percy Moore
CEO | Beige Records

A FEW OF OUR PARTNERS YOU WILL BE FEATURED ON

Mix Union - 545,000+

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Beige Playlist - 9,400+

Plenum Records - 135,000+

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At first I was sure it was a scam, but then I checked them out on Trustpilot. All outstanding reviews, like:
"5 stars is deserved for Beige Records, It accompanies to move forward to many artists who want to realize their dreams, they are very benevolent and help all the artists who must never give up our dreams of becoming a greater artist. I add they are super nice to us and give strength to achieve success."

"i m happy to works with pro like you i ll pronuns myself while ive got the fist cheque."

With reviews like that, how can they not be legit. LOL.

Some of the finest human beings on Earth work for Beige Records...

Well, if theres any plus to that note, it's that it says they SCAN SOUNDCLOUD FOR MUSIC, maybe others do to, for whatever reason they have...could be to look for suckers. But People have been and still are discovered on soundcloud, not alot but some, so...

Its such a dirty business, I mean even recording studios who offer a legit service, are liars...

Anybody and everybody who pays them to record, is going to be considered a great artist...

Ive said it many times before, theres people making money in the music business, just not the people making music.

Recording studios, software companies. Band in a Box, Toontrack, Song pluggers, song critiquers, and they all have one thing in common, they need customers, plug in several million songwriters.

As Billy Joel once said Honesty, is just a lonely word...

I remember one time i had done some tracks at a studio that was kind of hard to get to, and i didnt think the engineer was too into music, he was there for the spare money.

So i decided to let the rest go finish it another time. He calls me about two weeks later. Man I was really hoping youd finish your songs, they sounded great... translation. you wanted the money for me to finish them.

Ahh well...

I think what some of these people who "scan" SoundCloud for "talent" do is lure you in with a promise to increase your exposure and appear to do so. You see a lot more listens. However, they are just using bots to generate what are effectively hundreds or thousands of fake listens.

Don’t do it. Not many publishers around worth signing with these days, and certainly not anyone who reaches out to you in a wordy way like that. You feel flattered, and think you are lucky and that it might be an opportunity worthwhile, even with the risk. But it can’t be, sorry. Don’t. Do. It.

imho...

99 percent chance that you will be wasting your time.

You could be right, I know they are asking me to do things that I've never had to do for publishers before, like what is the BPM for each song, the ISRC for each song, the length of each song, write a description of each song, all this is time consuming and some of the info I don't know. What is ISRC?

I might have muddied the waters here by posting that email that I received from Beige Records. That's not how Everett made contact with Hookhunters. Having said that, and bearing in mind what MAB has pointed out, the fact htat they are looking for songs is probably a red flag.

Everett, the ISRC is the International Standard Recording Code. It precisely identifies a specific recording of a song once it is published, a bit like an ISBN does for a book. If you've published to a streaming service or iTunes, etc. your distributor will have assigned one to your recording. You can also get your own if you prefer. It is included in the metadata attached to the song file, which also includes writer and performer info and more, and used to assign royalties for the song.

A song does not have an ISRC. It refers to a recording, so there could be several recordings, each with its own ISRC.

The BPM thing could be relevant if your recording is included in a song library. The metadata comes in here as well as a way of cataloging songs. Things like "mood" can also be included, so that people looking for music for, let's say a movie, can browse a catalog more easily. At least, I think that' how it works. JLS might be able to shed some more light on that.

I wrote an article about metatags, including ISRC at the link below. You might find some of the info useful.Article about metatags and ISRCs

SO it looks like Everette should go ahead and sign with this company, at least thats what Ive read...

ISRC is one of the five codes that makes money for a piece of music.

LOL, me too, I think the last time I used the Songwriters Market book was in the 90's as well. And those index cards to include. Then the internet came along ...

"The BPM thing could be relevant if your recording is included in a song library. The metadata comes in here as well as a way of cataloging songs. Things like "mood" can also be included, so that people looking for music for, let's say a movie, can browse a catalog more easily. At least, I think that' how it works. JLS might be able to shed some more light on that" - Gavin

Yes, if you're aiming for film / TV, it's good to have at least one descriptive word in the title. And also a thourough description of the music. Most publishers have "mood" search engions that music supervisors use. Still better to form relationships with the music supervisors, but don't get too pushy. Having an air of humbleness, even if your arrogant, is best.

John

Just freshening up a bit!