Seeing Red
21-12-2007, 04:57 PM
I’ve been living in the twilight zone for the past couple of weeks following the crash & burn of Seeing Red Records, it’s been surreal to say the least.
I really lost it didn’t I? And the follow on from it shocked me to my core even more so rather than carry this through Christmas I want to set the record straight on a few things here before I’m totally demonised by the few I’ve fallen out with over the year.
I know I started all this with my original post blasting everyone & their dog for the failure of Seeing Red Records, I’m sorry about that, I’d completely lost it at that stage after the Savoy “disaster” & had to get it out of my system so I posted that message & then some..
Anyway it’s done now & I can’t take it back but there are still a lot of unresolved issues floating around out there.
Let’s get one thing straight here, right from the beginning I really believed that the Seeing Red Records idea was going to succeed & one of the reasons I started it was because looking at the whole thing as a musician myself I could see how much the music scene here could benefit from it, not be “saved” from anything but benefit from, but that’s all only idealism isn’t it? It was a great idea but putting ideas into practice is a very different story. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for but no one else was doing it or looked like they going to so I bounced the idea off a few people & it gained momentum, EVERYBODY who I spoke to about this shared in the dream, if only for a second & they were all so ready to share in it’s success. I told EVERYBODY that got involved in this plan that it all depended on a series of SUCCESSFUL events taking place & raising money through grants & investments. EVERYBODY seemed more than happy with that at the time.
No one had ever attempted anything like this before so I didn’t foresee a lot of the events which would deal the whole venture a few blows during the year. Looking back I agree I must have been insane to have believed that the deadlines I set during the year could possibly have been met but I did at the time.
I also explained to people that for it to succeed it would need the combined energy of everyone involved. A lot of people promised to help but didn’t deliver but thankfully a few did, otherwise it would never have gotten off the ground in the first place.
The “Who’s Got IT?” Talent Contest was the first event I organised, I’d planned that to be a success too but it was very badly supported, 13 out of 18 Act’s pull out before the heats.. & that’s somehow my fault? Don’t make me laugh, I should have taken that as a great big “STOP NOW!” looking back on the year but blinded by this mad dream of mine I blundered on.. The event itself proved to be a fantastic event but shur we’re all so focused on the spondouligs here let’s keep it to that shall we?
I’d applied for a grant from the Cork Enterprise Board & got one eventually, 3750euros to be exact & over the course of the year I raised a few thousand here & there from friends, family & a few venues to make the videos, recordings, website etc. always raising just about enough to cover half of where we were at any point, standard business reality I’m told & was good enough for all concerned then.
Then there was the build up to the launch in July which had to be changed to 11th August because there wasn’t enough time. I organised a series of gigs in Slainte Bar for the bands who were being launched, again, apart from one night, the rest were very badly supported which was more to do with the crappy PA in there than anything else. In the months leading up to the launch we filmed 2 music videos, 1 promo video of Cork & recorded 3 singles. I was trying to raise money from local businesses but no joy there, I’m crap at it! I’m grand with ideas but when you get down to the business side of it & talking that talk well I hate it to be honest & I don’t know how to. I naively believed someone would just see how good an idea it was & invest what we needed, which, by the way, wasn’t much by todays standards so you can criticise the quality of the music/videos/website & how badly run it was all you like but from my viewpoint at least someone had a go!
Finacially the truth is I went on a back to work scheme following 2 years on an Invalidity Pension to do this so there was absolutely no budget for it to start with but I also explained this to everyone involved. I think subconsciously I ultimately “nuked” this bridge because it was starting to have a very negative affect on my health & on my life thus the occasional outburst of frustration & anger but anyway that was then this is now..
The launch in Crane Lane was one of the best nights of the year as far as I’m concerned, we did the very first live online broadcast from a venue in Cork city & it was a spectacular event. I lost money on the event though because we had to open the doors & let most people in for free so that stung the finances & as lady luck would have it the website turned out to be a disaster too, there were problems with everything, no one could watch videos, buy music, problems with the broadcast blah blah... Doom!!!
At this stage now I’m down about 7000euros & it’s all a disaster until a businessman, who was so impressed by the night, offered me 15,000euros for 20% of Seeing Red Records, I believed we were made!! Happy Days!!
So onwards I go telling all involved we have the money to move forward, again everybody was happy. In the meantime my original webdesigner gets a fulltime job & I have to spend a few weeks finding a new one.
Disaster strikes again, a few weeks before we’re due to relaunch, the businessman pulls out leaving me holding the tab.. What do I do now?
I knew it was pointless looking for money without having a working website so I explained the situation to my webdesigner & he agreed to finish the job because he too believed in its potential success & had already done 90% of the work on it..
So we eventually launched on 2nd Nov, at this stage now I’m 13,000 in the redski but still believing that all will be well. Well it wasn’t, the response was dismal, but looking back I guess all the fuck ups & delays wore any spark of support that was there away. The dream was taking a fair battering at this stage, I was getting a clearer picture of human nature as we know it today & a slow realisation that maybe it was doomed to fail after all? Maybe I should have stopped then? I couldn’t, I’d put my whole life into this & wasn’t ready to give up just yet!
With Christmas looming & the end of the first year of Seeing Red Records I booked the Savoy, it seemed like the perfect place at the time & planned what was to be our make or break event. Once again it was a brilliant night (for most) but a disaster financially thus spelling the end of Seeing Red Records. I had also held a contest at our open mic in the Slainte to find a new band to record & release along with the other bands being released. Once again I explained to everyone where I stood financially, most people involved have known every step of the way. I guess I believed in a spirit that dosen’t exist here any more, I was deluded, I deluded myself.
Anyway I’m not going down that road again, there are lessons to be learned here & I hope I’ve learned them.
I failed & I know that, I’ve been trying to come to terms with it over the past 2 weeks. I made everything personal instead of keeping a straight laced business attitude to it all but it wouldn’t have got past day one if I had. To be honest I found it very difficult to handle the business side of it, I thought it would have been easier or I’d have had more time. As far as I was concerned I was offering local bands a leg up the ladder, something extra & the money would take care of itself. I obviously don’t care about money as much as some of you, which I’m learning fast I’m in the wrong country if that’s my attitude, I haven’t been sucked into the Celtic Tiger thing as much as some of you, been there done that a long time ago.. It’s empty, like right now.
For the record everyone who was involved was paid at least half of what I owe them & I fully intend to pay the rest asap & all but a couple of people are perfectly ok with that arrangement. They’re willing to share in it’s failure as they were ready to share in it’s success.
I’ve also read a lot of crap about the apparent “disrespect” I’ve shown the bands, ask them yourselves what they thought of the experience, you’ll find for the majority of them are grateful to have been part of something very special because that’s what the experience was, it may have failed but there was a time when we all shared in the dream of it’s success & the best parts will remain in our memories forever. Life’s all about the journey.. Thousands of businesses fail every year owing thousands, that’s the way it works apparently & you don’t see them being demonised!! Anyway..
“Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained”
In the past week I took myself out of the negative energy I was drowning in here, stood back & looked at the bigger picture.. Christmas has all but washed over me & the year, mad & all as it was, is almost over & every new year brings new opportunities. I’m sorry for falling out with the people I fell out with, we got on once upon a time but it all turned nasty somewhere along the way...
I want to wish you all a Very Happy & Peaceful Christmas & I offer the hand of friendship to all of those I’ve fallen out with. Ultimately I’m a pacifist with a hot temper & a sharp tongue, bad combination!! I want peace & love to dominate my life, that’s why I’m quitting the business & going back to the art, at least there the insanity is contained within my own 4 walls :rolleyes:
To my friends who’ve supported me & believed in me throughout the whole year I thank you from the bottom of my heart! As long as there are people like you on this planet there’s hope for Humankind yet…
Denis.
Up Cork! ;)
I really lost it didn’t I? And the follow on from it shocked me to my core even more so rather than carry this through Christmas I want to set the record straight on a few things here before I’m totally demonised by the few I’ve fallen out with over the year.
I know I started all this with my original post blasting everyone & their dog for the failure of Seeing Red Records, I’m sorry about that, I’d completely lost it at that stage after the Savoy “disaster” & had to get it out of my system so I posted that message & then some..
Anyway it’s done now & I can’t take it back but there are still a lot of unresolved issues floating around out there.
Let’s get one thing straight here, right from the beginning I really believed that the Seeing Red Records idea was going to succeed & one of the reasons I started it was because looking at the whole thing as a musician myself I could see how much the music scene here could benefit from it, not be “saved” from anything but benefit from, but that’s all only idealism isn’t it? It was a great idea but putting ideas into practice is a very different story. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for but no one else was doing it or looked like they going to so I bounced the idea off a few people & it gained momentum, EVERYBODY who I spoke to about this shared in the dream, if only for a second & they were all so ready to share in it’s success. I told EVERYBODY that got involved in this plan that it all depended on a series of SUCCESSFUL events taking place & raising money through grants & investments. EVERYBODY seemed more than happy with that at the time.
No one had ever attempted anything like this before so I didn’t foresee a lot of the events which would deal the whole venture a few blows during the year. Looking back I agree I must have been insane to have believed that the deadlines I set during the year could possibly have been met but I did at the time.
I also explained to people that for it to succeed it would need the combined energy of everyone involved. A lot of people promised to help but didn’t deliver but thankfully a few did, otherwise it would never have gotten off the ground in the first place.
The “Who’s Got IT?” Talent Contest was the first event I organised, I’d planned that to be a success too but it was very badly supported, 13 out of 18 Act’s pull out before the heats.. & that’s somehow my fault? Don’t make me laugh, I should have taken that as a great big “STOP NOW!” looking back on the year but blinded by this mad dream of mine I blundered on.. The event itself proved to be a fantastic event but shur we’re all so focused on the spondouligs here let’s keep it to that shall we?
I’d applied for a grant from the Cork Enterprise Board & got one eventually, 3750euros to be exact & over the course of the year I raised a few thousand here & there from friends, family & a few venues to make the videos, recordings, website etc. always raising just about enough to cover half of where we were at any point, standard business reality I’m told & was good enough for all concerned then.
Then there was the build up to the launch in July which had to be changed to 11th August because there wasn’t enough time. I organised a series of gigs in Slainte Bar for the bands who were being launched, again, apart from one night, the rest were very badly supported which was more to do with the crappy PA in there than anything else. In the months leading up to the launch we filmed 2 music videos, 1 promo video of Cork & recorded 3 singles. I was trying to raise money from local businesses but no joy there, I’m crap at it! I’m grand with ideas but when you get down to the business side of it & talking that talk well I hate it to be honest & I don’t know how to. I naively believed someone would just see how good an idea it was & invest what we needed, which, by the way, wasn’t much by todays standards so you can criticise the quality of the music/videos/website & how badly run it was all you like but from my viewpoint at least someone had a go!
Finacially the truth is I went on a back to work scheme following 2 years on an Invalidity Pension to do this so there was absolutely no budget for it to start with but I also explained this to everyone involved. I think subconsciously I ultimately “nuked” this bridge because it was starting to have a very negative affect on my health & on my life thus the occasional outburst of frustration & anger but anyway that was then this is now..
The launch in Crane Lane was one of the best nights of the year as far as I’m concerned, we did the very first live online broadcast from a venue in Cork city & it was a spectacular event. I lost money on the event though because we had to open the doors & let most people in for free so that stung the finances & as lady luck would have it the website turned out to be a disaster too, there were problems with everything, no one could watch videos, buy music, problems with the broadcast blah blah... Doom!!!
At this stage now I’m down about 7000euros & it’s all a disaster until a businessman, who was so impressed by the night, offered me 15,000euros for 20% of Seeing Red Records, I believed we were made!! Happy Days!!
So onwards I go telling all involved we have the money to move forward, again everybody was happy. In the meantime my original webdesigner gets a fulltime job & I have to spend a few weeks finding a new one.
Disaster strikes again, a few weeks before we’re due to relaunch, the businessman pulls out leaving me holding the tab.. What do I do now?
I knew it was pointless looking for money without having a working website so I explained the situation to my webdesigner & he agreed to finish the job because he too believed in its potential success & had already done 90% of the work on it..
So we eventually launched on 2nd Nov, at this stage now I’m 13,000 in the redski but still believing that all will be well. Well it wasn’t, the response was dismal, but looking back I guess all the fuck ups & delays wore any spark of support that was there away. The dream was taking a fair battering at this stage, I was getting a clearer picture of human nature as we know it today & a slow realisation that maybe it was doomed to fail after all? Maybe I should have stopped then? I couldn’t, I’d put my whole life into this & wasn’t ready to give up just yet!
With Christmas looming & the end of the first year of Seeing Red Records I booked the Savoy, it seemed like the perfect place at the time & planned what was to be our make or break event. Once again it was a brilliant night (for most) but a disaster financially thus spelling the end of Seeing Red Records. I had also held a contest at our open mic in the Slainte to find a new band to record & release along with the other bands being released. Once again I explained to everyone where I stood financially, most people involved have known every step of the way. I guess I believed in a spirit that dosen’t exist here any more, I was deluded, I deluded myself.
Anyway I’m not going down that road again, there are lessons to be learned here & I hope I’ve learned them.
I failed & I know that, I’ve been trying to come to terms with it over the past 2 weeks. I made everything personal instead of keeping a straight laced business attitude to it all but it wouldn’t have got past day one if I had. To be honest I found it very difficult to handle the business side of it, I thought it would have been easier or I’d have had more time. As far as I was concerned I was offering local bands a leg up the ladder, something extra & the money would take care of itself. I obviously don’t care about money as much as some of you, which I’m learning fast I’m in the wrong country if that’s my attitude, I haven’t been sucked into the Celtic Tiger thing as much as some of you, been there done that a long time ago.. It’s empty, like right now.
For the record everyone who was involved was paid at least half of what I owe them & I fully intend to pay the rest asap & all but a couple of people are perfectly ok with that arrangement. They’re willing to share in it’s failure as they were ready to share in it’s success.
I’ve also read a lot of crap about the apparent “disrespect” I’ve shown the bands, ask them yourselves what they thought of the experience, you’ll find for the majority of them are grateful to have been part of something very special because that’s what the experience was, it may have failed but there was a time when we all shared in the dream of it’s success & the best parts will remain in our memories forever. Life’s all about the journey.. Thousands of businesses fail every year owing thousands, that’s the way it works apparently & you don’t see them being demonised!! Anyway..
“Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained”
In the past week I took myself out of the negative energy I was drowning in here, stood back & looked at the bigger picture.. Christmas has all but washed over me & the year, mad & all as it was, is almost over & every new year brings new opportunities. I’m sorry for falling out with the people I fell out with, we got on once upon a time but it all turned nasty somewhere along the way...
I want to wish you all a Very Happy & Peaceful Christmas & I offer the hand of friendship to all of those I’ve fallen out with. Ultimately I’m a pacifist with a hot temper & a sharp tongue, bad combination!! I want peace & love to dominate my life, that’s why I’m quitting the business & going back to the art, at least there the insanity is contained within my own 4 walls :rolleyes:
To my friends who’ve supported me & believed in me throughout the whole year I thank you from the bottom of my heart! As long as there are people like you on this planet there’s hope for Humankind yet…
Denis.
Up Cork! ;)