Richie Parker - International E.P

DJ RichieParker

they featured me record on submerge today and for the next few weeks

its on the main page at submerge http://www.submerge.com

Its also at htfr http://www.htfr.com/quicksearch/?search=vinyl&text=richie+parker&advsearch=Advanced+vinyl+search

Im telling you this..

1. because im so bloddy chuffed..

2. to show you that you "can" get a record featured in the largest techno distibutors in the world, all from your "bedroom..."

I used to always think it was pointless trying, that you would never get noticed, that you would have to be in with someone or have the best of equipment, contacts etc..

People do listen to yer stuff so go for it..

tman

fair play guv:)

i'm not overly fond of the tunes, but fair play for getting them out there (they seem well put together but just aren't my cup of tea)

Anima

Fair play I guess.

DJ RichieParker

You guys must be going soft, i was waiting for a scrap.

Thanks lads

remedy dublin

respect dude....much respect....

remedy

jonny68

Yes well done mate and respect to those people producing dance music in all it's forms (especially hardcore breakbeat) from their bedrooms keep the scene alive

Zascar

Fair play mate. respect for going all the way. I'm not much of a techno fan but the tunes sounded pretty good, had my head bobbing anyway, pretty good production for a bedroom job as you say. I remember listening to one of your mixes you posted here ages ago and was pretty unimpressed with some of it, but I ahev to say the tunes are way better than I expected, I'd play them!

So, are you going to tell us how you did it? The whole story from the idea to the launch?

tman

aye, i'd be interested in hearing a bit more about how you went about getting it out there.

i'm half considering setting up a label next year for the laugh (if my cashflow situation allows)
chances are it'll just be a one off, and wouldn't be for my own shockingly bad productions:p
would be interested in hearing about pressing/mastering experiences, overheads, distribution etc...

Scubadevils

Fair play and congrats, must feel great to have got to this stage. I didnt hear your tunes, I assume you posted them here before? The clip on htfr sounded pretty good anyway.

Riesen_Meal

Had a quick gander of this in Spindizzy the other day, not my kinda techno but ok nonetheless, particulary enjoyed one of em (dont ask the names!)

Did you release this yourself? Or a label?

DJ RichieParker

Fieldog wrote:

Had a quick gander of this in Spindizzy the other day, not my kinda techno but ok nonetheless, particulary enjoyed one of em (dont ask the names!)

Did you release this yourself? Or a label?

Yea released it myself..

Im gona post up how i went about releasing etc for those who are interested

must go ta bed now up at 7am..:eek:

DJ RichieParker

Zascar wrote:

So, are you going to tell us how you did it? The whole story from the idea to the launch?

Well once upon a time there was a....

Ok well i had a dj resideny in my local club for about 2 years, which was a great break for me and i managed to get alot of experience from it and got to support well known djs, national airplay a few times etc..etc..

When that residency went dry on me, i found it increasingly difficult to get gigs etc, just chasing scraps really, also trying to put on nights myself, some working out, alot of them not..

So in the last two years ive just totally stepped back from this chasing up gigs thing and looked at moving up the dance sceene in a diferent way..

I thought to myself " everyone is a dj these days, anyone can stand behind a set of decks and play big tracks etc and 70% of the time the people wouldnt know if its a good or bad dj once they play big tracks etc.. but no everyone can produce dance music and call themselves a producer, that mabey if i was able to make dance music i would be seen in a diferent light, Because your gona have to be playin the decks naked in this country to get noticed...

So i got myself some private lessons on basic sound editing etc, it wasnt long before i caught the producing bug and wanted to remix everything, i became as obsessed with making tracks as spinnin em..

all in all ive been learning how to make dance over 3 years, ive put alot of tracks together but the ones on the record are the ones that stayed around..(ones i didnt delete) im a ****er for that.. if i dont like a track even if im after spending a week or two at it, il bin it..

In the exact same way that you want to put out mix cds to your freinds and more when you get confident on the dexs, i got confident at producing and wanted to put my work out there...

I emailed loads of people to have a listen to the tracks, put em up on message forums, took some good feedback and alot of **** from people..

But at the end of the day i thought to myself "hold on, these tracks are still on my pc because they are tracks that i really like, and that im really happy with and that that is all that matters...someone down the line is gona like em too..

I sent out a demo cd of about 8 tracks, mainly in ireland to producers and labels, didnt get much response, except from nice and nasty records, dublin..label boss Desy Balmer..

Desy told me he gets about 3-5 demos a day, that most were pretty **** but that this was good...he wasnt in a position to release them himself but that he could give me a hand...

I was bloody chuffed to be honest, i opened and closed that email from desy about 10 times to make sure i read it right..it felt great that yes all that time spent tryna produce could actually pay off, i had felt that i dont have half enough equipment and to get a track released and on vinyl was a million miles away and that it would basically just never happen..but now it didnt seem so impossible..

Ok so basically i would be releasing the record myself but desy would help with the marketing and distributing...So i tried to think of a name of a label i could release under, i thought of many diferent techno based names but none of them really hit home, so i went for a really simple KK Dance Records..

Ok it aint too creative but i wanted something straight to the point and also something that ment something to me, and not some spacy name that was irellevent..Kk obiviously means kilkenny, im proud of where im from and i wanted to use it, so i also choose the colors of the label to be black and amber..(dj carey asked me could he be signed:v: )

Anyway, i got a logo designed around those foundations (name and colour...)

So then i had to deside which tracks i wanted on it, the tracks that are on this first release are tracks which i like but not a style im gona continue with, i wanted all the tracks to have the same sort of theme, the 2nd release will have a similar theme and i want to continue on from that but i really like the tracks which are on the first one and i felt if im ever gona release em it should be in the first release before i start homing in on a particular style..

One track was called brazil the other was called new york and another was called Flight to detroit, but i just left it at detroit so then i had names of places only, thus the name of the ep came out of that "international ep" brazil,detroit,new york.. Desy said he would do a remix of brazil so that made up four tracks...

So i now had a name for a label, the design of the label the name of the ep and the music... i prefered to do it that way so i knew then what i had on my hands, what i had to "sell" if you will...

I was gona get the tracks mastered in a proper studio which i probably should have done, but i was happy with the sound and also they get a mastering in the pressing plant anyway..

So then i checked out various prices of pressing plants, decided that getting 500 was a safe enough bet to start out with, 500 wouldnt break the bank and was enough records the generely spread around...i sent over the music to the plant and a few weeks later they sent back test pressings, i gave them the ok etc etc

I got promo cd's complete with inserts etc done up and sent them out to distributors, this needs to be done early on so that you can have it arranged that people will distribute your records...

This is where it started getting messy, i sent out 70 promos to dj's and distributors and off course on post had to f..ck it up, and lost half of them.. really if your sending out important stuff dont use them, they nearly collapsed the whole project..

Close to the time the record was to be released i still had not got anything concrete from distributors, alot of them hadnt even got the promos...mess

Anyway i said id get the records pressed and get them out in ireland at least

Things were looking pretty grey, it was very close to christmas and distribtion was getting fu.ked, then some majic happend, dj 3000 (sales manager of submerge in detroit said he bloddy loved the record, desy had sent him one of the test pressingings, not only did he love it but he wanted to feature it in his top 10 records...:eek:

This was some christmas gift and all the other problems seem to vanish in light of this..i was then and still am so bloody chuffed...

Now i didnt get loads of distributors wanting to take on the record but between submerge and myself and desy its pretty much all around the world..

Some people really like it some people dont, i wasnt trying to produce a trance classic or anything, just tracks that i like..

I know what ive told you is more a personal account of how i got a record out there, for those of you who are interested on more specifics email me info@djrichieparker.com and il help you as much as i can...

I hope this has been a bit of help to someone:)