So, normally you get an email from BlackMark, when they sent out the CD? How long did it take for you? I ordered one week ago, and it said "in stock - ready for immediate shipment", but I haven't heard anything since then.
HOW TO ORDER NIGHTINGALE-WHITE DARKNESS
- Thread starter gar977
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AnTz0r
Crimson King
No, I meant, how long did it take between your order and the email that said it will be sent out tomorrow? You said something about "last week"...
AnTz0r
Crimson King
Ah, ok. I only received my order confirmation on the next day. But not the second email.
I hope I will get the album finally, I ordered it simultaneously from two sources now... But it seems that for the moment, it's really only available from BlackMark directly, which is a shame. Too few people know about Nightingale. There are so many fans out there, who still remember Dan, but they know nothing about Nightingale, apart from "wasn't that some kind of gothic-rock-solo-project from Dan Swanö, ten years ago??"... And it isn't getting better, if none of their albums is in any store and no advertising is in any magazine.
I'm really sad about this situation, because I love the music so much, the last few Nightingale albums are among Dan's best works, and in my favourite list of albums of all time. And I strongly believe that this music has a lot of "crossover potential" and could win so many new fans, from all kinds of genres. Even my girlfriend, who isn't into metal or progressive rock at all, loves "Alive again". She's just listening to anything she likes, which goes from Pink to Eric Clapton or from Dido to Pink Floyd. And she really likes the music, and especially Dan's voice. And I believe there could be so many more fans, if they just knew about it...
And I'm getting really angry that I cannot get the album, I only listened to "White Darkness" (the track), and it is so wonderful, a real anthem. Could be a hit, if, well, you know...
I wanted to promote the album by writing a review for our web-magazine (www.idioglossia.de). I wanted to do it by any means, even if BlackMark doesn't give us promotional copies (like a lot of other companies do). I wanted to write the review, not because I have to, because the record company send me the stuff, but because I love it so much and want to tell people. But I cannot get the album in my hands!
Kenneth R.
Cináed
Belligerent
Greekus Urungus
Tumn
baptized in blood
Unfortunately not. Soon enough would be on the date of release, or maybe the next day. At least for me personally, as I am a real music fanatic, I want to have albums from my favourite bands on the day of release. Often I go to the store on the day before, to see if I can get it already.
This may seem silly to you, you may have a different opinion on it, and you may find it "childish" to be so upset about "just a piece of music". But for me personally, music is my life, and "soon enough" is long gone by...
Sorry that I have to let my frustrations out. It's just that it is always the same, with each release. And I'm not blaming the band for anything, I just think they deserve much more.
Magic Child, like you, I ordered from BM but never got an email saying they were shipping it. So I emailed them and asked when they were going to send it. They got back to me 2 days later saying they would mail it the next day. So I placed the order on Tue and they said they were shipping on Fri. I hope it gets here this week.
Belligerent
Greekus Urungus
. Im not hip enough on the Nightingale.Thanks for your input! So I'll wait a few more days and contact them then, if I don't hear or get anything.
Unfortunately, after ten days still no confirmation from BlackMark that my order was sent out (why do they say "immediate delivery" then...), and no reaction to my email two days ago, when I asked them about the shipment.
The album is still not available in any store or from any mailorder in Germany (including the official distributor of BlackMark products), three weeks after it was released.
I know what Dan said about BlackMark, and that it is working for him, and why. But seriously, the band should consider releasing their albums themselves. Probably, it would make no difference, as BlackMark isn't doing any promotion, any advertising, and in fact, is not doing any distribution. So it would not affect the sales, because all of us are in contact via internet anyway, and we would order from the band directly. Only differences: We probably would have the album much faster, and the band would get the full money from the sales.
Of course, they would have to pay the production first, but they could let us pre-order and pre-pay the album (like a lot of independent groups do these days). I don't believe BlackMark is paying a lot of advance money, they probably pay more or less the production costs of the album cover, disc, etc., not the production of the music (or not much). Correct me, if I'm wrong, as my picture of this company is probably not the best.
With things like Paypal, it is very easy to organize the payment and shipment of self-released albums these days. In fact, I know some "bands" or projects, who don't have any managers or record labels, but are more or less run by one single person. And this kind of thing works very well.
Or the band could tour for every album to sell it directly in the clubs! Ok, this was not so serious, but a nice thought
By releasing the albums on their own, everybody (the band and the fans) would have only advantages. Except BlackMark, of course...
These are just my thoughts, still waiting for the album.
The album is still not available in any store or from any mailorder in Germany (including the official distributor of BlackMark products), three weeks after it was released.
I know what Dan said about BlackMark, and that it is working for him, and why. But seriously, the band should consider releasing their albums themselves. Probably, it would make no difference, as BlackMark isn't doing any promotion, any advertising, and in fact, is not doing any distribution. So it would not affect the sales, because all of us are in contact via internet anyway, and we would order from the band directly. Only differences: We probably would have the album much faster, and the band would get the full money from the sales.
Of course, they would have to pay the production first, but they could let us pre-order and pre-pay the album (like a lot of independent groups do these days). I don't believe BlackMark is paying a lot of advance money, they probably pay more or less the production costs of the album cover, disc, etc., not the production of the music (or not much). Correct me, if I'm wrong, as my picture of this company is probably not the best.
With things like Paypal, it is very easy to organize the payment and shipment of self-released albums these days. In fact, I know some "bands" or projects, who don't have any managers or record labels, but are more or less run by one single person. And this kind of thing works very well.
Or the band could tour for every album to sell it directly in the clubs!
Ok, this was not so serious, but a nice thought By releasing the albums on their own, everybody (the band and the fans) would have only advantages. Except BlackMark, of course...
These are just my thoughts, still waiting for the album.
It's been two weeks since I placed my order and eight days since they said they'd shipped my CD and still nothing. I'm getting impatient. God, I hate having to deal with BM. Why can't The End Records, Laser's Edge or even Amazon carry this album?!
nacho220
DJ / musician / promotion
Yep. Woke up this morning to an email from The End, showing all the albums they just got in stock, Nightingale was one of them. I quickly placed an order just before I had to go to work.
Mr. Niel
Join Date: Sept. 2002
ORDERED 
fireangel
Member
In general, I can live with the setup of Dan staying at Blackmark in exchange for total artistic freedom, as long as this is fine with Dan. However, I can understand the frustration concerning the availability of records and the lack of strategic marketing, besides word of mouth and recommendations and marketing done by supporting fans.
So I thought about the whole “Dan selling records himself”-idea a bit more seriously.
Dan could probably set up his own distribution, but it´s hell of work, not just like sending out some records once in a while. Besides the people who float around in this forum, there are truckloads more who don´t, and who would not know about these new possibilities if they only were announced in here. (Example: after several NG-gigs I witnessed, there came lots of people to Dan asking the same things about his bands as people do here, so obviously they were not forum-dwellers ;D)
The recordcompany does not only sell records, but also has a lot of contractual stuff to take care of, like licensing for other distribution and doing the organizational things (to amazon, The End etc), ads (yes, sometimes I saw lots of EOS-ads), sending out records as promotional items for reviewing and keeping contact to mags and media, etc. Also they have lower costs per artist because they can use their network (webshop, printing press, contacts etc) for several bands, while a sole person needs to finance a whole network by himself.
So if Dan were to take care of all of this, probably it could be done by having someone working for him and taking care of all of this a few days a week, because I don´t see any chance of Dan doing all of this himself instead of making music.
There would also be needed a proper website with a webshop that is easy to use, and I think the idea of a new download-page should be separated from this one, but connected with links, so that a possible server-timeout or anything else on the download-page does not affect the mainpage. Aswell it needs to be made sure that the mainpage with the webshop will exist for some years without interruption, so it can be promoted steadily and the adress will be remembered. For the webshop, there possibly needs to be a business set up, but that depends on the laws in Sweden. I´m also not sure about the whole VAT-issue, I know that a company adds VAT to the price and later hands it over to the state but I don´t know about individuals setting up their own store with their own records.
Only in case of Dan doing these things on his own or just with a bit of help he´d probably have more income, since you don´t pay the recordcompany for their work, but then when does he compose? But if you have to set it up all by yourself and pay a person almost fulltime to take care of it all (media, organization, networking, sales, promotion, law/tax-issues) then it´s probably the same either way, just with more influence on the whole process because you can have it custom made. This would, in my opinion, be the main advantage of an independent-“Swanö-company”.
So I thought about the whole “Dan selling records himself”-idea a bit more seriously.
Dan could probably set up his own distribution, but it´s hell of work, not just like sending out some records once in a while. Besides the people who float around in this forum, there are truckloads more who don´t, and who would not know about these new possibilities if they only were announced in here. (Example: after several NG-gigs I witnessed, there came lots of people to Dan asking the same things about his bands as people do here, so obviously they were not forum-dwellers ;D)
The recordcompany does not only sell records, but also has a lot of contractual stuff to take care of, like licensing for other distribution and doing the organizational things (to amazon, The End etc), ads (yes, sometimes
I saw lots of EOS-ads), sending out records as promotional items for reviewing and keeping contact to mags and media, etc. Also they have lower costs per artist because they can use their network (webshop, printing press, contacts etc) for several bands, while a sole person needs to finance a whole network by himself. So if Dan were to take care of all of this, probably it could be done by having someone working for him and taking care of all of this a few days a week, because I don´t see any chance of Dan doing all of this himself instead of making music.
There would also be needed a proper website with a webshop that is easy to use, and I think the idea of a new download-page should be separated from this one, but connected with links, so that a possible server-timeout or anything else on the download-page does not affect the mainpage. Aswell it needs to be made sure that the mainpage with the webshop will exist for some years without interruption, so it can be promoted steadily and the adress will be remembered. For the webshop, there possibly needs to be a business set up, but that depends on the laws in Sweden. I´m also not sure about the whole VAT-issue, I know that a company adds VAT to the price and later hands it over to the state but I don´t know about individuals setting up their own store with their own records.
Only in case of Dan doing these things on his own or just with a bit of help he´d probably have more income, since you don´t pay the recordcompany for their work, but then when does he compose?
But if you have to set it up all by yourself and pay a person almost fulltime to take care of it all (media, organization, networking, sales, promotion, law/tax-issues) then it´s probably the same either way, just with more influence on the whole process because you can have it custom made. This would, in my opinion, be the main advantage of an independent-“Swanö-company”.fireangel:
You make a great point, and you're right about the things a proper record company is supposedto do. But like you said, if Dan were to do all of that on his own, he'd have to sit down and mailing packages out everyday, buying stamps, cashing money from the bank, etc. That would turn him into a businessman, not an artist with complete artistic freedom.
I ordered the CD over 2 weeks ago and still nothing. Black Mark is simply too slow. Had I known, I'd get it from The End... Damn it.
You make a great point, and you're right about the things a proper record company is supposedto do. But like you said, if Dan were to do all of that on his own, he'd have to sit down and mailing packages out everyday, buying stamps, cashing money from the bank, etc. That would turn him into a businessman, not an artist with complete artistic freedom.
I ordered the CD over 2 weeks ago and still nothing. Black Mark is simply too slow. Had I known, I'd get it from The End... Damn it.
Imagine Dan being on a label like Inside Out. They do a great job of promotion, they have solid distro, and they're checked out by dedicated fans regularly... Dan's Second Sky would do a great job there...
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