GemTone Records

GemTone Records started 10 years ago. Originally I had made a CD called 12 Bars All Night, and had been sending it to radio stations to see about airplay. All the PDs asked if I had distribution, of course I didn't. So I set about trying to get a distributor. After speaking with some of them, they all told me they dealt only with record labels, not individual artists. The next step was to start a record label, which I did, GemTone Records.

12 Bars was extremely difficult to place in any kind of genre, I didn't think it would be a good idea to try to sell that. I had been playing a lot with Len Rainey and the Midnight Players in San Diego Blues Clubs. My brother was his saxophonist and it was always a lot of fun to play with them. I decided that it would be better for me to promote someone besides myself, and I knew Len and his music. He drew decent size crowds and played 1 or twice a week, so we put together Len's Cd called I Better Move On. It was recorded, mixed and mastered at Abaca studios by Don DeWitt. It turned out to be an Ok CD, but never really got any great reviews. Len was always better live.

I sent the disc and some promo kits around and finally was distributed by City Hall Records. The deal was basically a consignment deal. Their main client was Tower Records. But having a distributor and product in the stores really did make a difference when I talked to radio people.

The next release was one of my own called Straight Ahead. I got together at Abaca with Mike Indovina(drums), Lance Saegusa(guitar) and Daniel Brodo(drums). In effect we played a few songs from the Real Book live, mixed them and made the disc. I sent it to LA Jazz Scene and got a nice review. I also sent it to Cadence Magazine who was somewhat more brutally honest about it. We go a little radio in Long Beach, being local, nothing major happened.

Following that, I ran into Ken Scoppmeyer from my King Biscuit Blues days in San Diego. He was playing with a group called the Deacons at the Holiday Inn near the Embarcadero. He had connections to Jazz 88(still to my mind one of the best local jazz and blues stations) and 2 steady gigs. This fit my business plan perfectly. We went back to Abaca, recorded Straight Up in a couple of days, and got ready to release. Two days later, the drummer quit, the band lost it's steadies and things seemed to fall apart. we went ahead with the project, (Don had just bought a Finalizer to help with mastering), and released that in 99. The orders from City Hall were much better than for Len or my disc, so we were happy. Unfortunately, we were unable to get a tour going, I didn't get too active in a radio campaign because of the unsteady status of the group, the band didn't play as much, so it pretty much foundered from there. I still think it's a pretty good disc. We got one good review from Southland Blues Magazine.

Next, I met Edmund Velasco, a really talented saxophonist in Orange County, through and article in the OC Weekly. He recorded his disc at another place, we mixed and mastered it at Abaca, and again got a good response from the distributor and some orders. Edmund and I ran a radio promotion and about 40 stations nationwide added or played the disc, "The Blues in Me." Unfortunately it was difficult to get the product into the store in the areas it was played and sales were slow. Edmund did travel to Portugal maybe one or two times. He still plays at Steamer's in Fullerton with some top notch Jazzers including Kye Plaer, Mark Massey and Jimmy Ford.

About this time, City Hall dropped us for lack of sales.

The final project was another from Edmund Velasco called "Smoke Rises". I thought this was a really good disc, but by that time I had run out of money and was working again, and did not have the time or resources to do any kind of promotion.

I got involved on 2 other projects where I handled the art and manufacturing:

"The Art of the Duo" by Roger Bissell and Ben DiTosti. These guys could really play together. The recordings had originally been done at MadHatter studios

"Groovin" by Mystique. This is a nice smooth type jazz group that My brother Tony plays in. They work in San Diego frequently. The whole thing was recorded and mixed by Steve Weatherbee at Golden Track.

THE SUCCESSES :
We got a distributor when that was the hardest part of it. Len, GemTone and the San Diego Blues Society put together the Super Bowl Blues Festival in San Diego which grew pretty well for a couple of years but has since cut back a little.
HALF OF OUR RELEASES WERE NOMINATED FOR AWARDS:
Len was nominated in San Diego for Jazz or Blues album of the year at the San Diego Music Awards.
Edmund Velasco Quintet was nominated for Jazz Artist of the Year at the LA Music Awards.
I like to think that everyone's playing career stepped up a notch from the efforts we put into. I know mine did!
I learned how to make web pages, sites, about the manufacturing of CDs, a little about promoting, what it takes to get something going, and how to tell people what I wanted.

THE BOTTOM LINE
When all was said and done I think we sold a total of 40 discs(and I'm being extremely optimistic about those numbers) for the 4 releases out of stores. It was not a very good return because each release I had to send 100 samples for sales. Almost all the money to keep things going was made from selling from the stage and money generated at the CD release parties. I didn't lose any money, but the way it trickled back made it seem so.

It dawned on me one day when I was looking for our disc at Tower and there's mine right next to some heavyweights. Lets' see, do I buy George Matoian or John Coltrane? A short funny story about that. I was doing a radio interview on KSDS before we played their Jazz Live show. So we do the interview, play my modest rendition of Green Dolphin Street, then the DJ says thank you and puts on Giant Steps or something like that. He just smiled and looked at me. "Sorry about that!" It's tough out there in the jazz world!

Would I do it again?
You bet! I would do some things differently. I would have kept the releases more local instead of trying to go national before really generating some interest at home. I think it would have been much more manageable and we would have saved on all the promo copies. I would have tried to involve more people, I really did try to do it all myself. I think i would have released some RnB or smooth jazz to pay for the other music that was more mainstream and appealed to a much smaller market.

Where it stands now.
I never folded the record label. The internet has changed things pretty dramatically. I am trying to find a way to be get some of this music out again. I am trying to learn my way around the digital distribution thing here. I have a handle on it but am trying to find a way to make it really work. People I've talked to said selling from the internet digital distribution outlets, the returns are small for the effort that you put in. They still sell more from the stage than anywhere.

I really would like to thank all the people I worked with and almost worked with over the 3 or 4 years I was really active with this. Don DeWitt at Abaca Studios put a lot of time and effort into everything I took to him. I got support and help from people who would take time with me on the phone to teach me about the business. I talked with people at Concord, Alligator, Radio Stations, KJAZZ (formerly KLON), Chuck Niles emceed Edmund's Release Party, KSDS Jazz 88, Local Licks in LA, US Grant in San Diego, Dana Shacaroff (San Diego Blues Society), BLUSD San Diego, Tower Records, Wherehouse Records, Khoury's in Long Beach, Terrence Love Steamer's in Fullerton, City Hall Records, World's Records, LA Jazz Scene, Southland BLues Magazine, Whittier Daily News, Cadence Magazine, CD Connection, Harvelle's, BB King's. Many other people.
I also hope that in the future someone will think that these experiences might be helpful to them.

George Matoian
Feb. 08