Band Management: Blog 40: Kafadan Kontak Records

I am managing “Band A” for one year, as an exploration of the current underground music scene. This is the hard truth: few bands make money.
Everything from the old infrastructure of selling music has been destroyed. So now everything is new again. Lawless. Wild West. Brimming with possibility. A place where a good grifter can build an empire. You can make up your own underground music scene. Make up your own magazine. Your own publicity company. Your own label. Your own podcast – for f*cksake.
My friend Tolga Ozbey is in the band Reptilians From Andromeda and also manages Kafadan Kontak Records. I imagine he wakes up and drinks a coffee and searches bandcamp and the rest of the internet for new “garage rock” releases. If he hears something he likes he reaches out to the band and asks them to share a handful of songs for his label. It’s not so much – but when you get that email out of nowhere it is so nice…
And then Tolga comes back around: You want to be part of a Suicide compilation album? Can we release a live album?
He just has a fresh energy. No one has written these rules. Why not suddenly put together a massive catalogue of your favorite garage/punk bands from around the world? Why not put out compilation albums with these bands? This is just about having the biggest set of brass balls in this brave new world.
I’ll say this much about “Band A” – they’re kicking ass on the bandcamp game. I didn’t do anything here – and this is the truth. “Band A” put out two EPs on bandcamp and they ended up with a third EP on Kafadan Kontak Records, a music review on Divide and Conquer, and publicist reaching out to us…