EY'S MEMORY LOSS

I've received a number of emails over the past few weeks asking about EY and the main question is why don't NK get mentioned anymore. I've discussed this with a few people but after the latest email I thought I would finally write this post.

It was down to EY that many of you reading this found NK and for that I am grateful. We had a glowing review from Rob Windle (Orac) when 53 D N came out and we began to chat regularly and meet-up to discuss electro things.

As we were putting the finishing touches to WIRED: I spoke to Rob about advertising on his site and we agreed upon a fee of £130 per month for an ad to appear on the EY site, these were to run over three months. Previously we had spent a similar amount with Google adwords and Facebook advertising which really helped push the sales of our first album. At that point Rob wasn't selling any kind of advertising on his site and all of the various banners and links were there for free.

When Rob heard WIRED: for the first time he asked if it could be the first EY release. Rob suggested that instead of paying for the ads he would get a split of sales originating from his site in return for promotion, I was happy with this. He asked for the money to be paid upfront as an advance, I paid him in a couple of instalments even though at that point we hadn't actually sold any copies.

The advert went live on the site in April and there were a few mentions of WIRED: within the blog. As soon as we started to sell copies of WIRED: Rob was emailing regularly asking for an update on sales and did I have an estimate of how much he would be getting. I did say to him that I had already paid him in advance but still he kept asking the question.

In June following an EY site update I noticed our ad had disappeared from the site, I was about to head off on holiday so didn't really have a chance to question this. Rob had said that the ad could run all the way up until the Kajagoogoo tour so I was a little confused about this.

Returning back from holiday I had a few more emails from him asking when he'd be getting more money from me. At that point I asked the question about why the ad had disappeared. I started to question the relationship and asked what had EY done to help promote WIRED? Apart from a few mentions there had not been a review of the album and very few mentions. Little Boots, La Roux & Marsheaux all had fairly prominent exposure on the site at this point but of course none of these artists paid for that.

A label is supposed to support an artist by promoting it at every opportunity, this didn't really happen. At the album launch which was an EY event, all Rob really did was book the venue. I did all of the promotion and even ended up paying the other artists, I also gave Rob a split of ticket sales and our merchandise.

It became apparent that Rob was only interested in getting money from me, as a last ditch attempt from him he promised a glowing review of WIRED: and after that would I send him some money? Of course the review never came and within a week, all mentions of Northern Kind disappeared from the site as if we had never existed.

It's a shame because I thought of Rob as a mate, obviously we shared a love of the same music and both felt an EY label was a good idea. I'm not sure what changed his opinion of me and NK, I feel pretty stupid now though especially as I have the EY logo plastered on the WIRED: sleeve and CD.

We learn and move on...


Matt

PS Snippets of the demos with Sarah's vocals will be on the Forum this week, been having some Mac problems but a new shiny machine is heading my way.