MIXXING AN INDEPENDENT MUSIC MOVEMENT
FROM DIY REPORTER, 3/14/2002

DIYReporter: Tell me about how you got into music in the first place. Were you ever a performer?

Noel Ramos: I started off many years ago as a DJ. I was in college at the time and I needed a way to earn some money to put myself through school. I was working as a graphic designer on a freelance basis and I got another job at a record store, called Record Factory, in Sacramento. They were a really big chain at the time in California and Nevada. They were competing with Tower Records, so it was a big deal to work there. So having this big record store at my disposal and the availability of all this music, I figured one of the best ways to make even more extra cash was to start to DJ. I was able to borrow music from the store with a deal I made with the store itself, kind of a sponsorship thing. I would put their logo up when I spun, and they provided the music, which pretty much gave me a catalog of unbelievable size. And I started doing clubs and a little radio work and private parties and weddings and whatnot. I did that for many, many years, up until just recently. That was my main entree into the music business, other than singing. I had always been a singer. In high school, I was in choir and I'm still in choir to this day. I've always enjoyed singing.

DIYReporter: How did you make the journey from Sacramento to Connecticut?

Noel Ramos: Well, I was actually born and raised in Connecticut. I graduated high school a little early, so I moved to Sacramento when I was 17 so I could attend school there. I just ended up staying there because I liked it so much.

DIYReporter: At what point did you morph from being a DJ to actually getting into the InterMixx business?

Noel Ramos: That was probably shortly after I got back here from California, which was 1986. I was thinking about this sort of thing out in Sacramento, but that was a much bigger market than my hometown and I didn't think it would work out there. So when I got back here, I essentially continued doing all the things I was doing in Sacramento. I got a job with some buddies of mine who had opened up a record store. They also run a DJ company, so I kept DJing, and I kept doing graphics. I pretty much transplanted my entire triple-career from Sacramento back to Connecticut with ease. Once I was back in my hometown where the market was a bit more of a size that I could handle, I decided to begin publishing a magazine, mainly because I'd seen an awful lot of local musicians, as we called them back then, struggling to get some sort of exposure, some press, and being totally ignored by the mainstream publications, the newspapers and other mainstream media. I felt that they needed the publicity more than anything else if they were going to make a career out of their own original music.

DIYReporter: So the magazine was born.

Noel Ramos: Right.

DIYReporter: How many issues were you putting out at first?

Noel Ramos: We were monthly and we were printing between 10,000-30,000 copies per month.

DIYReporter: And you were distributing for free or selling on newsstands?

Noel Ramos: For free, largely in Waterbury, Connecticut. We distributed throughout the city, the greater Waterbury region. And then we expanded quickly to cover the entire state because we found that it was a real niche market, so it wasn't like we had to distribute large quantities of the magazine. All we had to do was target the kinds of places where people would expect to find it, which was pretty easy. Record stores, video stores, and clubs, too. Clubs were a big distribution point for us. Mainly the kinds of places where the cool people would shop that were into the local scene. That was a pretty easily targeted series of distribution points. So we quickly created a physical distribution area.

DIYReporter: How many people were involved at that point? Were you doing everything from soup to nuts, or did you have help?

Noel Ramos: Well, I have always been doing everything soup to nuts, regardless of how many people have been helping over the years, and it's fluctuated. In the beginning, a guy named Domenic was supposed to have been my partner. He never even made it to the first printing of the magazine. He helped me put together the dummy issue. He helped me sell some ads for the first issue, and then he kind of bailed. I also had a pretty successful graphics business at the same time that I started up when I moved back here, so I actually employed three designers. I had them working on the magazine as well. My mother was working for me at the time as my office manager. And my older sister was also working for me as a bookkeeper, so it was kind of a family thing at that point in the early days. And the three designers who were working for me were buddies of mine, so it was a pretty tight-knit group.

DIYReporter: You got into the Internet fairly early. The InterMixx list started in the early '90s, correct?

Noel Ramos: Correct.

DIYReporter: What was the background of that? Since you're a graphic designer, clearly you were already into the computer world. Is that your entree?

Noel Ramos: More or less. I was a little bit later to get on board the Macintosh platform than I wanted to be. I've always been a science nut. When I was a little kid, I always said I was going to be a scientist. And people kind of thought that was weird, that I wanted to be an artist and a scientist, because those are two totally separate brain functions, according to most people. But there are some folks like me who like to straddle both disciplines. And the computer graphics field was tailor-made for us. It was like a techie geek's artistic wet dream. So I wanted to get a Macintosh back when they were still $20,000 for the whole system. I was dying to get onto the computer! I was finally able to afford one, I guess it was 1990 or 1991... and I got a Macintosh. I hooked up with a musician named Darryl Hawes who was working at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven as their Macintosh lab administrator. He took care of the Macs in the lab as part of his student internship. So I got to know him through his band and when I found out he was a Mac guru, I started tapping him for Macintosh assistance. And we became pretty good friends. So little by little, he started getting involved with the magazine and helping me produce the magazine on a computer level. At first, I was just using it to do basic stuff and I was still using my stat camera for photos and I was still doing paste-ups. And eventually, I moved totally onto the computer with his help.

DIYReporter: How's the magazine doing at this juncture?

Noel Ramos: The magazine has remained steady over all these years. It hasn't grown a lot lately because I haven't had the time to put a lot into it. But I expect that once we get everything fully fired up and I'm able to dedicate more time to the magazine, that it is going to grow, because it's always remained the flagship of what we do. It's the most visible and physically tangible aspect of what we do. Kind of like the way we promote all the musicians who are members of InterMixx and talk about what we're doing and advertise what we're doing.

DIYReporter: Is circulation still pretty much the greater Waterbury area?

Noel Ramos: We cover pretty much the Northeast, physically, mainly with a deal we made quite some time ago with a cool chain out of Boston called Newbury Comics. They are a really hip comic book/CD store that has now 28 locations throughout New England, including Vermont and New Hampshire. And we simply have to drop our books off at their main warehouse in Boston and they distribute them for us.

DIYReporter: Is your magazine self-financed? Have you supported it out of advertising?

Noel Ramos: It's gone back and forth, a little bit of both. The magazine has pretty much at least always paid its bills. It's never really been profitable to any great degree, but it's always at least made enough advertising revenue to pay the printing costs and whatnot. Anything else in terms of labor and such, I've been dedicating out of my own pocket.

DIYReporter: Where does your devotion to the independent musician community come from? Does it stem from your love of music? Or is there something about the entrepreneurial spirit they display, which seems to be strong in you as well?

Noel Ramos: I'm hard-pressed to answer that. I'm kind of a rebel. I always have been. And I think the rebellious aspect of the indie way has enamored it to me because I have a lot of respect for people who have the guts to fly in the face of convention. Let's face it, some of these musicians face an awful lot of opposition in their lives. "Cut your hair and get a job! You'll never make a living doing that!" I heard those same things from every member of my family almost my entire life. "You'll never earn a living as an artist. Get a real job!" And for all of those warriors out there who struggle with that every day and face their own internal demons of doubt and fear, I have an enormous amount of respect. I just really wanted to let them know they're not alone and they're doing the right thing by following their dreams. That's what life's all about, you know?

DIYReporter: What is the biggest mistake, from your vantage point, that independent musicians make when they're plotting their career path?

Noel Ramos: The biggest mistake is they listen to the wrong people instead of listening to their hearts. Many of them tend to listen to people who seem to have industry clout just because they've got a name or some credibility or some supposed juice or power in the industry. And they start listening to them instead of their own hearts. I think that's a huge mistake.

DIYReporter: So you think they're pulled in directions that aren't necessarily good for what they want to do?

Noel Ramos: Certainly. But the most common thing is they get ripped off. There's too many snakes in this business because it's easy to prey upon people who are looking for a dream. Anytime somebody is seeking a dream and they're so emotionally invested in something they become very vulnerable to scams and rip-offs, and that's why the music industry attracts so many of these people who have questionable credibility and use it to take advantage of people.

DIYReporter: Do you think that the major music industry is actually in trouble right now? Or are they crying wolf to bend the laws that govern digital distribution to their ends?

Noel Ramos: I think it's both. I think they are definitely crying wolf. And I'll tell you what, it's only hurting them even more, which is kind of the sweet irony of it. Not that I'm out to wish anyone ill. But I find it rather amusing when someone is trying to do something underhanded and it ends up biting them in their own butt. And that's what's happening. All this crap about Napster, Napster, Napster and it's illegal -- well, don't start crying that something's illegal when the industry you created has been founded on your own illegal activities for 50 years. Show me one contract that's not usurious in some way and show me one major label artist who hasn't been taken advantage of in some way and then I'll let you cry illegality. But it's hard to feel sorry for a mega-conglomerate that's made many, many billions on the broken backs of a lot of poor, starving musicians.

DIYReporter: Do you see anyone out there doing things the right way?

Noel Ramos: There's a number of small indie labels that harken back to the old days when the record labels really were record labels and they were founded by musicians and run from the heart. There's one in New York. I'm good friends with the owner, Patrick Arn. He runs Gotham Records. It's a hard-working little indie label that really cares about their artists and they try to make the best deal that they can for the musicians and they've done quite well. They're not huge or anything and I doubt that they'll ever get huge. But they're doing it the right way, with the right intentions. And I think a lot of the solo performers -- I mean, my favorite icon is Ani DiFranco, who runs single-handedly her own record label, Righteous Babe, and already has signed a number of other artists onto her label. She and her partner, Scot Fisher, have been running that business from the beginning. They still run it to this day. They maintain 100 percent control and they do it for the right reasons.

DIYReporter: Why aren't there more Ani DiFrancos or Fugazis out there? Why is it so difficult for independent musicians to actually build up enough momentum to sustain themselves on that level?

Noel Ramos: There will be more. But the reason it's so difficult is there's a huge machine that's 50 years old and runs the music business on the entire globe that's fighting against them. And I'm not exaggerating at all by any means. This is David vs. Goliath to the umpteenth degree. You're talking about a bunch of individual musicians struggling to come together as a group with only new-found power. The Internet has enabled musicians like never before to realize their power as a community and to take advantage of that. And the record labels represent some of the largest corporations on this planet and they have more money than god. And if they want to squash something, they have plenty of ways of trying to do it, as we've seen. And they have no reason to allow independent musicians to succeed. They have every reason to try to squash it, because the more independent musicians who succeed, the less money they will make selling major label product to consumers. Every independent musician who starts selling directly not only sends a signal to other musicians that they can do the same thing, but also eats into the market share. How many record labels would love to have the money Ani DiFranco's making for herself?

DIYReporter: What's the future of retail?

Noel Ramos: It's going to be a combination of physical and electronic distribution. I do not think -- just like I've never thought, even when people thought I was crazy for going online with my magazine -- I don't think electronic distribution can ever completely replace tangible goods because human beings are tactile creatures. They need to feel things and touch things and have things to hold. That's just the way we're built. But by the same token, they also think it's really cool to be able to get something electronically. So I think the two augment each other rather well, and what we're seeing now is the see-saw/teetertotter of balance occuring between the two worlds, where eventually, we'll come to some balance of electronic and physical and the two will work well together. But it's going to be a rough road to reach that balance.

DIYReporter: Let me backtrack a bit. What does your empire encompass? You have the print magazine, the InterMixx list.

Noel Ramos: The IndieList, which is the industry discussion group. I think of the IndieList very fondly, because its seeds were the InterMixx MusicList, which was the very first independent music e-mail discussion group on the Web, as far as I know. Certainly one of the older ones if not the first. And it was kind of the spawning ground for a lot of the other things that have popped up in subsequent years in the indie market. Many of our members went on to found some of the more prominent indie organizations, like Derek of CDBaby, and Carolyn Ballen, and Dave Hooper, and the list goes on and on. So I'm very fond of the IndieList, and we have the magazine, which we now call the InterMixx webzine. That was born as Mixx Magazine years ago. We have the online Internetwork, which is InterMixx.com, and that's kind of the membership side of things, where the members can go to take advantage of the resources we offer online, and that's a pretty powerful part of what we do. And that's also the home of the webzine, so there's a kind of consumer side to it. And that's mainly to draw people to the web site, which helps immensely. So the webzine is visible there exactly as it appears in print. Then there's the IndieGate, which is the other web site, and that's the consumer side of what we're doing, where we try to help the members sell their music directly to the consumers. And then there's the database itself, which lives on both websites and is kind of like an entity unto itself, because that's the core of our watchdog aspect, where we pretty much police, to the best of our ability, the industry, and try to put some quality control where it's desperately needed. Anybody who appears in our database has been thoroughly checked out first and then continues to be checked out by the membership. And the resources can be rated and commented upon by the members. So people who are members of InterMixx have the ability to feel somewhat secure in that anybody they're dealing with through the Internetwork is not a scam.

So that's a pretty powerful part of what we do, even though it's not as quantifiable as some of the other things. I call that iffy stuff a "grey scam." By a grey scam, I mean that it's one of these industry schmucks who has just enough credibility to kind of sparkle and dazzle a young musician who is eager to succeed and wants to become a star. These industry schmucks can use their credibility to pander to that dream and take advantage of it and make money off of these musicians by promising to do X, Y and Z. Now, granted, what they're doing may not be illegal in the strictest sense. There are many ways that people can do things in this business that are not technically illegal. But if they promise to do something and what they do is much less effective and efficient and useful than they're pretending it is and they're getting paid really big money to do it, that's a scam in my opinion.

You know, if they're promising to make sure that A&R reps hear the music and they get a bunch of A&R scouts that are fresh out of college and who are interning at a record label, to listen to the CD, and they charge the musician $2000 for that and basically some of his buds listen to the disc. Technically, that's not illegal, because these kids are working as A&R for a record label, but they're 18 years old and they still don't know the first thing about A&R. They're fresh in the business. And it's too easy to do that kind of stuff in this industry because there's no regulatory agencies, there's no real policing agencies, so there's an awful lot of ways to create these quasi-realistic situations that they can charge money for and get away with, and yet a lot of musicians are getting taken advantage of.

Like the Orchard, for instance, which turned out to be one of the biggest grey scams that I've ever exposed. Technically what they're doing is not really illegal. A lot of their practices may have become illegal because of gross incompetence and mis-management. But the premise of what they're doing isn't illegal. But in reality, it's worthless. So if it is indeed worthless, then they're taking money for something that has no value, and that to me is a scam.

DIYReporter: How do you see the business evolving over the next five to ten years? Will the majors always be with us? Or will they morph into something different?

Noel Ramos: That's a really good question, and, boy, if I had a guaranteed answer for that, I'd be a multi-millionaire right now! Many people believe that the major record labels will never go away. But I suspect that that's largely because they're just so huge. But we've seen lots of other huge corporations go away in the space of 24 hours. So huge doesn't mean anything anymore, if it ever did. So I don't think that the major record labels' future is as certain as some folks think, and I certainly do not believe that the major record labels run the industry anymore. If they did, they wouldn't be struggling to maintain control so desperately. The truth is, they have lost control of this industry as of the point that the musicians became empowered by the Internet.

I think that because of the incredible amounts of communication that are possible now, that it's just not easy for the record labels to keep pulling the wool over the collective eyes of the musicians anymore. And now they're aware that these record label contracts are a bad deal. They're aware of the fact that the record labels are not run smartly. They're aware of the fact that their chances of success in the music industry are slim to none if they seek a record label contract. So that's pretty daunting. There's no way that the record labels can maintain control in that sort of environment. We've already seen pretty concrete proof that the business model isn't the best. They're not making a lot of money selling physical product. They have no clue how to handle the electronic distribution aspect of things. They're not moving into the electronic space very wisely. They're certainly not setting themselves up for a lucrative career in selling digital downloads.

So I don't know where they're going to end up, honestly. I think they've become too top-heavy and, more importantly, the record label industry grew up on the baby boom generation. And that alone is one reason why they might fail completely. Because the baby boom generation is at least twice, if not three times, as large as subsequent generations. So the sheer amount of money, disposable income, that's currently available to these record labels is less than half of what it was when they became as big as they are.

DIYReporter: Given that physical product seems to be withering, what are some of the components that people who want a long career in music should be trying to establish for themselves?

Noel Ramos: Diversified revenue streams. It's never been any different. It's only more important now than ever before. But it's always been the truth. I mean, any big success you look at in the music industry, whether it's the Rolling Stones or a classical recording artist or a pit musician in the local orchestra, it doesn't matter what kind of musician you're looking at -- anyone who's achieved lasting success has done it by diversifying their revenue stream and earning a little money from this and a little money from that and a little money from the other thing. Because the main thing that does is it gives you some stability. It gives you insurance. If you lose one small revenue stream, you're not going to go out of business. You can quickly augment it with another small revenue stream. If you're getting all your money from one place and that goes South, you're out of business.

So I think that most of the indie musicians these days have to really focus on trying to earn a little money from a lot of different places and they have to be okay with that. And I think that's part of the problem here is enlightening these people to what's cool, what's okay. You don't have to be a superstar. That's not really all that cool. That's just a bunch of mega-hype, a media blitz that you're listening to. Britney Spears is not all that. And the vast majority of musicians in the world are very, very happy and fulfilled earning a living without ever being in the limelight. You don't hear their names, you don't see their faces. They're on TV, they're doing backup on tours, they're doing jingles, they're doing soundtrack work, they're playing live shows, they're involved in movies and stage productions and orchestras and live events. I mean, they're doing all this stuff but they don't become super famous.

It's easy to look from the outside and think, "Oh, wow. I wish I were them." But you never know. Money does not buy happiness. It's the truth.

If I had to sum up my whole philosophy, it would just be that the key at this point and maybe it always was and always will be, and I know it's going to sound cliched, but it's the truth: that education and empowerment are the two things that the independent musicians need to really focus on. They need to learn as much as they can about the various aspects of their career so they can succeed on an independent level. They're doing all the work for themselves now, and they need to know their job.