On the Edge of Downtown

With a creative and cutting-edge business model, Downtown Music Publishing is keeping ahead of the curve

With it’s forward-thinking business model, artist-friendly deals and an incredible knack for choosing the next up-and-comers in music, Downtown has been setting the pace for the music industry. While other companies flail, they seem to be growing. Downtown’s most recent expansions include RCRD LBL, a groundbreaking website that features exclusive free downloads by cutting edge artists, and a move into a new office space which houses all of Downtown’s arms – Downtown Records, Downtown Music Publishing and RCRD LBL – which is set to include a recording studio. Playback stopped by to talk to Downtown Music Publishing’s Justin Kalifowitz, Jedd Katrancha, and former ASCAP Membership Rep and the newest member of the Downtown Publishing team, Jeremy Yohai, in their brand new digs, which are located in, where else, but downtown Manhattan.

How big is your catalogue currently?
Justin: Now pretty much everything we release on Downtown Records we are the publisher for as well. And then we have other songwriters, producers and catalogs that forms what has started to be a pretty large catalog of about 2,000 titles and growing. The majors each have a million and change so we have a long way to go.

Is that the goal?
Jedd: No. The goal is to always be able to work every song that we have, so ifwe have added 100,000 songs then our staffwill probably growto be the size of a major. We try to keep our creative staff to song ratio in the artists’ favor. I think a lot of people have the perception that record companies that start publishing companies are not always the best fit for songwriters and are there to serve as a holding company for the publishing rights of the recording artist. At Downtown I don’t think that could be further from the truth. Our financing and focus goes to great writers, whether they are Downtown Records artists or not - the ones who are cowriting with other great writers, the ones who are looking to produce and remix other artists, write for commercials, write for film and TV.

So does Downtown Publishing sign independently?
Justin: Completely independently. We have 12 songwriters who are signed to the company, like Antonina Armato who’s a big songwriter in the pop world having written for artists ranging from Mariah Carey to Miley Cirus.We have another writing production teamcalled The Black Out Movement and they won the ASCAP award for “This is Why I’m Hot,” at the 2008 ASCAP Pop Music Awards. We have a songwriter named Andrew Wyatt who wrote much of the music in Music and Lyrics, and he’s working right now with Mark Ronson on Daniel Merriweather’s record. He’s also collaborated with a number of Downtown artists including Kevin Michael. So we do mix and match; the writers sign here and do work with the artists on occasion, but it’s definitely its own shop.

At what kind of rate are you signing new artists?
Justin: Pretty frequently. It’s only been about a year and a half since the company started and we’re already up to 12 songwriters outside the 8 signed to the label. Right now the catalog has songs ranging fromthe mid 80’s to today. Some of the catalog deals that we’re looking at are going to try to expand the catalog to go back to the 60’s.

How did RCRD LBL.com come about?
Justin: Peter Rojas, who’s been involved with Weblogs, Inc and was the founder and editor in-chief of Engadget, came to us with an idea on giving awaymusic for free. As a record company and a publishing company that’s the last thing youwant to hear, but he had a very complete thought. If you can define your audience, and if you can actually give something that’s not available anywhere else - which is a curated experience - then you’re going to build an audience. The artists range from Mos Def and Justice to Moby to Simian Mobile Disco and new bands like Bad Veins.

You’re probably a dream come true for music supervisors.
Justin: That’s the nice thing. They know Downtown. They know the label, they know the logo. So it’s great for them that they can come to Downtown Music and get more than just Downtown Records. They can come to Downtown and get a Miley Cyrus song or “This Is Why I’m Hot” or everything on RCRD LBL. So it makes us a great destination. Jedd: We’ve gotten to the point with ad agencies where we’re doing that unthinkable thing thatmost people outside of their world, nomatter what industry you’re in, are not invited to do, and that’s to actually come upwith creative ideas for campaigns that they’reworking on. There’s a lot ofmutual respect between us and our partners in themusic supervision world.

Why did you decide to build the recording studio?
Justin: I think back in the day, every publishing company had a place where their writers could come and write and record. Now that Downtown has grown, particularly with the growth of the publishing company and with RCRD LBL, we can really take records from 0-60 inhouse. We’ll have Amanda Blank in there shortly to finish her album.

Do you think the partnership with Consumer Brands is a big part of moving forward?
Jedd: Huge, huge. We’re happy to let them pay our artists. In fact, part of our marketing strategy for several of our artists is to secure pretty substantial brand placements.Which not only adds value to the publishing copyrights but also is a big part of themarketing plan for the artists that we work with.

Who are some big ASCAP releases that you have coming up?
Justin: We have Kid Sister, Carla Bruni, Amanda Blank, Spank Rock following that, Cold War Kids will follow up with a new release in October. And Santogold just came out.

— Lavinia Jones Wright