Musicians, labels move toward independence

He calls it the major label vacuum, and he knows all about it because he used to live there.

For 21 years, Ted Joseph worked in the marketing, sales and radio departments for Warner Bros. Records, getting a firsthand look at an industry once coated in enough lard to deep-fry an aircraft carrier.

"Years ago, it was about, 'I have to be on Warners or Sony,' " Joseph says of how bands used to view the majors. "But what you found out is that you were on a roster of 600 other artists, you got very little priority, you were not very well marketed -- if they actually went to the marketplace with your product at all. For a lot of artists, it was sit and wait. And hope."

And so Joseph left the majors and struck out on his own, eventually landing in Vegas, where he's helping to spearhead a new independent label, Odds On Records. The label recently scored a major distribution deal with fast-rising indie Koch Records, which has worked with everyone from Bone Thugs N' Harmony to In Flames.

"Right now, the mood of most artists is of independence," Joseph says from the Odds On conference room, surrounded by olive green walls and a big, luminous aquarium. "They don't want to go to the major labels any more. The independent artist who signs to an independent label actually gets much more of the revenue pie."

Of course, everyone has a label these days, but Odds On has some serious muscle behind it. For starters, it's an extension of the Odds On Recording Studios, a big-budget facility where stars such as Akon have recorded and which boasts its own CD and DVD duplication plant next door.

And it's staffed with well-traveled music industry vets tired of the major label bureaucracy.

"Things don't have to go through 10 different people and take six weeks," says marketing director Kekoa Quipotla. "We can get on the phone with each other and in a few minutes figure out what we need to get done."

Odds On is debuting with a pair of acts, promising adult contemporary singer-songwriter Greg Medoro and young pop starlet Facia.

"Everyone's just family here," says Facia, who's recorded with such notables as Pharrell Williams and Scott Storch. "That's the difference between Odds On and all the major labels. They don't treat you like you're just a number."

Of course, numbers are important at any label. But whereas the majors have become defined in recent years by their impatience and reluctance to develop acts, Odds On is looking to gradually establish its roster.

It took years for the major labels to gum up the music industry, and it'll take just as long for labels like this one to rebuild it all.

"We're going to build slow," Joseph says. "It's not something that we have to do overnight and get it done tomorrow. But, this is the time. Independence is where you want to be."

Jason Bracelin's "Sounding Off" column appears on Tuesdays. Contact him at 702-383-0476 or e-mail him at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com.