Nashville, TN (CBuJ Entertainment) - Independent label CBuJ Entertainment www.cbuj.com has survived the fall of sub-distributing partner
Bayside Entertainment Distribution and top selling retail customer Tower Records to discover a silver lining of unprecedented growth. From the company's inception in 2001, CBuJ had established direct vendor accounts with Anderson Merchandisers and the Handleman Company but relied on
Bayside to solicit and distribute CBuJ product to the balance of music retail customers.
Since even before the court order, we were scrambling to replace our distribution partner. Over the past 60 days, we have gone from having zero distribution to securing direct vendor agreements with all of Bayside's former accounts CBuJ operates as a hybrid-label/national distributor for recorded and licensed music, representing several musical genres www.cbuj.com/About.html. All that changed on October 6th, when a U.S. bankruptcy judge ordered the immediate liquidation of Tower Records and Bayside Entertainment Distribution. "Since even before the court order, we were scrambling to replace our distribution partner. Over the past 60 days, we have gone from having zero distribution to securing direct vendor agreements with all of Bayside's former accounts," says CbuJ President, John Burns.
"CBuJ has been fortunate to partner with several of Bayside's top selling labels. As a result of adding the additional distributed labels, CBuJ has become more attractive to retail customers", explains Carl Michelakos, former Bayside national sales manager www.cbuj.com/Contact.html. According to Burns, Michelakos (who has since been hired by CBuJ) was instrumental in helping secure the additional catalog and vendor agreements with those retail accounts.
CBuJ has recently inked distribution agreements with Wounded Bird Records, a reissue label of rock and folk albums from the 60's, 70's and early 80's. Other labels include San Francisco Sound, Soundworks/Jerden, Innova Recordings, Spira Select, Chord International,Traditional Crossroads, and Rack 'Em Records, an imprint formed by Texas-icon Joe Ely www.cbuj.com/News.html. "Since the liquidation of Bayside, the CBuJ catalog of distributed titles has increased from 156 titles to 900 and growing. We are grateful to our buyers and affiliate labels for allowing us this bittersweet opportunity to grow. We realize our good fortune has evolved from the fall of a true retail icon and successful distribution partner" states Stephen McCord, CBuJ Vice President of Sales & Marketing.
In addition to their national distribution capabilities, CBuJ offers turn-key label support in areas of manufacturing, marketing, production and radio promotion. "Every deal we enter into is customized for that particular project. We cover the gamut from straight distribution deals to joint-ventures and everything in between", says Burns.
In 2007, CBuJ plans to develop an artist management and music publishing division to its base of operations. CBuJ represents over fifty years of combined major label/ distribution experience in artist development. "We have been developing our turn-key infrastructure for a couple years now. Diversity is the new music industry paradigm and we are positioning ourselves to take full advantage of the tremendous opportunities now emerging for indepenedent artists," says McCord.
