Don Sebastiano

"A performance on a television talkshow was an inappropriate career start- Don Sebastiano's melodic guitar pop was much too good for this mediocre TV evening. These songs, written in the best tradion of the Beatles and the Happy Mondays are more suited to a well filled live concert hall..."

Well...what they actually said was: "Ein Auftritt in einer Talk-show war fur Don Sebastiano und seine Londoner Quartett ein unpassender Karrierestart - Der melodische Gitarrenpop ist fur ode TV-Abende viel zu gut. Besser passen die songs in bester Beatles- und Happy Mondays Tradition in einen gut gefullten Konzertsaal"... but would you have understood that? - PRINZ MAGAZINE (GERMANY)

-THE EVENING STANDARD, "The only halfway decent World Cup Song of 1998". Max Bell on the Don's composition WORLD CUP CRESCENDO (Universal).

-THE ISLINGTON GAZZETTE waxed lyrical in their article about Don Sebastiano's "The Gooner Album" in 2004. Calling it "a fitting tribute".

-TIME OUT "Yeah bribed us all with dollar bills to mention their pleasantly melodic indie-pop stylings..."

-In 1993 DIE ZEIT MAGAZINE conducted a five page interview with Don Sebastiano on, amongst other things, what the English think of the Germans.

-THE NEWS OF THE WORLD covered the release of his legendary CDEP Mr. Bergkamp/Highbury Sunshine on their sports pages in 1993.

-BILD ZEITUNG did a full page on the young don's musical career in Hamburg in 1989.

-DIE MORGEN POST (Hamburg) frequently covered the live gigs of the Don's band YEAH while they were in Germany (1989-1993).

-THE INDEPENDENT: The Don actually wrote a fine article himself published by THE INDEPENDENT in 1994 when he was an international on board courier and jetting off around the world for eight years delivering documents.

-THE HAMPSTEAD & HIGHGATE EXPRESS have written so much about the Don and his musical exploits over the years that it would be impossible to fit it in here, and god knows where it all is, but hey, it's all just wrapping up someone's fish and chips now anyway so who cares! - VARIOUS PAPERS

WANT A HIT? DO IT YOURSELF
Today's technology means it has never been easier to make your own record. NEIL McCORMICK reports on the wannabe pop stars aiming to bypass the big record companies

It has never been easier to make a record than it is now. Computers and digital recording technology have put the means of production into the hands of the musician. So, if you can make a record that sounds every bit as polished as an expensive studio recording, press copies and produce an eye-catching sleeve with the aid of graphics programmes, what do you need a major record company for?

"I'm not sure if the correct term is self-release or self-abuse," says Don Sebastiano, who has been going down this route for his debut solo album, The Spaghetti Tree. The former leader of indie band Yeah, Sebastiano is a singer-songwriter who sets quirky lyrics about love, politics and football to a sophisticated, Beatle-y musical backdrop.

"I'm not particularly fashionable, I'm too old to audition for S Club Juniors, but I've got all this music inside me that needs a way out, or I'm liable to explode. So, if no one else was prepared to do it, I thought I'd better have a go myself."

Sebastiano enterprisingly set up sponsorship deals with local businesses (this is certainly the first album to carry an advert for the Rosslyn Hill Dental Clinic in Hampstead) and arranged cheap manufacturing deals through his former label, Cherry Red. His biggest source of frustration has been getting his album into the shops.

"I asked to see the buyer at a major store next to a venue where I was doing a gig," he says. After several fruitless attempts to arrange a meeting, he was told to speak to the "duty manager".

"I was halfway into my sales pitch when I noticed he had 'Security' embroidered on the pocket of his shirt. I might be the world's smallest record label, but I think I should have been accorded a bit more respect than just being fobbed off with the security guard!"


"The self-release is a self-starting exercise," according to Alan McBlane, a marketing consultant who advises both majors and independents on strategy. "It's about an artist's belief in his own talent. All it takes is a couple of reviews and radio plays, and bingo - your record is alive, it exists."

He notes that self-releasing has been long-established in the dance market and is becoming increasingly popular in the singer-songwriter field. "We're seeing swathes of these records coming through now, especially in America. Artists don't want to wait around any more. Technology has freed them. And major labels are paying attention. A lot of labels are picking up on records that were self-funded by artists."

The David-and-Goliath romance of the little guy taking on the monolithic music business loses some of its sheen when you see how quickly most successful self-releasing artists sign on with the majors. "Most people would rather risk somebody else's cash than their own," is McBlane's pragmatic observation.

Not everyone has that simple choice. Don Sebastiano has so far managed to persuade a handful of HMV and Fopp stores to stock his album, for November release. But he's not going to stop there.

"I've made a record I'm proud of," he says. "And I'm prepared to get out there and sell it door-to-door if I have to."

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003. Terms & Conditions of reading. Commercial information. Privacy Policy. Extracted from The Daily Telegraph article for www.donsebastiano.com
- THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (UK)