I'm writing this not because I want to or feel vengeful, my feelings towards this man & his business are apathetic & annoyed...
I basically want no association with him (I say him because he's a one-man company) this is even a waste of my time but I think it's an important freedom of speech coming from a young, independent artist. I'd like to share my own experience. I hope it doesn't happen to others. I was first reached out to over twitter by Derek, who was impersonating a woman on twitter (very weird) I had no idea this was not a real person I was speaking to. He had/maybe stll has these several fake female accounts. He created them to look like they were real women who "worked" for his record label & could hype it up, friday pop cafe/vermont pop. Anyway, I was told I should "reach out to "Jack Chicago" (what he goes by) & he even complimented himself in the message (as her) saying good luck, he's great!" Super. Weird. I guess these were attempts to make himself appear more professional? Being a young, naive musician who had only ever been in a recording studio once before, I thought this was something special. I was excited to be noticed by a "producer's assistant" let alone a producer. I wish I knew these accounts were fake in the beginning because that is a huge red flag, to pose as your own "A&R" .
I'm not trying to have this be a complaint to just bash this man it's my honest opinion that he suffers from some form of delusions of grandeur & definitely lacks empathy for others. Not a psychologist in the least but really low key think he's a delusional narcissist or is on the spectrum perhaps and lacks empathy either way. It's very strange the way he operates, he works with a lot of young girls (like 14- early 20's) and the way he promotes these song releases is overly-branded with the Vermont pop logo on every picture & music is not about the promotion of the label , should be about the artist, but it's opposite here, was very clearly about promoting the label, not sure why. Just very off. He is very obsessed with "owning" & "controlling" as well. He is petty & mean-spirited. One of the songs I was supposed to work with him on is a song I fully wrote & produced when I was 19 & put up on SoundCloud. I wanted to have the song as a produced version as well so I signed the agreement that he would produce it at no cost in exchange for rights of the produced master version, but I would still have a writers credit & share of royalties if any were to ever exist. This was terrible to agree to but I was extremely knew to all of this & a broke kid who just cared about expressing my outlet. Long story short, he contacted me saying that he changed his terms & needed all artists to pay production fees now.
This was a year after the agreement was signed. The song had not yet been produced & if I wanted it produced it would cost $400. So I stupidly gave him $400. Even though we already had a signed agreement that I wouldn't have to pay. To sum it up, the song I'm referring to has not been produced by him after over 2 years and I've asked for a refund , in which his reponse was "I'll think about it". I have made it crystal clear that I no longer want to associate myself with him and I will not be promoting anything he chooses to still release without my wishes, all I want is the refund. He is extremely petty and told me that he owns the song so I have to take down the original acoustic version I put up when I was 19...I'm 26 now. His reason being is that even though I wrote every single lyric, melody & produced it fully myself when I was 19 & it's publicly copywritten just by posting it even.... that he still owns the assignment of the song, so it's actually a cover of HIS song. If that's not psychotic & narcissistic I literally do not know what is. The fact that he even has time to act like a petty teenage girl is alerting behavior and an obvious indication that he's depending on my music somehow for his imaginary success & fantasies. Even though he literally once told me "I don't need you to make a hit" ( when someone has to verbalize that unprompted, they're clearly threatened by you somehow)
That version has nothing to do with him, in fact it is completely different. Not to mention that I do not want a produced version of the song from him!! Psycho. He is mean-spirited and told me he wants to release all the songs we were supposed to do under his label even though I literally won't be promoting any of it, I don't want the songs released. So his plan I guess is to release them on his labels website/ his labels social platforms. K go ahead. Music is nothing without the artist. Also you'll have to give me share of rights as a writer. Not to mention you're just f*cking weird in the first place & I shouldn't have to think of weird a*s scenarios like this. Get some new f*ing songs!! Who has the efffffing time for this kind of s**t. He also ruined his chances of getting a song synced we actually did release because he told the sync agent that he had to sign some other songs of his & not just the one he was interested in signed. Extremely petty. Very agenda-filled. Masked as over-professional but unmasked as a delusional narcissist. Just not worth it!! The other producers I've worked with are normal & so I know that this is extremely abnormal behavior. Not sure why he chose the music industry but I'm guessing because it offers self-promotion aspects. He's extremely money hungry & irrational... if an artist wants nothing to do with you, why insist on still releasing their music. Must be because you can't find anyone better or better songs.
On a side note, my life has been hell this last year outside of this & I've made him fully aware of this but he showed no empathy and focused still on his delusional agenda of success, texting me about his ocd label updates when he knows I don't have the time or energy because I have verbalized it. So I lost $400 & am getting absolutely nothing out of the agreement I made with him, on top of probably having music out that I don't even want to be out. No other producer would do this, he's delusional & thinks he's a big-shot & just mimics what he thinks the music industry is like. When in reality the people who are legit that I've worked with are kind.
Vermont POP Records Reviews
I'm writing this not because I want to or feel vengeful, my feelings towards this man & his business are apathetic & annoyed...
I basically want no association with him (I say him because he's a one-man company) this is even a waste of my time but I think it's an important freedom of speech coming from a young, independent artist. I'd like to share my own experience. I hope it doesn't happen to others. I was first reached out to over twitter by Derek, who was impersonating a woman on twitter (very weird) I had no idea this was not a real person I was speaking to. He had/maybe stll has these several fake female accounts. He created them to look like they were real women who "worked" for his record label & could hype it up, friday pop cafe/vermont pop. Anyway, I was told I should "reach out to "Jack Chicago" (what he goes by) & he even complimented himself in the message (as her) saying good luck, he's great!" Super. Weird. I guess these were attempts to make himself appear more professional? Being a young, naive musician who had only ever been in a recording studio once before, I thought this was something special. I was excited to be noticed by a "producer's assistant" let alone a producer. I wish I knew these accounts were fake in the beginning because that is a huge red flag, to pose as your own "A&R" .
I'm not trying to have this be a complaint to just bash this man it's my honest opinion that he suffers from some form of delusions of grandeur & definitely lacks empathy for others. Not a psychologist in the least but really low key think he's a delusional narcissist or is on the spectrum perhaps and lacks empathy either way. It's very strange the way he operates, he works with a lot of young girls (like 14- early 20's) and the way he promotes these song releases is overly-branded with the Vermont pop logo on every picture & music is not about the promotion of the label , should be about the artist, but it's opposite here, was very clearly about promoting the label, not sure why. Just very off. He is very obsessed with "owning" & "controlling" as well. He is petty & mean-spirited. One of the songs I was supposed to work with him on is a song I fully wrote & produced when I was 19 & put up on SoundCloud. I wanted to have the song as a produced version as well so I signed the agreement that he would produce it at no cost in exchange for rights of the produced master version, but I would still have a writers credit & share of royalties if any were to ever exist. This was terrible to agree to but I was extremely knew to all of this & a broke kid who just cared about expressing my outlet. Long story short, he contacted me saying that he changed his terms & needed all artists to pay production fees now.
This was a year after the agreement was signed. The song had not yet been produced & if I wanted it produced it would cost $400. So I stupidly gave him $400. Even though we already had a signed agreement that I wouldn't have to pay. To sum it up, the song I'm referring to has not been produced by him after over 2 years and I've asked for a refund , in which his reponse was "I'll think about it". I have made it crystal clear that I no longer want to associate myself with him and I will not be promoting anything he chooses to still release without my wishes, all I want is the refund. He is extremely petty and told me that he owns the song so I have to take down the original acoustic version I put up when I was 19...I'm 26 now. His reason being is that even though I wrote every single lyric, melody & produced it fully myself when I was 19 & it's publicly copywritten just by posting it even.... that he still owns the assignment of the song, so it's actually a cover of HIS song. If that's not psychotic & narcissistic I literally do not know what is. The fact that he even has time to act like a petty teenage girl is alerting behavior and an obvious indication that he's depending on my music somehow for his imaginary success & fantasies. Even though he literally once told me "I don't need you to make a hit" ( when someone has to verbalize that unprompted, they're clearly threatened by you somehow)
That version has nothing to do with him, in fact it is completely different. Not to mention that I do not want a produced version of the song from him!! Psycho. He is mean-spirited and told me he wants to release all the songs we were supposed to do under his label even though I literally won't be promoting any of it, I don't want the songs released. So his plan I guess is to release them on his labels website/ his labels social platforms. K go ahead. Music is nothing without the artist. Also you'll have to give me share of rights as a writer. Not to mention you're just f*cking weird in the first place & I shouldn't have to think of weird a*s scenarios like this. Get some new f*ing songs!! Who has the efffffing time for this kind of s**t. He also ruined his chances of getting a song synced we actually did release because he told the sync agent that he had to sign some other songs of his & not just the one he was interested in signed. Extremely petty. Very agenda-filled. Masked as over-professional but unmasked as a delusional narcissist. Just not worth it!! The other producers I've worked with are normal & so I know that this is extremely abnormal behavior. Not sure why he chose the music industry but I'm guessing because it offers self-promotion aspects. He's extremely money hungry & irrational... if an artist wants nothing to do with you, why insist on still releasing their music. Must be because you can't find anyone better or better songs.
On a side note, my life has been hell this last year outside of this & I've made him fully aware of this but he showed no empathy and focused still on his delusional agenda of success, texting me about his ocd label updates when he knows I don't have the time or energy because I have verbalized it. So I lost $400 & am getting absolutely nothing out of the agreement I made with him, on top of probably having music out that I don't even want to be out. No other producer would do this, he's delusional & thinks he's a big-shot & just mimics what he thinks the music industry is like. When in reality the people who are legit that I've worked with are kind.