this blog needs a new tagline. i'm taking suggestions.

Today is a big day! After four years studying music business at Belmont, and eight years working at record labels, I have left the music industry.

It’s bittersweet. I came to Nashville to work in music, and I had a great time. I learned a lot, got to work with some fantastic people, met some cool artists, went to some awesome shows, was part of the birth of the digital music industry, and traveled to some of my favorite cities.

But life changes, and priorities do with it.

For the last several years I’ve had the opportunity to be on the front lines of an online startup my good friend Brian founded with his brother, Mark. As the company has grown, so has my role with them, and we’re at a point now where I am finally able to join the team full time.

What does this mean? Well, I get to work from home, for one – amazing, especially considering Eli is just two months old now! It also means I’ll be handling marketing for the company, helping us grow our brand and find new clients. It also means I have a ton of work to do. It also means I need to learn a thing or two about marketing.

Last week was a nice ending to my music days. Went out to eat with my friends and then they gave me a guitar signed by everyone in the company. Pretty awesome, and I’m glad to know I have friends that will last beyond the 9-5 framework of corporate life.

So, here’s to new beginnings and to hoping we don’t see a repeat of the 90’s dot-com bubble bust.

This week Jeremy and I went up to New York for a digital music conference, as well as meetings with accounts and the guys we work with at Warner, our parent company. I’ve been to New York before, but only once, and only for a brief period of time. I never really had the chance to experience the city before, but this week I did!

One of the things that stuck out to me about New York is that they have PERFECTED the art of not wasting space. They are space “efficientists”. Vacancy is a scare resource, and they use every square inch of it. Buildings are squeezed together impressively tight. If a road curves or angles, the building architecture curves and angles with it to make the most of all the real estate. Sidewalks are a good 15 inches narrower in New York than any other city to grant more internal square footage.

They say the only place to build is up, and New Yorkers do this well. Of course they have the skyscrapers, but anything and everything can be put on top of another building. Watertowers, and playgrounds, and basketball courts are launched upwards, and the buildings themselves are additions to the decades-old foundations, creating a continuous inseparable concrete / metal mass running the length Long Island.

There are 305 million people living in the United States. 150 million of those people live in New York City, and 100 million of them are cab drivers.

As we were heading out of town in our taxi we drove by a house in Queens that had a short little wrought iron fence outlining a tiny yard the size of a Fiat. In it were piled a trampoline, a bicycle, a push lawn-mower, a swing set, a toy tractor, and a jungle-gym.

There was a little seven year old boy playing in the backyard… actually he was just looking out the living room window smiling, imagining what it would be like if he had room to play in the backyard.

Sometimes there is an architectural oversight and a property owner is left with the smallest piece of vacant land after his building is erected. In this case the city immediately claims eminent domain, paves it, and lays down a set of solid yellow lines to convert it into a parking space.

Actually, this rarely happens as there are only 7 parking spaces in New York City. 2 are in lower Manhattan, 3 on the Upper West Side, 1 in Greenwich Village, and 1 is a park-and-ride up in the Bronx.

If by some act of the Almighty you are blessed with finding one of these spots, it will take an equally supernatural force to lift and place your car into a space the size of a twin-bed.

It’s impossible to park under your own power, though some have tried, resulting in over 700 million deserted cars strung up and down the streets of the city. Their owners just got up and walked away. The cost of the car was less than the cost of time spent trying to maneuver into a spot.

That’s actually how Hertz Car Rental got it’s start. A couple guys from Jersey moved in, threw up some big yellow signs on street corners and started renting out deserted cars to travelers for 70 bucks a pop.

And that’s why everyone started taking taxis in the first place… they couldn’t find a spot to park their rental, so they just gave up and hailed a ride into the city.

Assuming there’s an outside chance that one of my few diligent readers hasn’t heard yet, a couple weeks ago I resigned my position with EMI and accepted a new job with Word Entertainment as their Director of Digital Sales & Marketing.

This is a good thing! (People always ask me that… I tell them I switched jobs and they give me that, ‘oh, really?’ as though my dog died or something). So I have to sound excited when I say it, because I am excited!

Anyways, after nearly 5 years at EMI, switching companies is a big deal – it was an incredibly hard decision to make, and didn’t come easily. I have a ton of great friends at EMI, and not working with them everyday is going to be sad. EMI had become home, just like highschool had become home, and then college. Additionally, I really respect a lot of people at EMI – they have great and supportive leadership, and from the top down some brilliant minds that I have learned a lot from. But now it’s onto something new.

So, why did I leave? There are a few reasons…

• At Word I’ll be working for a record label instead of a distribution company. This means instead of working nearly 250 releases in a year, it will be more like 20 – if that. Ideally this means that I’ll have the opportunity to create a closer relationship with the artists I work with, and dig deeper into each release – spending the time on each one that they deserve.

• At Word I’ll be working with all digital download, streaming, and mobile accounts. Previously I had 95% of my focus on iTunes, which was necessary, primarily because of the amount of titles I had running through the system. Ideally now I’ll be able to dig a little deeper with each one – there’s some cool new accounts doing some great things, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to spend some time with them.

• Word has a different perspective on approaching digital music and internet marketing. Not to say that Word has the ‘right’ way, and EMI the ‘wrong’ – it’s just different and I need that fresh perspective. Like I said, I’ll be working within the label, and they’re putting a lot of focus on 360 degree artist deals, direct-to-consumer commerce, and fully integrated internet marketing teams. I’m looking forward to being part of a bigger team, and in a position to have more open discussion with radio, A&R, and so forth.

So that’s the brief run down. My last day with EMI was October 8th, and I don’t start with Word until November 3rd (which means I’ve been enjoying the most amazing fall break ever). This is my last week on my own, which I am doing my best to dedicate towards completely refreshing myself. I’ve been reading some good books, enjoying some good coffee, taking some nice trips, and trying to refrain from anything that reminds me too much of corporate gobbledigook.

So my friend Jessi asked me the other day if I could answer a few questions about the music biz and artist management to help her out with a college project she’s doing. There are certainly more qualified people out there to answer these questions, but I appreciate that she asked and so I’m happy to share my thoughts, not only with her, but you as well… enjoy:

Jessi: What is your background (education and experience)?
Me: I went to college at Belmont University and graduated with a double-major in Music Business and Business Management. I did two internships while in college. The first was with a small artist management company called CommonRock Entertainment who was, at the time, working with The Normals, Bleach, and Sanctus Real. The second internship was with the EMI Christian Music Group, working in their mainstream radio promotions department. And finally, once I graduated, I did one more internship with Creative Trust Entertainment – a larger scale management company who was, again at the time, working with Steven Curtis Chapman, Third Day, and Warren Barfield.

Jessie: How did you get your start in the Music Business?
Me: I moved to Nashville under the pretenses that I was a good musician and could write good songs. Neither were true. As such, I dropped the idea of spending a life recording and performing and instead took up an interest in the various business aspects of music. Artist management immediately appealed to me, and over time marketing, brand development, and web marketing became of interest as well. Ultimately my internships led to a job at EMI Christian Music Group, and I have been there since working in digital sales & marketing.

Jessi: Which artists have you worked with in the past and who do you work with now?
Me: Artist management has always been more of a passion for me than it has been a job, and as a result I have always been a part-time manager on the side in addition to my work with EMI. I have primarily worked with Beau Bristow (www.beaubristow.com), an independent Nashville based pop/rock artist, over the past four years.

Jessi: Describe a typical day’s activities
Me: The great and fascinating thing about working in the independent music scene is that every day is different, and it is this way because every day is a fight just to keep the artist moving forward. There are so many artists – both on major labels and independently – vying for the attention of an audience. The independent manager’s constant struggle is to help the artist connect with people continuously, on a limited budget, and help grow an audience base, whether this is through performances, online awareness, publicity, partnerships, or any other number of opportunities.

If the artist is currently recording, most activities focus on publicity, like overseeing the design of the artist’s website, creating press packages, and connecting with media outlets to prepare for the launch of the new record. If the artist is on tour, activities center around keeping the artist moving on the road – advancing shows, pitching to venues, drafting contracts. The independent artist generally does not have their own booking agent, so the manager usually fills this role, which includes a lot of email and phone correspondence, and attending conferences to connect with buyers and venue owners.

The manager is ultimately the whatever-needs-to-be-done guy – whether its as a travel agent, web manager, publicist, roadie, booking agent, graphic designer, producer, merch guy, and sometimes most importantly, counselor.

Jessi: How do you view the future (technology and business models) in this industry?
Me: Technology, for better or worse, is everything in the future of our industry, and unfortunately we’ve been ignoring that fact for far too long. There are a ton of people evangelizing about what the “new model” is going to be for the music industry, and frankly, I don’t believe there will be one “new model”.

We’re going to see a ton of different models emerge over the next several years, and a lot of it is going to be propelled by what is going on in the independent music scene, because these artists are in the best position to react to market changes and provide their customer with what is being demanded. We’re going to see a hybrid of customers – some will want their music immediately through a digital format, and others will want to hold that physical copy of the album in their hands. Labels will need to efficiently provide opportunities for both.

As time goes on there will be a lot of different experiments carried out – some will work, and some will fail miserably: There will be artists who offer their music for free, or at a price to be determined by the consumer. There will be artists who offer subscriptions to their content for a set annual fee, and over the course of a year the customer gets all sorts of things like new albums, artwork, and show tickets. Some artists will begin to offer their new music in a serial-type manner, releasing EPs every few months instead of a new album every couple years. Labels will experiment with so-called 360° deals where they will be the wholesale provider for not only albums, but books, T-shirts, posters, and other swag as well.

I think the bottom line is that the new model will be experimentation as labels and artists struggle to cope with a new consumer base that believes music should be ubiquitous and free. Some will embrace that mindset, and others will fight it… the most successful will likely land somewhere in the middle, and at the end of the day, I have always felt that the most critical component of selling music is that the artist must have a relationship with the consumer. Music at it’s core is an emotional experience, and when the quality is high enough and a bond exists between the artist and listener, people will pay for it.

I’m just going to tell you right now this will be a boring post. If you want to be really bored, keep on reading:

I go to San Francisco this week for a sales meeting with a fruit company. That should be interesting.

Gotta give props to Flash for the great recommendation on the band Stateless… really liking this self-titled album. It’s an interesting blend of Brit-rock, electronic trip-hop, and ambient soundscapes. There are elements of Radiohead, Massive Attack, and a hint of Sigur Ros throughout… all good influences.

While I’m talking about Flash, head on over to his blog to answer his question of the week about embryonic stem cell research. I don’t know what my answer is yet.

Twitter is interesting. I find this strange compulsion to broadcast my rageful inner thoughts on the thing, and somehow at the last second find the willpower to not press ‘send’.

I’ve heard of people having internet addictions. I wonder if I’m coming down with one.

Prison Break is over for this season. I really thought they were going to end it this time around, but looks like we will have another season. I like the show a lot, though the beginning of this their third season was a little far fetched. Oh well, just a TV show right?

Something walloped our house in the middle of the night two nights ago. Like really hard… I thought there would be a dent in the side of the house. There wasn’t.

George Bush Sr. “endorses John McCain” today. Goodie.

I agree with Tim that the Knight Rider movie Sunday night was an absolute travesty. I gotta admit that I was really looking forward to it, and also gotta admit that I couldn’t stand more than about 8 minutes of that horrendous show.

Tim also says piano playing is for stupid heads… yeah, I’m just gonna let that one sit.