Do I need a manager

Artist management, it’s a question to need to ask yourself at the very start of your career. The thought of having a manager can be exciting because you feel that you’re moving in the right direction, finally someone working alongside you to get things done. You might be right but you might be horribly wrong. The days are gone of the drummer’s brother managing a band, the nice guy who didn’t play anything but had always longed  ‘to be in the music business.’ Before you appoint a manager ask yourself the question, ‘Do I really need a manager?’ What you may find is that while you’d like a manager you don’t actually NEED one.

Ask yourself, ‘What do I want to achieve from this?’ Are you after a deal or do you need someone to do all the things that you don’t want to do? The manager has their job but you still have yours. You are your own artist development manager within your own infrastructure. It’s your job to define what role you want the manager to play alongside what it is you do for yourself.

If you’re at the stage where you can do it all then leave well alone, you don’t need a manager. If however, you’re generating a buzz and at the stage where there could be interest from the record industry then maybe you do need a manager. If you don’t have one you’ll at least need a lawyer. Record companies need someone to deal with and it’s unlikely to be you. It can be some of the best money you’ll ever spend. Protect yourself from the horror of having your career taken away from you before you’ve begun. If you have and they see you’re vulnerable, you’ll get eaten alive.

Then comes the finding of the manager. Good managers are like a jewel in the crown. You’ll rarely find a great artist without a great manager. It can be the basis for where all future relationships are born, the ultimate collaboration. We’ll look at the role of the manager later but for now you have to make the same decision as you hope you’d hope you make with your life partner. Is this the one? The chances are you might get divorced from manager and you’ll be left holding the baby, your band. Do everything in your power to make the right choice. While you’ll be driven by instinct and intuition strive for more. Do some research and convince yourself they are the right person for the job. You’ll need to get on with them because you’ll rarely be apart from them, take time to get to know them. You will need to identify they have those basic human ingredients such as honesty and trust. Being a nice guy is never enough. Ask yourself, ‘Can they do the job?’

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t a good manager, there were the things that I did brilliantly but I didn’t enjoy the taking care of business. And today there’s much more of that you need to do. I wanted to be creative but the business stuff got in the way. Organizational skills are of the essence and being business savvy so that even if you don’t handle that side of things you make the right decisions when it comes to accountants and lawyers. The power to delegate is what makes the difference, knowing if something can be done better and quicker by someone else. So many of the people around you might be looking for personal gain, what’s in it for them? It’ll destroy you, chose your manager wisely.

Filed under: Business Lessons, management, Managing Creativity, artist development, artist management, good management

Being a fan

Back in the day we connected with our favourite artists by buying all their records and going to see their concerts. In doing that we felt a close affinity with our heroes, it was like we had a part of them. Some of us, myself included wanted even more so we’d buy their bootlegs. I have inferior quality recordings by Neil Young , Dylan, Tom Petty etc that I paid almost double the price of an album for just because I wanted more of them. The point being it didn’t matter what it cost it was needing to have as much as you could of them and about being a fan. As a 15 year old I went backstage to meet Led Zeppelin and I felt I had it all.  I won’t recount the story here in case I already have but I might come back and devout an entire blog to it, maybe several. Let me tell you it was worth it, a defining moment for any teenager and an ultra defining moment for me.  As a fan it’s something you don’t ever forget and especially as the years go by you start to understand what those moments mean to you and how much music mattered.

In those days you paid for everything, you didn’t tape your friends records or if you did it was because you were going on some dumb camping holiday where you had nothing to plug your turntable in to so you needed everything to be battery operated. But above all else we cared about our artists and we wanted to be a part of that success, we wanted to help. We wanted heroes, the bands were our heroes and whatever part of them we could have we did. The pleasure they gave us we wanted to pass on to out friends, we wanted to share what we had discovered. It was important to stake your claim, to let people know you were first but after that then whoever you could play those records to you were round like a shot. Endless evenings spent huddled round the turntable watching it go round as though your life depended on it, waiting for that next track. ‘No stop, listen to this one first’ as you carefully picked up the needle and placed it on another track too impatient for it to take it’s natural course. Simple pleasures but totally fulfilling ones. Music was your life.

Fans can get to their artists now with social networking and that can only be a good thing. You can talk to more artists than ever and the ones who reciprocate are the ones most likely too. No artist today is too big to talk to their fans. Even good old Bono said, ‘without our fans we have no job.’  Before it was backstage or catch the band leaving the venue , a quick autograph and that was about it. Some had fan clubs but it was usually just a general letter to all the fans. How cool now that someone could write to you. But remember if they do to be courteous, don’t think they’re there to instant message you for the next 5 hours. You could turn in to an obsession and make them pull away. They have lives even if you don’t!

Plenty more to say on this subject but we’ll save it for another day. Be gone, I have things to do.

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, social networking, fan clubs, led zeppelin, social networking

It’s only a game

Patriotism, what is it that drew me to a television set yesterday? I honestly got what I expected and then thought, why did I make the effort, no one else did? The display of the English soccer time was abysmal, my comments echo the thoughts of  a nation, a nation that will be obsessed with talking about it in every pub and on every street corner. A nation stooped in shame yet helpless to do anything about it. My homeland, I genuinely feel sorry for you.

This was our opportunity to showcase the wonderful game of soccer, on a global platform ( we say soccer because football here in the US is a different sport) Or has it ceased to be the wonderful game altogether ? So much expectancy and being English I know what it means to the nation, their lives depend on it. There will be those that spend their last penny on a trip to South Africa and their overdraft on war paint for their faces before spending money on food. The beautiful game has sunk into the abyss, a bunch of ungrateful, ego driven, soulless individuals who lack pride, determination and any appreciation for their work.

We’re back to that age old word, passion. And never has a truer word been spoken in jest. These guys are that, a bunch of courtroom jesters. Unfortunately they’re acting it out on a world stage and the sad thing they seem oblivious to the tirade of criticism coming their way. Will it change for the Slovenia game , I doubt it. More likely they’ll go down 1-0 and then wait to see the welcome they’ll get back home when they step off a plane. I doubt we’ll see anything quite like it but the sad thing is they will go back to their very unreal lives. Nothing changes, it’s business as usual. They’ll be banking their huge wage packet, need to prove nothing and won’t feel any remorse. They just don’t care, they don’t care enough or have enough pride to wear the shirt. If the USA versus England had been performance based  and any other job you’d have got a written warning and after Algeria you’d have lost your job. You’d be sacked because you’d been warned, or it is two warnings? Who cares they could get a dozen warnings and nothing would change.

Shame on you , just wondering if any of you feel like you let your country down? Enjoy the vintage champagne that someone will have ready in your VIP area next time you’re out. And don’t forget the women still love you and here’s a toast to the ones who’ll use you as a meal ticket. Now you know the feeling.

Filed under: Soccer, England soccer team, World cup