Marketing OneOH!One: Break On Through To The Tangential Side
17/02/2012 § 4 Comments
When I interview interns for the Ted Kurland Associates program, which I oversee here at TKA, more than a few want to know if they are going to work directly with the agents, or with management, as if the marketing side of it were tangential to their education, not only as an intern at TKA, but as a whole to their career. Of course, working with the artists is more interesting than working with the pictures of the artists; getting into the thick of the business of music is really the key to their understanding of the booking process. I know that, which is why I try and give them face time with the agents.
Artists just starting out, you may have a real career where you can afford to shave off a nice percentage for a manager; a manager who understands all this tangential business kind of stuff and can honestly oversee a marketing crew who can use all the bleeding-edge tools-of-the-minute in order to shoot your career into the stratosphere, and, even more important, keep it there. Before you get there, here is one basic term you need to understand. It’s not too hard to get, though I am perplexed when starving artists don’t even have this tool tucked under their belts. Perhaps that’s why starving artists are starving?
The marketing term for today is AUDIENCE.
As in those people who want to hear your music. To get gigs, you must have a loyal fan base. Clubs want to fill their rooms with paying customers so those customers can buy drinks, eat food, pay for all the stuff that gets labeled as “overhead.” Don’t even expect to be considered by a promoter at a large club unless you have an audience that can minimally fill his room.
Jed & His Mighty Camaro & Other New Art Werks
30/08/2011 § 9 Comments
A while back, Jed Drake, an old friend of mine from New Canaan, where we grew up among the high and mighty denizens of corporate-land, asked me to scan in a picture from our Senior yearbook so he could, I’m projecting here, luxuriate in the wayward youth of his high school years. New Canaan, for all of you not really interested in such things to know these facts already, was the home of Watson and Watson Jr, both of IBM fame, Noyes, who gave IBM, Mobil Oil and Westinghouse their look and feel, Johnson, he of the Glass House which is also in town, and Symington, Senator Symington to you, bub. Letterman lived there for a bit, Jack Paar too. Harry Connick Jr is a resident, as is Brian Williams, Glenn Beck, Paul Simon and Anne Coulter. Now there’s a group I’d like to see pull up to MacKenzies for the Sunday paper at the same time and bash it out with their views on the weeks events. Hey, I saw Letterman pull up there one Sunday, so it could happen.
Jed, back then, never did luxuriate in anything; he was passing through too fast to do any such thing, unless he had too many beers. Which was few and far between, as Jed never met a six-pack he couldn’t handle. But now, as a high-powered exec with many minions to handle and keep in line, including kids, I’m guessing he wanted to have that picture around to remind him of those 1970s. I got around to the scan too late — already on vacation, good scanner still in the office, time was not on my side, etc. — and so Jed got his wife to do it, which I didn’t know when I did finally scan it in at high-resolution and took the time to tweak the image a bit so it would look all dandy in his nice corner office.
That’s Jed there in the shadow of the window, huge freaking smile. Who wouldn’t what with that car, those cheerleaders, in that town? Yeah, yeah, it’s a Chevelle SS 396 w/ Cowl Induction, as Stu Young commented below, not a Camaro, as a handful of guys have since corrected me, not a Camaro. Like I knew cars back then? Or now? I could tell you who was in The Mothers Of Invention, that Max Ernst called his painting style, frottage–sexual innuendo embedded to disrupt the art establishment–and knew the words to Yes’ “Roundabout”, but don’t ask me what they mean. (While I could now ask Mr Anderson, as we rep him at Ted Kurland Associates, some youthful enthusiasms that I thought profound then should best be left unquestioned.) I could also tell you that since this was a bright sunny day, the shutter speed for this picture, if it was shot on Plus-X, was probably 200, with an f-stop of f16 or smaller. But cars, as you see, I knew a little more than squat. Which is one reason I’m taking the picture and Jed is in the picture. With the girls. Cowl induction? Sorry, but not in this kid’s lexicon.
tapedave 