Finding a job in the music industry is...

Difficult!

Looking through vast postings on craigslist.com or any music career site you will sift through scams, underpaid jobs, and jobs that are only listed for legal reasons when they’re not even hiring! You consider entrepreneurship, but at what cost? You can go to Minnesota’s Secretary of State to submit your forms and all together with trademarks, your DBA forms (which include a fee to put your business in newspapers), copyrights, websites and more this could cost well over a couple hundred dollars before the investments into the actual business itself.

Either passage you take, this music industry is not a cake walk. You can not sit in your moms basement, record on pro tools, and just let your music sit in space. So you love graphic design or video? There are many postings for freelance work with restaurants and other places of business. Its just a matter of taking action. Even the most proactive people find looking for jobs difficult, but when something opens up they are the first to get it.

So in terms of waiting or entrepreneurship, my message to everybody is just don’t ever give up. Live your dream and if you can’t do it alone… find people close to help you out. Form a family in the music world like The Roots (I’ve never really seen them apart) or any group in these present economic times. DIY means "Do It Yourself" and it does not have to mean "Do It by Yourself".

When doors open, opportunities arise. Its just a matter of taking that step through the door to capture what should be yours.

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts
Career Services Coordinator
The Institute of Production and Recording

Finding a job in the music industry is...

If You're Looking for a Magic Key you can Stop the Search

The music industry isn't some magical place where you're either in or you're not. Over the past few months, I've finally gotten my first real taste of the industry I've dreamt of belonging to my entire life, and as exciting and educational as it's been, it didn't give me the magical key to the over-sized gates I always kind of imagined existed. Like Heaven, only for the living. Nope, sorry to burst your bubble. It's not there. Anywhere.

This industry, I've found, is just like anything else in life. It's exactly what you make of it. Opportunities don't fall at your feet. You can't sit in your room writing songs and storing them on cassette tapes, expecting your big break to come. You've got to go out and live it like you go out and live life. It's there.


I'm currently preparing for the biggest move of my life-- I'm going to Tennessee. I've got it better than a lot of other people who make this move do, because I've already got friends down there. I already "know someone who knows someone..." and that list of connections connects me to some pretty amazing people. I could probably get to Kevin Bacon in three people. Forget six. Six is for normal people. For the un-privelaged, you know. No, I'm special, because I'm connected.

But so are a lot of other people. There's no magic key. There's just trial and error. There's the realization that the magical place doesn't exist-- but maybe you can create a place just like it for yourself. A place that belongs to you, and only you. Build relationships, take every opportunity you can get, and do your very best work, all the time, no matter what. And that's what I'm planning on doing.

The fact is, I've already got so many ideas, so many leads, so many different paths I could take. This move has been 22 years in the making. It's my time. In this crumbling economy we're facing, people think I'm crazy for choosing this particular moment in my life to move out of my parents' home to take myself all the way across the country. Maybe I am. But I'd be lying if I said I hoped for things to work out. I don't have to hope. I know they will.

The music industry is suffering, just like the rest of American industry as a whole. But the ones who survive are the ones who are so excited to be a part of it, they can hardly contain themselves. They're the ones who have passion, drive, dreams that must be lived out.

I'm not saying it will be easy. I know it won't. It's not like I have a magic key to the gates of Music Heaven. No, I just know that there's me-shaped hole in the wall somewhere, and I'll find it, no matter how long it takes.

-Courtney

Can Courtney make it? Judge for yourself.

If You're Looking for a Magic Key you can Stop the Search

The Record Industry is like a Bad Relationship

I keep seeing several different ways this industry is trying to push their agenda of a song itself as a main selling point. Like most of my old relationships (not the current one), I'ma keep it short…

I believe the industry is stuck on trying to bring back that love (money in reality) people once gave to it. It is sort of turning bad with spamming (myspace bulletins), reverse stalking (allowing people waaay too much info about some artists), name calling (many music blogs), crying (see some of the top company presidents), cheating (BitTorrent and sites like it), and even some hope being suddenly crushed (record yearly sales compared to some weekly sales). This industry is pushing itself way too hard on the people and in response people react unfavorably. I wonder if there ever will be an official breakup of music/money and its ex, the people, or will the people forget this outburst of emotions and take the industry back as its love?

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

PS- the record industry is the money part.. the music industry is where people cheat on the record industry.

The Record Industry is like a Bad Relationship

The Social Music Evolution continued...

Check out Part 2 (as featured on Hypebot.com) of Kyle's analysis of the changes that have and will continue to transpire within the music industry.

The Social Music Evolution continued...

Patrick Hanlon On Primal Branding, Beliefs & Bands

*Part 1 0f a 3 part interview as featured on Hypbebot

Patrick Hanlon is the founder and CEO of Thinktopia and author of Primal Branding: Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future which was recently featured as as one of the ten books to read for a "crash course" in marketing/branding in Britain's Drum magazine. He is an idea engineer who's company is dedicated to building communities around brands. In his book he talks about how the brands we care about have belief systems and that it is when you have a well-structured belief system and a leader that you have created a tribe.

Primal Branding asserts that brands that we care about are belief systems, embedded with seven pieces of primal code (the creation story; the creed; the icons; the rituals; the pagans, or nonbelievers; the sacred words; and the leader) that work together to make them believable. This attracts people who share your beliefs, which becomes community. Those communities can surround product, services, personalities, movement, even cities and towns.

Q: What other pieces were under consideration at the time? Have other pieces branched off or been added since then?

Hanlon: I was working in my garden in Connecticut, imagining that great brands like Nike, Lego, Apple, and others all had something else going for them other than advertising. As a matter of fact, brands like Google and Starbucks didn’t even advertise (at that time). Yet it was obvious that everyone felt something very visceral about those brands. Just as they do about the Grateful Dead, R.E.M., U2, Phish, John Mayer, and even lesser-known artists like The Bird And The Bee, Hound Dog Taylor, Iron & Wine, The Bad Plus, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, and more. They’re fanatics. Fans.

At the time, I didn’t know how to put all of that together, except that if you believe in something, it probably has some sort of statement about what it is: a creed. There’s also probably a story about how it came to be. There are icons that reveal who or what they are. And rituals that dictate how believers come together, or how you use a product. There are words that believers use to identify themselves (ignorance of those words also identifies those who do not believe). There are also nonbelievers: people who prefer the Beatles to the Stones, prefer Tony Bennett to hip hop, etc. And often there is an acknowledged leader. That makes seven. I didn’t set out to come up with seven, but things usually seem to come in threes, fives, sevens, nines, twelves, 21, fifty and 100. It’s like divine proportion or something.

Q: In your work as CEO of Thinktopia, what music industry examples are you often brought back to in order to explain the current environment of the business world?

Hanlon: That is not an easy question, because most people in business look at the entertainment industry - even with all its billions - as sort of an anomaly. It looks like so much fun, it can’t be real business. And of course just the opposite is true. The music and film industries are brutal. I often.....

hold up Madonna as an example because, love her or hate her, she has reinvented her brand every 18 to 32 months since Material Girl. In real world terms, this would be like coming up with the Mini Cooper, then creating the iPod, then Starbucks, then Halo, then the Google phone. Then then then. She’s an amazing marketer. Puff Daddy and Prince tried to do the same, with less success.

Q: In workshops called Primal Digs, you work together with companies to help them engineer and reverse engineer their brands and company culture. If you were brought into any of The Big Four major labels, where would you begin with your shovel?

Hanlon: The prequel to all of our work inside companies is that we immerse ourselves in their business. We gather up all the reports and factoids and landscape and meld that with macro and micro trends and then we mush it all together. That is where we begin, which partially answers your question. During the Primal Dig we deconstruct the brand during the first day, then reconstruct it the second day and all the days that follow.

What we would suggest is that the Big 4 better understand the intangibles that drive brands. That way, they might be better able to knowingly help drive successes rather than imitating what others do. The other thing is understanding what drives internal cultures: this helps define success at many companies. People work all night and weekends trying to come up with the next next thing, whether it’s a computer game, great design, or hit song, because they are driven by a higher ideal. They want to be great. That is an infusion that can be designed into a management company. It can be managed.

-Kyle Bylin

Patrick Hanlon On Primal Branding, Beliefs & Bands

The Story of Limbo after Graduation (part 2)

Continued...
But no worries. This industry is in a flux and if one takes it too seriously they have serious issues. Music is suppose to be fun and it will be fun again. Bring it back to the days of Mo Town and The Hit factory where it wasn’t just a science, it was artists showcasing true talents. I want to bring that back, but true artists are some of the most difficult people to work with. Even Joey had a problem keeping his artists on check with groups breaking up, great talent singers never calling back, and when he got hard on them they just didn’t have the passion themselves. How can a person working on the business side have passion in a artist that does not have the passion themselves? Inspiration is needed in music, for if you lose that, than what's the point of doing it?

Joey on the side of working with the internship and job, is putting what he does best on a list to try and figure what he can truly offer these artist other than connections and a dream. He is good at speaking individually to an artist, but lacks the ability to put the ax down when its needed. Planning has always been a plus because of how he was raised, but finishing up and making sure others follow is another thing. Joey is now looking for motivated artists outside of genre’s he has grown comfortable with to grow comfortable with them. Joey knows not to quit and that being in limbo is never a reason to quit your passion. Its a matter of setting new priorities and not sticking with plans that will not work anymore, sometimes it’s also getting your head "out yo azz" and going beyond any comfort zone you have set yourself.

This limbo is a bubble that will either burst or float depending on the winds surrounding it. Joey will either crash under pressure or continue strong. In Tupac's A Rose that Grew from Concrete he states, “you not gon’ say, 'Damn, look at all the scratches and marks on the rose that grew from concrete', You gon’ be like, 'Damn! A rose grew from the concrete?!'" Another quote, “it is not the destination but the journey” is one more that pertains to limbo. No matter how you put it, life is not easy for anybody. The rich have mental issues, the middle class have a little bit of every issue, and the poor have to overcome so many obstacles that it’s amazing what people can achieve. Some people have limbo for life, so overcoming this bubble of a limbo shouldn’t be so difficult, but it takes the best out of people. Just never give up on your passions, because even if you do… your heart never will.

From the mind of

Keveeno

If you read this and you have a similar story, make sure to put it in the comment section.

Limbo affects 76% of the population, and if you have a limbo lasting longer than 4 years please see a doctor for it may cause a unsafe drop of well being over the years.

The Story of Limbo after Graduation (part 2)

The Story of Limbo after Graduation (part 1)

*This story may or may not relate to me or anybody else, but it will relate to the growing trend of fatigue from recent graduates working their way into the music industry.

Joey graduated from a school specializing in music and production. He got a full entertainment business degree from the school, and came out with aspirations of running his own business and making a lot of money while helping artists get what they need. He waited a month after graduation and got a great internship from an indie label, but it was non-paid. Joey loved the job but he needed to pay rent. He believes that to become rich you have to have that mindset that you will get it eventually, so Joey is a few thousand in debt, not counting the loans piling up and rent that is being paid right before late fee’s apply. He refuses to go back home on the far west coast, because of the fact that he knows if he does, than his music dreams will die and he will go back to the same things he did before he moved to the place he is at now.

The school he went to lead him on with big dreams of making it with a few teachers showing that it is not that easy. Now Joey also has a non music job with the music internship and that job is fatiguing him worse to the point where paying the rent and bills is all that matters. Music is slipping from Joey’s mindset when that was all that was on his mind. Its the limbo of a graduate, and what to do now? The internship is great, but the job pays the bills. If he doesn’t pay the bills, and he moves back home, then music and jobs will not be the only thing he has to worry about.

So I do not know if this story relates to most graduates, or if it relates to anybody. Limbo happens to most after graduation, but its about the motivation and passion of the person to keep going or fall. Some fall worse than others, and some have backup plans. Joey’s one passion is music, but with bills to pay Joey is becoming passionless. Priorities are becoming less and less a priority in the fact the priority list is now skewed. Has the music industry become so fucked right now that with so many opportunities there is almost none that are open? What will Joey do when the day job takes over his passion as it does to so many?

To be continued...

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

The Story of Limbo after Graduation (part 1)