When Should A Band Get A Manager With Manager Jim Guerinot

Finding a manager for your band is a step that you'll need to take but how do you know when your band ready? In this video, big time manager Jim Guerinot of Rebel Waltz management tells us that you're ready for management when the business side is taking you away from making your art and music. For all of our Jim Guerinot videos and the full interview, click this link: http://bit.ly/1is0YhJ

New Music Seminar 2013: Michael "Blue" Williams - How to get a Manager!

At the New Music Seminar 2013, President of Family Tree Entertainment Blue Williams told artists how they can get a Manager. 

Tips to Succeed as a Manager with Troy Carter

Troy Carter has quickly become one of the hottest and biggest managers in the Music Business. He has always had an eye for success and he's done that by constantly keeping up to date with all the trends and having the foresight to break new ones. He's an innovator and he does it by going out there and DOING it. One of our members, Ryan Hagen, called in to ask his advice for what a Manager can do to succeed in this business. Troy offers his insight and talks how his success has largely stemmed from keeping the right relationships and knowing how to keep yourself on other people's radar. Listen to Troy's thoughts here!

Getting Started in the Music Business with Drew Simmons

We always talk about whether to go to college or to just plunge yourself into the Music Industry head on. Which is the better path? There doesn't seem to be proof in the pudding that one bests the other, but really it comes down to whether you feel that path will work for you. That means putting in the work so the path can lead you somewhere! Drew Simmons walked down the path that leads to college. He began with an internship for Ani DiFranco and then pursued Music Business at Northeastern University. Drew talks about their co-op program at Northeastern and how this lead to plenty of opportunities for him to get his hands dirty in the ways of the Music Business. Drew is now managing a pretty successful band in Young the Giant, so he's been doing all the right things. Listen to what Drew has to say about his start in the business before he met Young the Giant!

Blake Budney Of Milestone Music Management On Artist Manager

In this clip from www.artistshousemusic.org - Blake Budney, an artist manager, talks about his background in the music industry and about the different responsibilities of an artist manager.
Blake Budney is an artist manager for Milestone Music Management. Budney manages the Derek Trucks Band.

This Week in Music #33 - John Grady, Crush Management Nashville

In the 33rd episode of Pensado's Place, Ian Rogers, CEO of Topspin Media, interviews John Grady of Crush Management, Nashville. The two talk about John's background in the music industry different managing styles, and the importance of artist development.

Terry McBride On Starting Your Career in Artist Management

Terry McBride, founder and President of Canada's Nettwerk Music Group, offers hints on how to get started in a career in artist management, including several jobs you can do to prepare yourself for working in that field.

An Overview of Music Business Management

by David Rose

I’m a firm believer that the longer an artist can manage themselves the better off they will be in the long run. I wrote a blog post last year titled “Build It and The Music Biz Will Come ” I encourage artists to read before rushing out to find a music management “team” early in their career. Once an artist has done all the hard work required to build a dedicated fan base they may want to consider hiring management to help grow and manage their business. Below is an overview of some of the traditional management roles in the music business.

Manager

Traditionally, managers have spent much of their time getting their clients signed to a record label deal then working with their client’s record labels to coordinate publicity, radio promotions and retail marketing budgets and programs. Today, the desirable skills for a manager in the music industry have changed fairly significantly. Managers need to be specialist in direct to fan relationships, social media, online marketing, licensing and sponsorships. They should be generally knowledgeable in ways artists can be successful with and without a record label.

Managers should handle all the artist’s personnel issues with the band and crew members and work with the rest of their management team including the attorney, booking agent, business manager and tour manager as needed.

Managers are typically paid 15% to 20% of the artist’s gross earnings. That means they get paid their percentage on all the artist’s earnings including, royalties, publishing, touring, merchandise, or sponsorships before the artist gets paid. Some managers have multi-year contracts (that can be quite complicated) with the artists they represent and some just work on a handshake.

Attorney

Given the uniqueness and complexities of recording contracts, management agreements, publishing deals, sponsorship or licensing agreements and the various other music business related agreements attorneys can play a critical role in protecting the interests of the artists they represent. The most important thing to look for in an attorney is experience in the music business. Just because someone has a law degree (even from a top school) does not qualify them to adequately represent artists in the music business.

A good attorney with experience in the music business can keep you from making contractual mistakes they have seen that have happen to other artists. Attorneys usually charge by the hour or by retainer (a set monthly fee) and in the music business it’s fairly common for them to charge well established artists a percentage of gross earnings, 5% is typical.

Business Manager

A business manager is the person or firm that collects monies owned to the artist from royalties, publishing, touring and merchandise sales, pays the bills, band and crew, invests the profits and files the tax returns. They handle the artist’s general accounting related needs, royalty collection & auditing and tour budgeting & reporting. Many good business managers are either CPA’s or employ CPA’s on their staff due to the complexities of the music business accounting and the challenges of dealing with multiple state and international tax jurisdictions that come into play when an artist is on tour. They also handle all financial aspects of the artist’s personal life including insurance, loans, mortgages, investments and estate planning.

Business managers typically charge 5% of the artists gross earnings in the music business but some an hourly rate or flat monthly fee.

Booking Agent

Booking Agents play an important role in the success of the artists they represent by planning and booking their tours with promoters and venues. They will make sure you are playing in venues that are known for your genre of music or booked as an opening act for bigger band. Booking agents negotiate the fee structure (guarantee, % of the door, meals, etc.), determine ticket prices and ticket availability in the market. Thoughtful route planning is critical to the financial success of a tour and a good booking agent should make sure you are not playing in Atlanta one night, Chicago the following night and Jacksonville the next. Route planning can be a challenge for even a seasoned booking agent due to the large number of competing tours and the limited availability of quality venues in highly desirable markets.

Booking agents typically collect a 50% deposit on the show guarantee from the promoter once the show is booked. They usually charge 10% of the money the band gets paid for the show for their services. For example if the booking agent negotiates a $2000 guarantee for a show, they would collect a $1000 deposit, keep $200 (10% of $2000) then send the band $800. The band or their manager / road manager would collect the balance ($1000 in this example) from the promoter or venue after the show.

Tour Manager

The Tour Manager handles all the details of life on the road for the artist during a tour. They will arrange transportation, hotels and meals for each stop, make sure the equipment is accounted for and maintained plus manage the crew. The tour manager makes sure the venue has the stage, sound and lighting set up as requested and that the band is paid per the terms arranged with the booking agent. They manage and safeguard the cash collected while on the road. The Tour Manager will work with the tour publicist to make sure the artist shows up on time for scheduled interviews, appearances and promotions in each market. It’s the tour manager who puts out all the inevitable fires that come up at each stop during the tour.

The tour manager is also responsible for maintaining the tour plan and budget set up by the manager, business manager and booking agent. They are typically paid a salary, per diem or a set amount per tour.

via knowthemusicbiz.com

Axl Rose slams Irving Azoff in $5 million countersuit

By Eriq Gardner
Axl-rose EXCLUSIVE: Axl Rose says his former manager tried to implement a scheme to force him to reunite with the original Guns N' Roses band members and, as part of the plot, failed to properly promote the "Chinese Democracy" album, lied about a prospective Van Halen super tour and mishandled the band's tour dates.

The claims are part of a bombshell countersuit filed yesterday against Irving Azoff's Front Line Management. In March, Azoff sued Rose, claiming the rocker violated an oral agreement to pay 15% of earnings, or nearly $2 million, from a lucrative concert tour.

Not since the G'N'R song "Get in the Ring" has Rose struck back at a foe so forcefully, alleging antitrust concerns about Front Line's parent company, Ticketmaster, to drive home a major claim that his former manager is up to no good in the music business.

Azoff,irving Azoff is CEO, director and majority shareholder of Front Line, whose roster of artists include the Eagles, Neil Diamond, Jimmy Buffett, Christina Aguilera and John Mayer. In 2008, Front Line was acquired by Ticketmaster.
Rose claims that through Azoff's control of the "trifecta" of artist management, concert and touring promotion, and ticket sales, Azoff has been able to gain wide influence and power in the music industry. Azoff allegedly decides what artists he wants to promote through favorable touring deals and uses his power to punish artists and harm their careers if they don't follow his orders.

When informed of the myriad allegations in the countersuit, Azoff's lawyer Howard King quipped to us: "He didn't accuse Irving of being on the grassy knoll in Dallas on November 22, 1963?"

The countersuit invokes the U.S. Justice Department's recent antitrust lawsuit that sought to stop a proposed merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation over concerns about the new entity having too much control over artists and venues. Afterwards, Ticketmaster entered into a consent decree with government regulators to allow the merger to continue under certain operating provisions.

Axl's counter-complaint says that Azoff is violating the consent decree by coercing and bullying artists to do what he wants.

What Azoff wanted, the rocker says, was the reunion of Guns N' Roses. To execute this, he would sabotage Rose and his new band so that Rose would have no option but to reunite.

According to the filing, "Upon realizing that he couldn't bully Rose and accomplish his scheme, Azoff resigned and abandoned Guns N' Roses on the eve of a major tour, filing suit for commissions he didn't earn and had no right to receive."

Further, Axl says the botched tour cost him money in production startup and rehearsal expenses. Claiming breach of fiduciary duty, constructive fraud and breach of contract, the singer wants at least $5 million in damages.

The cross-complaint was filed by Skip Miller and Sasha Frid at L.A.'s Miller Barondess.

Source:

http://thresq.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/05/guns-n-roses-reunion-.html

Nick Light On The Responsibilities of a Tour Manager and Advice

Nick Light is SVP of artists development with Sony Music and former VP of Artist Development and Touring at Warner Brothers Records. He talks about what it takes to be a good tour manager. Nick states that the main objective of a tour manager is to be organized and keep the band on track by completing everything on time. He also goes over different styles of being a tour manager and makes the point that a tour manager doesn't necessarily have to have a musical background.

Creating your "TEAM"

Great, right?

Absolutely. What it does mean is that it has created a generation of musos who are doing everything for themselves and are more skilled, knowledgable and educated on how to self-manage, distribute, book and hold the power and rights for their band, where traditionally a label and management have done everything for the band and kept them at arm’s length of the business side of the industry. There’s a good and bad point to the old arrangement. Good that the artists get time to be artists (i.e.creative) and bad, that they don’t see what’s going on and very quickly lose control and knowledge about what is going on in their own band (and often money that is rightfully theirs.) Remembering that knowledge is power, that’s a bad position for bands to be in.

Somewhere along the way, an imbalance happened and musicians became expected to do and know it all themselves ALL the time. It seems to me that there is a middle “working class” of bands, who lose out both ways. They are expected to create amazing music as well as do all of the management tasks, book the band’s tours, manage all the promotion and publicity, be the graphic designer, get the album/EP distributed, document all sales, co-ordinate studio time and much more.

Solution? Well, that’s where the music industry shift has been great too. As it turns out, the shift in power in the music industry has given rise to an entrepreneurial spirit and industry workers are now drilling down on specific elements in the music industry and working as consultants or contractors to combat the loss in numbers of 9-5 jobs in the music industry. This means that there are a lot of opportunities for bands to work on a non-exclusive, one-off/periodical basis with industry workers, with possibilities for creating long-lasting relationships.

It seems to me that the best way for an artist to multi-task, once they hit a certain level (most likely when the band has too much on their plate business-wise and hopefully enough money to pay) is to start building a team around them who can be delegated tasks. A trusted group of skilled individuals/businesses who can be called upon and hopefully paid when tasks need to be achieved. It’s exactly why non-exclusive, fee-for-service, no lock-in contract, artists/labels hold all the rights, it’s self-directed and you can claim all your payments all the time.

The band or the manager can now be the label, negotiating distribution deals, while hiring publicists and a plugger for radio, as well as working in conjunction with someone to gain sync opportunities.

The biggest question to ask is: What does the band need to do themselves and what can be delegated and paid for?

Who do you want on your team?

Source:

http://blog.musicadium.com/marketing-promotions/building-your-team/2549/

Artists House Music Interview with Michael "Blue" Williams

Michael “Blue” Williams is an artist manager and President of Family Tree Entertainment, which oversees the careers of hip-hop artists such as Outkast, Scarface and Killer Mike, among others. Williams is also a veteran of Queen Latifah’s Flavor Unit, and has worked as a consultant for Def Jam and La Face Records.