Be Careful What You Ask For

The one thing I've realized about the music industry is that it is largely a dream driven industry. People have dreams, goals or visions of success that are sometimes manifested just the way the saw them but most people dream not really expecting their dreams to come true. When planning your career you should be very cautious and be careful what you ask for because you just might get it and if you are not prepared to deal with it you will be the worse for it. Most people TALK a good game about what they want but if someone dropped out of the sky and gave them everything they wanted they would be to afraid to take it. Let's face it, most artists have dreams that they never really believe will happen so they fall in love with dreaming and not manifesting or realizing. I read a book called The Alchemist and in the book the author referred to your dreams, passions or goals as your personal legend. Now we all have a personal legend but less than half of us ever really pursue our passion to the end. He gave a lot of reasons but the one that stuck with me was the fact that some of us just don't really live our life planning to achieve our goals. A dream, goal, passion or personal legend is a living breathing thing that we have to nurture daily. What we have to do is the moment you know what your dreams are, start planning at that very moment. You should make your daily decisions based on how they contribute to you achieving your goals. This is why most people get caught by surprise when success drops in their lap because they know that they were not really expecting it. You have to practice achieving and being successful at even the smallest things so that your dreams become tangible and attainable. Like the Nike slogan "Just Do It" The moment you think it, do it. Don't question it just move. I have only worked one "REAL JOB" in my life. I worked for six months at a record shop all the while saying I wanted to do music full time. I met a gentlemen that is still one of my mentors today and he told me to just do it so I did. Now it is a lot of work but that was me pursing my personal legend and making my dream a living thing. After I jumped in with both feet, my dreams got bigger and more doors were opened to me because I was living my personal legend. I am still doing so and enjoying every moment because the sky is not the limit. There is no limit. So start TODAY making your dreams breathe and come to life because what ever you want can and WILL happen just expect it too. Work today as if you already know what is coming so that you won't be surprised. Don't ever give up pursuit of your personal legend.

The Truth

All Rights Reserved by Airtight Productions 2010

Understanding The Landscape

One of the keys to success in this business and any business is being able to understand the changes in the market. It is as simple as Economics 101... supply and demand. Most of us understand this concept but only on the surface. In the music business we have to look beneath the surface to see that success is about understanding the landscape. We all want to make Cd's to get airplay, make videos and sell millions of copies but we are not seeing the entire landscape of opportunity. Selling music via a packaged CD is only one small piece of this landscape. There are so many ways to make money with your music and they all revolve around PUBLISHING. I mean look at T.V. commercials, movies, sitcoms, infomercials and reality shows. THEY ALL NEED MUSIC and getting a song placed in any of these areas will often times bring you more money over a longer period of time. And if you are able to place a song on a show that goes into syndication, that's a check for life. We just have to learn to see the opportunity around us everyday. I'm sure you listen to the radio and notice all the advertising that you hear and every ad has a musical jingle to help sell it. So as business men/women in this industry we have to learn to see the entire landscape beyond FAME. I mean you can be very wealthy as a movie composer or writing music for T.V. shows and no one will really know who you are but your music will be making you a lot of money and a great living. I challenge you to look around and see what other things are available to you and pursue them. The industry is literally changing daily and we are the people that are in the best position to help define where it all goes from here.

The Truth

All Rights Reserved by Airtight Productions 2010

Taking Ownership

It's always interesting to me how many artists and musicians complain about being ripped off, exploited or mistreated but won't do anything to be proactive about changing their perceived situation. I submit to you today that the way to change this situation is by taking ownership of your career. Years ago I heard a quote from Dave Clark who is known as the father of modern record/street promotion and he said "If you don't have a record then you are not in the record business." Now as simple as this may sound many of us still don't get it. Most of us want something for nothing. We want to record Cd's but we don't want to pay for the studio, graphics, photos or packaging and we are content to try and take advantage of someone else to get these things paid for. I know you've heard stories about how record companies for years have stolen royalties from artists and how the company got rich while the artist became broke. A lot of these stories are true but in most cases no one forces you to sign anything. You have a choice and it is up to you to take ownership of your decisions. It's really common sense. If I am a record company and I pay for an artist to produce a Cd and I cover all the cost involved with marketing and building their career then the record belongs to me as does the lion's share of the profit. I would have to make all of my investment money back first and because I took the risk I will also have a healthy percentage of whatever other earnings are made. Don't get me wrong, the artist will make money too. I will just make more per my investment. I mean without me you wouldn't have a record. I know you've seen the name "Executive Producer" on Cd's. This simply means who paid for the project. As an artist, if you are not willing to invest your own money, time and energy in your career you should just quit today. I understand that it is costly but you can at least pay half and partner with someone to help you but just know if you don't invest in you then you are telling the world that you don't really value who you are and what you have. You are simply setting yourself up to be ripped off. As a label owner and publisher I have garnered ownership of so many pieces of intellectual property because of artists trying to take the easy way out and get something for nothing. When they sign the agreement saying that for my investment I will own part or in most cases all of the publishing rights they think they are taking advantage of me. Now I do everything I can to try to get them to come out of pocket with SOMETHING so that we can share the executive producer role but they want something for nothing so I don't have a problem with it because it costs our company quite a bit of money and time to produce and place these projects. We produced a show a few years ago and the concept was to get a group of talented artists that each had a basic fan base of one to two hundred people. We proposed a partnership between our company and them to produce the event by all of us equally splitting the cost to produce the event. Each artist was to get video and audio footage of their performance to further help them. Now all of them wanted to do the show but do you know that not one of them would give a dime not even $100 to invest in themselves? We did the show and it was very successful but since we took the chance we made the money. Yes some of the artist started saying we were ripping them off because we didn't pay them this or that but from the moment they refused to invest in themselves they relinquished any right to complain. It's all about taking ownership and responsibility for your career. As a record executive/musician/producer/performer I have had to invest in ME all my life so I have zero tolerance for artists who don't want to do the same for themselves. I simply believe they will get what they deserve or what they put in and in most cases that is nothing. So I challenge all artists to take ownership right now.

The Truth

All Rights Reserved by Airtight Productions 2010