Arts & Entertainment
 

Goldberg offers A&RT, guidance

Industry veteran gives aspiring artists resources they need to release music

by Dusti Rhodes
The Daily Cougar

Many aspiring musicians took the stage during the day at South by Southwest while others headed over to the Austin Convention Center to attend forums that would give them an insight to the industry they vied to break into. 

Justin Goldberg, a former entertainment Artist and Repetoire representative-turned-author-and-artist was invited to the conference to speak about his book, The Ultimate Survival Guide to the New Music Industry: Handbook for Hell, a must for any musician looking for a light to aid them into the dark hell that is the entertainment business. Goldberg offered a depressing view of the current state of the record industry, which he said was creating a lot of opportunities for upcoming artists. 

"I think that major record labels were like the Titanic when it first hit the iceberg, they just didn't think that Napster and file sharing services would really decimate them to the degree that they have," said Goldberg, noting that poor strategies for solving file sharing programs like Napster were the causes for the record industry's poor state. He said that the reason independent artists and labels were so successful is because many of them embraced the digital age instead of trying to put an end to it.

Goldberg said now is the time for the rise of independent labels and artists even though A&R people at major labels no longer have the freedom to sign bands on a whim.

"Instinct is dead," said Goldberg, referring to the time in the music industry where label representatives could sign a band based on nothing more than a belief of success, adding that today signing an artist depends more on instant satisfaction than on potential.

Goldberg said in Handbook that the trick to being on the business end of the talent equation is choosing the right talent without the benefit of hindsight.

He also mentioned in the handbook that although intuitions were no longer the basis for artists getting signed, in the end, a hunch is really all an A&R person has.

"That is the challenge of doing A&R: you are hired to gamble on new talent and despite the number of powerful and confusing influences pushing you to favor certain artists, you are left to depend on what only your gut will tell you."

Goldberg urged artists to move away from the methods of old for gaining success and discouraged the use of a demo tape during his forum, sayingit was "the worst thing (artists) could ever do." Musicians shouldn't ask for "a chance" but instead use their surrounding communities to create a following that would pull in the labels and have them begging for a shot to release an artist's first album, Goldberg said.

"If you are in college, you are in a tremendously supportive environment," said Goldberg, naming an example of a place that a musician can start to build a following.

"Self-propelled and self-sustaining independence is really what (label representatives) are looking to absorb because they are too nervous to do anything else. The market is too unsure and in an unsure market you go with what's already going." said Goldberg. "More often (in the music industry) you find that people are desperate to preserve their own employment, and they're hardly incentivised to find and support great music."

Goldberg mentioned that even though independent labels do have more freedom to sign artists, they too are sometimes just as shady as major labels.

The best thing a person interested in building an independent music career can do is to find a stable job that affords them some time at night to do what they love, because a lot of money in the beginning will be coming from their own pockets, Goldberg said.

"You can't fool yourself into thinking that there has got to be a way to be making money and that you can just quit your job and go on tour and make money somehow -- you're not -- you are going to be leaking money for a long time," Goldberg said.

"Don't burn yourself out and say 'I've tried it, and now its over,' there is no reason for it ever to be over," Goldberg said, mentioning that his book provides a good tool for artists to discover many ways independent artists can find alternative sources of revenue..

Goldberg talked in both his forum and in Handbook about the number of ways that artists could earn money for their music through independent licensing. By putting their music in an advertisement, a band could earn anything from $700 to over $70,000 for just one song.

Goldberg's company, indie911.com, helps artists in many ways, including compensation for Internet radio play and connecting them with licensing companies. 

Goldberg is also an artist who created his own genre of expression he calls "A&RT." The pieces, some of which are in Handbook, are based on Goldberg's experiences in the music industry and made up of trinkets -- like demo tapes -- office communications and artist drop notices from his days as an A&R man.

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