Great Performances

This update covers an important topic for artists. Live Performances. If you’re a manager I hope you can find some useful information to pass along to your roster.

Live performances are one of the most important aspects of an artist’s career and you should take them seriously. By all means have fun, but remember that in this business you are there for the audiences entertainment not the other away around.

Body Language

Never ever ever ever turn your back to the audience. I have seen this over and over again and it is the first sign of an amateur. It distances your audience from you in psychological and emotional ways that feel very real to them. You want to engage them. Which brings me to the next point on body language.

Look them in the eyes. If you don’t feel comfortable looking at your audience, you need to grow your ego a bit or find a different career. People with stage fright don’t often end up superstars or even mini stars for that matter.  Don’t look at each other a whole lot either. You are not there for each other either. It’s always about the audience.

Speak

Talk to your audience. Don’t say cliché and insincere things like “It’s great to be in Cleveland” and “How’s everybody feeling tonight”. Be genuine. Tell some personal details about a song before you play it. Make them feel like you are sharing a piece of yourself with them. If the audience doesn’t feel that you are emotionally connected to your own music, then why would they want to be emotionally connected to it?

They don’t need to know if a song is about your dog but if there is something unique or interesting about a song or you have a funny, but non-incriminating, tour story then tell away.

There’s also the topic of swearing. It’s honestly not a bad idea with certain audiences like those at heavy metal shows. But if Taylor Swift got on stage and started dropping F Bombs every other sentence, it might not have such a positive affect.

Rehearse

Above all play your songs well. I really know it’s annoying to hear this but you have to practice, practice, practice and after you’ve literally passed out from exhaustion, practice some more. Don’t just rehearse for the sake of doing it either. Listen to what’s happening. Find what’s wrong so you can fix it. I suggest you record video footage of your practices in order to see what you need to improve before going out to play live. Shoot, video of your live shows too for that matter.

Put On A Show

It’s a party and you’re the host. Put on a great show and make sure everyone is enjoying the event. Avoid weird gimmicks like throwing flaming cheeseburgers into the audience.

Above all esle be confident and genuine.  If you can do that, most of the little stuff will fall into place.

Managing a Breakup

Today’s update is targeted towards group managers. Although, If you are a group or a member of a group for that matter, it would be in your best interested to continue reading as well. Hopefully this will provide you with some insight into cliché self-destructive behaviors that most group/band members dabble in at one point or another during their career. For the love of all that is good, I hope you won’t. But chances are you will.

Today’s topic is breakups. How can you as a manager survive when your most profitable and possibly only group is breaking up? How do you continue to put food on the table when your income is dependant on people who no longer care to continue producing a revenue stream?

Step 1

Avoid the disaster.

You need to be prepared from the day you sign the group to play therapist. Your job as a manager might feel like more of a job as a marriage counselor than anything else. If you see it that way, you’ve got a strong grip on reality so don’t lose it yet. I’ll tell you later when the appropriate time to lose it is. Start off by NOT taking sides. Make it clear that your job is to do what’s best for the group as a whole. Try to help everyone feel important, even if they aren’t. Help them see why they entered into this partnership to begin with. Do whatever you can to reignite the excitement they felt playing together in the first place. If they really don’t want to play together anymore, remind them that they still need each other to produce income for themselves. Remind them that there are no grantees, especially with solo careers, and that staying together is what’s best for everyone income. If you fail in your attempt to avoid the disaster, proceed to step 2.

Step 2

Follow the money.

If the group is split between the lead singer/songwriter and the lead guitarist on one side and the bass player and drummer on the other side then your choice is obvious. Nine times out of ten go with who writes the songs. Whoever brings the most revenue producing talent to the table should be your focus. It doesn’t matter who you like better. It matters who can put food on your table. Groups come and go, but money will always be a necessity. If you did your job and had the group make a legal agreement with one another in the beginning, then the rest of the work is cut out for you through the breakup. Hopefully the star of the group that your siding with has the rights to the groups name. That way you won’t have to develop a new brand. It will be the same brand with a couple of different faces. Groups hire and fire members all of the time long after they’ve reached success. Nothing wrong there as long as the group doesn’t suddenly decide that YOUR to blame for their problems with each other. If that’s the case proceed to step three.

Step 3

Lose it.

Just kidding. Step three is to cushion the fall.

You are going to have to do a lot of talking and apologizing for things that aren’t actually your fault in this situation. However, once any group of people has chosen a scapegoat, it’s very hard to convince them that they are actually the ones to blame. If the fault is yours then take responsibility. But, most likely it won’t be and there won’t be much you can do other than explain everything you’ve done to help their career and hope that they are rational enough to see it. If they aren’t, well then that’s why you have a sunset clause in your contract. You do have a contract right?