Music Concerts

To most musician s, the enduring image of an musician manager is a caricature of a heavy-set, unkempt slob of a man, stuffed into a 2-sizes-too-small, off-the-rack department retailer suit, chomping on a cheap smelly cigar while sliding a gr easy hand unceremoniously into the back pocket of a starving artist. Indeed, somewhere in the vast landscape of the music universe, such malice exists. The vast majority of musician managers, however, are a motley collection of well-meaning, hardworking, selfless individuals struggling to make the dreams of someone they believe in come true.
For the legion of dedicated unbelievers out there, this is an article that attempts to shed light on the true worth of an musician manager. Below are 8 reasons why a band or musician needs a nice manager:
1. Career Guidance – It’s ofttimes extremely c club enging for musicians to step back from the day-to-day activities and see the ample picture (you know – the old ‘forest-for-the-trees’ thing). A knowledgeable manager could see how everything in the ample picture fits together, and could advocate the musician navigate through the ofttimes -confusing maze of activities that seem unrelated yet are all part of a massive jigsaw puzzle. The manager offers career guidance and advocates to  set the overall game plan for the musician and the musician s’ team to follow.
2. Cheerleading – Even though fans are the central cheerleaders for an artist, someone has to communicate the same enthusiasm to the music business community. An musician manager will trumpet the artist’s message to record labels, booking agents,  promoters, media individual nel, venue bookers, independent retail accounts, etc., in order to keep them all engaged and enthusiastic.
3. Prestige – According to most record industry professionals, there is something to be said about an musician that has a manager. The logic is that if an musician is nice enough to attract management, there must be something of worth present. In fact, most major labels refuse to sign an musician unless they have solid team (manager, attorney and publicist) in place. An musician without management is just too much drama! Labels would rather deal with someone who knows how the music business works and could make decisions on a non-emotional basis.
4. Buffer – A manager could act as an effective screening buffer amidst the musician and people that want to do business with the artist. This buffer tends to attract legitimate industry players while at the same time scaring away scam musician s. There are no scarier words to a scam musician than “please talk to my manager”.
5. Time management – There simply is not enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be done in order to further the career of an artist. In amidst writing songs, conducting interviews, designing artwork for CD ’s and merchandise, managing a mailing list, filling out copyright paperwork, rehearsing with the band, hiring and firing musician s, updating band web sites and MySpace profiles, getting pictures taken, shooting and editing DVD’s and YouTube videos, sending out packages and/or updating EPK’s, researching, repairing and purchasing equipment, etc., there isn’t time to also craft a master game plan, solicit potential sponsorship partners, handle licensing requests, reach out to industry gatekeepers, attend industry networking get togethers, harass labels for tour assist, and so on. Some tasks can be delegated to the band while others can be handled by the manager.
6. Accountability – Part of a manager’s job is to hold people accountable. What happens when the financial tour assist that has been promised by the label fails to materialize? Or the check from the booking agent bounces? Or the FOH engineer at the show is MIA? Or the licensee fails to sign and return the contract but is using the artist’s songs anyway? Or the beer in the tour van vanishes? Somebody has to keep people honest, and that’s most appropriately the manager’s job.
7. Good Cop / Bad Cop – Need to fire the bass player but don’t want to establish an enemy? Let the manager play bad cop and do the firing. Need to re-negotiate your contract and request more of a promotion budget? Let the manager play nice cop and keep a positive spin on the proceedings. There are plenty of occasions when the musician and manager could trade off playing nice cop / bad cop.
8. Sounding board – A manager, even though basic ally an “honorary member of the band”, is ofttimes on the outside looking in. Managers ofttimes see things different ly than the artist, and could ofttimes offer different perspectives, insights and results to problems the musician is encountering. Running suggestions by a knowledgeable manager prior to making decisions ofttimes allows for nice suggestions to become better and bad suggestions to be removed altogether from the to-do list.
So, there you’ve it! 8 nice reasons why an musician needs a manager. Having said all this, however, it is vital to note that having a bad manager is worse than having no manager at all. many wannabe managers think they could just “wing-it” with an artist, and continue to operate with the “lets-record-a-3-song-demo-and-shop-it-for-a-record-deal” mentality, even though the music business continues to undergo serious differ s. New business models are emerging, and only those managers that stay at the leading edge of the learning curve will establish successful strategies and offer serious counsel to their clients.