On this episode of INSIDE MUSIC, host James Shotwell calls Infectious Magazine and Muddy Paw PR founder Angela Mastrogiacomo to discuss her career in the music business. Angela has been carving her own niche in this industry since her late teen years, and now in her mid-twenties she has found success she never previously imagined possible. Together with James, Angela recounts her journey thus far, and later turns her focus to the future and the opportunities it may hold. If you have ever wondered what it’s like to ‘make it’ as a music professionals, do not miss this episode!
The music you hear in this episode is “Dirty Water” by The Standells.
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If you’d have told me a year ago that I would spend nearly half of 2015 traveling the US, I would have said you were delusional and then curled back up into my ball of comfort. I am not by any means a wandering spirit. I like the stability and comfort of a stable home and the security of knowing that my family is nearby. But after a particularly tumultuous 2014, I found myself questioning the legitimacy of my comfort strategy. Could I really grow to the level I wanted if I stayed in one spot? Could my current city offer me everything I wanted and needed? What about all the people out there that I hadn’t met who had the power to change my life and grow my career? In an uncharacteristically rash decision, I decided to spend the summer and fall of 2015 driving across the US. And you know what? It taught me more about myself and what I want out of my career than I could have ever imagined.
Opportunity to network
The biggest and most obvious benefit to traveling for your career is that it allows you a host of opportunities to network. The more cities and communities you can plant yourself in, the better. For me, this meant launching and helping organize Balanced Breakfast meetups, (a music community filled with musicians and industry pros) in Nashville, Austin, and Portland, Oregon. Through those meet ups I met amazing people that I still keep in touch with, work with, and get referrals from today. For you, it might mean discovering new bands and making connections that can help you out when you decide to tour. It could mean meeting a manager that really believes in you, or someone involved in sync licensing who can answer all your questions about getting your song on TV.
Be open to the possibilities and the quirky way in which the universe brings people together, and I promise you’ll meet some career changing people on the road—and probably start more than a few lasting friendships.
Creative revitalization
We all know the importance of rest and relaxation for cultivating a creative spark. We’re simply not at our creative best when we’re bogged down in our day to day responsibilities. Forcing yourself out of your comfort zone and into new environments can be just the creative boost you need. By traveling to new cities and embedding yourself in unfamiliar communities, you’re opening your eyes to a new way of life. You’ll learn what’s most important to you and what you value above all. Each new experience will test your limits and challenge your beliefs, and that kind of mindset is key for creativity. When you allow for creativity to re-enter your life you open yourself up to a world of new possibilities.
Appreciation for your hometown
One of the most powerful and unexpected things this trip taught me was that the grass isn’t always greener. A lot of people in this industry have a vision that New York, Nashville, or Los Angeles will change their lives. That if only they can get to those creative hubs everything is going to work out for them. The truth is that even though those places are abundant in musicians and industry professionals, they’re also oversaturated, and they attract (and require) a very specific type of person. So if your dream city doesn’t live up to your expectations, that doesn’t mean your hometown can’t be exactly what you need.
When I returned from my trip, I viewed Boston in a whole new light. I had a renewed sense of appreciation for so many things I had taken for granted (public transportation! Dunkin Donuts!) and I realized that more than anything, being away from home taught me to appreciate what I had—however flawed it may have seemed before. Understanding what I did and didn’t like from the cities I visited helped me to better understand exactly what it was I was looking for, and how I could use my experiences to further my career right where I was.
In the end, traveling made me a better person, and a better business owner—and I know it can do the same for you. It doesn’t have to be a major trip either—traveling once or twice a year to an industry conference, a road trip a state or two over, or a weekend tour with your band are all things that can inspire the same kind of growth. The most important thing to remember is to make the most of your travel. Whether it’s to the next town or clear across the country, every trip is an opportunity to meet with the person who could change your life or become your best friend—so have fun with it!
Angela Mastrogiacomo is the founder and CEO of Muddy Paw PR, a Boston based public relations firm specializing in personalized campaign initiatives for independent artists. Muddy Paw artists have seen placements in Noisey, AbsolutePunk, PureVolume, Substream, and many other leading publications. Angela also owns music blog Infectious Magazine, and is the curator of several chapters of the music community Balanced Breakfast. She loves hanging out with her dog, eating ice cream, and a good book. Read more at https://angelamastrogiacomo.wordpress.com/
Hey there, everyone! We are thrilled to welcome guest contributor Angela Mastrogiacomo back to the site for another set of tips to help up and coming musicians make the most of their publicity efforts. If you want to learn more about Angela and her work in music, check out Muddy Paw PR at your earliest convenience.
I’ve been in the music industry for about six years now, and in those six years, I’ve been a journalist, a publicist, a promoter, a social media expert, a bio/press release writer, and a few other things along the way as well. I’ve had the privilege of working with a lot of amazing, and talented artists, but nothing gets me down more than seeing passionate artists with a ton of talent miss the exposure they deserve because they don’t run a proper PR campaign. Of course the obvious answer is if you have the funds, hire a publicist. But sometimes, funds are tight and that just isn’t an option. So for those DIY moments, I’ve compiled a list of four basic, yet essential elements of a successful PR campaign.
New Content
One of the most common hiccups I see bands encounter is trying to secure press for themselves when they don’t actually have anything happening. It’s incredibly hard to run a PR campaign around old releases, which is why I always ask my artists to have something new. It doesn’t have to be a whole new album, but what about a new music video? Lyric video? Remix? Cover song? Acoustic session? Anything, really. But without something new to promote, you’re grasping at straws to get anyone to notice.
Artist Participation
Artists seem to think that PR campaigns are kind of a one and done deal. Either you pay a publicist and then just rake in the reviews and features, or you send out one email to a couple blogs and expect the rest to come back to you. But that’s not how it works. If you’re hiring a publicist, you’ll still need to be on top of communication to make sure you’re getting your publicist everything they need (answers to interview questions, guest blogs, photos, etc) in a timely manner. If you’re going the DIY route, it’s even more imperative that you get comfortable with persistence and participation, because you’re going to be sending out a whole lot of emails, follow up emails, thank you emails, and, if you’re a good sport, posting any coverage you get all around your social media accounts. Successful PR campaigns, like anything in life, don’t just happen by magic. They require a lot of blood, sweat, and yes, sometimes even tears.
An Excellent EPK
Your EPK is a blog’s first impression of you. The way you sound, the way you look, the way you present yourself. This isn’t the time to cut corners. That isn’t to say you need to hire out. It just means you need to put a lot of time, attention, and detail into the pieces that make up your EPK. As they say, you don’t get a second chance at a first impression.
Connections
This is one of those necessities that is really at its core, incredibly simple, but incredibly crucial. Without the proper connections, almost none of the above will matter. Sure, you might get lucky and snag an article or two. But the majority of a successful PR campaign really comes down to connections. So if you’re not hiring a publicist who might already have these connections, you better get networking. Talk to anyone and everyone you can in this industry, and don’t just stick to the internet. Social media is a great tool for connecting to bloggers, bands, and fans from across the world, but some of the most important and meaningful connections I’ve made have been from getting out into the community, and various events (SXSW, CMJ, Warped Tour, etc) and meeting people in person. (You know, like the old days!) Never underestimate the power of your connections. Oftentimes even if a connection isn’t right for you in the moment, they’ll be able to point you in the direction of someone who is. And hey, you might even make a few friends along the way!
Angela Mastrogiacomo is the owner of Muddy Paw Public Relations. Muddy Paw specializes in working with up and coming artists on personalized campaigns designed to bring their careers to the next level. To date, we’ve secured placements on sites such as AbsolutePunk, Substream,Property Of Zack, PureVolume, Anti-Music, and many more. You can find us at www.MuddyPawPR.com
Hello, everyone! We are thrilled to learn that you were able to find time in your day to browse the latest content on our blog. The post you are about to enjoy is a guest piece from one of our favorite contributors, and it offers information that can help anyone aspiring to one day work in this crazy business we call the music industry.
This blog exists to promote the future of the music industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your music-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
There’s something truly wonderful about finding a community within a community. You know what I mean. You live in one place your entire life, but never really get to know the communities you’re a part of. You never get to make the connections that can ultimately make or break you, and so you never really get to feel like you totally belong.
When I first moved to San Francisco, I struggled to find friends. As a 26-year-old working from home, meeting new people, especially people interested so deeply in what I was (music) wasn’t exactly easy. But within a few months I befriended SF Intercom owner and Balanced Breakfast co-founder Stefan Aronson, and was soon introduced to 30+ new friends, all sharing some part in the music industry. It was brilliant. An incredibly simple concept that I had never even thought of: get everyone within a city’s industry together on a weekly basis to talk shop, network, and help propel one another’s dreams. I was in love.
So when I moved back to Boston after my seven-month stint on the west coast, I knew I wanted to bring all of the ethos and passion behind Balanced Breakfast with me. I quickly began putting together the skeleton of what would become the first east coast Balanced Breakfast.
But Boston and San Francisco aren’t the only places with thriving music scenes and a lack of like-minded community. In fact, I’d venture to guess most cities suffer from a lack of strong community feel within the music scene. So how can we change that? Here’s what I did. Hopefully it can inspire you to start your own music industry meet up. Maybe even another Balanced Breakfast?
Find interested people
Naturally, this is the hardest part. Finding the people that will eventually make up your music community. Although paid sites like Meetup.com are great for a lot of things, they weren’t a site that I used during planning this. In fact, I spent no money at all in putting this together. To find interested people, I posted on just about every social media site I could think of: Facebook, Reddit, Twitter. I scoured existing music industry groups in my city on Facebook, posted in subreddits dedicated to my city, and tagged well known Twitter sites for Boston to let people know that I was putting together a weekly industry meet up, and to ask for their input on location. I even found another industry meet up along the way, and attended. Not only did I meet new people to invite to BB, but I discovered there really is a desire for this kind of thing. It’s a lot of old fashioned grassroots promotion, but in the end, it let people know we existed.
Location & Time
The second hardest part was actually finding a location and time that worked for everyone. Once I knew Boston would be the easiest area for people to get to, I had to find a location that was fairly central, and could accommodate larger groups, because I dream big. Eventually I decided on 2pm (to avoid busy brunch crowds) and a place called Trident Booksellers and Café on Newbury Street. Bonus: It was also a bookstore, so we could peruse while we waited for a table!
Topics
The last piece to this puzzle was just figuring out format and topics. Luckily, I had seen my SF counterparts in action on this one at least a dozen times, and went off their format. But play around with what works best for you and your community. Focus on topics depending on who it tends to attract. Is it primarily musicians? Media? Bookers? Cater your topics to your primary audience, but don’t forget to make sure it’s broad enough that everyone can find interest.
And there you go! It really is that simple, cheap, and easy to put together a meet up of your own. And once you start gaining momentum, the sky is truly the limit. The SF Balanced Breakfast recently put on a one month residency, which featured a ton of bands from the meet up, and not only was it a great way to showcase our own talent, and get to know each other’s passions, but it even attracted outside attention and press furthering the strength of the community.
So what are you waiting for? There’s a whole city of musicians, media, promoters, and more just waiting for their community to be born. Interested in starting your own division of Balanced Breakfast? Get in touch with us here. In Boston? Join our meet up here.
Angela Mastrogiacomo runs the Boston Balanced Breakfast, a group of music industry professionals that meet once a week to talk shop, network, and build a stronger music community. She is also the owner of Muddy Paw Public Relations and Infectious Magazine.
