Guest Author Heather McDonald has worked in nearly all aspects of the music industry, from independent record labels to acting as manager and buyer of a record store to tour booking and show promotion. Heather is About.com's Guide to Music Caeers.
Working in independent music is about one thing - loving music. You can't do it for the money (because often there isn't any) and it's certainly not the most stable career path in the world. You have to do it because you love the music. Having a belief in the rights of indie artists helps a lot, too. It can be incredibly frustrating, emotional and disappointing. And I wouldn't change a minute of it.
One of the greatest things to me about working in music is all of the people you get to meet. When you're working in indie music, most of the time, you're working with people who do what they do because they have a passion for it - you can't get that everywhere. Everyone also has their own story about how they got started doing what they do. Mine starts with a bake sale.
From Bake Sales to Indie Labels
I guess my story doesn't entirely start with a bake sale, because when the bake sales happened, I was working for a small, indie record store in Raleigh, NC. I had worked there for a few years and had recently become the store manager. I loved the record store, and I really believed fervently in the importance of mom'n'pop record shops (still do), but I knew I wanted to get out from behind the counter and work for a record label. I also knew I wanted to move out of town - preferably out of the country - and try something a little different. Glasgow, Scotland, to me was indie music nirvana (one time, I got reprimanded during a performance review at the record store because they said I only played Scottish bands in the shop), and so I decided I would spend a year saving up some money and move there.
At the same time, I read about a group from Glasgow I loved called Looper doing a little record shop/book shop in-store performance tour in the UK. I decided I'd email them and ask them if they would come to Raleigh and play in our record store (this formed the foundation of the mantra that carries me through to this day - "they can only say no"). They wrote me back and said if that if I paid for their plane tickets, they would. Well, I didn't have enough cash to buy plane tickets, so I decided I would have bake sales at the record store to raise the money. Every Friday night I would stay up all night with a friend, bake loads of stuff and then sell the food all day Saturday at the store. Other employees chipped in with food as well, and the sales were a hit.
To make a long story short, I raised enough money but they still didn't come to the store. Their label decided to book them a proper US tour, not including North Carolina, but they did fly me to Chicago to see the band play. I told the band I was moving to Glasgow. They told me it was very gray and wet. They were right.
When I moved to Glasgow, I didn't have a job, but I contacted Looper. They put me in touch with Francis Macdonald, who had a small indie label called Shoeshine Records. I knew Shoeshine well and was excited to get the chance. Francis hadn't even considered the prospect of having an employee. He said he'd give me some work experience, which turned into a real job. I thought I'd stay in Glasgow for about 6 months. I stayed there - and at Shoeshine - for about 6 years. It was everything I'd hoped for and more.
The Indie Label Life
To me, anyone who wants to work in music - even if they want to work for the majors - should have to put in some time at an indie label. It's an ideal training ground for whatever music industry job you want to have. A typical day might involve calling the distributor to see if the new CDs arrived, then calling the manufacturing to see why they haven't, emailing some journalists to see if they're going to review the new album, following up with the artwork person to see how everything is coming along for another release, calling a promoter to book a show for another band, answering some emails from the artists, packaging up some CDs to send out, calling the PR company - and that's just before your morning tea break. Larger music companies might have one person doing each of these jobs. At an indie label, you have to get in there and get your hands dirty doing everything. You're promoter, agent, manager, PR, label, and well, anything else that comes along. It's stressful and exhilarating at the same time. When you walk away from an indie label, you can pretty much claim experience in just about any job in the industry, and even if you do end up at a major or working in another capacity for major label artists, you'll have a deep appreciation for the work that goes into the music that bubbles beneath the surface in the underground.
