Industry Profile: Scott Perry – NewMusicTipsheet.com
By Bob Grossweiner and Jane Cohen
As president of Sperry Media, Scott Perry works with nearly every single label to create online marketing campaigns for across a network of 40 key indie store web sites nationwide and handles the street marketing efforts for lifestyle and entertainment companies at over 400 record and lifestyle stores.
In response to meeting the needs of his label and store clients, Scott launched NewMusicTipsheet.com, lifting the veil off of music industry street dates. "It's embarrassing," says Perry. "The movie studios can tell you what they have slated for Christmas 2007 and yet most labels can't even tell you what's coming next month. Of course, release dates change, but the industry does a poor job of letting people - business partners as well as consumers -- know when records are coming out.
To that end, Scott has built the Tipsheet to be the best possible resource for companies and consumers to find out not only about tent pole releases, but also as a discovery tool, to shed light on developing artists that mean something to niche audiences and early adopters. "These baby bands might not mean boo to a Fortune 500 company looking for a marquee artist that draws a large Q Score, but smart marketers - the ones that are looking to reach out to early adopters and niche markets in today's segmented population -- need to know who the cool bands are today," says Scott. "Also, with developing artists more amenable to accepting sponsorship and synch licensing dollars from major corporations, helping the agencies find cool bands really helps artists stay afloat without having to rely so much on label advances and (shrinking) royalties based on album sales."
Prior to starting his own business in 2001, Scott was Don VanCleave's right-hand man at the Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS) in Birmingham, Ala. "I was the man behind the man, making sure everything was running smoothly and overseeing operations during a massive growth phase at CIMS," he says. "Don had just transferred CIMS HQ into its own office, after running CIMS out of the back of his music store (Magic Platter) for three or four years. He needed someone to come in and help manage the growth. It really was a no-brainer, taking a national position with one of my mentors.
"I had known Don for years, back when I ran street promotions for the local college's concert promotion company (UAB's CenterStage Productions, then run by Jay Wilson (New Era, Bill Graham Management, Elevation Group)," Scott says. "I would drop off fliers and posters at Magic Platter and hang out with Don and hear new music from bands like Sonic Youth and R.E.M. long before anyone else."
In addition to marketing college shows while he was in high school, Scott also interned at Birmingham Top 40 radio station I-95, working in the programming, research, and promotions departments over a two-year span. "For some reason, something was in the water in Birmingham in the late '80s," he says. "A lot of people came out of Birmingham during this small period of time - I-95 launched the careers of Mark & Brian (KLOS morning show), John Peake (currently at ALICE in San Francisco), Lee Chesnut (who is credited for breaking Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game," discovering Chumbawumba, and has worked at VH1 and at various A&R gigs). Elevation Group managers Jay Wilson and Kent Sorrell both came from the scene; Don VanCleave has been killing it as head of CIMS, and members of Man or Astro-man? and Remy Zero were high school buds. I'm just fortunate to have been part of all the insanity and had shared some fun times with these folks along the way."
Attending Tulane University in New Orleans from 1989-93, Scott deejayed at WTUL, volunteered on the college concert committee, and was the local college rep for Sony. "Talk about lightning in a bottle again - I mean, BAM! BAM! BAM!" he says. "Sony's college rep department allowed me to work with bands that most people would have given their right leg to meet. Big Audio Dynamite, Public Enemy, and the Indigo Girls had already broken by the time I hopped on, but I got to drive unknown bands like Rage Against the Machine, Soul Asylum, Toad the Wet Sprocket and Pearl Jam around in my station wagon for parties and interviews. Being the New Orleans rep was great. There was nobody else from the labels to help the bands in the market, and what a great party town to be in on top of that!"
A ton of other Sony bands came through, including Prong, Poi Dog Pondering, the Boo Radleys, Chris Whitley, Ultra Vivid Scene, and The The, just to name a few. On the college concert tip, the real fun, he says, was seeing "nobodies" like No Doubt play the campus quad before opening for Public Enemy that night, plus getting a friend's band the opening slot for Ice T & Body Count after the original opener backed out.
After completing college, Scott moved to New York City to do college radio promotions for Beggars Banquet, and then segued to handle PR duties at Formula for bands like Nine Inch Nails, Live, Marilyn Manson, and Portishead. "It felt like being Forrest Gump or Zelig at that point," he recollects. "Having to field calls from Oprah's and Letterman's folks after Nine Inch Nails's historic performance at Woodstock '94, that was crazy stuff."
As cool as all that was, Scott says, he headed back to Birmingham to work for Don VanCleave's fledgling indie label, Kudzu Records, in 1994. "I was having a blast, but I realized I wasn't gonna get ahead financially in New York. Plus, helping Don get his label off the ground back home sounded like a challenge I was ready to build into."
A couple years in Birmingham had Scott itching for larger worlds, so he accepted a gig working for a monthly music industry trade magazine called Next. "That one was not easy," he says. "Doing a monthly trade mag doesn't do the industry much good, since everyone is used to getting info right now. Needless to say, that didn't last very long."
When word came out that Uni Distribution was transforming into Universal Distribution in 1996, Scott jumped at the opportunity. "Henry Droz and Jim Urie had these incredible reputations for making things happen in the distribution world," notes Scott, "and working for a re-energized company was a welcome change from the insurmountable challenges at the magazine. Sure enough, within six months of joining the company, UMVD went from worst to first and was snagging five out of the top six spots on the Billboard top 200. The A&R and marketing staffs at Universal and Interscope were knocking them out of the park, and I got to add to the effort by developing baby bands throughout the Southeast. I gave hillbillies something to break shit to by developing Limp Bizkit with the Manifest chain in the Carolinas, I worked daily with Magic Platter to break Sister Hazel out of Birmingham and drove a popsicle truck around Atlanta, passing out cherry pops at Criminal and Tower to influence sales of Cherry Poppin' Daddies before 99X officially added them."
As great as things were at UMVD, Scott says he knew it was time to leave when UMVD merged with PolyGram in 1998. "I had grown as much as I could at UMVD, and realized it was going to be tough to grow while these two companies dealt with the logistics of such a massive merger. UMVD is now stronger than ever, but I couldn't put my career on hold for two years as the dust settled and amorphous positions became better defined."
VanCleave wooed Scott back to Birmingham one more time, this time to run operations for the Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS). "I saw Don run CIMS from the back of his office when it first started," Scott says. "Now, to come back and help him grow the business exponentially, that was great. In my time there, we internalized outsourced operations, tripled billing, brought in Scott Register (WRAX's Reg's Coffeehouse) to handle the listening booth programs, digitized this bulky 300 page CIMS ad menu into a wicked B2B site and launched a consumer site."
Soon, the siren of the west came calling, and Scott followed his muse to the dotcom mecca of San Francisco in January 2001 to work as manager of label sales for encryption technology company Liquid Audio. "When Business Week calls your prospective employer an also-ran in digital music circles, you might want to take heed," he says. "But every label I talked to was like 'Oh yeah!' Of all the companies, Liquid is gonna be around the longest!' Needless to say, that endeavor fell apart like a cheap suit within 100 days.
"At that point, things were bad - labels weren't hiring, the dotcom party was waaaaay over, and there wasn't much else to do," Scott continues. "But I did glean an important lesson at Liquid: the power wasn't in the technology, the power was in the network. With the level of label cutbacks that continue to this day, it was obvious that there was no way the labels could handle these workloads effectively. Putting together a digital promotional network to market their records for them made perfect sense, especially after such success with the Coalition."
From that insight, and an unexpected pop-up ad promoting Radiohead on the website of Louisville retailer, ear X-tacy, was born a company. "VanCleave was like, 'Dude, have you seen this?' and I'm like 'Yeah,' and was on the phone with the ear X-tacy owner John Timmons's programmer an hour later," Scott relates. "Mark Brickey, this punk kid out of Toronto, was doing some amazing design work in addition to programming the ear X-tacy site. We got along great and with the digital equivalent of a drawing on a napkin; I went shopping the idea to labels in LA while signing up stores and haven't stopped since."
Scott says to expect greater things out of the Tipsheet in the coming months as he makes it a personal goal to continue to help the industry do a better job of promoting its new releases to consumers and to its own business partners.
What is Sperry Media?
It's the blanket organization under which everything runs - the consumer marketing, the Tipsheet and consulting services. It was the best way to brand myself as I was starting, with a name that was personal, yet open to whichever way my business goes. But, in addition to running the Tipsheet, I'm a consultant for various companies that need insight into the worlds of music and/or new technologies. We also handle online and street marketing activities for various record labels and entertainment firms.
On the consumer-marketing front, we connect the dots between labels and indie stores. Labels don't have time to get every store to promote their new releases, and stores don't have time to gather info about every record their customers might like. So what we do is bridge that gap by gathering info about new releases and feed the info to the stores to post into their emails and websites. Labels pay us for the convenience, and we pay the stores for their marketing efforts--a large chunk of my gross actually goes back to the stores to reinforce positive online marketing practices.
In recent weeks, we have featured everyone from Ani DiFranco and Eisley to Unwritten Law, Chemical Brothers and Kings of Leon. In the coming weeks, it'll be Kathleen Edwards, Jack Johnson, John Butler Trio, and Bloc Party. We feed the stores info about key titles each week. They take this info and personalize it, localize it, so that for the labels, we've created a unified marketing front, and for the customers, they are being turned on to releases that are core artists to these stores.
These stores have a direct relationship with early adopters and true music fans -- kids that still go out and buy CDs by their favorite bands -- because they like the artists' music and want to support the band and the store. Even with file trading and CD burning, even with all the entertainment, information, and store options out there, customers come to these stores on a regular basis because these indie stores provide community, knowledge, friends and a sense of belonging that you just can't replicate in the online world. And so rather than overstep that store/customer relationship by marketing directly to the consumer, my company respects that relationship and empowers the retailer to keep their customers informed about the cool stuff that comes out each week, even when that customer isn't inside the store.
These stores have done a magnificent job in staying in the communications chain with their customers. Their websites and emails allow a continuous relationship that traditional media and snail mail make cost prohibitive. And by working with these stores over the years, my company has helped them become even better communicators and continue to thrive in the digital age.
What is on the NewMusicTipsheet?
NewMusicTipsheet lists nearly every single release from almost every single distributor and label, all compiled on one site. We compile in-depth listings, for which we post two weeks back and six weeks out. Beyond that, things get kind of hazy, so we recently started putting together these massive PDFs that list key titles that are coming out further down the road - the most recent Big '05 PDF can be found under the tab marked "CRYSTAL BALL." We put a ton of time into the collecting, formatting and massaging the data, but we try to make it as thorough and fresh as possible without overloading folks with too much information.
We also list upcoming TV appearances for all the major talk shows, and have B2B links to as many distributors and labels as possible, so you can easily jump to more sites for more information. The News drop box also makes it very easy to navigate to as many entertainment-related sites as you like - everything from AdWeek and iTunes to Snocap, CelebrityAccess, Fast Company, JamBase, Mojo, Tokion, Stereogum, Pitchfork, or even Giant Robot and Suicide Girls!
Who subscribes to the Tipsheet?
A couple thousand industry VIPs subscribe, and it's totally free. We could easily charge subscriptions, but right now I'm more interested in getting the word out to the right people, rather than building barriers to such vital info. Beyond that, the forward rate on the email is huge. The site traffic blows up every Monday afternoon as soon as folks take time to soak in the new release schedules.
The people that use the site are varied, but it has become an excellent branding vehicle to enhance awareness among a variety of people inside and outside the industry that rely on music for their own business. Retail, radio and press use the site all the time as do all the online music portals, booking agents, promoters, TV shows, music supervisors, ad agencies, brand managers at Fortune 500 companies. Folks from AOL, Apple, Napster, Real, BBC, MTV, VH1, XM, Sirius, EA, Jimmy Kimmel, Ellen, Alias, Onion, Blender, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, Vice, Village Voice, Wall Street Journal, Sprint, Motorola, Simon & Schuster, CAA, Clear Channel and tons of others read the Tipsheet every week to get some new ideas for their business.
Does the site accept advertising?
Hell yeah we do! At first, we placed artists on the site as an extra spiff for clients that ran consumer-marketing packages with us, but now that we have bulked up the size and reach of the Tipsheet's subscriber base, we have started to sell banner ads in the past six months. Plus, we keep our rates low in order to encourage participation from all labels of all sizes. Clients' ad budgets aren't what they used to be, but with a well-placed ad, a couple dollars spent here can mean a few thousand in booking or synch licensing down the road.
How has advertising progressed since the start up?
It's getting there. Labels are still wary of trade advertising since its heyday, but as they understand the importance of reinforcing their own departments' efforts, they realize it makes sense to reach out to the Tipsheet's subscriber base. The people that read the Tipsheet are the very people that are helping promote the labels' artists in stores, on the air, via the internet, in their papers, in their venues, on their TV shows, in their commercials and in their movies. If running an ad on the Tipsheet makes these people that much better informed about a new artist, then it's totally worth it. Plus, it's a lot less expensive than printing and mailing another postcard or mailing out a second and third CD.
How has the advertising gone with record company consolidations?
If anything, consolidation has helped my business since there are less people internally to "work" a release, but boy howdy if it ain't a bitch to get folks on the horn sometimes! Label budgets and staffs are stretched thiiiiiin. We love helping them promote good music, but we also keep our own overhead low to accommodate these 21st century budgets.
What is different on the site than in different radio/record trades concerning upcoming releases?
I have no idea. I'm sure they all do a fantastic job reporting on their fields, but the only time I ever read a trade anymore is when I see it in a client's reception area.
First concert attended
Night Ranger (Sister Christian tour) in 1984 at the BJCC, Birmingham, Ala.
First concert worked
Replacements, 1987, Sloss Furnaces, Birmingham, Ala. Street marketing before the show and general runner during the show.
First industry job
Putting up posters for local college show promoter CenterStage Productions, Birmingham, Ala.
Career highlights
Driving Pearl Jam around New Orleans in my station wagon after failing a midterm; Seeing Rage Against the Machine play by flashlight at Tipitina's after a freak hail storm; Interviewing Phish and Blues Traveler long before they both went on to their glories at WTUL (Tulane); Surviving a weekend with Nine Inch Nails at Woodstock in 1994 in rain, downed power lines, mud; Helping develop the careers of bands of all types before they broke into wider areas;
Seeing the Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS) grow from the back of Magic Platter into the organization that it is today; Being blown out of a dotcom, only to flourish with my own company; and Continuing to turn people on to good music via NewMusicTipsheet.com.
Career disappointments
Not waiting around at any of my label/distribution gigs to see how those paths may have developed (not really); Not seeing bands that I put a ton of my life into not grow to reach larger audiences; Not catching Jeff Buckley doing his Monday night residency at Barrister's in Memphis a couple months before his passing.
Greatest challenges
Cutting through the clutter to let people know about great new bands; Surviving in an era in which budgets are slashed and less risks are taken.
Best business decision
Starting my own business instead of trying to find another label gig.
Best advice you received
Work for what you believe in, and everything else will come together.
Best advice to offer
Look for a problem and find a solution. Never believe you've "made it," unless you're looking to retire.
Most memorable industry experiences
Woodstock '94: to be behind the scenes at that that little shindig, less than a year after graduating from college, was pretty damn fun, and scary, at the same time. Being stuck on a bus with Nine Inch Nails backstage at Woodstock with a fallen power line lying on the bus, a couple dozen people looking at the bus with shocked looks on their faces, some dude outside yelling, "Do not get off the bus. You will DIE if you get off the bus. There is a LIVE power line on the bus." All just hours before their big show. None of us saw a light or Jesus or anything, but it was pretty freaky seeing David Crosby looking at you from the outside with an "Oh Shit" look on his face.
We had to stay at a hotel 50 miles away, park in a lot four miles away, carry 200 pounds of press releases across a packed field to get to the press area. I witnessed the world's largest gravity, some rope and pulley system with 40 gallon trash cans for water chambers. This thing was so big; you had Polo-shirted managers posing next to the thing like it like they had just caught a 400-pound swordfish.
Witnessing Ravestock from sundown to sunup on the first night was pretty amazing, seeing a "Peace Patrol" security person getting his ass handed to him for not letting a badge-less Joe Cocker into the dressing room trailer area was pretty funny, as was MTV VJ Kennedy's demeanor after wrecking her golf cart, which sent a cameraman tumbling, costing the network a very expensive camera.
What friends would be surprised to learn about you
That I can make a mean grilled cheese sandwich.
Industry pet peeve
Anybody that phones it in. We're all lucky to be in a business that can touch so many lives, so it really irks me to see anyone that coasts through work without challenging themselves or not providing the best service possible to their partners and clients. Of course, there are fewer such people in the business these days.
Office paraphernalia
An autographed picture of "The Tick," original Simpsons art, Southern folk art (RA Miller, Finster), platinum award plaques for Pearl Jam, Fatboy Slim, George Clinton (signed Casablanca Mothership / Funkenstein award--$40 in New Orleans), rusted metal tool cabinet, 450-CD holder (stolen), a 60 year old Ouija board ($15, rural Alabama), and an unused composted manure bag--to make light of all the crap we all put up with in this business.
Favorite sports team/athlete
Auburn Tigers, Bo Jackson. If you were a kid growing up in the time of Vincent "Bohog" Jackson and Lionel "Little Train" James, you didn't give a damn that Bear Bryant's shadow cast over the entire state of Alabama. It didn't hurt that I used to watch Bo *kill* my older brother's baseball team before they all went on to college.
If I wasn't doing this, I would be...
...a trial lawyer, an investment analyst, an actuary with an insurance firm or golf pro.
Industry mentors
Don VanCleave, Reid Hunter, Carl Singmaster, John Kunz and the numerous people who prove every day that you can make a living doing what you love. People who prove that with a bit of risk, a bit of smarts, a whole lot of hustle and a helluva lot of long hours, the sky's the limit.
Scott can be reached at: 323.953.2658; e-mail: scott@sperrymedia.com