Don’t Call it A&R: SongCircle Rewrites the Rules for Artist Development and Discovery

MANHATTAN: Change rocks. Or at least, it can, depending on your outlook and what you’re ready to do when the landscape shifts.

SongCircle reacted to the drastically altered A&R environment, then took the lead with the updated options it presents to artists today. Known for over 20 years as the New York Songwriters Circle, their original mission was to create a true community of singer/songwriters and artists showcasing at the Bitter End –Norah Jones, Gavin DeGraw, Vanessa Carlton, Lisa Loeb, Jesse Harris, and Chris Barron all took part at one point. Past winners of their annual contest include label acts Kate Voegele (Interscope/”One Tree Hill“) and Company of Thieves (Wind-up/Sony).

Under the leadership of Founder/Artistic Director Tina Shafer, the Songwriters Circle kept committed to developing artists’ live chops as they expanded naturally into other cities, including Boston, Chicago, Philladelphia and Los Angeles. Further evolution came via a new name, SongCircle, a multi-faceted Website, and a crack team that includes Billy Gaus (Membership), David Chidekel (Business & Legal) and Allan Tepper (Publishing & Licensing.

What’s online now is intriguing, as the site facilitates a hybrid music company. Charts, interaction through private messaging, the ability to submit to their contest (going on now through Oct 31st 2010), features, showcase considerations for all showcases in the States and possible placements for songs chosen out of their top-rated songs are there. It’s a useful suite of artist career tools.

Wielding an exclusive deal with EMI Music services as their distributor, Shafer explained how SongCircle is serving as a farming ground that develops and discovers – as well as inspires – talent along with songs.

Tina, why do artists today need help with navigating the trrrrrreacherous waters of A&R?
Because the traditional single-siloed method of finding one artist and throwing a bunch of money at them and hoping they break through radio, is over.

Now, an artist has to do a lot of the leg work themselves, build their own community and create their own buzz in order to be considered by anyone for anything. The great thing about SongCircleMusic.com is that we provide that platform in a very artist-friendly and easy state-of-the-art website.

SongCircle's Founder/Artistic Director Tina Shafer

An artist can upload their songs, photos, links, blog, interact with other artists, get on to our charts, be considered for our live showcases and enter our contest.  All create exposure and we on the back end can see who is getting the most hits and comments, who is sticking on the charts the longest.  It’s really a people’s-choice on the charts – there’s a built-in market that we can see following an artist. If we hear something we love, we can consider partnering with that artist for their present needs.

We also have an educational LOFT series in which we supply great industry speakers and a comfortable place for artists to hear and learn from those speakers, and interact with other artists who come to those events.

SongCircle puts a big emphasis on live prowess — let us know why the live focus is so important, and how you facilitate that.
The live portion is important because that is the heart of what I’ve always done and what we are continuing to do.  There’s nothing like live music and seeing someone do their thing.

Short and sweet. Apart from the live gigs, do artists get “signed” to SongCircle? What are the tools you provide, and/or the different things that can happen for an artist and their career when they start working with SongCircle?
Yes, we offer a record deal to our Grand Prize winner which is described in detail on the Website. It’s a partnership with SongCircle, the artists and EMI Records music services.

We’re currently in the process of signing our past grand prize winner: Mieka Pauley (2008). Once the deal is completed, we’ll put together a marketing plan, finish recording her record and present it to EMI to distribute globally with their marketing team. Mieka will still be her own company, we will have a partnership deal with her.

Other artists can get signed if they prove themselves on the charts and in live performances, but because we are a small company, we will only be doing a very few in the beginning.

That sounds like a good strategy. Building from there, you’ve recently added a licensing/publishing department: Why was tending to synch licensing an important step?
The SongCircle licensing and publishing department will be headed by Allan Tepper, and the top-level members’ songs get considered for possible placements. There are no guarantees, but Allan has the background of years of connections running many top publishing firms. If a song sounds like the right fit for something available, we can submit it.

Mieka Pauley was a SongCircle Grand Prize winner.

Looking around, SongCircle puts on shows in many cities across the country. What’s the difference between music artist communities throughout the US?
We do shows in LA, Chicago, Boston Philly and New York. Chicago at Schubas is more of a “band” show, and LA’s Room 5 is more high-profile because it’s just harder to get people out in LA, it is sooo spread out!  Boston’s Cafe 939 and NY’s the Bitter End are similar, there are lots of singer songwriters of all types.

We’re NYC-based because that’s where it started twenty years ago — when I was three — at The Bitter End, with Ken Gorka as manager of the club. Plus, NYC is just a hotbed for great talent.

Oui! SongCircle has seen an interesting evolution of its mission and scope. Where do you look to for fresh ideas?
What inspires me is being an artist myself and a businesswoman and trying to continue the heart of a community amongst the many artists and writers throughout the world.

Who do I admire in the business?  My friend Derek Sivers, who used to work in the tape room when I was a writer at Warner Chappell, and who had the vision and drive to go into a territory that no one else had — he created CD Baby for indie artists and their CDs.  He has a true heart and is his own person.  He has kept it real all these years and I admire that.  He is a hero to me: He spreads his vision and keeps asking the right questions.  I feel Songcircle is doing the same thing for the indie artist but with song placement, performing and partnerships.

We heart a lot of those qualities ourselves…
We all just want to be loved…truly! We want to touch people with our music and as many of them as possible.  That’s why I believe SongCircle will work — what goes around comes around. We have a good heart. We are small, but small is the new big.

— David Weiss

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