Reply To: Jay Hurtt of Little Bird: The Cavalry Never Comes
Yoo! J here. Thought I’d share some insight on this, as it’s pretty interesting and worth demystifying.
I’ve been to a few industry parties—mostly private A&R events. Most A&Rs are younger, often women, while men tend to move up faster and sometimes go into consulting, negotiating deals independently. If you know someone at a label like Columbia and have an artist with potential, you can get them signed and take a percentage of the advance—kind of like a realtor closing a deal.
A&Rs today mostly handle the grunt work. Labels won’t just sign artists anymore—they’ll sign your car if it has over 50k TikTok followers, lol. They prefer you use their studios and producers, so they own whatever you create. But they still need proof of concept—like solid social media stats or a big email list.
What’s interesting is how labels now support artists from a distance. They’ll ask what you need and help build your story. The public loves a narrative of an artist ‘coming out of nowhere,’ but most of the time, it’s a carefully crafted rollout years in the making.
Media is crucial—it helps us believe dreams are real. It’s like in Sid Meier’s Civilization game—without building a theater in your city, workers get unhappy, and when the workers are unhappy they don’t build stuff.
Dreams are real though, for sure! But in the wise words of Rick Rubin regarding media
“it’s all lies, to find the truth – return to nature”
I’ve also hung out with a guy who managed Dead & Company (among others) and inspired the show Entourage. He’s ruthless—got a hostess fired over a phone call after she said “idk” to one of his questions about the menu. He called the owner and complained and the owner’s response was to let her go on the spot. This restaurant was a BBQ joint in Charleston…May or may not have been home team.
I asked him for advice once, and though it was a bit harsh, it was helpful. His take? To ‘make it,’ you have to eliminate distractions. There’s a price to success.
He also has a famous magician friend who struggles with relationships. Despite his fame, he spends so much time perfecting his craft that it gets in the way of personal connections. At the end of the day, when you’re really at the top, you’re doing it for yourself. And when that gets old…it gets old.
The most striking advice I got was: ‘You’re too old to get signed—find a rich person who likes you.’ Harsh, but real.
I could go on forever about this stuff but the musical group “Lonely Island” (yeah the “I’m on a boat” guys) has a WHOLE new meaning to me. (Listen to Rick Rubin’s podcast with Will Smith)
2) it’s all copyright trolling.
3) tee shirts lol – once I get that $25 from you buying a tee shirt…I use it to buy more tee shirts 🤣.
This is a good question though – to be honest it depends on the artist and what they need but I feel like simply listening to the music and sharing it directly goes the longest way.
I’ll leave you with one last story…this could give you some insight and you could perhaps find your own answer with “what can I do to help”
Let’s say my goal as a touring artist is to sell tickets in your town to my show.
In the summer of I think 2023 a country music singer performed at Charleston’s Windjammer.
Now, Charleston is a great market for a touring artist as it’s soooorrrttaa on the way to Florida from Charlotte, it’s near ATL and not too far from Columbia SC but basically the biggest venue in Charleston is North Charleston’s Performing Arts Center. The PAC. Or Charleston Coliseum. Which holds about 13k people. The biggest venue in ATL is the Mercedes Arena which holds 71k. To put it in perspective Madison Square holds 20k.
The biggest place you can play in Charleston is actually Riverfront park though. It can fit like 15,000 people plus people on boats can pull up and listen from afar.
The windjammer holds just shy of 1200 if they really pack it out. (Outside) they also have the best “deal” in Charleston. Meaning that venue takes the smallest % of money from gross sales compared to any other venue. (Maybe 2nd to Royal American) 😉
Charleston SC isn’t a major market…for most people. As the population of the city isn’t the size of Charlotte, ATL or New York City for that matter. So it’s about 150,000 people living there. In Isle of Palms, SC (about 20 mins from downtown) the population is about 4,300. So selling 1,200 tickets is selling a ticket to about 1% of Charleston SC’s population. It selling a ticket to about 28% of the population of Isle of Palms SC.
1% of New York is about 200,000 people.
28% of midtown manhattan is about 88,000 people.
So this country music singer in the summer of 2023 (or 2022 I don’t remember) had booked a show at the Windjammer. It sold out. The weather was perfect. The vibe was sublime. The opener gets off stage – the crowd is buzzing with anticipation to glimpse this outlaw country music artist perform. “In a few years this guy will be huge” some people could be heard talking in the crowd.
The crowd is chanting his name, the sun is setting, the sound engineer is ready, and a stage hand assistant knocks on the door of the backstage green room, and says “5 mins ya’ll!”
A whiskey glass slams on the country top inside. The outlaw headliner cocks his head bad and puts his shades on- he is ready to perform, outlaw country music singing sensation turns to his band in the Smokey and dimly lit green room and tells them “let’s f*ckin’ ride boys” (idk I wasn’t there I just imagine this)
While walking to the stage about 5 yards from the stairs to climb up a team of sheriff’s stop the singer and arrest him before performing in front of 1200 fans.
He didn’t play a single note that night and was booked on possession of marijuana.
To the dismay of 1200 people they were dumbfounded to read online the following day about the arrest, they received an email from the venue and MGMT of the band informing each ticket buyer they had the option to collect a refund, or to let their tickets roll-over for the next concert the singer would perform in Charleston. A week later, the arrest it was published in national tabloids making headlines in Rolling Stone and countless publications.
Two weeks after the arrest he puts about a song called “Wild man”… a composition entirely composed within his jail cell the night of the arrest.
😉
6-8 months later Mr Paul Cauthen visited Charleston again, this time performing in front of a sold out crowd at the Charleston Riverfront Park.
15,000 people singing his anthem.
now what exactly went on there…idk but I just googled that to fact check myself and it turns out he bought the weed from someone at the Windjammer…I am not a famous man but I have totally smoked in that green room and I didn’t get arrested 😉
<3
peace ✌️
