Where Rivers Run Deep

            How does one go about scouting artists to manage? It’s almost like looking for a needle in a haystack but there are countless droves of untapped talent out there anxiously awaiting their big break. Before the advent of social media, finding diamonds in the rough primarily involved word of mouth and who you knew. Free exposure by way of social media sites paired with recording equipment becoming more affordable and acquirable has led to a musical revolution of sorts, comprised of individuals taking charge of their own careers by recording their own music, in turn capitalizing on the fruits of their own labor by way of various outlets like Bandcamp, MySpace and ReverbNation to name a few. Needless to say, there is no shortage of free or inexpensive music of all genres these days; music is all around us.

            How do you know when an artist is ready to be managed? There is much more to getting your career off the ground than sending out a few demo tapes to a few record labels. To appeal to these labels in the first place, you have to be the total package. This week, I took to Twitter to get some first hand experience into looking for new talent as an experiment. Artists and groups follow me on Twitter all the time depending on music that I listen to. (Artists will follow the general public if they listen to similar artists in their genre to get people to take a few minutes out of their day to listen to them.) I am usually set in my ways when it comes to music that I listen to but for occasions like this, I can hop online to discover new music that I’ve never heard before as an escape.

            For this experiment, I started at the bottom of my followers list and worked my way up. Things that generally pique my interest when I’m discovering new acts are their names, their visuals, their song titles, and how they carry themselves online. I listened to a lot of new music and even downloaded a few albums to listen to at a later time. Oddly enough, I was occasionally transferred to pages that had no music at all or additional links to help me get to know the band a little better; needless to say that’s a no-no. When I got to the very end of my followers list, I came across a band by the name of Rivers Monroe and they demonstrated a lot of great things that I wish to talk about today.

            According to their Twitter page, “Rivers Monroe is an energetic and mainstream brand of music, flavored with a fresh rock & pop/punk mixture” from Philadelphia. This is great - they know how to define themselves and have a pretty good idea who their target audience is. Just then, I was pulled in by their profile picture and wallpaper. Their logo consists of a black background, differing splashes of neon paint and an “RM’ in the middle. It reminded me of each member taking a different color paint can and making their mark on it by telling the background that each of them are similar but different at the same time and that each of them will bring about a different flavor to the table. So far, so good!

            “Follow us for a FREE DOWNLOAD of our music!” They are enthusiastic about sharing their blood, sweat and tears with their audience. I clicked on their Facebook link and took a look around. One of the members on their cover photo is wearing an Anberlin shirt; that’s an instant 10,000 cool points right there! I began to learn a lot more about the group from their music tab on their Facebook site.
            They met my expectations as an artist and I was pleased to note that not only do they have an upcoming show with All Time Low and The Wonder Years, bands that I listen to regularly, they had working links to all of their social sites and a great looking .com page where I was able to download their new album, “Meteors.” Last but not least, I clicked on a YouTube video of the band doing a performance for Radio 104.5’s Birthday Bash in their hometown of Philadelphia. You could see from the video that Rivers Monroe were enjoying themselves and had a deep appreciation and unconditional love for the fans. This is so crucial from a manager’s standpoint because it is vital that you find acts that do what they love and love what they do. And of course, I will be looking forward to big things from this group and hope to find more artists out there with the gumption that Rivers Monroe has!