#94 - 14th July 2024 - wtf is going on?

Something completely bizarre just happened. I'm in a whatsapp group hosted by a german music podcast which in turn belongs to Sound & Recording, a relatively large audio magazine (if you could say that about a magazine these days?) with quite some renown in the German speaking community.

So in that group somebody asked for what software would be recommended to do lyric videos like you saw them on the socials. I suggested CapCut as it's also what I would use and made good experiences with. I then added a sniplet of a lyrics video I had edited as an example.

As a reponse to that, a guy asked who the girl in the video was and that he wanted to sign her for his label. The finder would get 20EUR.

I responded that he could speak with me and donate the 20EUR to an animal shelter (I'm quite the chap, right?!), already being a little suspicious as a) I doubt anybody seriously looking for artists would approach it like that and b) his spelling and grammar were a bit off. I'm old school, but that kind of shit simply is a warning sign to me.

A little later, I found him messaging me directly on whatsapp, saying how he was doing A&R for Warner in Germany but also had his own indie label and was big in promoting artists in West Africa. He then asked if I could send some tracks and what my rates were as a producer. I send some sample tracks and clips and did not talk about money.

Perhaps a little late, but at this point I figured I should check his insta and go see if any of the claims could be verified from what he does on social media. Turns out he's got about 8800 followers, a lot of them young, female and with issues finding right sized clothes for their body parts. Huh.

Indeed, there was content from seemingly African artists on it. And videos of him speaking some unstructured stuff in a camera. Not exactly how I would imagine a Warner A&R.

Checking the clock, I realized I had to be in the studio in 30min, so I left it all as it was and went on minding my tech session (yesterday's post).

In the evening, I saw I had two calls from him and two voice messages, about 9min in total.

And I can't go in the details of their contents but let's just say it was a woozy story from huge families and affiliations with the music industry, to doing a Netflix casting show and knowing people from Warner, to a contract we should sign immediately in which I'd pay 99EUR a month for management and distribution support, and artist consultants in Munich he would know and recommend working with. He would like to make millions with us but what's most important to him is trust and loyalty! This will be important later.

He then shared four contacts with me, of which one person is affiliated with a Hamburg based business doing direct door-to-door sales for solar PV and other stuff. Yes, the people we all love in front of our houses! The other three are with the Munich based artist consultancy. Very odd. Remember: All of this was a constant stream of information from him, not a conversation with me.

At this point, I was contemplating whether I should just block him or politely say "thanks, but no thanks!". I was leaning to the latter but went off to do some work, when my GF came over showing me an instagram story that he had made already in the afternoon, linking the bands last release and stating he had signed us.

What the actual f**k?! Thanks for the trust and loyalty and lying to your 8800 almost naked, female followers.

I reported the story and send him a whatsapp voice message demanding he should take it down.

He did.

The internet is full of scammers and lunatics. Don't let them get you. Ever since I'm regularly using instagram again, my stream is flooded with promotions from so called "promotion experts" that boost your music career to the next level, showing you all the tricks, giving you all the followers etc. pp.

And I can see why. From my own experience as a musician and from speaking with others, doing the social thing is cumbersome and most feel like they are selling their soul (which is true). And it just takes so much effort to get to a place were you're heard and seen. As a consequence, a lot of musicians will find the idea of getting quick help very intriguing. Me included.

But I'm also aware that there is no free lunch. And these folks that promise to make you a star are just the guys that think they are smart by selling shovels when everybody is on to the gold rush.

Anyway, that's it for now. I hope.