Encounters that I still do
These encounters are one of the basic pillars of everything. At least to me. Also, because of these encounters in time, I chose this business. As we all know, such encounters may change the course of your life events. And no, I am not speaking about any success, or how such encounters may lead us to such. It’s about something greater – it’s about finding your own path as a result of such. Also, in order to get reflections from another.
For some, it may be a small addition to the necessary self-reliance, to others at the right time an important advice. Often times, it’s a combination of such. It is often about how to face these encounters. I have a number of personal examples of what can happen in such a situation. And how far-reaching effects they may have. The advice, situation or guideline may also be one that the meaning of which will only be understood later.
In fact, I eagerly wanted to become a contract lawyer when I was a manager for Jorma Lillbacka‘s son in the 90’s. He agreed with that, but still put me in their company’s salary office as a summer help. I received a single contract assignment in that summer – to draw up employment contracts for their owned Northern Cross yacht. I had to leave that draft to their lawyer for a review at the end of the summer. Overall, I would check out the travel bills. Surprisingly, well done a contract draft when repairing is not much found. Afterwards, even though I received a valuable exercise for the preparation of contracts, supported by their lawyers, I learned even more when checking out those travel bills. It was a vantage point to see how a large international company works. It’s been a lot of help from this experience as an artist manager – especially in terms of logistics. Without that experience, I wouldn’t have discovered the things I have.
Another similar encounter occurred with Juhani Merimaa twenty years ago. We were spending time with my friends at Restaurant Ilves. He sat with us and noticed the book I had written on the table. It followed almost three-hour discussion about the music business and the agreements there. Such moments inspire a lot – to be able to discuss with a legend like him. The tips I received from that conversation I have used many times in my career.
Such encounters are still in my everyday life. However, their purpose today is somewhat different. In these situations there’s a great opportunity to get involved in the serendipity and do it together. What we have developed during these conversations, it is not worth taking here. My intention was to show a few examples. An existence of such opportunities available for anyone willing to visit these. Embrace them, you might find something. Here are a few pictures from the past year.
Here I am with Mandy Aubry from Songtrust and Anthony Churchman from MusicAlly. We were talking about music business management education.
Here’s the round circle with Nando Machado and Maira Watanabe from ForMusic/Wikimetal and Vin Valentino, the leader of Delta Enigma. We were trying to find better ways to introduce Finnish alternative rock band to South America’s markets.
This is a lecture shot from Leonidas Chantzaras‘s guest lecture at Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, I as a host. He was talking about things to consider when approaching labels.
And again Vin, with Corina Avalos from Up In the Mix. We were talking about the US market and its special features.
Finally, Heidi Holm from Kingart Music Management. We were talking about potential collaboration on the live scene. Reciprocal venues with the bands we both represent.
There would be more of these pictures. However, I needed to narrow the space so that the idea of this short article would come out as it was intended. Keep having these conversations, you will learn a lot from them!
-M
