Behind the Blogs: Tight Mix

Welcome to version 2.0 of our series Behind the Blogs, in which we interview the bloggers and thinkers who are following the music business changes that affect us all.

Chris Bracco, the founder of Tight Mix, is wise beyond his years.

Just out of college, Bracco is in charge of digital marketing strategies for a boutique artist management firm called Intrigue Music, where he helps artists carve out niches for themselves in increasingly crowded spaces, and his blog, which he started while he was still attending Penn State, provides a unique mix of insights, opinions, and tips for artists looking to make their own way. I traded a couple e-mails with him about his job at Intrigue, the challenge of giving away advice in your field of expertise, and more.

You started this blog in college (its old wordpress, for completists, is here). Did any of your friends know about it? Did you you do it for a class?

Yeah I started it during my sophomore year at Penn State, really as just a place for me to re-blog some really cool stuff that I came across every now and then. I was just learning how to play guitar and record on my dinky home setup, and I was really active in a few home recording forums, so I would blog mainly about stuff that I came across there. None of my friends knew or really cared that I had a blog, I just did it for me. Recently I decided to broaden the scope of my blog, self-host it, and go full steam ahead just to see where it would take me. Things have been going great so far!

One of the things that stood out for me was the presence of album reviews, which most blogs of this stripe tend to stay away from. Do you worry about alienating readers by doing that? Do you try to shine a spotlight on particular artists? What kind of larger strategy or thinking goes into that portion of your blog?

Why ramble on about the importance of sharing music, promoting music, and loving music, if you’re not going to do it yourself? I come across so many random, unknown bands everyday, and I understand how hard it is to get the word out and make an impression with people online. Every once in a while, though, I’ll come across something that really resonates with me, and that’s the kind of stuff I love sharing with others. The bands that I feature, 99% of the time, are people that have either reached out to me first (not promoting their music, just reaching out to say hey or with a question), and actively read up on the music industry. They are in the hustle, and have a true passion for what they do, so those are the kinds of bands that you see featured on my blog every week.

Now you’re the head of digital marketing and label manager for Intrigue Music. Is there any tension or worry that maybe you’re giving away the store? Do you try to keep certain information under your hat?

I am definitely not giving away the store. I have posted a lot of free advice, templates, tutorials, e-books, and tips over the past few months, but that is really a very small part of my skill set as a digital marketer. And as you’ll read in some of the tutorials I write, I try to give you the basics, but I leave it up to you to customize and tailor your strategy to fit your operation. I have received some really excellent responses from the e-book that I wrote a few months back, and I’m considering releasing my next one for an extremely small price, like a couple bucks or something to help me cover the web hosting costs. I like giving away concrete advice for free though, I feel like that is so hard to come across. So many blogs, especially social media related, make money off selling the obvious, like “have a vision,” “set your goals,” “write a to-do list,” etc. Like, no shit man. Once your past that, where do you go from there? With my blog, I try to help people with that. I’d love to turn it into a business someday, but I’m a newbie to the industry, so I’d like to get some nice experience under my belt before anything like that ever happens.

Bracco at work on his own music

Tell me more about Intrigue. What’s one of the main things you’ve learned since you started working there? Is there some secret treasure trove of information that you happened upon when you started working there?

I’ve been with Intrigue only for a few months, and it’s a very low-key operation, which is perfect for me since I am just getting my foot in the door. We do management and publishing, and I’m the digital marketing guy for their management clients. I’m the “head” because im the only guy there doing it, haha. The management roster at Intrigue has taken a complete 180 degree turn since I interviewed with them back in March, and we now represent a bunch of developing artists. This is so awesome for me, because for my first job out of college, I get the opportunity to lead, learn, and experiment with different strategies and game plans to get these guys exposed online and offline. I finally am getting to try out some of the ideas that all these music industry buffs have been ranting and raving about for the past few years.

Being there for only a few months, I have actually learned quite a lot about the music industry, and about myself. The publishing world is something that I’ve had zero experience with up until Intrigue, and my co-workers have done an amazing job of educating me about that. Another big thing that I have noticed is that so many bands, musicians, and sometimes their managers have no online strategy for their music. Websites re-direct to their MySpace profiles, they don’t rank in search engines, they have no idea how Twitter can help them, and other things like that. And the biggest problem is that they are FINE with it! It blows my mind sometimes, and takes a lot of convincing and educating on my part to make them realize that they are ignoring what could potentially be a huge part of their business.

Then there are the people who understand the importance, but just have no idea how to make it happen because of their lack of web design knowledge and resources. For these first few months at Intrigue, this is exactly what I have been doing for them. I am neck deep into the world of web and graphic design, and trying to establish each of our artist’s brands online before even thinking about promoting them. I am still in the process of doing that, and it is literally just me working on this all day because I am the only one with any web design knowledge in the office. I enjoy creating things though, so I love the position that I’m in right now.

Let’s talk about those folks that don’t get it, then. How do you go about convincing them? It seems like a lot of the artists that are clueless about this stuff view it as kind of demeaning; the idea that they need to know about Twitter or whatever implies that their music isn’t that good: “If my music’s good enough, people will find it, and everything will take care of itself.”

Rather than lecturing and ridiculing an artist for being late to the game, which is pointless and counter-productive, I simply educate them about what’s out there, and provide them with concrete examples, ideas, and success stories. If an artist is so naive as to think people will just magically find his or her music, then in my opinion they are not taking their career seriously, which warrants to a totally different and much more important discussion on its own. It’s time to wake up and realize that pretty much nothing becomes successful or famous overnight, you have to be willing to put in the work to see the results.

Given that you’re just starting out, and that you could kind of go anywhere in the industry, where do you think you’ll go? What part of the music industry most appeals to you?

AHH – the classic “where do you see yourself in 5 years?”-type question, huh? Well, as of right now, my brain is still in “college mode” and I am continuously reading, learning, and soaking up every possible tidbit of information that I can about the music industry, social media, web design, digital marketing, music theory, and philosophy. This is where my interests lie, and I would like to develop and apply all of these skill sets to as many music-related projects as possible. I am an entrepreneur at heart, and I love creating things. Aside from the music itself, I feel that marketing is arguably the most creative aspect of the music business. Down the road, I think I would like to start my own creative web design/digital marketing firm that works mainly with music clients, or just freelance on a project-by-project basis, because, well, working from home really just kicks ass.