by Lee Seelig

In the past four months, working in Gamelan's booking agency, I have spoken with countless musicians in bands all throughout the country. Most of the bands I encounter have no representation and would love to find an agent or a manager. A large percent age of these groups consist of either college students or musicians who work part-time jobs. Each band has unique personalities and distinct goals, but they all are essentially after the same thing: to get to a point in time where the band can focus sole ly on the music.

Being able to focus solely on the music means not having to worry about booking shows, promoting dates, dealing with venues, taking care of record distribution, updating the band's web site, setting up interviews, and all other business-related items inv olved in running a band. The musician's dream is to be in a situation where these tasks are taken care of by a trustworthy team of businessmen and advisors. The problem, however, is that this scenario is just as likely as winning the lottery.

Last week I was talking with Alby Cohen, a member of Damn Brandy (a band from Ithaca trying to make some noise on the scene), and we were having a conversation along these lines. I was asking Alby what his band does in the way of publicity for shows and if they were willing to work hard apart from the music. Cohen assured me his band works diligently on promotion, saying "lazy young musicians need to realize if they ever want to be lazy, they can not be lazy right now."

Alby's remark got me thinking about my next article for jambands.com. I decided it would be interesting to look at a developing band and see how the members divide up the work internally. Damn Brandy is too young of a band to fully dissect (they've only been around six months), so I did some brainstorming and decided to use Hartford-based Rane as my example. I chose Rane because I wanted to write about a band that has not received much exposure on this web site. Another reason I chose Rane is because I think many of you will be hearing about them a lot more in the future.

Rane has been together since 1996 and has played over 300 shows in the past two and a half years. Rane has played The Webster Theatre in Hartford, CT; The House of Blues in Cambridge, MA; Wetlands Preserve in New York City; Toad's Place in New Haven; The Met Cafe in Providence, RI; as well as numerous college events and festivals. In the past, the band has been a part of shows with Tom Petty, The Allman Brothers Band, Jerry Garcia Band, Public Enemy, 311, Guster, and Jiggle the Handle. Rane consists of Kurt Rinaldi (percussion), Travis LaMothe (drums), Bowman (lead guitar), Dan Prindle (bass), and Alan Veniscofsky (lead vocals, guitar).

What makes Rane so extraordinary is the solid business foundation their band has established. The group has incorporated themselves as a Limited Liability Corporation called TIDES LLC and also started their own record label with the same name. Every mem ber of the band takes on a business role with specific responsibilities. As Alan told me, "each person plays a separate part in a larger whole, working together to act as a record label and a fully operational management group."

Kurt Rinaldi is in charge of distribution for the band's first CD "At War With The Moon" and their upcoming release "Camelopardalis." Rinaldi's job is to get the band's CDs in as many stores as possible through either consignment or getting the outlet t o buy the discs outright. Currently, Rane's music is available in every New England Media Play store, Record Express, Newbury Comics, and approximately 50 other record shops throughout the Northeast. Kurt is in constant contact with all of these stores, making biweekly calls to each, restocking them and following up on payment. He is also in charge of the band's merchandise. Rinaldi tracks the sales of all CDs, T-shirts, and stickers at all of the gigs and reorders when needed.

Travis LaMothe is Rane's resident marketing guru. LaMothe developed the RaneRep program which helps take some of the promotional workload off of the band. The concept is simple: if you put up posters for a specific show, you get into that show for free . If you sell 10 of Rane's CDs, you get one CD for free, admission to a show of your choice, a free sticker, and a bootleg. Besides maintaining the network of RaneReps, Travis also contacts newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television networks, and all other press regarding Rane shows. Travis's biggest coup may have been when Rane was featured on Hartford's Fox 61 News. LaMothe also keeps in close contact with the band's webmaster, Brian Lee, who keeps their web site (ranetides.com) up and runnin g.

Rane's businessman in the group is bassist Dan Prindle. Dan handles all of the band's financial and legal issues. When TIDES LLC was established, Dan was the one who drafted the partnership agreement. Legal issues that Prindle needs to look after incl ude royalty distribution, contract negotiations, dealing with songwriting copyrights, and keeping track of all incoming revenue. Dan balances the band's check book, pays all of the bills, and most recently he filed the TIDES LLC tax forms for 1999.

The band's booking and general management is handled by Alan Veniscofsky. Alan coordinates the band's touring and gig schedule which means that he is the one finding the band work. Alan sends out press kits to clubs, establishes relationships with ot her bands, kisses-up to booking agents like myself, and is the main voice between the band and the industry. Rane's overall playing strategy is left up to Veniscofsky; his main goal is to bring in as much money as possible without overplaying in one spec ific geographic location. Alan also maintains the band's mailing list and sends out postcards and emails at least once a month with the band's upcoming schedule. Alan told me about his normal weekend, saying "basically from 3 PM Friday until about 6 PM Sunday night, I do nothing but Rane stuff."

The band is rounded out by Bowman who acts as the guy who does all the stuff that falls through the cracks. Bowman maintains the band's rehearsal space and acts as a helper for the other members of the band. So, if Kurt can't get to a record store to g ive them CDs, that's when Bowman fills in. Bowman also assists Travis quite often with marketing-related tasks.

When Rane hits the stage to play a show, certain tasks obviously can not be performed by the musicians. At just about every Rane show you will find Mark Nowak selling the band's merchandise and Brendan Twitchell behind the sound board. Besides doing th e live sound, Twitchell is the band's road manager. Nowak has two roles as well, acting as a crew member helping to move gear before and after shows. Alan assured me that Brendan and Mark are just as important to Rane as any of the musicians.

Besides all of the aforementioned business tasks, the band also needs to find time to rehearse and write music. Balancing the music with the business is sometimes hard to keep in check. As I mentioned earlier, the ideal situation is to spend almost all of your time on the music and let the advisors deal with the business. These days, however, the members of Rane probably only spend 50% of their time on music. The effort is definitely focused, though. Veniscofsky informed me that the band has been wo rking overtime preparing for the release of their second CD entitled "Camelopardalis" on Friday, June 9th at the Webster Theater in Hartford, CT. The band has even set up a ticket distribution system for the show. Rane's web site (www.ranetides.com) can be consulted for more information about tickets for this show.

Until Rane gets to a point where they can afford to pay advisors, the band is going to keep working hard to get their music out to the public. Thankfully for the band, it appears that the musicians do not mind the work that much anyway. As Kurt told me , "it's a lot of work, but the work is actually fun." Alan shared these thoughts, saying "it is definitely hard to keep sane, but it's very rewarding to see it all happen."

I welcome feedback from people who read my articles, so feel free to drop me an email with criticism or praise. What kind of business-related articles would you like to see in this space in the future? leemseelig@hotmail.com is my email, so please do n ot hesitate to send your comments.