Tag: music industry

For Single Moms In The Music Industry, The Battle For Respect Is Real

Vick Bain, Director of The F-List and Parents in Performing Arts

A recent report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s youth radio station, Triple J, indicates that women are still underrepresented at almost every level of the music industry, including festival lineups, the boards of major music bodies, radio and at record labels. The only silver lining was that the gender pay gap has somewhat narrowed (though parity is still yet to happen) and there’s been an increase, too, in the number of women in management level at indie record labels in Australia.

There’s been broad acknowledgement that the pandemic has disproportionately affected women, who are largely responsible for housework, caring for children, home schooling and also caring for their parents. For single mums, in particular, the demands are magnified and their finances are likely to already be ravaged by the time they’ve taken off work to have a child, the expenses of raising a child alone and having to work part-time to accommodate caring for their child. It may seem to some that working in the music industry is not a place that is forgiving or accepting of women who require some flexibility, or who are competing with men who are fearless in their capacity for self-promotion.

For Grace, 38, a music publicist in Melbourne (whose name has been changed for privacy concerns), her constant challenge is to not internalise all the judgements made of her as a single mother. Her son was one and a half when his parents divorced. At 8, he’s sat backstage next to Nick Cave and seen some of Australia’s biggest acts performing major venues.

“Some people in this industry don’t understand why there’s a child, why I can’t find a babysitter, why I can’t get my parents to look after him,” says Grace. “I do find there’s a certain demographic – normally middle-aged men – who just don’t respect me if they see me backstage with a child. My client barely even spoke to me when I showed up with my child recently. The women I know in the industry are great, but I get a lot of judgement from women at the school gate who are appalled my child might be out later than 7pm. My son goes to work with his dad too, who also gets comments like, ‘some women weren’t born to be mothers.’ There’s still this outmoded idea that women working and raising a child is weird.”

As the publicist for an artist who is also a single mother, Grace has observed first-hand the way that artists can be placed on a pedestal and immune to the blatant judgement and opinions of others, even though they privately discuss their own fears of being judged.

“One of my clients is also a single mum to two kids aged 2 and 4, so I take care of them backstage when she’s performing. We talk about this shame we feel, this perception of being unprofessional or also trying to hide our kids to avoid the judgement that we might not be doing our job. My son enjoys going backstage, he loves venues, he loves music.”

Maria Amato has been the CEO of the Australian Independent Records Association (AIR) since 2016. Though her son is now in university, she recalls that it was financially and personally challenging to work in high-profile positions, while running her own business, as a single mom.

“I’ve been a single mum since he was 4 years old. [From 2010 to 2014], I was CEO of the Melbourne Film Festival and I’ve always run my own business,” she says. “I was lucky that I had help from family if I needed to travel overseas to look after him. When my son was little, 15 years ago, bringing a child to the office wasn’t even something I would have contemplated.”

Amato was fortunate that in working for herself, she could work early in the morning, do school drop offs and pick-ups, and finish any work late at night if needed. She has no regrets over the past financial sacrifices she made through going part-time to raise her son. He lets her know that he appreciates her choices, too – as well as her current success.

“My son thinks it’s fantastic – he’s super proud of me as an independent, self-sufficient woman doing what I love on my own terms,” Amato says. “I think it inspires him in his own life. I did have mother guilt of working so much, so I have always taken him on holiday every year – all around Australia and overseas. I just want all moms to know that they are awesome, single moms are awesome, widowed moms are awesome. Do what’s right for you. If anyone at work is making derogatory comments, it’s not acceptable. Don’t allow that toxicity to infect to you.”

For UK-based Vick Bain, her experience as a single mother informed her choice to advocate for mothers in music. She’s curator of the F-List (a list of all the UK women in the music industry), former CEO of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers & Authors (BASCA) and Board Director of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, Delic and Parents in Performing Arts.

That success came long after Bain’s partner left a year into their relationship, mere months before she was to give birth to their twins. She subsequently lost both her home and her job, leaving her homeless and reliant on friends for help.

“That summer was the most difficult period of my life,” she recalls. She was Music Administrator at Festival Hall in London at the time. “It became apparent, as my pregnancy went on, that my partner would bail out and the landlord of the shared house I was in evicted me. Luckily, at 30 weeks pregnant, a friend and his wife rented me a one bedroom flat in a nice area of London. I had to leave my job because the temporary contract wasn’t renewed because I was pregnant, which they were allowed to do at the time.”

Bain relied on government support and cheap rentals during the first years of being a mother. She returned to work for a day, then two days a week. She also freelanced in bookkeeping and administration for creative businesses. Over a nine-year period, she rose to CEO at BASCA, when her twins were 13.

“It was tough on my kids. They were too old for au pairs and I’d moved us out of London because we couldn’t afford it, but it meant I was commuting for four hours a day on top of work, for nine years.”

When Bain left BASCA, after a year of battling breast cancer, she opted to follow her dream of pursuing a PhD on women’s careers in the UK music industry, while also advising music industry clients on diversity and inclusiveness. This was the foundation for the F-List.

“Only 20% of artists are female, and only 14% are writers. It surprised me how few women were being invested in and supported,” she says.

“I’m also the Director of Parents In Performing Arts,” says Bain. “I know, as a single parent, how hard it is.”

Bain’s daughter, Amber, now works as the Social Media Manager for the F-List, and aspires to follower her mother’s path and work in the music industry.

The lengthy commutes, the welfare dependency and her loneliness in those years of living outside of London for the sake of providing her children with a garden are not taken into account in her CV, but so often mothers are not given credit for their professional accomplishments in the context of achieving so many other important things.

For Grace, who has her son 60% of the time, her frustration is with clients and strangers who make the assumption that she is not fulfilling her responsibilities as a mother nor as a publicist.

“I’m able to do my job, being responsible for all these people backstage, and look after my child,” she says. “I think there’s some people who just don’t get that. I think it needs to be accepted, and in some places and spaces, encouraged.”

WOMAN OF INTEREST: NOW WHAT?? Offers A New Approach to Networking in the Digital Era

The three hosts of NOW WHAT?? take questions at the beginning of their roundtable discussion. All photos by Desdemona Dallas.

Spreadhouse Cafe is lit softly with rose-colored neon. A group of creative types gather around a table, excitedly talking about art, projects, new ideas, past ideas, failures and successes. There are about forty people here, but there’s only one computer sitting at the head of the table, and no one pays attention to it. Each person here is here for dialogue – IRL dialogue.

NOW WHAT??, a New York based collective of music industry professionals, has gathered this meeting of the minds at the Spreadhouse to start an honest conversation about what is next for the music industry. They’ve stripped away the social media grandstanding, the trolls, and the fake filtered photos of friends who #wokeuplikethis, and replaced it with a vulnerable experience of honesty they hope leads to empowerment in a new era of networking.

NOW WHAT?? host Vira Byramji adds her own comments and suggestions to the conversation.

Gathering for the first time in 2017, artist manager Eliza Berse, music business woman Lilly Torres, and audio engineer Vira Byramji wanted to create a welcoming atmosphere to break down walls within the music industry through a unique, crowd-sourced question-and-answer forum. The three have known each other for nearly a decade, since attending SUNY Purchase together. One afternoon, while discussing some of the professional pitfalls they’d experienced, the three came up with an idea for a round table discussion, open to others who may be experiencing the same turmoil. They thought it would be a one-off production, but right from the get-go, attendees vocalized a desire for more. Since then, NOW WHAT?? has hosted over a year’s worth of events, each bringing new perspectives and dismantling the roadblocks that seemingly stand in the way of those looking to begin a career in the music world.

“We are opening up the floor to vulnerability and we are giving our audience the opportunity to be the leaders of the conversation,” explains Torres. ” I think that alone changes the dynamic of a regular kind of networking experience, where you are listening instead of being an active participant. So I think that is where we can empower people, and I think its rare to find that in New York.”

In the round table discussion, everyone in the room has a chance to offer questions, advice and ideas for collaboration.

Usually, the events play out like this: someone poses a question to the group about the music industry – everything from how to market your music to how to find an engineer. The evening unfolds organically as members from the audience come forward with guidance, tips and tricks, or sometimes just the honest admittance of also having felt lost. The aspect of commiseration is a humbling one – NOW WHAT?? isn’t a place for know-it-alls, self-appointed experts, and especially mansplainers. Instead, the discussion breaks down both common and uncommon struggles by teasing out particular stumbling blocks in a supportive environment. The room buzzes with a sense of relief, inspiration, and hope that in an overly connected internet age that often leads to feelings of disconnection, we can still find spaces for honest vulnerability.

“I think what we also realized was how important it is for artists and creatives to have that space to even feel comfortable. We always open the conversation by saying, ‘There are no stupid questions – we want to hear what you’re afraid to ask because that’s where we are going to start,'” says Berse. “We are here to talk about the process because everyone can learn from that. I think just the comfort opens up the floor to some really nice conversation.”

We are in a time where pretty much everything across all platforms is changing. Older industry professionals have been media’s gatekeepers for so long, but the internet has disrupted all that, putting the means of production, promotion, and performing directly in artists’ hands – not to mention creating a proliferation of smaller management companies with a hard-working DIY aesthetic. But sometimes these processes remain opaque – if all that’s standing in the way of your music career is the limitations of your knowledge, NOW WHAT?? goes beyond networking to provide a blueprint for opportunities you might not have known existed.

“There is no map right now,” says Torres. “So everyone who is working in it is creating their own lane in one way or another.” Rather than keep their struggles and successes a secret, attendees have a chance to share them, pooling resources and ideas.

But the conversation isn’t open to just music professionals; surprisingly, NOW WHAT?? has also hosted yoga instructors, filmmakers, real estate agents and more. By opening their platform to unlikely members of the music community, they’ve built tangential relationships and discovered unusual ways for everyone to share their work. When the room is full of collaborators – on the same playing field or not – everyone has a bigger impact on the industry.

“I think the big theme is empowerment,”  says Byramji. “I think people get empowered, and then we get empowered, and it’s like a feedback loop. For me as an engineer it’s definitely been great – I have a much broader [understanding] of what happens after the song is done. I think the biggest thing, no matter what, is it’s been a huge boost of confidence. Not in a cocky way, but in a ‘we can get shit done’ way.” She adds that the simple act of inviting people into a room for NOW WHAT?? events even taught her how to be more vulnerable in her work as an engineer. While NOW WHAT?? is certainly invaluable to its community in terms of providing unfiltered knowledge, the curiosity that brought it into existence and the openness to try new things that it encourages has become a lifestyle choice for many of its devotees.

Like any other profession, there are many grey, unmapped areas in the music industry. But the women of NOW WHAT?? use their openness in a radical new way to demystify that uncharted territory. Here, in New York City – one of the largest epicenters of music in the world – these three women ask industry members to slow down, admit their discomfort, and reach out to their community to get the job done.

The next NOW WHAT?? gathering will take place at 7:30pm on Wednesday, February 13 at Spreadhouse Cafe, 116 Suffolk Street in Manhattan, with an afterparty at Beverly’s. RSVP here.