Latest / The Scene Projects / Barry LaBov on Marketing, Music Promotion, and Community Building

Transcript

Barry LaBov on Marketing, Music Promotion, and Community Building · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  Today's guest is Barry Labov, founder and CEO of Labov Marketing Communications and Training,
• 0:09
  two time Ernst and Young entrepreneur of the year, and entrepreneur hall of fame inductee.
• 0:15
  Let's get into the show.
• 0:22
  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
• 0:27
  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
• 0:32
  from across the Midwest.
• 0:35
  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
• 0:48
  Welcome in to another very exciting episode of the scene.
• 0:51
  I am your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today is Barry Labov.
• 0:54
  Barry, welcome to the show.
• 0:56
  Thank you, Bubba.
• 0:57
  Let's rock and roll.
• 0:58
  Yeah.
• 0:59
  Well, a little bit more accomplished than, myself and a lot of other guests that we have
• 1:04
  on.
• 1:05
  So I wanna give you the floor here at the beginning of the show and just let you give us
• 1:09
  a little bit of your backstory.
• 1:11
  My backstory is this, Bubba.
• 1:13
  I I've been playing music since I was a kid.
• 1:17
  I was in a really, probably hard to listen to rock band when I was 12 with my brother.
• 1:23
  I played drums, sang, and played keyboards.
• 1:27
  All at the same time, he played guitar.
• 1:29
  So it's two man band, kinda like an early version of the black keys, only not very good.
• 1:34
  And then over the years, what's happened is I got involved playing with other musicians, had
• 1:41
  some songs that were recommended on the Billboard charts, had an MTV video, some songs
• 1:46
  published, things like that.
• 1:48
  And it then blossomed into me running a creative company that did have anything from
• 1:54
  jingles in the early days to music and to actually videos and campaigns for companies
• 2:03
  like Harley Davidson and Audi and other wonderful brands.
• 2:07
  So it's been a great journey, but I still use my rock and roll roots every single day.
• 2:15
  I love it.
• 2:16
  I, I love that, where maybe the music career wasn't going to take off.
• 2:22
  You found a different outlet for the creativity and a way to use that and to build an extremely
• 2:27
  successful career for yourself while never leaving the rock and roll roots behind, maybe
• 2:33
  just letting them feed and flourish different parts of your life.
• 2:37
  Yeah.
• 2:38
  I I think one thing that I found when I started to move into more of a marketing creative
• 2:45
  situation where I was doing the videos and I was doing these big campaigns is that I kinda
• 2:51
  thought at first, Bubba, like, wow.
• 2:52
  I'm selling out.
• 2:53
  I'm not a musician.
• 2:55
  You know?
• 2:55
  I'm not doing that.
• 2:56
  Well, it occurred to me what I loved the most was creativity.
• 3:00
  So I got to be creative all the time.
• 3:03
  So every day, it's a series at my company, and this is what we call this, a series of jam
• 3:10
  sessions.
• 3:10
  We are jamming, collaborating all day.
• 3:14
  And when somebody comes into the company and applies for a job, we kinda give them a
• 3:18
  warning.
• 3:18
  We say, look.
• 3:19
  We're constantly collaborating.
• 3:22
  We're always trying to make something a little better.
• 3:24
  We're always pulling people in.
• 3:26
  And if that's not the way you think, you shouldn't even apply here because it's it's
• 3:31
  crazy.
• 3:32
  It's off the charts.
• 3:33
  A corporate version of the Grateful Dead.
• 3:37
  Exactly right.
• 3:38
  That's exactly what I I kinda think what I do is similar to Neil Young.
• 3:42
  You know?
• 3:42
  He's done all these different things, and now he's to this point where he's going, okay.
• 3:46
  Look.
• 3:46
  This is how I wanna do it.
• 3:47
  This is what I wanna do.
• 3:49
  I'm not gonna sell out.
• 3:50
  If you like what I do, great.
• 3:52
  If not, don't show up.
• 3:55
  And, honestly, that's been Neil's whole career.
• 3:57
  Right?
• 3:58
  I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do.
• 3:59
  If you like it, great.
• 4:00
  If you don't, I really don't care.
• 4:02
  Right.
• 4:05
  Funny, connection to that.
• 4:07
  I had a friend of mine that was working with Neil as a tour manager earlier this year.
• 4:12
  So Mhmm.
• 4:12
  He's worked with him for for many years.
• 4:15
  Shout out to Corey up there in Minneapolis.
• 4:18
  We're building a great thing in our music scene around here.
• 4:21
  I live in South Dakota, but Minneapolis was always kind of a part of for us, that was the
• 4:26
  dream, right, to get up there.
• 4:27
  Barry, where are you based out of?
• 4:28
  Well, I'm based out of Fort Wayne, Indiana.
• 4:31
  So are you familiar with Sweetwater?
• 4:33
  Yeah.
• 4:34
  The world's largest retailer.
• 4:36
  I just was on, I was just on a Zoom meeting with Mike Clem, who's the CEO, and I'm good
• 4:42
  friends with Chuck Surak, is the founder.
• 4:44
  He recorded my band's music, I don't know, a few 100 times.
• 4:47
  So, yeah, we're out of Fort Wayne.
• 4:50
  I also live in Phoenix for about four months of the year, but we have a really good music scene
• 4:56
  here.
• 4:57
  And tremendous talent is right here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
• 5:01
  The musicians, the singers, the artists are amazing.
• 5:05
  And that was really the impetus for me starting the scene projects was that, Midwesterner,
• 5:11
  especially in rural South Dakota.
• 5:12
  I live in a town of a thousand people.
• 5:14
  Sioux Falls is about ninety minutes away.
• 5:17
  The Black Hills is where I grew up.
• 5:19
  In Deadwood, we just had the Wild West songwriters festival and, inviting, you know,
• 5:24
  people from all over the Midwest and a and a couple of our Nashville, songwriters come in
• 5:29
  for the weekend.
• 5:30
  That's been thirteen years that's been happening, of which I've been a part of it the
• 5:33
  last three as a performer.
• 5:35
  But I was seeing all of these people where it's like there's but there's no outlet.
• 5:39
  Right?
• 5:39
  There's no exposure for any of these musicians.
• 5:42
  We have some great local news programs that will have us on occasionally, but the local
• 5:47
  radio stations of which there are very few to begin with aren't really supporting independent
• 5:52
  music and those things.
• 5:54
  They have a few of us on, but there's really no local radio shows.
• 5:57
  So I really just kinda put it on my own back and went, well, I'm gonna be VH one and the
• 6:01
  radio and MTV and Rolling Stone.
• 6:04
  We write for a a magazine up in Minneapolis called Tumbling Rock Zine.
• 6:09
  Yeah.
• 6:09
  We put it out as a joke, but because there's no other outlet for these bands to be heard and
• 6:16
  seen and read about, that now it's, you know, been running for over a year and a half.
• 6:20
  And, in the age of independent media now, you know, when Elon Musk came out last fall and was
• 6:27
  like, we are the media.
• 6:28
  I was like, oh, shit.
• 6:29
  He's talking to me, Barry.
• 6:31
  Right.
• 6:32
  Well, you know, one thing I tried to do with our local airport, we have a great airport here
• 6:36
  in Fort Wayne, and they would not listen to me.
• 6:39
  But I said, you know, we have wonderful original music artists.
• 6:43
  Why don't we play their music and highlight it in the airport?
• 6:48
  You have a million or two people coming in and out.
• 6:51
  Why not do that?
• 6:52
  Why listen to that Muzak or some generic stuff?
• 6:56
  Let's celebrate the originality.
• 6:58
  And that's that's one thing.
• 6:59
  You know, I I think musicianship is awesome.
• 7:03
  Where my heart is at is original music and somebody that's writing something or created
• 7:08
  something from her heart or his heart.
• 7:11
  I'm going, wow.
• 7:12
  Let's hear that.
• 7:13
  Let's celebrate that.
• 7:15
  Yeah.
• 7:16
  And that's exactly what we do here at the Scene Projects.
• 7:19
  We have an Internet radio station now where we're able to put this music out onto the
• 7:23
  airwaves.
• 7:25
  We're we're just in the beginning stages of that.
• 7:27
  So right now, it's just kind of a a mix of podcast interviews and our songwriter showcase
• 7:33
  episodes where I've had musicians on stage live in a, you know, bar or restaurant.
• 7:38
  We shared their music.
• 7:39
  Well, I kinda interviewed them on the stage.
• 7:41
  We recorded everything.
• 7:42
  Well, now those are going out not just on our YouTube and our podcast feeds, but now running
• 7:47
  on our on our, you know, Internet radio station as well.
• 7:50
  And we have no idea what we're doing.
• 7:52
  Right?
• 7:52
  Like, I'm not didn't come from a broadcasting background.
• 7:55
  I came from a place of I'm a songwriter myself, and that was kind of the impetus was, like, I
• 8:00
  went and had the experience of that of that musician who's trying to share their stuff and
• 8:06
  seeing that there was just a huge lack of anything going on and nobody really dedicating
• 8:10
  themselves to being about, you know, music.
• 8:13
  And the reason for that is probably because there's not a lot of money in it.
• 8:16
  Right?
• 8:16
  So businesses aren't aren't jumping in and being like, you know, I'm gonna make if I can't
• 8:21
  make money on it, I don't wanna do it.
• 8:23
  And for me, the the money will come.
• 8:25
  I know that the value is here.
• 8:27
  I I was willing to take a pay cut.
• 8:29
  I was welding in a factory, you know, making 25 to $30 an hour.
• 8:34
  And but I was slaving away fifty, sixty hours a week.
• 8:39
  For what?
• 8:40
  For for what end?
• 8:42
  And now I've supported we've had over 300 artists on our shows now, over a thousand
• 8:47
  uploads on YouTube, a quarter million views in the last six months.
• 8:51
  And we've really proven that people do care about not just the songwriters, but the stories
• 8:57
  that they have to tell.
• 8:58
  Right.
• 8:59
  And, you know, for the audience, my music is up on Spotify and all those different platforms,
• 9:06
  and you can look up Labov, l a b o v, or you can look up my band, which was called Mark, m a
• 9:12
  r k, urgent.
• 9:14
  Mark urgent.
• 9:15
  And I get downloads.
• 9:17
  I have songs, that are BMI songs that are on movies somewhere, and I'll get my, you know,
• 9:22
  $7.32 of royalties.
• 9:26
  But I I'll tell you one thing that I think is great, Bubba.
• 9:29
  The bad news is today, as you said, and this is sad for the audience.
• 9:33
  There's you just don't have the money.
• 9:35
  You're not getting money for all of this.
• 9:36
  You know, when I was growing up, I'm incredibly old.
• 9:39
  When I was growing up and I was a teenager, there were dozens of bands in Fort Wayne,
• 9:45
  Indiana dreaming, very seriously dreaming of becoming famous rock bands.
• 9:51
  And today, that doesn't happen.
• 9:53
  But here's where the good news is for your audience, and I love what you just said.
• 9:58
  Hey.
• 9:58
  You know what?
• 9:59
  Somebody's got some great music.
• 10:00
  It's out there on Apple, Spotify, where wherever, YouTube, wherever.
• 10:05
  Go and listen to it.
• 10:07
  Take a listen to this thing.
• 10:08
  Listen to others.
• 10:09
  You know?
• 10:09
  Even if they only get a few cents every time that happens, Go buy their CD, you know, the
• 10:16
  the literal CD or whatever.
• 10:17
  Go to their websites, but support people doing something original.
• 10:21
  And I'll tell you, I don't know.
• 10:23
  Bob, I'll throw this one at you.
• 10:25
  I think today the musicianship of today's musicians that I'm hearing is tremendous.
• 10:32
  Back in my day, I'll tell you, I played with guys who were great, and I played with guys
• 10:36
  that were kinda hacks.
• 10:38
  And it was like, oh my gosh.
• 10:39
  That guy can't keep a beat.
• 10:41
  Oh my today, the technical proficiency is astounding.
• 10:49
  And that's what's incredible to me is that there's I feel like there's more musicians than
• 10:53
  there ever has been, and some of these kids are learning from, you know, single digit age.
• 10:58
  I didn't get a guitar in my hands till I was maybe 12, 13 years old.
• 11:02
  Now you have some of these kids that are learning from the time they're, you know so
• 11:06
  they can barely wrap their hands around the neck of a guitar, and they're learning how to
• 11:10
  play it.
• 11:10
  And it's spinning out these incredible musicians.
• 11:13
  We do a show every week called Love Noise on our program.
• 11:16
  We do it live on YouTube.
• 11:17
  We bring in a songwriter.
• 11:18
  We play their songs, their recordings on the on the program.
• 11:22
  We talk to them.
• 11:23
  We talk about the story.
• 11:24
  Last night, we had a young man on.
• 11:26
  He goes by the moniker of Blackie Chan, but his name is Jayden.
• 11:30
  And Jayden's 19 years old and spitting out some of this beautiful jazzy r and b's type music
• 11:39
  and the soul behind it.
• 11:42
  Right?
• 11:42
  You're talking about a young man who's a teenager already experienced, you know, drug
• 11:46
  addiction and and and this party atmosphere that's like, man, you hear that in your voice
• 11:51
  where most people would look at you and you're a kid.
• 11:54
  Right?
• 11:54
  You're 19, but you've been through some things.
• 11:57
  And those things are going to connect with people your age and much older like myself.
• 12:02
  I've experienced addictions in my life and, you know, a lot of these things as someone who's
• 12:07
  almost 40 and the soul you could hear in this young man's voice is like, this is why I do
• 12:12
  this.
• 12:13
  Right?
• 12:13
  Like, this is why I'm here is to bring up and provide a platform for this younger generation
• 12:19
  that are coming out now and telling their story.
• 12:22
  And in a business that is, about as depleted as it can get.
• 12:26
  Right?
• 12:26
  I remember the days of wanting to get signed and and be found and discovered and and someone
• 12:31
  threw a big pile of money at you and you were gonna make records the rest of your life and
• 12:35
  and that was about to be it, that that is no longer it.
• 12:39
  You have to have your own business.
• 12:42
  And that's why I think someone like you that has spent a lifetime in the marketing because
• 12:47
  that's most of what you're going to do as a musician these days, can provide so many
• 12:52
  insights to not just our audience, but to any musician or creative that's out there now.
• 12:59
  Well, when I was starting out, my wife and I were writing songs together.
• 13:04
  We'd go to New York.
• 13:05
  We would meet with what's known as an a and r person.
• 13:08
  So, that would be the person at a record company that was listening to songs or checking
• 13:13
  out bands.
• 13:15
  And, you know, it was interesting.
• 13:17
  That was how you got into the business.
• 13:19
  And if they liked you, they'd offer you something or some amount of, you know, money or
• 13:24
  something, but the deals were horrible back then.
• 13:26
  But at least you could make some money.
• 13:28
  I do agree with you.
• 13:29
  I think today it's completely different.
• 13:33
  The good and the bad, there's a lot of both, but the way I would go about it right now is I
• 13:39
  would build my brand.
• 13:41
  I would have my music.
• 13:42
  I would promote it.
• 13:44
  I would find any way I could.
• 13:46
  And again, I'm biased toward original music.
• 13:49
  So let's say you're a tremendous guitarist or vocalist and you can go to clubs and do your
• 13:53
  stuff and you sing amazing versions of other people's songs.
• 13:57
  You know, that's great.
• 13:58
  But I would promote my original music because that's really where you're gonna create your
• 14:05
  brand.
• 14:07
  I would promote it.
• 14:09
  I would work with local businesses.
• 14:12
  Seriously, I'd go to local airports, say, hey.
• 14:14
  Can you put my music up there?
• 14:16
  I'm not asking you for money.
• 14:17
  Can you do it?
• 14:18
  I'd find any way possible to share that.
• 14:21
  I would talk to the local newspaper.
• 14:23
  What I did, I I started a band accidentally during a snowstorm, wrote a song that I thought
• 14:30
  was pretty good, and it started to get attention from record companies.
• 14:33
  It was not released.
• 14:34
  It was not a record yet.
• 14:36
  And I found a way.
• 14:37
  I went to the local radio station, and they were promoting that John Mellencamp John
• 14:42
  Mellencamp was coming to town.
• 14:45
  And I found a way.
• 14:46
  I delivered donuts.
• 14:48
  I got into their studio.
• 14:49
  I said, I'm the donut guy at six in the morning.
• 14:52
  They go, doughnut guy?
• 14:54
  And they go, well, bring the doughnuts in.
• 14:55
  So I did, and I said, hey.
• 14:57
  Here's a recording of my band.
• 14:59
  I wanna back up John Mellencamp, and I walked off.
• 15:03
  They called me a day later and said, okay.
• 15:05
  If you wanna back up Mellencamp, that's great.
• 15:07
  He's gonna play at our big coliseum.
• 15:09
  We'll have 30,000 people there.
• 15:10
  Go do it.
• 15:11
  You gotta do those things.
• 15:13
  You know?
• 15:14
  Then I had to create the band.
• 15:16
  I had to say, okay, guys.
• 15:17
  You played on this one song.
• 15:18
  Are you available?
• 15:19
  And they went, yeah.
• 15:20
  And I go, okay.
• 15:21
  Now we need about 10 other songs.
• 15:24
  But that's what you gotta do.
• 15:26
  It's entrepreneurial.
• 15:28
  It's you've gotta do it.
• 15:29
  And I love any of the original music.
• 15:32
  So, Bubba, I love that you have a show where the artist can actually say, hey.
• 15:36
  Here's my stuff.
• 15:37
  Because think about it.
• 15:38
  It could appeal to so many people because it's not down to whether, the young man you talked
• 15:44
  about, Blackie Chan, is jazzy.
• 15:47
  I'm gonna listen to it even if I don't like jazz.
• 15:49
  Let's say I like country.
• 15:51
  I'm still gonna listen to it because it's original.
• 15:53
  I wanna hear what he's trying to do, and I'm gonna appreciate it just like a fine piece of
• 15:58
  art.
• 15:59
  Well and I'm a member of a couple independent organizations.
• 16:02
  The Midwest Country Music Organization is something I joined back in February 2024.
• 16:08
  And I hadn't even when I joined, it was just as an as an artist.
• 16:12
  Right?
• 16:12
  I was like, hey.
• 16:13
  I need somewhere.
• 16:14
  This looks like a great group of people.
• 16:15
  I was recommended by a friend, Brad Morgan, a fellow Midwesterner and a guy that works down
• 16:20
  in Nashville, a country guy that we saw perform.
• 16:24
  And he's like, hey.
• 16:24
  Check this out.
• 16:25
  Right?
• 16:25
  If you're a musician, this is awesome.
• 16:27
  Well, between that and their award show in April, I had started a podcast.
• 16:32
  Right?
• 16:32
  Was on a few friends podcast, and I was telling my story, and I felt like I barely scratched
• 16:36
  the surface.
• 16:37
  Right?
• 16:37
  I I so much depth in my story that it's like, the only way that I'm really going to get this
• 16:42
  out, because I was already a podcast fan, is to have my own.
• 16:45
  And, I had the wherewithal when we went to the award show to go, like, how are we gonna, like
• 16:51
  we just started this podcast.
• 16:52
  Who are we gonna talk to?
• 16:53
  It was obviously it was gonna be about music.
• 16:55
  Well, we brought the microphones with us in our little Zoom p four recorder.
• 16:59
  We sat down and did 25 interviews with artists at jam night.
• 17:03
  And it was kinda my equivalent of knocking doors in a in a neighborhood selling magazines
• 17:08
  when I was a, you know, a man in my early twenties.
• 17:11
  Right?
• 17:11
  That, hey.
• 17:12
  I'm here.
• 17:13
  Here's the microphone.
• 17:14
  Sit down.
• 17:15
  Tell me a little bit about yourself.
• 17:16
  I'm gonna put it out on my platform.
• 17:18
  And that was the genesis of the scene projects.
• 17:22
  And last year at the award show or or later or earlier this year rather, in 2025, we won the
• 17:28
  content creator of the year award that was just, like because of that.
• 17:32
  Right?
• 17:32
  Because of that singular moment, when people kinda went back, it was like, well, who else
• 17:37
  would it be?
• 17:38
  Right?
• 17:38
  And now this year, we've done four times as many interviews as we did last year already.
• 17:44
  I have interviews scheduled out, you know, that are done and produced all the way into April
• 17:49
  next year till the awards show.
• 17:51
  And we just continue to to rock and roll and to support original musicians.
• 17:56
  That's why I started the Midwest original music organization.
• 18:00
  Not that I don't love the Midwest CMO and what they do, but I have a lot of friends that are
• 18:04
  outside of country music that wouldn't join just because of that.
• 18:07
  Not that the org wouldn't have them, but that they just didn't feel like they belonged in
• 18:11
  there even though they probably did.
• 18:13
  I I saw the need to create it.
• 18:15
  It's just a group on Facebook, but it's over 750 members strong.
• 18:19
  All original musicians, all original artists who are out there sharing their stuff.
• 18:24
  We get together on Zoom once a week at 07:00 every Wednesday for some networking.
• 18:29
  Sometimes it's just me and and my partner, and sometimes we have three or four people that
• 18:34
  come in that found us in whatever way, whether it was my Facebook Live or being in the group
• 18:39
  and seeing the post Right.
• 18:41
  That we're able to network with and grow.
• 18:43
  So it's been a totally organic way that we've built up this community and that we are just
• 18:49
  getting started.
• 18:50
  These things aren't even a year old.
• 18:52
  Right?
• 18:52
  Like Right.
• 18:53
  The podcast has only been around for eighteen months, and look at what we've already
• 18:57
  accomplished.
• 18:58
  I mean, I interviewed Bill Payne, like, my fourth interview.
• 19:01
  Bill Payne of of Little Feet, one of the founding members who's played with everyone.
• 19:06
  And even talking to him, it was the same thing.
• 19:08
  Right?
• 19:08
  It was like, oh, you're one of us.
• 19:10
  Right?
• 19:10
  And that's kinda what he alluded to me is like, you're one of us, Bubba.
• 19:13
  And I was just like, wow.
• 19:15
  This guy who created an album with Robert Hunter that nobody's ever heard that's sitting
• 19:20
  on a hard drive somewhere because they emailed back and forth to each other.
• 19:24
  Never met in person.
• 19:25
  And I was like, you're a pioneer of, like, where we're at now, and nobody knew it.
• 19:30
  Well, a couple things for the audience.
• 19:33
  I have a friend, Brian Umphenauer, and he is a musician.
• 19:37
  He's out of Nashville, and I'm gonna connect you with him.
• 19:40
  He runs his own recording studio, his own coffee shop, but he's going on a tour.
• 19:46
  He booked a tour for next summer.
• 19:48
  So here's one thing he's doing.
• 19:49
  He's looking for sponsors.
• 19:51
  He's looking for an RV dealer to give him an RV for the tour.
• 19:54
  He's looking for this and that so he can help co promote.
• 19:57
  It's a great idea.
• 19:58
  I have local friends here in Fort Wayne.
• 20:01
  They try to connect with a local business that'll give them a little bit of money or give
• 20:05
  them something, but they promote the business.
• 20:08
  It's really important to find ways to connect it.
• 20:12
  I have another friend, Cliff Goldmacher, another good person for your podcast.
• 20:16
  He's a a jazz musician, Grammy award winner, and he works with businesses to show them how
• 20:24
  to be creative, how to write a song, how to come up with new ideas.
• 20:28
  It's using your talents and getting into spots.
• 20:32
  If you're a musician and you can do some great songs, there are probably a lot of businesses
• 20:37
  in your area, and you say, look.
• 20:38
  I could come in.
• 20:39
  It could be a lunchtime jam session.
• 20:42
  I can have people learn how to play some instruments.
• 20:45
  We can have some fun.
• 20:46
  You give me a little bit of money, and, we put it on social media, and we have fun.
• 20:51
  But find ways to drum it up so people actually talk about what you're doing.
• 20:56
  I I'm working with a, a division one basketball team, and I said, why don't you have your local
• 21:03
  musicians perform, you know, at halftime?
• 21:06
  And he goes, well, I I didn't talk about it.
• 21:07
  I said he said, well, I can't afford all that.
• 21:09
  I said, well, they may not even charge you, or they may charge very little because they want
• 21:13
  people to go, wow.
• 21:15
  I didn't know that band existed.
• 21:16
  I wanna buy their music.
• 21:17
  I wanna see them at the bars.
• 21:18
  I wanna see them at the clubs.
• 21:21
  Use your creativity.
• 21:22
  Right.
• 21:22
  Musicians, how many times are we gonna walk into a sold out arena where a d one basketball
• 21:28
  team is playing to step on the stage and perform for maybe 10,000 plus people in some of
• 21:33
  these arenas.
• 21:34
  Right?
• 21:34
  Like I mean
• 21:35
  What an opportunity.
• 21:36
  Bubba, think about it.
• 21:37
  Even if it's a 3,000 person arena, you go, hey.
• 21:40
  Would you like to play for 3,000 people this weekend?
• 21:43
  They go, what?
• 21:44
  Yes.
• 21:45
  Yes.
• 21:46
  I mean, think about it.
• 21:48
  You can sell your CDs.
• 21:49
  You can do whatever you wanna do.
• 21:52
  But, yeah, it's an exciting concept.
• 21:54
  It's it's sharing all of that with people.
• 21:57
  And and I'll tell you what, people get excited.
• 22:00
  The nonmusicians of the world, they get very excited about this.
• 22:04
  You know, I just did a number of of, keynote speeches on my book, which is called the power
• 22:11
  of differentiation, and I walk up with a guitar, a Fender electric guitar.
• 22:16
  I don't play it.
• 22:17
  I walk up and people are going, what?
• 22:19
  And we start the whole thing with a clip from, Dick Clark's American Bandstand back in the
• 22:25
  eighties when he introduced my band song.
• 22:28
  We start off with a cliff.
• 22:30
  I walk up or clip like that.
• 22:31
  I walk up with a guitar.
• 22:33
  People are freaking out.
• 22:34
  They're going, what is this?
• 22:35
  I thought it was a business speech.
• 22:37
  And then we end the whole thing with my music at the end where I say thank you, and they give
• 22:42
  me a standing ovation like it's a rock concert.
• 22:47
  Combine those things.
• 22:48
  Have fun with it.
• 22:49
  Let people enjoy the fact you're doing something unique.
• 22:53
  People people are so energized to see someone who can sing and play and has something
• 22:59
  original to say.
• 23:01
  It's amazing.
• 23:02
  Right.
• 23:03
  And it has just as much power now as it did when Elvis was walking out onto the stage,
• 23:09
  right, and doing the Dick Sullivan show.
• 23:11
  And just like, it's not any less powerful in person now than it ever was.
• 23:16
  It's just been completely depleted of any value in the world.
• 23:20
  Right?
• 23:20
  And that and that's why independent musicians, you know, are struggling right now to find
• 23:25
  footing.
• 23:26
  I'm actually going down to Nashville shortly after recording this.
• 23:30
  I'll be the headed down there next week for the Josie Music Awards, and I'll be working at the
• 23:34
  Grand Ole Opry.
• 23:36
  Sure.
• 23:36
  It's my first time in Nashville.
• 23:38
  I but that was simply because, Barry, I was willing to send them an email and say, hey.
• 23:43
  I'm Bubba Starts.
• 23:44
  I have an award winning podcast.
• 23:46
  I would love to come down.
• 23:47
  We have several Midwest country music organization members that are for your award
• 23:52
  show.
• 23:52
  I would love to show the the collaboration between the two organizations, and they were
• 23:58
  more than happy to accommodate me.
• 23:59
  I'll be in their media Village, and and I'll be sitting in the Opry watching my friends win
• 24:05
  awards and be recognized.
• 24:07
  And my good friend Jasmine Cain will also be performing on the Opry stage.
• 24:11
  I mean, somebody pinch me.
• 24:13
  Right?
• 24:13
  Like, how is this real life?
• 24:15
  And exactly what you're what you're saying is that we are trying to seek out those
• 24:20
  opportunities for our people.
• 24:21
  We're booking our own tour where we take the songwriter showcase around the country to not
• 24:26
  just film content for ourselves, but to give all of these local artists a platform outside
• 24:31
  of their local communities and to connect all of it.
• 24:35
  And the future is so bright for so many of these people.
• 24:38
  I'm just trying to sit a hook in as many coattails as I can, Barry.
• 24:43
  I I love what you're doing.
• 24:44
  I I played the New York songwriters showcase decades ago when it was the thing for
• 24:51
  songwriters, and it was such an honor.
• 24:53
  We went there.
• 24:54
  We traveled to New York.
• 24:55
  We sat in a, you know, in a I think it was CBGB's, which is a very famous club there, And
• 25:02
  we performed, and it was we were performing in the same room that the Eagles had performed in
• 25:07
  and, you know, the Rolling Stones had performed there, and Bob Dylan had walked in and sang
• 25:13
  some songs.
• 25:14
  It's it's amazing, and it is a neat opportunity for audiences to hear different people share
• 25:21
  their unique creative original masterpieces.
• 25:26
  No.
• 25:26
  And I had mentioned, you know, just coming back from the Wild West songwriters festival, and
• 25:30
  that was exactly it.
• 25:31
  Deadwood has taken over, and there's actually now a a concurrent festival that happens on
• 25:36
  Lower Main Street called Trails of Tales songwriter festival.
• 25:40
  There was probably 75 songwriters in Deadwood weekend, a town of a a thousand and, you know,
• 25:45
  1,200 people Yeah.
• 25:47
  Just descended upon by all these songwriters.
• 25:49
  The creativity was incredible, and I really enjoyed getting to take part in it.
• 25:55
  And next year, I hope to be able to bring all the cameras and provide some production
• 25:58
  production to capture all of it because what an amazing time and for all the reasons that that
• 26:04
  we've stated here.
• 26:06
  Barry, don't wanna keep you too much longer.
• 26:07
  I feel like we could talk for hours and hours.
• 26:10
  Why don't you go ahead and share where people can find your music, find the book, and find
• 26:16
  more about working with you?
• 26:17
  My music can be found a few spots, obviously.
• 26:21
  I mentioned on all the music services.
• 26:23
  So Mark, m a r k, urgent, like the word urgent.
• 26:27
  You can look up LaBove music.
• 26:29
  I think I'm in there too that way.
• 26:30
  But you can go to my barrylabove.com, and you can look at some of the things I'm doing, some
• 26:36
  of the speeches, some of the podcasts I'm on, and there's a link to my music there.
• 26:42
  And you can go to my my LinkedIn website, which is Barry Labov on LinkedIn, and connect with
• 26:50
  me.
• 26:50
  I'm happy to do it.
• 26:51
  My company's out there.
• 26:53
  It's loveove.com.
• 26:54
  So one way or another, can connect with me.
• 26:56
  And if you have ideas or you need help or insights, let me know.
• 27:01
  Well, Barry, thanks so much for your time today.
• 27:04
  I'm gonna roll actually as our ro.
• 27:06
  It's gonna be our songwriter showcase trailer, so you can get a little glimpse about what
• 27:10
  we've been working on there and our listeners can as well.
• 27:14
  Thank you so much for everything that you're doing, making music in the world, and and
• 27:18
  helping other creatives to, maybe bring their music out there to the forefront and teaching
• 27:24
  them how to market themselves properly.
• 27:26
  Sounds like you're doing some really great things there in Fort Wayne, Indiana, so I can't
• 27:30
  wait to come visit you.
• 27:31
  Or maybe in the warmer months, I'll come down and visit you in Arizona.
• 27:34
  Either way, let me know.
• 27:35
  You'll be our guest.
• 27:37
  Fantastic, Barry.
• 27:38
  Thanks for being part of the scene.
• 27:40
  Thank you.
• 27:41
  It's been a pleasure.
• 27:42
  I love your energy.
• 27:43
  I love what you're doing.
• 27:44
  I sure hope this audience appreciates it, Bubba.
• 27:48
  They sure do.
• 27:49
  We'll talk soon, Barry.
• 27:51
  Thank you.
• 27:52
  This is the Scene Projects.
• 27:55
  This is the Songwriter Showcase.
• 27:56
  Go ahead.
• 27:58
  Take a step across the Bear County line.
• 28:02
  You can hear the truth as it whispers through the tops of the Georgia Pines.
• 28:08
  I'm kissing
• 28:08
  the walleye.
• 28:11
  Throw that boat
• 28:12
  in before the
• 28:13
  morning light.
• 28:16
  Well, I'm here to
• 28:24
  Yeah.
• 28:24
  Well, we're not here just to talk.
• 28:26
  We're here to play and sing some songs too.
• 28:27
  So why don't you guys give us a song, and then we'll come back and talk some more.
• 28:31
  Alright.
• 28:31
  Yeah.
• 29:00
  Sliding down the driveway, swearing at the snowplow driving by.
• 29:10
  It's so easy to forget
• 29:25
  you'd know that I would.
• 29:29
  No need to say goodbye, the boy is understood.
• 29:36
  You
• 29:37
  told me that it wasn't enough, but you gave for you and for me.
• 29:44
  Before we win, don't stop it wait.
• 29:46
  I can't blame you.
• 29:48
  I missed you though.
• 29:51
  And don't be in the
• 29:52
  This day has been an incredible, incredible experience, not only for myself, but for
• 29:57
  everyone who entered this room.
• 29:59
  We hope that you enjoy the performances.
• 30:01
  We hope that you go and follow and find your new favorite songwriter inside of this show.
• 30:07
  And I pray that this community continues to grow.