Latest / Almost Famous Enough / ep19 Jen Fritz goes public

Transcript

ep19 Jen Fritz goes public · Almost Famous Enough

• 0:24
  If you are a young aspiring songwriter or old aspiring songwriter for that matter, or singer or band, if you have aspirations to be part of the world of music that you can visibly see, then at some point you start thinking about how to take it outta your bedroom or basement and out in front of people, and you learn very quickly.
• 0:47
  There is a portion of the world you think you might actually be taking it directly in front of people, but in most cases, you are putting yourself in front of gatekeepers.
• 0:57
  The ones who decide what goes in front of the people.
• 1:00
  The people that book bands and performances, the people that play music on the radio and so forth.
• 1:05
  At that precise moment, you are changing your musical journey by adding the required component of awareness.
• 1:12
  Awareness.
• 1:13
  How do you get noticed?
• 1:15
  How do you get heard?
• 1:17
  If you were getting Simon Cowell in the moment, you'd be getting asked, do you have a plan?
• 1:23
  I'm over for simplifying this entire career stream.
• 1:27
  I get it.
• 1:27
  But publicity is about the plan a strategy.
• 1:32
  Jen Fritz is a publicist founder of music marketing and promotional agency, Fritz Media, and a 20 year veteran of the music business.
• 1:40
  Jen has worked multiple genres with artists at every stage of their career.
• 1:44
  From indie grassroots to talent with the Seminole, better than Indie, but not quite major network records, see Sarah McLaughlin, and.
• 1:54
  Industry giant Sony, she provides the theory that it is a relational industry.
• 2:00
  It's who you know, how you get to know them and understanding what everyone needs to be successful.
• 2:07
  Think of all the industries that are not music, but consumed with gaining public awareness and what a difference a hands-on publicist might make.
• 2:15
  This is not a how to a day in the life, career day conversation with publicity.
• 2:21
  It's an open door to the west wing of the music business through kind and honest lenses.
• 2:27
  My name is Glen Erickson.
• 2:29
  This is Almost Famous Enough.
• 2:31
  Thanks for spending your time with us.
• 2:33
  This is Jen Fritz.
• 2:46
  Glen Erickson: You have to consent?
• 2:47
  Glen Erickson: Is that what it is?
• 2:48
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 2:49
  Glen Erickson: the 3, 2, 1 count.
• 2:50
  Glen Erickson: Well, thank you so much, Jen, for taking the time to be here.
• 2:53
  Glen Erickson: it's a real pleasure obviously to have you on here and to talk to you.
• 2:57
  Glen Erickson: I'm obviously greatly interested in all parts of the music business and the span and, and pulling the veil back.
• 3:05
  Glen Erickson: And, and this is an area, the area that you work and live in is like one of my favorite areas.
• 3:11
  Glen Erickson: So Jen, uh, of Fritz Media since I think I looked up 2009, right?
• 3:17
  Glen Erickson: So, publicity, media, pr, uh, I think you describe it as a boutique, music, publicity, and digital marketing.
• 3:24
  Jen Fritz: a nice way of saying small, right?
• 3:27
  Glen Erickson: It is.
• 3:28
  Glen Erickson: I've worked in digital agencies forever.
• 3:30
  Glen Erickson: We call ourselves boutique all the time.
• 3:32
  Glen Erickson: just so people don't think we're corporate
• 3:35
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 3:35
  Glen Erickson: of the time we try to spin it with a nice word, right?
• 3:38
  Glen Erickson: But also, also my peer in the music podcasting space with the FM podcast, which is great.
• 3:46
  Glen Erickson: And I hope we get a chance to talk about a little bit here as well.
• 3:50
  Glen Erickson: So I think, actually, let's just start right there.
• 3:53
  Glen Erickson: That's a better place for me to start.
• 3:55
  Jen Fritz: Okay.
• 3:55
  Glen Erickson: Um, obviously all this time that you, it's like, it's like in our world right now where we're starting to get suspicious of the companies that supposedly did one thing and now we think they're just mining us for data.
• 4:08
  Glen Erickson: Like they may be a streaming network like Netflix, but the truth is they could probably sell.
• 4:14
  Glen Erickson: All kinds of different data to people.
• 4:16
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 4:16
  Glen Erickson: And so you being a publicist, working in the PR world, forming relationships with both industry people and agents and managers as well as the artists and all these different facets, you've been able to mine some relationships and some data yourself, I'm assuming, is that, can I make the assumption that that might have been part of the premise for starting the podcast?
• 4:40
  Jen Fritz: Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a tale as old as time in that it started during COVID, uh,
• 4:46
  Glen Erickson: Hmm.
• 4:47
  Jen Fritz: as
• 4:47
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 4:48
  Jen Fritz: do you know what I
• 4:49
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 4:50
  Jen Fritz: it, it started just as an idea, um, for me to do something creative, uh, outside of my job.
• 4:58
  Jen Fritz: And I used to work in radio and I really missed doing it, to be honest.
• 5:02
  Jen Fritz: Um, and I actually didn't realize how much I missed it until I started doing it.
• 5:06
  Jen Fritz: And I was like, oh my God, I totally forgot how much I actually like being behind.
• 5:11
  Jen Fritz: A microphone and how much I like, you know, creating audio, um, and doing it from start to finish and putting a show together.
• 5:19
  Jen Fritz: I, I really liked it.
• 5:21
  Jen Fritz: and then it, it began to percolate a bit and I was like, well, I can use this as a marketing tool, uh,
• 5:28
  Glen Erickson: Mm.
• 5:29
  Jen Fritz: for Fritz Media,
• 5:30
  Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.
• 5:30
  Jen Fritz: which is my, uh, digital marketing and, um, public relations company in the music industry.
• 5:36
  Jen Fritz: And then, um, I also had this other piece, which was education.
• 5:41
  Jen Fritz: And, um, I really think that it's that is lacking so much in our industry right now, and that is the lack of digital literacy, uh, with artists.
• 5:54
  Jen Fritz: Um, I deal with
• 5:55
  Glen Erickson: Hmm.
• 5:55
  Jen Fritz: day, um, just with my clients.
• 5:58
  Jen Fritz: it's an industry that has become the tech industry and it is so fast moving that it's hard to keep up.
• 6:05
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 6:06
  Jen Fritz: I thought, well, why don't I just use it for that as well?
• 6:09
  Jen Fritz: You know, you can learn about all kinds of things and it's also, can talk to people that can teach me stuff too.
• 6:17
  Jen Fritz: Like, you know, there's a lot of
• 6:19
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 6:20
  Jen Fritz: about in the music industry.
• 6:21
  Jen Fritz: Right.
• 6:21
  Jen Fritz: So was kind of a, a cheat for me to,
• 6:25
  Glen Erickson: That is a great, that's a great cheat, actually.
• 6:28
  Glen Erickson: Well, I mean, that makes a lot of sense.
• 6:30
  Glen Erickson: Uh, like literally, I'm looking at the very last bullet point I had.
• 6:34
  Glen Erickson: What did publicists, what did publicists do during the pandemic when all the bands were going out on the road releasing records?
• 6:41
  Glen Erickson: So there's my answer.
• 6:42
  Jen Fritz: We were
• 6:42
  Glen Erickson: Uh,
• 6:43
  Jen Fritz: is
• 6:43
  Glen Erickson: already we're panicking and some people were starting podcasts.
• 6:47
  Glen Erickson: Um, I think that's a great point about the educational part.
• 6:51
  Glen Erickson: I was, you know, it is of note to me, like you're, your podcast, the FM podcast is very topical.
• 6:57
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 6:57
  Glen Erickson: And the, the, the titles, you know, make it very clear what, what the guest and you are gonna be talking about, uh, specifically, which I think is really great.
• 7:08
  Glen Erickson: Um,'cause podcasts do get used a lot this day.
• 7:11
  Glen Erickson: They get pitched to bigger businesses as a marketing tool in a similar way to how you described it can help the bottom line for you in a different way, but.
• 7:21
  Glen Erickson: Yeah, I think that that true value point is really interesting for you to bring up about the lack of digital literacy.
• 7:28
  Glen Erickson: Um, did you, I, I seem to feel like, did you attend and and coach or teach mentor at the project?
• 7:36
  Glen Erickson: Wild bootcamps.
• 7:38
  Glen Erickson: Every, I thought I remember you being a part of
• 7:41
  Jen Fritz: yeah.
• 7:42
  Glen Erickson: the name and the guest list.
• 7:43
  Glen Erickson: 'cause I was always on the committee.
• 7:45
  Glen Erickson: I sort of chaired that committee and then I'd build the booklets and all that stuff.
• 7:49
  Glen Erickson: I'm like, I'm sure I've printed Jen's name out on these things before, but, um, and I remember what a,
• 7:55
  Jen Fritz: uh, before when it was the Peak
• 7:57
  Glen Erickson: with a peak, peak performance.
• 7:59
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 7:59
  Jen Fritz: well.
• 7:59
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 8:00
  Glen Erickson: And what a big part.
• 8:01
  Glen Erickson: Of those, it was to try to to, to bring artists into that empowerment phase of really understanding what that was.
• 8:08
  Glen Erickson: I remember even partway through,'cause as soon as you said that, that's immediately sparked for me the conversation with the committee when they're like,'cause they had these challenges that the artists would have to do that we're like career related and contextual hopefully.
• 8:23
  Glen Erickson: Um, whether it's like build the, a cool merch thing, it could be as simple as a challenge as that.
• 8:28
  Glen Erickson: But, but I remember when we transitioned some where I was saying we need to have a challenge that's related specifically to them learning how to use their social media properly and to, and to start to read their analytics and to dig into understanding how to understand how to target people and not throw their dollars away on Facebook ads and, and stuff like that.
• 8:51
  Glen Erickson: So, uh, and it, I mean that was 10 years ago
• 8:56
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 8:56
  Jen Fritz: And
• 8:56
  Glen Erickson: And, and plus, so.
• 8:58
  Jen Fritz: gotten a lot harder and a lot more difficult to understand.
• 9:02
  Jen Fritz: Like if you're an artist and you look at all of the different ways that you can market yourself, you really kind of don't know where to start.
• 9:09
  Jen Fritz: Right?
• 9:10
  Jen Fritz: And
• 9:10
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 9:11
  Jen Fritz: it, I just gave this, this talk, uh, in Victoria to a bunch of musicians and I went, went through TikTok and just, you know, put in the search like marketing ideas,
• 9:26
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 9:26
  Jen Fritz: market your music, and just the plethora of people with different ideas for how to do that.
• 9:34
  Jen Fritz: And you.
• 9:35
  Jen Fritz: on every platform.
• 9:36
  Jen Fritz: You can do that on Instagram, you can do that on YouTube, and you'll just have all these people telling you exactly how to market your music and you, so you can look at that and go, oh my God, that's so overwhelming.
• 9:46
  Jen Fritz: Or you can go, oh my God, look at all these different ways I can, you know, find out to
• 9:53
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 9:53
  Jen Fritz: myself.
• 9:54
  Jen Fritz: Like you think about, we didn't have social media, like when I started, there was no social media when I started doing publicity.
• 10:02
  Jen Fritz: Right.
• 10:02
  Jen Fritz: So
• 10:02
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 10:02
  Jen Fritz: was a lot easier.
• 10:04
  Jen Fritz: So, um, but also, like I say to musicians, you have this platform where you can reach out to everybody, right?
• 10:12
  Jen Fritz: So it's, try to see the good side of it, uh, because you could be like in the nineties where you didn't have that.
• 10:19
  Jen Fritz: So it is, you know, I, I recognize that it is, it's made my job extremely difficult in a lot of ways.
• 10:27
  Jen Fritz: But you know, it is also a good thing.
• 10:30
  Jen Fritz: You have a way to reach out to people like right away, which is
• 10:33
  Glen Erickson: Well I love this'cause we've literally just danced through three of my seven main bullet points.
• 10:39
  Jen Fritz: I
• 10:39
  Glen Erickson: Uh, and so this is the way I love, because I love when you're the interviewer, I get to say this'cause you're familiar and all of a sudden you're like, ah, shit, which way do I go first?
• 10:48
  Glen Erickson: But um,
• 10:50
  Jen Fritz: What are we
• 10:51
  Glen Erickson: totally okay.
• 10:52
  Glen Erickson: That's what this is about.
• 10:53
  Glen Erickson: I, I just love what you're saying because like my day job.
• 10:57
  Glen Erickson: Is like helping run a digital marketing agency and it really comes down to and and it's amazing how much I time I spend.
• 11:07
  Glen Erickson: Even coaching the people who try to sell this stuff who don't fully understand.
• 11:12
  Glen Erickson: Um, the concept we often use is this graph between what we call performance marketing and awareness marketing.
• 11:18
  Glen Erickson: Right?
• 11:19
  Glen Erickson: Which, and I think it's so crucial for bands to understand that.
• 11:22
  Glen Erickson: 'cause they really just start out doing performance marketing, which is like, I have a show coming up.
• 11:27
  Glen Erickson: I'm gonna buy X amount of dollars of, you know, ads or whatever this campaign perhaps, or I'm gonna, you know, tailor a, a little campaign around a string of shows or whatever they're gonna do to promote a release of some sort or a single, but that's just performance, right?
• 11:43
  Glen Erickson: It just makes the spike go up and as soon as you stop pumping into it, this spike goes right back to where it started.
• 11:48
  Glen Erickson: Whereas awareness, the constant pumping into who you are and your brand or, and stuff, makes that, that baseline raise, like on a graph, hopefully if you're doing it well and doing it right so that all those little spikes don't go right to the bottom, but they stay with with that line.
• 12:04
  Glen Erickson: So it's a tough concept for people.
• 12:06
  Glen Erickson: And like you said, I think the speed at which it changes so is, is overwhelming.
• 12:11
  Glen Erickson: What isn't overwhelming is if they started to, like you said, went into just two of those platforms and watched those little tutorials, they would start to realize, they're kind of saying the same thing, just contextual to I in Spotify or I'm in YouTube, or whatever it may be.
• 12:28
  Glen Erickson: But I mean, especially YouTube, the amount of information they provide to help you is incredible.
• 12:33
  Jen Fritz: with Spotify.
• 12:35
  Jen Fritz: Spotify has a Spotify for artist platform, which is incredible, and so many artists don't know about it or don't
• 12:42
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 12:42
  Jen Fritz: capabilities.
• 12:43
  Jen Fritz: I.
• 12:44
  Jen Fritz: That within it.
• 12:46
  Jen Fritz: So many artists like that I work with, um, when, you know, they either know about Spotify for artists and they've been using it for years, or they're just like, what's that?
• 12:55
  Jen Fritz: And I'm like, well, how do you update your Spotify?
• 12:59
  Jen Fritz: Like this is how you do it.
• 13:01
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 13:01
  Jen Fritz: so many, so many artists don't do the simple things like put their bio in, in their Spotify, uh, or, you know, add their lyrics or include their show dates, um,
• 13:13
  Glen Erickson: Yep.
• 13:13
  Jen Fritz: a certain release.
• 13:14
  Jen Fritz: And these are all things that you can do within Spotify.
• 13:19
  Jen Fritz: Right.
• 13:19
  Jen Fritz: And that's simple.
• 13:21
  Jen Fritz: That's just like the base, that's the bare minimum base,
• 13:24
  Glen Erickson: And would you say, would you say artists are, is it a fair assumption to say they're generally afraid of data?
• 13:33
  Glen Erickson: Like across, like they don't, they're afraid of, they don't think they can understand it a lot of the time, or do you find they're kind of warm to it?
• 13:40
  Jen Fritz: they don't know.
• 13:41
  Jen Fritz: So, you know, I think that's, most people, if you don't feel like you're educated on a certain subject, you might get a little tense about it or maybe even defensive or, or, or something.
• 13:55
  Jen Fritz: Do you know what I mean?
• 13:56
  Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.
• 13:57
  Jen Fritz: and I mean, it is, I mean, digital marketing isn't easy, especially using Meta, which is the hardest platform
• 14:04
  Glen Erickson: Agreed.
• 14:05
  Jen Fritz: to use, and I
• 14:06
  Glen Erickson: And they change it.
• 14:07
  Glen Erickson: Change it every five months too.
• 14:09
  Glen Erickson: Change the rules.
• 14:10
  Jen Fritz: yeah.
• 14:10
  Glen Erickson: So
• 14:11
  Jen Fritz: like, you know, restrict your ad account for no reason, which is what's currently happening to me.
• 14:17
  Jen Fritz: you
• 14:18
  Glen Erickson: it's terrible.
• 14:19
  Glen Erickson: It's the worst.
• 14:19
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 14:20
  Jen Fritz: Like it's horrible, but I mean, I need it to, to run ads.
• 14:24
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 14:24
  Jen Fritz: yeah.
• 14:25
  Jen Fritz: It's, but it's, I understand from that perspective it can seem so hard.
• 14:30
  Jen Fritz: But at the same time, like any, like, like anything in life, if.
• 14:35
  Jen Fritz: You have to have a certain amount of curiosity and internet is available for you to figure things out.
• 14:42
  Jen Fritz: You know, I, I learned how to change my car battery by watching a video on YouTube.
• 14:47
  Jen Fritz: You know what I mean?
• 14:48
  Jen Fritz: Like, there's,
• 14:48
  Glen Erickson: Yep.
• 14:49
  Glen Erickson: Yep.
• 14:49
  Jen Fritz: so it's, so if I didn't, if I don't know how to do something, then, you know, I, I, you can find a way to, to figure it out.
• 14:59
  Jen Fritz: Uh, I think the problem is, is there's a variety of different ways, especially with digital marketing.
• 15:05
  Jen Fritz: It's
• 15:05
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 15:06
  Jen Fritz: don't do that'cause this is wrong, or don't do this.
• 15:09
  Jen Fritz: Uh, you know, so that can be hard.
• 15:11
  Glen Erickson: And there's, and there's so many artists.
• 15:13
  Glen Erickson: Obviously the great swell of artists is in that grassroots category, right?
• 15:18
  Glen Erickson: Of, of sort of size.
• 15:20
  Glen Erickson: So they're the ones who are still trying to, well, they're essentially forced to do it all themselves.
• 15:26
  Glen Erickson: There's,
• 15:26
  Jen Fritz: Yes.
• 15:27
  Glen Erickson: wanting to jump on board to do it for them.
• 15:29
  Glen Erickson: They don't have the money or income streams yet to pay other people.
• 15:32
  Glen Erickson: So I think that that's where, you know, you kind of get this mass chaos of, of this large group of people who are all trying to figure out the same thing, to get that little leg up and, and the pressure of feeling they have to do it themselves.
• 15:47
  Glen Erickson: It, it reminds me, like you said, like kind of the throwback to what.
• 15:50
  Glen Erickson: You know, before internet days of, of, uh, of PR and publicity was like, but it, it, it reminds me'cause the data is everything right now.
• 16:00
  Glen Erickson: I've gone to a couple of marketing conferences where they're like, the people who know how to use the data are winning essentially right now.
• 16:07
  Glen Erickson: And, and when I think about that in the music industry, how important that is, especially for artists who are grassroots.
• 16:13
  Glen Erickson: I just remember like the early two thousands when you would be overwhelmed about, you know, I got a, I finally landed a show at your favorite club in town and now you there, you realize they want you to make your own posters and someone would freak out and then, and then you'd just go and you couldn't pay somebody who made really great posters.
• 16:34
  Glen Erickson: So you would just find somebody who was really eager, you know, who was young and had that skill and was just thrilled to, to be part of the music thing that was happening and would make posters for you.
• 16:43
  Glen Erickson: And I feel like it's kind of similar.
• 16:46
  Glen Erickson: There's people around who are really smart.
• 16:49
  Glen Erickson: Younger than us, who this comes to really naturally.
• 16:53
  Glen Erickson: I often advise people as well, like you can find people who might just be excited to help you out and, you know, help you find some success online.
• 17:02
  Glen Erickson: So, yeah.
• 17:04
  Jen Fritz: that's really good advice and I often use that same advice for things like, um, making videos, content creation.
• 17:11
  Jen Fritz: You, everybody's got a friend that is really great with making videos or just is better at it than you.
• 17:17
  Glen Erickson: Yeah,
• 17:17
  Jen Fritz: take better photos than you like.
• 17:19
  Jen Fritz: So until you can afford it, you know, maybe just throw your friend a little bit of money to help you create content.
• 17:26
  Glen Erickson: Exactly.
• 17:27
  Jen Fritz: super easy and I mean, there are a lot of artists and I feel for all of them right now that just aren't comfortable that front facing
• 17:38
  Glen Erickson: Hmm.
• 17:39
  Jen Fritz: sort of.
• 17:39
  Glen Erickson: Content creator job.
• 17:41
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 17:42
  Jen Fritz: Like, oh, what, I'm a musician and I have to now talk to the
• 17:46
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 17:47
  Jen Fritz: as well.
• 17:47
  Jen Fritz: And so I understand that it, it can be hard, but as I always say, if you wanna be a musician in 2025, that's part of the job.
• 17:55
  Jen Fritz: And unfortunately, I have bad news for you.
• 17:58
  Jen Fritz: You have to do it.
• 18:01
  Jen Fritz: you
• 18:01
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 18:01
  Jen Fritz: do something else if you want, but that just is part of the job right
• 18:07
  Glen Erickson: A hundred percent.
• 18:07
  Glen Erickson: A hundred percent.
• 18:08
  Glen Erickson: That's great advice.
• 18:09
  Glen Erickson: Okay, well, so you, we've dipped a couple to the back when things started.
• 18:14
  Glen Erickson: So let's just go back to where things started.
• 18:16
  Glen Erickson: So my curiosity is how somebody becomes a publicist, right?
• 18:21
  Glen Erickson: And, and first, um, so first, uh, full disclosure is the first publicist I actually asked was Ken Beattie of he'll Be to Come On, but that's because Ken was, he was my publicist when I was in a band.
• 18:37
  Glen Erickson: So, uh, but Ken, what.
• 18:39
  Glen Erickson: He's incredible, but he wanted nothing to do with being in front of the camera.
• 18:42
  Glen Erickson: His, I think his words were, I'm, I'm happy to get my, my artists, my job is to put them in front of the camera.
• 18:49
  Glen Erickson: He's like, he wanted, he wanted no part of it.
• 18:52
  Glen Erickson: Uh, which is totally fair.
• 18:53
  Glen Erickson: He is, but he's a sweet man.
• 18:54
  Glen Erickson: Of course.
• 18:55
  Glen Erickson: Um,
• 18:55
  Jen Fritz: love Ken.
• 18:56
  Glen Erickson: but I, uh, I had quickly discovered when I was in a band, and you get to that phase where people start talking about you might need to build a team, you know, that's the next level.
• 19:06
  Glen Erickson: one of my great discoveries was I became convinced after working with Ken that really the publicist I thought was the first person I should start paying money to outside of what I could do for myself that would have the most immediate impact and value.
• 19:21
  Glen Erickson: So I've, I've always had a real high regard for the job of pr, but I think, I don't know how many people listening.
• 19:28
  Glen Erickson: Sometimes I think the media, the only exposure regular people have to what a publicist is, might be.
• 19:36
  Glen Erickson: Even like the TV version of like, they're the ones who do the, the campaigns to try to like, you know, cool over some celebrity gaff for, for their celebrity client who, who did something horrible in the news and now they have to try to like clean all that up or whatever.
• 19:53
  Glen Erickson: So there's those kind of perceptions about people who do the publicity or the media management role.
• 19:59
  Glen Erickson: So, I know you went to school, you, you got a communications degree, like a broadcast thing.
• 20:05
  Glen Erickson: So what was, what was Jen's goal at the start of all this?
• 20:11
  Glen Erickson: What did you think you were working towards?
• 20:13
  Glen Erickson: Was it radio?
• 20:14
  Glen Erickson: Is that what the,
• 20:15
  Jen Fritz: I mean,
• 20:15
  Glen Erickson: goal was?
• 20:16
  Jen Fritz: anybody that works in the music industry will tell you they got into the music industry because they love music.
• 20:22
  Jen Fritz: Right.
• 20:23
  Jen Fritz: And my career started with radio.
• 20:26
  Jen Fritz: And I got into radio because I love music and also because I loved radio.
• 20:30
  Jen Fritz: I really like audio.
• 20:33
  Jen Fritz: Um, am somebody that like, listened to CBC all the time, always had it on in the background.
• 20:40
  Jen Fritz: I just like
• 20:41
  Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.
• 20:42
  Jen Fritz: that medium.
• 20:43
  Jen Fritz: I, I, I always have.
• 20:45
  Jen Fritz: And you know, I have been listening to podcasts since the first one started.
• 20:49
  Jen Fritz: Uh, it's like my favorite thing.
• 20:52
  Jen Fritz: I love it.
• 20:52
  Jen Fritz: Um, I
• 20:53
  Glen Erickson: Would that be Grant Lawrence's?
• 20:54
  Glen Erickson: Is that Grant Lawrence's podcast on, on CZ radio three?
• 20:58
  Jen Fritz: of them.
• 20:58
  Jen Fritz: Yeah,
• 20:59
  Glen Erickson: He was one of them.
• 21:00
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 21:00
  Jen Fritz: He, they were very quick to be, CDC was very quick to be
• 21:05
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 21:05
  Glen Erickson: They were very progressive.
• 21:06
  Jen Fritz: in the
• 21:07
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 21:07
  Jen Fritz: space.
• 21:07
  Jen Fritz: They really are.
• 21:09
  Jen Fritz: Um, and yeah, so I've just always liked it.
• 21:12
  Jen Fritz: I don't like how they're moving towards more video now.
• 21:14
  Jen Fritz: It's really quite upsetting to me.
• 21:16
  Jen Fritz: But, um, um, yeah, I mean, I just, I, I got into it just because of a, a love of music and, um, I, I'm a talker, uh, and being a talker is good for radio and it's also good for being a publicist.
• 21:31
  Jen Fritz: So, you
• 21:32
  Glen Erickson: It's so true.
• 21:34
  Jen Fritz: so, and I mean, it's, being a publicist is a relationships job.
• 21:39
  Jen Fritz: It's just about, you know,
• 21:42
  Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.
• 21:42
  Jen Fritz: um, making sure, um, you know the right people, you know, the people that you're pitching your artists to, know, people will like.
• 21:54
  Jen Fritz: Uh, certain type of music or certain artists.
• 21:57
  Jen Fritz: Um, and yeah, it's just, it's, that's really what it's all about is, is, is essentially relationships and, you know, keeping those relationships intact.
• 22:07
  Jen Fritz: I mean, that is a lot harder now than it was when I started, when I started there was only a handful of, like, I used to like phone people and pitch them like in the olden
• 22:18
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 22:19
  Jen Fritz: and, you know, like call up Stewart Stewart Durain at, uh, the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province and be like, yo, can you do this?
• 22:28
  Jen Fritz: You know?
• 22:28
  Jen Fritz: Um, and you know, now unfortunately with the state of journalism, there's less and less music journalists across this country.
• 22:35
  Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.
• 22:36
  Jen Fritz: um, there's also, you know, blogs now to contend with, and those blogs are all over the world, so it's a lot harder.
• 22:44
  Jen Fritz: And then on top of that, you put in like playlist curators.
• 22:48
  Jen Fritz: Uh, it, it just becomes a lot harder to, to keep track of those people.
• 22:52
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 22:53
  Glen Erickson: Well, I mean, the word relations is right in the public relations thing, and, and I think it's no secret to anybody who's been.
• 23:00
  Glen Erickson: Even a little bit of a foot into the music scene, just how it feels like it quickly is a small community and the who, you know, kind of cliches ring.
• 23:10
  Glen Erickson: Very, very true.
• 23:11
  Glen Erickson: So, um, I guess one of my curiosities when you were saying that is, um, did you, like what part of it, let me, how do I phrase this one?
• 23:22
  Glen Erickson: There's, uh, there's a, a s smartness, uh, a sliminess that people feel when you to about the, the pitching.
• 23:32
  Glen Erickson: Sometimes like, and I don't mean like other perception, I mean your own perception.
• 23:36
  Glen Erickson: I think this is what keeps some people from certain aspects of, of the music industry, right?
• 23:41
  Glen Erickson: If you're that feeling of like, you know, pitching makes people uncomfortable.
• 23:46
  Glen Erickson: So was that just, do you, would you say like that.
• 23:51
  Glen Erickson: Uh, I'm a talker.
• 23:52
  Glen Erickson: That relational side of viewed, is that something that just kind of made it easy to get over that hump and just kind of go right into feeling comfortable in the area of both building an authentic relationship while you're also pitching all the time?
• 24:07
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 24:07
  Jen Fritz: I mean, you know, a lot of, you know, when I started, I actually, when started in the music industry, I left radio and I started doing radio promo, um, at Nettwerk.
• 24:18
  Jen Fritz: And so, um, that's kind of where I started doing what would, you know, essentially become publicity down the road.
• 24:26
  Jen Fritz: But, you know, I knew how to do that because when I worked.
• 24:29
  Jen Fritz: In radio, I was a music director at a lot of the stations that I worked at.
• 24:33
  Jen Fritz: So I knew what the other side was.
• 24:36
  Jen Fritz: I knew what
• 24:37
  Glen Erickson: hmm.
• 24:37
  Jen Fritz: people sounded like pitching me.
• 24:39
  Jen Fritz: So it was easy for me to pitch them because I, I had been doing
• 24:43
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 24:43
  Glen Erickson: I.
• 24:44
  Jen Fritz: And I, there's nothing that people in radio like talking about more than radio.
• 24:50
  Jen Fritz: So all I had to do was just, you know, call'em up and start doing the latest radio goss.
• 24:56
  Jen Fritz: That's all
• 24:56
  Glen Erickson: Mm.
• 24:57
  Jen Fritz: And then you just, you know, BS for a bit and then you go, okay, by the way, I have this song, you give it a listen?
• 25:05
  Jen Fritz: And that's essentially how I did all of my pitching, uh, when I started, uh, in publicity.
• 25:12
  Jen Fritz: Same thing.
• 25:12
  Jen Fritz: You know, you just get to know these people.
• 25:14
  Jen Fritz: You, you
• 25:15
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 25:15
  Jen Fritz: BS for a while and then you're like, okay, by the way, can I, I have something else for you, you know?
• 25:23
  Jen Fritz: Um,
• 25:24
  Glen Erickson: gets easier when some of those people stick around a long time.
• 25:27
  Glen Erickson: Like I, I like, this is where I'm not plugged in like I used to be, obviously, but I do know for the whole span of when I was aspiring to be in bands and then playing in a touring band and then doing some of the work afterwards, the same names.
• 25:42
  Glen Erickson: The same people were around.
• 25:44
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 25:44
  Glen Erickson: So it made it a lot easier where you could call them up and probably then, you know, you, you literally know who their kids are and you can ask how their kids are doing or something after all that time.
• 25:58
  Glen Erickson: So you,
• 25:58
  Jen Fritz: true.
• 25:59
  Glen Erickson: you moved to, so you start doing the publicity thing at Network and that, I assume that's, is that like early two thousands?
• 26:08
  Glen Erickson: Is that
• 26:09
  Jen Fritz: Yeah, early two thousands.
• 26:10
  Jen Fritz: So I was at
• 26:11
  Glen Erickson: about
• 26:12
  Jen Fritz: radio promo, uh, in about 2004.
• 26:16
  Jen Fritz: And then.
• 26:17
  Jen Fritz: Um, 2003, 2004.
• 26:19
  Jen Fritz: And then, um, uh, a couple guys that I worked at Network with left to start their own company called Frontside Promotions
• 26:26
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 26:26
  Jen Fritz: Um, and
• 26:27
  Glen Erickson: I.
• 26:27
  Jen Fritz: I left and uh, I headed up their publicity, uh, department with like, having like very little experience, but like, we were just like, we're gonna do this guys, it's gonna be great.
• 26:39
  Jen Fritz: And it was a company, like we were one of the first, um, a la carte companies.
• 26:44
  Jen Fritz: So it
• 26:45
  Glen Erickson: Hmm.
• 26:46
  Jen Fritz: um, you know, this isn't back in the day where everybody tried to get signed to a major label, but
• 26:51
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 26:51
  Jen Fritz: like indie artists.
• 26:53
  Jen Fritz: You can hire us just to do radio promo, you can hire us just to do, um, publicity, which, you know, happens all the time now, but back in the day you generally would've had to have a, a label to do
• 27:05
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 27:05
  Glen Erickson: Like that only happened.
• 27:07
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 27:07
  Glen Erickson: That only happened if you signed the entire deal.
• 27:10
  Glen Erickson: Right?
• 27:10
  Glen Erickson: Like that was,
• 27:11
  Jen Fritz: would
• 27:11
  Glen Erickson: you're right.
• 27:12
  Jen Fritz: things in place for you, Al already,
• 27:14
  Glen Erickson: There weren't, there weren't many boutique shops back in the late nineties
• 27:18
  Jen Fritz: now
• 27:18
  Glen Erickson: or early two thousands.
• 27:19
  Jen Fritz: everybody has label services now, right?
• 27:22
  Glen Erickson: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:24
  Jen Fritz: in that day, like back in the day we didn't.
• 27:26
  Glen Erickson: I.
• 27:27
  Jen Fritz: uh, yeah, so it, you know, we were basically a startup and, uh, you know, it was fun and I learned a lot, that's for sure.
• 27:36
  Jen Fritz: Like,
• 27:37
  Glen Erickson: Well, you made it sound a little, you made it sound a little Jerry McGuire there with the whole like, we're just gonna go off and do it ourself now.
• 27:45
  Jen Fritz: it wasn't, yeah, I, I hadn't been at network that long to, to, for it to be that epic, I don't
• 27:50
  Glen Erickson: Okay.
• 27:50
  Jen Fritz: uh,
• 27:50
  Glen Erickson: You weren't, you weren't the Renee Zel Weger of, of front side.
• 27:54
  Jen Fritz: be if you want, but,
• 27:57
  Glen Erickson: Um, so we touched on this then, and I, this is where I think it's, uh, of great curiosity'cause of what was happening then.
• 28:06
  Glen Erickson: And I, and I don't try to over nostalgic my conversations, but the difference between what publicity and media generating was even in the early two thousands.
• 28:19
  Glen Erickson: And then at one point you get to work with Sony, you know, I think around 2011 or something you said.
• 28:25
  Glen Erickson: Um.
• 28:26
  Glen Erickson: In there and you know, and so, and if you think about three pillars of that, like evolution from network to front side and what it was then to that 10 year, eight, 10 year gap to when you're at Sony and how things had started change, thanks to the internet, to now, which is even post pandemic version of online.
• 28:46
  Glen Erickson: Like those are three pretty significant shifts in a short span of time in how this happens.
• 28:52
  Glen Erickson: And the early two thousands, like we were printing shit all the time,
• 28:57
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 28:57
  Glen Erickson: like what, uh, what did it look like?
• 29:01
  Glen Erickson: What is the biggest thing, if you can characterize it from what the job meant then about promoting albums and tours, which was still kind of.
• 29:13
  Glen Erickson: The bread and butter of how things worked and the cycle, so to speak.
• 29:17
  Glen Erickson: What was the biggest shift?
• 29:18
  Glen Erickson: Was it just the fact that you had these long established platforms and things were in really tactile, for lack of a better term?
• 29:26
  Glen Erickson: Like things were printed, things were scheduled on the radio.
• 29:30
  Glen Erickson: Like what, what was the biggest shift that happened out of that time to like your internet time at Sony that, that you would observe?
• 29:38
  Jen Fritz: Uh, I would say like back then there was a lot more, Uh, traditional media outlets a lot more.
• 29:47
  Jen Fritz: Like at, I would say like at, at every newspaper across Canada at least had an arts writer at least had, like, they may not
• 29:57
  Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.
• 29:57
  Jen Fritz: writer, but they had an arts writer that would cover it.
• 30:00
  Jen Fritz: And that doesn't exist anymore because we know the state of journalism, right?
• 30:06
  Jen Fritz: It's just there's cuts everywhere and it's really sad.
• 30:09
  Jen Fritz: Um, and music journalism is suffering for it.
• 30:12
  Jen Fritz: Uh,
• 30:13
  Glen Erickson: Hmm.
• 30:13
  Jen Fritz: I love music journalism myself, so yeah, it's, it's really sad.
• 30:17
  Jen Fritz: Um, it's just a lack of people, uh, that are qualified to do it and more people that are not qualified to do it, that are, are doing it.
• 30:27
  Jen Fritz: You can just like read a number of blogs to see like anybody can do
• 30:32
  Glen Erickson: It's, yeah.
• 30:33
  Jen Fritz: it's not easy.
• 30:34
  Jen Fritz: Right.
• 30:35
  Jen Fritz: and.
• 30:36
  Jen Fritz: then I had to like mail CDs to every
• 30:40
  Glen Erickson: Yes.
• 30:40
  Jen Fritz: was pitching.
• 30:42
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 30:42
  Jen Fritz: I, that's a biggest change is like, you know, digital delivery.
• 30:48
  Jen Fritz: I don't have to do, like, that's a cost I don't even have to deal
• 30:51
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 30:51
  Glen Erickson: What a change in overhead and not worry about all these postal strikes either that are gonna Absolutely ruin your scheduling.
• 30:58
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 30:58
  Jen Fritz: Just like stuffing envelopes full of like CDs and one sheets and making sure they get to the journalist in the town that your artist is touring in before, like with enough lead time so that you
• 31:11
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 31:11
  Jen Fritz: pitch them.
• 31:12
  Glen Erickson: Did you know I still have a drawer that I have never really cleaned out, that still has a bunch of padded envelopes that I used to slide the seat seat so that drawer hasn't been cleaned out in like 15 years for sure.
• 31:27
  Glen Erickson: So,
• 31:28
  Jen Fritz: yeah, I'm sure in my storage space.
• 31:31
  Jen Fritz: So yeah, that's like one thing I do not miss and it's a lot easier to, you know, just
• 31:38
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 31:38
  Jen Fritz: now.
• 31:38
  Jen Fritz: Thank God.
• 31:40
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 31:40
  Glen Erickson: like there was a transition, right?
• 31:42
  Glen Erickson: Of, you know, we were talking about radio three even and like them getting early on on podcasts.
• 31:48
  Glen Erickson: But you know what started happening?
• 31:50
  Glen Erickson: The, the decline started even then.
• 31:52
  Glen Erickson: Like, like print started in decline well before other things started in decline.
• 31:57
  Glen Erickson: And, and so you started to lose access to the exposure that you needed, right?
• 32:03
  Glen Erickson: The building awareness of for, for the artists that you're representing, for the places they were going to play.
• 32:09
  Glen Erickson: and that power, it felt like it kind of started shifting to music blogs kind of started to have quite a bit of power.
• 32:16
  Glen Erickson: The people that were writing them started getting invited to be like, judges at Polaris even, or, right.
• 32:23
  Glen Erickson: So there was this little bit of a shift in power that I kind of noticeably observed that felt like natural'cause it kind of came with the power that the internet was generating more and more.
• 32:35
  Glen Erickson: I guess one of my main curiosities for people listening is.
• 32:39
  Glen Erickson: You know, we've gone through some evolutions now over the last 15 years of what the internet is, what I feel like the blogs aren't sourcing that power anymore, but I don't know if that's the right perception.
• 32:51
  Glen Erickson: I'm curious what your observation is about where they don't, they don't write, people don't seem to write about albums or music that way anymore, even if they are blogging about something.
• 33:03
  Glen Erickson: So I'm just curious what your observation is of where sort of, where that lies, where, where people are going to kinda generate awareness from quote unquote curators or taste makers.
• 33:13
  Jen Fritz: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different places you can go depending on, you know, your style of music or, or, or what your intention is.
• 33:23
  Jen Fritz: Um, you know, there still is a lot of people writing great music journalism out there.
• 33:29
  Jen Fritz: Um, and I think, you know, the, the thing about always want actual editorial and actual feedback on their music.
• 33:38
  Jen Fritz: You know, whether
• 33:39
  Glen Erickson: Hmm.
• 33:39
  Jen Fritz: or bad.
• 33:40
  Jen Fritz: that's what, that's what they want.
• 33:42
  Jen Fritz: So, you know, as a publicist, I am always.
• 33:47
  Jen Fritz: My goal is to get you actual editorial.
• 33:49
  Jen Fritz: You know, sometimes it doesn't happen.
• 33:51
  Jen Fritz: Sometimes they'll just take the press release I wrote and copy and paste it into, you know, their blog and, and, and that happens.
• 33:58
  Jen Fritz: But, you know, we are always trying to get people who actually listen to the music and actually write words about it.
• 34:06
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 34:06
  Jen Fritz: and that can help you.
• 34:09
  Jen Fritz: You know, once you get that, once you, let's say I got you a song review on a blog, and, uh, you can use that quote to promote your music.
• 34:18
  Jen Fritz: You can tell other people about it.
• 34:20
  Jen Fritz: Like, once you get a publicist, your job is an over, you still have to do promotion on your end as
• 34:25
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 34:26
  Jen Fritz: you have to take that publicity that you got and tell people, like, go on your Instagram story or, you know, post about it on Twitter or do a TikTok or whatever and just, you know.
• 34:37
  Jen Fritz: You have to create part of the buzz.
• 34:39
  Jen Fritz: Another thing that it does, especially if you're an indie artist just starting out, is you always have to think about someone discovering your music and then Googling you.
• 34:49
  Jen Fritz: And what those reviews do is really help your SEO.
• 34:54
  Jen Fritz: So, you know, that's another thing that's
• 34:57
  Glen Erickson: Hmm.
• 34:58
  Jen Fritz: you know, those are, those are two things that where, where, you know, publicity is very helpful.
• 35:02
  Jen Fritz: Now blogs out there may not, you know, have the impact that Pitchfork did back in the day, or, you know, Pitchfork even has now, you know, or Stereo Gum or any of those, you know, blogs that were so popular.
• 35:16
  Jen Fritz: Um, and still are, you know, it is somebody that's willing to listen to your music and write about it.
• 35:24
  Jen Fritz: Right?
• 35:24
  Jen Fritz: So, so that's what, that's what we want.
• 35:26
  Jen Fritz: Um, I don't know if that answers the question,
• 35:30
  Glen Erickson: it does.
• 35:30
  Glen Erickson: I mean it, I think it raises a good point because kind of what you're alluding to, like that editorial review or something like that is just, it's far more organic feeling, right?
• 35:43
  Glen Erickson: It's an actual person taking the time to engage with your music, sit with their thoughts about it, and then put their own version of an honest response or reaction to what that is in, in writing or in video or some version where they put it out there for the public.
• 36:00
  Glen Erickson: Which is very different than what I think feels very, like disheartening to a lot of artists, which is the version out there that is, you know, if I put a whole bunch of content out there, you know, I'm not even just putting it out there specifically for someone to engage with.
• 36:17
  Glen Erickson: I'm being told to just put it out there in volume and in regular consistency because that will trigger the algorithms properly.
• 36:24
  Glen Erickson: That will help my search engine optimization by being found easier.
• 36:29
  Glen Erickson: But none of that is about the human connection or that, that artistic connection with somebody.
• 36:35
  Glen Erickson: It's just about driving numbers up and creating better chance and opportunity.
• 36:40
  Glen Erickson: I think that's what feels very disheartening and soul sucking to a lot of, uh, artists who approach it.
• 36:46
  Glen Erickson: So, I mean, I, I guess I say all that to say it's nice, you know, to hear about.
• 36:51
  Glen Erickson: You know, the, the focus still to find somebody and people out there who are interacting and engaging with the actual music that you know, and putting and putting something and putting some version of a response back out there.
• 37:04
  Jen Fritz: And I mean, I, still, you know, I've been doing this for a long time, but, you know, and sometimes I forget and I just like, I get really excited by, you know, some of my artists who, like, we get something really big come in and they're so excited and, and I just, I forget about that that it is, you know, a really big deal or somebody will write really nice words about, you know,
• 37:29
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 37:30
  Jen Fritz: person's song.
• 37:31
  Jen Fritz: And I, I forget how much that means.
• 37:34
  Jen Fritz: That can mean to somebody.
• 37:35
  Jen Fritz: And, you know, publicity to it, I should say, is just one piece of the pie
• 37:42
  Glen Erickson: Yep.
• 37:42
  Jen Fritz: to like, marketing your music.
• 37:45
  Jen Fritz: Now you said that, you know, it generally is the first service that a artist or a band will.
• 37:53
  Jen Fritz: their money on, um, you know, that may, that used to be the case.
• 37:57
  Jen Fritz: Now it's either a publicist or digital marketing dollars or a little
• 38:01
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 38:02
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 38:02
  Jen Fritz: they'll, they'll either decide or they'll do a mix of both.
• 38:05
  Jen Fritz: Right.
• 38:06
  Jen Fritz: Um, you know, which I make sense.
• 38:08
  Jen Fritz: Makes sense.
• 38:09
  Jen Fritz: There's not a lot of money to go around these days, so I totally, I, I, I, I totally get that.
• 38:14
  Jen Fritz: But I always have to remind artists that just because you have a publicist, that's not it.
• 38:19
  Jen Fritz: Like you are acting as the label.
• 38:22
  Jen Fritz: Right.
• 38:23
  Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.
• 38:23
  Jen Fritz: a lot of different departments at the label and publicity is just one of them.
• 38:28
  Jen Fritz: So you still have to do a lot of work
• 38:31
  Glen Erickson: It's, it's, it's one of the layers, right?
• 38:34
  Glen Erickson: And you can't, you can't, you just can't afford to only work on one layer at a time anymore.
• 38:41
  Glen Erickson: You, you have to work on all of them, it seems at the same time.
• 38:45
  Glen Erickson: Maybe that's what it always was, but maybe there just was a, a different dream of having people do it for you in the, in the earlier days, that, uh, feels a little harder to achieve.
• 38:56
  Glen Erickson: I'm curious, like, you sort of referenced, like when you still get excited about artists, you've been doing this for a really long time.
• 39:04
  Glen Erickson: So I'm gonna ask you a two side of the coin question and I'm, I'm gonna be, I'll be honest with you, Jen, like I just, I'm notorious for just making this up when I go along.
• 39:12
  Glen Erickson: So this wasn't some premeditated thing, but, so I'm curious, on one side of the coin, what's some of the biggest maybe wins or the biggest sort of exciting I.
• 39:24
  Glen Erickson: Things that have happened in your career with artists that you kinda look back and you're like, that was a really cool thing to be part of as a publicist.
• 39:34
  Jen Fritz: Hmm, Hmm.
• 39:36
  Jen Fritz: I could do like a recent one.
• 39:39
  Jen Fritz: right now,
• 39:40
  Glen Erickson: Sure.
• 39:41
  Jen Fritz: working, uh, an artist, uh, by the name of Dust Quain.
• 39:46
  Jen Fritz: Um, and they're a drag performer as well as, uh, a musician.
• 39:51
  Jen Fritz: And, um, this is the second record that I've done for dust and just watching the Star rise, uh, I can feel it already.
• 40:01
  Jen Fritz: Uh, we have, are only on single one for the record, and it just feels big and their excitement makes me excited.
• 40:12
  Jen Fritz: Like, I feel like I, you know, just that ex I, I can't explain it.
• 40:16
  Jen Fritz: It honestly makes me feel like I just started.
• 40:20
  Jen Fritz: It being a publicist again, like sometimes you get so jaded in this industry where,
• 40:24
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 40:25
  Jen Fritz: where you're just like, ugh.
• 40:27
  Jen Fritz: You know, you can always tell a, someone in the music industry at a concert we're standing at the back.
• 40:32
  Jen Fritz: Right.
• 40:32
  Jen Fritz: But, um, I mean, that's not me really.
• 40:36
  Jen Fritz: I am a
• 40:36
  Glen Erickson: Arms crossed.
• 40:37
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 40:38
  Jen Fritz: But yeah.
• 40:40
  Jen Fritz: But it just really made me genuinely excited
• 40:44
  Glen Erickson: Hmm.
• 40:44
  Jen Fritz: music again, just to see something like start at the bottom, not at the bottom, but just like, they started like just releasing music and didn't know what would happen or were genuinely scared.
• 40:58
  Jen Fritz: And now to just be like, people are really excited.
• 41:02
  Jen Fritz: So, know, it's, it's, it is really exciting.
• 41:06
  Glen Erickson: But that's kind of what it's about, right?
• 41:08
  Glen Erickson: Like that and, and it's kind of a vicious cycle because, you know, I mean, we live with music every day.
• 41:14
  Glen Erickson: There's, we have our loves.
• 41:15
  Glen Erickson: Everybody has their loves.
• 41:16
  Glen Erickson: Whether you know what's going on in the business, whether, you know, even how to put two notes together or not.
• 41:21
  Glen Erickson: Like everybody has their loves of music.
• 41:23
  Glen Erickson: There's, there's a nice baseline, but then there's this excitement cycle that's a part of the music business.
• 41:29
  Glen Erickson: And, and we try, we try to manufacture that.
• 41:32
  Glen Erickson: When you're in the business really hard, you try to figure out how to capture lightning in a bottle.
• 41:37
  Glen Erickson: And, and if anybody really sits on a panel, they're, and talks about it, they're usually the ones to say, I don't actually know, man.
• 41:44
  Glen Erickson: I don't like, I don't really know how to capture.
• 41:47
  Glen Erickson: But that's what we try to do is generate that excitement, for people and the things that we get excited about.
• 41:53
  Glen Erickson: So I think it's cool that you get to still have those experiences and, and I.
• 41:58
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 41:58
  Glen Erickson: Not, there's not too thick of a wall to get through for that.
• 42:02
  Glen Erickson: I, I have, um, I've been having fun in that, my daughter is participates on this podcast with me.
• 42:09
  Glen Erickson: We do like a little post epilogue section just talking about the, she li she listens afterwards and then we talk about it and then we share.
• 42:18
  Glen Erickson: 'cause our thing is to share music.
• 42:19
  Glen Erickson: So I'm between seasons as we're recording this.
• 42:22
  Glen Erickson: And, and so I've been, we've just been producing a little miniseries of just sharing music and it's such a, uh, it's just, I think everybody needs it in their life that like, share music with people, let somebody else get you excited, uh, about music, about new things and, and listen to new things and, and even if listening to new things is about old things.
• 42:43
  Glen Erickson: So, um, you discover it.
• 42:45
  Jen Fritz: Like all of the young people in my life, like I don't have kids, but I have a lot of nieces.
• 42:50
  Jen Fritz: Right.
• 42:50
  Jen Fritz: So, uh, it's, that, that's the thing I always share, you know, with'em, is, you know, I'm just the cool aunt that likes music, right?
• 43:01
  Jen Fritz: And, and we can go to concerts together.
• 43:03
  Jen Fritz: And I am actually genuinely amazed how much they listen to old music, uh,
• 43:08
  Glen Erickson: Yeah,
• 43:09
  Jen Fritz: they're into like, yeah.
• 43:11
  Jen Fritz: Like just into bands from the nineties that I loved in the nineties, and like to be able to be like, oh my God, have you heard of this band?
• 43:19
  Jen Fritz: Like,
• 43:20
  Glen Erickson: yeah.
• 43:20
  Jen Fritz: Or just like, they know all the words to a Liz Fair song, inexplicably.
• 43:25
  Jen Fritz: Like, I don't, I don't
• 43:27
  Glen Erickson: So my, my son is, uh, he's a little, he's older and, you know, university age and has never sort of had the same kind of unique passion music wise that
• 43:40
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 43:41
  Glen Erickson: I connect with my daughter around.
• 43:43
  Glen Erickson: Uh, but he loves his music.
• 43:45
  Glen Erickson: So the funny part to me is'cause he's never been a rock and roll guy.
• 43:50
  Glen Erickson: But he's been getting into the gym with his friends and he is influenced by their playlists.
• 43:55
  Glen Erickson: And he'll come back to me the other day.
• 43:57
  Glen Erickson: He was like, and he, it's like he's testing me to see if I know who these artists are.
• 44:02
  Glen Erickson: And then I think I might actually, for a moment I'm scared, like,'cause I don't want to get it wrong, and he might stump me, but then he starts playing it for me and I'm like, that's Seven Nation Army by White Stripes.
• 44:14
  Glen Erickson: Dude.
• 44:14
  Glen Erickson: Like, give me a hard one.
• 44:15
  Glen Erickson: Like they're just listening to heavy music in the gym.
• 44:18
  Glen Erickson: I didn't get too stumped, but I love if I, I love if like younger people do connect with something that they feel, I think inherently they're feeling like it connects with something that they already know and love and have experienced, and then they're finding it, um, which is no different than going vintage shopping or something like that.
• 44:39
  Glen Erickson: So I think that's pretty cool.
• 44:41
  Jen Fritz: right?
• 44:41
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 44:42
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 44:42
  Jen Fritz: it
• 44:43
  Glen Erickson: It's,
• 44:44
  Jen Fritz: there, right?
• 44:44
  Glen Erickson: it's timeless.
• 44:45
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 44:46
  Jen Fritz: yeah.
• 44:46
  Jen Fritz: Yeah,
• 44:47
  Glen Erickson: Okay.
• 44:47
  Glen Erickson: So Jenna, let me ask you, on the other side of the coin though, has, in, in this, career, you get to see a lot of stuff, and I don't know whether you've got to be part of the cliche i I described earlier where you've had to like, do this scramble, holy shit, I need to like, start fixing what somebody said or something like that in the media.
• 45:10
  Glen Erickson: But I'm curious if you've had times that were, like, things that you saw or events that happened that ever made you be like, yeah, I don't know if I, if it's changing too much, if I still want to be a part of this, or whether that has never happened for you.
• 45:27
  Jen Fritz: Um, I've been lucky to not have any huge, uh, lenders or things I had to cover up with my clients.
• 45:37
  Jen Fritz: I mean, have been some things like, um, politically motivated things, uh, that we kind of had to smooth over, but for the most part, I, I haven't had to deal with that.
• 45:52
  Jen Fritz: I
• 45:52
  Glen Erickson: Hmm
• 45:52
  Jen Fritz: I mean, I work with artists that are, you know, fairly indie and if they were, I do a pretty good check when I start working with them and, you know, make sure that our values align.
• 46:05
  Jen Fritz: Um, and that, you
• 46:08
  Glen Erickson: hmm.
• 46:09
  Jen Fritz: They're not gonna do something that I'm going to have to, you know, make
• 46:15
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 46:15
  Jen Fritz: for or, you know, potentially just end our working relationship because of it, which can also
• 46:21
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 46:22
  Glen Erickson: And es and especially Lose sleepover, which, um.
• 46:25
  Glen Erickson: It
• 46:25
  Jen Fritz: it's, I
• 46:26
  Glen Erickson: fun.
• 46:27
  Jen Fritz: no, it's, it's definitely not, I mean, I think artists, especially the younger generation, is fairly aware of how cameras are always on.
• 46:38
  Jen Fritz: Um,
• 46:40
  Glen Erickson: Mm.
• 46:40
  Jen Fritz: really think that affects them in a big way, like in ways that we won't realize, uh, until down the road.
• 46:48
  Jen Fritz: Um, I think that's, you know, maybe part of the reason why the youth don't drink as much.
• 46:54
  Jen Fritz: I mean, the price too.
• 46:56
  Jen Fritz: But I Can you imagine like all of the drunken,
• 46:59
  Glen Erickson: we, we've,
• 47:00
  Jen Fritz: that you did and what, being scared that somebody was recording it, like.
• 47:06
  Glen Erickson: yeah.
• 47:06
  Glen Erickson: I don't know if there's any of my old music buddies that we haven't had this conversation.
• 47:11
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 47:11
  Glen Erickson: Of, yeah.
• 47:13
  Glen Erickson: Of what that would be like.
• 47:15
  Glen Erickson: I, so I was always the sober guy.
• 47:17
  Glen Erickson: I didn't drink, so I got the, I got the firsthand observation though, of.
• 47:23
  Glen Erickson: How things escalated, how things spun, how, yeah.
• 47:27
  Glen Erickson: The things I've seen.
• 47:28
  Glen Erickson: You know, and that's not excluding me from all kinds of stupid behavior while I was sober for Pete's sake.
• 47:34
  Jen Fritz: course.
• 47:35
  Glen Erickson: but we all, yeah, we all share that sentiment.
• 47:37
  Glen Erickson: I'm wondering it, I'm, I'm hoping this is okay to ask, like, doing the podcast, we, we talked to the start about how you, you and I were like, you get the opportunity also to hear from people and learn while you talk to people in a podcast.
• 47:52
  Glen Erickson: Um, and just doing my first season, it's consistently come up.
• 47:57
  Glen Erickson: I've had conversations, um, uh, with, with females, artists generally, but not just some people in the industry.
• 48:08
  Glen Erickson: And inevitably there's a conversation about gender bias and inequality and inequity, I should say, even in, in things.
• 48:16
  Glen Erickson: And I'm curious because.
• 48:18
  Glen Erickson: Yeah, I have an observation, but I'm very aware that I'm a dude making this observation, which is I've known F far more female publicists than I have male.
• 48:28
  Glen Erickson: Just in a very generic, super generic observation, and I'm wondering if that's accurate or not, and if there's a reason why per, perhaps women are really great at publicity, I don't know.
• 48:43
  Glen Erickson: And I'm wondering, most of all is in your part of the industry that you encounter.
• 48:48
  Glen Erickson: I'm wondering if you encounter the similar things a lot or because you've had this span of time, you've been able to work and have this career, if you've seen any shifts or changes in that, if that's fair to ask.
• 49:01
  Jen Fritz: Yeah, I mean, first of all, I think that being a publicist is just a really gendered, for some reason, it just, as women, I don't know why it is, it's just one of those jobs that,
• 49:13
  Glen Erickson: Hmm.
• 49:14
  Jen Fritz: 10.
• 49:14
  Jen Fritz: I mean, there's a, there's a lot of male publicists, but it is typically, uh, a, a, a woman doing the job.
• 49:21
  Jen Fritz: I don't know why that is.
• 49:22
  Jen Fritz: I mean, we're really good project managers, uh, for one.
• 49:25
  Jen Fritz: So I think
• 49:26
  Glen Erickson: true, very true.
• 49:27
  Jen Fritz: probably part of it, you know, uh, it is a very project management heavy, like you have to be organized as hell.
• 49:35
  Jen Fritz: So I think that that's probably why,
• 49:39
  Glen Erickson: would good.
• 49:39
  Glen Erickson: I, I, I know a lot of women that are just naturally good writers and I don't know whether that maybe has something to come out of it as well, but
• 49:49
  Jen Fritz: for sure, you know, all of those things.
• 49:51
  Jen Fritz: I, I have no idea why, but it just is.
• 49:54
  Jen Fritz: Maybe, it's just one of the only jobs they let us have at the beginning of the music industry.
• 49:59
  Jen Fritz: know,
• 49:59
  Glen Erickson: That's okay.
• 50:01
  Glen Erickson: We're laughing, but that's terrible to say.
• 50:03
  Glen Erickson: Let us have, that's just awful.
• 50:05
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 50:06
  Jen Fritz: you
• 50:06
  Glen Erickson: I, no, I'm not saying it's not true.
• 50:08
  Glen Erickson: I get what you're saying,
• 50:09
  Jen Fritz: it's like I, you know, I've been in the music.
• 50:12
  Jen Fritz: Industry for I think just over 20 years now.
• 50:16
  Jen Fritz: So
• 50:16
  Glen Erickson: Hmm.
• 50:17
  Jen Fritz: I've seen some change and we are obviously in a much better place, um, both for women in positions in the music industry and for, women artists as as well.
• 50:29
  Jen Fritz: There's a lot more of them, which I love to see.
• 50:33
  Jen Fritz: I think that that's incredible and I hope that continues.
• 50:36
  Jen Fritz: Um, and there's a lot of, um, women within our industry in Canada that have done a lot of heavy lifting to, to make that happen.
• 50:44
  Jen Fritz: Those things
• 50:44
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 50:45
  Jen Fritz: by themselves.
• 50:46
  Jen Fritz: Uh, they don't happen without, you know, women before me pulling me up.
• 50:52
  Jen Fritz: Um, and or my generation pulling the people up as well.
• 50:58
  Jen Fritz: Uh, all of that stuff is really important
• 51:00
  Glen Erickson: Hmm.
• 51:01
  Jen Fritz: it's becoming, um.
• 51:03
  Jen Fritz: A lot more understood that, uh, you know, having gender equality doesn't mean you, you lose something as you know, uh, you know, a white, cis, hetero white man, you know what I mean?
• 51:18
  Jen Fritz: Like,
• 51:19
  Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.
• 51:19
  Jen Fritz: something by giving other people opportunity.
• 51:22
  Glen Erickson: not
• 51:23
  Jen Fritz: we don't live in a meritocracy and we never did.
• 51:26
  Jen Fritz: And so, um, if you think that you got your job at the top, and I'm speaking to the universal, you, uh, as a white man, because you were the best person for it, like I'm here to tell you that is not the case.
• 51:39
  Jen Fritz: So, you know, there's.
• 51:41
  Glen Erickson: a hundred percent.
• 51:42
  Jen Fritz: But
• 51:43
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 51:44
  Jen Fritz: You know, and there's a lot of people that can do that job, um, and they might be different color than you.
• 51:51
  Jen Fritz: Uh, they might be a different gender, different, you know, sexual orientation, whatever it is.
• 51:57
  Jen Fritz: Uh, they might be disabled.
• 51:59
  Jen Fritz: All of these things all factor in to equality.
• 52:04
  Jen Fritz: Um, and so, yeah, I think in the music industry, which is, you know, I typically a place that hasn't been really kind to, to, you know, not just women, but,
• 52:16
  Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.
• 52:16
  Jen Fritz: minorities across the board.
• 52:19
  Jen Fritz: Um, uh, we are in a, a way better place.
• 52:22
  Jen Fritz: And I, I didn't,
• 52:23
  Glen Erickson: Hmm
• 52:23
  Jen Fritz: know, and my ears are thankful for it because of the amount of music that I get to
• 52:28
  Glen Erickson: hmm.
• 52:28
  Jen Fritz: from artists that I wouldn't get to hear.
• 52:31
  Jen Fritz: Otherwise, and also the women within the industry who are working incredible jobs, um, not just as publicists, but as, um, artist managers working in the live space, you know, doing all sorts of things, uh, within the music industry that, you know, have been typically dominated by men.
• 52:52
  Jen Fritz: I like to see that,
• 52:53
  Glen Erickson: Well, I really appreciate that.
• 52:55
  Glen Erickson: That's a really, that's a really great response.
• 52:58
  Glen Erickson: And, um, it makes me ask another question, though,'cause, um, I'm always, no, it's not, it's not crazy.
• 53:06
  Glen Erickson: It's just I'm really interested in learning.
• 53:08
  Glen Erickson: So I've been able to see, I, I've been able to,'cause since starting the podcast, I, paying more attention to different things, uh, particularly the way people are promoting or pitching themselves or even the pitches that I get.
• 53:22
  Glen Erickson: Um, there was a time where you would never pitch yourself as, uh, a queer artist.
• 53:30
  Glen Erickson: You would never pitch yourself right as a, as a indigenous or a Metis artist, or you would, you just wouldn't put a tag that identified you as the other because you just spent your whole life, you know, unfortunately, trying to like evade that tag and to blend in or make your life easier from the people that would make it difficult.
• 53:53
  Glen Erickson: Um, but I'm seeing more and more and I think I'm seeing, and I guess I'm just asking you as an expert in your field, if, if that's an accurate observation that people are owning those things that used to be or felt problematic perhaps, uh, in the past.
• 54:11
  Glen Erickson: Is that, is that an accurate observation?
• 54:13
  Jen Fritz: Yeah, I mean, if the artist, uh, sees themselves as being queer as part of their artistic, you know, experience For sure.
• 54:23
  Jen Fritz: I mean, it's a conversation that I have with my artists.
• 54:27
  Jen Fritz: I mean, some queer artists would prefer if it wasn't there, because that's not part of.
• 54:33
  Jen Fritz: You know, their music.
• 54:35
  Jen Fritz: Like, they
• 54:35
  Glen Erickson: Hmm.
• 54:35
  Jen Fritz: wanna lead with it, I guess, but
• 54:37
  Glen Erickson: Yeah,
• 54:38
  Jen Fritz: that's not to say that it's wrong if you do, uh, it just really depends on what your artistic expression is,
• 54:46
  Glen Erickson: yeah.
• 54:47
  Jen Fritz: and, and where you're coming from.
• 54:49
  Jen Fritz: Um, and it just has to feel authentic to who you are.
• 54:52
  Jen Fritz: That's, that's really it.
• 54:53
  Jen Fritz: I think when we get into trouble sometimes with marketing is when people can kind of feel that they're being marketed to, like,
• 55:04
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 55:04
  Jen Fritz: like just as an example is, you know, uh, companies all of a sudden deciding the to, you know, queer it up during the month of June, you know, uh,
• 55:15
  Glen Erickson: Yeah,
• 55:16
  Jen Fritz: Like,
• 55:17
  Glen Erickson: that's,
• 55:18
  Jen Fritz: that that's where we are.
• 55:19
  Jen Fritz: But you know, that you're just being, they only care about you one month, right?
• 55:25
  Glen Erickson: There are th
• 55:26
  Jen Fritz: it
• 55:26
  Glen Erickson: 30 days in Ally, and that's, that's it.
• 55:28
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 55:29
  Jen Fritz: that's, that doesn't feel authentic, right?
• 55:31
  Jen Fritz: So you just have to make sure you're coming from a place that's truly you and just, you know, if expressing yourself as an artist by using those, you know, identifiers works, then let's do it.
• 55:42
  Jen Fritz: And I think you know that, that's great.
• 55:45
  Jen Fritz: I think it's great
• 55:46
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 55:46
  Jen Fritz: a world that we can do that now I
• 55:49
  Glen Erickson: Well, and we, we already talked about the next generation, but I think that's one of the other beautiful things about them is they love to try to hold companies and corporations accountable for whether they are 365 days in Ally or just showing up.
• 56:05
  Glen Erickson: You know, on the parade weekend.
• 56:07
  Glen Erickson: So,
• 56:07
  Jen Fritz: With
• 56:08
  Glen Erickson: uh, yeah.
• 56:10
  Glen Erickson: But that's great.
• 56:11
  Glen Erickson: That's great that they wanna hold people accountable for authenticity that way.
• 56:16
  Glen Erickson: I think it's awesome.
• 56:16
  Glen Erickson: And it's funny, like it's, it's funny to me, I'm gonna say it and be clear that it's funny to me because I'm, I'm an older cis white male, who grew up actually in a super conservative Christian background.
• 56:29
  Glen Erickson: my like, radical, earliest, radical steps were just to listen to Christian rock and roll.
• 56:35
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 56:37
  Glen Erickson: and I mean, my earliest exposure to all this though, it's like super, not, there's nothing oppressive as in that bubble that the way we're talking about what's happened in these other people's lives.
• 56:48
  Glen Erickson: But the comparable to me was always watching how much bands, when they got more successful, did not want the Christian label.
• 56:56
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 56:56
  Glen Erickson: They would always be like, it's just my music man.
• 56:58
  Glen Erickson: This is just about my music.
• 56:59
  Glen Erickson: And then that's just that, you know, that's just me and my life and what I believe, or, or I think, and, yeah, I I maybe part of my original question was just like his, we're moving into an era where it just feels like there's such a challenge with how blended people wanna be in the music.
• 57:18
  Glen Erickson: Seen with their political beliefs, like what is happening.
• 57:22
  Glen Erickson: Like, uh, Dan Mangans social is very interesting the last couple of days because he's been publicly posting the comments he gets of people telling'em to just stick to the music and to stop being political.
• 57:35
  Glen Erickson: And, and he's leaning, he's leaning into it, of course, which is typical Dan and I think is fantastic.
• 57:40
  Glen Erickson: But, you know, I think there's a, a challenge in that blending.
• 57:44
  Glen Erickson: And I guess part of my curiosity, you already said you talk to artists in advance, but I'm wondering what the challenge is for you in publicity about how you navigate that with an artist making their choice?
• 57:57
  Glen Erickson: I've got friends in the band, Hotel Mira, and the, the lead singer is also very vocal.
• 58:03
  Jen Fritz: a stand.
• 58:03
  Jen Fritz: Yeah,
• 58:04
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 58:04
  Glen Erickson: And yeah.
• 58:05
  Jen Fritz: I am, I, I've been watching a, like I watch artist socials quite a bit and, um, I know Dan quite well, so I, uh, I, I've actually talked to him about, you know, how he made the conscious choice to, to start being a lot more political.
• 58:19
  Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.
• 58:20
  Jen Fritz: I, I think that's fantastic.
• 58:22
  Jen Fritz: Um, I think that if, you know, being political is part of who you are, and I think in this time it's really important, um, to do it, but to know that there probably are gonna be consequences because not everybody believes in everything you say.
• 58:40
  Jen Fritz: Like outside of politics, right?
• 58:44
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 58:44
  Jen Fritz: you know, you, you have to be ready for the pushback and, you know, depending on what, you know, you're, you're vocalizing like if you're, um, you know, being pro-Palestine, uh, that is gonna have real world consequences, unfortunately.
• 59:01
  Jen Fritz: But I think that that sort of activism is very, very important, um, in, in, in this day and age.
• 59:07
  Jen Fritz: Um, but yeah, like a, again, like Hotel Mira, they started doing it and I'm so glad, it is, it does have
• 59:15
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 59:16
  Jen Fritz: on, on what happens.
• 59:17
  Jen Fritz: Um, it had an effect on me too.
• 59:19
  Jen Fritz: Like I, I posted on my own stories and I, I, uh, no, you know, people were screen capping'em and, you know, showing, so I just was like.
• 59:31
  Jen Fritz: You, you, you panic a little bit.
• 59:34
  Glen Erickson: Yeah,
• 59:35
  Jen Fritz: And know, it's really scary, but you have to just be firm in who you are and, you know,
• 59:44
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 59:44
  Jen Fritz: do your values mean more?
• 59:47
  Jen Fritz: Or like for me it's easy because I run my own company.
• 59:50
  Jen Fritz: Um, so I can make those decisions.
• 59:52
  Jen Fritz: You know, maybe I'm gonna lose some business because of it, but I'm making, I know that going into
• 59:57
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 59:58
  Jen Fritz: And as an artist, I don't fault an artist that doesn't want to do it because they're afraid of losing opportunities.
• 1:00:05
  Jen Fritz: It's a very hard business.
• 1:00:07
  Jen Fritz: you know, uh, but I do commend artists that, you know, do do it and are brave enough
• 1:00:12
  Glen Erickson: And it's dicey for all the things we've already talked about, right?
• 1:00:16
  Glen Erickson: The, you know, artists having to be content creators.
• 1:00:19
  Glen Erickson: Well, what happens if you start making your content some of these other things and it starts to affect all the rest of it, and it starts to change your brand, for lack of a better term.
• 1:00:30
  Glen Erickson: And yeah, and, but the pressure, again, because it's a global world of all of these messages going out as well.
• 1:00:37
  Glen Erickson: So, uh, definitely I think the new world feels a lot harder to navigate.
• 1:00:46
  Glen Erickson: In my perception then that, that, that old world, um, where I could,
• 1:00:50
  Jen Fritz: is.
• 1:00:51
  Glen Erickson: opinions that just stayed with my band mates maybe.
• 1:00:54
  Glen Erickson: And, um, that's difficult for, I think for a lot of people to, to wrestle with now.
• 1:00:59
  Glen Erickson: But I definitely applaud the ones that do.
• 1:01:01
  Glen Erickson: And even the fact he talked about the way publicity used to not, yeah, I mean all of those services were label services.
• 1:01:09
  Glen Erickson: You only got them if you got a record deal with a company that did all the things.
• 1:01:12
  Glen Erickson: There wasn't a version of, of parsed out label services and the pressure back then if, because they would comfortably tell the artist how to behave.
• 1:01:25
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 1:01:26
  Glen Erickson: And, and as an artist you kinda had to fall in line because the whole thing goes away.
• 1:01:31
  Glen Erickson: You know, if I don't stay in line with this one thing,
• 1:01:34
  Jen Fritz: yeah,
• 1:01:34
  Glen Erickson: um, which is very different than at least the control and the power being back in the artist's hand.
• 1:01:39
  Glen Erickson: Now, if they, you know, our choosing.
• 1:01:43
  Glen Erickson: You know, to align, say with an agency like yourself that would align with their values and, and, and have that power back, which I think is a really positive thing.
• 1:01:52
  Glen Erickson: So,
• 1:01:52
  Jen Fritz: yeah.
• 1:01:53
  Jen Fritz: It's
• 1:01:53
  Glen Erickson: yeah.
• 1:01:53
  Jen Fritz: I mean, you just have to be, you know, just be yourself and if you know what you're posting is truly what you believe and is authentic to you, then you just have to, that's just the way it is.
• 1:02:07
  Jen Fritz: If you lose an agent or whatever because of it, you have to know that going in.
• 1:02:11
  Jen Fritz: Do you know what
• 1:02:12
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:02:12
  Jen Fritz: you
• 1:02:13
  Glen Erickson: Yeah,
• 1:02:14
  Jen Fritz: you have to know that when you post stuff that is.
• 1:02:17
  Jen Fritz: Divisive, which politics are like more than ever these days.
• 1:02:24
  Jen Fritz: You have to know that it
• 1:02:26
  Glen Erickson: yeah.
• 1:02:26
  Jen Fritz: some people off.
• 1:02:27
  Jen Fritz: There's a reason that Taylor Swift doesn't say one way or the other.
• 1:02:31
  Jen Fritz: Um, you know, so, and you know, she could, she's already a billionaire, but you know, she wants to continue to make those billions, so,
• 1:02:40
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:02:41
  Glen Erickson: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:43
  Glen Erickson: That's a unique pressure none of us seem to understand yet, but, well, Jen, let's, um, let me ask you this and then we can wrap up.
• 1:02:52
  Glen Erickson: I appreciate your time and insights into all these things.
• 1:02:55
  Glen Erickson: I think you have such a unique position and opportunity to be able to speak towards a lot of them, and a lot of truth.
• 1:03:02
  Glen Erickson: so we started off talking about the podcast that you do the FM podcast and that it's very topical and you enjoy the educational part, which is kind of the cool thing.
• 1:03:11
  Glen Erickson: 'cause I found myself very quickly starting to scan and looking.
• 1:03:17
  Glen Erickson: Ally for things like where I would want to start in that list of the things that interest me.
• 1:03:22
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 1:03:23
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 1:03:23
  Glen Erickson: I'm curious for you sort of with what you know and what you've learned, or maybe it was just the way it happened in your own podcasts.
• 1:03:31
  Glen Erickson: I asked you before to talk about some highlight things.
• 1:03:34
  Glen Erickson: I'm, I'm curious in your podcasting, what has stood out, whether it was a topic that you've gotten a lot of response to or whether it was a particular conversation with somebody.
• 1:03:43
  Glen Erickson: I'm wondering what stood out to you as like, this is really important.
• 1:03:47
  Glen Erickson: This is, this turned out to be a really dynamic, important, either topic or conversation.
• 1:03:53
  Jen Fritz: I think it's probably the conversations that I have with people that a life that I have no idea what it's like.
• 1:04:03
  Jen Fritz: So, you know, talking to an indigenous artist or talking to a black artist, um, you know, about their music, but also about their experience.
• 1:04:13
  Jen Fritz: I think that those are the ones that are the best conversations.
• 1:04:17
  Jen Fritz: Um, and because I have no idea what that experience is like,
• 1:04:22
  Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:04:23
  Jen Fritz: I I'm just a white lady, right?
• 1:04:25
  Jen Fritz: So it is, um, you know, or even a queer artist, you know, I'm a heterosexual cis woman or a trans artist, you know, it's like there's so many different, you know, types of artists out there and, you know, that the.
• 1:04:41
  Jen Fritz: That is just who they are, but it
• 1:04:43
  Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:04:44
  Jen Fritz: of, you know, them making their music.
• 1:04:47
  Jen Fritz: Um, I, I find those conversations to be the most interesting from, from my perspective anyway.
• 1:04:54
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 1:04:55
  Jen Fritz: There has, I mean,
• 1:04:56
  Glen Erickson: Is.
• 1:04:57
  Jen Fritz: there's a lot of good ones I like, I, I like, I just like them when, when the people like to chat.
• 1:05:02
  Jen Fritz: Do you know what I mean?
• 1:05:03
  Glen Erickson: Oh a, yeah, a hundred percent.
• 1:05:05
  Glen Erickson: Yeah,
• 1:05:06
  Jen Fritz: just like, alright, this took a turn.
• 1:05:09
  Jen Fritz: I'm just gonna throw these questions away because apparently we're just gonna have a conversation.
• 1:05:14
  Jen Fritz: You know what I
• 1:05:14
  Glen Erickson: yeah,
• 1:05:15
  Jen Fritz: Like, sometimes I'll have it all typed out as you know, and
• 1:05:19
  Glen Erickson: yeah,
• 1:05:19
  Jen Fritz: it just doesn't matter anymore and you're just having a, a conversation.
• 1:05:23
  Jen Fritz: And I, those are my favorite ones, you
• 1:05:25
  Glen Erickson: yeah,
• 1:05:26
  Jen Fritz: it's just like, I don't need to look at the questions I had written out anymore.
• 1:05:30
  Jen Fritz: Obviously we're just gonna see where this takes us'cause I got no idea.
• 1:05:34
  Jen Fritz: And there's like.
• 1:05:36
  Jen Fritz: You know from doing it, there's nothing worse than when you start and you can tell they're not a talker and you're gonna have to do, those are the ones that scare me the most,
• 1:05:46
  Glen Erickson: Well,
• 1:05:47
  Jen Fritz: where you just like, oh my God,
• 1:05:48
  Glen Erickson: no, that's so true.
• 1:05:50
  Glen Erickson: Like so one of the earliest guys I worked with, so I worked with Andy Shauf.
• 1:05:56
  Glen Erickson: I basically, I, I found him on, you know, on, um, I just lost the name of whatever, the famous internet thing that we were all on before Facebook as musicians.
• 1:06:08
  Glen Erickson: But anyhow, we found him,
• 1:06:11
  Jen Fritz: MySpace,
• 1:06:12
  Glen Erickson: and Saskatchewan guy, anyhow, started working with him early, had that relationship and I've thought like, maybe I ask Andy to come back on and talk and then, Andy just doesn't like to talk.
• 1:06:25
  Glen Erickson: I mean, I don't think that's changed from when I knew him a dozen years ago either.
• 1:06:30
  Glen Erickson: Uh, really Well, and I remember seeing him at, at one of these western Canadian music award festivals that was at Edmonton, maybe it was 2017.
• 1:06:40
  Glen Erickson: Um, and he was on a panel with his, his manager, talking about the artist manager relationship.
• 1:06:47
  Glen Erickson: And I saw him in the hallway and I was like, what are you doing, man?
• 1:06:49
  Glen Erickson: Like, you don't.
• 1:06:50
  Glen Erickson: You don't like to talk and now you're on a panel.
• 1:06:53
  Glen Erickson: And we had a good laugh about it, but, uh, I totally agree.
• 1:06:57
  Glen Erickson: Like, it's a lot easier to do the podcast when, when someone is like, excited to talk and, and, and just roll with it and, and see where it goes.
• 1:07:06
  Glen Erickson: So, um, is is the hardest thing being a publicist, so many people, if somebody asks you what your current favorite is, do you feel like it's impossible to, you feel like you'll get trapped if you try to talk about your favorite music and then, and then yeah.
• 1:07:22
  Jen Fritz: I always like,'cause I.
• 1:07:24
  Jen Fritz: I'm a total podcast, or not podcast, a playlist maker.
• 1:07:28
  Jen Fritz: And, uh, every year I make a playlist of my favorite songs and I just add to it throughout the year.
• 1:07:34
  Jen Fritz: And then, you know, sometimes a song will stay on and sometimes it'll come off.
• 1:07:38
  Jen Fritz: And then at the end of the year, it's just like, these are my favorite songs of the year.
• 1:07:41
  Jen Fritz: And I always have to have a caveat I don't put any of my artists on the playlist because I, I, I can't like what you like
• 1:07:52
  Glen Erickson: You can't blur the line at all.
• 1:07:53
  Jen Fritz: well, because otherwise I have to put all of them on.
• 1:07:57
  Jen Fritz: Right.
• 1:07:57
  Jen Fritz: And so then that's a different playlist.
• 1:08:00
  Jen Fritz: Right.
• 1:08:00
  Jen Fritz: So
• 1:08:01
  Glen Erickson: yeah.
• 1:08:02
  Jen Fritz: it's, when I talk about new music, it's generally.
• 1:08:08
  Jen Fritz: Here's my artist.
• 1:08:09
  Jen Fritz: Like these are the artists that I'm working with.
• 1:08:11
  Jen Fritz: Oh my God, you have to hear this.
• 1:08:12
  Jen Fritz: This is, and then there's also like, just like other music, it's
• 1:08:16
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:08:17
  Jen Fritz: they're, they do blur, but I kind of try keep them a little bit separate in a way, I guess.
• 1:08:23
  Glen Erickson: well, I mean the very fact that you take things off as you go through the year, I think already makes you a unique kind of person.
• 1:08:32
  Glen Erickson: I don't know a lot of people who have the discipline or the de the, the desire or whether it's just the control controlness of it to go and actually curate.
• 1:08:43
  Jen Fritz: I listen to the playlist all the time, right?
• 1:08:45
  Jen Fritz: So sometimes I'll be like, okay, I'm done with that song.
• 1:08:48
  Jen Fritz: You
• 1:08:48
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:08:49
  Jen Fritz: that's not gonna make it to the end of the year.
• 1:08:50
  Jen Fritz: And sometimes it's just because the song came out in January.
• 1:08:53
  Jen Fritz: January and unfortunately it's not gonna make it.
• 1:08:55
  Glen Erickson: I just think it's incredible.
• 1:08:57
  Glen Erickson: Most people add and then that's it, that's their only activity on Spotify.
• 1:09:01
  Glen Erickson: So, uh, I think that's an incredible trait to learn about you, Jen.
• 1:09:05
  Glen Erickson: So, um, I, uh, well that's really obvious.
• 1:09:09
  Glen Erickson: That's absolutely obvious.
• 1:09:11
  Glen Erickson: So I really appreciate you taking the time, uh, to do this outta your day and, um, even, you know, whatever you got going on, and maybe you're at 60, I think I saw 60 episodes on your podcast now or more,
• 1:09:24
  Jen Fritz: We're gonna
• 1:09:25
  Glen Erickson: which is great.
• 1:09:26
  Jen Fritz: new season soon.
• 1:09:28
  Jen Fritz: Like when I started the podcast, I was gonna do it every week and then I quickly saw how hard it was.
• 1:09:35
  Jen Fritz: I did like 20 episodes and then I was like, okay, I'm gonna do seasons now, because I was like, holy shit.
• 1:09:44
  Glen Erickson: Yeah, I was similar but different.
• 1:09:47
  Glen Erickson: I was like, I'm gonna do seasons, but then I'm like, I.
• 1:09:51
  Glen Erickson: I, I was the rookie who was like, I'm gonna try to make this go longer than what any, and so everyone around me was like, are you, are you gonna be done?
• 1:09:59
  Glen Erickson: Are you gonna finish your season?
• 1:10:00
  Glen Erickson: Are you gonna take a break?
• 1:10:01
  Glen Erickson: Because it was getting hard to keep it rolling as a side hustle.
• 1:10:05
  Glen Erickson: And um, yeah, I got to 16 and then I was like, this feels like a natural, I'm taking a break.
• 1:10:11
  Glen Erickson: So, yeah.
• 1:10:13
  Glen Erickson: But
• 1:10:13
  Jen Fritz: I'm starting a new season soon and I only do 10
• 1:10:16
  Glen Erickson: that's great.
• 1:10:16
  Jen Fritz: a season.
• 1:10:17
  Jen Fritz: But yeah, it's coming up soon.
• 1:10:19
  Jen Fritz: So just follow Fritz Media on all socials to find out when, or you can follow me on Instagram at Jenny Fritz.
• 1:10:27
  Jen Fritz: Uh, yeah,
• 1:10:28
  Glen Erickson: Awesome.
• 1:10:29
  Jen Fritz: it's really easy to find me.
• 1:10:31
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:10:32
  Glen Erickson: But, uh, thanks again for your time and your insight.
• 1:10:35
  Glen Erickson: I appreciate and I wish you all the best in your company.
• 1:10:37
  Glen Erickson: I look forward to maybe seeing you around at some of the, the things, the things, maybe the big things where people get together,
• 1:10:44
  Jen Fritz: Yeah.
• 1:10:46
  Glen Erickson: okay.
• 1:10:47
  Jen Fritz: in a room together soon, I'm sure.
• 1:10:49
  Glen Erickson: That will be great.
• 1:10:50
  Glen Erickson: Okay.
• 1:10:50
  Glen Erickson: Thank you.
• 1:10:51
  Glen Erickson: Appreciate it, Jen.
• 1:10:52
  Glen Erickson: Okay, bye.
• 1:11:00
  alexi: Oh, I found it.
• 1:11:04
  alexi: Hey, I see what you did.
• 1:11:09
  alexi: A fake friend.
• 1:11:10
  Glen: it's funny.
• 1:11:11
  alexi: What?
• 1:11:12
  alexi: Okay.
• 1:11:12
  Glen: Well, you said you have lots to talk about, so let's talk.
• 1:11:15
  Glen: What do you have to talk about today?
• 1:11:17
  alexi: The first,
• 1:11:18
  Glen: Talk to me.
• 1:11:18
  alexi: the first thing I was gonna say to you is I finished listening to the episode just now I went back a little bit'cause sometimes I forget things, but I feel like I had a couple points when I was listening that I was making mental notes of, of like, oh, we could chat about this, we could chat about that.
• 1:11:36
  alexi: And then you.
• 1:11:38
  alexi: I'm gonna say boldly, you made it seem like it was bold of you to ask, but ask her about your observation that more women were in her role, in your perspective.
• 1:11:52
  alexi: And I was like,
• 1:11:53
  Glen: I felt like I've seen more female publicists and whether she concurred with that.
• 1:11:59
  alexi: And she did right?
• 1:12:01
  alexi: Like she.
• 1:12:02
  alexi: Mostly concurrent.
• 1:12:03
  alexi: I don't
• 1:12:04
  Glen: Yeah.
• 1:12:04
  alexi: and I was like, oh, like I found, I found that bit very interesting and I was like, Hmm, I'm not gonna bring it up.
• 1:12:11
  alexi: Like we've already done the whole woman talk like once or twice.
• 1:12:16
  alexi: then it was interesting'cause you were getting into the why, I thought was really interesting to hear, like your thoughts as.
• 1:12:28
  alexi: A male and then her kind of response.
• 1:12:32
  alexi: and the first thing that came into my head when you brought it up was organization and that was hit right away.
• 1:12:37
  alexi: Is that like lot of like women are program managers'cause they can manage a program, um, which like.
• 1:12:46
  Glen: Like, like you're, oh, you're identifying how what came up?
• 1:12:51
  Glen: Yeah.
• 1:12:52
  Glen: Okay.
• 1:12:52
  Glen: So what you're saying is like the thing that was in your mind that just was an instinctual response as to why, uh.
• 1:12:59
  Glen: If there's some version of, not a negative version of gender stereotype about how one gender might excel at some things more
• 1:13:08
  alexi: the
• 1:13:08
  Glen: or,
• 1:13:09
  alexi: generally, not like more than, not in a comparison way, but just like a lot of women are.
• 1:13:15
  alexi: And so that was the first thing that came to my mind.
• 1:13:17
  alexi: And then you guys hit it right away.
• 1:13:19
  alexi: But the other
• 1:13:20
  Glen: Okay.
• 1:13:20
  alexi: thought of that you guys didn't hit and but your conversation made me think of, um, and it kinda leads back to other conversations you had with females who, like are in the spotlight, like, I feel like girls generally raised, um.
• 1:13:40
  alexi: Not by like their parents, but like raised by like in a society in a way that they grow up much more observant of their own actions, but how they're perceived and what's being perceived around them.
• 1:13:54
  alexi: Um, which is why I also think that girls are way more susceptible to like trends.
• 1:13:59
  alexi: Like right, when people think of like trends, like trendy clothing and trendy hair, all of that you think of like women.
• 1:14:05
  alexi: Um, but I, I wonder.
• 1:14:07
  alexi: I don't know.
• 1:14:08
  alexi: Your conversation made me wonder like if girls are raised to be more observant of like what's cool and like what's popular because they're observing like what's being picked up around them because they're thinking about themselves in like social situations and they're raised to watch themselves, like maybe women also, and not even in comparison, but just generally excel in that kind of a role, like a publicist because they're watching.
• 1:14:35
  Glen: Because of their awareness skills.
• 1:14:37
  alexi: skills and like, maybe it is a comparison
• 1:14:40
  Glen: Yeah.
• 1:14:40
  alexi: but like, I don't know, I, from 20 years, like, I don't know a lot of guys who grew up like, like that way, like, like the way that
• 1:14:52
  Glen: No, I know what you're saying.
• 1:14:54
  alexi: So I'm like, maybe that's
• 1:14:55
  Glen: Well, I think what's,
• 1:14:56
  alexi: go ahead.
• 1:14:57
  Glen: no, go ahead.
• 1:14:57
  Glen: Sorry.
• 1:14:58
  alexi: just gonna say like
• 1:14:59
  Glen: I was gonna say,
• 1:14:59
  alexi: like
• 1:14:59
  Glen: well.
• 1:15:00
  alexi: skill.
• 1:15:01
  Glen: No, it is I, well, I think what's interesting, what you're pointing out, and this isn't all of the story, so I wanna make it really clear, but what that makes me, what that makes me think of that's interesting is that part of what you're alluding to, at least in my mind, is a set of skills that are conditioned.
• 1:15:20
  Glen: Right, which is different than, um,'cause I started off by saying the question, are you like suggesting just those sort of stereotypical gender-based abilities as if like they're just inherent to, you know, which version, which version of sex you're born as or something.
• 1:15:37
  Glen: Um, which again.
• 1:15:40
  Glen: We're using only two
• 1:15:42
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:15:43
  Glen: you know, the way people even understand that now, but, but you're sort of alluding to, but, and I think it's actually really interesting is a conditioned set of skills because of how they're raised in different societies, you know, and in our world, in our societies, which have been going for a while long enough to have conditioned women to either, as you're saying, have.
• 1:16:05
  Glen: Strong perception skills, uh, strong observation skills, um, strong organization skills, whatever those things that they end up being conditioned, which, you know, and the reasons for those conditions are would be obviously hours of conversations, um, as to where that comes from.
• 1:16:27
  Glen: But I do think that it's an observable thing.
• 1:16:29
  Glen: I think that is true.
• 1:16:30
  Glen: Um.
• 1:16:31
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:16:32
  Glen: and you're right in the sense that, you know, again, like I can only have my personal understanding from how I was raised, you know,
• 1:16:42
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:16:43
  Glen: a male.
• 1:16:44
  Glen: And um, and then what I've tried to learn or understand or observe, which is different and that.
• 1:16:52
  Glen: You know, it's true when it comes to perception and observation skills and whether or not I had to be hyper-focused on what people thought about me, or even down to kind of core themes of like how that, um, how that weaves into validation and my reason.
• 1:17:12
  Glen: That I think for being or, or having attention or getting validation or those sort of core needs that all of us as people have that I, and many of the people I grew up with, I'm making the assumption kinda as men, relatively in comparison, skated through a lot of life without a hyper awareness or a hyper focus.
• 1:17:37
  Glen: On, um, on those things.
• 1:17:39
  Glen: So all of those things contribute to a conditioning and, and it sort of ties into what she said.
• 1:17:45
  Glen: So the part that really hit me since we're talking about all this, and I don't know why, it just like, it just sat with me.
• 1:17:52
  Glen: But I love the fact that she's sort of just, bold enough to call it out.
• 1:17:56
  Glen: Um, which is great because like we know each other, we're not necessarily friends.
• 1:18:01
  Glen: Friends, right.
• 1:18:02
  Glen: And so, you know, people might not always go on someone else's podcast that they're not friends, friends with and just say it like it is.
• 1:18:09
  Glen: So I really admire that.
• 1:18:10
  Glen: And the part that she really told it like it is, was, uh, basically saying to a lot of men out there that if you think that the position you have is because you earned it, you're fooling yourself.
• 1:18:24
  Glen: And that's really admittedly hard to hear as a man because, you know.
• 1:18:32
  Glen: The, the truth is like all of us are people, right?
• 1:18:36
  Glen: And we're all humans.
• 1:18:37
  Glen: And I'm wrestling and struggling every day in my and in my entire life, right?
• 1:18:43
  Glen: And I want to be validated and I want to be understood.
• 1:18:46
  Glen: I want to be seen, I want, I want to do something and feel like I did it well, and I want that acknowledgement of other people if I can, because it meets kind of a human core.
• 1:18:57
  Glen: Anyhow, all of those things.
• 1:19:00
  Glen: It's hard because you feel that piece.
• 1:19:02
  Glen: Get invalidated if somebody says that.
• 1:19:05
  Glen: Right.
• 1:19:05
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:19:06
  Glen: But let me, the, the important thing is the both and which is where I'm really settling into these days, is that, so the truth is that's hard to hear for a good reason because I'm just a person who's worked really hard and I want, and I feel like I've earned the things I've had to work hard for.
• 1:19:26
  Glen: But I should also be able to recognize that this whole entire other part of the population has had a different experience as to what earning something means compared to me.
• 1:19:40
  Glen: And if I can't both feel like, I should feel good that I have worked hard and earned things, but also recognize that.
• 1:19:51
  Glen: People have had a different experience than me and that maybe there is truth to the fact that the way that the path to earning it for me is very different and easier in general than other people.
• 1:20:06
  Glen: If I can't see that right then I'll never be, I'll never be an ally.
• 1:20:10
  Glen: I'll never be able to be a part of.
• 1:20:13
  Glen: Uh, breaking down those barriers of stereotypes as a man.
• 1:20:16
  Glen: So I think that's really important to get called out and I appreciated her for doing so.
• 1:20:21
  alexi: Yeah, I like
• 1:20:23
  Glen: Yeah,
• 1:20:24
  alexi: a lot.
• 1:20:25
  Glen: she's great that way.
• 1:20:27
  Glen: Well see.
• 1:20:27
  Glen: I think that's good conversation and I'm glad that you didn't leave it off of your list just'cause you think that we've done it already.
• 1:20:35
  Glen: I think it's not a bad thing.
• 1:20:38
  Glen: I mean, that's in our world, right?
• 1:20:40
  Glen: It's not everyone else who listens world.
• 1:20:42
  Glen: Like
• 1:20:42
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:20:43
  Glen: let's just be honest.
• 1:20:44
  Glen: It's not like everybody listening has listened to every podcast episode either, right?
• 1:20:50
  Glen: Um, it's not a bad thing to keep talking about.
• 1:20:52
  alexi: know what I was, when I was also thinking that, um, it's so weird.
• 1:20:57
  alexi: I was like thinking like, oh, I don't wanna bring it up.
• 1:20:59
  alexi: 'cause we've talked about that before.
• 1:21:00
  alexi: But I was like, ah, like it's still a good conversation.
• 1:21:03
  alexi: And there was also a piece of me that it's like, it's also, and this is so terrible, but it's.
• 1:21:09
  alexi: So rare for me to like have a conversation about this topic, like in, in general with like a man and not feel like, or not like come out of the conversation feeling like frustrated or like negative about it.
• 1:21:29
  alexi: Like, because gen generally, like that's how.
• 1:21:34
  alexi: I feel like with these conversations with men and a lot of my like female feel, so then it's like, I was like, maybe it's'cause you're my dad.
• 1:21:42
  alexi: But also I think,'cause you've done a lot of like learning and growing and making yourself aware, but it's like, I was like, oh, like actually I do wanna have that conversation'cause like I know it'll be a good conversation with you.
• 1:21:53
  alexi: And then I like caught myself thinking that and I'm like, that's so crazy.
• 1:21:56
  alexi: Like, I was talking to my friend about it today and I'm like, uh, the fact that I'm like.
• 1:22:01
  alexi: Good to have those kind of conversations with my dad.
• 1:22:03
  alexi: 'cause I know he is like not a frustrating man to talk to about like things,
• 1:22:10
  Glen: I'm really glad to hear that actually.
• 1:22:12
  Glen: Thank you.
• 1:22:13
  Glen: I appreciate it.
• 1:22:14
  Glen: Yeah, I mean I, yeah, I mean I still wrestle with sometimes, like I just said, like there's, it triggers a defensiveness and I think you probably experience that if you ever tried to talk about it with other men or young men who think that they're trying to be open-minded, but really they're just trying to get their point across their own point.
• 1:22:35
  Glen: Right.
• 1:22:35
  Glen: And they get frustrated'cause they feel like they don't get to be heard.
• 1:22:39
  Glen: As a rule now, and those are the things they fight so hard to express and they don't realize that they're just snowballing the problem.
• 1:22:49
  Glen: Right.
• 1:22:49
  Glen: And the willingness to just say, to set aside your own right to be heard sometimes is.
• 1:22:59
  Glen: Like some people just can't do it or don't want to do it.
• 1:23:01
  Glen: And I'm not saying it's always easy, but you can't start unless you do that.
• 1:23:06
  Glen: So anyhow, that's what I've learned.
• 1:23:10
  Glen: But yeah.
• 1:23:11
  Glen: Okay.
• 1:23:12
  Glen: Well, I mean, I appreciate that you'll have those conversations with me, so thank you.
• 1:23:18
  alexi: Ruby
• 1:23:19
  Glen: Okay.
• 1:23:19
  Glen: Well that probably took over.
• 1:23:20
  Glen: I don't know what else you wanted, if that was all the things that you wanted to talk about.
• 1:23:25
  Glen: You said you had a few.
• 1:23:26
  alexi: they were just, you know, like,
• 1:23:28
  Glen: Okay.
• 1:23:29
  alexi: they were like, interesting.
• 1:23:30
  alexi: But I'm like, mm.
• 1:23:31
  alexi: They were interesting to bring up and then be like, yeah, cool.
• 1:23:33
  alexi: You know, and then move on.
• 1:23:34
  alexi: Like, just like,
• 1:23:35
  Glen: Not as interesting.
• 1:23:37
  Glen: Okay.
• 1:23:37
  alexi: we were gonna talk about
• 1:23:39
  Glen: Okay.
• 1:23:39
  alexi: Do you wanna hear something?
• 1:23:41
  Glen: Yeah.
• 1:23:42
  alexi: have to now because we're on a podcast, but um, we were both saying like, oh, I feel like I've heard this song.
• 1:23:50
  alexi: I feel like I've heard this.
• 1:23:51
  alexi: I feel like, you know, we were both kind of alluding to like, we just started really delving into Ruby Waters, but
• 1:23:59
  Glen: Yeah.
• 1:23:59
  alexi: a familiarity in the songs and then like the person, and we were like, Hmm, that's weird.
• 1:24:05
  alexi: I was doing Googling and so much stuff was coming up.
• 1:24:09
  alexi: But all of it was like just giving me the same feeling.
• 1:24:12
  alexi: It was like pointing to clues, but it wasn't like a clue as to why like, um, cold War kids, you know, cold War kids.
• 1:24:21
  Glen: Yeah.
• 1:24:21
  Glen: Very well.
• 1:24:22
  Glen: Yep.
• 1:24:22
  alexi: she was with them on some segment of one of their tours, like I found an Instagram post of theirs and it was like on underneath it,
• 1:24:32
  Glen: Oh, really?
• 1:24:33
  alexi: and not all of the tours, just like a leg of like some tour.
• 1:24:36
  alexi: Um, they
• 1:24:37
  Glen: Yeah.
• 1:24:38
  alexi: I'm like, Hmm, maybe it was like through something like that.
• 1:24:41
  alexi: Um, her older, do you know Dallas Green?
• 1:24:45
  Glen: Yep.
• 1:24:46
  alexi: That's her older brother, I think.
• 1:24:50
  Glen: What.
• 1:24:50
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:24:51
  alexi: There was some article about it, because her parents apparently were in a band that she got to be part of for a little bit or something.
• 1:24:59
  alexi: I could be spewing misinformation right now, but like her parents were like
• 1:25:02
  Glen: Okay, just stop for a sec.
• 1:25:04
  Glen: So just to be clear, Dallas and Green is Dallas Green, sorry, is the main guy from Canadian Band City and Color, who had been pretty big for years.
• 1:25:13
  Glen: Right.
• 1:25:14
  Glen: And before that he was like also part of, oh shoot, how did I just forget the.
• 1:25:20
  Glen: Name of his big, like more hardcore Canadian band doesn't matter, but Dallas Green, well no city and color is his like Acousticy band.
• 1:25:30
  Glen: But anyhow, so Oh, okay.
• 1:25:34
  Glen: That's crazy.
• 1:25:35
  alexi: so then I was like, because I Googled her name to like look around for like why do we both find her so familiar.
• 1:25:41
  alexi: And then
• 1:25:42
  Glen: Okay.
• 1:25:43
  Glen: I am live fact checking you right now.
• 1:25:45
  Glen: It's, it does not say that they're related.
• 1:25:47
  alexi: Dallas Green Sister and it says Musician Ruby Waters.
• 1:25:52
  Glen: Yeah, but I hear, I'm saying he's closely associated with Ruby Waters'cause she's been a consistent opening act of his,
• 1:25:58
  alexi: I have like two different links here that are saying it.
• 1:26:03
  Glen: my goodness.
• 1:26:05
  alexi: um,
• 1:26:06
  Glen: Oh yeah.
• 1:26:06
  Glen: Facebook is really reliable, so That's right.
• 1:26:09
  alexi: uh, no.
• 1:26:09
  alexi: Where is that?
• 1:26:10
  Glen: Okay, well now that I added the word sister to my Google keyword.
• 1:26:15
  Glen: Although I'm not using Google, um, I'm using Brave Pitch pitch out there for the Brave Browser.
• 1:26:20
  Glen: Get away from Chrome.
• 1:26:22
  Glen: Um, Ruby Waters.
• 1:26:24
  Glen: Yes.
• 1:26:25
  Glen: It says younger sister named Ruby Waters
• 1:26:29
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:26:30
  Glen: Yeah.
• 1:26:30
  Glen: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:26:31
  Glen: Okay.
• 1:26:32
  alexi: we heard about her somehow through that grapevine.
• 1:26:35
  Glen: No, I I think it's the song.
• 1:26:38
  Glen: Um, sour Patch.
• 1:26:39
  Glen: I think Sonic was playing it on the radio and I noticed it.
• 1:26:43
  Glen: Came back and looked it up and then because of that, the name sticks.
• 1:26:48
  Glen: Right?
• 1:26:49
  Glen: So, and then recently, like, you know, um, everybody knows like you play a certain playlist or a couple of bands, and then Spotify seems to always want to start suggesting something right away.
• 1:27:02
  Glen: And she has a song called Wet T-shirt.
• 1:27:06
  Glen: This is gonna sound terrible'cause people are gonna start reading into it.
• 1:27:09
  Glen: But for some reason Spotify keeps like recommending playing that song at the end of many other things that I'm playing, like it seems whenever I'm done a playlist or something
• 1:27:19
  alexi: throws it
• 1:27:20
  Glen: like, yeah, that song gets thrown on there all the time.
• 1:27:25
  Glen: Um, one of the new, the song Car by Royal Otis, one of their newer singles that keeps getting thrown on all the time.
• 1:27:34
  Glen: Uh, to everything.
• 1:27:35
  Glen: No matter what I play, it keeps coming in.
• 1:27:37
  Glen: So this Ruby Waters, and then this morning I throw it on and I'm like, I'm gonna just start playing it all the way to the gym.
• 1:27:42
  alexi: and we
• 1:27:43
  Glen: And so, right.
• 1:27:45
  Glen: Well, and then I, I recognized that song, supernatural, and I recognized the song that had 27 million streams, the quantum physics.
• 1:27:53
  Glen: So I've heard,
• 1:27:54
  alexi: I
• 1:27:55
  Glen: I've heard these things somewhere in the ethos, and then I saw her name.
• 1:27:58
  alexi: in our ethos, but we never like really walked in.
• 1:28:02
  Glen: And her name's on that new little folk festival down by the river in our city Edmonton
• 1:28:07
  alexi: my goodness.
• 1:28:08
  Glen: up in a couple of weekends.
• 1:28:10
  alexi: for me.
• 1:28:10
  alexi: That was it.
• 1:28:11
  alexi: That's why I knew
• 1:28:12
  Glen: Yeah,
• 1:28:13
  alexi: name.
• 1:28:15
  Glen: it's like at the top of the poster.
• 1:28:16
  Glen: It's like the headline name,
• 1:28:18
  alexi: cool.
• 1:28:20
  Glen: because boy Golden is playing that as well, right?
• 1:28:22
  alexi: I was
• 1:28:22
  Glen: So Yeah,
• 1:28:24
  alexi: boy golden on.
• 1:28:26
  Glen: yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:28
  Glen: So all the dots connecting.
• 1:28:30
  alexi: for on Google's all night.
• 1:28:32
  alexi: And then you just answered it for me.
• 1:28:36
  Glen: Yeah, and I, so this is the fun.
• 1:28:39
  Glen: I'm gonna be a little transparent about what it's like to be starting and doing a podcast.
• 1:28:43
  Glen: 'cause I'm still in my first year, second season, but still, we're only eight months in really.
• 1:28:49
  Glen: Um.
• 1:28:50
  Glen: And so the whole world of like, people should know, how does this work, right?
• 1:28:54
  Glen: And then it's like, oh, I think of somebody I would like to have on the podcast.
• 1:28:58
  Glen: And then you immediately start to categorize, right?
• 1:29:02
  Glen: Like, is that a realistic or is it not realistic?
• 1:29:05
  Glen: And then.
• 1:29:06
  Glen: Um, so I've had this instance a couple times where I'm like, I like this.
• 1:29:10
  Glen: Where I, like I hear some songs.
• 1:29:11
  Glen: I hadn't really been too familiar with the name, and then I'm like, they would be really awesome to have on the podcast.
• 1:29:18
  Glen: And then I go and I look and I'm like, oh, 27 million streams.
• 1:29:22
  Glen: 2 million streams, 3 million streams, 4 million streams.
• 1:29:24
  Glen: And I'm like, they're not gonna want to be on the podcast
• 1:29:29
  alexi: At the.
• 1:29:29
  Glen: as if they're too big or something.
• 1:29:31
  Glen: I don't know.
• 1:29:32
  Glen: It's not true.
• 1:29:33
  Glen: I know.
• 1:29:33
  Glen: It's like.
• 1:29:34
  alexi: um, thing as Boy Golden who you just had on.
• 1:29:37
  alexi: Like the
• 1:29:37
  Glen: I, I know, I know.
• 1:29:40
  Glen: And, and she's doing like, kind of like acoustic sets at some of the radio stations that would be in the same like ecosystem and sphere, um, that I've seen YouTube clips about.
• 1:29:53
  Glen: So.
• 1:29:53
  alexi: at her Instagram and had like a little three show tour called the Soup Can Tour, and it was in.
• 1:30:00
  alexi: Squamish, um, and then two other places in bc like two other smaller towns in BC and it was like a 20 buck ticket.
• 1:30:12
  alexi: And like you had to bring three soup cans for like
• 1:30:14
  Glen: Yeah.
• 1:30:14
  alexi: bank.
• 1:30:14
  alexi: And I'm like, Squamish, and these are the two places.
• 1:30:16
  alexi: I'm like, those aren't even like that.
• 1:30:19
  alexi: Like, you know, it's not Roger's place.
• 1:30:21
  alexi: It's like
• 1:30:21
  Glen: Yeah.
• 1:30:22
  alexi: Squamish.
• 1:30:22
  alexi: Like,
• 1:30:24
  Glen: Well, I think it makes,
• 1:30:26
  alexi: that's very successful and awesome, but.
• 1:30:29
  Glen: well, no, there's, there's a way you build a career and I was gonna say it makes way more sense if she's the sister of Dallas Green and, and, um, related in city and color and who did the whole growing up.
• 1:30:44
  Glen: Cutting your teeth by playing everywhere.
• 1:30:46
  Glen: You can play right across Canada, which you have to play a lot of non-traditional music venues and a lot of different kinds of gigs just to stay busy in this country.
• 1:30:55
  Glen: So, uh, if, if she has that work ethic, that's not surprising, but also very cool.
• 1:31:01
  Glen: Um, did your light just go out?
• 1:31:04
  Glen: You haven't charged it for a long time.
• 1:31:06
  Glen: Way to go, Lexi.
• 1:31:07
  alexi: actually haven't charged it
• 1:31:07
  Glen: It's a good thing.
• 1:31:09
  Glen: Oh God, sometimes.
• 1:31:12
  Glen: Sometimes you're still a teenager.
• 1:31:14
  Glen: Um, to me, that's okay.
• 1:31:16
  Glen: It's okay because we don't, we haven't ever done any video production of our post fame segment, so that's totally fine.
• 1:31:23
  Glen: No, it's because you refuse to use better equipment.
• 1:31:26
  alexi: Okay, I'll get
• 1:31:26
  Glen: No, that's not why.
• 1:31:28
  Glen: I, that's not why, maybe, maybe soon, but not season two because I had my hands full going into season two, so maybe season three.
• 1:31:36
  Glen: Um, that's okay.
• 1:31:38
  Glen: So we've spent all this time talking about Ruby Waters just'cause of all these cool, like tying it all together, which I think is really kind of fun when that happens.
• 1:31:47
  Glen: Right?
• 1:31:48
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:31:49
  Glen: Yeah, and the songs are really good, and I just wanna make sure I clarify because I say this on a podcast and then it goes out to the world, and it may be 25 people right now, it could be 2,500 down the road who listen to it and think, oh, Glen's, Spotify just picks up songs by young women called Wet T-shirt.
• 1:32:10
  Glen: That's not the fact.
• 1:32:12
  Glen: It's all these other things we're talking about, about why.
• 1:32:15
  Glen: Ruby Waters is making it in my playlist'cause she's connected to other.
• 1:32:19
  Glen: Alright, so I just wanna make sure that that's really clear in case things come up.
• 1:32:22
  Glen: There wasn't,
• 1:32:23
  alexi: the Instagram Post used to promote that song, I would really want to clear that up.
• 1:32:28
  alexi: 'cause it's
• 1:32:29
  Glen: oh,
• 1:32:29
  alexi: nude pics in the ocean or in the water.
• 1:32:31
  alexi: So
• 1:32:32
  Glen: well, don't tell me that now.
• 1:32:34
  Glen: Oh geez.
• 1:32:35
  Glen: Lexi like,
• 1:32:37
  alexi: I think it's good.
• 1:32:38
  Glen: geez.
• 1:32:39
  alexi: that up.
• 1:32:40
  Glen: Oh, I cleared it up without even knowing how bad that I wouldn't have even brought it up if, if I had known that.
• 1:32:49
  Glen: Oh my.
• 1:32:50
  Glen: Okay.
• 1:32:51
  Glen: Thank you for looking out for me.
• 1:32:54
  Glen: I appreciate it as always.
• 1:32:56
  Glen: Um, with that, we probably don't have anything else to chat about tonight, so Yeah, I don't think so.
• 1:33:03
  alexi: No problem.
• 1:33:04
  Glen: Okay.
• 1:33:06
  Glen: Thank you.
• 1:33:07
  alexi: Okay, love you.
• 1:33:08
  Glen: Okay.
• 1:33:09
  Glen: Love you.
• 1:33:09
  Glen: Bye-bye.