ImGiggin.com: A Microcosmic Music Industry, Online
Can effective, even practical, music industry networking — traditionally sparked by “who you know” or being in the “right-place-at-the-right-time” — actually happen online? NYC-based professional musicians and music directors Onree Gill and Ralph Rolle say it not only can work, but that it’s actually needed to improve on an outdated system of personal referrals and time-consuming live auditions. Their new online entertainment industry network, ImGiggin.com, connects touring and production coordinators, record labels to administrators and artists to high-level music, engineering and business talent.
ImGiggin's (l-r) Onree Gill and Ralph Rolle
Both gigging heavyweights, Gill and Rolle came across common problems out on the road. “We saw a lack of communication among music professionals,” says Rolle. “You’d see top artists in the industry on tour and in need of a guitar player for a couple dates, and the group might know of 20 guitar players but at that moment, they can’t find anyone who’s available. They need someone to cover the gigs.
The ImGiggin musician founders have experienced many such “staffing” scenarios — Gill as a multi-instrumentalist and music director to Alicia Keys, who’s worked with Bono, Paul Simon, John Mayer, Lenny Kravitz, among many other big names, and Rolle, as a touring and session drummer who’s worked with Sting, Elvis Costello, Erykah Badu, Mary J. Blige, John Legend, and runs the music production company, Phat Kat Productions, Inc.
“One of the major issues prompting me to develop ImGiggin.com was these cattle-call auditions that I saw happening, which very often don’t attract the right level of talent for the high-level artists,” says Gill. “I’ve seen it too many times — you’ll get all kinds of people coming out to these auditions and it takes up a lot of time.”
An in-demand drummer, Rolle adds, “The other night, I got a phone call about a gig at B.B. Kings, the drummer can’t make it. I couldn’t do it because I’m leaving for LA. All it would take is for the manager of that group to go to ImGiggin, log-in and see who’s available via their calendar, find out if they’re in town, and even check out a video of their performance.”
Now, in addition to the touring musician and crew community, imagine the online network representing talent on the music production and business end as well — need a mixer? A FOH engineer? A manager? Log into ImGiggin.com and get connected with talent worldwide. Producers and engineers currently listed on ImGiggin include Mark Ronson, Steve Lillywhite, Aaron Lindsey and Tony Dofat, Prince Charles Alexander, Tony Maserati, Bryan Lenox and Manny Marroquin, among others.
For sure, ImGiggin.com sounds like an excellent if not necessary resource, but we had some questions regarding how people become elite members and get represented on the site. Gill and Rolle were happy to oblige!
How are you going about finding and selecting talent? The music industry is so massive now, and a lot of talent works outside of the mainstream, major label bubble.
Onree Gill: We’re actually hand-selecting everyone — that’s either people we know personally, or through people we’ve worked with over the years. I’ve been in the industry for 31 years, so I’ve worked with a lot of people! We want ImGiggin.com to be a portal for people who have experience and success in the entertainment industry, across the board, a place where they can go and network to find a high-level of talent.
As we expected, the people we’ve handpicked had ideas about other pro’s we should include. For example, I’ve worked with a FOH engineer in Italy, who had a bunch of people to recommend for the site. It’s really taken off on the global level.
The second phase is that once the site is populated with this extended network of people we know, there are going to be people we don’t know that want to be involved. Those people can actually “audition,” by posting their information — resume, credits, audition video if appropriate — which we’ll personally review, once they get 1,000 voter points.
So, it’s almost like the site is a microcosm of the real world — you have to reach a certain level of notoriety before someone notices you.
How do you expect people to get to 1,000 points within a reasonable time frame?
Ralph Rolle: One of the features of the site, on the administration end, allows us to see when someone starts to move up really fast. If a person is getting a lot of points in a short amount of time, we’ll go in and take a look at their profile to see what they’re all about. We can fast-track them if we see that they’re right for ImGiggin.
But, this is a very gated community for the entertainment industry. It’s no cakewalk to get in here, and we make sure that people understand that.
So, how does a producer/engineer who may not be working with many major label artists and who wouldn’t have an audition video to submit, go about getting accepted into ImGiggin?
Gill: You won’t have a performance video, but if you’re pretty savvy in marketing yourself, you can utilize all of the promotional aspects of ImGiggin. For example, you can put up your bio and resume, and ask people to vote for you through your social media channels. If this person does actually work in the industry, they might have someone in their network that might already be an elite member. And an elite member’s vote is worth 200 points, so that speeds up the process considerably.
So, you definitely don’t have to have a video, but you do have to have a bio and a resume and some references that could fast-track you to get into the elite area. At the same time, if you’re a marketing-savvy person, you might post a video telling us a little bit about yourself.
We try to make sure that this gated community is protected. You can’t buy your way into this. You have to do your work, and that’s what we want. We’ve been in the business a long time, I know how long it took me to get noticed for what I did, but I didn’t give up. I had to learn how to market myself. We’ve heard from some of the community that getting involved with ImGiggin.com actually made them step up their game.
Yes, I can see the benefit of just having an up-to-date profile online. So what are the costs to the membership and are there any other benefits?
Rolle: There is no cost to join ImGiggin. We offer additional promotional opportunities through our “promote yourself” package, which costs $25 per week and $75 per month.
So, the only costs associated with the site apply to auditioners then?
Gill: No. Elite members can purchase a promotion package as well. Remember, it’s all about marketing and promotion. There are three tiers of ImGiggin.com users: there’s the elite level, the auditioners level, and the supporters level. Each tier gets a different level of access — the elite members have full access to the entire site, the auditioners have access to posting videos, bios, resume, etc. but they do not have access to the job page. You can network within the auditioner’s area as well, but only elite members have access to the classifieds. However, an Elite member searching for new talent can also use the search engine to search for auditioner’s talent.
How are you promoting ImGiggin?
Gill: We plan on doing a lot of promotion out on tour. For example, with Alicia Keys’ tour in March, we’re going to promote via banners, and have street teams going around to different colleges.
What do you hope to achieve by promoting this high-end professional network out to the world like that, via street teams?
Rolle: Well, we want everyone to know about ImGiggin. There’s great talent hidden out there and we want them all to be found. We also want everyone, including those who aren’t in the entertainment industry to join so they can vote for the auditioners and maybe purchase some of the merchandise. The public is very important. There’s also an educational component – ImGiggin TV – where we feature different artists telling their stories on how they got started in the industry and any advice they have for people who are aspiring to be in all facets of the entertainment industry. [Check out Giggin Tips with Prince Charles] That part of the site is free and we want students and anyone who’s interested to come and learn about our industry.
Check out ImGiggin.com. If you have any questions about how to get involved, be sure to look over the FAQs!