Philadelphia Music Industry Veterans Launch Philanthropic Record Label: The Giving Groove
The Giving Groove is a new record label founded by Philadelphia-based music industry veterans with a mission to help artists realize their musical vision while giving back to the community. The Giving Groove is a full-service independent record label that offers artist support at every step of the album release process-from development, recording, and distribution, to package design, to international promotion. The label features a diverse roster of local and national artists including The Dead Milkmen, OOLALA, Hoots & Hellmouth, and DECONTROL, with additional bands being announced this summer. The label was founded by Matt Teacher and Mike Lawson, lifelong friends, musicians, and creators of Philadelphia’s iconic Sine Studios, which has hosted artists ranging from Bon Jovi to Boyz II Men, The Fray, Steven Tyler, Natasha Beddingfield, Karmin, mewithoutYou, and Gavin DeGraw. After a decade of making successful records and evolving into an integral part of the city’s thriving music scene, the team were ready to take the natural next step: launching a record label. At the same time, they knew wanted to give back to the music community.
“The Giving Groove is giving artists a chance to achieve their dream,” says Jon Bon Jovi, who truly understands the label’s mission.
Co-founder Matt Teacher wants the music industry to stand for good works. “Musicians need to be paid a living wage, and they need to be empowered to give back to the music community that fostered them,” he says. “Having been in the Philadelphia music scene for the past decade, I’ve had the opportunity to help capture many artists’ visions in the studio. Watching so many great projects come to completion but never make it to the next step became disheartening. We spent a year-and-a-half fine-tuning the model, bouncing ideas off mentors we had formed relationships with over the years-everyone from Obie O’Brien (Bon Jovi) to David Schlessinger (Five Below co-founder) to Garrett Brown (inventor) to Harry Weinger (Motown/Universal)-to refine what has now become The Giving Groove.”
Philanthropy is at the core of The Giving Groove’s mission: Under the label’s “artist friendly, socially conscious” model, half of album proceeds after taxes go to the artist, and half are donated to a music-related 501(C)3 nonprofit of that artist’s choice.
Giving Groove act OOLALA released their debut EP, The New RockRoll Cosmology, on May 27 at a sold-out record release event at Philadelphia’s Boot and Saddle; the band will donate half of their album profits to MusiCares, which was established by The Recording Academy to provide a safety net of critical assistance for music makers in times of need. “It feels good to be part of a business model that can give back to organizations such as MusiCares,” says drummer Korey Jones, who was able to experience the organization’s support services firsthand after his gear was stolen and MusiCares helped fund replacements. “It helps out not only musicians in similar situations, but also future musicians, through education services that they support.”
“I’ve always learned that you stick with good people in the music business,” adds OOLALA’s frontman, Rumi Kitchen. “When you find people with good hearts, you gotta stick together and do good things.”
Source: The Giving Groove
