Margarita Sayapina about music management and show business in Russia
IN RUBRIC "Case"We acquaint readers with women of different professions and hobbies that we like or are simply interested in. In this issue, we talked with Margarita Sayapina, the music manager of Naadya and ARTEMIEV, the founder of the social network for MusicMama musicians, about how to find an approach to an artist, what is the music business in Russia, and why join forces.
Dad brought me up. I am a lucky and happy person, and dad is my best friend, and everything in my life was made thanks to our friendship. When I was a teenager, perestroika ended and I had to choose a profession. They all aimed at the financial professions: a lawyer, a manager, a translator, that's all — and I was also prepared for this. I worked in several creative studios, but for the sake of interest I decided to go to my bank after school to uncle - try to work. When it was necessary to choose preparatory courses, I came home, sat on the floor and told my father: "If I go to the office like that every day, I think I will die." He asked: "What do you honestly love?" I say "draw." At night I liked to turn on the tape recorder and draw until the morning, and I also always liked clothes. Dad says: "Let's try textile?" I didn’t draw well and was afraid that I wouldn’t have time to prepare myself for the exams. As a result, I still entered the paid department, with bad grades, but the main thing was that I really liked everything. Dad believed in me, and this is the main lesson in my life: if you really want something, just do it - there will be success and happiness.
I love music more than anything else - and I do it every day, and I also like to draw, write, invent, and I live it. Today, my "profession" is like a scrapbook. Before that, I worked in fashion for ten years - I started at Kira Plastinina, worked with Dima Loginov, Kostya Gaidai and many other designers. But music has always been my main inspiration. In my opinion, music is the apogee of the human gift. I really have Stendhal Syndrome: I can cry from the sounds of music or a concert show, even from an inferior video on YouTube. I became involved in music management by chance and only because I just like to stand next to these talented guys. I am terribly proud of the musicians I work with - I am their main fan and listener. Now music management is my profession, but in fact I don’t work for a single day, because this is my very diverse and favorite hobby.
I work with my husband, Gleb Lisichkin (former Vice editor-in-chief of Russia, Afishi-Waves brand manager, music producer and manager. - Note ed.). My dad is an ideal man, and I never believed that, since such a man went to my mom, I would be lucky enough to meet the same one. But I won the lottery twice and met Glebi. We suddenly fell in love, honestly prodruzhiv years of five, and started with the fact that engaged in PR group Moremoney. We made even offers to each other at the concert of Pasha Artemyev. Responsibilities are divided intuitively. We are both very impulsive and we can take diametrically opposed positions on one issue and fight for their own truth to the death. On the other hand, as in any good team, we remind each other that we are now arguing to the death, because each of us defends our case, so that in the end everything will be better. Gender does not play any role in the distribution of responsibilities. Gleb is mainly involved in organizing concerts and tours, because he has more experience and has established contacts in this area, and I do PR and strategy. At the same time, I can put a person in his place much harder than Gleb, but always defend the boundaries of the artist and his tasks.
While Moscow reviews are full of headlines about the "group of the year", Siberia and the Urals do not know anything about this group.
I came up with MusicMama.ru about five years ago when I was the manager of the Xuman group. We built a tour tour, and my colleague Nikita Zhilinsky showed me a scary table in Excel, which was replenished by several managers, which included useful contacts from all over Russia, the CIS, and even the world. We kept this table all the time and shared it with everyone who addressed us. They simply explained the principle to people and said: "Let's merge contacts, it will be faster and more convenient for everyone." This experience and the openness of my colleagues impressed me a lot, because in the fashion where I worked for ten years, everything works strictly the opposite: no one will tell a colleague about production once more, no one will merge the contact of the buyer or the PR man. Music management is personalized. At some point I presented how it would be convenient if all this information was not in a monstrous table, but in open access on some site.
The main problem of music management in Russia is that while Moscow reviews are full of headlines about the "group of the year", Siberia and the Urals do not know anything about this group. Outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, clubs do not go to someone, but to someone who just drove to a faraway city. Clubs and local media can not make themselves informative sites, so you can easily contact them. MusicMama was conceived as a project that can solve these problems. I often painted him on napkins and told friends about him. One of them - Vadim Potekhin - listened to me and the next morning after the "presentation on a napkin" he called and said: "Let's do it." Vadim is a businessman, he built one of the largest supercomputers in Russia and invented the RenderMama service - this is a mega cloud, capable of processing, rendering giant files. Vadim is very clever and my wall is in everything.
The name MusicMama appeared as a household name, it was necessary to designate the project somehow - it stuck. This is a social network made by musicians for musicians, organizers, promoters and everyone involved in the music business. Our main goal is for everyone to work comfortably and quickly. We sincerely strive to grow the Russian music industry globally, and for this we need very dense communication. One of the most impressive examples from my college days is the "Antwerp Six". This is a story about how six students from the Belgian county got into a truck and drove to Paris Fashion Week. A few days later, thanks to the "Antwerp Six", Belgium became a new fashion center and the founder of a new school. In our country in the 80s appeared "Leningrad rock club". Both those and others achieved something significant, because they joined forces. The main idea that I am trying to promote is not a warrior in the field.
Musicians live on the cloud and do not understand organically what deadline is.
The previous generation of musicians and their managers do not like the Internet. They work by phone. They do not care about social networks and SMM, they do not care how they made the site. There are many examples where a large Russian group deliberately does not release releases and does not lead the group on social networks. For example, SMM at Boris Grebenshchikov or Ilya Lagutenko at the highest level, but the group "Time Machine" does not bother about it. Coming up with MusicMam, we specifically met with different people - first of all strangers - in order to understand how it is convenient for them to work and what is missing. Older people said: "I do not need the Internet, I have two phones, contacts have been there since the 80s, everything is fine." The new generation gave diametrically opposite feedbacks - basically for them we build our social network and it works.
In any country, the concentration of galleries, bars, any kind of establishments per square meter exceeds the limit, and musicians play them every day. In the civilized world there is no such thing in the club industry that Monday or Tuesday is a bad day. People every night after work go to have fun, including through music. There are still very few venues in our country - as little as the appetite of the public and not enough good "live" musicians. People are used to drinking and going to the movies every day, but not to concerts. Therefore, every concert at the club is an event, and every time is a financial risk.
At the end of last year, Gleb and I released the “NG 15” compilation on the “Afisha Wave” compilation, for which 26 musicians wrote a new New Year song. Our generation does not have its own New Year's music, we listen to what parents grew up on: songs from "The Irony of Fate", "Tell me, Snow Maiden, where was" and so on. The task was to write a song about the New Year: someone had children, someone was a child, someone was a child and remained - in general, the topic is rich and lifting. We did the project for a year. The first months sent letters to the musicians: "Guys, there is a cool idea." Someone immediately honestly replied: "I can not write a New Year's song." Someone out of habit agreed, but failed.
Of the majority of confirmed musicians, the songs had to be pulled with forceps - they live on a cloud and do not understand organically what deadline is. Only Dima Shurov, our beloved Pianoboy, was the only one who withstood all deadlines. We understood right away: we will have to lie, exaggerate and blackmail. My favorite example is "tomorrow" Vasya Zgorky. I truly believed that he would write a great New Year's song, he is an incredible composer. I have a print screen of correspondence with him two months long. Day after day I wrote to him: "Vasya, how is the song?" He: "There is, a great song, I’m finishing right now, you go to sleep, I’ll send it tomorrow." At some point, I stopped typing new messages to him and began to copy yesterday’s messages: “Vasya, where is the song?” He invariably answered: "Tomorrow." And so every day, but in the end really made a great song. All of us - the musicians, the "Afisha" team, and Gleb and I - are proud of this project. I believe that among these songs there are those that will remain a milestone of a generation. And most importantly, NG 15 was a charity collection, all the proceeds from the sale of which went to the Give Life fund.
The task of the manager is to climb on the armored cars and maintain the morale in the musician
A manager exists in order to "do good" to a musician - this is not always pleasant, but in the long run is productive. The artist writes great music, but he is not a strategist. How many musicians I know are always different patients. In any project there is a certain big idea, it is understood and the manager is largely responsible for its implementation, and the musicians declare it or agree with it. At some point, the musician gets tired and says: "I do not want." The task of the manager is to climb on the armored cars and keep up the morale in him, remind that in addition to the musical material, you also have to play in a photo shoot and video, give an endless number of interviews, release the announced release, go on tour. Do all this whole routine work. But this is like in a family: if there is a conflict, then the steam goes - the cart moves. The main thing is to remember that this is a contractual game, and to remember our common big goal.
My idols are my peers. I am terribly proud and admire Denis Yerkov, who brought JNBY, Melissa, WoodWood to Russia, continues to bring new brands and makes the Items shop. Denis did not have and does not have a role model on the Russian market, despite his age, he himself is a role model. I am proud of Kirill Ivanov, who rethink his music, Russian language and show every time. My hero, Nastya Kolesnikova, is the founder of the City Food Market, who always does everything in defiance of logic. She sometimes cripples herself emotionally, but does what she truly loves and believes in. We are friends with Nastya and, when we meet, we look at each other: "Is it difficult, my friend?" - "Hard." Well, but not boring!
I have had dogs since childhood. When I began to live on my own, I really wanted an English bulldog. And my boyfriend on the day of birth gave me a bull terrier. So we got Fedor. I remember, I told my father about Fedor, and he says: "Wait, why are you happy, this is a killer dog". We read a lot of canine literature in order to properly educate him. As a result, Fyodor is a kissed bed dog, in character like a cat is cheerful, friendly and gentle. He does not know that he is a "dangerous" bull terrier, and also does not suspect that he is ugly for a bull terrier. All the owners of dogs on the streets are yelling: "This is a bull terrier, take the dog away!" Therefore, Fedor has no dog friends, they are afraid of him (and Fedor is shy of them). It is smaller than the classic boule, but larger than the mini bull terrier. His legs are too long and sunken cheeks, there is no hump on his nose. In general, it is not even very physiologically correct. But, if you clap your hands, he starts spinning behind his tail and dancing, and the team “Watch” knows best. This is the coolest dog I've ever met in my life. We have three best friends - Fedor, Glebi and me.
Photographer: Evgenia Filatova