Anything But Law

Innovation and Community in the Music Industry at the City of Music Expo

• Lerners LLP • Season 3 • Episode 7

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In this dynamic episode of Anything But Law, host Mark McAuley moderates a live panel featuring three prominent figures in the Canadian music industry. Join us as we dive into a captivating discussion with Juno Award-Winning Music Producer Dan Brodbeck, strategic Industry Leader Margaret McGuffin of Music Publishers Canada, and versatile Artist and Festival Director Melanie Brulé. Together, they explore how their unique paths and early musical influences continue to shape their contributions to the music world today.

From the role of education in shaping the next generation of music professionals to the importance of community and collaboration, this episode sheds light on the evolving landscape of the music industry. Our panelists share personal stories, the pivotal moments in their careers, and how diverse roles—from advocacy to production—contribute to a thriving music ecosystem.

Whether you're an aspiring musician, an industry professional, or simply a lover of music, this conversation provides inspiring insights into how passion and innovation are fueling the future of the Canadian music scene. Recorded at  Charterhouse Studios, this episode is packed with practical takeaways on networking, career-building, and the significant impact of community engagement in the arts.

Don’t miss this inspiring episode as we bridge the gap between law and music, celebrating the creativity and collaboration that drive the industry forward.

Presented by: Lerners LLP Hosted by: Mark McAuley Executive Production: Natalee Davis Project Management: Dylan Willems Audio Engineering: Aaron Murray – Charterhouse Studios (Season 1,3), Chandra Bulucon - Puppy Machine Recording Studio (Season 2) Graphic Design: The Branding Firm Inc. (Season 3), Jen Luchka and Dawn Yan Theme and Underlying Music: Mark McAuley and Randy McAuley

Mark:

Thank you. Winning Olympians and thought leaders. We bring you inspiring stories and valuable insights from those who have truly made a mark in their fields. In each episode, we explore the success mindset, the art of overcoming adversity and the powerful lessons learned from failures that have launched extraordinary success. Our guests share their journeys, challenges and the pivotal moments that have defined their paths to greatness. So whether you're looking for motivation, strategies for success or simply an inspiring story and great conversation, you've come to the right place. Let's get into it.

Mark:

Welcome to a very special episode of Anything but Law, where we talk about anything but law. It's literally in the title. What makes this episode so special is that it was recorded in front of a live audience. Last year, I had the honour of moderating a panel at London's first ever City of Music Expo and on this panel I had the chance to talk to Dan Brodbeck, Melanie Brulee and Margaret McGuffin about what has fueled their passion to be in the music industry, what inspires them to continue making changes and in the music industry, what inspires them to continue making changes and building the music industry, and you know a couple other fun getting-to-know-you questions. I hope you enjoy this conversation. Let's get into it.

Andrew:

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, musicians and music lovers. I'm so thrilled to be here and be part of this music expo. My name is Andrew Murray and I'm a personal injury lawyer at Lerners here in our London office. I'm not a professional musician like you're going to be hearing from in a moment, but I do love music so much and it is sort of the backstop to my life, if I can say that. If I think of every important moment that I have ever experienced, it's been accompanied by music in some fashion or another. And even those times when there is no music playing, my inner soundtrack is going. Music is my passion and I'm so grateful to be living in a city like London where there is so much musical talent, enough that London has been recognized as a UNESCO Music City, a global recognition. That's something we should all be very, very proud of. This expo is just one further step in increasing the awareness, both in London and outside, of the diverse musical careers and opportunities that London has to offer.

Andrew:

Now for this next segment, I want to introduce to you Mark McCauley, who's going to be the moderator of our event. Mark is another lawyer at Lerners. He's in our business law group, keenly interested in arts and entertainment, entrepreneurship and technology. Mark is very civic-minded. He's a member of London Symphonia on the board. He's an executive member of the Black at Western Alumni Association and, as many of you probably already know here, prior to his career in law, mark enjoyed a career as a musician a professional musician, performing with the Juno-nominated group, the Macaulay Boys, who've performed with Motown guests such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin and too many others to name. I'm also very pleased to introduce tonight's panelists.

Andrew:

We're going to be joined this evening by Dan Brodbeck, Margaret McGuffin and Melanie Brulee. Dan is a Juno award-winning and Grammy-nominated Canadian record producer, mixer, engineer and recording engineering professional who's based here in London. He teaches at Fanshawe's Music Industry Arts Program. Margaret is the CEO of Music Publishers Canada and I like this part of her bio. She is a results-oriented senior management professional and I don't know who is a non-results-oriented professional, but I like it.

Andrew:

I know a couple. We know some who might be that way, but I'm not sure they wish to be that way. She has experience in strategy and business planning. Her career is focused on research and policy development related to the cultural and media industries. She'll have a lot to offer us here this evening and Melanie and special shout out to Melanie because she is literally a last minute substitute for someone who wasn't able to get here in time. Melanie is currently occupying the position of executive director of the Ottawa Music Industry Coalition and she began that in May, having moved from Toronto to Ottawa. Her past includes working as a tour artist, doing public relations, radio tracking, and she's also been an artistic director for music festivals, so we've got a diverse and broad cross-section of musicians and people in the music industry. We're gonna be led by Mark, so take it away.

Mark:

Alright, London, how are you all feeling this evening? Are you all enjoying the the very first Music City Expo? I'm sorry, I can't hear you from all the way up here. Are you enjoying it? Excellent, excellent. Well, I'm very. I can't hear you from all the way up here. Are you enjoying it? Excellent, excellent. Well, I'm very happy to be here today.

Mark:

I have spent probably the meat of my life involved in music and loving music, and I'm so excited to see the absolute explosion of attention that is turned now on the amazing community that is London, Ontario, and I'm really, really, really fascinated by this particular panel, because every time I have a conversation with somebody about a career in music, the first thing they think of is I'll have somebody shout one out Singer, singer, yeah, well, come on, you're just pandering now.

Mark:

A yeah, well, come on, you're just pandering now. Guitarist, everybody wants to be a big rock star, to quote Chad Kroger, somebody wants to be a producer. So what I think people don't understand is the variety of options, and there are four people who are interested in a career in music, and today we're here to talk about some of those. And so the first question I want to ask and this one, it's very important to me. It's a two-parter. I'm going to give each panelist about 30 seconds to answer it what was the first record you bought? And oh easy, he says what was the first record you bought and how closely is it related to what you're doing today, dan?

Speaker 3:

Okay, it was Kiss Destroyer. I was an odd kid because I also listened to Chuck Berry, the Eagles Dire Straits. It was really bizarre. Actually, because anything with a guitar in it, that's the first thing I bought with my own money and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything that I do at all.

Speaker 4:

Oh man. Okay, so my stepfather and my uncle used to make me mixtapes when I was a kid, so I had a lot of music that was well before my time, when I was six. But the first album that I bought with my own money when I was 13 years old was a gift for someone and I bought Green Day Dookie, but I opened it and listened to it before I gave it to my friend and then she called me on it. She was like, did you open this? And I was like, yeah, I had to listen to it. What does it have to do with what I do now? I mean, I think I carry it still a little bit of that like punk rock vibe in my soul, um, even though you know I'm like dealing with politicians and policy makers and, uh, you know, doing a bunch of different stuff, but I think I still hold that little, maybe that selfish child within me that's like I need to listen to.

Mark:

This music is more powerful than you even know it it can compel you to open the gift for your friend.

Speaker 4:

Hey.

Mark:

And sometimes we have to deal with Dookie also.

Andrew:

I worked in a good Okay and sorry to you.

Speaker 5:

I actually won my first album off the local radio station by putting together a safety poem and I got a Chicago record.

Mark:

Chicago. Okay, all right, you want it All right Now. The reason why I asked this question is I often think about going back in time and talking to the first two-year-old me, who's holding that first record in my hand, and telling them what it is I now do. And I'd love to see the expression on that 12 year old's face or 14 year old's face. And I think, having known Dan for a number of years, um, you know, I'm we're going to get into what you do, but I think that there is this kind of universe that explodes in your mind when you first listen to music and when you first engage with the music industry in that way. So I'm kind of looking for this through line from where you started to where you are now, but maybe we should start with where you are now. So, dan, can you explain, can you tell everybody at home what it is you do now?

Speaker 3:

I coordinate the music industry arts program at Fanshawe and it is the Please. I run the program. Record the program. It's the best program of its kind in the country. There's just no doubt about it. It's not, it's just a fact. Okay, let's get that over. Recording, engineering, production, all that kind of stuff, and those are the kind of obvious careers, et cetera. Coordinating the program, I got to kind of see all the parts of it which is really important and, to be honest, the teaching part, the education part, is massively fulfilling. I absolutely love doing it and I've done music professionally since I was 18 and I'm 55. So it's been a bit. So it's been a bit and I have done nothing but play the guitar and draw and paint Two huge, great, huge opportunities in both those careers.

Speaker 3:

Since I was six years old, to be honest, I had a poster of a recording console on my wall when I didn't know what it was. I was like I'm going to use that. You know, use those knobs, I don't know what they do but and I started recording at like 14. I was like I'm going to use those knobs, I don't know what they do, and I started recording at like 14. I've literally now I teach people to do that, so it sounds silly. But if this didn't work out I'd be screwed because it's all I've ever done. So if I went back I'd be keep doing that thing.

Mark:

Buddy, keep staring at that painting on the wall. Yeah, you're going to be looking at that board a lot.

Speaker 3:

Oh, there was other things. They did have kiss posters. It turned into pictures of Sting which I'm still obsessed with. He's sort of a man crush, but besides that, there's Right. It was equipment on my wall.

Mark:

So there's the through line.

Speaker 4:

The Sting, the kiss poster, the recording console. Today, Melanie, you know, okay, now you're bringing me back. This is going to be like a therapy session or something, but I so, when I was a kid, I remember watching Star Search because I was born in 82. So, like Star Search was huge in the 80s for me and and I remember watching it and going, I can do that with with no good reason to think that, you know, but you know you're just like. I think I can do that, I know I can do that.

Speaker 4:

And then, you know, years go by and I, I had my first keyboard and I I, you know, played some stuff. I don't remember anything on the keyboard anymore, but I was naturally writing, you know. So I was like pressing record on that and then it was a one track recording device. Really I didn't know what I was doing, but I was writing music. And then fast forward to I'm 21 years old, I go to Australia for the first time by myself, after, you know, working for a couple of years after high school, and I'm like drawn to go to Australia. Well, sure enough, the first person I meet has a guitar, teaches me how to play. I end up busking on the street and you know, kind of cutting my teeth and open mics and jams and that sort of thing. And then since then it's just been trying to keep that alive and trying to keep those connections with that community as much as possible.

Speaker 4:

And so I toured a lot as an artist, but also in the meantime I was like serving tables and I started a PR job with Richard Flohil to try to figure out how you know how that business works and learned a lot about managing stress through him. But also, you know, anything I could do to just keep the music career going. And it was really kind of a selfish way for me to be like what do I need to know to advance my own career and how can I keep learning those things? And so that's why the PR started. And then I started taking on my own clients, and then I had to do a bit of graphic design with that, because you had to make one sheets and then I had to learn how to write a bio for myself, so why don't I write bios for other people as well? And so that's kind of how it just kept going for me.

Speaker 4:

And then you know, like organizing residencies at venues. So it was up to me to run these shows, it was up to me to make the contacts, and I can't tell you what all of those things have done for my career, going into every sort of sector or sub-sector that is connected to music. So music touches so many different things and for me it's just like expanded my circle of people and has really got me to where I am now as the executive director of what is Ottawa's music office, and it's all thanks to these connections that I've made along the way.

Speaker 5:

Well, there's definitely not one straight path. That's what I would tell my 12-year-old self. So I went to Western. Actually, I went to Medway. I'm local. I went to public school in Lucan, Medway, then Western, and I loved theater, I loved music, I loved art. I went to Western. I studied political science because I loved theater, I loved music, I loved art. I went to Western. I studied political science because I loved politics. Doesn't make sense at all. Right, I stage, managed, I produced a theater. Western Didn't make any sense about what a career path that was going to lead to. It all makes sense now. I'm a lobbyist. I talk to government every day about exactly what all of you are doing what songwriters do, what lyricists do, what composers do and what music publishers do and suddenly everything I was interested in that didn't make sense when I was 12 years old makes sense now.

Mark:

See and I think this is fascinating your career in music industry advocacy is truly unique. There's not a lot of people that I know and I've been music adjacent we recorded for a number of times. We used to tour and I actually wasn't familiar with people who did music industry advocacy in the way that you do, and I would love for you to let people know what that looks like. A and then B I want to talk about the important ways your work is changing the composition of the industry right now. So, part one tell us how badass you are.

Speaker 5:

Well, it's all about getting money to the artist and to the songwriters and that's all based out of copyright. So I spent a lot of time with lawyers. But I'm not a lawyer and I talk about what songwriters do, what composers do about that, that new video game that's got that great score, and I put those things together and talked to government about how they should be making changes to policy, to copyright, to funding models, and we're also being. This position has allowed me to try to make a difference, and some of the programs I think you were referring to is we just launched a new NextGen membership category.

Speaker 5:

I'd go to music events. I'd see all the same people and I like those people, but I want to see new people. So we started our NextGen membership last year with all the younger members in the music publishing industry. We also launched a couple of years ago and we're going into our fifth year of our Women in the Studio Producer Program and that's making a difference to producers and songwriters who are already in the field and want to take that next step. They've gone through a program like Dan's and they're now in the industry and they need to accelerate their career and that's what we do for them at Music Publishers Canada.

Mark:

Yes, Woo indeed.

Speaker 5:

Cheers Daddy, it's time to take a break.

Mark:

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Speaker 5:

And now back to the show.

Mark:

So people don't know. I think at the outset, a lot of folks don't really know that your jobs exist, and I think this is one of those for me. Having been around a bunch of you, I'm familiar with this. How do we switch the narrative or change the narrative around funneling the next generation into careers in music? You know there's a lot of emphasis on STEM these days, so how do we switch the focus? How do we change the conversation such that people understand there's a variety of jobs, not just being the lead guitarist or the bassist in the band? How do we switch that narrative? Do you have any thoughts on that, dan? I'll start at the far end.

Speaker 3:

You know what, at the school at Fanshawe, a lot of our students, I should say, would come in as musicians, artists, producers, engineers, you know the knob turners. Those are the known careers and it's not that they come in and think I'm going to keep doing that. They don't know what they want to do and that's actually really important, that they don't know what they want to do. They just want to do something because they're obsessed with music. They want to make it a part of their life, they want to make it a career and throughout a couple of years they're exposed to pretty much almost every career Through guest lectures, through speaking about it, through. People don't know what music supervisors are, people don't know what publishing is. People don't know that there's, there are tour managers there we could.

Speaker 3:

There's probably 20 careers we could rattle off most, most of my board came from your program good, um, we and you don't know what they are, but all of a sudden people are thinking, wow, this is actually I could do a kind of like a few of these things, or and you may need to do a few of these things, that we've all kind of done a few of them and like doing a few of them. So for us anyway, we noticed that they might come in in one direction and then all of a sudden they want to be an entertainment lawyer at the end of two years, or they want to be a tour manager, or they came in as a guitar player and they want it's very interesting just to expose people to it. I actually think a lot of people don't know. They come in, going make music my career, please, and that's what our job is, and you kind of help them find that path. And I think that's really the only way, at least with us, because they're coming in saying help me right.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And then, like it's nice to not know what you want to do, because then you're, you know, open to maybe more things. So the Ottawa Music Industry Coalition is interesting because we're a non-profit, member-based organization that sort of acts as the music office for Ottawa, but at an arm's length. So we don't have a music officer at the city yet. We're hoping to get one soon. So we are instead a community organization.

Speaker 4:

And I grew up I was like, you know, all the connections I made were through the folk music community. So going to Folk Music Ontario, going to OCFF when it was called that, going to Folk Alliance, and really like I can't emphasize enough the meaning of community and how much you learn from your fellow folks that are in the music industry through community, and so, like you know, living in Toronto for a while and being able to go to the Cameron house, like you're going to see a show, but you're also learning about the music business there, because there's somebody who's an agent and you're like, oh what, what do they do? How does that work, you know? And there's somebody who comes from another sort of sector or whatever. So there's a lot to be learned about the music community in general. And then the other side of it, from my side now, is there's so much education to be done to educate folks who are not privy to the music industry about how things worked, because really honestly, it's a complex industry. There are a lot of different jobs, every contract is different, everybody comes into it from a different place, everybody's path is different and it should be different. You should have your lane and stay true to how that feels for you.

Speaker 4:

So on my side now it's like teaching BIA executive directors what it's like to book artists, you know, and so we've implemented like minimum rates that we won't partner with anyone unless you pay this minimum rate or more, and we don't.

Speaker 4:

You know, we don't encourage you to pay the minimum rate, kind of thing. But there's so much education to be done on many different levels and I think expos like this are really important, you know, really putting music to the forefront, because it's kind of been, it's always been there, it's always been behind the scenes, and now, as we're seeing more and more revenue streams being taken from artists and being taken from music workers, being taken from music workers, now is the time for us to really make those investments and show everyone that life without music is hecking boring, you know. So how do we educate more people on how to interact with artists and music entrepreneurs? How do we do that? And it's like, you know, kind of these jobs that we have now maybe a little bit more on the advocacy side that we are able to do that, and we're seeing music offices pop up everywhere. It's super key to our survival as an industry.

Mark:

I would go one step further and say life without music isn't. And I know that's just. You know I'm probably biased about that, but I would go that far. I know, Mark, you were just about to say something. I'll let you go ahead, I'll stop talking.

Speaker 5:

I like that what you were saying, though A big part of my life has been in volunteering in the community and building out my network that way. It's been really, really important. I sit on the board of Work and Culture right now and the Junos charity called Music Counts, and volunteering has expanded my network and expanded how I do my work at Music Publishers Canada because of the people I meet volunteering. So do volunteer, do get to know the community. It's a great opportunity and think about that. There may be different jobs you don't even know exist.

Speaker 5:

So we're going to be releasing a report with Ontario Creates very soon called the Future of Work. So our music publishing companies they sign songwriters, they work with producers and the creative will always be at the heart of those companies. But those same companies are processing billions of lines of data every day from the streaming services and translating those into royalty payments, recruiting a different type of worker than they were 10 or 15 years ago, and we're going to be putting together some tools for those small businesses so that they can find you and help you fulfill your career in music. And it may not be your skills as a musician, that may not be where you end up. It may be your skills as a coder.

Mark:

I think that the point you just made there about different types of workers, I think is very important, and I think that's the kind of the thrust of what we wanted to, kind of what I wanted to get at today. And you know, earlier we had Mr. Lumsden talking about how we're not talking about jobs in music, we're talking about careers in music, and I'm sitting here on stage with people who have spent years in the industry not jobbing, but we're talking about people who have carved out careers in this industry. And I think there was something that we spoke about in one of our earlier conversations and this is to your point, Melanie about going to a show and observing all of the people who are making it happen. That is, the person who's operating the lights, the person who's making us sound good right now, not just the lead guitarist, and I know that there's a show that happens annually here, share the Land, and I definitely want to talk about that because I think this is one of those great opportunities to showcase the varied skills that are in the industry.

Speaker 3:

Yes, those who don't know there is a show we put on every year at Fanshawe. It's at London Music Hall and it's been growing every year. It's 700 people. This year. It's an event now that we couldn't stop If we wanted to. We don't want to. It's getting larger and larger and larger.

Speaker 3:

There's performers, there are A&R people who actually help the artists. These are all second-year students, by the way. It's 100% student-driven. We just go here and I sign things to say it's okay that they do that. There's a couple other people that sign some stuff after me. Other than that, it's students lighting sound, A, coaching of the performers, getting sponsorship, the GM roles, PR, social media. There's photography. We've involved fashion. We've involved oh God, I know we're running out of time, so that's why I'm speaking faster than I normally would, which is really difficult.

Speaker 3:

So that whole night and it was Mr Graham Henderson that actually said that that the performance well, I knew the performance would be fine, but he was looking around going do you have any idea how hard this is to do? And it is. And we put them through hell doing it. At the end of it, they're so happy that it's over, quite frankly, and that they can't believe they did that. The performances is what everybody goes to see. But they don't realize that what went on to put on a one-night event with 20 acts with 30-second changeovers? That's impossible.

Speaker 3:

But when we're telling them they have to do it, they just somehow do it. So they see pretty much every career because it's recorded, it's streamed, it's mixed later, post is done on it, it's video recorded, streamed later Again. All those careers come into play. The best songs we think of the night are recorded later in the studio. So we get the engineers involved again. So again, by the end of it they almost don't realize what they just accomplished. And that actually starts to. We have it this year. People are going into business who weren't necessarily looking into that and that's where they're headed, because they just ran something that I couldn't have ran. To be honest, I would have gone nuts trying to do what they did. So that was hard, that was fast and that was good. That was fast and that was good.

Mark:

You did all right. Do you have a tongue burn from speaking that quickly? Yes, yes. So, Margaret, I think this might be our last question. I feel like a red light is flashing at me somewhere. I know Dan had noticed that, but you had mentioned something kind of in passing, and I think this is a very important thing to me and I'm passionate about music. So I think this is, for me, the biggest part about your work that I'm very interested in, and that is, music is foundational to culture and, in a very real way, protecting the music industry, fostering the music industry, fosters a culture at the same time. So I'd like you speak. I'd like you to speak to the importance of people working in music as safeguards of our culture.

Speaker 5:

I spend a lot of time thinking about this and forming coalitions of people who may not always have the same opinion, but we all are passionate about being very inclusive, of hearing all the voices in our community and wanting to make sure that we have a Canadian song being heard in that next video game that is heard around the world. I've had songwriters in some of our song camps who we were in Denmark with a Canadian songwriter and a Canadian producer and a Danish writer and within six weeks that song was being translated into Korean for a K-pop band. And it was because Denmark and Korea have a great connection way before we started hearing a K-pop band and it was because Denmark and Korea have a great connection way before we started hearing about K-pop. And the passion of knowing that there were Canadian melodies in that K-pop hit is why I do my job.

Mark:

Canada in Korea. Yes, thank you. You must applaud that. I think as somebody who has watched the exports out of I mean, I know a lot of people out of dance programming I grew up with some of the people who went through your program and who were nominated for Oscars or were nominated for Grammys or have won all of these awards and as somebody who's been able to watch this, I'm always very thrilled and enthralled to see the great work of all the many people in the industry. But I also want to say it's thrilling to see that you're still not still I hate when people say still, but it's thrilling to see that the future of the Canadian music industry is in good hands. And I want to say thank you so much to Margaret and Melanie and Dan for being here today and joining us and everybody. Enjoy the rest of the expo.

Speaker 5:

Thank you.

Mark:

Thank you for listening to this episode of Anything but Law. I hope you found it as inspiring and insightful as I did. This episode was recorded at Charterhouse Studios in London, Ontario. Thank you. If you have any questions, feedback or would like to be a guest on the show, reach out to us at marketing@ learners. ca. Anything but Law is a Lerners Business Law Group production. Thanks for joining us. Cheers, Thank you.