Bear J. Girard
Rights Management and Licensing | Creative Coordination | Music Recording
I recently graduated Summa Cum Laude from Columbia College Chicago, where I earned my Music Business BA with a concentration on Recorded Music and Publishing, along with a minor in Social Media and Digital Strategy. My interests lie in the generation and monetization of intellectual property. I love to work with creatives; to connect and inspire people.
Creative Perseverance
From early on, before I was ever professionally involved in the music business, my personal projects have been deeply detail oriented, involving huge components of organization, team leading, and ingenuity. I have been a self starter, motivated by the creative fruits of my labors, and skilled in motivating others. Since learning about the music business academically, I have applied that same work ethic to the internships I have secured, and I am eager to forge an exciting career in the music industry.
My Work
Manticore Music Publishing | Administrative Assistant | Summer Internship 2023
My duties at Manticore Music Publishing included researching and finding songwriters, producers, and artists who had achieved Spotify and YouTube success in the past three years. Ideally I was looking for songwriters with mechanical royalties hanging in limbo in the black box. I would discover prospects, analyze all of the publicly available information on them to assess whether or not they currently had a publishing deal, and then if they were without a publisher I would write up a pitch as to why they would be a good candidate to sign. I would then send that off to my supervisors who would forward them to their parent companies (either Kobalt or Empire). Additionally I learned about music management and production management sides of the business, while gaining insights into royalties, contract agreements, registering songs, and music publishing in general. This was an in person internship in Chicago, where I got a lot of hands on experience. Manticore Music Publishing oversees the administration for the artist rosters of BDT, BLU7, L.I.T.T., 75 Music, Grey State, Nico, Seger, Circle Point, Music Lane, Green Street, Incas, Southern Glass, Gold Tune, Verde Music, and Paq Publishing companies, so I had to become familiar with all of their rosters of songwriters, their PKA's, what PRO they belonged to, and how to find them quickly. I spent a lot of time creating and cleaning up spreadsheets and databases, generating leads, and navigating all of the websites such as BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, Songview, Spotify, Youtube, etc.
Musicbed | Sync Licensing Representative | Spring Internship 2022
I performed A&R tasks for Musicbed, a sync licensing and music publishing company based out of Fort Worth, TX. I spent the semester remotely scouting out eligible recording artists specifically from the SXSW 2022 artist roster. I then flew down to Austin, TX to attend the music conference and to assess my prospective artist's performances. I scheduled meetings with the artists and their managers throughout the course of the week long conference. My responsibilities were to become competent in Musicbed's offerings and their company culture, and to learn how to present their deal terms efficently. Upon meeting each artist, I became familiar with their individual goals for licensing their music and what rights they retained possession of. If an artist's goals and intellectual property ownership aligned with Musicbed's licensing agenda, I would then present that artist with the baseline of deal terms. Ultimately, I presented Musicbed's VP of A&R with a handful of promising clients to work with.
I also, separately, learned to use the company's music database and search for songs by genre, artist, mood, instrumentation, BPM, key, etc. to field sync requests for music supervisors. They would provide me with reference tracks and a short description of the video they needed synchronized to music. I would in turn find eligible songs that were cleared for licensing, rank them by best fit, and generate suggestion playlists of songs that would fit the budget to present to the music supervisors.
Bear's Band Factory | A Social Experiment in Chicago, IL and Milwaukee, WI | 2016
I conceived the concept for the Band Factory, and launched it with an advertising campaign targeted towards musicians who were interested in forming new bands. I successfully enrolled 35 local musicians between Chicago, IL and Milwaukee, WI to take part in a social experiment geared towards generating new bands. These artists had various backgrounds, talents and skill sets but they were all mututally interested in joining a band. I randomly generated 7 bands, with five members per band from the list of candidates. I coordinated introductions for each band, scheduled google hangouts and practices, and I gave them each the goal of writing three songs to eventually record and perform live. This project required me to navigate loads of trouble shooting, including scheduling issues, booking locations for practices, taming contending egos, overcoming diverse preferences in genre, navigating varying skill levels of band members, securing the audio and video equipment necessary to record the experience, and recruiting volunteers who were willing and able to operate the cameras and field recorders. In the end, I managed to jump start the generation of a more connected local music scene, I inspired participants and spectators alike, and we collectively generated a sense community that was much needed and appreciated by creatives, spectators, and local venue and business owners.
Cracken Cakes & More | Venue Trailblazer, Talent Buyer, and Event Manager | 2016-2017
Cracken Cakes & More was a bakery in Beach Park, IL that was struggling to bring in business due to various deficiencies including their poor location, and unfortunate city ordinances prohibiting signage by the road to advertise their services. I found them on accident one day while out for a bike ride, so I decided to pop into the cafe for a bite to eat. I recognized the potential for their large empty café to act as an all ages music venue. I propositioned the owner with a pilot show to test if the space could support bands and an audience. I booked a show, I promoted it, brought in sound reinforcement, and I solicited a large crowd to swell into the small bakery which reached it's customer capacity for the first time since it had opened. The owner informed me that she had sold more food and drinks that single night than she had any other day since she started her business. She thanked me and gave me blanket rights to use the space to host concerts any day of the week. So, I went to town booking shows there 2-3 nights a week for local, national, and international touring musicians. I created a fundraising campaign and recruited 75 local bands to come play a series of 13 free shows over the course of two months. With the money I fund raised at these shows I purchased microphones, speakers, and a mixing board in order to reinforce the cafeteria as a venue. I also helped to build a permanent stage in the cafe. I helped the bakery grow from a one employee venture to a three-employee venture. I created enough business in the bakery through promoting shows that the owner had to hire on a second employee to work the bakery café on show nights, and I also created a job for myself as the talent buyer and concert coordinator. I also generated income for the artists by implementing a suggested donation upon patron entry. When it came time for me to leave Cracken Cakes and More, due to the fact that I received a job offer out of state, I trained my successor and provided them with my collection of industry contacts. They continued to operate the venue for an additional year until the owner sold the property.
Renegades Skateboarding Club Columbia College Chicago | Founder and President | 2021 - 2022
In September 2021 I transferred to Columbia College Chicago with 75 college credits classifying me as a Junior. The school welcomed students to petition to form new clubs and sports teams, but one of their caveats was that first year students could not start clubs or sports teams. I decided not to let that rule kill my ambitions, and through hard work and determination I convinced the school to make an exception for me, and they allowed me to form an official college skateboarding team. My dream was to eventually establish a way for skateboarders to receive college scholarships similar to the way that athletes can get scholarships for football, baseball, or basketball.
As the founder of a new sports team, these were some of my responsiblities: I identified and communicated a need for school support in the student skateboarding community. I organized the student skateboarders. I successfully petitioned for a club. I established communications with officers of the Student Athletic Association (S.A.A.), and followed their leadership advice to draft a club constitution. I recruited other students to fufill the roles of board members to represent the team and help assist with the administrative tasks. I attended monthly 1 on 1 meetings with the president of the S.A.A. and monthly general assembly meetings with the entire body of student activities leadership. I established an official club email account, and social media presence for marketing and collaboration purposes. I also organized a club festival in collaboration with local businesses, artists, and musicians. Additionally, I solicited school funding to purchase equipment to set up a pop-up skatepark at our end of the year school-wide Manifest festival. I coordinated a team to preemptively assemble the ramps. I then set up and operated the skatepark the day of the fest, collecting liability waivers for everyone that used it. Additionally I communicated with collaborators at Red Bull who sponsored the event with free drinks. I also collaborated with the DJ club to provide music and entertainment at the skatepark, and I further worked with Red Bull to sponsor a DJ booth for them to operate out of. The legacy of the Renegades Skateboarding Club still operates as an official sports team at Columbia College Chicago to this day.
Roaming Bear | Founder, Songwriter, Manager, Promoter, Recording Engineer | 2008 - Present
Roaming Bear is a band and recording project that I established in 2008. Over the years it has operated in various states and countries with various bandmates. Sometimes I play solo acoustic shows as Roaming Bear, and sometimes I am accompanied by a four piece band. I have transcribed my original music and repeatedly taught the parts to countless musicians, and played nearly a thousand shows all over the country in the past fifteen years. As the leader of this DIY outfit, I have composed songs, recorded them, mixed and mastered them, printed, packaged, and designed my own CD’s and cassettes, promoted shows, booked various regional and nationwide tours, designed buttons and patches, acted as the band's manager, purchased and driven the tour van, etc. These experiences with the ever changing and always growing Roaming Bear band have given me experience in and appreciation for the many facets of the music industry.
I am a self-taught musician who plays guitar, bass, drums, ukulele, banjo, the Irish penny whistle, and I sing. I have made myself familiar with Pro Tools, Ableton, Logic, Adobe Audition, and Audacity DAW's for the sake of at home music production. Other skills I’ve utilized while leading this band are: leadership, determination, knowledge of music, music theory, music composition, creativity, and persistence.
RBM Presents YouTube Channel | Content Creator and Channel Manager | 2016 - Present
In operating the RBM Presents channel, I captured video and stereo audio recordings for, edited and uploaded 50+ live music videos of various touring musicians over the course of the past 7 years. I would often times book live shows for these bands on their tours, and then either attend their live show and film them, or I would invite them to spend the night at my place and visit a different location to shoot at the next day. I became very efficient in communicating the needs of creatives, including what gear they had/needed, the names of their songs, upcoming release dates to help promote with video content, social media rollout plans, what their dietary restrictions may be, and how I could be the most useful to them. I often times acted as a liaison between these artists and the venues and my camera/audio teams. Channel stats: 467 Subscribers, 41,869 views, and 53 videos; for an average of 790 views per video.
Skills I utilized in operating a YouTube channel are: organization, booking and coordination, location scouting, technical troubleshooting, camera operation, audio engineering, video editing, promotion, communication, planning and project execution skills.
