An ever-pressing question that plagues the deep recesses of soon-to-be or recent undergraduates students is, what is the next step? How do you turn your dreams into a concrete, viable reality? For Brian Weingartner, a newly graduated student from the UBC School of Music, one of his is already becoming a reality. Weingartner is now the owner of his own record label: The Weingartner Phonogram Company.
To date, the Weingartner Phonogram Company has released and recorded Daniel Bellefeuille’s album Hello River comprised of a collection of 10 pieces for and piano and voice, The Past Impending (a folk indie rock band) and Curtis LeBlanc (an acoustic folk artist).
Weingartner’s journey originated with an interest in music, studying sound recording at Mesa Community College in Arizona. An internship at Studio 880, home to artists such as Green Day and Iggy Pop, led Weingartner to relocate to Oakland, California. Upon finishing his bachelor’s degree, Weingartner talked about his experiences in the music industry in his application to UBC. His resume caught the eye of Robert Taylor, director of bands, who had just created a work study position to livestream UBC concerts.
“In the beginning it was really primitive," Weingartner said. "We would have to borrow a really small live-streaming equipment that is used to record business meetings. Slowly I built up from there, asking for more equipped and various software."
After working with UBC trombone prof Jeremy Berkman in ensembles throughout his time in the School of Music, Weingartner released a recording of his quintet playing Song for People, a piece by Daniel Bellefeuille.
"Song for People was the first song we released digitally," her said. "After that I recorded a full album of piano and voice that Dan also composed and performed everything on. That is, in many ways, how the label grew through the School of Music.”
Another aspect of Weingartner's passion for recording was his involvement in the campus club, Blank Vinyl Project. As Blank Vinyl Project began moving away from recording artists, Weingartner began thinking of his own record label. “The soft launch happened in 2013 by saying that I have a record label, but it wasn’t until May of 2014 that I registered as a real company.”
To Weingartner, creating a record label is based on a solid partnership between the artist and recording label. “I kind of see it like the music and the recording are both their own respective art forms. The song or the piece of music is that person’s art and there exists a partnership, where the sounding recording is my art. We’re working together to release these things together.”
In this day and age, where the music is flooded with artists who can easily self-record and release their own music via garage band, band camp or various other software programs, it is the partnership that the Weingartner Phonogram Company creates with each artist that differences them from a digital reality increasingly shaped by self-promotion.
Weingartner described his label as a collaboration. “I’m not trying to operate in a way of controlling absolutely everything, I see it as having a partnership with the artist and helping to facilitate to build a network of artists," he said. "Hopefully there will be a lot of cross promotion, where if one artist looks on the label website and sees and album they like, a show can be booked via that process. It's kind of like where the old labels did everything to present it forward, my label is like a helping hand to the independent artist.”
Ultimately, the Weingartner label is the product of a dream and passion for music. “With anything, if people have a goal they should just go for it, don’t hold back. Often people think I’m in school, I should wait until after I graduate. If you have something that you want to show the world, just make it and get it out there.”
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