Yahoo Finance Five Former Paradigm Agents Unite to Form Arrival Artists
Former Paradigm Talent Agency booking agents Ali Hedrick, Erik Selz, John Bongiorno, Karl Morse and Ethan Berlin have teamed up to launch a new agency, Arrival Artists. The quintet are new joined in the venture by former Billions Corporation COO Matt Yasecko. The move is the latest in a series of high-profile personnel changes at the major music booking agencies since the COVID-19 pandemic, which has crippled the concert industry.
Arrival will represent dozens of established acts in indie and alternative-leaning music, including Khruangbin (pictured above), Sufjan Stevens, Glen Hansard, Car Seat Headrest, Andrew Bird, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Rhye, the New Pornographers, Neko Case, Calexico, the Magnetic Fields and Mt. Joy. The new venture’s roster also includes young, forward-thinking and genre-defying artists such as The Comet Is Coming, Sons of Kemet, Ibeyi, Bedouine and Gogo Penguin.
In addition, the company has teamed to offer global representation for shared acts with the U.K.’s ATC Live, whose roster features Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, The Lumineers and Mac DeMarco, among others.
“How can what we do for jam acts inform what we do for the progressive jazz acts? And how can the progressive jazz acts inform the steps of our developing indie acts? That’s exciting to me,” says Berlin, who has overseen Texas instrumental trio Khruangbin’s fast rise from clubs to large theaters. “In the era of Spotify and playlists, fans are less myopic. As an agent, it’s important to be familiar with many different worlds and deliver a wide range of opportunity.”
Arrival, which will have offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle, also counts director of marketing Jenna Neer and agency associate Jess Bumsted among its ranks.
Paradigm last month laid off 180 employees who had previously been furloughed in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Several of its former agents have already launched new ventures, including the TBA Agency, which brings together Marshall Betts, Avery McTaggart, Amy Davidman, Ryan Craven and Devin Landau under one umbrella and represents artists such as the War on Drugs, Chvrches and Courtney Barnett.
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