Introducing Desi Vach, Label Relations Manager, GSA (Germany/Switzerland/Austria)
Hello everybody! I am happy and excited to join The Orchard Team.
For almost 18 years, I have been living in Berlin. I graduated in Fine Arts/Acting and later in Audio-Visual Media. After meeting Gonzales and Peaches at a gig in London, I decided to work for the label Kitty-Yo. I did an internship there and worked in the International Department for 5 years.
Following that, I ran Weekender Records GSA; but once Weekender UK closed, Weekender GSA closed as well.
In 2009, I founded Snowhite, a Label, Management and PR company in Berlin representing bands like Anika, Eights Legs, Zoot Woman, The Bishops, The Sounds on its roster.
Working for The Orchard is a new challenge for me, which I am really excited about.
Besides music, I really love British TV series such as The Mighty Boosh, Doctor Who, The Hour etc; I do Yoga, play piano, really like dogs and enjoy being happy. :)
Introducing Ryan MacPhee, Senior Manager, Business Affairs
Hello everyone! I’m excited to be joining The Orchard here in New York. I will be working with the Content Acquisition team focused primarily on the many amazing services we offer in addition to distribution, including The Orchard Video Network, Sync Licensing, Compilations, Collections, as well as bringing new clients into the company.
Here’s some info about me: I was born in New Jersey, but grew up in Georgia. After graduating from Washington and Lee University in 2008, I spent most of the last five years split between Manhattan and Brooklyn, with a brief stint in Texas. When I’m not working, I like to wander around Williamsburg and go to shows. I try to stay active — ice hockey, snowboarding, wake boarding, and most recently I’ve gotten into rock climbing. When it comes to music, I have pretty wide tastes, but tend to gravitate towards classic, old-fashioned Rock (with a sweet spot for 80′s Synthpop). Again, very excited to be here, and looking forward to meeting everyone!
Five years ago today, we launched this blog to share artist news as we grew our roster of Interactive Marketing campaigns. We quickly evolved The Daily Rind into a vital piece of our corporate content marketing strategy, focusing on client communication, Orchard news, tips for navigating the digital landscape, op-eds on industry topics, and yes, artist news. All of this through the eyes of my very talented co-workers, who we continuously pester for more posts.
In honor of our five year mark, here are some of our favorite Daily Rind moments :
2008
Sharon Jones on Austin City Limits, Grammy Consideration by Tonia Samman
2009
Getting Social: The Orchard is on Facebook! and Let’s Twitter! by James Volpe
2010
Streaming vs P2P (Round #543324): Why Does Spotify Feel So Much Faster? by Nathan Thompson
Honorable mention to a republished Billboard piece: Billboard Op-Ed by Scott Cohen (Our Co-Founder and VP): LESS BEGETS MORE by Scott Cohen
2011
SoundCloud: So…About Just Sending Out That MP3? by Robbie Mackey
Honorable mention for a catchy song and catchy topic: Ai Se Eu Te Pego: When Music + Soccer Collide by Celia Saez
2012
Indie Artist Makes a Killing from Streaming – Yep, You Heard Right. by Chris Duncan (this was reposted by Hypebot)
Honorable mention for being our sixth most read post of all time: The Most Valuable Thing You Don’t Know About YouTube’s Business Model by Doug Shineman
Thank you to all our writers, readers and sharers throughout the years. As always, let us know via comments if there are topics you’d like us to cover in the future.
Introducing Dan Griffiths, Interactive Marketing Manager, UK
My path into the music industry was not a standard route! When I was a teenager, in the early days of the Internet and 56k dial-up modems, I decided I would set up a website to blag my way into shows and get a few free CDs. When reviewing shows for the website I would take my camera along and take pictures of the artists (to scan and upload to the website). As I began to get better at using the camera, one of my images got found and used by Marshall Amps and I later became one of their more regular London-based live photographers.
Close to that time I would also go to shows to take pictures of a friend’s band called Reuben. One of the pictures I took got used on the band’s first single to be released through London-based independent label Xtra Mile Recordings. I sent a CV into their sister company, Press Counsel PR, and was brought in to look after online press at the company. During my time there, I handled the online press for Latitude Festival (Festival Republic), New Order, Capdown, Reuben and many more!
After a few years, my role grew and I was brought over to work on developing Xtra Mile Recordings with the Managing Director. My role was very diverse but largely focused on overseeing all digital aspects of running a record label, be that digital marketing, social media, online press, copy for our distributors, D2C, etc. When I started at the label we only had two artists and our focus was purely U.K. based but fast-forward to today and it now has a large roster of artists from all over the world and distribution in all of the major territories you would expect an international label to have! In my time there, I worked with Frank Turner (who we also managed), Against Me! and was influential in helping sign many of the labels roster including The Swellers, My Vitriol, Sonic Boom Six, Future of the Left, Straight Lines, HalfNoise (ex-Paramore), Far and The Xcerts to name only a few.
I have always had a keen interest in all aspects of digital media and music, so when I started speaking to Mark Denby [The Orchard's Director, Video Network and Marketing] about The Orchard towards the end of last year, it was the perfect fit!
If you’re a savvy YouTuber, you may already know about YouTube’s Playbook. Of course, if you’re a savvy YouTuber you already know everything in it. For a while, I’ve grumbled that it could use some reapplication to multiple types of creators. After all, not everyone is making cool episodic series or pioneering animation on YouTube. Therefore I’m sure the new Playbook Guides are all due to my influence!
They’re not yet converted to a user-friendly website, but you can download them as PDFs. Probably of immediate interest to most of The Orchard family is the music guide. While it’s not as heavy on strategy as the main Playbook, it does go in-depth on numerous successful tactics for promoting music on YouTube. I highly recommend it. Pay particular attention to the section on increasing watch time starting on page 27. It’s relevant to my last post on increasing engagement and helpful in mentally getting you over the hump of focusing on view counts.
Of course a big part of The Orchard family includes action sports. YouTube has a sports guide just for you. In particular, I recommend the section on programming starting on page 20. This is an area upon which I believe many of our sports clients could improve and the guide is fairly concise in this regard.
There are three other guides, one for educators, one for media companies, and one for nonprofits. I also recommend reading these. At first glance you may think they’re irrelevant, but you never know where a tactic used in one area could have applications in another.
