Being a lifelong resident of Fort Wayne, I attended Croninger Elementary, Blackhawk Middle and Snider High School……My first taste of entertainment direction was managing liquor and door money for an unnamed fraternity somewhere in the Midwest. I graduated from there in 1992, married Stacie and began supervising landscape installation. Once in this seasonal work schedule, I began spending the winters in other places, including Venice and Key West, Florida.
My wife and I purchased a 60-acre ranch near Branson, Missouri in 1998. We spent the next five winters renovating the buildings on this property, which set on the second highest point in that area. During this period, I became interested in amateur archaeology and cave exploration. In 2000, I formed Smash Alley Records, signed my first act and began a side career as an executive producer/manager/booking agent/unlicensed psychologist.
In 2002, I began working for a distribution company out of Phoenix, Arizona as an artist repertoire agent. During this time, I acted as Executive Producer on eight (8) full length projects, as well as a few demos. In 2007, I retired from landscaping in order to spend more time on other projects. Smash Alley Records has published 13 full-length releases that are available on iTunes. I am no longer involved in A.R. work, but still occasionally do consulting work on the subject, as well as pressing and distributing.
2008 has been an incredible year for me. Being involved with booking and promotion in so many different aspects made a perfect partnership when a mutual friend introduced me to Ryan Martin in the fall of 2007. With a common vision for unique promotional platforms, we became full partners at that time. Today, jammerdirect.com is achieving faster growth than I ever imagined. Our Jam Nation Singles Search compilation project with Piere’s and T. Bush Studios will highlight 12-18 regional artists on an annual basis. With great engineering provided by producer Tim Bushong, who, in my opinion, is one of the best engineers in the country, these singles will represent the bands and our market, as well as our sponsor, Piere’s Entertainment Complex. I have always felt that Fort Wayne acts are producing music that can hold its own with any market in the country. The bands in this market stay together longer, play more shows and write more music.
We hope the JamNation project will highlight some of the great production going on here in our unique market. Entering this competition is free, as is everything that has to do with Jammer Direct. The site is open to anyone wanting to promote anything artistic. Seeing we are all intrinsically self promoters in some respect, the jammerdirect.com site is for everyone.
Besides promoting what we are doing with jammerdirect.com, I am also finishing up a book about what I have learned from my experiences in the music business. The title is “I’m Not Going to Promote You, You’re Going to Promote Me”. It is a layout on how to scout, sign, record, manage and promote independent label acts. The book covers every possible aspect of the business, but focuses on scouting, managing and promotion. Surviving as an independent label isn’t easy. I also have a special guest foreword to the book that will add to it immensely. Due to the positive response from those I’ve let preview it, I am looking forward to finishing and releasing it for publication. My wife and I still own property in Southwest Missouri and have recently purchased a 2-1/2 acre lot on Table Rock Lake near Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It has gentle slope to the water, 165’ of frontage on a deep water cove. We paid practically nothing for it in today’s market for waterfront property. Anyone wanting to invest in land, which I think produces the highest long-term yield, may contact me through kent@jammerdirect.com.
I am always bird-dogging land in Missouri, Arkansas, and Kentucky. I specialize in finding land that will have a high density of archaeological debris, caves, artisan springs, Indian mounds, and other unique geologic features. I am familiar with all aspects of real estate investment trusts (REIT), logging, development, and owner financing. In addition, I own the domain names nationalownerfinance.com and nationallandco.com and plan to develop them in the future for a state by state internet platform franchise.
