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It’s the artist advice category I’m working in,” says Lloyd Doyle, mover and shaker of the PEI-based record label and artist management group Sandbar Music. “My advice is not always taken,” he adds with a smile, “but I’m a fresh set of ears and eyes.”
“Artists are quite capable of managing themselves, but often they are in need of specific supports and services to put together a game plan for where they want to go,” says Lloyd. “The goal is to create viable businesses artists can live on. I want to turn them into taxpayers. The guiding light for Sandbar is: how can you get them to that point?”
For years, Lloyd’s work was in the music business and broadcasting—doing everything from deejaying at clubs to producing concerts. After a stint with Veterans‚ Affairs Canada, he returned to the music business with new insight.
“What I was trying to do [in setting up Sandbar Music],” he says, “was to put in a foundational structure—to serve as a launching pad for artists. In Charlottetown, we can’t do that on the scale of Toronto, or even of Halifax, but if I can’t take an artist all the way, I’ll take an artist as far as I can, then I won’t hold them back.”
After just five years of operation, Sandbar Music represents eighteen artists, including 2006 ECMA nominees Catherine MacLellan and Rattlesnakin’ Daddies. “Sandbar is about helping you take your shot,” Lloyd says. “I don’t guarantee success, but I like the idea that people are willing to step up and take that shot.” The key is to create “a situation where artists are more prepared, with a game plan, with a record label in place to give them credibility—with the necessary management and label that are requirements to success.”
Although Lloyd says there are “more champions” for PEI music than there have ever been, the Island remains a small market for music, and artists who hope to go somewhere in the music industry often have to go somewhere other than PEI. “To stay based in PEI is only possible if you’re really versatile,” Lloyd says, and lists some day-jobs that make it feasible.
Lloyd admits: most artists‚ goals can’t be reached exclusively in PEI. “They have to export,” he says. “What’s nice is to have the option of living in PEI—or of moving to other locations, but having the option of coming back here and having money to live.”
One challenge the PEI music industry faces is lack of infrastructure, including funding support for product development. “If you did support the music industry with a minimal number of dollars, the returns from artists able to stay here would be enormous,” he says, adding, “There would be a huge difference in where artists from PEI end up.”
Still, there’s much Sandbar can do with limited resources—Sandbar is a resource in itself. Label and management are a base for artists to build on, Lloyd says, “so no matter where you go, what you have is portable.”
Sandbar helps “build fan base and industry profile” partly through showcasing and networking opportunities such as the ECMAs. “It’s like fishing,” Lloyd says. “Some days you get lots of bites and not fish, some days you get not so many bites, but you still get fish.”
“What the ECMAs do, from my perspective, is bring a huge segment of the music industry to PEI. It’s a chance for artists to showcase or play in front of people who could help their careers in the future. For the public, it’s a great opportunity to hear a lot of music in a lot of venues.”
“I’m excited about everything I’m doing, trying to position artists and ourselves for very effective showcases at the ECMAs,” Lloyd Doyle says. And in any year, the ECMAs could be just the spark a PEI artist needs to light their rocket fuel and shoot for the stars from a Sandbar launching pad.Profile: Lloyd Doyle