Jamie Coletta, No Earbuds
💭 Thoughts on digging deeper, Dìdi, and writing down intentions.
Jamie Coletta is the founder of No Earbuds, a PR and consulting agency that helps indie musicians break out with bold, creative strategies. With over a decade of experience, she’s propelled countless bands into the spotlight including Jeff Rosenstock, PUP, Origami Angel, Microwave, Bartees Strange, The Wonder Years, Foxing, oso oso, Pool Kids, Cheekface, Softcult, Prince Daddy & The Hyena, and many more. Known for her unconventional methods, Jamie builds thriving fan bases and communities outside of the corporate grind. When she’s not running her own music world, she’s chasing her kid around or playing The Sims, always trying to bring a little more passion (and maybe a few Michael Scott quotes) to everything she does.
🎯 Current focus
“Perfect only takes so long because it doesn’t exist” – these are words from the famous Jeff Rosenstock that I continue to live by, or at least I try to. If I waited for my ideas to be “ready,” they’d never see the light of day. A lot of my most creative ideas have fallen victim to that trap of perfectionism! I try to remind myself often that there’s no such thing as perfect, it’ll never be “ready,” and taking risks is just a part of being alive.
🎥 Dìdi
I can’t tell you how much I loved the movie Dìdi – everything about it nailed the time period and feeling that was being a teen in the early 2000s. Having genuinely emotional conversations with SmarterChild, getting burned out of people’s Myspace top 8’s, Hellogoodbye ringtones, summers at the Warped Tour… I mean, this was me! But then, by the end of the film, I started relating much more heavily to the main character’s mother as I am now a mom myself. I won’t give away any spoilers but the way she feels about her passion and how it relates to her life as a parent… I have never felt so connected to a sentiment before.
🫶 An ally and a sounding board
Judy Miller Silverman (publicist at Motormouth Media) is not just someone I look up to because she rocks curly hair and glasses like a boss. She worked at RCA in her early years doing PR, which is the same place where I cut my teeth, too. We’ve both experienced the same type of BS within the music industry; having her as an ally and a sounding board to talk about it all has been invaluable to me. Plus, her portfolio is nuts – I have personally adored watching her develop the very likable and unique Thundercat from a technical mastermind to a family-friendly household name.
One of the bands I manage, Origami Angel, just played 9:30 Club last month – a major achievement for the DC duo. They’ll be playing two albums in full – their 2019 breakout debut, Somewhere City, and their most recent LP, Feeling Not Found. I’ve actually been working with them since early 2019 so it was even more special to be able to celebrate this moment with the whole Gami team in their hometown!
I’m keeping my eye out for AboveTheBridge/Live2Create - these folks promote shows, run interviews as podcasts and on Youtube, and are really just this kinda next-gen community of creators. They’re based in Southern California and actually came out to No Earbuds Fest earlier this year for one of their Scene Analysis features:
📝 Writing down intentions
I can’t live without a good weekly planner! It helps my brain so much to see the week ahead and know what kind of work I need to be focusing on each day. I have a digital calendar for meetings and such but the physical act of writing down my intentions for each day is the real sauce when it comes to me actually getting things done. Plus, nothing feels as good as running that highlighter across a completed task!
🕵️ Digging deeper
Those who are getting it right are bands like Softcult, Cheekface, and Raue who are using direct-to-fan platforms like Discord to share updates and dig deeper with their fans; writers launching their own newsletters and magazines outside of the structure of the broken media system like see/saw, ANTICS Mag, or HearingThings.co; multi-platform blogs like arabbitshole that are utilizing content and aesthetic to drive listeners to discovering new artists.
Follow Jamie on Instagram & Linkedin and check out their company here.
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