Artists, beware. The recording artist guild is a scam and Byron Booker is a liar.
I was contacted by Billy at the recording artist guild. Selling me on not just their song placement and liscening division but that they would help me with marketing, PR, branding and their big kicker was, they could get me into SXSW. Billy told me and the research I did confirmed that P-diddy was the host at the 2013 SXSW Recording Artist Guild showcase. I stupidly made the mistake of singing up for their premier package of $800.
I was told that I got into their SXSW showcase and that there would be at least 150 people in the audience. The months prior to SXSW I already started to get an icky feeling about the Recording Artist Guild. My representative wouldn't call me back for days. Their new press release that they said they would write for me had spelling and gramtical mistakes in it and looked like it was written by a 9th grader. Mistake after mistake kept happening but my ticket for SXSW was already booked so I figured I would go and give it a shot.
Then I found out that their big "showcase" they were bragging about wasn't even an official part of SXSW. It was an unofficial showcase. Again, I was promised 150 people so I thought maybe it was still worth it. Not so. 5 mins before my showcase the only people in the audience, no joke, was the sound man, Byron himself, and my friend who came to SXSW with me. That's it. The only other people who showed up for the whole showcase were 9 people who I happened to know in Austin who came out, and two random girls that Byron pulled off the street.
Avoid this business. They are out to scam you and will lie to you. They take advantage of unknown artists trying to make it and prey on them. Avoid avoid avoid.
#2Author of original report
Fri, April 10, 2015
I wrote the above report saying that the Recording Artist Guild is a scam and Byron Booker is a liar.
Byron reached out to me and cleaned everything up with me. He is not a liar and the story is much more complicated than I made it out to be. He has been humble and very helpful to me and I did not represent him correctly in the above report. The Recording Artist Guild is not what it was when I worked with them. Bryon has cleaned up the parts that weren't working and is not trying to turn it into something great that helps artists.