Music insiders see opportunity as Austinite takes over at Texas Music Office

The news that the next director of the Texas Music Office will be a longtime Austinite with decades of music industry experience is seen as a positive for advocates of the local music economy. Over the weekend, news broke that Brendon Anthony plans to step down from the director position next week after nearly a decade, with Chip Adams slated to take over the top job.

Adams, who for years ran the independent label Modern Outsider Records and more recently worked as TMO’s community relations and outreach specialist, will oversee the office that helped to drive more than $26 billion in statewide economic activity, according to the latest state analysis. Adams’ primary role in the office was expanding the Music Friendly Communities program across the state that sought to create awareness and baseline services for performers, music venues and other players in local music economies throughout Texas.

Marc Fort, an Austin musician who worked at TMO for 16 years as a marketing and communications specialist, said that Adams’ experience makes him highly aware of the challenges and needs of the different components of the music industry across the state.

“He’s had the opportunity to not just work with Austin and all the music communities in Texas, but he’s traveled to them, he’s made contacts with them, networked with them and learned what their issues were,” Fort said. “Inevitably, there ends up being overlapping things that come up and it can often be the same things that musicians and music business owners are dealing with in Houston and Fort Worth and Corpus Christi and El Paso and Austin. They’re often some of the same things, whether it’s musician pay, affordability for musicians in general venues, being able to afford the rising prices of commercial property, the health care needs of musicians or trying to tour with the effects of inflation over the last few years.”

Fort noted that the office has also worked with individual cities to spin up smaller assistance programs related to health care for musicians and financial support for touring bands.

During Anthony’s tenure, the TMO helped to pass the new statewide live music incubator program that issues tax refunds of up to $100,000 to qualifying live music venues. The office also helped to encourage the performance rights organization Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) to open an Austin office that serves musicians across the state.

Mitch Ballard, executive director of creative for BMI Texas, said Anthony and the music office as a whole spent three years pushing the company to open the Texas office, with the two sides partnering on showcases across the country and other endeavors to highlight Texas artists.

“The role of the Texas Music Office is one of the most important pieces for the overall music industry in this state,” Ballard said. “They not only have their finger on the pulse on the live music scene, the venues, the different industries from festivals, booking agencies, management companies, performance rights, organizations like BMI, record labels, radio … it’s all these different pieces that touch the Texas music economy, and Texas Music Office has their finger on the pulse on what’s going on.”

Ballard said his interactions with Adams in recent years make him confident musicians in Austin and beyond will be well served.

“What I have seen him do with the Texas Music Friendly cities has been incredible. He has proven his ability to take a program and to expand it and grow it to where it creates an even stronger infrastructure for the music economy here in Texas. With his experience, I think it gives him an incredible advantage because he has been in different aspects of the business, understands what goes on in those different silos that happen in the music business economy, and he is able to bring that understanding.”

Pat Buchta, CEO of the Austin Texas Musicians advocacy group, said he hopes to expand on initial partnerships with TMO to offer education and other resources to musicians across the state in the coming years.

“Chip has really spent the last few years going across the state and building these relationships with all these cities. When we talk about Texas music, we got to talk about all of Texas. We got to talk about Latin music. We got to talk about country music. We got to talk about Black music and going into all these really small towns,” Buchta said.

“He’s got that industry experience, he understands the struggles pretty deeply that a lot of musicians are facing and venues are facing along with the whole industry, and so I think that’s really valuable for all of us.”

Photo by WhisperToMe, own work, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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