Conor Loughman was surfing the Internet when he came upon a Google advertisement about starting a record label, and he automatically thought of his friends, who despite their musical talents, were not signed.
Just like that, Loughman, a College of Communication junior, decided to start his own record label, Base Trip Records, he said.
‘I just realized that I had enough friends who were talented to take a more direct approach,’ Loughman said.
Loughman, a former Daily Free Press reporter, began his label in November 2007, but is only now preparing to finally release the label’s first two albums, compilations from Rapper Steph and The Throwbacks. Though the albums do not have official release dates, Loughman said they will be released in the ‘near future,’ and he plans on recording on equipment borrowed from an industry friend around Boston.
When Loughman first started Base Trip Records, he only had three artists signed ‘- Katie Uva, a College of Arts and Sciences junior and folk rock musician, Stephanie Barrak, a CAS junior who plays alternative music and CAS junior Stephanie Domingo, better known as Rapper Steph. Loughman has since added three more artists to the line-up, indie artist and College of Communication sophomore Allison Francis, COM junior Rob Uslan, who is better known as the alternative band, Supersillyus, and hip-hop duo, The Throwbacks.
CAS senior Neil Anand, one half of The Throwbacks, said he and partner Ryan Evans, an Emmanuel College senior, had dealt with a lot of ‘shady’ managers before they came across Loughman.
‘He [Loughman] is a nice kid, genuine and ill to hang out with,’ Evans said. ‘He is constantly moving and doing stuff.’
Loughman said he has no doubt the label will be successful. His inspiration came from Def Jam Recordings founder Rick Rubin, who also founded a record label at a young age.
‘He started his label from his dorm room at [New York University], and I started mine in my dorm room,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty confident and borderline arrogant, and I am pretty sure that I am going to do something as good if not more.” ‘
When it comes to running his business, however, Loughman is not arrogant at all, CAS junior Dory Greenberg said. Greenberg met Loughman working on the WTBU radio station.
‘It is very subtle how he has authority,’ Greenberg said. ‘He has finesse about how he handles business where you almost don’t know he is doing it because it is so natural.’
Loughman’s natural business skills are already paying off with Base Trip Records, and the relationship he has with the artists. Loughman is a public relations major.
‘All of the artists on Base Trip Records get a 50 percent cut in comparison to 15 percent with large labels,’ Loughman said.
Major record labels have failed to adapt to the digital revolution and are making bad investments in bands, unlike what Base Trip is doing, Loughman said. He also knows the key rule in networking and obtaining gigs within the music industry: karma.
‘If you get blackballed from one venue, everything will circulate,’ Loughman said. ‘It is hard to get a good [reputation], but it is easy to get a bad one.’
Loughman said he has much planned for Base Trip’s future, including an East Coast tour over the summer and a possible Nerf sponsorship.
‘I’ve got it all planned out,’ Loughman said. ‘My goals are pretty simple. I want to spend the rest of my life making music with my friends.’
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