Larry Heller, Chairman and Co-Founder
Our Chairman brings over four decades of experience in the popular Music and Marketing Research Industries to MySongStore.com. Larry is the founder and CEO of Music Research Consultants in Los Angeles, the first full-service marketing research organization dedicated to popular music marketing and consumer research. Since 1974, Music Research clients have included virtually all of the industry's major record companies, the leading recording executives and artists, and major entertainment and media companies. Today, the innovation continues at MRC's web site, Musicresearch.com, home of the MusicLovers (R) Channel and MusicLovers (R) Panel.
While a student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Larry moonlighted as "Little David" of Little David and The Wanderers, a regular on the R&B South Eastern college circuit. After graduation, he gravitated to the Lower East Side of New York, as a folk-rock performer, and ultimately, a co-founder of Pablo Lights, an innovator of performance Light Shows. Drawn to San Francisco and Los Angeles in the late 60's, Larry emerged as a progressive young rock agent (Jefferson Airplane, Poco, Chambers Brothers, The Doors, Taj Mahal, Bobby Darin (!) and others), artists' manager, music publisher (co-founder, MusicWriter, Inc. and NoteStation), executive producer and music marketing research innovator. Larry enjoys "pickin' and grinnin'" with Gene and Richard on his original (now vintage) Martin Tenor guitar.
Gene Gibson, President and Co-founder
Gene is a gigging musician, specializing in finger-picking guitar styles of the 20's and 30's. Along this path, he has entertained fans for over half a century. He is also a recording engineer who, when realizing the difficulty independent artists have in getting their music heard and sold, came up with the concept of MySongStore.com along with Larry Heller, his life-long friend and now, professional collaborator. Gene is frequently seen playing his 1951 Epiphone F-110 Frontier (pictured), his 1950 Gibson J-200, his custom built Ron Philips resonator, and Martin D-42.
In an alternative universe, Gene is a Marketing Consultant to Fortune 500 Companies. He has conducted market research for new product development since the mid-80's. He has worked in the corporate world since his early 20s and developed many of the skills necessary to develop and maintain a world-class company such as MySongStore.com. He has also taught Market Research on the undergraduate level at a Big Ten University.
Richard McCluskey, CTO and Co-FounderPassionate about his music, and the freedom to sell it directly to the audience, Richard McCluskey is the technical head behind MySongStore.com. Richard was CTO of a major Biz-op company before getting out of the corporate world shortly after the 'dot com' collapse in the late 1990's. Since then, he has worked as a software consultant specializing in Internet portals, credit card processing and Internet community building. Hugely involved in the Open Source phenomenon that has swept the software industry, Richard has brought some of that philosophy to the direct sale and distribution of music through MySongStore.com. The entire MySongStore.com software engine is written in Open Source software, running on Open Source Servers.
As a musician, Richard has won 3 LA Music Awards, two with his old band Stirling Brig for which he received 'Rock Album of the Year 2000', and 'Rock artist of the year 2001', and 'International Songs of Peace Award' in 2004 with his new project H.E.L.P. Richards weapons of choice are his 1935 0017 Martin Acoustic, a self-build custom 'tele' styled electric guitar, a Fender Princeton, and a home computer running Debian Linux. Richard lives and works in Venice California.
How MySongStore.com Came About
Larry and Gene grew up in Washington, D.C. They were best friends from Kindergarten through Eighth Grade. Children of the rock'n roll and R&B 50's, both were caught up in the seminal D.C. folk music scene of the early 60's. They lost touch when Larry moved away at the beginning of High School. Then, both went on to college and adult life. Two years ago, Gene Googled Larry and found he was president of Music Research Consultants in Hollywood, CA. Amazingly, both Larry and Gene worked in different corners of the same two industries:Marketing Research and Music. Larry pioneered the use of marketing and consumer research in rock, pop, and R&B, while Gene specialized in folk and blues recording. More amazing, both Larry's wife Barbara and Gene's fiance, Anne, have the same birthday! At this point you should be hearing the theme to the Twilight Zone.
Reacquainting after four decades, and finding that they were still the best of friends, Gene and Larry together conceived the concept of MySongStore.com last year, to empower musicians and songwriters to control digital distribution of their works. Larry introduced Gene to programmer, kindred spirit, fellow folk/pop musician, dreamer, and technologist, Richard, last summer. The rest, as they say, is History.
To be continued at MySongStore.com
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