This is ARC’s working Board of Trustees 2023. Board will be updated in Feb.
Trustees are active planners and executors of ARC policy, requiring an annual monetary donation and attendance at four meetings per year. We welcome applicants to join our Board at any time.
Peter Wright — Chair
Peter has spent his entire career in the music business in the independent sector starting out in post-punk Manchester in 1980 working for Buzzcocks’ management company and label New Hormones. In 1982 he moved to New York and worked in independent distribution at Dutch East India Trading and Caroline Distribution as well at Sonic Youth’s first label Neutral Records. He also set up his own publicity & promotion company to represent such key UK labels and artists as Mute Records, Red Rhino, the Mekons and Cabaret Voltaire. In 1988 he set up Mute Records New York office and became its Label Manager and then VP of Operations. In 1996 he moved to Boston, MA as GM for Rykodisc and in 2000 returned to NYC where he became GM of Instinct Records (Moby’s first home). Peter founded Virtual Label LLC in 2003 as a service company for artists and independent labels offering access to physical and digital distribution, management, marketing and consulting services. Virtual currently represents such artists as Alexi Murdoch, Sean Lennon, Andrew Bird, The Handsome Family and Swans as well as labels such as ROIR, Pressure Sounds, Cumbancha and Proper. In addition, Peter is chair of the American Association for Independent Music’s Digital Media & Emerging Technologies Committee..
B.George — Founder + Director
Bob George is the Founder and Executive Director of the ARChive of Contemporary Music. The initial donation of 47,000 discs that began ARC came from his personal collection. Mr. George came to New York City in 1974 as a visual arts student at the Whitney Museum Studio Program. From 1975 to 1979, he co-directed performance artist Laurie Anderson’s stage show, and his record label, One Ten Records, released the first commercial compilation of audio work by visual artists, Airwaves, that included the initial recordings of Laurie Anderson and unreleased work by Meredith Monk. He received a National Endowment Grant to produce recordings by visual artists (1980), and released Laurie Anderson’s first single “O Superman,” that sold close to a million copies worldwide. His interest in world music has led him to produce singles by Orchestra Jazira (Ghana) and Sonny Okuson (Nigeria). As a consultant, Mr. George selected soundworks for the Paris Biennale (1981, 1983), New Music America (1984), Arts & Events at NYC’s World Financial Center (1985-1989) and produced an occasional survey of new American pop and experimental music for the BBC, UK, as part of “The John Peel Show” (1982 – 1985). He is the author of Volume, the first comprehensive discographical reference work on Punk and New Wave music, was a contributor to Goodtime Kings by Billy Bergman, the first American book on contemporary African Pop, written for The Village Voice, Playboy, Creem, Elle, Spin, Saveur and Billboard, and was the music editor for Benetton’s COLORS magazine. He has consulted on many film projects including Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ and Goodfellas, Tom Hanks’s That Thing You Do, and Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild, Beloved and The Manchurian Candidate. Mr. George sat on the Blue Ribbon Awards Committee for ARSC (Association for Recorded Sound Collections) choosing the best music books published (1993-1999) and was a member of the Yahoo Academy, voting on the Internet Life Awards for outstanding websites (1999).
Eric David Johnson
Eric David Johnson, p/k/a/ DJ Bunny Ears, is a music producer, music supervisor, record
producer, director, musician, filmmaker, writer, artist, photographer & DJ. Rooted as an
independent artist, he is a multi- award-winning music producer having spent over 23 years
in the advertising industry. Prior to his current role as Executive Creative Director at
MassiveMusic, Eric began his career with ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, followed by senior
roles with Young & Rubicam New York, DDB Chicago, Randall Poster’s music supervision
firm, Search Party Music and as Senior Vice President, Executive Integrated Music Producer
at McCann Advertising in NYC.
Eric has won numerous industry awards and accolades working with/for such clients as: Nike, Microsoft, Coke, Mastercard, Verizon, Lockheed Martin, MGM, State Street Global Advisors, L’Oreal, and National Geographic. He has also written and directed music videos and award-winning TV commercials for Nike.He is the creator/host/executive producer of the podcast, Imaginary Soundtracks, on SONOS Radio, part of the music/art collective Pulse progaming and regularly DJs at events and venues around the world. Eric is widely regarded as a thought leader in best practices for music-centric creative advertising/marketing and regularly participates in international panels, juries and conferences such as SXSW, AICPs, CLIOs, Brandweek, Advertising Week, London International Awards, CMJ, BUMA (Amsterdam), Canadian Music Week, A2IM Indie Week, MIDEM, Music Finland, SPOT (Denmark), Roskilde and Iceland Airwaves, to name a few.
Craig Kallman
Craig is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Atlantic Records. His music career began in the 1980s as a major DJ in Manhattan. He is the founder (1987) of Big Beat Records, an independent label before coming to Atlantic in 1991. Under his leadership Atlantic has become the second most successful record company in America, expanded into movie soundtracks, include Space Jam, and the series Twilight and Furious. His vision and support brought Hamilton to the stage and on record.
Kallman is considered one of the world’s leading investors in rare records with more than 850,000 discs and 150,00 items of music memorabilia.
Merck Mercuriadis
Merck is a British-Canadian music industry executive and entrepreneur. After working A&R at Virgin UK he became one of the founders of the Sanctuary Music Group, a management company (1986 -2006). Clients over the years included The Strokes, Arcade Fire, Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé, Nelly, Mick Fleetwood, Tommy Lee, The Who, Robert Plant, Sir Elton John, Guns’N’Roses, Iron Maiden, Morrissey, Pet Shop Boys, Macy Gray, Mary J. Blige, Joss Stone, Jane’s Addiction. Megadeth, Kiss, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers Band, Earth, Wind & Fire, Simple Minds and Lou Reed,
With Nile Rodgers Merck founded Hipgnosis Songs Fund, a music IP investment and song management company trading on the London Stock Exchange. Hipgnosis partially or fully owns more than 100,000 songs. Hipgnosis is noted for advocating and offering higher payouts for songwriters than current/other publishing companies.
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Former Board of Trustee members include Alan J. Bernstein, Rose Boeve, Andrew S. Cohen, Brian Cullman, Adam Dolgins, David + Karen Diamond, Rachelle Friedman, Ashley Gail Harris, Brian Hecht, Amy Larkin (our Chairman for many years), Molly McIver and Greg Shatan.