I was a solo artist and was looking to gain some artist services. I got in touch with someone named "Jessica" who liked my music. Then, I received a phone call from Joe Conte of A and R Select now it's Song Traction. I was ripped off over 800 by Mr. Joe Conte or Joe Gabriel Conte. I am seeking a settlement with his company. He did not get me any major radio AirPlay or campaign launch was not done properly. He set me up on Music Submit which didn't even get me any AirPlay. Or Be featured in any zines or blogs related to music. Please be aware of who you work with. Do research first. Then proceed when you're ready.
Our band was approached by 'Johnny" via an email and a follow up call was scheduled. However when the call happened, it was Joe instead of Johnny. When we asked Joe who Johnny was, he dodged the question and then proceeded to tell us how great our band was. He told us how Song Traction could get us radio play, press and sync licensing for film opportunities for $399. At one point we asked him what his last name was - Joe Gabriel was his reply. After researching the films listed at songtraction.com however, we found that Frozen Ground and a number of others list Joe Conte as a composer on the IMDb website. Additionally, for each film the website states "we placed 5 artists in this film", yet when you go IMBd or soundtrack.net to see the song list, you will find that Joe Conte is the band leader of 2 of the bands: Killtube & Zeenit. This means that boasting the placement of 5 artists in Frozen Ground is a lie. Song Traction placed only one artist, apart from the company owner's own music.
Apparently Joe Conte, the same from A&R Select (of which there are 5 posts on this site already) has a new company called Song Traction. You will notice there is no listing on the site of his last name. After doing a 'who is' search for songtraction.com, we found that it was registered to Joe Conte. So Joe Gabriel is Joe Conte and he is still requesting money from independent musicians for services that may be a rip-off.
That being said, our band did not sign up, or get ripped off, yet due to the amount of research we do when working with anyone in the music business, we felt it our duty to let others know about Song Traction and who is running the show.
I wish these reports had been around when I'd been contacted
The folks (or more likely single folk) behind Song Traction has been using Bandcamp messaging to rip off musicians for apparently a while now. Or at least, I’ve been ripped off by them, and judging by the other reviews that are starting to show up online, they’re still at it, but keeping it small enough to keep from being notorious.
The scam itself seems to go like this:
1. A band posts an album for preorder on Bandcamp
2. Someone “working for” Song Traction reaches out to the band, saying how awesome the music is, and how it should be on the radio/in movies/etc., and they claim to work for Song Traction, a music placement service.
3. The interested band makes an appointment for a phone conversation. During all the various stages of this, the person behind it pretends to be several different people to make the organization look bigger than it actually is; every account I can find matches that it’s always the same person in the end, Joe Gabriel Conte.
4. Joe whets the musician’s palate with a bunch of stuff about how his service works - he works with big players like Netflix and so on to get people set up with song placement and so on, and he cites a huge list of bands that he’s gotten placed and will happily give contact information and so on (and a spot check of these bands does indicate that they have been placed by him into various soundtracks, everything seems to check out, etc.). All he asks is for a one-time up-front fee of a few hundred dollars to get stuff set up in his systems and to establish an agent relationship and to provide some basic SEO services and so on, with the promise of having ongoing contact and so on; and he only works with bands who he thinks are really, really great and have something special. Of course.
5. The musician pays the money, and Joe actually sticks to his word and makes a few basic suggestions, and actually does do some of the work in getting the musician set up with BMI/ASCAP, SoundExchange, etc., and also makes a few recommendations for other placement services to go with in the meantime.
6. This keeps up until the PayPal refund period expires.
7. Silence
8. Silence
9. No response to emails at all
10. The musician starts to do more research and finds a few enlightening things:
- His website shows, with photos, the various production studios he has access to. Turns out these were stolen from other sites.
- He completely screwed up the submission of my stuff to the various things that he claimed to submit my information to, so much so that I have to redo it myself
- The only positive reviews one can find about Song Traction online were clearly posted by Song Traction themselves, or at the very least were posted from people who were still on step 5.
Either this is a scam or he’s just really bad at his job.
Song Traction Reviews
I was a solo artist and was looking to gain some artist services. I got in touch with someone named "Jessica" who liked my music. Then, I received a phone call from Joe Conte of A and R Select now it's Song Traction. I was ripped off over 800 by Mr. Joe Conte or Joe Gabriel Conte. I am seeking a settlement with his company. He did not get me any major radio AirPlay or campaign launch was not done properly. He set me up on Music Submit which didn't even get me any AirPlay. Or Be featured in any zines or blogs related to music. Please be aware of who you work with. Do research first. Then proceed when you're ready.
Our band was approached by 'Johnny" via an email and a follow up call was scheduled. However when the call happened, it was Joe instead of Johnny. When we asked Joe who Johnny was, he dodged the question and then proceeded to tell us how great our band was. He told us how Song Traction could get us radio play, press and sync licensing for film opportunities for $399. At one point we asked him what his last name was - Joe Gabriel was his reply. After researching the films listed at songtraction.com however, we found that Frozen Ground and a number of others list Joe Conte as a composer on the IMDb website. Additionally, for each film the website states "we placed 5 artists in this film", yet when you go IMBd or soundtrack.net to see the song list, you will find that Joe Conte is the band leader of 2 of the bands: Killtube & Zeenit. This means that boasting the placement of 5 artists in Frozen Ground is a lie. Song Traction placed only one artist, apart from the company owner's own music.
Apparently Joe Conte, the same from A&R Select (of which there are 5 posts on this site already) has a new company called Song Traction. You will notice there is no listing on the site of his last name. After doing a 'who is' search for songtraction.com, we found that it was registered to Joe Conte. So Joe Gabriel is Joe Conte and he is still requesting money from independent musicians for services that may be a rip-off.
That being said, our band did not sign up, or get ripped off, yet due to the amount of research we do when working with anyone in the music business, we felt it our duty to let others know about Song Traction and who is running the show.
I wish these reports had been around when I'd been contacted
The folks (or more likely single folk) behind Song Traction has been using Bandcamp messaging to rip off musicians for apparently a while now. Or at least, I’ve been ripped off by them, and judging by the other reviews that are starting to show up online, they’re still at it, but keeping it small enough to keep from being notorious.
The scam itself seems to go like this:
1. A band posts an album for preorder on Bandcamp
2. Someone “working for” Song Traction reaches out to the band, saying how awesome the music is, and how it should be on the radio/in movies/etc., and they claim to work for Song Traction, a music placement service.
3. The interested band makes an appointment for a phone conversation. During all the various stages of this, the person behind it pretends to be several different people to make the organization look bigger than it actually is; every account I can find matches that it’s always the same person in the end, Joe Gabriel Conte.
4. Joe whets the musician’s palate with a bunch of stuff about how his service works - he works with big players like Netflix and so on to get people set up with song placement and so on, and he cites a huge list of bands that he’s gotten placed and will happily give contact information and so on (and a spot check of these bands does indicate that they have been placed by him into various soundtracks, everything seems to check out, etc.). All he asks is for a one-time up-front fee of a few hundred dollars to get stuff set up in his systems and to establish an agent relationship and to provide some basic SEO services and so on, with the promise of having ongoing contact and so on; and he only works with bands who he thinks are really, really great and have something special. Of course.
5. The musician pays the money, and Joe actually sticks to his word and makes a few basic suggestions, and actually does do some of the work in getting the musician set up with BMI/ASCAP, SoundExchange, etc., and also makes a few recommendations for other placement services to go with in the meantime.
6. This keeps up until the PayPal refund period expires.
7. Silence
8. Silence
9. No response to emails at all
10. The musician starts to do more research and finds a few enlightening things:
- His website shows, with photos, the various production studios he has access to. Turns out these were stolen from other sites.
- He completely screwed up the submission of my stuff to the various things that he claimed to submit my information to, so much so that I have to redo it myself
- The only positive reviews one can find about Song Traction online were clearly posted by Song Traction themselves, or at the very least were posted from people who were still on step 5.
Either this is a scam or he’s just really bad at his job.