We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lindsay Teske. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lindsay below.

Alright, Lindsay thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

I think about what it would be like to have a regular job all the time. People often say to me that it must be nice to have “all the freedom” that I do as a business owner, but that’s not entirely true. I can pick my own hours and who I work with, in addition to being able to take my work in any direction I want it to. That’s amazing, and a huge privilege. I take none of that for granted. But, I definitely lack freedom in areas where folks in regular jobs have it. For example, I can’t just email HR to take a few days off work if I’m sick or want to spend that time doing something fun. I’ve got a few incredible volunteers, but I’m still my only full-time employee. If I don’t work, nothing gets done. Quite literally, I can’t afford that. If I do want or need to take a day or two off for whatever reason, I have to really budget my time in order to swing that. The last time that happened, I worked for 14 hours on a Saturday to get myself in a position where I’d be ahead of schedule before my days off. It’s really stressful, and at least mentally, I feel like I can’t ever truly “clock off” — and that’s because I sort of can’t. Of course, there’s the financial aspect, too. A part of me definitely envies the ease of knowing how much you’re getting paid each month and when, whereas I rely on invoices. I’ve taken up side hustles to alleviate that stress, and it’s primarily in those moments where I find myself daydreaming about the coziness of having a regular job.

But, all of that said, I’d never want to go down that path. I’m a 26 year old woman working in the music industry, which is sadly still so male-dominated. I know that if I pursued a regular job in the industry, I’d be mid-level and unhappy. I’d otherwise be a cog in a machine, and rather, I’d want to be the machine’s inventor. In order to be fulfilled in this industry, I had to put myself at the front of my own line. I also wouldn’t want to play a role in fulfilling someone else’s vision for their business. It’s so much more satisfying to devote myself to carrying out my own, and the results of doing so have been gratifying in the fullest extent of the word. I can’t imagine any other reality. So, what I lose in stability and certain freedoms, I gain in the form of complete autonomy over my career. That means everything to me, and that has made the myriad of sacrifices I’ve had to make along the way so worth it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Carnival of Oddities is a public relations and promotions agency that exclusively represents emerging artists in heavier genres. I have absolutely no interest in the music industry outside the context of working with and supporting independent acts, and that stems from the teenage version of myself. When I was in high school, I got really into bands whose names weren’t necessarily on everybody’s lips, and the fact that they weren’t more well-known despite having clear talent baffled me. I remember coming across The Virgins on YouTube while I was up late doing physics homework one night and genuinely not understanding how I hadn’t somehow heard about them years before (to this day, “One Week of Danger” is still my ringtone). I was having moments of frustration like that with so many bands who I’d see perform amazing sets in tiny dive bars, and I’d leave wishing they were instead performing in the stadiums that I thought they deserved to be in. I wanted the whole world to see in these bands what I did. Little did I know then, that feeling would never go away.

In the years since, I’ve turned my undying urge to tell the world about independent bands I love into a profession. That first took the form of journalism, and I wrote about bands in a whole host of publications, but namely Consequence (formerly known as Consequence of Sound) and my own blog, AMPLIFY. It was during this time where I started receiving press releases, and I was completely disappointed by their quality. I found them to most frequently take on the tone and length of a Wikipedia entry, and as a result I was never compelled to read them — even for artists whose work I really enjoyed. I’m sure I missed out on all kinds of great releases because of this, and how sad is that? I felt like artists deserved better in terms of how their work was presented to the press, and that press releases deserved to be as unique, vibrant, and engaging as the music they are meant to promote. This is how the seed of going my own way in terms of music PR was planted.

So, after completing a bachelor’s in Public Relations and Advertising at DePaul University and a master’s in Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths, University of London, I launched the business. I wanted to do my part to make the media relations process more engaging, personal, and conducive to how I knew journalists wanted to be treated after being one myself. It was never any question that Carnival of Oddities was only going to represent fresh faces. They’re who can stand to benefit from PR the most, and it’s so important for intermediaries in my position to take chances on emerging talent. Otherwise, the global talent pipeline dries up, and we’d see even more stark instances of certain artists holding a sort of monopoly over the industry than we already do. What I care about is giving people chances, and giving people firsts. That’a something I’m so proud to have been able to do with the business. I want to show the world that this band I found who’s getting ready to release their second single can go toe-to-toe with whoever it is that’s being overplayed on major radio stations these days. I want to show the world that a band I’m booking a gig for can do just as strong of a live show as whoever it is that’s selling out stadiums on the other side of town, regardless of if the band in question has even performed in that city or country before. And the thing is, they can. They absolutely can. An artist being independent or “small” does not equate to a lack of ability or potential, and the industry has gotten into a really bad habit of thinking the opposite. I created the business because I wanted to play whatever part I could in destroying that narrative, since I knew it wasn’t true and never has been.

In regards to why Carnival of Oddities only represents emerging artists in heavier genres, that’s mainly because that’s what I like the best. This is one of the fun ways where you get the freedom to be a little selfish when you start a business. But, it’s because these are the genre sectors I enjoy most as a listener that I began noticing their growing absence on festival lineups. I first began clocking this in 2017 and 2018, and that opened my eyes to the rhetoric surrounding heavy music apparently wavering on its cultural capital that had been brewing in tandem at the time. It really made me sad to see the type of music I loved most — the type of music that changed my life and shaped my worldview — get cast aside in such a manner. A few years later, while conducting primary research for my master’s, I uncovered that there was a prevailing attitude that heavier genres were perceived as being less marketable than other genres. This, in turn, would make it easier for an emerging pop star to get off the ground than an emerging punk band. I already knew that Carnival of Oddities was only going to represent heavy music, but my research completely validated that decision. I knew I needed my business to exist in order to help not just emerging artists, but emerging artists in genre sectors that had been cast into the shadows. I knew I needed and wanted to do my part to bring them into the light, where they had just as much of a right to be as anyone else.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I always felt really strongly about not working with investors, and still do to this day. I’m just not willing to sacrifice my complete ownership, independence, and position as the sole stakeholder. That said, I was really intent on funding the business myself as much as possible in lieu of foregoing the pursuit of investment. That meant picking up side jobs. I very briefly worked at a pub to help fund the business, but I quit after eight days. I couldn’t do it. The most advanced thing I could do was pour glasses of wine. I’m very aware of the oxymoron there, but it’s true. Anything else — beer, cocktails, you name it — was way above my realm of capability. I was tired of coming home at midnight, covered in a gnarly combination of beer and sweat, after drunk people yelled at me all day. You need a very specific type of resilience to handle a job like that, and I immediately knew I didn’t have it. I have a tremendous amount of respect for anyone that does, since it really is a skill. Needing to replace my laughably short pub career with something else, I worked as a Visitor Services Assistant at the BFI. I’m delighted to report that I lasted much longer than eight days there, and was in the role for just shy of a year in total. The job mainly consisted of watching films, and I’d rather do that than fill out funding applications any day. I really liked everyone I worked with too, and even with the financial benefits of having that job aside, it was helpful for me to be around people who weren’t involved in the music industry. I felt like having that brain break helped me approach work for the business with a clearer head when I came home from my shifts.

Together, having these jobs gave me an income when I was still getting the business off the ground. Even once I had, what I earned in these positions gave me the ability to do a lot more than I thought would be financially possible in the context of the business’s live music endeavors. I’m grateful for them, and I wouldn’t ever hesitate to get another side job again if I needed to. They gave me freedom, control, and I often had fun too (well, maybe not so much at the pub). Having several jobs at once is definitely really hard, and I know it’s not for everyone. However, I’m glad to have figured out that this worked for me because it allowed me to uphold financial autonomy, which is forever of deep importance to me.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

I think these days most prospective clients who get in touch have found the company’s Instagram as a first port of call, but in the early days of the business, a lot of my first clients were artists I had written about in the past — sometimes even years back. That was and remains something that’s really special to me. I wouldn’t have launched Carnival of Oddities had I not been a journalist first, and these bands were some of the subjects of my first-ever articles. To have entered this new chapter with them as my first batch of clients was really special. They had played a role in my arrival to that point, after all, so to take that leap all together was just amazing. It meant so much to have their trust when I was very much still cutting my teeth as a publicist and a business owner, especially since Carnival of Oddities was my first ever “real job” after finishing grad school. It was lovely to be able to support these artists in a new capacity at a different point in their careers, and they’re the reason the business began to gain traction. That’s something I’ll always hold dear and be forever thankful for. I also felt like it was really beautiful how in the past I had bolstered them by writing an article, and now they were bolstering me by becoming some of my first clients. Because of that, I’ll always feel a deep sense of camaraderie with each of these bands. They played a huge role in why I am where I am toady, and I’ll never forget that.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/carnival_of_oddities?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lindsayteske?s=21&t=ScV8pjy5eWqYgomqe-jo9Q

Image Credits
Funhaus gig poster designed by Harvey Gage The Silver Lines tour poster designed by The Silver Lines