Where was the Salt Lick Incubator in the 80s and 90s? Bands that were almost famous or broke up for one reason or another would probably want to know. For many, their bands didn’t call it quits because of personality clashes, as we saw with mainstream bands such as Mötley Crüe, Led Zeppelin, The Jam, Minutemen, The Police, and many more. Perhaps the young artists didn’t have the right representation. Maybe something or someone didn’t allow them to transition from being talented to have sustainable careers.
For businessman, philanthropist, and former president of Berklee College of Music, Roger Brown, that thought kept him awake at night, he said. “I got tired of seeing musicians with enormous talent who, for some reason, got sidetracked by exploitative people in the industry. Or, by that problem of, okay, you're no longer in school, you need a job to pay the bills. You're also trying to be a writer and a performer, which wears you down. Eventually, you can't take it anymore, so you give up. The thing is, while most very successful musicians are talented, most talented musicians are not successful as they might be.”
Salt Lick Incubator is an effort to change that paradigm. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit artist development organization, its mission is to support aspiring musicians by easing the burden of that treacherous part of an artist’s early journey—ensuring that those with enormous writing and musical talent capacity get heard.
Earlier this year, Brown and his colleague, Liza Levy, started the Incubator, a place “where fans converge, and musicians emerge.” They’re building an ecosystem of trusted partners—professional songwriters, producers, agents, managers, lawyers, publicists, session musicians, and others with excellent track records in the industry. These partners are passionate about helping emerging artists navigate their careers and avoid the common pitfalls in the music industry.
The Incubator also offers project grants that can be game changers for artists seeking to record or promote their bands and further their careers. Through workshops, songwriting retreats, interviews, in-studio or on-location showcases, and a YouTube channel with a show called Salt Lick Sessions; people are getting “up close and personal” with up-and-coming artists, such as Kid Sistr, one of their best bands.
The all-women band was formed at Frost School of Music. Bassist Sara Keden and guitarist Isabella Englert who goes by Sabel, are both alums. Drummer, Rebecca Webster, who goes to the University of South California, completes the pop-rock trio. According to fans, they’re bursting with bubble gum sweetness, oozing with the “palatable peculiarity of the 80s new wave.”
Sabel and Sara met at Frost in a songwriting class, where the teacher randomly selected them to work on a song together, and the rest was history. “Every time we were paired together, we enjoyed the process,” said Sabel. “With co-writing, you don't know who you're going to be meshed with, but it was really fun whenever we were paired up together. One day we were like, maybe we should get together and see if we can exercise this co-writing thing.”
Sabel and Sara ended up writing their first song called “Little Sister” about . . . their little sisters! “We just kind of kept meeting in our dorms and be like, do you want to write today? And that just evolved,” said Sabel, who recalls how one song turned into two songs and then four.
It wasn’t long before the young artists booked a hometown show in New York over a winter break. They needed a drummer, and Sara knew Rebecca from back home. She connected them and said, “Let’s make a trio!” And suddenly, Kid Sistr was born.
When Brown first heard them, he was speechless. “They knocked me out! They're fantastic musicians,” he said. “To pull off a trio, you got to have musicianship. The name of the band is great. The photography is great. Everything about them is so good. Sometimes people with that punk ethos are interesting and edgy, but they don't play that well. But these young women can play. I love their songwriting. The song they did for us, "T-Shirt,” was very well written and orchestrated.”
Kid Sistr’s songs “T-Shirt,” “La La La,” and “Please Dump Him” are smart and sweet, and they transport you back to the 80s, like the perfect soundtrack for the American teen iconic flicks of that era like Breakfast Club or Pretty in Pink, starring Molly Ringwald. As he tells it, Salt Lick Incubator wants to be part of Kid Sistr’s journey, propelling them into a successful future. Last month, they produced their “T-Shirt” video, giving the band direction on how to keep drum bleed out of the vocals, perform for a music video, and things like that.
“Salt Lick Incubator has a smart thing going,” said Sara. “They’re helping artists like us create content that is high quality. Over the past couple of years, the whole industry has become a content-focused industry. So having that product for us is super, super helpful. And it's inspiring to work with people who are so skilled and experienced in such a high-class studio.”
Salt Lick Incubator shot Kid Sistr’s video on the soundstages of the Los Angeles Center Studio, where “Dream Girls” and many other films have been filmed. “They gave us this gift of content, and we were blown by it,” said Sara. “We were so happy to capture these live videos, which we couldn’t afford.”
The video shoot is just one part of Salt Lick Incubator’s many initiatives to help young artists get their voices heard. “Our job is to try to get that [video] out to the world and to help them develop their audience,” concluded Brown. “But we're just a little part of their journey. They're doing all the work; we’re here just trying to give them a megaphone to allow more people to hear their music."
