Walking Eye, Columbia's A&R research team, is comprised of college enrolled tastemakers who are integrated in local music scenes. With the internet as our primary focus, Walking Eye has been successful at finding promising new artists thru blogs, message boards, digital music data, and user-generated content.
The team serves to discover new music early for the purpose of identifying and learning more about emerging artists and music scenes . This research is shared with Columbia's A&R department thru weekly informational e-blasts, music media players and artist showcases.
Walking Eye was founded in June of 2006 by Maureen Kenny, Andrew Keller, and Christian Stavros, three of Columbia Record's freshest young A&R staffers. Given the chance to revitalize the internship program at Columbia, these three took it into their own hands to give college students a real chance to scope out the music industry from inside. Kenny, Keller, and Stavros hand-pick their interns in hopes to find the future of music executives at a ripe age. Every semester a group of A&R interns are brought in, aiming to live up to the importance of this unique A&R entity.
Since its inception, Walking Eye is responsible for discovering three of Columbia's biggest up-and-coming acts: Metro Station and MGMT. All these bands were discovered by Walking Eye interns and signed shortly after their presentation. Ike Stoneberg, a Skidmore graduate of 2007, brought MGMT to attention in the summer of 2007 and they were signed by fall. Similarly, Jason Aaron uncovered Metro Station in the fall of 2006 and they were signed by spring of 2007. During the summer of 2008 an intern named James Cross, at the time a sophomore at the University of Virginia, pitched a Brooklyn based three-piece band called Chairlift to the staff, which was signed a few months later, and became the third signing in which Walking Eye had played a role. Shortly after, James was hired as a Sony Music college marketing representative.
In the summer of 2009, Carson Donnelly, a former intern from the Fall 2008 semester, was hired as a full time staff member in Columbia's A&R department, and became a part of running Walking Eye. What starts as a group of interns each spring, summer, and fall has the chance to grow into an integral part of the discovery of great new music.
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