About

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Cool Adjacent Management is an artist management company started by music industry veteran Ian MacKinnon.

Like a lot of music fans, Ian spent his youth collecting as much music as financially possible. He played in bands (most notably Strictly Ballroom; a band that also included members of Beachwood Sparks, The Postal Service, The Minor Canon, Dntel, The Album Leaf, Moving Units, All Night Radio, Datamaps, and a bunch of other bands). He was also a DJ at the legendary Los Angeles radio station KXLU 88.9 FM, wrote for various music publications, and worked in record stores. 

After spending some time doing licensing for ringtones and some music supervision, he spent a decade at Napster/Rhapsody headquarters in Seattle, working with labels, managers, booking agents, and artists as the day-to-day indie label marketing manager while also heading up the service's ad-supported music initiatives and live events. After surviving a series of layoffs at the company, his position was eventually eliminated, and he had to figure out what he wanted to do next. 

Moving back to Southern California in late 2018, he slowly started to refocus his interest in new and unsigned artists. By late 2020 he had begun tracking a bunch of artists that he found through TikTok, Spotify, and other sources. In early 2021, he launched an online merchandise company called The New Merch. And by the middle of 2021, he had a targeted list of talented artists who he wanted to help navigate the new music business. So he started contacting these artists, and the Cool Adjacent roster quickly took shape. 

Ian is excited and honored to work with some of the best artists making music today. And as he often explains about the company's name, "the artists are the Cool, I'm the Adjacent.”