management team

Meet the people behind TuneCore

Jeff Price, Founder, CEO, President

Jeff co-founded New York based independent record label spinART Records and for the past fifteen years has been its General Manager and President. spinART has distributed over 180 releases since its inception, including such bands/artists as Frank Black, You Am I, The Pixies, Apollo Sunshine, John Doe, Apples In Stereo, Vic Chesnutt, Jason Falkner, Kaito, Richard Thompson, Echo and The Bunnymen, Ron Sexsmith, The Fastbacks, Creeper Lagoon, The Church, Lilys, The Eels, Clem Snide, The Dears, Michael Penn and more.

Since 2004, Jeff has contributed to the founding charter and organization of The American Association of Independent Music (AAIM), a non profit non-governmental trade organization representing the interests of its independent label members.

From 1997 to 2001, Jeff worked with eMusic.com, serving first as a consultant, next as interim VP of Content Acquisition and finally as the Senior Director of Music/Business Development. He contributed towards the creation of eMusic's initial business model and created and implemented the first subscription-based music sales and distribution structure.

In November 2005, he founded TuneCore.

Gary Burke, Chief Technology Officer and Head Graphic Designer

Gary Burke has been involved in the Internet industry since its inception. From an early career in corporate communications, building first generation websites for Purolator and TSN, he moved to Los Angeles in 1997 as a design lead at Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX.com) of Santa Monica.

From 1999 to 2002, Gary was a developer, graphic designer and interface architect at eMusic.com, one of the first enterprise-level digital download music sites on the Internet. From eMusic he moved into contracting and consulting for clients in the U.S. and Europe. He was lead developer a graphic artist for spinARTrecords.com with Jeff Price. Until very recently, he was a web applications development consultant and graphic artist contracting with CVS/pharmacy at their Woonsocket, RI, headquarters, producing customized, database-driven high-end web-based software tools for advertising and marketing use.

Gary's areas of expertise include web applications development, interface design and usability, web server configuration and maintenance, client and server side programming and information architecture and graphic design. He is ideally suited for the development of TuneCore, where he has brought cutting-edge Ruby-on-Rails programming to the digital download world.

Peter Wells, SVP Operations, Customer Advocate

Peter Wells left a teaching career at Rutgers University in his home state of New Jersey to join the professionals and entrepreneurs gathering in Silicon Valley. He began as a technical writer and editor, establishing himself at Cisco Systems during their meteoric rise between 1996 and 2000. At Cisco, he rose to head the Style Committee and was named chief editor of the vital, 12,000-page product catalog, managing it through to print and on-line production. A highly skilled pianist, Peter approached eMusic.com in early 2000 and convinced them to rethink their classical music strategy. He was brought on at the director level, and was soon one of the key players in label relations, content acquisition and contract negotiations. Peter helmed a team responsible for everything from marketing-side site development to copy to market positioning. For two years, he helped shape the destiny of eMusic until its acquisition by Universal-Vivendi.

Richard Huey, New Media Marketing / TuneCore Technical Advisor

Dick Huey started Toolshed Incorporated in 2001, with the idea that compelling music content from independent labels and artists, bundled and creatively delivered, could compete strongly for online promotional and sales space. Toolshed provides new media promotion, digital licensing, and online strategy services to a select list of Media and Entertainment clients, as well as state-of-the-art digital promotion tools. Toolshed's clients depend on Toolshed to keep them at the forefront of industry initiatives and opportunities. Toolshed has also handled online audio and video promotion for artists as diverse as Ani DiFranco, Stephen Malkmus, XTC, Richard Thompson, Cat Power, Sleater-Kinney, and many others. Prior to creatng Toolshed, Dick started and for five years developed and ran the new media department at the Beggars Group of independent record labels (XL Recordings, Matador Records, Beggars Banquet, 4AD). One of his high-profile Beggars Group accomplishments is the AVDeck Internet radio station, one of several featured QT radio stations at Apple.com.

Dick is a Soundexchange Board member, representing Matador Records, serving on the licensing, policy, and new business committees. He also served on the creditors committee for the Napster bankruptcy. He is a new media committee member for the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) headquartered in New York. In addition, he is the chairperson and co-founder of INMPA (Independent New Media Professional Association), a New York based professional organization that claims as members new media directors from a large number of top independent record labels in the United States. INMPA provides a forum for discussion of new media opportunities to a cross-section of the independent label community, and also assists in the professional development and profile of its members. Dick graduated from the University of Michigan in 1985 with a concentration in International Business, and speaks Swedish and German as second and third languages.

Gian Caterine, CFO/Treasurer

Gian Caterine is a CPA by training, having spent the initial years of his career (1982-1989) in public accounting, principally with Coopers and Lybrand in Boston, as an audit manager, where he focused on clients in the venture capital industry. Gian then worked briefly in executive search, which led to the formation of an environmental services start-up for which he became CFO. In time, the company went went public. In 1992 Gian joined a venture-funded start-up in the signal technology business as CFO and later became the General Manager of a unit of that business which he bought in a management buyout. In 1998, Gian joined eMusic.com as Director of Business Development for the east coast and Europe, where he consummated many of eMusic's early licensing deals, including Rykodisk, Elvis Costello and Phish. Gian spent a concurrent eighteen month of his eMusic career with NetVentures, an early-stage venture fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts, evaluating media deals before leaving in mid-2001 to focus on music publishing and independent consulting. Gian earned his Bachelor's in Accounting from New Hampshire College in 1982.

Tom Atencio, Advisor

Tom Atencio's career in the music industry has spanned over 20 years. During this time he has been involved with many facets of the industry, including, but not limited to, record labels, live performance and artist management.

In the early 1980s, Tom was the Co-Founder and Vice President of Marketing for Backstreet/MCA Records. He oversaw the presentation for such artists as Tom Petty, Nils Lofgrin and Men Without Hats. He also coordinated the release and marketing plan for Universal Films soundtracks including Where the Buffalo Roam (music by Neil Young), The Border (music by Ry Cooder), Cat People (music by Giorgio Moroder and David Bowie) and others.

During the 1990s, Tom founded Atencio & Associates, a firm specializing in artist management. He represented the influential alternative band Jane's Addiction during their Ritual de lo Habitual release. In addition, he co-founded the visionary Lollapalooza Festival. He was responsible for guiding No Doubt's career during their Tragic Kingdom release, which has sold in excess of 15,000,000 copies worldwide. Tom has represented WEA recording artists New Order (in North America) for the last 18 years. He is also the North American representative for the Joy Division catalog.

In addition to producing an upcoming Joy Division documentary, Tom is currently working in association with Lawrence Bender to develop the feature film Johnny Nemo and a number of other media projects.