I Oh You Launches Management Arm Converge

Australian record label and concert promoter I Oh You has set up a management arm, Converge Management. 

– Converge

Part of Michael Gudinski’s The Mushroom Group, Converge will be run by I Oh You co-founders Johann Ponniah and Scott Armstrong. The company handles artists, producers and songwriters.

Ponniah said in a statement, “I Oh You has been something that has consumed the majority of my adult life and has allowed me to work with artists in a way that my teenage self used to dream of. I’m really psyched to see it now expand in a manner that will allow us to work with artists that we love in a way that we haven’t been able to thus far.”

Converge launched with four acts. Sub Pop-signed Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, which tours the UK in September with London shows sold out in a week; The Belligerents, signed worldwide with Sony Music; German-born producer, mixer and sound engineer Konstantin Kersting; and songwriter Lewis Stephenson.

I Oh You, which had its beginnings throwing a house party with bands to pay off a gas bill, went on to throw dance parties along the Australian East Coast and set up a label that signed crossover acts DZ Deathrays, Violent Soho, Snakadaktal, Bleeding Knees Club and City Calm Down.

Its move into management comes as Kurt Bailey’s Sydney-based Mirror Music Group – management for Gang Of Youths (who play 10 U.S. shows June 2-11) and Converge Management, among others – set up a record label arm. Bailey hired former music director of Sydney community radio station FBi, Stephen Goodhew, to run its A&R division.