CMJ Picks: Panels, Showcases, Parties, Etc.

CMJ is underway and there are a million things going on…here’s a shortlist of panel discussions and presentations – happening at NYU’s Kimmel Center – and showcases going on all around the city:

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19

12:30: “Behind The Board” – Producers and engineers — who’s working and how they are working in today’s music industry.

Speakers include Brian Malouf (Owner/Producer/Mixer, Cookie Jar Recording), Andy Leese (General Manager, RAK), Mark Needham (Owner, MAN Entertainment) David Bendeth (President, House of Loud), Eddie Wenrick (SVP, Shoutz Inc.). Moderator: Jimmy R. Landry, Artist Relations/Producer/Songwriter/Engingeer, Cakewalk/Roland

12:30: “Be Your Own Label” – Panelists discuss how to build and manage your own professional team, including booking agent, music supervisor, manager, music lawyer and more

Speakers include Darren Gallop, Founder/CEO, Marcato, Jesse Israel, Cantora Records, Fredrik Saroea Frontman/Songwriter/Producer/Label Owner, DATAROCK/Young Aspiring Professionals, Eric Sheinkop, CEO/Co-Founder, Music Dealers, LLC.
Moderator: Sujan Hong-Raphael, Senior Label Relations Manager, eMusic.

10:30 – 6PM: Showcase – The Free Yr Radio/KEXP showcases at the Ace Hotel (Zola Jesus, We Are Augustines, Portugal. The Man, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah)

2 – 8PM: Showcase – Cantora Labs SmartLounge – (Ill Fits, DOM, etc.) The Thompson LES Hotel @ 190 Allen Street

Click for the full Wednesday schedule.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20

11AM: “Next Generation of A&R Executives” – Doing A&R is a dream job. We will look at the challenges facing this generation of A&R executives, the methods of A&R discovery, and what A&R really means in the music business today.

Speakers include Drew Thurlow (A&R/Marketing, Nonesuch), Harinder Rana (Senior Director of A&R, Lava Records/Universal Republic), Isaac Heymann (A&R, Leverage Records), Ryan Whalley (A&R, Warner Bros. Records). Moderator: Allison Hagendorf, Fuse TV

10:30 – 6PM: Showcase – The Free Yr Radio/KEXP showcases at the Ace Hotel (Widowspeak, Givers, Dum Dum Girls, The Lonely Forest)

12 – 6:30: Showcase – NYCTaper Daytime Party at Cakeshop (Widowspeak, Savoir Adore, etc.)

2 – 8PM: Showcase – Cantora Labs SmartLounge – (Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Gotye, etc.) The Thompson LES Hotel @ 190 Allen Street

12:30: The Business of Music & Money: Who You Want and Need on Your Team – A panel  who together have over 100 years of experience in every facet of the music business, talk straight regarding the real income streams, how to collect them, who are your rainmakers (in addition to yourself), who to hire to protect you from the business (and yourself) and who you need to chase down every dollar.

Speakers include Gerri Leonard (Founder & CEO, Leonard Business Management), Sara Qazi (Guided Portfolio Manager & Advisor, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney) Peter Katsis (Partner, Prospect Park) Joe D’Ambrosio (Founder & CEO, Joe D’Ambrosio Management), Monika Tashman (Partner, Hiscock & Barclay). Moderator: Sara Qazi, Guided Portfolio Manager & Advisor, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney

3:30: Publishing/Licensing: It’s All About The Songs – Collaboration with your teams and partners is paramount. The quality of the songs, and the people helping to place them, are what prevail in today’s publishing and licensing landscape.

Speakers include Eric F. Galen, Glen Phillips (Director, Windish Music Licensing), Seth Faber (Partner & Director of Marketing and Artist Development, Primary Wave Music), Jessica Sobhraj (Sir Groovy) Brooke Primont (VP Music Placement & Licensing, Razor and Tie). Moderator: Eric Galen, Founder & CEO, Music180.com

Click for the full Thursday schedule

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21

10:10: Getting in Synch with Section 115 – Do the complexities of music licensing cause the industry to lose out on creative business models? The Section 115 Reform Act (SIRA) was introduced five years ago to offer a mechanism whereby legitimate music services could clear all the necessary rights to make large numbers of musical works quickly available through blanket mechanical licensing. This year, it has been suggested that Congress should bring back the legislation and extend that blanket to synchronizations as well. Would such a change in the law put the music industry back on track? Would it be an incursion on the fair use rights of consumers? This panel will address these complex issues and many more related topics.

Speakers: Roger Miller, Chief Executive Office and Chief Investment Officer, The Bicycle Music Company; Joel M. Schoenfeld, Esq., Partner, Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP; Christos Badavas, Esq., Vice President and Senior Council, The Harry Fox Agency; Barry I. Slotnick, Esq., Partner and Chair, Intellectual Property and Entertainment Litigation Practice Group, Loeb & Loeb, LLP

11 – 12:15 – A Conversation with Doug McVehil, VEVO and Brian Dales, Vocalist for The Summer Set and PANEL: The Explosion of Video Content

Speakers include Brian Dales Alexander Kisch (Head of Business Development, VEVO) Ron Schneier (COO North America, Base79), Brandon Martinez (Co-Founder & CEO, INDMUSIC) Jessica Kantor (Head of Marketing & Content, Livestream) Doug Mcvehil. Moderator: David Moffey, CEO, Baeble

Monetizing video, video rights, and different delivery points, from direct to fan sites to large destinations, and how the right blend of these options can help build a band’s brand and drive revenue. Preceded by a conversation with Brian Dales and Doug McVehil, VEVO’s Senior Vice President of Music Programming Talent & Content Operations.

10:30 – 6PM: Showcase – The Free Yr Radio/KEXP showcases at the Ace Hotel (Waters, Atlas Sound)

11 – 7: The Deli’s Stompbox Exhibit at Googie’s Lounge and Ludlow Guitars: Featuring MOOG, TC Electronic, Digitech, Hardwire, Line6, Eventide, T-Rex, Pigtronix, Fridgebuzz, Z-Vex. This event will also be happening from 11-7 on Saturday.

11 – 9: Fred Perry Artists Lounge @ Stratosphere Sound (Caveman, Waters, 1, 2, 3, Tall Ships, Memoryhouse, etc.) – Join us for a rare glimpse inside the recording process along with a fun Brooklyn Brewery-sponsored CMJ/AES-style mixer. Info/RSVP here.

12:20 – 1:20 KEYNOTE: A Conversation with Daniel Glass, Founder/President of the Glassnote Entertainment Group (Mumford & Sons, Phoenix, etc.) and Matt Pinfield at the Kimmel Center.

2PM: On The Verge – Young professionals on the verge of breaking artists and building careers.

Speakers include Brendan Brown (Founder/Cheif Mediarologist, Social Turbine), Bojan Jovanovic (Agent, Windish Agency), and Sarah Hogan (Senior Publicist, Force Field PR), and Kileen Oberle (Manager, Massive CIA). Moderator: Michelle McDevitt, President/Co-Founder, Audible Treats

Click for the full Friday schedule.

There’s a ton going on Saturday as well, with interesting showcases happening at Vaudeville Park in Williamsburg and The Living Room c/o The Lovely Hearts Club and Music Hall of Williamsburg c/o Duck Down vs. Blacksmith.

Also, check out all the showcases being put on by our friends at The Deli over the next few days..

Brooklyn’s Newest Studio: Anthony Gallo Opens Virtue and Vice for Production, Tracking, Mixing

GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN: There’s no substitute for experience, a fact that Anthony “Rocky” Gallo is taking firmly into account as he expands the buzzing Brooklyn studio scene by another degree. His addition to the Broken Land’s soundscape: Virtue and Vice, a just-right room that he’s growing in Greenpoint.

Gallo has set up shop as he exits his position of Chief Engineer at Manhattan’s Cutting Room Studios, his professional home since 2003 (he was also briefly partnered in Williamsburg’s 1.6 studios, before it changed ownership and became Three Egg). In the process of working with major names like John Legend, Carrie Underwood, Jon Bon Jovi, Yeasayer, The XX, and KRS1, along with scores of indie artists, Gallo became convinced that there was a need for a New York City tracking/mixing room that wasn’t too big, and wasn’t too small.

Instead of investing in a massive gear list, Gallo has stocked Virtue and Vice with a tight but superior inventory of the components he knows best, and wired them into a naturally light space that facilitates comfort and creative flow. Filling out 800 sq. ft. in a Greenpoint commercial loft building close to the L train, Rocky G believes V&V can excel and succeed in NYC.

What kind of space were you looking for to go into business?
The big thing to me was creating an accurate, great-sounding listening environment. I was looking for windows with good light, a very clean design and affordability. This building had all of those things — and I spent two or three years looking for a room before I settled on one.

My theory is that the old way of making records is completely dead: control rooms, live rooms, machine rooms…the way they did it for 40 years isn’t working any more. I wasn’t trying to create this super-isolated environment with a control room and a live room – instead there’s a large vocal booth with a large control/main space. I was talking to a colleague who said he thought that around $500 a day with engineer is the magic number, and that was my main goal.

In Brooklyn, that approach can work out well for my clients and for me – you can break even without having to be booked every day of the month. I also have two or three other guys that come in, and they can charge a little less if I’m working in Nashville. It’s a flexible thing.

What niche did you design Virtue and Vice to fill?
The reality is that artists spend a day or two doing drums — that’s what it’s been for most of the records I’ve done. So why spend money for a buildout and treatments for a room you’ll use one or two days a month? For the gear, it’s the same thing: I’m buying pres and compressors that will never go down in value. If you’re going to buy something, you should never have to say later on, “That was stupid.”

So really the idea is to get as clean of a signal as you can get for overdubs and guitar tracking. This is a place where you can set the amp up, run the speaker cable and actually hear what you’re doing — all the things you should be capable of that a lot of people ignore, as far as the indie market goes.

Good feng shui was obviously on the top of your mind when laying this studio out.
A mentor of mine told me once that a great couch can mean more than a $15,000 microphone. As sad as that is for me as a gear head, I’ll realize that that’s true, and I’ll stop myself from buying a new compressor all the time.

As soon as you can make a client feel that they’re not in a recording studio, and feel like they’re in a living room instead and completely relax, they can focus on doing work. The studio environment freaks people out. Back in the day, that was the office for studio musicians, but now it’s a rarity. Making records might happen more often, but a lot less time is spent in the process.

So I was going for a more comfortable environment, rather than saying I had three Telefunken microphones — it’s the reality that it doesn’t matter as much as the feel of the place. Not to say the equipment can’t be good, but I realized that where to put your energy was in a really clean, comfortable environment. Because 90% of the time the project will require one microphone – three tops – for overdubs.

You expect to be doing a lot of mixing here as well, right?
Mixing is most of the work that I do, as far as my clients go, but production, mixing, and overdubs are all my main personal workload. When it comes to mixing, for me the Dangerous 2-BUS has definitely added a huge dimension to the stereo image. I come out of Pro Tools HD3 into the Neve 1081 channels or compressors – which I use like a strip of the console — then back into the Dangerous again. The amount of clarity and overall fatness the combination creates was a huge, noticeable difference.

You’ve been steadily building up an impressive portfolio in NYC and beyond. What would you say is driving your evolution as an engineer/mixer?
The whole Manhattan music production scene has changed more in the last in the last year or two than in the previous twenty years. The way people are releasing and recording records is transforming: Now you can work in Pro Tools on your laptop without an interface. Five years ago that was never even thought of – you were carrying around an Mbox at least.

As far as my approach, I figured out how you can make a record for very little overhead, and still make it sound really great. You should be able to make a major release for $10-15K. Those live KEXP sessions at the Cutting Room really opened my eyes. Great bands like Yeasayer were coming in and saying, “This sounds better than the record,” and I was thinking, “I just spent 25 minutes on this, and you must have spent at least two months making your record. What’s wrong here?”

So you don’t need everything in the world — just experience and doing it time and time again. The theory is just you knowing what you want to hear in the end. I would love to work on a big console today, but I just started to realize you don’t need it. It’s really not important. And time after time I found myself using the desk less and less, based on the short amount of time I had with the client.

On that note, what type of clients are you appealing to with Virtue and Vice?
Pretty much any stage of their project. If someone’s looking to do a record and they hit us up, we’ll find a place to do the drums for the day. We take a strategic approach to production, rather than saying, “Show up for your first day, we’ll set mics up, and see what happens.”

As a staff engineer, for example, I was constantly seeing that people were coming in with problematic drums – they didn’t have their time signature noted, their tempos weren’t set, etc…. I’d rather go over that with my clients in advance, because it will make things challenging for me if I’m the one mixing it down the road. I think the best thing to do is spend some time before you come in, so you make the right decisions before you go in to work.

Overall, the target audience is someone working on a budget, but who still needs to make something really great. I know I’m not the cheapest, but I definitely have the experience and probably work faster than most people, being the product of a Manhattan studio. When your client is getting charged up to $175 an hour you have to be fast and not think twice about what you’re doing. And that’s how I was trained.

You had your choice of boroughs and neighborhoods to set out a shingle. What’s going on in Greenpoint that made you select  it as the home for Virtue and Vice?
A lot of my colleagues are in Manhattan and they’re saying to me, “You’re going to have trouble getting people out here (in Greenpoint).” Some of them say it’s like going to New Jersey, but I tell them that all my clients live out there.

The only people still living in Manhattan are label heads, and how much longer will they be working at that label? The clientele has really moved out here, and the people that have been making music here for the last ten years are growing up, and getting much more developed in what they’re creating. The people doing this for a living are not afraid to spend money to get the right person to do the job. Young guys see how it’s going, and how records as are being made.

Brooklyn’s Greenpoint and Bushwick areas are becoming a mecca for making music: The artists are there, and the studios are there because it’s less expensive to operate. The whole Manhattan recording scenario to me seems bizarre: high rent and a small room to work in. The people who are doing volume recoding are out in Brooklyn. There’s a lot of great places coming up, with guys coming from Manhattan studios who are super-experienced and putting together really tight rooms, like Kevin Blackler who came from Sony (and established Blackler Mastering in Brooklyn). I think the mastering guys like him have it the best, because they can be anywhere.

There are a lot of options already for artists and producers working at that level you just mentioned, as we’re sure you aware. What made you decide to look past that and open another NYC audio facility?
My next door neighbor across the hall is doing the same thing in his off-time, and when I moved into this building, he basically said the same thing, “Another studio?” I said, “I know…”  But this is not a hobby for me. This is the way I live. It’s the way I purchased my equipment: I didn’t give up my old job and make a bunch of miscellaneous purchases with my severance package. I learned how to make records from guys doing it for 20 years, and then I made records in order to buy this gear.

Yes, it seems like the market is flooded with studio choices. and I know a lot of great guys are getting out of doing it, because its flooded with more kids coming out of recording school than there are bands to record, and the young kids are the ones doing it for a six-pack and a pizza. It’s a funny thing, how many people are opening up studios: They think it’s affordable –  that they can charge $300 a day in exchange for making an investment of $15,000 and make it right back.

But it’s not an easy job, and it’s not for somebody who’s in it for the short term. I think I’m finally getting a real grasp of what to do and how to do it, and I’m talking to people who have been doing it for 25 years who are getting their minds blown with the recent developments, and changing what they’re doing.

There’s always been people who are good talkers and will get the gig, but this is a long, slow, steady course. The more you put in, the more you’ll get out of it, and the better records you’ll make. That’s the best way to approach it.

– David Weiss

Cutting Room Studios Hosts Tanlines, Yeasayer, Shout Out Louds

Continuing its partnership with KEXP, hosting the radio station’s NYC in-studio performances, The Cutting Room Studios recently recorded live sessions with Midnight Masses, Tanlines, Shout Out Louds, The Clientele, Dylan At The Movies, Fitz And The Tantrums and Yeasayer among others.

The Cutting Room Studios also recently hosted sessions with pop-punk triplets The Indecent, working with engineer/producer Mark Dearnley (AC/DC, Def Leopard, Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne), as well as PT Walkley, and Daniel Merriweather.

NYC’s Francis And The Lights and Seattle indie rock band The Blakes recently mastered their new records at The Cutting Room, with resident mastering engineer Tony Gillis (Prince, Jay-Z).

And, music for Roger Ross Williams’ Academy Award-winning film, Music by Prudence, was recorded and mixed at The Cutting Room Studios.

The film won in the category of “Documentary: Short Subject.” Congrats to producer Ted Mason and Cutting Room engineer Joseph Colmenero for their efforts.

Click for more on The Cutting Room’s work with KEXP, and check out our ’09 feature on the studio HERE.

22 Bands, 6 Days: Live From The Cutting Room Studios

During CMJ, The Cutting Room Studios hosted KEXP’s live-to-air in-studio performances showcasing 22 bands in six days.

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson (see video below), Soft Black, Chief, Surf City, The XX, Deastro, Choir of Young Believers and Alec Ounsworth were among the artists who played The Cutting Room’ Studio A for KEXP audiences listening online and via 91.5 FM in NYC.

A steady stream of new and established artists from all over the world are stopping by The Cutting Room to do in-studios for KEXP. This week, it’s Brit-pop progenitors Travis, and New Zealand’s Bang Bang Eche.

The Cutting Room’s also been busy with record projects, including the upcoming record by French contemporary jazz guitarist Marc Anotoine. Tommy Uzzo has been mixing that album in Studio A. And in the mastering suite, Tony Gillis has mastered records for The Fray, J Lo, Three Doors Down, Sean Kingston and more.

Brooklyn-based folk-rock singer/songwriter Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson plays live at The Cutting Room Studios in NYC for KEXP’s CMJ in-studio series:

Now In NYC, KEXP Goes Live From The Cutting Room

East Village: The NYC indie music scene got a huge boost when Seattle’s KEXP DJ John Richards moved out here to broadcast part-time from Brooklyn’s Radio New York studios. His two shows, John In The Morning and To The Five Boroughs, feature in-studio interviews and performances with up-and-coming bands, recorded and mixed (and shot for webcast) at The Cutting Room Studios.

When Richards connected with David Crafa, owner of The Cutting Room, he found a kindred spirit. “I’ve been listening to KEXP online for years and have been a big fan,” says Crafa. “I was really excited when I found out John was going to be establishing an audience terrestrially here in NYC, because I’ve always been unimpressed by NYC radio programming. I wanted to get involved with KEXP, so I reached out.”

Richards saw that Crafa shared the KEXP vision. “We had the same goal — to build a community here in NYC,” Richards shares. “That’s what he wanted to do with The Cutting Room, and that’s what we’re all about at KEXP. The artists are a part of our community and we want to create the best environments for them, creatively. The Cutting Room totally goes above and beyond to do that for our artists.”

KEXP hosts a smart mix of bands for in-studios that keep listeners on their toes. From Phoenix to Phenomenal Handclap Band, …Trail of Dead to Electric Tickle Machine, you may be hearing a band without a single record release one week, and an artist you saw on SNL the next.

WHY NYC NEEDS KEXP

“NYC’s been lacking a KEXP-like station that champions up-and-coming bands,” says Richards. “Over the last five years, we’ve been coming out here to do remote broadcasts, and found that a lot of New Yorkers were actually discovering NYC bands listening to our show online. A lot of people out there don’t make it out to the smaller clubs to see bands, so KEXP has been the local music station for a lot of cities, including New York.”

In mid-September, SonicScoop sat in on Autodrone’s in-studio set at The Cutting Room. And, a true KEXP experience, it was our first time hearing the five-piece rock band from Brooklyn. After a short interview with Richards, Autodrone played a five-song set, a proper sampling of their dark and atmospheric style of noise-pop. Cutting Room engineer Anthony “Rocky” Gallo captured the performance on a Thursday, and mixed it for the following Monday broadcast of John in the Morning.

“At KEXP, there’s always been a conscious effort to cover new and up-and-coming bands, and in NYC, that’s never difficult to do,” says Richards. “There are always great bands coming out of NYC. We’ll have bands who haven’t even released music yet, which I think is important — that they get an opportunity to play in this studio setting.”

Having up-and-coming bands experience The Cutting Room is important to Crafa, too. He’s been producing records and running some form of a NYC recording studio since his dorm days at NYU. He opened The Cutting Room 15 years ago. In that time, the studio has survived radical changes in the record industry and now accommodates an increasingly artist-driven business, offering full-on recording and production and mastering services, and video production and web development for artists, labels, production companies, etc.

By donating studio time to KEXP, Crafa plays a much larger role in NYC music than just record producer or studio owner. “It feels really good to be ‘giving back’ by contributing to a community effort here in NYC,” says Crafa. “We really enjoy working with the KEXP artists, and offer them free mixing and mastering on one of their tracks, as part of the KEXP/Cutting Room experience. They’ve been thrilled to get a high-quality, mastered track out of it, in addition to the radio and online exposure, and video.”

VIDEO BUILDS THE RADIO STAR

Typically, KEXP shoots video of the in-studio sessions as well, which get posted on their own website and distributed via the featured bands. The Cutting Room works closely with KEXP’s videographer, Louis Sparre/Electric Tweed, in post-production. “These are HD videos with two or three camera angles,” says Crafa, “Lou edits them and we synchronize the audio and blast it out in like a couple hours. They really come out great.”

The Phenomenal Handclap Band – 15 to 20 (Live on KEXP) from KEXP RADIO on Vimeo.

As Richards assures, video will be a growing component of KEXP’s music coverage. “The video we produced at Bumbershoot and our SXSW sessions were incredible — we teamed with Microsoft Silverlight and shot PJ Harvey there with a five-camera HD shoot, live,” notes Richards. “Now, we’re doing a whole series at The Cutting Room, and our focus into the new year is going to be more and more video podcasting. We ultimately want to capture every one of these interviews and performances on video.”

Since working with KEXP, The Cutting Room’s also partnered with Sparre/Electric Tweed to provide its other studio clients with the super high-quality video content. “These videos come out so cool and the artists are really happy with them, and this got us thinking,” says Crafa, “Why don’t we offer this as a service? So, we got together with Lou, and we actually just finished a project with our first artist independently of KEXP, an artist called Mother Moon.”

Coming up for CMJ, KEXP will be going full-swing with live in-studio sessions with The Soft Black, Chief, The Blakes, and Alec Ounsworth, among others. All live from The Cutting Room. Check out the full schedule here!

“We’ll feature local bands during CMJ, bands who are here playing the festival, and we’ll usually mix in a few Seattle bands too,” says Richards. “These are bands we could host at an in-studio in Seattle, but there’s something about having them when they’re out in NYC playing. You capture something there that you might not capture in Seattle, a kind of cool vibe of them being out here.”

Tune in here, to SonicScoop, for regular video of KEXP in-studio sessions at The Cutting Room, starting with their CMJ coverage! And if you haven’t checked him out already, tune into 91.5 here in NYC to hear John in the Morning M-F from 9am-12pm, and To The Five Boroughs from 8-10 on Thursday nights. John in the Morning is also simulcast live in Seattle between 6am – 10am PST, and can be heard in any time zone on www.kexp.org.