ASCAP and Music Unites Present Night School on Tuesday, 1/18: Managers – When and Why You Need Them

ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), the leading U.S. performing rights organization, and Music Unites, a non-profit organization supporting musical artists and professionals through performance and education opportunities, have teamed up to present four workshops on integral aspects of the music business.

The third of four sessions, “Managers — When and Why You Need Them” will be held on Tuesday January 18 2011 at Norwood, 241 West 14th Street, New York, NY, focusing on management and featuring a panel of industry insiders including:

• Dawn Barger from Post Hoc Management (Nicole Atkins, The National)
• Melissa Emert-Hutner from Hoseb Management (Ethan Allen, Anna Wayland)
• James Johnson from Pilot Creative Services, Inc. (Benny Blanco, Neon Hitch)
• Michael Iurato from In De Goot Management (10 Years, Theory of a Deadman)

Previous ASCAP/Music Unites workshops focused on music publishing, and artists’ DIY options. The comprehensive series is intended to provide participants with a setting for the exchange of ideas and perspectives on navigating a course for survival and success in today’s dynamic industry, as well as networking opportunities.

Each workshop consist s of an hour long panel discussion followed by a 20 minute Q&A session. Imagem Music artist Rebecca Jordan is scheduled to end next Tuesday evening with a live performance.

Admission for each class is $20 and can be purchased at www.musicunites.org/events. 100% of proceeds will benefit Music Unites.

CMJ + SonicScoop Present Studio Time, Sponsored By The Deli

CMJ has announced its full schedule of showcases and panel presentations! There’s a ton going on next week, find it all at http://cmj.thesocialcollective.com events and plan wisely!

Definitely check out our “Studio Time” event — being co-sponsored by The Deli Magazine — happening on Friday, October 22 at NYU’s Kimmel Center. Studio Time will be a unique two-part panel series, providing emerging artists, engineers and producers with recording and mixing insights and inspiration from expert music creators.

Part I (12:30 – 2:30) is “Mix Reconstruction” – Three top mixers take you through their personal mixing process, explaining how they approached and ultimately mixed a song from their discography, playing pre- and post-mix examples to illustrate how they work. Basic techniques and creative solutions will all be examined in this illuminating event.

Featured mixers include: Nicolas Vernhes (Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective), Jason Goldstein (The Roots, Bilal) and Shane Stoneback (Vampire Weekend, Sleigh Bells).

Part II (2:45 – 4:45) is “Rough To Refined: Exploring Recording From Demo to the Finished Product” – In this lively forum, artists and their producers appear together to play rough demos for the audience, explaining how their complex collaborations resulted in the final, polished song that ultimately made it onto their album. Professional workflow concepts and the creative possibilities between producers and artists will come to light in this inside look at modern music production.

Jim Keller and Franz Nicolay, Phil Palazzolo and Nicole Atkins, and Chris Zane (Passion Pit, The Walkmen, Suckers) with guitarist Seth Jabour of Les Savy Fav.

Studio Time sponsor The Deli will be hosting 7 showcases at multiple venues throughout the week, featuring Bear Hands, Keepaway, Deluka, Buke & Gass, Pearl & The Beard, La Strada, Anni Rossi and more. Click for the full schedule!

And here are some highlights from the panel program running at the Kimmel Center next week (Click for full schedule):

Tuesday, 10/19

2PM: American Hardcore and the Rise of Modern Rock, featuring Vic Bondi, Jack Rabid, Michelle Rakshys, Matt Sweeney and Steven Blush

3:30: The 360 Deal Does A 180, featuring David Boxenbaum, Bernard Cahill, Jim Cooperman, Fred Goodman and J. Reid Hunter.

3:30: The Sync Is Clogged, featuring Joe Cuello, Daniel Gross, Elliot A. Resnik, Esq., George Stein and Shayna Zaid.

Wednesday 10/20

2PM: The Who, What, Why and Differences of the Performing Rights World, featuring Gary Adelman, Samantha Cox, Marc Emert-Hutner and Laura Williams

3:30: Labels in the Black and How They Are Succeeding, featuring Craig Balsam, A.J. Benson, Fred Feldman, Dan Goldberg and Steve Savoca

3:30: Start Me Up (Real, first-hand advice on music start-ups), featuring Andrew Dreskin, Chris Fralic, Catherine Radbill and Daniel Zaccagnino

3:30: The Zeros and Ones of Music Creation, featuring Bryan Abreu, Tim O’Heir and Vinny Valentino

Thursday, 10/21

11AM: Times Are Tough; Keep Your Composer: featuring Andrew Hollander, Ryan Shore, T. Griffin and Jonathan Zalben.

12:30: The “What’s Cool” Culture of Indie Placements: featuring Stephanie Diaz-Matos, Tom Eaton, Eric Johnson, Bryan Ray Turcotte and Steve Yanovsky

CMJ also offers mentoring sessions on Music Publishing and Licensing, Music Production, Artist Management, New Media, College Radio and more! For more on CMJ, other panels, artists, shows, etc. and to register, visit http://cmj.com/marathon/register.

The Loom, Oh Land Play Backyard Brunch Sessions In Brooklyn

Sunday’s (10/10/10) Backyard Brunch Session combined three of our favorite things — outdoor live music, October weather, and pizza — gourmet homemade pizza no less.

Launched in the Spring by music biz multitasker and foodie David Chaitt, Backyard Brunch Sessions feature local bands cooking in Chaitt’s Brooklyn kitchen, then feasting with and performing for an intimate audience in his backyard.

The Sessions are produced as video episodes by Chaitt, West Egg Productions and NYC Taper.

Yesterday’s Session was the last of the season, and featured Brooklyn-based indie-folk band The Loom and electro-pop trio Oh Land.

The Loom’s set of folk ballads and Americana-style indie rock felt perfectly autumnal in all its shades of brass (french horn and trumpet), acoustic guitar and banjo, homemade washtub bass, drums, and warm, sing-along group harmonies.

We’re looking forward to hearing The Loom’s upcoming new record, which was recorded in NYC at Mavericks Studio with producer/engineer Allen Farmelo (look out for our feature on Allen coming soon!), and mastered by Howie Weinberg at Masterdisk.

Check this band out! They’re playing Joe’s Pub next week, and Bowery Ballroom with the wonderful Horse Feathers, November 13.

Next up was Oh Land performing a fun, stripped down electro pop set on glockenspiel, two omnichords and a looping machine.

Led by Danish singer/songwriter Nanna Øland Fabricius, Oh Land have a cool sound and the minimal electro setup for the Backyard (typically all-acoustic) showcased their inventive songs and experimental-pop execution really well. Oh Land’s U.S. debut album will be coming out on Epic Records this Fall.

Over this past summer, Backyard Brunch Sessions featured a nice range of artists including Nicole Atkins, Team B, Franz Nicolay, Pearl and the Beard and more. Click to watch the episodes on YouTube or http://www.youtube.com/user/backyrdsessions.

With the season for outdoor music coming to a close, Chaitt is moving operations indoors and will host the first Brunch After Dark at Brooklyn Bowl on November 8, featuring artists who’ve graced the Backyard including Oh Land, Arms, The Canon Logic, Fatty Acid and The Courtesy Tier. Click for more info and tix!

CMJ + SonicScoop Present Studio Time, October 22

We’re excited to announce our partnership with CMJ to present Studio Time during the CMJ 2010 Music Marathon.

On Friday, October 22 at NYU’s Kimmel Center, we will be producing a unique two-part panel series, providing emerging artists, engineers and producers with recording and mixing insights and inspiration from expert music creators. Check it out:

Part I (12:30 – 2:30): Mix Reconstruction
Three top mixers take you through their personal mixing process, explaining how they approached and ultimately mixed a song from their discography, playing pre- and post-mix examples to illustrate how they work. Basic techniques and creative solutions will all be examined in this illuminating event.

Featured mixers include:

Nicolas Vernhes, of Rare Book Room Studios in Brooklyn, who in the last year has mixed Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca and Dirty Projectors & Bjork’s Mount Wittenberg Orca, Spoon’s Transference, Small Black’s New Chain, Versus’ On The Ones and Threes, and Animal Collective’s Oddsac movie, among other projects;

Jason Goldstein, a Grammy-winning mixer most recently known for his work with The Roots (How I Got Over), Beyonce (B-Day) and Bilal (Airtight’s Revenge), Jill Scott (“Hate on Me”) and Ludacris (“One More Drink”); and…

Shane Stoneback, of SMT and Treefort Studios, who has recently engineered and mixed records for Vampire Weekend (Vampire Weekend, Contra), Sleigh Bells (Treats) and Magic Kids (Memphis).

Part II (2:45 – 4:45): Rough to Refined: Exploring Recording from Demo to the Finished Product:
In this lively forum, artists and their producers appear together to play rough demos for the audience, explaining how their complex collaborations resulted in the final, polished song that ultimately made it onto their album. Professional workflow concepts and the creative possibilities between producers and artists will come to light in this inside look at modern music production.

The featured guests will be the following producers and artists:

Producer/engineer Jim Keller (Franz Ferdinand, Demander, The Cribs) with artist Franz Nicolay talking about Nicolay’s upcoming album, Luck & Courage.

Producer/engineer Phil Palazzolo (New Pornographers, AC Newman, Okkervil River) and artist Nicole Atkins discussing Atkins’ album — Mondo Amore — due out in January ’11.

Producer/engineer Chris Zane (Passion Pit, The Walkmen, Suckers) with guitarist Seth Jabour of Les Savy Fav talking Root For Ruin, the band’s latest album on Frenchkiss Records.

For more on CMJ, other panels, artists, shows, etc. and to register, visit http://cmj.com/marathon/register.

Artists performing at CMJ 2010 include Phoenix, GZA, UNKLE, Black Sheep, John Vanderslice, Cute Is What We Aim For, Justin Townes Earle, Black Label Society, Corin Tucker Band, Dan Black, Cults, The Bogmen, Clutch, Francis and the Lights, Screaming Females, Franz Nicolay, Small Black, Wild Nothing, Dom, Marit Larsen, Good Old War, Reggie Watts and BRAHMS. Click for the most up-to-date list.

In-Session: Phil Palazzolo With Nicole Atkins & The Black Sea

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — We recently caught up with Brooklyn-based producer/engineer Phil Palazzolo who’s been working on the new Nicole Atkins record. “I think this is her time,” he says of the New Jersey songstress and her new material. “She’s definitely due.”

The same could be said of Palazzolo. He’s been in-the-trenches working with bands for over a decade — producing, engineering, playing guitar/bass, touring, mixing FOH, etc — most notably engineering on Radio 4’s Gotham, Stealing of a Nation and Enemies Like This. And over the last few years, his star’s been rising.

He produced/engineered on The New Pornographers Challengers and A.C. Newman’s Get Guilty, and has been working through a whirlwind of back-to-back projects ever since, with Neko Case, Okkervil River, The Bogmen, Bird of Youth, Ted Leo and the new New Pornographers.

Early in 2010, Palazzolo started sessions with the newly formed Nicole Atkins & The Black Sea at Seaside Lounge Recording in Park Slope to make the full-length follow-up her ’07 debut LP, Neptune City. Atkins has a new band in the Black Sea, a new producer in Palazzolo, and a new sound is emerging. Read all about it:

So, how did you and Nicole Atkins come to work together?
About two years ago, she sang with a choir that backed up Feist on David Letterman. A.C. Newman from The New Pornographers was also part of that choir and got to talking to Nicole Atkins and had her come sing on the sessions for what would become his solo album, which I produced. Then, I played guitar in the A.C. Newman band and Nicole came and did backup vocals live, so I got to know her even better.
We’ve been talking about working together for a while now. She got a ton of songs together, and called me saying she wanted to get going right away. I’d just finished the Ted Leo record, and was just wrapping up mixes for the next New Pornographers record, so it was perfect timing to do the record in January and February.

How’d you get started and where are you working?
We did a week of pre-production in Seaside Lounge’s B Room. Pre-production involved finding the strongest parts of the songs and bringing them out. Sometimes that meant changing the feel and the pace of things. Then we started on basic tracks in Seaside’s A room. We just finished four days of basics and actually got to some overdubs and vocals. It’s starting to really sound like a record — we’re in that exciting phase where you can really hear it coming together.

Her last record was really lush and orchestrated, and kind of dark/melancholy. How does this record compare to that, and what would you say she’s trying to accomplish in the studio?
After getting a chance to live with her other record, I thought — yes, it is lush and it’s beautiful, but it’s also a bit disjointed. It kind of feels like it took two years to make, maybe with a little too much time passing between sessions. The new record is a little bit more fun in spots. There are some lighter and more upbeat numbers that she didn’t really have on the last record. I really want to showcase what she can do beyond the brooding Dusty Springfield-revamp type of sound.

So, is it more of a band record?
Yes, I’d say so. And she has a new band. Most of the guys are from New Jersey and play together in this other band [Sikamor Rooney]. They’re hometown guys and they’ve all known each other for a long time, whereas her other record was largely session players. Working with session players can be awesome, and we’re definitely going to bring in guests for specialty parts, but on the whole, there’s a real band making up the foundation.

So how would you say you’re working with her to realize the sound / direction for this album. Are you trying different things to figure out what it is?
Well, first I tried to get a sense of what she didn’t like about the last record and the recording experience overall. And then I listened to the songs, which were largely just fairly simple demos, some of them were actually produced in a way that sounded like a band, but not exactly what she was after.
In listening to the demos, I tried to find what I thought would tie them together and how to make them feel more like a whole record rather than a year and a half’s worth of writing and demoing in different places.

Is there anything different or noteworthy about how you’re recording any of the elements — vocals, drums, etc…?
Well, I’m using a lot of different approaches, song by song. I think it’s so easy to make someone like her sound incredible that sometimes you just have to have the balls to say ‘I’m going to put this through a bullhorn.” No matter what you do, she’s this incredible singer, and it doesn’t always have to be pretty. There are moments on this record where her vocal will be totally brash, like Karen O, but she’s still this amazing singer underneath and it sounds really cool.

So, you’re gritting up the sound a bit, cool. And how have you been recording her vocals?
We’ve recorded her in the booth on some songs, but on others, I plan on using the big live room space a lot more. On some tracks, you’ll picture a girl standing on a stage in a huge room when you hear her vocal.
So far I’ve been using what I call the Motown mic on her, which is a Neumann KM 86. In the first few years of Motown’s existence, they only owned KM86s because Berry Gordy got a deal on them, so everything you hear — drums, bass, vocals, guitars, strings, etc… — all were recorded with the same type of microphone.

Sidenote: All of Motown’s KM86s are now at Avatar. When they dismantled the first facility and built the “real Motown studio,” the guy who built Power Station bought everything from Motown and stored it until he built Power Station. He also faithfully recreated (in dimensions and materials) the Motown studio in one of their upstairs rooms.

That’s awesome, I didn’t realize they had all the original Motown mics. Now, will you produce this entire record at Seaside? Or will you go elsewhere for mixing?
We’ll do all the recording at Seaside and then I think we’ll mix at The Carriage House in Stamford, CT. That place has a great history [The Pixies’ Doolittle was made there] and the SSL (4048 E/G) is a great mix disk. Plus, you live there for the duration, so you’re not chained to a console thinking of all the work you have to get done in the next 10 hours, because you’re not leaving. You have time to walk away and come back with fresh ears. That’s really helpful.
If I was working in a comparably-equipped room in NYC, it would be very expensive and so we’d be pressed for time. In the last few months, I mixed The New Pornographers and the Ted Leo records at The Carriage House.

Check out Nicole Atkins & The Black Sea at http://www.myspace.com/nicoleatkins and Phil Palazzolo at http://www.myspace.com/drywallofsound.