Weekend Recap : New Music Seminar

Your Girl hit up the New Music Seminar last Saturday before Potluck and was NOT disappointed...definitely yet ANOTHER event Cleveland slept on!

The 1st Annual New Music Seminar took place last Saturday at the Crowne Plaza in Downtown Cleveland. Although met with mass skepticism locally, singers, rappers, producers, and DJs from Philly to Florida packed the event. Organized by no stranger to the Cleveland scene, Tone Capone, the Seminar was professional, well organized, and went off without incident.
The day began with opening remarks and then lead into a series of panel discussions and workshops throughout the day.

The best panels and workshops in my opinion were.

• Getting Your Music on The Radio
• Licensing Your Music for Movies, TV, & Video Games
• How to Prepare and Package Yourself for the Industry

These panels were lead by radio programming directors from Sirius Satellite, XM Radio, Z1079, experts on publicity from AOL, AllHipHop.com, music managers from video game giants like Konami, and more. The amount of power in that one place was mind blowing.

Sidenote: This may have been the definitive feature of the New Music Seminar. If you have been to other conferences you know that the panelists are usually far away, inaccessible, and really not trying to hear ish you have to say. The NMS preached the importance of hustle and garnered opportunities for up and coming artists to have REAL connections with decision makers. Not flunkies, not interns, but people who are shaping the industry as we know it. DUDE, Lenny S was there!!! The Gomez Brothers were there! And I don’t just mean I saw them in passing, I had the opportunity to really build and network with these people. This aspect alone makes the NMS a standout among its competitors. (More on this concept later)

The highlight of the morning for attendees seemed to be the one on one listening sessions with A&Rs. Artists were able to meet with A&Rs from Jive and Atlantic, to Interscope and Def Jam depending on the type and genre of music. They were given immediate feedback and most importantly the opportunity to network face to face with people who had the power to sign them.

After speaking with Anthony Rich (Director of A&R for Jive), Sterling Brim (Director of A&R for Songbook Ent/ Atlantic), Reggie Hawkins (Formats Manager at Sirius Satellite), Vaughn J (MTV2), and Pam Jones (PR Director of Warner Brothers) here are a few common mistakes artists make when trying to get signed.

• Handing Someone A CD with a Label Written in Sharpie – hands down people step up your game, if you don’t care enough to invest in yourself they sure as hell won’t
• Handing Someone a CD - Do you think they have a discman? Really? Step your game up and move into the digital era. Jumpdrives my friend jumpdrives
• Cheap Production/ Engineering, ETC- Once again invest in yourself so that you can present a quality product. You only have one shot to make a first impression
• Being Someone Your Not – Don’t give someone a CD of you sounding like Jeezy, JayZ, or Weezy, etc, THEY DON”T NEED A COPY OF SOMEONE ALREADY OUT, they are looking for something different, so be yourself!
• Rep Your City- Radio and Industry are looking for new hot spots. Make where you are from unique. If phrases, dances, etc are popular in your city or your region don’t be afraid to show why your city is the ish…i.e. “Bitch I’m From Cleveland”
• Failing to Quantify Your Buzz- if you can’t tell a music rep how many hits your myspace gets, how many downloads your song has gotten, etc they aren’t likely to believe you when you tell them you are the hottest thing out…back your claim up with solid facts!

The day came to a close with a battle of the bands in which the winner ( a rock band named Stasis) was awarded a producing and publishing deal from Amalgam Digital ( The home of Joe Budden and Hip Hops first digital music distributor). Afterwards Various A&Rs went to dinner with attendees (my homegirl went to dinner with Sickamore (Atlantic), Gaby Acevedo (Universal Motown), and Steve Raze (AllHipHop.com)) and then headed over to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for more performances and networking.

Hands down this was a stellar event. Other music conferences need to step up their fresh in a major way. The New Music Seminar has taken all the flaws of other music conferences and used it to make this event official. Although the inaugural event, the NMS showed no signs of being a freshman in the game. My hat goes off to them, the industry participants, attendees, and sponsors for making this event a success.

**Sincerely Serious**