Innovating Music

Jeremy Gruber enjoys connecting artists, creators, and social impact forces directly with fans. He shared his adventures with Friends at Work, working with not only John Legend and Lindsey Stirling, but also emerging artists. We discussed the current state of streaming, playlists, and algorithms. He also shared his adventures in launching the music ad platform Found.ee. Guest: Jeremy Gruber, Head of Digital Marketing & Strategy, Friends at Work; Partner, found.ee; Adjunct Professor, USC...

Shelita joins the podcast to share how as an artist she uses data and emotions to connect with fans and create community -- and to create music itself. Most of us think about data and music about marketing -- which she has done well to attract more than 175,000 fans on a variety of platforms. Shelita also uses behavioral data, with fan permission, to design tracks to appeal to targeted emotions and life stories. In her recent album, she tells us of putting that process away and creating...

Storm Gloor has been tracking how songs succeed since he was a young teen . . . and now explores anything from how music cities can succeed and how one-hit wonders thrive (or don't). We enjoyed talking about how cities create and sustain music scenes with help from civic organizations, which may come from government or from the community. We discussed Richard Florida's revised creative economy studies on the impact of creative communities on the rest of the city, and returned to how...

Rehan Choudhry joined our podcast to discuss the upcoming second year of Emerge LV -- and to share his journey on how he re-melds social justice and music in this Facebook-embedded era. He walked us down his path through college, Homeland Security, Atlantic City, the Cosmopolitan, and Life is Beautiful. He then shared the challenges and importance of reconnecting social justice and heartfelt artists in this politically laden and fractured time. Guest: Rehan Choudhry, Founder & CEO, A...

Paul Bradley joined the podcast to talk about his adventures creating the tour management software system, Eventric. He shared how he started in band management and tour operations, along with being a drummer on tour, and created databases on a Compaq computer on Filemaker software. After years of developing databases and sharing them with other tours, he began to sell databases as a system and created Eventric. Paul shared his experiences with data security, possibilities of predictive...

In this week's podcast, we enjoy Laura Escudé taking us on a tour of live performance music . . . and touring . . . and breaking negative beliefs about performance and ability through tech tools. She mixes Ableton Live, her own violin skills, tools like the Unreal game engine, and major tours and artists. She looks at how beliefs and technology change change the sense of what is possible and what creative limits we do and don't have as live performers. She also shares her personal shifts...

This brief episode features our host and Center director, Gigi Johnson, sharing an invitation to join us in person at UCLA (while supplies last) or via Zoom online for our May 15 Conference on Amplifying Music in Our Los Angeles. Gigi shares the questions that other Music Cities are asking -- how to amplify local music scenes in the face of (a) gentrification and (b) this streaming era. She outlines what the day will bring and how questions such as mapping and gentrification bring out...

In this week's podcast, Amadea Choplin, the COO from Pex, takes us down the online music data rabbit hole. She shares how official music distribution is just the beginning of the adventures of distributed songs, and how on average 99% of top artists' music use has moved beyond the original uploaded accounts to be reloaded into other spaces and purposes across the viral web. Pex tracks copies of fragments of songs across 30 online platforms across the global web. Amadea talks about her own...

Marivi is connecting digital marketing to a more traditional, low-tech, multilingual art form. She shares practical ideas for building local audience while learning from other cities and building tourism tools for our local opera scene. She also shares ways to work with cultural and lifestyle influencers with opera and ways to engage with multiple audiences in this increasingly digital age. Guest: Marivi Valcourt, Associate Director of Marketing, Advertising and Content, LA Opera Marivi...

Seth Schachner returned to discuss the changes afoot in music and tech deal-making. Enjoy this continuing conversation of how deals are being made between artists and new technologies, and how artists and managers can think about connecting with new technologies in their marketing. Guest: Seth Schachner, Managing Director of Strat Americas Seth Schachner is Managing Director of Strat Americas, a Los Angeles and Miami-based consultancy that provides strategic guidance and helps clients...

Mike Casey mixes jazz sax with marketing savvy. He shares in this podcast how he uses digital tech and music . . . and understanding his audiences . . . to spread the word on his music as an independent artist. Enjoy this discussion with Mike about how he has questioned everything about creating jazz in this modern, streaming world. Guest: Mike Casey, Jazz Saxophonist and Digital Manager/Marketer An award-winning, songwriter, saxophonist, and teaching artist with over 2 million streams...

Iris Wu and Pei-Lun Hsieh from Ambidio were inspired to understand and create new ways for creative artists to design immersive sound for "regular" playback on computers, laptops, and phones. In this podcast, they share their journey in experimenting, connecting with Skywalker sound, and getting to their current jumping off point in connecting a new dimension of creative sound with video, music, and game creators. Guests: Iris Wu and Pei-Lun Hsieh, Ambidio Iris Wu is the idea generator...

Jay LeBoeuf created Real Industry when he was guest lecturing and realized that his students did not really see what jobs and careers were out there in music in technology. After four years of growth, Real Industry now brings together 40 colleges and universities, mentors from around music and technology, and brands and sponsors to mission-driven challenges that change lives. Guest: Jay LeBoeuf, Founder and Executive Director, Real Industry Jay LeBoeuf is an executive, entrepreneur, and...

Ross Gardiner is co-launching the Los Angeles Nightlife Alliance, convening a group to bring together a love of LA's nightlife, government savvy, and community organizing. He shares his stories of how efforts in Berlin, Amsterdam, and London led to efforts in New York, which has led to this grassroots effort growing for the past year in Los Angeles. Guest: Ross Gardiner, Co-Founder, LA Nightlife Alliance Ross Gardiner is a founding member of the Los Angeles Nightlife Alliance, an...

Seth Schachner shared a great history of how he has been able to be a long-time deal guy, helping with diverse deals in changing industries. He is now working across sectors to bring together deals across virtual reality, social music, spatial audio, and other arenas with skills he gained working at AOL, Microsoft, Sony, and Universal. Join us to think about early digital music deals and how they have parallels in new digital challenges. Guest: Seth Schachner, Managing Director, Strat...

Stephen White shared his journey from Madison, WI, to various ventures combining music, communities, DJing, and tech, which led him to Gracenote and now Dubset and MixBANK. He shared his observations on early streaming and in shifting from one type of B2B model to another. He discussed international trends, the role of curation by DJs, and the hard challenges that Dubset had to overcome to get to this spot. Guest: Stephen White, CEO, Dubset Stephen is the CEO and Chairman for Dubset Media...

Siddhartha Khosla is making magic on TV, combining acoustic instruments with rapid inspiration and all the benefits of remote teams and production. He is at the heart of music creation in this abundant world of peak TV, working across shows at his home studio with a remote team, while recording on acoustic instruments from the US and abroad. Siddhartha creates a wide range of environments, from the acoustic, Indian-inspired music he creates for "This Is Us" to his electronic score for...

[REPLAY] A 2018 podcast favorite -- Andrea Young sees playlisting as a revolution for artists. She shared a lot of basics of how to engage with both your fans and playlisters to create a thoughtful playlisting strategy for artists at different stages of their careers. Toolsets are available within different platforms to understand analytics and learn from where and how your fans listen to your music. We talked about how the new funnels are a bit more translucent than the old ones to get your...

[REPLAY] A 2018 podcast favorite -- Vickie Nauman and Andrea Young joined us to talk about Music 3.0. Vickie had written an article for Rethink Music, a blog by the Berklee College of Music, about Music 3.0. Music 1.0 in this discussion was music sold as physical goods and Music 2.0 was the world of digital music. Vickie spoke about how the Music 2.0 world “bent” the existing ecosystems and infrastructures, trying to make them work for a downloading and early streaming world. Music 3.0 is...

[REPLAY] A 2018 podcast favorite -- To marketer Michele Tharp, innovation is creating a better way to do something, and working with an inner desire to make a change. She focuses - as we do - on changing mindsets -- new ways to work with technology, development, and platforms. She shares with us two current projects connecting both public radio stations and VR to artists and their audiences. Guest: Michele Tharp Michele Tharp is a marketing consultant at her own firm, which provides...