Last year, I attended CMJ Music Marathon, which inevitably made me want to move to Brooklyn.
However, this year I’m fortunate enough to be running a panel called, “Being Your Own Label”. It will take place on Wednesday Octover 21 from 3:30pm-4:45PM in Room 406 of the Kimmel Center (Click image to enlarge).
After a brainstorm session last Wednesday between Jesse Kirschbaum, Chris Schlarp, and myself while in line at the Shake Shack, we decided on the basic concept and I had a pitch together for CMJ by Friday morning. And by this afternoon, we had every panelist confirmed and Chris kindly offered to be the moderator. What can I say, I work well under pressure!
The premise is this: the tools and services available on the Internet allow artists to brand themselves, market themselves, publicize themselves, seek funding, outsource uncreative work, distribute their music, and most importantly, reach their fans directly, effectively making the possibility of becoming their own label realistic.
We have gathered the following industry professionals and music tech rockstars together in order to bring attention to the various companies and resources that allow musicians to be their own label:
- Gian Caterine – CFO of Tunecore
- John Lavallo – entertainment lawyer
- Peter W. Van Ness – founder of Gimmesound
- Yancey Strickler – founder of Kickstarter
Companies who we had to cut due to time constraints included FanBridge, Band Metrics, and Bandzoogle. Please check out these guys because they wouldn’t have been a potential panelist if they weren’t cutting edge music tech companies.
Stay tuned for more updates on the panel and please email me with any applicable questions for the panel. I’m open to any and all suggestions.
Great idea. It appears what you want to cover should take a lot more than an hour and fifteen minutes. Next time, why not host two events. One geared to beginners and the other for more advanced participants. Just my two cents.