An Evening at LAMA With Taboo of Black Eyed Peas

 

We are very excited to announce “An Evening with Taboo” at LAMA Wednesday, December 4 at 8pm in the performance hall. All LAMA students, alumni and staff are invited to attend the event featuring the Black Eyed Peas member. The evening starts at 8pm sharp. A very limited number of seats are open to the public. To RSVP, email events@lama.edu ASAP as this is first come first served. An email will be sent to confirm your registration.

-LAMA Staff

LAMA’s #LetsTalkMusic Series Continues with Glen Ballard

Recently we were thrilled to welcome Ziggy Marley to our inaugural “Let’s Talk Music” event (hosted every quarter at LAMA). The series continues November 6 at 8pm with six-time Grammy Award Winner Glen Ballard, the songwriter, lyricist and record producer probably best known for co-writing and producing Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill (winner of Grammy Awards for “Best Rock Album” and “Album of the Year”). He was also involved in the recording and writing of Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad, co-writing songs including “Man in the Mirror” and “Hand in My Pocket” and is the founder of Java Records.

Students, alumni and associates are invited tomorrow night to LAMA’s Performance Hall for the special evening, where Native Wayne Jobson will join us and interview Glen about his work and the state of the music industry. The event is open to the public — however, limited seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. All those who want to attend must RSVP by registering at this link. Can’t wait to see everyone tomorrow night — so get ready… #LetsTalkMusic!

-LAMA Staff

Modern A&R/NARIP Event & Music Business Roundtable at LAMA

Modern A&R/NARIP Event & Music Business Roundtable

They don’t call it the music business for nothing! Most of you fall to the music side: playing gigs, composing songs, recording albums. Then there is the business side: contracts, getting signed, licensing and more. Many musicians fall into the pitfall of only concentrating on music and ignoring the business. Thankfully LAMA has your back!

On Tuesday, July 30, 2013 at 6pm, LAMA is hosting the Modern A&R/NARIP Event & Music Business Roundtable. It’s only open to LAMA students/alumni and NARIP guests. The NARIP program will feature A&R and artist development experts Mark Mazzetti and Michael Carey. They will discuss how they have helped to create and sustain careers for superstar and indie artists (including Sting, Janet Jackson, Dishwalla, Aaron Neville, John Mayer, Robbie Williams, Will Smith, Rascal Flatts and others), guiding their careers to hit singles, platinum sales and global success.

Roundtable discussions include:

• Developing all elements necessary to make a great record
• Does anyone need “A&R” anymore?
• Determine direction: song choice, production style, aesthetics
• How to create hit songs:writing, co-writing or finding outside material
• Recording, mixing, mastering: process and direction

What will you learn?

• How to set realistic goals
• How the A&R process can help make the right recording
• How to set realistic goals
• How the A&R process can help make the RIGHT recording
• The relationship between record company (if any) and talent in the Internet Age
• How to improve a song, and increase its impact and marketability
• Necessary creative elements to sell music and establish a career

Don’t miss this insider’s peek at the artistic and economic realities of the fastest-changing business in the world. Most importantly, this NARIP program gives you practical information you can apply immediately to create a better record NOW.

Speakers:
Michael Carey, Founder & Creative Director, Resonation
Mark Mazzetti, President, Record Company In A Box
Tess Taylor, NARIP President, panel moderator

From the organizers:

This is NOT a technical discussion. NARIP’s program will focus on putting the most important creative elements in place, the right questions to ask, and how to come forth with the best possible creative product.

When and Where:

Tuesday, July 30, 2013
6:30 p.m. Registration opens
7:00 p.m. Program begins
8:15 p.m. Break
9:30 p.m. Program ends

LAMA College for Music Professionals — Performance Hall; 370 S. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena, CA 91105; 626-568-8850

More information about NARIP: http://www.narip.com/?page_id=5&task=for

We’ll see you July 30!

-LAMA Staff

5 Music Questions We Want Answered in 2013

Here are five questions we have for the music industry this year:

1. Will consumers take to Sonos?

A careful marketing campaign where promotional copies of the state of the art audio hardware were sent to key influencer’s means people are raving about Sonos. Sonos is music hardware that streams your digital music with HiFi sound and has no sound loss over wireless. It reminds us of the buzz surrounding Spotify when it first appeared in Europe. Bob Lefsetz talked about wirelessly connecting his system, then we heard Howard Stern’s producer Gary Dell’Abate eschewing it’s merits. With the economy back on the upswing and people buying homes again, upwardly mobile music fans now have the money to bring their homes into the musical 21st century. Will Sonos catch on or will an old stalwart like a Bose or Sony or Apple TV-like system beat them for the win?

2. Will the synchronicity of the internet and your car catch on?

Yes, we know that you can hook your smartphone up to your radio but we are talking about seamless integration here folks. Ford was on to something with Sync, but it’s reviews are mixed and overall user-friendliness is questionable. When you can drive your car and dial up your favorite Pandora stations or Spotify list, does that mean terrestrial radio is shaking in its boots? Probably not, but with distracted driving at an all time high, and laws coming into place, successful integration is desirable. We’ll see if it catches on more in  2013.

3.  Will Apple step into the streaming game?

It is frequently mentioned in business that the first person to the game is not always the victor. Many have noticed the trends that digital paid downloads are on the downtrend while streaming is on the up and up. There is no doubt that Apple will step into the streaming game but could it be this year? Right now we’ve got Spotify and Google Play — has your life changed as much as ours by syncing a Spotify starred playlist to an iPad so you can listen to two gigs of music on an airplane? So will Apple take the Spotify format and enter the streaming world? Only time will tell…

4. Will YouTube reign supreme?

YouTube continues to be the number one destination for people to listen to music. Just over 5 years ago, what if we told you people would listen to music more on an online video site called YouTube than on radio, MTV and CDs combined? It’s incredible — now we have Psy and his one billion plus video views. When Spotify does not have a live version we switch to YouTube and vise versa. It certainly SEEMS like YouTube is not going anywhere for a while.

5. Are DJs the new rock star?

We have all seen the numbers. Will EDM continue to rule the live market? It’s Electronic HUGE for live music sales, especially in 2012. The bigger players in the concert industry like Live Nation have even taken notice. But some fans are questioning…check out this article, Is America killing EDM?

There you have it music fans! Do you want these questions answered as well? Or are there some we missed? Write your predictions in the comments.

-LAMA Staff

The Music Industry in 2012

Is it just us or has the music industry been in a transitional period for the last decade? It must have been Napster that started this tumultuous period. We went from $20 CDs at Tower Records to .99 cent songs over Itunes and free albums and even CATALOGS using illegal means. Ignore all the doomsayers and lets look positively towards the new year and some things we are excited about. As you recover from your break at LAMA over the holidays, it’s important to brush up with the latest happenings on the business side of things.

WILL STREAMING FULFILL IT’S PROMISES?

For the last few years industry insiders have been heaping praise on streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora, and Google Music as being possible game changers. A way to have all the music available   – while offering users premium features to pay for the music they listen to. Supporters pointed to Europe and how Spotify took the world by storm there. The cold hard reality is that labels are realizing there will never be a replacement for the CD when it comes to profit. Metal label Century Media Records famously pulled their artists catalogs from Spotify earlier this year citing that the pricing plans just don’t make sense. Perhaps 2012 will be the year that the artists and labels finally admit to themselves that the profits of the mid 90s are gone forever and keeping music from streaming services is only going to hurt them.

WHAT ROLE WILL YOUTUBE PLAY?

YouTube went from the website to watch cute kittens and silly children to the #1 destination for people to discover, listen, and watch music of all kinds. Radio and MTV don’t even come close to the amount of music being consumed on YouTube on a daily basis. A significant shift came with the VEVO alliance with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI. Fans hate the ads but the labels and artists love the revenue. It will be interesting to see how YouTube moves into the new year, look for more Live “special” broadcasts such as they did with Coachella this year. Now that Google+ and Google Music are here look for the Google owned YouTube to get more and more compatible with these two services.

WHAT WILL THE CONCERT INDUSTRY BE LIKE?

The live entertainment landscape has been a paradox for a while. For some artists like U2 and Roger Waters it is the best of times while for other less lucky artists it is the worst of times. For the first half of 2011 Pollstar reported that earnings increased 11% but that probably doesn’t tell the whole tale. With the rise of Groupons, Goldstar, and the internet in general, there have been some embarrassing discounted ticket mishaps with tickets for some big name acts practically being given away. Legacy acts such as Bruce Springsteen and The Eagles learned that fans are getting fed up with their constant returns to their cities and aren’t as willing to pay those expensive service charges to hear the same show they saw last year. On the indie level smaller clubs are having a hard time bringing people in to hear unheard bands when they have to compete with the internet, Playstation, TV, and every other cheaper form of entertainment.

SOCIAL NETWORKING ROLE?

Facebook already aligned with Spotify – but do you really want to see a feed of every song your friend is listening to? We are guilty of finding quite a few new bands just by seeing what YouTube videos our friends post on their wall. There has long been talk about a dedicated music social media service – but it seems that it is more likely the social media music impact will come from one of the pre-existing services. We are very excited to watch Google+ grow and how music will fit into it – especially with their new Google Music service which has some big names attached to it.

WILL THE INTERNET BREAK A BAND?

Were not talking about your Rebecca Black — so bad its good type novelty act or an Animal Collective ultra cool hipster act — nor are we referring to those with 5 minutes of fame. We are talking about the internet version of The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. A band that has immense pop appeal but also artistic merit. One might try to say Lady Gaga broke on the net – however we would argue she is a hybrid between old wave (MTV, Radio) and new wave (social media, on-line video). We wonder if 2012 will be the year a band breaks completely independently through the internet.

There you have it musicians! The different things music-wise we are looking towards in 2012. Did we leave anything out? Do we have it wrong? Let us know! Have a great break and an even better 2012.

-LAMA Staff