CMJ Day 4 + 5 - Emelie (sorry so late!)

First off, if you don't know what CMJ is, go to www.CMJ.com for more information and a general idea on what I've been talking about.
Day 4 was deleted by accident and I lost the notes I took (or rather Blar's car ate them) so I'm going off of what I can remember from last week. It kind of feels like a giant blur because everything went by so quickly. Friday (day 4) I started off at the "Genius Guide to Indie Concert Promotion" and it was very interesting from a DJ's standpoint. I got a lot of insight on the risks that promotion people have to deal with and how one band can make or break them. I also was shocked at the amount they use Myspace as a means of finding new artists, checking to see how popular a band is by profile views, etc. Myspace seemed to be quite the important tool throughout the entire week of conferences because it was brought up in so many panels. Following that panel, I attended the "Playlist Wars" which dealt with how artists can receive airplay. Once again, Myspace being a huge helper in that. The bottom line was, don't send digital files that need to be downloaded, don't send singles and make sure it looks appealing (though each radio station/promoter varies). The last panel I attended for the day was "Membership Privledges: Artists Exposure through Web Communities". This again, talked of Myspace, since it's the largest community of music listeners. But it also touched on Purevolume.com, Fuzz.com, and YAHOO Music!. It is amazing to me how digital the music industry has become. This is most present in the closing of Tower Records, a giant in the industry and a block from the CMJ conferences. That night I went with Jeremy to see Deerhoof and Architecture and Helsinki, which was an outstanding show! There were 9 people on stage and so much energy and emotion went into it. Not to mention talent and creativity!

Day 5 -
The last day... This day had the most panels that I wanted to see, some of which I missed because I forgot to get off the of subway (duh). I went to "Radio Star Confidential: The Top DJ's Tell All" which was VERY interesting and featured some excellent people on the board. They stressed just getting out to the clubs and listening to music will help you find new bands/ artists as well as listening to local and new music shows. Following that I went to "This Ain't No Disco" (a classic Talking Heads line - you know I wouldn't miss that one!). The panel was different people in the Electronic Music Industy (Thrive Records, XEL8R Magazine, an agent and a radio DJ). They answered many great questions including where electronic music is going as far as sales and shows. They seemed to think that Festivals were the best way to get peoples names out there since most people only know the big business guys like Paul Oakenfold and Paul Van Dyk. Lastly I attended "Battle of the DJ's and Remixers" which was also very interesting. They played for us some sample songs of the before and afters, since they generally make remixes out of songs that are from another artist. One of the people on the panel just did the "Whip it" song for the new Jetta commercial. I'm looking forward to seeing that one. From there, I got a call from Blar and we decided to head home because we were exhausted from our week! I had so much fun, and it was such a learning experience. Thanks to the Friends of WRPI who funded our trip.

www.friendsofwrpi.org