I had the pleasure of attending the New Music Seminar at Webster hall. For those of you who are not aware, New Music Seminar is an “affordable, future of music conference provides artists and their representatives the knowledge, tools and connections to step into the tomorrow’s music business today. Delegates get an intense program including keynote, five Movements, NMS 18-Minute Intensives and mentoring sessions with an incisive curriculum redefining the music business from the artists’ perspective. Delegates all receive the New Music Business Guidebook filled with important dos and don’ts by the experts, tips, information, forms and essential websites and blogs”. The event was hosted by comedian Margaret Cho who entertained us as only she can.
But before Margaret Cho took the stage, we were entertained by DJ Rana Sobhany, the first iPad DJ. Armed with a table and two iPads, she got bodies rocking prior to the performances.
The nights festivities then continued to speaker, Tom Silverman, who educated us on the history of New Music Seminar and the UPS and mostly downs of the music industry. One thing he said that stuck in my mind was that there’s always been a decline in music purchases but then there’s a sharp rebounding when new music formats were introduced. Before cassette tapes, there was a decline then an increase in sales after they hit the market; the same thing happened with CDs which makes me wonder what is the next big thing to save the music industry this time around?
Then came the performances…first was Matt White, a new artist who is sure to have a great free and following. He performed about four songs, one of which is below (its actually the first one he did)
Next up was old school favorite (are the 90’s considered old school now?), Naughty by Nature, who performed a medley which is why they video is longer but they definitely had a firm hold on the crowd throughout their performance (as you can see below)
Next up was another new artist who through lots of self promotion with social media (MySpace) landed himself a record deal with Jive Records. His name is Mickey Factz and while he definitely has a following, he wasn’t my favorite of the night but that’s just me. I leave you to form your own opinions because music is so vast, there’s no right song or right artist – you either like them or you don’t.
After Mickey was finally done there was a slight intermission (at this point, most of the crowd was leaving and those of us who stayed behind were drained – each artist performed 4-5 songs each and it was getting late). One performance I was looking forward to was Kat DeLuna but as I stated, we were already drained. My photog, Brittany, and I enjoyed girl-talk to pass the time but then decided to leave and while walking out the stairs from our upper level position….Kat Deluna was announced as hitting the stage. I mention this because unlike the other artists prior to her, I only got a snippet of her performance.
I also missed the last artist, CuCu Diamantes, who performed after Kat. The event actually lasted longer than I expected (I hope that’s not a sign of aging) and I was exhausted but see below for red carpet arrivals and event shots.
PHOTOS BY BRITTANY WHITFIELD/CRASH AND BLEND
