Friday, January 20^th 2012 – Music Business DIY’r and award winning singer/songwriter Dan Israel offered DIY onlookers an acoustic set featuring songs spanning his 15 + year career.

Not only is he unabashedly honest in presentation, Israel’s songs pair pleasant hooks with lyrics rooted in real life industry experience. And the life of a “rock star” is not always glamorous.

Dan Israel performs @ IPR's DIY 360 (Photo by April Wallace)

Music business success may sometimes include multi-platinum sales and Beverly Hills mansions, but Israel has found that regional and local successes are equally important. It was through honest, personal perspective that he earned the Minnesota Music Award in 2005 for song of the year, and again in 2006 for songwriter of the year. As he put it, “It’s like I got fed up with everything and I wrote all of these songs about how fed up I was, and people felt connected.”

When people feel connected to an artist’s music, they support said artist through sales and show attendance. And this connection has turned Israel into a true music business, DIY success story.

He started recording on a 4 track in college and self-released his first record. 20 years and 11 albums later, it’s safe to call him a DIY pro. In spite of all the curve balls life and the music business have thrown his way, he remains a steadfast self-promoter.

Israel understands multiple income streams are the path to longevity; despite income from shows, CD’s and t-shirts, he holds all his own publishing rights, and is starting to license some of his music for use in other media.

You can catch Dan Israel playing solo at the Aster Cafe, St. Anthony Main on February 9^{th @} 9 PM with John Swardson and Ashleigh Still (Cover is $7). For more information about his music and upcoming shows, you can check Dan’s website here.

Friday, January 13^th – Today’s music business installment, filled with rock hair and loud guitars, shook the walls of Robinson Hall to the sound of Minneapolis rock ‘n’ roll quartet, Black Church Service. These rockers pull from a wide-ranging blend of influences to craft their unique sound that is part rock ‘n’ roll and southern blues, infused with a dash of classic punk rock a la Ramones and The Clash. The Service often expands its core lineup of Tyler, Adam, Joe and Matt to incorporate more instruments and styles into the performance. As lead vocalist and guitarist Tyler said, “If you play the washboard well, we want you in the band. We want this to be an orchestral experience. A church service, if you will.”

Black Church Service (Photo By Kate Waterloo)

IPR students, as well as anyone else aspiring to a career in the music business, can take a lot from the band’s incredible work ethic. These guys really know what it takes to be successful in the business of music. On top of band practices that last any where from 2 to 7 hours, each of the members puts in about 50 hours a week at work and school.

Recently, Black Church Service completed recording their self titled EP at the legendary Terrarium right here in Minneapolis, and after a few shows in promotion of the EP, they are going to get right back in the studio. There just “ain’t no rest for the wicked”, as most of us in the biz are familiar with. All of their hard work is certainly paying off and the EP is hot off the press and to be officially released at their 7^th Street Entry gig, Saturday, January 21^st.

Black Church Service (Photo By April Wallace)

Admission is $3 for IPR students, so get out there and support your local rock “n” roll, and remember, “If you want to play music, you have to go to Church. A Black Church. Because that’s where you learn how to put soul into music,” – Muddy Waters.

IPR’s DIY 360 series is a weekly educational event that blends performance and do-it-yourself know how to teach music business survival in context of an ever-evolving industry. We at IPR want to prepare our graduates with every possible tool for music business success.

Seated lft to rt: Lance Sabin, Sue Ferkingstad, J.R. Hunte (standing)

The Institute of Production and Recording’s second floor is filled with new students here for the winter orientation. Spirits are high, and lines are long as eager new starts wait to finish last minute Admissions requirements. To pass the time in line, a beat-boxer and free style vocalist put together a memorable performance preview for fellow student bystanders (right outside this blogger’s office). As is typically the case, this new crop of IPR talent brings a high level of creativity to the table, and we can’t wait to see where they will take
the industry!

IPR President Lance Sabin, Director of Admissions, Sue Ferkingstad, and Director of Financial Aid, J.R. Hunte, take time at every orientation to meet with parents and encourage them to tell us how the IPR team has done throughout the enrollment process. We always look forward to serving IPR families as we prepare to offer our quality best to the industry’s up and coming talent.

Music business proponent of the “Do-it yourself” model, performer Chris Koza, visited IPR’s DIY 360 Friday, December 9th, 2011.

Koza’s success in the Minneapolis music scene can be partially attributed to his work with band Rogue Valley: noted for their regional release of four albums depicting the four seasons within a year (an ambitious work to say the least).

Those familiar with local music and entertainment business elements understand that indie bands like Rogue Valley are equally at home beside a very eclectic group of DIY artists here in the Twin Cities. And, these artists, like Chris Koza of Rogue Valley, can branch off into as many different audio experiments as they choose and remain equally viable in local music business markets.

His visit to The Institute of Production and Recording brings the spotlight to Koza’s folksy solo work.

Chris Koza Performs for IPR's DIY 360 (Photo By Kate Waterloo)

Koza’s solo material, enigmatic against the backdrop of the Rogue Valley sound, carries its own sonic branding. Even so, Koza is equally comfortable in his role as solo artist, and there is no denying the careful poetic element present in this work.

While many solo singer-songwriters fit the standard “acoustic-guitar-and-a-stage”
mold, Koza cracks the standard by padding personal charm and storytelling
prowess into his song-crafting.  “All the lyrics I come up with have been written and re-written to get to where I am satisfied.  No one ever truly likes what you write initially; you just have to listen to that inner critic,” Koza says.

Despite his success in the local music scene, Chris Koza is the epitome of humility; a true humanitarian who is considerate of others. Music business Instructor Scooter Nelson always says, “Be the person that others want to see succeed.” Chris is that person.

To learn more about Chris Koza, visit his Facebook page, and his website. Enjoy this accomplished young songwriter in this YouTube video.

Conversation Piece with Host Erica West (Photo by Kate Waterloo)

Friday December 2^nd, 2011 – One reason I dig spending time with Instructor Walt Chancellor is that I learn something just about every time. But, today, Walt gave all of IPR a funk history lesson that won’t soon be forgotten.

Walter Chancellor Jr. (Photo by Kate Waterloo)

“Funk 101” looked effortless for Conversation Piece: Todd Burrell (keys), Chance Howard (bass, Keys, vox), Kirk Johnson (kit, vox), George Scott (guitar), Walter Chancellor (sax, vox). IPR’s Robinson Hall listeners were treated to a timeline sample of funk that moved from James Brown to Herbie Hancock, and ended with a full-on funk slam down George Clinton style.

lft to rt: George Scott and Todd Burrell (Photo by Kate Waterloo)

Host Erica West asked all the important stuff and fielded questions during an audience Q and A. Band members Walt Chancellor, Kirk Johnson, and Chance Howard gave most of the historical instruction: James Brown is both the Godfather of soul, and the Godfather of Funk, Herbie Hancock married funk with electronic instruments through synthesis and his own brand of jazz / funk fusion, and George Clinton and Bootsy Collin’s carried funk into the future and beyond. Then there’s Prince, who basically married funk with rock, pop, blues and added his own creative genius to what became known as Minneapolis funk, or, “the Minneapolis sound”.

Kirk Johnson (Photo By Kate Waterloo)

Conversation piece was formed with the purpose of bringing funk, weekly, to Minneapolis venue Jazzmine’s Nightclub (now closed); the band used to be a Wednesday night staple in the club’s heyday. Sadly, even then, funk was under-represented in the Twin Cities and still is. This is surprising given Minneapolis’ reputation worldwide as a city with its own sound, but it appears clubs in the area don’t typically hire funk bands. Hence, the reason today was Conversation Piece’s first set together since 2004. Even so, they were exceptional… almost like they’d never stopped playing together. But that’s what you get when musicians of this caliber unite for passion of craft and music in lieu of riches and fame. And These guys are as good as you’ll find anywhere (see who they’ve played with).

Chance Howard (Photo By Kate Waterloo)

Woody Woodman and Nels Cline

As if it wasn’t cool enough that Kevin Bowe is writing with his friend Paul Westerberg (The Replacements fame), I just learned that Nels Cline, Wilco guitarist, threw down a solo for the Bowe/Westerberg track “Everybody Lies”. According to Kevin, Nels came to visit MasterMix with their mutual friend Woody Woodman (“luthier to the stars and inventor of the “Mastery Bridge”, a high end replacement bridge for Fender Jazzmaster guitars all over the world”). It’s a good thing that Kevin and Woody are friends… Kevin’s students should be taking notes about music business networking while tweaking nobs. If you’re good at audio production and engineering, you still need to understand how the entertainment business works.

“Everybody Lies” will be a featured track on Kevin’s upcoming album. Surprise! It’s a good song (duh). After listening through a rough mix only two times this morning I still have the melody lodged in my mind’s ear.

Nels Cline, a guest at IPR: I love this place!

Monday and Tuesday’s best finds were mixing tips. Both came from http://audio.tutsplus.com/  , and both deal in the practical. This cool drum compression tip reminded me how IPR first taught me to find annoying EQ frequencies and pull them out of a mix.  First you’ve got to exaggerate the annoying frequencies, narrow the Q, crank the level, and fish for just the right annoyance by sweeping the spectrum, then you gotta pull the nasty stuff out. This compression tip teaches the reader to exaggerate the compression up front to easily hear exactly how it’s affecting the mix, then to adjust it via standard compression parameters (i.e. ratio, threshold, attack, release and make up gain). The given audio examples make this an extremely straight forward explanation. It’s so simple that you’re going to want to try it whether you’re a beginner or not. Also…

Don’t assume up front that you’ve heard it all before or that you know what a mix tip article is about; you probably don’t. If there is anything I’ve learned over my time at IPR it’s this… just when I think I “get” something, I learn something new about it that surprises me. Having said this I found equally cool things in this article about using Reverb and Delay in a mix. This second article is going to take you a little more time to work through, but it’s worth it… and, on a side note, the author uses Logic for the tutorial.

Wednesday found me checking out an article sent to me by Tina Halfmann (IPR Librarian). The article claims a 1976 amendment to the Copyright Act offers “…song authors the right to re-claim ownership of the song’s copyright after 35 years.” I’ve been following this story for several months, but this is the first local news I’ve heard about it. The article’s subject is Steve Greenberg, author of the song “Funky Town”; he’s a St. Louis Park resident. The thing that makes this lawsuit special is that it’s the only one I’ve heard about a Twin Cities songwriter being involved so far. I’ll try to keep you posted as the story develops.

You’re going to love this next one….

To be fair, the RIAA had to make some type of legal stink when illegal file sharing first began. As unfair as it was to artists, and, admittedly, even record labels, something had to be done to protect the income of those creating and marketing copy written music. But many feel going after and suing individual music consumers was a bad move… so do I. If these individuals were profiting off illegal sales of said downloads that might be another story, but they were merely sharing it with other individuals (still stealing in the form of illegal distribution). Even so, now the RIAA is in essence taking credit for the creation of legal, downloading via sites like iTunes because of said lawsuits, and feels said lawsuits were a good strategic move. You’ve got read this article.

Alas it is Friday, and I didn’t have time to fish for online content today because IPR needed me for other things. Luckily I made it back in time to get this posted before the weekend. I wish you all an amazing weekend of creativity and fun, and I look forward to connecting with you again next week. In the midst of your hard work, be sure to take time for play.

MON

Cool drum compression tip – APE, SDVM

TUES

Tips on how to launch a career in video game audio – APE, SDVM

Ball Beats MIDI controller review – APE, SDVM

“Make it Big” by 9^th Wonder – APE, MEB

Practical explanation of how to use reverb and delay in mixing: 3D Mixing Part 6 – APE, SDVM

WEDS

Copyright fight against record labels continues; “Funky Town” writer brings Twin Cities to the table  – MEB, APE

20 plus minute video interview with DJ Premier – APE

Interview with T-Pain about album collaboration with Lil Wayne – APE, MEB

THURS

RIAA takes credit for legal downloading options, says suing individuals was effective way of controlling illegal file sharing – MEB, APE

Local artist Chris Bartels releases new project this week; Youa Vang, IPR graduate, writes about it – MEB, APE

Lefsetz sounds off on what it takes to get into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame – MEB, APE

The most exciting thing on my radar this week was DIY 360 featuring Walt Chancellor’s Funk 101. His band mates from Conversation Piece agreed to help educate the current lot of IPR students and staff in the ways of funk. The event was this morning, it rocked my face off, but, you’ll have to wait until early next week to read the write up; I still need pictures from the photographer. If you missed it, I’ll be posting video to IPRpresents YouTube channel as well. Until then you’ll have to be satisfied with knowing it was awesome, and checking out the Conversation Piece biography.

On Tuesday I ran into an awesome video interview… a little lengthy for my online viewing preferences, but it was well worth the time. 9^th Wonder is smart and has words of wisdom for anybody who wants to make a living doing music. He’s one of the most articulate music, media spokespersons I’ve ever heard interviewed, and it turns out he’s also professor. It would be great to have him guest at IPR, no? Anyhow you need to check out this video – you’ll be glad you did.

Last week, Kevin Bowe and his AP282 class helped a group called “One of Many” produce a holiday CD. For Kevin and his students, it was awesome to see this motivated group of teens work… even as amateurs they really seemed to push themselves to get things right. Some of what I heard Kevin’s students say: “I could appreciate their talent for their lack of experience” and “it was nice to see their potential and their energy was infectious”. As I was able to observe part of a session, I agree. I even got to catch part of the group choreographing a dance to one of their tracks for their CD release party… these guys are motivated and there is no doubt in my mind that their CD release performance is going to be a great show. I plan to go. The piece was posted earlier this week; Read the article here.

I wish you well as you venture into the weekend, and remember to take some time for yourselves as both finals and the holidays are closely upon us. But, whatever you do, don’t forget that taking time for yourself could just as easily mean booking studio time for a much needed getaway instead of clubbing or couching it with an Xbox controller in your hand. Though this may be none of my business, I’m just sayin…

Please feel free to become part of the conversation by leaving your comments below.

Mon.

DIY 360 with Walter Chancellor’s Funk 101 – APE, MEB

New type of DJ MIDI Controller that uses pressure, velocity, and location sensitivity – APE, MEB

Learn why it’s important to understand and master reverb in your mixes – APE, SDVM

 Tues.

Harry Cohen on collaborating with Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino – SDVM, APE

Could you use this idea that Starbucks had to help promote your band? – MEB

9^th Wonder offers exceptional wisdom in this 12 minute video interview – APE, MEB

Kevin Bowe and IPR students help non-profit singing group produce a holiday CD – APE, MEB, SDVM

 Weds.

The BCR2000 is still a DJ mainstay at an awesome price – APE, MEB, SDVM

 Thurs.

Best mics. under $200; just in time for the holidays – APE, SDVM

Does Dr. Dre want to be a DJ again? Short video – APE, MEB

Bob Lefsetz shares a conversation he’s having about a new entertainment business model – MEB, APE, SDVM

Spotify becomes a music platform as it allies with other music media sources – MEB, APE, SDVM

 Fri.

Napster is out of business – MEB, APE

New type of MIDI keyboard controller; impressive control – APE, SDVM

20 best VST software synths on the market today – APE, SDVM

Though audio production is a skill that’s both natural and acquired; it can take years to master. So it’s not every day a Grammy winning songwriter/ producer has time to offer an unknown singing group. But, when IPR Instructor Kevin Bowe learned about non-profit The A-List, he saw a chance for applied learning; IPR students could help others while putting their audio production chops to the test, “I think it’s a cool opportunity for our students to realize that they are already far enough down the road to provide help and inspiration for kids who are just starting out in music.”

The A-List singing group “One of Many” with Kevin Bowe’s AP 282 Class

The A-list was born out of the desire to help teach youth to become entrepreneurs through practical application. This organization is structured so that the youth decide what, and how to bring entrepreneurial ideas to fruition. “One of Many”, an A-List singing group, was created, choreographed, and marketed by A-List youth from the ground up. In essence this group of teens is learning a DIY approach to the music business.

A-List Managers Jeanne McMahon, and Scott Kelly, contacted IPR because “One of Many” had formed with the intention of releasing a holiday CD. Scott was hoping IPR could donate some studio time to help them record their project. What they landed was world class  Master Mix recording studio, the audio production knowledge of an industry proven producer, and the help of some of IPR’s most experienced students.

Like his instructor, audio production student Guy Tarrents feels helping “One of Many” record their holiday project is a gauge of how far his IPR education has brought him, “When I first came to IPR, I didn’t know much that first quarter and now I have a lot to offer these guys.”

Because of Kevin Bowe, and his Audio Production 282 class, IPR welcomes The A-List as a new community partner.

“One of Many” will hold a CD release party at The A-list Tuesday, December 13th, from 7-9 pm. 7652 Brooklyn Blvd, Brooklyn Park, MN 55443. Call for details: 763-566-4545.

1. The Waves CLA compressor bundle… The “blackie” 1176 is super gooey and nice on vocals. I have to investigate the other ones more but I got this on Eric Olsen’s recommendation and I’m glad I did.

2. The rhythm section of Peter Anderson and Steve Price…although they haveruinedme for working with any other bass/drum team, I have made SO MANYRECORDwith these 2 over the last few years; they never disappoint.

3. The piano in Mastermix…try and make it sound bad. I dare you. You could record it with dixie cups and string and it would still sound great.

4. The SoundToys bundle…even though they refuse to get back to me about setting IPR up to sell their stuff in our store, I still love them. EchoBoy, Phasemistress, Decapitator, Filter Freak, Speed, and the new PanMan are all essential for me.

5. Guild guitars…so much more than a red headed stepchid to Gibson. The pickups are amazing.

Kevin Bowe

6. Magneto Mastering…. they have done the last 20 records I’ve produced and they never let me down.

7. Mike Brown… I trust him with my life. nuff said. Makes Alison Scott and band sound brilliant no matter what room it is.

8. Bad Cat Amps…. like a Vox that won’t break. I have two and I’m never letting them go.

9. Blue Microphones… the ones that are good are very very good.

10. Just so I don’t sound like a total nerd let’s throw in my health, my friends, my family, peace on earth and all that other stuff. And Waves plug in version of the API 2500 compressor.