And What Will Be 'The Future of Music' ?

I attended a fun, free panel discussion event last night presented by TekServe called The Future of Music 2. (Seems they had the first one in June, which went over well, so now it's a series. Next one in January).

Anyway, Tekserve assembled a powerhouse panel of music industry biggies to chew on, enthuse and rip apart the current state of recording and releasing music. The panel tried to answer questions like...What has been gained or lost over the last few years? How will music be sold? How will it be produced? How will it be performed?



The panel included (from left to right in photo)
- Ron Saint Germain (Producer for 311, U2, Game Rebellion, Queen V, Tool, Muse, Jimi Hendrix, Bad Brains, Whitney Houston, Ornette Coleman, Kraftwerk and many more);
- Kevin Killen (Producer, engineer, recorded and/or mixed for U2, Peter Gabriel, Shakira, Elvis Costello and many others)
- Nile Rodgers (Musician, Member of the band Chic, Producer for Diana Ross, Madonna, David Bowie, B-52’s, Sister Sledge, Cindy Lauper, Duran Duran, Paul Simon and many more);
- Jim Anderson (Jazz and classical producer, chairman of the New York Section of the Audio Engineering Society and AES Vice President, Chairman of the Clive Davis School)
- Harry Allen (Moderator and Hip Hop Activist, writer for Vibe, the Source, Village Voice, and radio host and producer on WBAI).

The Wrap? Talkative, opinionated panelists and lots of good stories from yesteryears, but not a lot of future-looking ideas put forth. Jim Anderson gave a solid opening salvo, talking about the death of the major recording studio and the massive decline in sales of CDs over the past years; Nile Rodgers talked the most, seems happy as a clam these days, enjoying his success in distributing Halo3 soundtrack CDs (and likely earning some sweet coin in the process); Ron St. Germain, despite his successful recording history and great rep, just seemed cranky last night, pissing on all the kids (you? me?) who record 'in the basement, the bathroom, the bedroom...' It infuriated him to no end that the music being created today on home studios sound (to his ears) nothing like the sonic wonders that were created in studios in years past. He made his point on this not once, twice, or three times, but like everytime he opened his mouth. It got a little tiring. I wish Kevin Killen would've told an Elvis Costello story or two, but it was not to be. He did talk about being flown down to Brazil recently for a mixing session. Apparently, some money is still being spent on major league recordings. Harry Allen kept things rolling nicely.

Alas, there wasn't a lot of forward-looking discussion, ie. the future. The panel described more present day examples of getting music recorded and out there, but I remarked to someone that not one did I hear the words "MySpace" "blogs" or "TuneCore" spoken last night. Hey, it's not their world, I understand. But it's the one most rapidly changing the face of music recording and distribution, methinks.



Nile Rodgers had the best story of the night, on how he and partner Bernard Edwards in Chic came up with THAT bassline for 'Le Freak' (apparently it was a one-night jammin' in the studio thing, after some partying earlier in the evening with Queen's John Deacon! Fun story, but differs from the one at the Wikipedia link above). Oh, well, whatever, nevermind. Or wait for the video to surface on YouTube for the whole thing.

See last June's initial Future of Music session clips on YouTube.

Thanks to Tekserve for the snacks and abundant, GOOD beers (Honey Brown, Magic Hat, etc.)