AC Blog

I’m in a Rainbow sort of mood this morning, which means I had to load up this bad boy of a track, I like everything about this tune, the melody is gorgeous, matching guitar solo, and wonderful lyrics, awesome pop rock song – they don’t make em like they used to.

So I was watching Dragon’s Den last night on television.

Dragon’s Den is a show where a panel of very successful business people get pitched to by various wannabe entrepreneurs. Typically the pitches are aimed at raising relatively small amounts of cash in return for a stake in the company. The show is highly amusing in that the business heads will really go to town in probing the pitch in order to determine the strength of the proposal, that’s good entertainment as well as educational, anyone looking at starting a business would do well to watch this for the type of questions which are vital to be asked for any business.

Anyway, last night’s show was particularly interesting as one of the pitches was from a band, who accepted an offer from Peter Jones in the order £75k ($150K) for a 30% state in the bands profit, based on two albums.

Now £75k is not much money in the grand scale of things and a 30% stake is an enormous slice of the bands pie, the potential long-term value could be staggering.

Two things spring  to mind for me.

1. Will we start to see more of this type of corporate sponsorship for funding artists/bands. Given that the traditional model of funding is slowly eroding. Could be fantastic revenues for investors if they find a product (BAND) that set hearts on fire.

2. What would this mean for music integrity when the band could be involved in product placement?

Feargal Sharkey (CEO British Music Rights) states “It still takes money and expertise to produce, manufacture and promote a musical recording, which means somewhere along the line, someone has to make an investment – either a label, a brand, the artist themselves or a benefactor like Peter Jones.”

What are your thoughts?

I had the pleasure of dropping into SAE New York and meeting up with Udo, the School’s Manager, who kindly gave me a tour of the NYC Music Production School, located on the 9th floor of the Herald Center, 1293 Broadway.

The area is unusually circular in design (in a good way) which gives the spaces a sense of fluidity, and the school’s equipment list which fills the spaces is impressive, (big shiny desks and gear everywhere). It was even better seeing students working in very small groups on musical projects, I even saw one studio with a 2 inch 24 track multi-track recorder doing the business, awesome, that old skool tape sound still alive!

Along with the tour Udo gave good conversation about what they get up to in the vibrant city of New York which I found really interesting to hear, it must be a rush to study in an area with such a buzz around you, both inside and outside.

New York (NYC) is a seriously vibrant place and the phrase “the city never sleeps” is without a doubt true, which I’ve experienced before.

Whilst I’m on the subject of NYC, I’d love to hear what you’ve found in town, including bands, clubs, venues etc, what have you seen?