Innovating Music: Tech & Transformation

Mike Butera has gone on some intriguing journeys, connecting music performance passions, philosophy and sound studies, and tech in creating new musical instruments for regular people to get into music. He shares his path to launching Artiphon after years in academic circles, ways he learned how to market new devices and thrive with Kickstarter, and how the adventure is going so far as they get rea...

Jason Kramer shares his journey to being an EMT during the AIDS Epidemic, LA Riots, and Northridge Earthquake to Fox Sports to KLOS and KCRW. He talks about the magic of Sunday nights, how he created and drove his own luck through persistent work, asking for opportunities, and taking on new challenges. He shares a bit of his experience being present during the inception of Billie Eilish, including...

Jordy Freed from Sony Corporation of America shared his journey from jazz saxophone and building websites to public relations and marketing. Twists and turns took him to radio, Blue Note, Grey Advertising, and finally to Sony. He shares the stories of his twists and turns and the challenges of managing and growing diverse brands. Jordy talks about what he's excited about now and what is chang...

Michael Huppe, CEO of SoundExchange, fell in love with IP and came into music through law. He had played keyboard and trombone as a young person and ended up at the Recording Industry Association of America, which led him to SoundExchange. He shares how SoundExchange is also a tech company, needing to help and represent its members with opportunities from new technologies, as well as providing a s...

Dave Ratner moved from skiing to managing bands into law, and now works with creative companies out of Boulder, CO to understand how to maneuver so many different new opportunities in music.  He talks of innovation in his own life as to how to add capabilities, learn by doing, and then add that in with great creatives. He shares wisdom in how to evaluate risk, plan for success, and use both c...

Many of our guests move on a nonlinear line between jobs and ideas. Kevin in one of our few guests who has been with a single company -- CD Baby -- for a long period of time. He shares his journey with both CD Baby and as an artist with Small Town Poets. We talk about challenges exploring new technologies that don't yet have revenue models, educating creators on how to better engage...

Jessica's journey -- what a ride! Music change agent Jessica Powell shares her Roads Taken, ranging from following a now-ex boyfriend across countries to using her languages at CISAC and on a wild boar farm (!!) -- to Google London, Google Asia, and to her current AI and Stems startup, AudioShake.  And even that founding with her co-founder Luke Miner began as a "What If" exercise a...

We are in post-production on new episodes, so our host, Gigi Johnson, shared a story about "Postcards" and Postcard Moments that has come up in prior episodes and in many recent conversations. She shares how a single postcard created a pivot that changed her direction when a TA offered the suggestion that she apply for USC Film School after a single class. She challenges us to explore "postcards"...

Bruno shares his saga from playing the drums and enjoying international music, mixing songs and culture from Tunisia, France, and LA. Those facets led to studying at UCLA Ethnomusicology, becoming a DJ at KCRW, and building a record label in his living room. He shared work in place-based music and compilation records, in building the sonic architecture of hotels, vacations, and clothing brand...

[Enjoy our podcast this week that we share with our sister Maremel Network podcast, Creative Innovators.] Dick Huey claims that his career jumps have been "educated luck." "Because they they are luck. And I'm, I'm I don't ever pretend that I have more information than everybody else does. But I think I'm good at identifying opportunity. So for me, this felt like opportunity. And I jumped at i...

Morgan Hayduk initially aimed for basketball and law -- and thank goodness kept going into building new tools and working with large organizations to fight fraud and manipulation in streaming music. He shares with us his adventures in building his personal Toolkit of marketing, scaling, and selling -- plus working with his blockchain wizard co-founders -- to launch the audit and anti-fraud mu...

Enjoy this final episode where Jack Conte blends the worlds of music creation (Pomplamoose and Scary Pockets) and solving creators’ problems with systems (crowdfunding and community with Patreon). He shares how he balances (or doesn’t balance at times) creating music with running a large tech business. He also shares what he has learned, how his companies have shifted with the work-...

This week on the Innovating Music Podcast, we are joined by Ted Cohen, who shared tales of doing things for the right reasons and seeing decades ago the dimensions of our current music streaming playlists and challenges. He talks about genuineness of artists vs. overproduction in livestreaming and concerts, pricing the risks of new markets, scarcity, negotiations, how business challenges repe...

A year ago, Dmitri Vietze launched a new thought leadership conference on music technology in Los Angeles, and had to move it with one day's notice. This year, he has moved his whole thought leadership with Music Tectonics online with virtual conferences and community gatherings. He shares his thoughts on crisis-driven shifts to music livestreaming, expanding new releases, and digital ac...

This week on the Innovating Music Podcast, we talk with Music Business Association President, Portia Sabin about the ways in which the music business is connected as a community. We discuss her journey through the music industry from performing as an artist to running a record label. We also look at other aspects of the music business and how they have been affected in light of the pandemic. This...

Innovation often answers the call to action made by changing environments. In this week’s podcast, we talk with Jay Gilbert, photographer and co-founder of Label Logic, about the new challenges artists in the music industry face in light of social-distancing and what their “new normal” will be as the world regains its rhythm. We look at new models for artist-fan engagement such as blended venues o...

In this week’s podcast, Stefan Schulz, CEO and co-founder of Bitfury Surround, joins us to discuss the potential of blockchain technology for connecting not just content, but data and new value chains for content. Coming from a rich background at the intersection of music, business and evolving technology, Stefan explains why now is the time to decentralize the way we track ownership data and the...

Technology transforms the way in which we view opportunities and often creates new ones. This week on the Innovating Music Podcast, we rethink learning and education in music with UCLA alumnus Akira Nakano, the President and Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Inception Orchestra. We look through the lens of applying virtual reality technology paired with original composition to the creation of e...

Adaptation is key when it comes to technology and innovation. In this week’s podcast, we discuss how technology evolves to fit the ever-changing dynamic between artists and their fan-bases with Fabrice Sergent, the co-founder and CEO of Bandsintown. We look at new ways in which Bandsintown supports its artists with new features such as WatchLive and a recent partnership with Twitch. We also discus...

Circumstances can spark innovation when changing work environments require new solutions. This week on the Innovating Music Podcast, we talk with Michael Gitig of G-Technology about the transformation of digital workflows and how his operation has transformed to connect "create from home" film, TV, and music creators. During the state orders to work from home, they had to close up their Holly...

This week on the Innovating Music Podcast, we discuss innovation in public policy with Shain Shapiro. He is the founder and CEO of Sound Diplomacy, an organization that works together with a wide range of clientele from city councils to property developers and more, in order to help music in cities thrive. We discuss music communities in cities as ecosystems and how public policy can support and p...

Andrew Mason, CEO of Descript, shares how AI-powered, text-based editing is transforming audio and video production for creators everywhere. Guest: Andrew Mason, Founder and CEO, Descript Andrew Mason is founder and CEO of Descript. He formerly founded Groupon in 2008 and as CEO grew the company into a global brand with 12,000 employees. In 2013, Andrew relocated from Chicago to San Francisco to r...

In this special episode, we share the WebCall last week to hear what was happening on the ground in Seattle, WA and King County, WA, in the face of the COVID-19 closure of music venues and live experiences. Kate Becker talks about how King County is responding to the virus, what they are telling their music venues, businesses, artists and community, and generally shared her moving perspective...

Karen Allen helps decode and make simpler streaming music for artists on Twitch. Twitch is a live streaming service, bought by Amazon in 2014, and has 2.2 million daily broadcasters and 15 million daily average viewers. It is mostly gamers, but also has creative and music channels for its highly creative audience. Karen shares her own explorations in learning to use YouNow and now T...

Matt Black has been intrigued by computers since reading "The Shockwave Rider" from a bookmobile in his small English village of his youth. Since then, he has created scratch mixes from a set of decks across London warehouse parties in the late 1980s, pirate radio, become the band Coldcut, created major hits, launched the label Ninja Tune, and developed mad programming skills. He builds what he ca...