Don’t judge it. Just let it be, and see where it goes. ‘Cause that’s the whole thing about judging your own material – terrible idea.

Mark Oblinger

From high-energy anthems to deeply introspective ballads, Mark’s songs are a soulful, eclectic blend of diverse musical textures, inspired by icons including Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel and current influences such as Gregory Alan Isakov and Maggie Rogers. Mark’s lyrics paint vivid pictures of both personal loss and rebirth—and the courage to stand ones ground when left without easy choices.

“Riveting and haunting songwriting, flawless musicianship, masterful production, and soaring above it all the golden throat of Mark Oblinger.”—3-time Grammy winning producer Tom Wasinger

Mark’s national performing roots include stints with chart topping country rock stalwarts Pure Prairie League (“Amie”) and Firefall (“Cinderella,” “You Are the Woman”). From there, Mark’s had the good fortune to work with Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield, Poco) Garth Brooks, Amy Grant, John Oates, Jeff Hanna (Dirt Band) and more.

A 5-time Emmy winning producer/composer with multiple works featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Mark was a 2012 Grammy Finalist for his Children’s Jazz Symphony JumpinJazz Kids—A Swinging Jungle Tale, featuring the great Al Jarreau.

Since 2015, Mark’s toured the country with Indie/Folk powerhouse Rebecca Folsom, where he began to write and showcase the songs that would become his own High Water Line.

Released July 15th, 2019, and followed by a sold-out concert at the Gordon Gamm Theater in Boulder Colorado on August 9th, High Water Line has garnered a host of national reviews, press and radio airplay on both commercial and noncommercial Americana and AAA formats.

Links

markoblinger.com

www.facebook.com/MarkOblingerMusic

www.instagram.com/markoblingermusic

twitter.com/markoblinger1

www.youtube.com/channel/UCIrX4ztulLN2SW-BvwZkqpQ

soundcloud.com/arkblinger

You cannot survive in this business in a silo or in a vacuum. You have to be constantly networking with other people.

Zion Brock

Zion is a songwriter and producer out of Phoenix Arizona, has written and produced for many sync artists, as well as his own folk/pop artistry called Fan Fiqtion. In the last year several songs he’s written or co-written have been licensed to 4 TV spots, as well as a commercial spot for the makeup brand Sephora. As a former drummer, his music is steeped in strong rhythmic grooves no matter what genre he may be writing to. Zion is the founder and co-owner of The Triple Threat Artist Online Course that teaches singer-songwriters to start producing their own music. His message to all songwriters and artists is to build production skills in order to be competitive in this new music world. Zion writes, produces and now masters all his music from a bedroom in his home, and he loves teaching others to do the same. He’s currently writing and producing for serious sync artists all across the world, and has his music currently being pitched by 12 separate licensing agents.

Links

You can check out his work here: FanFiqtion.com/music

If you’re interested in becoming a Triple Threat: TheTripleThreatArtist.com
If you would like the RED ZONE Production Timeline that Zion spoke about in the podcast, go to the Triple Threat Artist home page and scroll to the bottom to sign up.

Speed sells every single time…when someone calls, you pick up the phone, you answer.  When someone emails, you get back with them instantly; you drop what you’re doing ’cause speed will sell every day of the week.

Aaron Green

Aaron Green is Vice President and co-founder of EasySongLicensing.com, a 3rd party music licensing agent specializing in music clearance for any type of permission, for any type of use; kind of like your one-stop music nerd Swiss Army Knife!

Easy Song Licensing’s work involves helping indie artists, record labels, online aggregators (such as CD Baby), filmmakers, studios, video production companies, entertainment lawyers and corporate clients with all their music licensing needs by brokering music clearance deals with music publishers and record labels. These types of permissions include:

• Mechanical song licensing (re-recorded cover versions of copyrighted material for audio-only releases)
• Video synchronization (commercial/advertisements/branding/TV/film/DVD/Video-On-Demand/internet streaming/public display, etc.; any video or visual use of copyrighted material)
• Master rights (use of an original master sound recording)
• Theatrical rights (live stage/musicals/dramas)
• Print licensing (digital and physical print publications, sheet music arrangements)

They are a bootstrapped company who started in 2005 around the dining table in Robbinsdale, MN, and now they have a user base of over 76,000 clients and growing! In 2018, they grossed $2.5M, and are happy to report a 30% increase so far in 2019.

Links

https://www.easysonglicensing.com/

When you’re producing, it doesn’t matter where it comes from…if it’s giving you something of emotional value, then that’s all you need.

Rick Clark

Rick Clark is a music supervisor known for his work on Up In The Air (2009), Hell on Wheels (2011), Greenleaf (2016) and Hap and Leonard (2016). His award winning career includes experience as a radio show host, music journalist, music producer, musician, and music curator.  Clark creates and produces additional music for shows and films under the name of Deliverance Sisters. He is currently working on composing, arranging and producing music for the Showtime drama starring Ethan Hawke titled The Good Lord Bird. 

Links

https://www.facebook.com/RickClarkProductions/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrblurge
https://twitter.com/mrblurge
https://www.instagram.com/rickclarkmusic/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/rick-clark/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6ftpzBQ7C4FA9rp4lJ7ytf?si=bYhr57tIRh–NSVVR0Hb8g
https://www.patreon.com/rickclark

You know if it’s a good song, it’s a good song and it really stands the test of time over trends…so, focus on writing good songs and that’s that.

-Joel T Jordan

Joel T. Jordan is the Founder and President of Synchtank, a cloud based software as a service (SaaS) platform that broadcast, film, music, and TV companies use to manage their compliance, licensing, rights and metadata, maximize revenue, and efficiently organize marketing and sales processes. 

Synchtank has hundreds of creative media clients from top music publishers and record labels to composers and producers, distributors, managers, advertising agencies, film and TV production companies, broadcast networks, and more, supporting some of the best-known catalogs and largest brands in the world.

Over 25 years ago, Joel started well-known punk and hardcore label, Watermark, with his identical twin brother, Jason, releasing vinyl records out of his parents’ South Jersey basement. This later developed into a diversified master catalog and a prolific joint venture publishing company with Rykomusic. Today he continues to enthusiastically sign artists to his new publishing company, and runs his collectible digital and vinyl-only indie labels.

Joel still firmly sticks to the DIY ethos of his early years by enabling content creators and rights owners to be entirely self-reliant in the management, marketing, licensing and exploitation of their catalogs under their own unique brands.

Clients include Disney, Sony Pictures, British Telecom and BT Sport, VICE, CD Baby, Music Sales, WarnerMedia, Warner Music Group, Cutting Edge, peermusic, Position Music, and many others. 

Links

https://www.synchtank.com

https://www.synchtank.com/blog/

https://twitter.com/synchtank

Micro Licensing Links

https://adrev.net

https://www.audiomicro.com

Nick Sullivan, a native of Steamboat Springs, CO has earned a long tenured reputation of success wearing many hats within the music industry. From being a Grammy nominated audio engineer to being an in demand live sound engineer, Nick (who was named one of Denver’s best audio engineers by Westword Music in 2019) has not only earned industry accolades as an Engineer/Producer but also as a musician and performer in the bands American Relay and Peña. Currently Nick is Co-owner of The Keep Recording and Consonance Publishing and Licensing in Denver, CO

Nick has engineered and produced on almost 100 albums over the last 12 years in multiple genres and in 2010 earned 2 Grammy nominations from his credits on the Los Lobos album “Tin Can Trust”. As a engineer, Nick has worked with such acclaimed artists as Los Lobos, Dispatch, The Bunny Gang, Lewis Black. Nick has also earned many credits as a remote recording engineer including working with such artists as Moby, Clutch, Opiouo, Blackberry Smoke and Sonny Landreth and for the last 15 years Nick has been an in demand live sound engineer working with such artists as Mac Sabbath, The Growlers, Sylvan Esso, Perfume Genius, and Sarah Shook and the Disarmers.

Nick started his music career in 2005 as the songwriter/lead singer/guitar player for the blues rock ‘n’ roll band American Relay which toured the US for over 4 years earning a regional following along with opening for such bands as Black Francis, The Heartless Bastards, Split lip Rayfield. As a bass player for the post rock instrumental band Peña, Nick enjoyed playing shows with such bands such as Battles, Russian Circles, Don Caballero and Tera Melos.

Since 2012 along with Engineer/Producer Jeff Kanan, Nick has Co-owned The Keep Recording, one of Denver’s busiest commercial recording studios along with Co-owning Consonance Music Publishing which currently represents over 50 writers and a music licensing catalog featuring multiple genres.

Links:

http://consonanceproductions.com 

http://thekeeprecording.com 

https://robbies-hope.com 

Killer Tracks is now Universal Production Music.  https://www.universalproductionmusic.com/en-us

Whether they tell you, ‘oh, this doesn’t normally get sync’ed,’ there are so many programs and content out; it’s just a matter of finding who needs it…somebody needs it, at this very moment. It’s just your job, once you make your song, to go and find who needs it, and when, and get it to them.

Tamara Bubble

Picture the ultimate blend of Pop, R&B, Jazz, Soul and Hip Hop. Music that defies genre. Delivered with raw vocals and heartfelt emotion, Tamara Bubble creates timeless hits that will be around for years to come. Tamara has appeared in the Boston Globe and on NBC TV and is also the creator / host of her interactive TV show “U gon Get Got” and video podcast “Bubble On Deck”. She’s also opened for some major acts including Lil Mo, Joell Ortiz, Cassidy, Snootie Wild, Yo Gotti, Young Thug and more as well as performed at the A3C hip hop festival, iMusic Festival, Southport Spring Festival and Apollo Theatre . Her music has charted on the independent radio charts and the top 200 and she’s back with a brand new single “Laundry” that’s sure to garner some mainstream buzz for her new project “Your Favorite Rapper is a Girl” out now and available everywhere. Tune in and turn up … #BubbleOnDeck!

Tamara is nominated for “BEST INDIE FEMALE RAP ARTIST” for 2018 SCMawards and is also a six time All-Star Award nominee and winner of “Album of the Year” for her Living It Up (EP) as well as Underground Music Award nominee for “Female Rapper of the Year”.

Links

http://tamarabubble.com

https://twitter.com/TamaraBubble

https://www.instagram.com/tamarabubble/

https://www.facebook.com/TamaraBubble/

https://www.tunefind.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/TamaraMusicVEVO

“I think everyone has their Achilles heels, you know, and there’s times to lean into them, and I think there’s times to just completely avoid them without hesitation, because, why bother?”

Ben Holst

I LIVE TO RECORD AND RECORD TO LIVE.

My story is not dissimilar to most people committed to a life of performing arts and recording studios. I am lucky to have found it early, and have received some crucial thumbs up along the way. From my first Sound-On-Sound guitar overdub on a Sony 1/4 track reel to reel machine to Latte runs for Stone Temple Pilots, a two year stint as the Voiceover guy for Full Throttle Energy Drinks to long distance orchestral collaborations over high capacity fiber optic networks, I’ve seen a wide spectrum of audio craftsmanship and have found some interesting paychecks along the way.

While I am fortunate to have an intimate relationship with the various machines and robots involved with capturing sound, what drives me are the Humans. Every day is an adventure, and every situation uniquely different. Humans continue to be the most powerful tools in the recording process.

There are few things more exciting than having a studio full of musicians, singers, camera crew, interns, entourage, PA’s, assistants, actors, voice talents, creative directors, youth choirs, pizza delivery guys, and improvisors with their hopes and dreams at the mercy of my spacebar. I gladly accept this challenge and sincerely hope to continue pushing the envelope.

Links

http://www.tunewelders.com

https://www.benholst.net/my-music-2

Instagram @benjholst

Don’t try and be everything all at once. You know, it took me 40 years to be a good session musician, a good mixer and producer to the point where I’m comfortable doing any of those roles. But when you’re starting, figure it out and get a good team around you. Collaborate with people.

John March

Guest Host: David Bondelevitch

David Bondelevitch is an Emmy-award winning sound editor and re-recording mixer. He has also won two Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards and has been nominated twenty-six times. He is Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Denver. David is Past President of the MPSE and spent 14 years on the board of the Cinema Audio Society. He holds an MFA in Cinema Production from USC.

He is also a member of the Television Academy, the Recording Academy, AFM Local 47, Film Independent, and the International Documentary Association. 

Recent Work by David: Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four

https://tinyurl.com/yxenamma

The Trauma of Sanctuary by Deborah Esquenazi

https://tinyurl.com/yxbnvnxh

John March – AV Media Consultant and Producer, Sound Mixer, Sound Designer and Social activist.

For the last 40 years, John has been working freelance as an audio craftsman/technologist, Producer, and A/V technology consultant, as well as a session musician in multiple areas of expertise and development. He is currently focused entirely on creating opportunities that utilize his aggregate skill-sets and diverse professional experience to help solve problems that serve the greater good, and supports the community. In Collaboration with ALOC Media, ALOCMedia.com, he works as a freelance Senior Producer and consultant. He is entirely focused on creating affordable high-quality media and content for Non-profits, educational institutions, artists, musicians/bands and entrepreneurs. 

www.zenavguy.com

You know, I think not enough artists are trying to find a good fit, as opposed to just finding any fit.

Craig Snyder

Craig Snyder is a New York-based marketer, curator, artist manager, and podcaster who oversees the artist development program at ReverbNation. His efforts have reinvented the artist discovery process at ReverbNation through combining algorithms with a team of 35 industry expert curators to help uncover the next big emerging artist. Craig received his rock n’ roll masters degree while working at Little Steven’s Underground Garage and producing radio talents including Little Steven Van Zandt, Andrew Loog Oldham, Joan Jett and Kim Fowley. Craig curated one of the largest radio playlists that celebrated everything that influenced the Ramones and everything that was influenced by the same band. Craig also produces podcasts including The Outpost Podcast, Le vital corps Salon and his latest collaboration with Andrew Loog Oldham, Sounds & Vision. 

Links

Podcasts Produced by Craig:

Le Vital corps Salon https://tinyurl.com/y63bvu8c

Sounds & Vision https://tinyurl.com/yxvd45rl

Outpost in the Burbs https://tinyurl.com/y6jbfe8s

Craig’s Blog:

http://www.craigsays.blog

And then the one thing I tell everybody who works for me is never ever give a demo to anybody, or a recording or a mix, to anybody that isn’t the absolute best possible representation of who you are. Don’t rush, don’t just try and get it out of the door. 

John March

Guest Host: David Bondelevitch

David Bondelevitch is an Emmy-award winning sound editor and re-recording mixer. He has also won two Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards and has been nominated twenty-six times. He is Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Denver. David is Past President of the MPSE and spent 14 years on the board of the Cinema Audio Society. He holds an MFA in Cinema Production from USC.

He is a also member of the Television Academy, the Recording Academy, AFM Local 47, Film Independent, and the International Documentary Association. 

Recent Work by David: Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four

https://tinyurl.com/yxenamma

John March – AV Media Consultant and Producer, Sound Mixer, Sound Designer and Social activist.

For the last 40 years, John has been working freelance as an audio craftsman/technologist, Producer, and A/V technology consultant, as well as a session musician in multiple areas of expertise and development. He is currently focused entirely on creating opportunities that utilize his aggregate skill-sets and diverse professional experience to help solve problems that serve the greater good, and supports the community. In Collaboration with ALOC Media, ALOCMedia.com, he works as a freelance Senior Producer and consultant. He is entirely focused on creating affordable high-quality media and content for Non-profits, educational institutions, artists, musicians/bands and entrepreneurs.

www.zenavguy.com

Once you’ve identified those basic points of a license, you’ll learn how to push back. You’ll learn where it’s appropriate for you to ask for things, and it’ll become less scary and you will be more effective and you’ll be more in control of your career as a result. 

Ted Hudson

Ted has spent the past eight years negotiating music, footage, and photo licenses for use in dozens of Oscar-winning documentaries and original programming at HBO. Previous to his work at HBO, Ted founded and played bass in The Damnwells, who toured with acts including The Dixie Chicks, Cheap Trick, and The Fray. Ted also worked on two tech startups in NYC, Hunch and Milewise, which were acquired by EBay and Yahoo! (respectively).

www.thedamnwells.com

ColorWheel Music

ColorWheel is a music licensing agency started by Oscar and Grammy-nominated musicians to create an authentic sound for your next project. Based in Denver and Nashville, we’re able to draw from an unrivaled roster of emerging artists as well as established world-famous musicians to compose original songs, tracks, and scores, because they are our friends and ongoing collaborators; a dream team of artists who still fill international arenas. Collaborate with one of our award-winning composers on a custom piece or license an existing track from our burgeoning collection. For us, music is music, and its power should move you whether it’s on the radio, on stage or on a screen.

colorwheelmusic.com

You can also apply your art in a more vocational way and just say, okay, cool. I’m giving myself an assignment. This isn’t something that I would normally compose, but I’m going to do it and see what happens. And you may discover that you’re super good at some things that you were too afraid to try, frankly.

-Ted Hudson

Ted has spent the past eight years negotiating music, footage, and photo licenses for use in dozens of Oscar-winning documentaries and original programming at HBO. Previous to his work at HBO, Ted founded and played bass in The Damnwells, who toured with acts including The Dixie Chicks, Cheap Trick, and The Fray. Ted also worked on two tech startups in NYC, Hunch and Milewise, which were acquired by EBay and Yahoo! (respectively).

www.thedamnwells.com

ColorWheel Music

ColorWheel is a music licensing agency started by Oscar and Grammy-nominated musicians to create an authentic sound for your next project. Based in Denver and Nashville, we’re able to draw from an unrivaled roster of emerging artists as well as established world-famous musicians to compose original songs, tracks, and scores, because they are our friends and ongoing collaborators; a dream team of artists who still fill international arenas. Collaborate with one of our award-winning composers on a custom piece or license an existing track from our burgeoning collection. For us, music is music, and its power should move you whether it’s on the radio, on stage or on a screen.

colorwheelmusic.com

We’re returning to this village phenomenon where even though the Internet is boundless, we are congregating into these little mini soundcloud communities of maybe 20 artists that only play and promote each other’s stuff because people have a longing for community, however isolated they are.

ill-esha

Vancouver-born and Colorado-based music producer, artist and DJ ill-esha has crafted a long-standing soundscape of electronic bass music throughout her career, continuously evolving her musical stylings and bridging gaps between hip-hop, dubstep, R&B and future bass music.  ill-esha is recognized as an extremely rare and diverse, burgeoning artist in the EDM scene, as her live set showcases her incredible talent to sing, DJ, and simultaneously rock her keytar. She is one of few electronic artists to blossom throughout the progression of different musical trends while still focusing on her artistic vision and authenticity.  Constantly evolving a dynamic stage show, ill-esha is a perfect example of electronic music’s transition towards live instrumentation and indie pop sensibility.

ill-esha homepage: http://ill-esha.com

EDMP Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/edmp

WeOutHere.live

WeOutHere.live is a video content network focused on topics relating to electronic music culture. It is managed by a collective of talented and funny women who bring free music production & education to underserved demographics. We encourage creativity for women, female identified persons, transgender individuals and youth. We aim to break social stigmas and empower both men and women towards a common goal of equality.

Launching Soon: http://weouthere.live/

Tribal Gathering

Tribal Gathering is like no other event on Earth. It is more than a festival, it is a place for the world to come together, where time is transcended, ancient and modern converge in symbiotic harmony, tribes manifest spirits of plants as musicians call on the ethos of imagination. Interfaith dialogue blends with a rich heritage of esoteric wellness, creativity, alternative cultures, active participation and love. Ultimately it is where we welcome the divine spirt of dance. Tribal Gathering is a meeting point for indigenous communities from all over the world. It is a gathering of tribes, from the past and present, the global transformational tribe and whoever feels the call to join in the celebrations. It takes place every year over the full moon of February on the Caribbean coast of Panama.

https://www.tribalgathering.com/

And it’s important to ensure that you’re paying attention to the business side, that you understand what things you’re signing, that you know where your money is coming from…

DeDe Burns

Prior to joining Royalty Exchange, DeDe Burns spent 13 years working in membership services and strategic operations at ASCAP, culminating in the position of VP of Global Member and Society Services. While there, Burns modernized key areas of the organization’s distribution system, market research activities, and developed additional value-added membership services.

Earlier in her career, she served as a copyright administrator at Warner/Chappell Music Publishing, and is a former board member of the California Copyright Conference and member of the Association of Independent Music Publishers and Songwriters Hall of Fame.

DeDe Burns plays a key role in developing Royalty Exchange’s account management and customer service programs, as well as artist and industry relations. Artists turn to Royalty Exchange to raise money and take control of their financial future by connecting them with private investors through the world’s first online marketplace for buying and selling royalties.

Royalty Exchange is offering free valuations of your royalty earnings at worth.royaltyexchange.com. 

Links

Royalty Exchange About

Royalty Exchange Worth App

If you’re out there trying to make money with music, the number one thing to do is to understand who’s doing business with you and what their problems are.  If you can solve their problems, that’s when they pay you.  You are actually actively helping them out.

Randy Chertkow

About the Authors

Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan are musicians, authors, journalists, public speakers, instructors, and consultants. Their recently released book, Making Money With Music (Macmillan), shows musicians how to tap over 100+ revenue streams, grow their fan base, and thrive in today’s music environment. They also wrote the The Indie Band Survival Guide (1st & 2nd Editions, Macmillan), The DIY Musician (Random House), are columnists at Electronic Musician Magazine, and write a newsletter at MakingMoneyWithMusic.com. They professionally speak and consult on music business and musician revenue development at conventions, music organizations (The Recording Academy — grammy.com), cities, and schools, including speaking at venues such as Carnegie Hall. Their band, Beatnik Turtle, released over 500 songs spanning 20 albums, licensed music to Disney and Viacom, and wrote music for TV, films, and theater including Chicago’s Second City. In 2007, they released a song every single day of the year.

Links:

Website:  https://makingmoneywithmusic.com

Newsletter:  https://makingmoneywithmusic.com/newsletter  

Recent Article:  Collect All The Revenue Your Recorded Music Can Earn: Pt. I

Amazon: Making Money with Music

“[Music supervisors] want to discover bands. They want to support a band that has a story that they connect with. And obviously, they also want a really good song that fits the project. But if you have [a compelling story] I feel like you have a greater chance of getting your song to them.”

Michael Donaldson

Michael Donaldson is best known in the music industry as Astralwerks/Virgin Records recording artist Q-Burns Abstract Message. Under this name, Michael wrote and produced four acclaimed albums and performed around the world. With Q-BAM songs licensed to the likes of Sex and the City, BMW, Spike Lee’s The 25th Hour, and the video game Test Drive 6, Michael fortuitously learned the ins-and-outs of music licensing. He used this knowledge to raise the licensing profile of Eighth Dimension Records, an influential label on the US electronic music scene that Michael co-founded in 1994. In 2011, Eighth Dimension transformed into 8DSync, allowing Michael to capitalize on his taste-making prowess, licensing expertise, and access to a distinctive and inspiring music catalog. He continues to expand his roles in music publishing, content licensing, and industry consultancy. Michael also writes about music’s place in the 21st century on his thought-provoking blog: www.8sided.blog 

For questions or information about Michael’s workshops, contact Michael at  www.8sided.blog/about

Michael Donaldson on LinkedIn

Other Links

Warner Music Group Signs an Algorithm to a Record Deal