Recording studio, audio training, bands and DJs - Aurora, Illinois

Please sing before using restroom.

Last night's Guild meeting inspired me as a bandleader - and intrigued me as a student of my fellow human beings. We spent some time with music therapist Katie Suddarth, learning about the biological and psychological mysteries of music.

"The way our brains process music, it actually goes right past logical thinking and decision making and goes straight to the center of your brain," Katie told us. For therapists, this means myriad opportunities for bridge-building and recovery using music.

Take speech therapy, for example. "I worked with a gentleman who'd had a stroke - his life was a game of charades," Katie said. "I'd take phrases he needed to be able to say and put them into a familiar song." A patient who couldn't say "I need to go to the bathroom" was able to sing it - to the tune of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean."

As you can see from the picture above, we also spent some time making music together and noticing the physical and relational results of playing in a drum circle. By the end of the night I had a whole new perspective on the power and possibilities of the music I make. 

If you were with us at the Guild, what did you take away?

Something's a little Fishippie in here

What do you get when you combine 60's and 70's rock covers with 5 lead singers from Aurora and Nebraska? I call it recording and mixing chaos, but the band calls themselves The Fishippies No matter what you call it, we had a lot of fun recording 4 songs on Thursday night. The Fishippies have a unique vocal style. In the recording world we call it "gang vocals" where there is no "lead singer" everyone gets to sing! It also provided opportunity for great harmonies, but mostly just a lot of fun. Sing on Fishippies! 

The Backthird Songwriting Conference

From the feedback I've gotten so far, Saturday's conference was nothing short of stellar. I knew I'd feel that way - but then, I work here.

You can read the Beacon's coverage of the conference right here. But what I'm really interested in is your coverage. If you were here on Saturday - what did you learn?

Destruction and chaos! (and hope?)

"I don't know that I could've even imagined the level of destruction that is happening to the music industry right now - until I actually got there," John J. Thompson told us last night at The Guild. John's in town this week preparing for Saturday's Backthird Songwriting Conference, and he took time at last night's meeting to tell us his story - from starting a wildly successful, then wildly defunct, record store and venue in Wheaton to playing, composing and writing for his company Gyroscope Arts to finally heading to Nashville more than two years ago to become creative director for EMI CMG Publishing.

Then he got around to the state of the business.

"The bad news is obvious," he told us. "Intellectual property is being used for free - so how on earth do you turn that into an industry any more?" Video may have killed the radio star - but the Internet is killing rock stars of every kind. Oh, and there was this little gem: "A year from now there will still be CDs - but they'll be sold almost entirely by independent artists at shows."

John's advice: the era of Bono and the Beatles is over. Forget making it big, and be satisfied with making it - whether that means holding a day job and doing music for the joy of it, or learning to live lean and build your own audience over time. 

And you can focus on the bright spots. John's business - publishing - is one. "If you can write amazing, amazing songs," he said, "then I can tell you what to do with those songs. Because you can't steal songs (on the Internet) and put them on Grey's Anatomy. If Grey's Anatomy wants your song, the have to pay."

John will delve into the specifics of songwriting as a business at our conference on Saturday; you can still register online right here or by calling the studio at 630.264.2366.

Our 2009 Showcase Winner!

Our five featured artists have voted, the results have been tallied, and Andrea Dawn is the favorite songwriter of our 2009 Songwriter Showcase series. Andrea's selection was based entirely on peer review from beginning to end - her song "Niagara Falls" was a clear favorite among the five winners of our Showcases.

Andrea will meet with EMI Publishing's John J. Thompson this week while John's in town preparing for Saturday's songwriting conference. I'm pretty proud to introduce these two to one another.

Thanks to our other Showcase winners David Yeager, Todd Kessler, Wiley Shaffer and John Milne - and everyone else who participated - for making this an incredible first season of Songwriter Showcases. This was a weird and scary new idea for us in May. A host of incredible people showed up, shared their talent and made it a success.

What now? After Saturday's conference, we'll take a break from studio events for a while as we look toward the approaching holiday season. But Songwriter Showcases will be back next year. And Kyle, Anna and I are also cooking up ideas for a whole new season of music events, perhaps with a focus on a musical skill other than songwriting. Got ideas for us? We'd love to hear 'em...

The Final Five

The results are in - and apparently I'm not the only one who felt like Tuesday's Showcase was the best. one. ever. Songwriter feedback has never been better - or closer. In fact, a three-way-tie for the best evaluations among fellow songwriters meant we had to go to the audience feedback as a tie-breaker.

In the end, the September Showcase crown went to audience favorite John Milne, whose country-fried tune "Lack-a-Dough" bemoaning a lackluster economy struck chords and funny bones all over the room. John now vies with past Showcase winners David Yeager, Todd Kessler, Andrea Dawn and Wylie Shaffer for the coveted one-on-one meeting with EMI Publishing's John J. Thompson next week. Who picks the winner? They do, of course! Our Showcases have worked on a peer review system from the beginning. Watch this space for the final result when it's in.

Honorable mentions this week goes to Ben Thomas and Kate Diaz, who were neck and neck with John in the final results. Thanks to all who played - we'l see you at the Conference!

Best. Showcase. Ever.

Of course, that's entirely subjective - but I'm convinced, at least, that last night's final Songwriter Showcase was at least the most diverse of our season. From acoustic punk to showtunes, from hard rock to comedy country, this one had it all. We'll have a winner this afternoon - and then our five Showcase favorites vote among themselves for the coveted meeting with EMI's John J. Thompson at next week's Songwriting Conference. Stay tuned!

Cinderella story

Though he'll probably beat me up for comparing him to a Disney female, the winner of Tuesday's Songwriter Showcase has certainly come out of nowhere. Tuesday was Wylie Shaffer's first public performance. Next month, he'll headline as our featured artist.

Tuesday was a fantastic evening, with a brilliant closing set from songwriter Andrea Dawn and her jazzy quartet (above). Wylie distinguished himself among the new contenders with his clever lyrics and great use of humor - but all of Tuesday's writers were excellent in their own way. In fact, this was probably the most diverse range of feedback we've had so far. We've got only one more Showcase before the Backthird Songwriting Conference on September 12 - which of our Featured Artists will take the prize, a one-hour private meeting with EMI Publishing director John J. Thompson?

If you haven't achieved Featured Artist status yet, the Sept. 1 Showcase is your last chance to throw your hat into the ring. Register on the new Backthird website. See you then!

The Guild: Gig Me!

A lot of you have been bugging me for my notes on last week's meeting of the Guild - a booking mini-panel with Tom Hartman of Screaiming Beaver Records and Sophie Hall from United Talent. It's been a busy week - but here they are at last!

If you were at the meeting and remember something I've not mentioned here, help us out and comment at the bottom.

What agents do: An agency like United Talent builds relationships with bars and clubs, then works on behalf of artists to get them gigls there. Agents do NOT promote shows for you (hire a publicist!), and they do NOT have the final word on who plays where - that's up to the venue. Agencies work for and are paid by the artist - United Talent typically takes 10% of what's paid to the band at the end of a night. A typical fee might be $45 of a $450 band wage. United Talent books about 500 shows like this EVERY MONTH.

Getting booked: Myspace, Myspace, Myspace. Hard-copy press kits are expensive and less likely to get listened to.

The three things that should absolutely be on your Myspace (or, if you like, Facebook) page:

• music
• artist photos
• upcoming shows

A good candidate will have a FREQUENTLY UPDATED page with ACTIVE fans and several upcoming shows. Repeat shows at the same club are a good sign because it indicates that you already have a following in a particular area - you were successful enough the first time to get booked again.

Remember to view things from the venue's perspective - most make money by selling drinks. If you can bring a lot of people to their bar, you're worth booking - if you can't, you might not be. (Frustrated that audiences seem to pay for beer, but not for music? Me too - but that's a conversation for another time...)

Those are my notes - what'd I leave out? Comments below, if you please...

The people have spoken!

Tuesday night marked another fantastic Songwriter Showcase in our recording studio. Listeners were treated to original music from eight great artists, capped off with a beautiful performance from the Todd Kessler trio. Todd, accompanied by Chris Bauler on cello and Elana Hiller on violin, created some amazing moments - and a few lucky listeners went home with the recording.

Songwriters voted this month's favorite - by a long shot - to be Andrea Dawn. I'm thrilled to have Andrea lined up to play a more filled-out featured artist set at next month's showcase, Tuesday, August 4. (Songwriters and Guests can register here).

As if a great night of performing, a live recording and great feedback from other songwriters wasn't enough, we added something else this month - Guest feedback. Every listener provided feedback on our musicians' performances and songwriting, and we compiled the results according to age and gender. This is giving some very interesting and useful results: Showcase winner Andrea, for example, was a huge hit among the 18-25 set, but less popular with the under-18 and over-50 crowds.

In other words, our Showcases just became focus groups. Advertisers spend thousands to find out what kinds of people like what they do - we offer the service to songwriters for $25. Pretty cool.