Revisiting your goals

Have you ever been told that your goals are just pipe dreams? Have you ever been completely discouraged to the point where you actually thought about giving up on your dreams and aspirations? Remember, unless you are willing to settle; do not ever give up. My father once told me that you have to hit rock bottom before you can reach your goals… Otherwise you will never appreciate how far you’ve gone.

Remember though, that you can’t just will yourself to your goal. It will require hard work. Rome wasn’t built in a day and there is no such thing as a real overnight celebrity. Revisit your goals, and strategize. Organize events, and get people together. DIY does not mean you have to do it alone. Form a family of people close to you to do business with. Become your own business and eventually if you stick to it, your goals and aspirations will be apart of your resume.

From the mind of
Keveeno

Kevin Reeverts

Career Services Coordinator

KReeverts@ipr.edu

http://careerservices.ipr.edu/

The Institute of Production and Recording

http://ipr.edu/

Keveeno.wordpress.com

Finding jobs in this industry is…

Difficult!

Looking through vast postings on craigslist.com, or any music career site you will sift through scams, underpaid jobs, and jobs that are only listed for legal reasons when they’re not even hiring! You consider entrepreneurship but at what cost is it? You can go to Minnesota’s Secretary of state to submit your forms and all together with trademarks, your DBA forms (which include a fee to put your business in newspapers), copyrights, websites and more this could cost well over a couple hundred dollars before the investments into the actual business itself.

Either passage you take, this music industry is not a cake walk. You can not sit in your moms basement, record on pro tools, and just let your music sit in space. So you love graphic design or video? There are many postings for freelance work with restaurants and other places of business its just a matter of taking action. Even the most proactive people find looking for jobs difficult, but when something opens up they are the first to get it.

So in terms of waiting or entrepreneurship, my message to everybody is just don’t ever give up. Live your dream, and if you can’t do it alone… find people close to help you out. Form a family in the music world like The Roots (I’ve never really seen them apart) or any group in this economic times. DIY means Do It Yourself, and it does not have to mean Do It byYourself.

When doors open, opportunities arise. Its just a matter of taking that step through the door to capture what should be yours.

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

Kevin Reeverts

Career Services Coordinator

The Intitute of Production and Recording

KReeverts@ipr.edu

http://careerservices.ipr.edu/

Keveeno.wordpress.com

Through life and Death, MJ rumors still spread

Here are the top rumors about Michael Jackson that are either just stupid, or have some shred of truth.

Michael Jackson faked his own death

Are they fuckin serious. Excuse the language but let the man have his peace. Tupac did not fake his own death. Elvis did not fake his own death. Let them all have their peace. Thank you

Al Malnik claims he’s the father of all of MJ’s children

This guy is out here saying he’s the father of all his children. He claims he’s also the executor of MJ’s will due to the money he had lent him. I’m guessing he’s trying to get in on some of MJ’s money

One of several molestation charges

Here the guy is now 29, and claimed he was molested and got a 15 million dollar settlement out of it. Now this judge announces no charges have ever been filed. Seriously I think most of those charges against him were false, and it was just the parents looking for quick money convincing their kids to see things that have never happened

If you know of any more rumors that you see that just stupid, spread the word. Maybe eventually people will allow him to finally get the rest that most you people never let him get.

Overdosing

Then here is also the growing rumors that the doctor overdosed him on morphine or Demerol. It doesn’t help that he has a song called morphine. They also say that he was addicted to it… and I’m not gonna lie. Morphine’s a hell of a drug.

Michael Jackson may you rest in peace finally. Your music defined a generation, and you will always live forever within all of us. Thank you for everything. RIP

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

———————————————————————

Now here is my top 5 all time favorite MJ songs. RIP man, we love you

5- Black or White

4- Beat it

3- Thriller

2- Billie Jean

1- Man in the mirror

Honorable mention is of course

smooth criminal

What makes a good artist(to you)

One thing I noticed about people is their different tastes in music. I’ve been a fan of hip hop since I started listening to music, which sadly wasn’t until 2001. It took a few complications in my life that made me realize what a gift this music was. Before than I did listen to music but I didn’t care for it as much… it was just something in the background. It wasen’t until I listened to (unfortunately) Eminem that I understood why people loved rap. His music was catchy, controversial, and at that time in my life it spoke to me. I grew but of course eminem stayed the same and his music didn’t speak to me anymore.

What I’m getting at is that for each person, their favorite artists/ songs speak to them in a way that it doesn’t for each and every person. Whether its the beat, lyrics, the artist, or just a random catch phrase in a song, there’s something in it for every person. I grew up with my sister being very critical, always asking me “why do you like this” and it made me actually look into it. So this is open to interpretation, I wanna know whats peoples favorite artists/ or just favorite song and why.

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

New Media Ark (under construction)

While a lot of the old heads stand in the raging rains waiting for it to pass, we have these new media sites which are becoming an ark. So when the water eventually passes over everybodys head, only those that go with whats now and keep building on their ark will survive.

As pointed in earlier posts, everybody knows about the declining record sales and feel as though their drowning in their past plans. From several counts it can be to lack of good music- But with about 40 different genre’s and many variations with the lowest near 200,000 and top over 2 million on myspace artists (myspace) I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. Some call it over satuation which could be the case. It could be the overal quality?

Well we’ll look in hindsite and see where we went wrong when we find the finished Ark of our new media, but I don’t think there will ever be a finished ark. With media and software always changing, so should the ark. Those who stick to the old ways will fail, and those who are late on whats new will just miss the ship. Those who don’t use Twitter, facebook, myspace (which is quickly becoming old), pandora radio, and/or any other startup sites that use a word of mouth approach to marketing.

Right now the best sales pitch is coming friend to friend, not billboard to billboard on the highway. New marketing is free, its just a matter of standing out, which is why the ark will never be finished, just like in DC it’ll always be under construction. Just always be on the lookout for whats new and jump on the ship before its time to build another.

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts.

instructions on how to fall faster from the top

Ok, take a business plan that has worked for years and break it apart slightly to give Users a sense of independence. There, that is the full business plan for iTunes. Their thoughts were good you know, just about 5 years late. After all the Napsters, Kazza, pirate bays, and bit torrents already had that idea. So iTunes idea was to take their idea and put a price on it. I’ve never been too much of a fan, but they have been somewhat successful. I mean even I purchased 1 album from them, Anthony Hamiltons Point of It All.

Ok it’s set, they’re following the same plan as freeware with a price and they sold a few billion. People are getting confortable with this, and their sales are expanding by large percenatges compared to the falling of physical sales. So of course with every business mind, when a product starts selling why not bump the price? I mean it’s a great idea for physical products when it costs more for distribution, but where is the overhead rising in digital music? Does it cost more not to upload? No thats free. I just don’t see a reason for this price increase. And suprise suprise, their sales are down… again.

Now some songs are cheaper than their original .99, but with all the newest songs at 1.29 its a great business idea, and it looks good on paper if same sales continue.

In general this would have worked great… what, 10 years ago?  Nice Try iTunes, its a good model. Just a little late. iTunes will either change their price or fall eventually, but with the low overhead and high profit it may take awhile.

I know I’m a little late on this but some people still didn’t know iTunes bumped their prices up so speak what you want about this.

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

Step 1

- Take an idea from another site selling the same products for free

Step 2

- Sell for an amount to help the artists out (good idea, i mean they still needa get paid)

Step 3

- offer less than what some of the free sites give

Step 4

- After some success, bump the price

Step 5

- File chapter 11 so you can keep your bently’s and million dollar house.

Kany”ego”

Supposedly Kanye West just found out he has a high ego thanks to south park (breaking story here)

I wonder if through the logic of South park spoken through Cartmen that people’s ego is so out of wack that no matter what people tell them, they can’t accept the truth of who they are. Their ego won’t let them believe that people are better than them. So I hope Kany”ego” calms down a little back to when he first came out and actually make good music again.

Skip to near the end of the video and you’ll find why I can never listen to heartless again.

Do you like fish sticks?

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

Collab with ya favorite artists

Indabamusic.com just recently came with an interesting new contest to do a song with John Legend, (http://www.indabamusic.com/contests/show/johnlegend). I haven’t used their services much but I have them on RSS and I think that it is a great way to find new talent, or atleast find new idea’s to work on new music as Legend is one of the judges who will listen to your work.

If anybody else finds any new kool contest idea’s from websites let people know!

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

The silent “I” in T(i)eam

A team is a combilation of I’s. I do not believe the phrase “there is no I in team” that means we all work together and are only as strong as our weakest link. If that is true, than every team sport would completely fail. If there is no “I” than why do we hold stats? What are we bee’s, or ants? No. We are a whole lotta “I’s” and until we realize that most DIY’s involving soley one person will fail.

Partnerships

2 guys (or girls or mix) of I’s working toward one goal. Thats 2 heads that are usually so incompatible with each other that if it was anything else it would not work. With one goal and 2 different objectives to reach it, it could work.

Groups

3 or more people toward one goal. Every person though has their own “I”, their own life. While working toward one thing they are a team but every ceo/ leader/ whoevers in charge sometimes has trouble looking at every person… as a person. That is why everything is in a bracket where their are leaders leading down to the lowest positions.

so what?

One thing when I talk to people, I stress the need to work with other people. A lot of artists love working alone, they book their own shows, they do everything themselfs. That works fine but as work builds up, so does tension and everything that goes with added workloads. I have a few artists/ Dj’s, and other people who read my blog so this is mostly to them.

Find somebody to work with, a mentor, somebody you can trust. Somebody who can help you with your load so you can be the best at the position your at. Multitasking is alright, but we need people for specific jobs otherwise your career will be considerably short or some part of your job will not be as full as it should be.

There should be I in team, because not one person can do everything… well at least anyway

Open for discussion, let me know what yall think

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

Why should we care about your music?

I’ve been getting bombarded recently by myspace bands telling me they are the best i’ve ever heard (and a few saying they are the worse). A well as at my job where i cashier I had a customer tell me that he knows a great rap group. So I listened to him talk about them, but he said nothing that was out the ordinary,  just shit i hear on a regular basis. So I ask my viewers of my blog, why should we care about your music or anybody’s when everybody and they mama is now doing music. Just speak your mind and I’ll keep this short.

PS- No spammers

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts