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

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

Major/ Minor

Viacom the owner of MTV has recently cut 850 jobs in the rise of this recession. This recession has also allowed anybody to be apart of the music industry… WMG’s stock is at $2.67 a stock. People claim it is an old business plan, others say music is not a monetary market anymore. Every week I keep seeing album sales every week, but digital sales have been steadily rising. Kanye’s single sold 1.3 million times on iTunes to date (2/4/08). So is digital the answer?

In Business, sales have to show growth and improvement otherwise stocks will drop and investor confidence will drop as well. Usually when a business grows too fast, and even a slow down of growth can strike fear. There will always be this wall where all business’s hit where they have to cut some expenses to continue growth until it can not make money anymore. That is where the flaw of iPods come in. If everybody has an iPod, where can the growth be? What improvements can they make? iPod sales drop now, but that is expected and still people lose confidence in them still. Where to go when you make the top?

Music is a business like any other, and no matter how much you market something, if people don’t need it they won’t get it. You can make it all pretty and everything, but if people can get it for free they still will. Digital sales, album sales, all music sales are close to fail soon, and I believe it is an end to ‘music sales’ but not an end to music. I see labels changing to the 360 deal which I believe is great to keep income and allow labels to not give up in pushing their artists. Yes, it is still mafia tactics where if you can’t get revenue from one place, you squeeze em in other area’s. The more I study business and marketing, the more I realize that without the push of a strong team, nobody can make it. As a more entrepreneurship mindset comes across America, we are becoming more DIY (Do It Yourself). DIY can only get you so far, and with the help of the internet, everybody can DIY, but than comes the ego with that thinking your as strong as a label.

The way to a new beginning is not the end of an old. Every day should be a new beginning in expanding from what was of yesterday. People settle for one plan, one product, one everything. That is why I love places like target. They can get income from many places, they do not have everything in one product which is what most labels do. We need to learn to do more than just music, artists need to expand from just singing/ rapping whatever they do. 50 Cent invested in Vitamen water and got close to half a billion dollars.

My point is, it is the end of one sided music. We need to learn to multitask more than what we are already doing. Regular grocery stores should expand with music, and more mainstream items for kids, teens and more. Record stores should sell more band merchandise, open up a place for shows and etc. Places need to come on a major/ minor system where they are mostly this, but they also have this. Most places have that, but it needs to become more apart of the business plan, rather than just a side thought

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

A definition of mini or larger success.

i got a question to ask, and as I like telling stories, I will explain in story…

What is better? The many little success or the larger one?

Yes we all strive for that one larger one, but isn’t the journey better than the destination 90% of the time? Aren’t the little successes sometimes stronger than the big one? When I’m at my night job, I always look toward my next break rather than when I am officially done because than each break is actually a refresher rather than just a delay of me being done. I look at every day of Mn winter not as another day it is not summer, but another day close to over that is another day closer to summer. I am an optimistic always looking at the small things as successes knowing that less than a decade ago it was a completely different story. I won’t talk about those times but i will talk from another story to prove that sometimes taking things week to week is better than looking at a larger picture.

Jerry thigspin is an acoustic guitar player and singer. He loves performing stories about things he has seen, and replaying stories he has heard from other people. He had a goal of one day performing this one story about this girl who is 17 and has an advance case of cancer, but needed a intimate atmosphere for a venue.  Its a strong song and he hoped it would do something to help her story live on since she herself has already been giving a date that she would not live past. Now the always large success of most artists is getting noticed, but is this song’s success based upon a large audience or an intimate showing just to the family to know that somebody else cares?

A more lighthearted story-

Long tail marketing has become large recently mentioning the growth of the genre’s that are not so standard. So lets say Tiffany Corleone is a indie rock/ pop/ rnb/ crunk/ hip hop/ acoustic artist that has a small dedicated base. She loves performing live, and she wants to do a sold out show at this venue able to hold 1400 people. Her largest show previously has been with 260 people at a coffee shop/ venue, and she thinks she could do better. She decides to set a date for the show, and she gets booked at this larger venue. Now is the time to promote it. She pushes it online, and has 100 confirmed people who say they will show up and its a month in advance. The show finally comes and she has a total of 748 people who show up and her dreams are crushed and she spends the money she made to mimic Amy Winehouse and go off on drugs. That’s a little dramatic, but its a severe case on one who is looking for too high of a success before they work on the little successes.

So do you have a story of mini successes or larger successes? Or which do you perfer? I still say I would rather look at day to day success to lead to a larger rather than one large one that may be too big to handle.

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

Impulse music

When was the last time you purchased music off of an impulse? When you go to Target or any grocery store they have candy and other treats sitting there waiting for you to buy outside of your normal grocery list. I work part time at a grocery store and so many times while in line, people purchase those items. They pay hundreds for groceries, so what is 89 cents for a twix? 89 cents lasts 20 seconds, and 99 cents can last a lot longer, so where has the music impulse purchase went? Why is 99 cents too much for a song? Sometimes 89 cents is too much for candy so people steal it and that is given. I use to be a huge music downloader, I won’t lie. As time goes by, and I have a little more money now I can purchase songs now. I just purchased the new Anthony Hamilton song “Cool” as a impulse buy since I could not find the full song on myspace or youtube.com.

My point of this is we need a way to put impulse back into this music. If there was a way where we could sell music where there is no purchase remorse than that is the best way to do it. If we punish, then  there will be some people who feel bad and others who’ll get addicted and just download everything. There has to be something that makes people feel good enough about the purchase to make it an impulse.

What would you suggest? How would you make people feel good about music?

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts