NYLA

Scenes from my favorite city in the world from this past week. Winter is pretty lame in general, but NYC remains rad. Where else can you hear Jay-Z and acoustic guitar and encounter a dancing Statue of Liberty all in the same hour?





Headed to LaLa land for a few days for Brendan Benson @ The Troubadour, but NYC always on my mind.

#NowPlaying
"Princess & The Pea" - Family of the Year (from forthcoming March 2010 EP)
"Who You Going To Run To" - Solid Gold (thank you Boy2MenMen2Wolf).
"Funeral" - Zoe Boekbinder
"Getting On My Mind" - Panic Bomber
"Light of Day" - Brendan Benson (wouldn't you like to know)

Best shows of Jan 2010
Hot Rats via iFerg @ Bowery Ballroom/NYC in January
Sydney Wayser @ La Maroquinerie/Paris - 29.01.2010

xo

PS - NYC'ers looking for fun this weekend should check out Sydney Wayser @ The Living Room on Friday as well as Emilyn Brodsky & Xylos @ Webster Hall Studio on Friday.

Sydney Wayser Makes Me Very Proud

I heavily rely on smart and ambitious interns to help get everything done that we want to execute for all of our artists. Combining work and education is something that has been around since the middle ages and probably before. This system set the foundation for my career (thank you Powderfinger, Q Division, WBCN/WZLX, Don Law, The Paradise, Avalon, VH1 Classic, MTV UK, and The Dresden Dolls, love you all!)

However, sometimes finding interns who get that the music industry isn't all clownery at shows and festivals can be challenging. In addition, passion and musical knowledge is key. I had an intern once ask me who I was listening to when the answer was Radiohead. Not a good sign.

And thus, in the Spring of 2007, I was overloaded as usual and asked Miss Merch, who happened to be Madison House's office manager at the time, if we could find someone to help. Laura already had lined up an interview with a girl named Sydney Wayser, who was recommended by our previous and awesome intern, Lydia Berg-Hammond. A few days later, when I walked by Laura interviewing Sydney I said "Is she hired yet? We have work to do!" as I was confident of her abilities based on Lydia's recommendation.

Sydney started interning for me shortly after and the beautiful 19 year old French-American handed me her CD, as she was a musician. I listen to tons of new music every day and Sydney's album stood out from the get go. Her talent and spirit shined through and she began to ask my advice on how to start her new life and career in New York as she had just moved to the city from Boston.

We became fast friends and Sydney was a massive help on the management work I was doing with The Dresden Dolls, Fiery Furnaces, and Jonah Smith at the time. She dove in and really learned what it was like on the management side to put together plans, tours, online marketing strategies and the importance of connecting with fans.

Fast forward to two years later and I had started a management company with Keri Smith Esguia, yay! Sydney had by then released her second album on her own and was beginning to tour nationally. We officially started working together last summer and it's been bliss ever since.

Beyond Sydney's obvious talent and immense creativity, she is truly a pleasure to work with day in and day out. But not just due to her sparkling personality. Sydney is one of the hardest working people I have ever met in any field. The girl is constantly writing, recording, rehearsing, learning new instruments, collaborating with new people, excited to try new technologies and will play music to anyone in almost any situation. We have thrown her on the road and the work is paying off, with international touring, a growing fanbase, and musical chops that blow my mind every time I get to see her play.

Last month, Sydney accompanied me and her attorney, Heidy Vaquerano from LaPolt Law to MIDEM in the South of France. I think that such a prestigious music industry conference could be intimidating for many artists. There's A LOT of biz being discussed and no matter how involved with one's own career an artist is, it can be overwhelming. We also shared a house with other entrepreneurs and folks from music start-ups. Despite spending her free time warming up her voice and practicing ukulele as opposed to being glued to Apple Mail, she fit right in. ie

We dove into the conference and Sydney took no time to take hold of her career. Here is Syd discussing how PRS works in France with SESAM while Heidy looks on. Thank god my artist was there to translate for me! :)

After a very successful MIDEM for Sydney and in general, we took the train North to Paris for Sydney's debut show in Paris at La Maroquinerie with THAO and Basia Bulat as a preview for Le festival Les Femmes S'en Mêlent. Watching Sydney perform in Paris in front of her fans, large French family, industry, press, and bloggers was utter joy. It was amazing to see how far she'd come from shyly handing me her CD as an intern.

Sydney will return to France in April and be making her debut in Germany as well. She has been writing for her third album and I'm thrilled to be working with her from the beginning of the creative process on her new project. And although NYC, LA, France, and Germany are rad; if you can't make it to any of those places, catch her on her bi-monthly show via Justin.TV. But what's the best thing you can do to help Sydney in her growing career? Sign up for her E-mail list, and encourage others to do the same.

Love you,

Emily White

Why CASH Music is Awesome

You'll have to go HERE if you want to know.

xo

Love You (This is semi-epic, you were warned)

I've been meaning to write this post for months, but time always escapes me.

Somehow, it's not only the end of the year, but also the end of the decade. I graduated high school 10 years ago and at that point, just wanted to get out of Hartland, WI, with the goal of working in music. I wanted to work in music because I couldn't imagine the idea of doing anything else. I also wanted a job where I could listen to music all day, sleep in, and be required to go to loads of shows. I never could have imagined that ontop of touring the world numerous times, I'd live in Boston (well I guess I kind of knew that, I was headed to college there), New York, London, and Miami before semi-settling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

I was pretty sure I could retire after Noel Gallagher dedicated "Don't Look Back in Anger" at The Hurricane Festival in Germany in 2005, but amazingly the work I kept doing kept leading to more and more fun, mind-expanding and eye-opening experiences.

When I look at our company and our roster, I have nothing but gratitude for the people whose energy was pooled for all of this to come together. I could not be more thankful and am nothing without the artists, team, and support of friends and family around me.

Three years ago, my best friend (Laura Keating aka Miss Merch) and I were working at Madison House and survived on smart interns who were able to help us with our infinite work loads. One in particular came highly recommended from Jim Anderson, one of my most respected music professors from Northeastern and her name was Lydia Berg-Hammond. Lydia was a lifesaver at Madison House for us and we also adored her infectious positive attitude and sense of humor. But alas, she had to return to school and Laura and I were terrified of getting another intern who we had to explain to who Radiohead was (not kidding). Lydia said she had a friend named Sydney Wayser who had just graduated from Berklee and needed to do an internship to finish her requirements. New intern who came recommended by LBH? Done. In walked Ms. Sydney, whose incredible spirit shone through from day one, even though she was having a hard time adjusting to New York, just like most 19 year olds. Sydney gave her my CD, and I was blown away by her vocals and musicianship. She was an incredible friend during a transitional time in my life and we've remained close ever since. 23-year old Sydney has really come into her own and I couldn't be more proud. When we first met, Sydney would ask me how I thought she could get a gig at The Living Room. Now she is a regular that packs the place out, toured nationally this summer, and is doing her first European tour this spring, while she sets ready to start working on her third album. Beyond that, Sydney has been an incredible friend and I cherish our relationship both professionally and personally. Thank you for everything, Syd!

One of my favorite jobs in college was ripping tickets at The Paradise. It paid me to see shows for free, AWESOME! One day in 2003, I was working at a Juliana Hatfield show and a band from Martha's Vineyard was opening called Unbusted. They were amazing! I remember a frontman that drew everyone in musically and a drummer going crazy (though was also musicially amazing), reminding me of one of my favorite drummers, Animal from The Muppets. After introducing myself to Joe and Sebastian Keefe multiple times over the early months of 2004 as they played around Boston, they finally started to remember who I was. :) I moved to New York in 2005 after graduation and would never miss an Unbusted show, whether it was in an illegal club in the basement of the city with Porsches on the Autobahn or at SXSW. They were amazing! But sadly, Joe and Seb moved away to Los Angeles and we stayed in touch, with them generally showing up when I'd put them on the guest list at LA shows when I was in town ;). On July 27th of this year, Sebastian sent me the following email (the subject is my favorite part):

Subject: Hi emily! Sebastian keefe

Hi emily!
How are you??!! It's been so long! I hope you are well!
I wanted to tell you about the new group that joe and I started. We're called bogie ogreton (myspace.com/bogieogreton). If you take a minute, I'm sure you will like the music.
We will be playing shows through the rest of the summer, the next one being this wednesday downtown (mountain bar). We've been busy with interviews and photoshoots, and there is beginning to be a bit of a buzz-- we haven even played out yet!
Please give the tunes a listen, any and all feedback Is greatly apreciated.
Thanks emily!
Sebastian keefe

Sent from my iPhone

Two days later, I was managing the band (without ever seeing them live!). That sounds insane, but I'd loved Unbusted live and if they were half as good live as their new recordings, I knew we'd be fine. The band's name was changed to Family of the Year and we quickly put together shows with anyone who would have us. Brian Viglione was gracious enough to have the band open for him and World/Inferno Friendship Society at The Great American Music Hall in San Fran as well as a show in San Luis Obisbo shortly after. Family bought a 1986 RV named Rosie and off we went on their first ever tour. Miracuously this has been documented (along with everything since!) by the great Chris Zampas. For me personally, that little trip was easily in my top 3 favorite tours ever. I don't know if I'd ever laughed harder. Beyond my old friends of Joe and Seb, I adored the new Family members: Brent, Christina, Vanessa and Jim and cherish every moment I get to spend with them personally as well as letting my inner-fan girl out everytime they play live. I'm oh so proud of the work these 6 have put in over the past few months and 2010 is only going to get better. :)

Top that off with Emilyn Brodsky and I couldn't have been happier with our music roster. I've known Emilyn for 6 years and she has gone from an annoying teenager that drove me crazy in the tour van to making one of my favorite albums of the year, Greatest Tits. My life wouldn't be complete without Emilyn stopping by my apartment in Williamsburg with various guests snapping secret pictures of me working, making tea, and more. She seems happier than ever and isn't that what we're all after?

As later as November of this year I was very content with all of the above. What more could I ask for? Well, a phone call from Jared Reynolds sure changed that. I'm honored to be managing the incredible Brendan Benson, one of my favorite artists of the past decade. Yes, you all know him from The Raconteurs, but his new album My Old, Familiar Friend is (not shockingly) AMAZING. I'm so excited for what we have planned for Brendan in 2010 and when he comes to your town, you'd be nuts to miss it. The show is a world-class rock n roll concert with stunning songwriting and musicianship. "Jet Lag" from 2002's Lapalco just came up on shuffle which is very appropriate for my life lately and is one of my favorite songs of all time. I am truly blessed.

However, I am nothing without our team and the support of those around me. Keri Smith inspires me daily with her unbelievable work on Margaret Cho, Selene Luna, Kevin Avery, Sara Benincasa, and Elon James White. Our posse of Sarah Martin, Lydia Berg-Hammond, Katrina Bleckley, Becca Rosenthal, Pickles, Shamisa Zvoma, Daniel Schiffer, Kelsey McLaughlin, Carl Carpenter, did incredible work this year and saved my ass daily. Everyone pray for Katrina as she battles through her last 3 law school finals of the semester. I'm truly in awe of her work ethic, dedication, and passion for life.

How do we get all of this amazing music to you? Various ways, but one is through Jesse Von Doom and CASH Music. I'm not sure if Jesse is human. He is possibly a celestial being that maybe only I can see, although he does have an equally as incredible wife and two of the most adorable little girls I have ever seen, so he's probably real. I am beyond honored to be on CASH's board and beyond the groundbreaking technical work that Jesse does, my spirits are lifted every time I speak to this man. He is one of the warmest souls I have ever met, and I'm truly honored to be associated with him.

And who are Whitesmith's biggest fans that help me to get through all of the work at the end of the day? Bob and Ann White are not only everything I could ever need as parents, but have been supporting the indie-rock community in oh so many ways this year. They hosted The Fiery Furnaces, The Wheel, and World/Infero as the bands rolled into Milwaukee and made the trek out to CMJ! So fun. CMJ was like Christmas and my birthday all wrapped into one. I was so excited that my parents were able to see basically our entire roster all in one night and see what my world is like a bit. Little brother Jesse graduates from the University of Minnesota this year and I hope to god he moves to Brooklyn. Thanks for always being there for me, Jesse!!!!!

I continue to feel beyond supported by amazing friends and mentors such as Joyce Dollinger, Elizabeth Freund, Nathan M Lew, BriAnna Olson, Michael Pope, Winifred Chane, Bill Smolen, Mike Luba, Bob Ezrin, Steve Ferguson, John and Frank Raso, and more. Turning up to our shows alone means the world to me.

I'm writing this on a plane coming home-ish from a 48 hour trip to London. I have shows in Nashville and LA before returning to Brooklyn, but I am so grateful for the past two days as well. The hospitality of others around the world continues to astound me. Thank you Ross for bringing me to Royal Albert Hall this week, truly an honor. Thank you Sulinna for putting me up and empathizing with everything that goes into management + inspiring me and encouraging me to keep it up. Thank you Elif and Emma for always making time to get together when I'm in London, love you girls!

I'm looking forward to Brendan's show in Nashville and spending time with Whitesmith West, Sydney, and Family of the Year in LA this week before headed home for one last weekend of yoga teacher training. I owe another blog post about how much yoga teacher training has (literally) changed my life. But the best part of the experience has been the wonderful community that has come out of the group doing the training. I have 30 new wonderful friends in Williamsburg and I can't wait to witness their continued growth.

So basically, I'm nothing without you all, am SO EXCITED for 2010 and hope you all will join us.

Much Love,

Em Wizzle

Why Spotify Is Awesome

I'd read about Spotify and a few UK friends had told me how cool it was. Without examining why, my natural instinct was that streaming was annoying mostly due to inconsistencies no matter what the interweb speed. A short-term problem in the grand scheme of things, but a problem nonetheless. I suppose I felt that way based on attempting to stream Myspace pages unsuccessfully.

Meanwhile, a very trusty hard drive that stored my music (which is backed up elsewhere, but I mean like up-to-the-second additions) was clearly winding down in it's life. Thus, I picked up a Tb harddrive, assuming I could use the other two as back-ups and use the extra space for artist asset management. The hard drive makes my Mac crash (gasp!) and now even using my 200 gig Time Machine hard drive seems to give my computer trouble. Granted I should add another gig of RAM to my machine, but in the meantime, my stored music collection got scrambled some how for the second time this year. I have about 200 gigs of music on there and frequently add discographies to it. But the reality is, that's a lot of content. And all I want to do is have a wide variety of music accessible for work and fun, so pretty much all the time. But it's clearly becoming a pain and waste of time to do so in this form.

The amazing Katrina, who helps me out with Whitesmith NYC commented that it'd be nice to listen to something other than our artists, Edward Sharpe, The Yeah Yeah Yeah's, and The Beatles. I'm just lazy, even though there is loads of music at my fingertips, I just have to take the time to re-organize it again and haven't taken the time.

Well, today I was able to use Spotify. Music snob friends immediately said "yeah, but does it have EVERYTHING." No, of course not. Their catalogue doesn't have The Beatles, Oasis, and anyone or any rights holders who don't want to be on the service. Nor does it have Family Of The Year's live shows or Sydney Wayser's demos. But I do. I love those artists and have those files on multiple Apple devices and backups, including the machine I'm on right now. But Spotify does have a ton of music. And it streams flawlessly, has a sleek interface, correct info, and can be broken down into genre and era. I've had a blast listening to The Spencer David Group and The McCoys tonight while pouring through Sonny and Cher's album artwork.

Thus, I've spent my day and evening using Spotify. There are ads about every few songs. But it was pointed out to me initially, that because it is a UK program, the ads are all from England and are AMAZING. I mean seriously, today I heard one that had a very sensual theme and was from the UK energy department. There are visual ads as well, but I only noticed when I go back to the program to do something. Right now I obviously can't see them because I'm typing in blog land. It's even more fun than downloading discographies because there is artwork and info on the releases as well. NP, more Sonny and Cher. I love it.

Music snobs also need to chill when talking about preferring physical and/or intense high quality. No one is trying to take that away from you. If anything, physical packages are getting more frequent and artists are getting more directly involved with physical releases. I love the NIN box sets I've bought or seen this decade vs. my Downward Spiral CD from 1994.

When I was making dinner tonight (shout out to Williamsburg-Greenpoint CSA!), I was craving newish Oasis, which Spotify doesn't have (yet). So I just flipped over to my iTunes. Not that hard. It just makes me happy that a decade after the thrilling concept of Napster, enough people have finally been allowed to admit that it's a great idea. Eventually some sort of digital music in this form will just plain cover everything and this is a solid step in the right direction. In the meantime, props to Spotify for having Wibbling Rivalry in its collection, which is a recording of Liam and Noel Gallagher fighting in the 90's, that was released as a UK single and charted.

Eventually beyond that, I can't wait till a service like this integrates with what an individual owns and/or creates. ie my asset management system, random live stuff, and eventually eventually film and tv content all in one place/service. A system to upload/filter legit content directly would be amazing as well. I'm sure charging a fee a la Tunecore would do the trick.

A girl can dream.

Back to work?

Love,

Em Wizzle