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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Valley Record Label Goes Back to Future

The recent numbers released by the Record Industry Association of America are not encouraging: a 6.1 percent decline in overall retail value of the music industry and a 15.7 percent decline in CDs, DVDs, and videos shipped to retail and specialty outlets compared to last year. So who would launch a new record label in that environment? Well, two music industry veterans and the head of a large mortgage company, that’s who. In fact, the timing is right to get a new independent label on the market and to help shake up the music industry, they say. “When the big monoliths fail to meet the needs of a subset of the community other people have to come in who are smaller, more nimble to fill that need,” said Amy Brandt, one-third of the team behind Your Music America. Lip-synching, hip-shaking, non-instrument playing performers need not drop off sample discs at the Burbank offices of Your Music America. The boutique label instead reaches out to the singer/songwriters and bands writing their own material and playing their own instruments, whatever the genre, whatever region of the country they come from. “If we know an artist is talented and has a point of view that’s worth listening to and wanting to know about, we want to help them get to the people,” said Richie Zito, the label’s vice president of A & R.; Zito and label President and Head of A & R; Larry Lee are the creative side of Your Music America, while Brandt, chief executive officer at WMC Mortgage, is the business side. Zito and Brandt call their partnership the right mix. “If there’s too much business it would be too sterile; too much creative and it wouldn’t be as well funded and not as well organized,” said Brandt, who was named by the San Fernando Valley Business Journal in its Forty Under Forty list in 2003. To hear Zito and Brandt discuss the label’s future, it harkens back to the early 1970s when independent labels were started in Los Angeles to give an outlet to the burgeoning SoCal singer/songwriter and country rock genres that gave the world The Eagles, Jackson Browne and Crosby, Stills and Nash. So, independent labels are in the history and fabric of the industry and it’s those labels Asylum, Atlantic, and A & M; that Your Music America models itself after, Zito said. “They broke rules, they made rules; they empowered artists to make great music,” said Zito, whose credits include producing Cheap Trick, Heart and Eddie Money. Rather than clinging to some past reality of the L.A. music scene, Brandt, Lee and Zito need to maneuver their label through an environment of declining CD sales, disappearing music retail outlets (as evidenced by the Tower Records bankruptcy) and the rise of digital distribution (iTunes, anyone?). The advantage that a small, independent label has over the majors is less overhead and a lower return on its investment. It is not uncommon these days for a major label to secure another revenue stream from its artists, be it merchandising, concerts, or publishing but that’s not a path Your Music America necessarily needs to follow. A label of their size can cater to a smaller audience, sell considerably fewer units and still turn a profit, Brandt said. As a boutique label looking for artists with the potential for a career lasting beyond the next music fad, Your Music America can be picky about who they sign. So far, the company has lined up Kessler, a Dallas-based band with a debut release slated for early 2007. Zito and Lee also inked a deal with Andrew McMahon to form Airport Records and Tapes to distribute albums by acts discovered by McMahon. To have success with their acts, the label needs to give the right nurturing and a sympathetic ear to help a performer realize their vision, Zito said. “We’re hoping every record finds the audience we want it to find,” Zito said. CSUN Program So where are the future Your Music Americas going to come from? Look no further than California State University at Northridge and its Music Industry Studies program that gives students the opportunity to produce a music act from start to finish. Few music programs in the country provide students the background and training in the business side of the music industry as this 12-year program does. “Today a lot of the students want to be on the business side of the industry because their heart is in music and they want to do something that they know,” said Joel Leach, coordinator of the Music Industry Studies program. The door isn’t just open to any student, Leach cautioned. They have to know and understand music and must pass an entrance audition, Leach said. MIS Music group, the program’s label, was launched in 1998. Juniors and seniors are divided up between various committees artist and repertoire, marketing, promotions, graphics, talent search and production whose goal is to find an artist and record and market their material. If an act chosen by the students were to become successful it would be a plus for the program but it’s real purpose is the exercise of seeing how the business side works, Leach said. “It’s an eye-opening experience for young people to do this,” Leach said. The MIS received a boost this year when one-time CSUN student Mike Curb donated $10 million to the school, with $1 million earmarked for the program. Curb attended the school in 1962 and 1963 and is chairman and owner of Curb Records, based in Nashville. Staff Reporter Mark R. Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or by e-mail at [email protected] .

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