by Gigi Johnson | Oct 20, 2022 | Blog, Creative Innovators Podcast
[Enjoy our podcast this week that we share with our sister Maremel Network podcast, Innovating Music, that has just launched its fifth year.] Dick Huey claims that his career jumps have been “educated luck.” “Because they they are luck. And I’m, I’m I don’t ever pretend that I have more information than everybody else does. But I think I’m good at identifying opportunity. So for me, this felt like opportunity. And I jumped at it. And then of course that launched a 25-year career in digital music.” And so Dick shares with us his 25-year career, ranging from teaching software applications to getting his first music management client to building his digital music chops at Beggars Group to building Toolshed. He works now on his three-legged stool of interests: helping big picture enhancements of the music business, working with record companies, and engaging in ed tech and new technologies.
Guest: Dick Huey, Founder/President, Toolshed
Dick Huey moved to New York City in 1997 to work for independent label powerhouse the Beggars Group (XL Recordings, 4AD, Matador Records, Rough Trade. He created and staffed the group’s digital media department as global head of digital in the early days of digital music, determined the group’s strategic direction, and licensed its groundbreaking catalog of world-class independent music from artists like the Pixies, the Prodigy, Throwing Muses, and many others. Huey launched his NY Hudson Valley-based digital strategy company Toolshed in 2002, long before remote work was in vogue. Toolshed offered an early bespoke label and artist digital marketing, direct music service licensing, and download hosting service that created groundbreaking digital campaigns for Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco, and Aimee Mann amongst hundreds of hundreds of others. Labels and distributors including Matador Records, Beggars Group, The Orchard, Touch and Go, PIAS, Righteous Babe, and Merge Records were also clients. In 2010, Toolshed expanded into music rights acquisition for consumer brands, media, tech, sports, and entertainment companies. Spotify contracted with Huey to lead its US independent label licensing efforts prior to and during Spotify’s US launch in 2011. Red Bull Music Radio, SoundExchange, 8tracks, Digital Rights Agency, Red Mountain Ski Resort, Jaxsta, and Tunecore are all past clients or advisory relationships. Huey is currently a Business Development Consultant to AIMS API, an artificial intelligence music search platform based in the Czech Republic, as well as to Entertainment Intelligence, a high end music analytics platform for direct-license content owners. He is a music license consultant to the US independent record label Merge Records and to stealth cloud radio startup HijackRadio, and an advisor to Techstars accelerator winner Paperchain and Australian personal social media monetization platform OkTY. Outside of the music industry, Huey is a senior teaching assistant at NYU Professor Scott Galloway’s two-year old educational sprint startup Section4. Huey regularly TA’s online classes of up to 200 students on the topics of Subscription strategy, Brand, Platform, Product, Data Analytics, Growth Innovation (brand association with physical stores), and Storytelling. Several of the classes Huey TA’s are taught by Galloway himself. He held a 9-year board seat at SoundExchange representing Matador Records. He is a past Executive Director and board chairman of the Future of Music Coalition, based in Washington DC. He was chairman of the new media committee at the American Association of Music (A2IM) from its earliest days, as well as a consultant to independent entity the Association of Independent Music (AIM). Huey is a USSA-certified downhill ski racing coach and committed biker and mountain biker. He moved from the New York area to the Columbia River Gorge in 2021. He began his career as a musician, then a music manager, and signed and managed several artists to the Beggars Group and Glitterhouse Records.
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by Gigi Johnson | May 5, 2022 | Blog, Creative Innovators Podcast
Questions: How do we design for extreme conditions and resource challenges? Is that for Mars or Earth?
Guest: Alfredo Muñoz, Architect; Founder; Onteco; Founder, ABIBOO Studio; Chair for Memberships of the Technical Committee of Space Architecture at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Digital twins? Space architecture? Alfredo Munoz combines astrophysics and architecture to let us pilot new ways of building in VR on Earth . . . as practice for Mars . . . to improve how we live on Earth. He’ll share elements of a digital twin of a compound in Mars that you can engage with here on Earth to try out better ways of working, living, and creating. He also shares his own journey through innovative architecture and bringing those skills and insights to connect with space architecture and collaborative virtual reality.
Bio
Alfredo Muñoz is the founder of Onteco and ABIBOO Studio. He is also the Chair for Memberships of the Technical Committee of Space Architecture at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Mr. Muñoz has been considered the youngest among the most influential Spanish Architects and the youngest European Leaders (EYL40).
His clients range from Fortune Global 500 conglomerates to governments to private high-net-worth individuals on five continents.
Alfredo has been teaching and speaking at elite Universities, and his work has been featured in media outlets across the world.
He holds a Master’s in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Madrid and a Master’s of Advanced Studies in Architecture from BarcelonaTech.
Mentioned Links:
Your Host: Gigi Johnson, EdD
I run transformative programs, speak/moderate, invest, advise, and produce multimedia on creativity and technology. I taught for 22 years at UCLA, where I ran the Center for Music Innovation and the podcast “Innovating Music,” built four industry-connecting programs, and taught undergraduates, MBAs, and executives about disruption in creative industries. Before UCLA, I financed media M&A at Bank of America for ten years.
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Sponsored and Produced by the Maremel Institute
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by Gigi Johnson | Apr 28, 2022 | Blog, Creative Innovators Podcast
Question: How can you build a rich creative life based on referrals and going out on a limb?
Guest: Darryl Hurs, Owner/CEO, Indie Week; Managing Director, Downtown Canada; Director, Market Development, Canada, CD Baby; Educator, Harris Institute
In this episode, Darryl Hurs shares his journey from studying music, working in retail at HMV, and being in a band to building a dynamic life in digital arts and music business through the reach of the people he has met and putting himself out there, even if he was uncomfortable. His work of getting and giving work to others launched his own early work for Live Nation in launching VIPNATION. His life ever since has all been about referrals and reaching out. He built Indie Week from booking venues and creating discovery opportunities for new music. He threads together stories of expanded risk-taking from one group of skills and people to bigger opportunities — and how the referral is at the core of building his work in the world.
Bio
Darryl Hurs has a 25+ year history in the music business including launching and running Indie Week (one of Canada’s largest music showcase festivals and conferences). In the past two years, he has founded 3 new online conferences: Music Pro Summit, indie101, and SCREENxSCREEN.
Darryl recently has been hired as the Managing Director for Downtown Music in Canada heading the Canadian operations for FUGA, Songtrust, Adrev, Found.ee, and CD Baby.
His past positions include design and branding/marketing for Live Nation as a freelancer (projects included a corporate rebrand and logo design, launching VIPNATION.com, work for U2, Nickelback, Madonna, Beyonce, Jay-Z and Dave Matthews), retail buyer at HMV, and booker for one of Toronto’s top live music venues (The Rivoli).
Links
Our Mission
Through our guests’ stories, we aim to inspire current and future change agents who are creatives, entrepreneurs, researchers, or community leaders who are seeking inspiration and support around creative innovation — changing the ways we create, collaborate, engage, change lives, and build communities.
Your Host: Gigi Johnson, EdD
I run transformative programs, speak/moderate, invest, advise, and produce multimedia on creativity and technology. I taught for 22 years at UCLA, where I ran the Center for Music Innovation and the podcast “Innovating Music,” built four industry-connecting programs, and taught undergraduates, MBAs, and executives about disruption in creative industries. Before UCLA, I financed media M&A at Bank of America for ten years.
Connect with Us
Sponsored and Produced by the Maremel Institute
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
by Gigi Johnson | Apr 22, 2022 | Blog, Creative Innovators Podcast
Question: How do you connect independent artists and music business in India as a young woman?
Guest: Ritnika Nayan, Managing Director, Downtown India; Owner: Music Gets Me High
Ritnika Nayan shares stories about her passion: helping indie artists succeed and make money through various avenues that they might have been neglecting. She does that in her main role: Managing Director for Downtown India. That passion also connects her early love of Broadway musicals to working on college concerts at Hofstra, music festivals in India, building her own company, wellness work, ukulele covers, and writing a book and teaching future music industry leaders in India.
Bio
Ritnika Nayan is the Managing Director for Downtown India representing CD Baby, Fuga, Songtrust, Downtown Music Services, Found.ee, and Adrev in the country. She is also the owner of the company Music Gets Me High and the author of Indie 101 – The Ultimate Guide to the Independent Music Industry in India.
Throughout her 21 years of experience in the music industry, she has worked with artists like Maroon 5, Nickelback, Guns & Roses, Manu Chao, Nucleya, Advaita, Jalebee Cartel and also consulted on festivals like Sula Fest, Ziro festival of Music, Wonderflip fest and more. Ritnika has also set up India’s first stand-alone Music Business Certification course at SACAC, Delhi, and conducts workshops on various aspects of the Industry under MGMH Academy. She is an avid speaker at conferences globally including TEDx and has won various awards including the contribution to the creative industry award by the University of Westminster, UK and the Young Music Entrepreneur runner-up award by the British council and more.
Mentioned Links:
Our Mission
Through our guests’ stories, we aim to inspire current and future change agents who are creatives, entrepreneurs, researchers, or community leaders who are seeking inspiration and support around creative innovation — changing the ways we create, collaborate, engage, change lives, and build communities.
Your Host: Gigi Johnson, EdD
I run transformative programs, speak/moderate, invest, advise, and produce multimedia on creativity and technology. I taught for 22 years at UCLA, where I ran the Center for Music Innovation and the podcast “Innovating Music,” built four industry-connecting programs, and taught undergraduates, MBAs, and executives about disruption in creative industries. Before UCLA, I financed media M&A at Bank of America for ten years.
Connect with Us
Sponsored and Produced by the Maremel Institute
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
by Gigi Johnson | Apr 15, 2022 | Blog, Creative Innovators Podcast
Question: How can you build campfires, mixing music and social activism?
Guest: Arturo O’Farrill, Founder, Artistic Director, Afro Latin Jazz Alliance; Professor, Global Jazz Studies, The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Arturo O’Farrill builds campfires and connects music, activism, and community to build momentum to change his areas of passion in the world — especially in New York. He shares with us the many projects he is working on, his Grammy-award winning music melding and digging beyond jazz and Latin music roots, his strong beliefs about Cuba and US foreign policy, and his new projects in housing and music in Spanish Harlem. He talks about the impacts on artists with the Virtual Birdland project, which garnered a Grammy nomination, and his work with Dr. Cornel West with Four Questions. He recalls his desires to conduct back at age 6 and breaking into his father’s record collection and finding Seven Steps to Heaven, locking in his passion for music. He states with bold examples how “Happiness is marrying your conviction with your art,” which frames most of his adult work. He speaks the vigor about the results of unbridled capitalism — and does not mince words.
Our Guest
ARTURO O’FARRILL, pianist, composer, and educator, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. Arturo’s professional career began with the Carla Bley Band and continued as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Belafonte.
In 2007, he founded the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance as a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the performance, education, and preservation of Afro Latin music.
An avid supporter of all the Arts, Arturo has performed with Ballet Hispanico, Ron Brown’s EVIDENCE Dance company, and the Malpaso Dance Company, for whom he has written several ballets.
Arturo’s well-reviewed and highly praised “Afro-Latin Jazz Suite” from the album CUBA: The Conversation Continues (Moma) took the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition as well as the 2016 Latin Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Recording. In addition, his composition “Three Revolutions” from the album Familia-Tribute to Chico and Bebo also received the Best Instrumental Composition Grammy in 2018. Arturo’s 2020 album, “Four Questions” won yet another Grammy award in 2021.
Arturo has been a Steinway Artist for many years and is now a Blue Note Records Recording Artist.
Mentioned Links
Websites:
Timecodes
- 00:03 Introduction and current work
- 01:24 Hiring a new bass player with recordings – changing the system he was handed
- 02:29 ALJA and Building Campfires
- 04:18 Affordable Housing in Spanish Harlem
- 07:42 2022 Grammy-nominated songs and their importance to him
- 08:02 Virtual Birdland with 18 extraordinary artists
- 09:29 Malpaso and his second Grammy nomination for 2022
- 09:46 Cuba’s ongoing struggles
- 10:30 Grammys as fuel for Foundation support
- 11:01 Four Questions with Dr. Cornel West
- 13:15 Getting Started – pretending to conduct an orchestra at age 6
- 14:51 How his parents met and his early life
- 16:32 Breaking into his father’s record collection and Seven Steps to Heaven
- 17:24 Happiness is marrying your conviction with your art
- 18:20 When Arturo started taking heartstances in the world
- 18:50 The Drum and the Noise — drums as symbols of gentrification
- 19:52 Ramarley Graham, Keith LaMar, and music in mass incarceration
- 21:48 Getting in trouble: music reflecting back on the world – trouble and liberation
- 22:13 “You don’t have a right to say this”
- 26:34 More on Cuba
- 30:08 Hard decisions and being an administrator
- 31:31 You need to learn to say no
- 32:16 His songs – extraordinary musicians — and Accepting Chaos
- 34:33 Succession and the next voice of leadership
- 36:05 How to reach out
- 37:29 Loving Los Angeles and Culver City’s funkitude
