Michael Giacchino on the Music of Lost

I started watching ABC’s Lost in the fourth season, last year, because my baby’s mother is a big fan and when it’s on, if I’m in the living room, it’s what’s happening. Between the fourth and fifth season, we Netflixed the earlier seasons, and I got all caught up, so now I’m invested and watching the fifth season, waiting for an end to the madness.

Truthfully, I’m not the biggest fan. Like other JJ Abrams projects, I think it’s a really cool idea that suffers from some fundamental writing flaws that can undermine the overall experience. But now I’m invested, and certainly not annoyed enough to stop watching.

Throughout all five seasons, however, the most striking element of the show has been the score. Composed and directed by Michael Giacchino, the music behind the unfolding story really delivers the show’s drama, almost better than the actors do. Impressively, in a time when television music is composed and produced largely by one guy with a MIDI controller and a shitload of software, the score for Lost is created by old-fashioned symphony musicians, real instruments and interesting production techniques. Even more impressively, the score for each episode is knocked out in a mere three hours, with very limited lead time for Giacchino to digest and compose for each new episode. The process lends itself nicely to the visceral nature of the music.

Many thanks to Colin for the heads-up on the video.

Reality Digital: Social Media Building Blocks 2009

If you’re in San Francisco at the end of February and you’re interested online media, social networking and the general media shift from print / television / radio to online, you should check out Reality Digital’s Social Media Building Blocks 2009 conference.

Making things even more interesting, I’ll be speaking about “Challenges & Opportunities in Launching a Social Media Project.” It’s a pretty loose concept, and before you ask, no, I do not professionally bill myself as just a social media expert, though I certainly do have a good amount of personal and professional experience in that realm. I’m a journalist and editor by trade / education, with solid business development experience, 10 years deep in the game, and have been working for the last four years as the West Coast online project manager for a NYC-based media company. So my bit will be focused on the challenges, opportunities an successes I’ve experienced in helping to move what is largely a print media outfit into the internet age.

So far it’s looking like I’ll be painting in broad brush strokes about some high-altitude generalities, and making some finer points about some issues specific to integrating a “warehouse” backend media solution for several properties across several sectors, in both business-to-business and consumer media — my current bread-and-butter gig.

Really, it’ll be thrilling. And afterward, me and my homeboy Benny from Limelight Networks are gonna ghostride the whip in the Omni hotel parking garage.*

*Okay, probably not…but I’ll see what we can put together in terms of post-conference fun.

The Business: Von Iva Goes Hollywood, Japanese Singers Get Banned, Remix Mag Closes

I was flipping through this week’s Billboard at lunch the other day, and saw this piece about SF band Von Iva (it’s a .jpg and not a link because that section of BillboardBiz.com is gated for subscribers) and how they count among their fans Jonathan Karp, the music director for such films as Superbad and The 40 Year Old Virgin. Karp music directed for the new Jim Carey movie, Yes Man, which also stars actor/singer Zooey Deschanel, and he managed to get the ladies of Von Iva cast in the movie as a band with Deschanel as the lead singer. I’ve only seen Von Iva once, when I was working on the now-defunct Mesh magazine, but they were awesome: raunchy, kinda soulful, slightly quirky, 100 percent rock ‘n’ roll. I haven’t seen the movie — and frankly, I probably won’t — but big ups to Von Iva for taking another step toward rock stardom. Next stop: free cocaine and deli trays…

In the same Billboard, I spotted a piece about Japanese public broadcast network NHK indefinitely banning five singers from appearing on any of the network’s radio and television stations because they played golf with and performed at the birthday party of a known Japanese organized crime boss. Billboard Biz reports that the five singers’ management representatives have confirmed the performances and the banning. I guess it has something to do with the fact that it’s the Japanese public broadcasting network, which, if it’s anything like PBS/NPR in the US, can get away with pretending to operate with some level of morality, but seriously… Since when does morality have any place in the music and broadcast industries? VH1 reality series, MTV, Fox TV, major music industry, capitalism — if morality was a factor, none of those things would even exist…

I think it bears noting that Remix magazine will be closing its proverbial doors at the end of the year. The electronic- and urban-flavored production and performance magazine’s last issue will be January 2009, but the magazine’s parent company, Penton Publishing, will continue producing the popular Remix Hotel event series. I’m not sure how Penton thinks it can continue the Remix Hotel events without the magazine. The Remix print product provides the Hotel events with validity and relevance, and promotes the brand between events; the two properties are integral parts of the same entity. I predict the Remix Hotel won’t last past the third quarter of 2009. Remix was among the competition of EQ magazine, which is owned by the company I work for, and while I like EQ a lot, I am bummed to see Remix go. I’m not sure when the official announcement is going to be made, but I got a forwarded e-mail from the editor about the closure yesterday. This economy is a bitch…

Finally, with deference to the title of this post, here’s a link to one of my favorite podcasts: KCRW’s The Business.

Bandwidth Conference 2008

This past Thursday was technically my first day back on the job after the birth of my daughter a couple weeks ago, but instead of going back to my office, I, along with my esteemed colleague Matt Harper of EQ magazine, attended the Bandwidth Conference, held this year at the University Club in SF. The conference’s motto is “Music – Technology – Cocktails” and it’s billed as a somewhat exclusive and friendly coming together of people at the apex of technology and music and everything that goes along with that intersection of hipster media — talent and A&R, media, revenue generation and general business, marketing, technological advances, etc.

Networking, brain-trusting…you get the picture.

The two-day conference started at noon on Thursday with a round table discussion open to all attendees, a chance for people to tell their “rock ‘n’ roll stories.” The discussion was moderated by David Katznelson, a music biz / A&R vet from the Birdman Recording Group, who told a good one about working with guitarist John Frusciante while in between stints with the Red Hot Chili Peppers (you know, while he was all wacked out on drugs). I was considering telling a story I’ve got about hanging out and drinking with Lemmy from Motorhead, but instead, I used the receipt of a text message as an excuse to take my leave of the conversation, head to the bar and begin fulfilling the third element of the conference motto.

The first official panel was called “Bellwethers,” moderated by Larry Weintraub, CEO of Fanscape. He interviewed four teenagers about how they acquire, listen to, and share music. It was all pretty unenlightening — kids get new music tips from sites like Pitchfork, iMeem and MySpace, as well as from their friends; some buy music (mostly from iTunes), a few still buy CDs, and some just don’t ever pay for it; and they share it via mix CD / playlist, peer-to-peer networks, via e-mail/FTP, or by word-of-mouth; so tell me something I don’t know — so I headed back to bar.

Thursday’s most interesting panel was called “Year Zero.” Featuring Susan Bonds, CEO, and Alex Lieu, Chief Creative Officer, of 42 Entertainment, the hour was all about their company’s campaign for the Nine In Nails album Year Zero, and their presentation detailed a pretty ingenious strategy of targeted story-telling that tied the band and their fans, through a series of clues, to a futuristic tale of near-apocalyptic Big Brother-type conspiracy. They called it an “alternate reality,” I call it a very smart, fiction-meets-reality promotional campaign. Either way, I was impressed by the whole thing, and I learned a lot from it.

Other panels I attended had titles like “Crystal Ball Panel” (telling the future of the digital music industry…as if), “Word Of Mouse” (all about social media marketing; moderated by Scott Perry of the New Music Tip Sheet), “Free, or Not To Free” (with IODA‘s Kevin Arnold — no, not that Kevin Arnold, this Kevin Arnold — and MOG‘s David Hyman; all about the delicate business and finance side of streaming and downloading music), and “360 Degrees of Speculation” (all about the fabled 360 Deal, with a couple of lawyers, a bigtime touring exec, and a guy from Pollstar). Some of ‘em were interesting, some informative, and some just killed time.

The “Conversation with Sub-Pop‘s Jonathan Poneman” was among the most enjoyable elements of the conference. Interviewed by Wired‘s Nancy Miller, Poneman is articulate and affable, intelligent, funny and humble; and Miller’s line of questioning was well-informed and conversational.

The panel titled “The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth” was all about the ugly realities of running an independent record label. Not too useful to me on a professional level (running a record label is not my business, nor do I want it to be), but it confirmed some things that I already knew about the music business in general, clued me into some cool, nonstandard business models (Ipecac), and reminded me that some of the indie label guys are still in it for the love of the music (Absolutely Kosher).

The best panel on Friday, and possibly the best of the whole event (and not just because I opted for sobriety on Friday), was titled “Master of Their Domain.” It was moderated by Jay Gilbert, formerly of Starbucks Entertainment and Universal Music, and featured panelists Ian Rogers, CEO of Topspin Media (and former head of Yahoo Music); Sharkey Laguana, owner of Bandago (and former member of Creeper Lagoon); Lucy Kozak, Marketing Exec. at CAA; and Philip Antoniades, President of Nimbit. The essence of the conversation: Record labels — essentially middle-men between artists and fans — are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Advancement in internet and other technologies, as well as increased accessibility to those technologies, are enabling artists to stay directly connected to their fan bases and their business. Large endorsement deals, commercial licensing, fanbase development — these important brand-building paths are no longer gated by record labels, and freedom of access to those once closed channels is resulting in a growing middle class of musicians, with the fasted growing sector of the music business now being marketing, and business and artist management. Or so they say. And I believe ‘em.

Ultimately, it was an okay way to spend two days in the city under the guise of work.

State of Bass

I’m a bass player (if you couldn’t tell from the subtle references to bass — Charles Mingus and David Wm. Sims — in the masthead graphic at the top of the page), and though I’m certainly no virtuoso or bass shredder, it’s something that gives me a substantial creative outlet, it affords me the opportunity to play out and record, and I can sit and noodle for hours.

Anyway, one of my coworkers, Jonathan Herrera, is the senior editor at Bass Player magazine, and was part of a “Smackdown” debate today on WNYC’s Soundcheck show. He and New Yorker magazine pop music critic Sasha Frere Jones were set to debate what the show’s host, John Schaefer, refers to as the increasing irrelevance of the bass guitar in hip rock music (Sasha on the pro side, Jon on the con). Sounds like Schaefer is reaching a little for debate fodder.

As not only a bass player, but also as a rabid consumer of music, I was skeptical of the topic from the moment Jon told me about it late last week. I mean, seriously, a handful of bass-less bands — The White Stripes, The Kills, The Black Keys, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs — find success and suddenly the bass guitar is becoming irrelevant in rock? Please. Those bands are representative of only one direction of rock music’s evolution, not a fundamental shift in the instrumental makeup of the archetypal rock band.

However, the show turned out to be less of a debate and more of a thoughtful discussion on the state of bass in contemporary, hip rock music. It was cool, definitely worth checking out (if only for the bass-centered humor: “How many bass payers does it take to screw in a light bulb? 1-5-7, 1-5-7, 1-5-7.”)

Peep it on the WNYC site.

Net Neutrality: Pass It On…

Please don’t let the Internet turn into the television, radio or newspaper. Tell everyone you know about the importance of Net Neutrality. Thanks.