Word from a Bird
“’Hope’ is the thing with feathers –
– Emily Dickinson
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –“
It seems like we’re all finding new rhythms to deal with our days, and slowly, hopefully safely, things are starting to loosen up a bit. We may not be having big events, but the webinar circuit is picking up, and we’re finding different ways to connect. Constraint is the mother of creativity!
The Jaybird team is trying out watch parties and an album listening “club,” with our first installments “Searching for Sugarman” and Soccer Mommy vs. Maggie Rogers. The latter had the theme of “former NYU student” in honor of our Spring intern, Zach Gulino, who had the daunting challenge of shifting to a “virtual” role, three time zones away in Los Angeles. He and our Editorial Coordinator Alicia Sekhri both officially graduated from NYU Steinhardt and Pace University, respectively – we’re very proud of them!
I appreciate everyone who reached out to me about my Dad after my note in the last newsletter – he was finally able to have his cancer surgery a few weeks ago, and is now rehabbing at NYU Rusk. It’s going to be a long road, but he’s making steady progress.
And so, we all keep moving ahead – step by step and day by day.
Kids attend webinars too…
Our Director Tracy Zamot and her daughter Gracie hosted a virtual Introduction to the Music Industry for Gracie’s class on Zoom!
Jaybird Client Updates
Trash, the AI-powered video creation platform from Hannah Donovan, officially launched on May 18 with new features for independent artists, who can now upload their own tracks and make videos for them with one tap. It’s great for musicians releasing music during quarantine, who can’t go out to film new video. With audio streaming shifting toward video platforms during the lockdown, artists releasing music during quarantine need to promote their tracks on video sites like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram more than ever. While they can’t go out to film new footage, TRASH now lets them make something new and engaging with what’s already on their phone’s camera roll. Read more in TechCrunch and Music Ally.
Soundstripe launched new music-licensing subscription plans for businesses, including creative marketing agencies, higher education institutions, media companies, film production companies, and creative departments within enterprise companies. The company also conducted a survey revealing the effect of COVID-19 on freelance videographers and agency creatives. Read more about it in SLR Lounge and Small Business Trends. Also, be sure to follow Soundstripe on Twitter and Instagram, where they have been inspiring people with their #KeepCreatingChallenge and highlighting members who are doing great work during quarantine, including a filmmaker who turned his Covid-19 diagnosis into an educational and uplifting documentary.
Hip-hop entrepreneur, author, and artist career builder Wendy Day has also been keeping busy, writing guest posts for HotNewHipHop and DJBooth, sitting for an interview for In the Hot Seat with Larry LeBlanc, and discussing the importance of music business education on the Music Biz Weekly Podcast. She was also in the news for her role in organizing the legendary 1997 Rap Olympics, where Eminem was discovered, after he discussed it on the podcast “Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson.”
With the acquisition of Backlash Solutions and its SR1 product line, Exactuals will soon be able to provide an integrated end-to-end solution for its clients, from data to calculations to payments. The company also launched PaymentHub for Insurance, a modern SaaS, high-tech product that will streamline insurance commission payments.
The Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) has been hosting weekly webinars since the beginning of the quarantine. This month, we attended the NY Chapter’s “Cover Story” webinar in partnership with the Guild of Music Supervisors, which was previewed in American Songwriter. The Nashville Chapter followed with “How Creatives Are Operating in the New Normal” featuring top publishers and songwriters, after which the LA Chapter provided an “Update On The MMA / MLC” with MLC and U.S. Copyright Office leadership weighing in. Now, we are looking forward to the LA Chapter Online Showcase on Thursday, May 28, featuring live performances from Anthony Federov, Tammy Infusino, and Jake Scott. Finally, visit All Access to get all the details on the AIMP Global Music Publishing Summit Webinar on June 9 and interview with 2020 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Steve Miller on June 11.
This has been a successful month for Deborah Mannis-Gardner, the Queen of Sample Clearances and Head of DMG Clearances, Inc! Deborah has been featured several times in Variety on the future of live music and music licensing, including a Q&A with Andrew Hampp. She was also featured in Muse By Clio’s #WFH Diaries series and has been quoted in Rolling Stone, Billboard, and Cherie Hu’s Water & Music discussing music clearances during quarantine.
Musonomics just released a new podcast episode featuring Music Canada’s Graham Henderson, artist manager Jonathan Azu, and music journalist Cherie Hu on what the future might hold for live music. The episode, called “Go Small & Stay Home: Live Music in the Time of Crisis,” unpacks a groundbreaking new study from Music Canada and discusses what it will take for masses of fans to come back to concert venues. You can listen to it on Spotify, SoundCloud, and Apple Podcasts!
NYTA is proud to have been able to continue their programming seamlessly on behalf of the New York Tech community with virtual discussions and meetups. June 2nd’s NY Tech Meetup will feature Immigrant Founders and “Don’t Panic, Let’s talk” is a bi-weekly virtual event series spotlighting founders and leaders that are making it work during this time of COVID-19.
Angry Mob has been featured in Billboard and Music Connection recently with news of their two latest deals – Demolition Music and Tatiana Owens. They were also included in Billboard’s ‘Stay-at-Home’ Songwriting: How Publishers Are Using Remote Sessions to Keep the Music Flowing. Look out for their monthly A&R Newsletter, here’s the most recent edition.
Exploration, a digital rights management company, recently joined Jaybird! They are offering a free copyright audit to give songwriters, publishers, artists, labels, and film & TV companies a detailed picture of how their works are represented and subsequently, who is collecting revenue as a result of their exploitation. Meet one of their Co-Founders and proud mamma to a great guitar collection, Rene Merideth.
DDEX continues its work on creating and revising metadata standards, recently publishing the Claims Detail Message (CDM) standard, the final piece of the digital music supply chain between distributors and rightsholders. The organization has been hosting live webinars on its standards, and recordings of earlier ones are also available. In addition, last month Jeff King, Chief Operating and Corporate Development Officer of SOCAN, was been named Chair of their Board – hear him talk about the work of DDEX and the role of the standards in this RightsTech webinar.
Just for fun…
? The NYPL Has Released An Album Of NYC Sounds
