Oklahoma Rock Newsblog

At this morning’s State of Bricktown Address, ACM@UCO CEO Scott Booker announced the creation of a business development grant program.

The Business Development Center Business Incubator Grant Program is designed to provide grants of $500 to $1,000 to ACM@UCO students and alumni for music industry related businesses based in Oklahoma. The grants will be awarded once a year based on the submission of a professional and viable business plan.

“That’s ultimately what the music business is about: Don’t think (of them) as a bunch of weird artists running around. They’re a small business that potentially could bring millions and millions and millions of dollars here … all we have to do is create some more successful artists who decide to stay here.” - Scott Booker

Oklahoma Chevy Team Dealers are providing grant seed money of $5,000 per year for the next three years. Through this initial pledge, the ACM@UCO’s Business Development Center will assist students in pursuing a music industry related business without having to leave the state.

“Our Business Development Center will be the focal point in growing the music industry in Oklahoma. With the contribution from Chevy to our BDC, we will be able to help fund some amazing ideas that our students are coming up with. So many great ideas are coming our way that just need a little help at the beginning.” - Scott Booker

As we reported in June, ACM@UCO’s enrollment has more than doubled in the first year. The school will expand its programs and space, as well as open a 6,500 square foot rehearsal and performance venue at in Bricktown

ACM@UCO will expand both its programs and its space as it prepares to teach an estimated 400 students in its second year, more than doubling the 150 students the school welcomed as its first class in August 2009.

“We weren’t quite sure what to expect when we launched the ACM@UCO. We were confident it would be successful, but the pace of the growth certainly exceeded our expectations.” - Steve Kreidler, UCO executive vice president

In addition to occupying the entire fourth floor of the Oklahoma Hardware Building in Bricktown, the school will add 4,400 square feet of space for classrooms and faculty offices on the second floor of the building.

ACM@UCO will also lease a 6,500 square foot rehearsal and performance venue at 323 E. Sheridan (formerly the nightclub PURE) in Bricktown. The venue will also serve as a valuable learning tool for students.

“The new space on Sheridan will become our ‘Live Performance Lab.’ This gives our students a high-profile venue to hone their performance skills, and also a place for those in our new music business program to actively learn how to run a live venue.” - Scott Booker, ACM@UCO CEO

The venues will also be used to welcome professional musicians traveling through Oklahoma for special performances, adding to the academy’s mission to connect students with industry veterans. The bar will also be removed, making it an “all ages” venue.

“Students thinking about coming to the ACM@UCO will have a safe place provided by a university to come and enjoy great music in Bricktown. There’s nothing else like that down here right now.” - Steve Kreidler

In addition to offering A.A.S. degrees in music production and guitar, bass, drums and vocal performance, the school will be offering degree paths in keyboard performance and music business in the fall.

Paste Magazine chats it up with Scott Booker, manager of the Flaming Lips and the CEO of ACM@UCO.

You’d never guess it, but the guy that manages the Flaming Lips is running an academic program at a public university in, literally, middle America. Like right exactly in the middle, in Oklahoma. Scott Booker, aside from being a swell fella with great stories, is a man on a mission to make the music business maybe just a bit less chaotic, and at the same time, if his home state of Oklahoma becomes a bit of a nexus in the biz, then all the better. We decided to talk to him because of all that but also because of something else we’ve observed about the music business: With the decline of the importance of the record label, the band manager has become perhaps the key cog in the machine of an artist’s career. We hoped Booker, having been at the center of the Flaming Lips storm all along, could shed some light on the trend.

How did you find your way into the music business?

I started out by getting a job in a record store when I was 15. It was a small chain based in the south and midwest called Sound Warehouse. After I worked there a few years, I moved over to another record store where I met members of the Flaming Lips. We became friends and then eventually I became their manager. I stayed at the record store even while they were signed to Warner Bros. Eventually, when “She Don’t Us Jelly” became a hit, I quit working at the store. There just wasn’t time to do both things. I miss working in a record store…

Many traditional jobs in the music industry are in sharp decline, from journalist to record label marketing and A&R to radio. Is manager a viable career choice right now? More than ever perhaps?

Being a manager is one of the toughest industry jobs to have because you need to learn about all the aspects of an artist’s career. You have to understand the inner workings of touring, how a record label works (from promotion to publicity and recording to marketing), as well as publishing and licensing. In many ways, the manager is the most versatile person on the artist’s team. Artists will always need knowledgeable managers who want to work with them with respect and love for the music. It’s definitely a viable career choice.

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More than 40 performers will take part in “ACM@UCO Rocks Bricktown!” tonight beginning at 7pm. All performers claim one or more ACM@UCO students as a member of their band.

The performers will grace eight stages across Bricktown and all admission is FREE!

“This event helps us showcase both the great progress our students have made at the ACM@UCO during our first year and the invaluable support we’ve enjoyed from our Bricktown neighbors.” - Scott Booker, chief executive officer of ACM@UCO

Meanwhile, a commercial for ACM@UCO has recently been running during American Idol, Glee, Adult Swim and on MTV. The commercial features “Put in a Little Gas” by Stillwater band Colourmusic.

Get an hour-by-hour schedule for “ACM@UCO Rocks Bricktown” after the jump.

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Mayor Mick Cornett has proclaimed today, May 6, 2010, as “ACM@UCO Day”!

Steve Lackmeyer of The Oklahoman has a great article today on the success of ACM@UCO’s inaugural year. The school has already outgrown their current space and that accelerated enrollment already has them looking for additional space.

“We started off expecting 100 and ended up with 200. Based on applications and the quality of applicants, we could have as many as 400 in August. We anticipated growing this large over time — we have a long range plan — but this is accelerating way past our best hopes and dreams.” - Steve Kreidler, executive vice president at UCO

The school is also having a significant economic impact on Bricktown.

“It’s been remarkably successful. I don’t know anyone knew what to expect when they saw students toting guitar cases on the streets of Bricktown, but I know how they feel about them now. Students have had a significant economic impact on Bricktown. We will fight diligently to keep the ACM in Bricktown. It’s a perfect fit. And from our perspective, this has been a dream come true.” - Bricktown Association director Jim Cowan

In addition to offering A.A.S. degrees in music production and guitar, bass, drums and vocal performance, the school will be offering degree paths in keyboard performance and music business in the fall.

The deadline for Fall 2010 admission to ACM@UCO is June 1.

ACM@UCO will also be offering summer camps and training to the public. Find out all the details here.

Photo: Jeremy Charles

Hundreds of musicians and tens of thousands of fans converge on downtown Norman this Saturday and Sunday for the third edition of Norman Music Festival.

Get Your Official Map/Schedule here!

I will be there with Mrs. OklahomaRock and Baby OklahomaRock. I hope to see many of your faces there as well. (This event is totally FREE!)

To get your ears ready, here’s some FREE mp3s from NMF 2010 artists:

DOWNLOADS:
8Bit Cynics - “You Ain’t That Pretty”
Brother Gruesome - “Cut It Out”
Cecada - “Handspots”
Copperheads - “Drugs”
Dead Sea Choir - “Image D93″
Depth & Current - “Arms of Your Love”
Early Beat - “Maybe I Love You”
Euclid Crash - “Girl Talk”
Evangelicals - “Bloodstream” (Slow Blood Version)
Gentle Ghost - “Please Don’t Go Out Tonight” (Basement Session)
Hush Hush Commotion - “The One That Got Away”
Jabee & Ashlee Madison - “Picture on the Wall”
Junebug Spade - “Buckshot”
Maggie McClure - “Out of My Mind”
Marcy Priest - “Never Ending”
Mayola - “Where Does God Come In?”
Miracord - “New Religion”
The Pretty Black Chains - “Ambulance”
Rainbows Are Free - “Are You Dead?”
Student Film - “Whirling Dervish”
Traindodge - “Messenger’s Victim”

After the jump, get your hour-by-hour band schedule, which should come in handy.

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Photo: Jeremy Charles

More bands playing this year’s Norman Music Festival (April 24 & April 25) were announced yesterday.

This is only a partial list. More bands will be announced in the coming weeks. Oklahoma bands are in bold. You can view the previously announced bands here, here, here and here.

Eagle Claw, Dikes of Holland, The Cassingles, The Stuffies, Indian Jewelry, Psychedelic Horseshit, Audra Mae, Ali Harter, Maggie McClure, Sherree Chamberlain, Green Corn Revival, Shitty/Awesome, Gang Starr Museum, The Boom Bang, Algebra, Scales of Motion, 8Bit Cynics, Hiphopotamus, Copperheads, The Easy Lovers, Venus Bogardus, Radio Deception, Quantum Turbo, The Lily Guild, Wondernaut, The Candyguns

A local comedy showcase and an ACM@UCO showcase will be announced next week.

Additionally, a Norman Music Festival fundraising/promo show has been announced for Saturday, April 10 at The Opolis in Norman. The show will be co-sponsored by OklahomaRock.com and details will be announced later this week!

The free two-day festival will take place in downtown Norman on Saturday, April 24 and Sunday, April 25. Saturday performances will take place at night inside downtown venues, while Sunday performances will take place all day on stages set up on Main Street and inside downtown venues. NMF is for all ages and FREE!

More than 30,000 people attended the 2009 edition of the festival, with an estimated $2.5 million being spent locally.

ACM@UCO faculty, staff, and students recently got together to create their rendition of “We Are the World”.

These were produced entirely on campus by students and staff.

Students at ACM@UCO attended a two-hour “master class” with Flaming Lips instrumentalist Steven Drozd yesterday afternoon inside the Tolbert Theater at Stage Center.

An audience of 150+ ACM@UCO students listened as Drozd, surrounded by a drum kit, amps, a guitar and keyboards, answered questions from moderator and ACM@UCO president Scott Booker and fielded questions from the audience.

The Fall 2010 priority application deadline for ACM@UCO is March 15. The final deadline is June 1.

After moving to Norman with the band Janis 18, Drozd tried out for the Flaming Lips. Booker said his first time seeing Drozd play, he was afraid for his life, fearing that a drumstick might come flying his direction at any time.

Drozd mentioned playing local shows with Syringe and Glue, as well as touring with Lush, Throwing Muses, Stone Temple Pilots and Butthole Surfers. He described feeling a “visceral hate” from fans as they opened for Tool in 1994. Booker said it probably didn’t help that they opened shows with a cover of A Flock of Seagulls’ “Space Age Love Song”.

After a brutal three month tour with Candlebox, which helped drive the success of “She Don’t Use Jelly” and eventually encouraged Warner Bros. to keep the band on board, Drozd said he had to ask himself whether he wanted to actually be a professional musician.

Drozd was overjoyed when 1990’s alt-rock went away and his mind was blown the first time he heard Aphex Twin. He also said he misses playing drums and wants to learn how to play the trumpet.

Drozd talked about scoring Christmas on Mars and being influenced by Jerry Goldsmith (Twilight Zone, Planet of the Apes). He also recently completed a film score for the music documentary The Heart is a Drum Machine, where he and Tool’s Maynard James Kennan covered Elton John’s “Rocketman”.

He claims his best collaboration experiences have been with Steve Burns (”really curious with a wicked sense of humor”) and the late Elliott Smith (”complete sweetheart”). His worst was with Kim Deal of Pixies and the Breeders, where he spent a month in New York and never actually recorded a full song.

One of the final questions of the session was about his pre-show rituals. Drozd’s answer? Yoga, a little bourbon and a cigarette.

Read George Lang’s recap in The Oklahoman.

Read Jennifer Chancellor’s recap on Barrelhouse Beat.

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Students at ACM@UCO were attentive listeners during a 90-minute questions-and-answer “master class” with The Who’s Roger Daltrey on Wednesday night at Maker’s Cigar and Piano Bar in Bricktown.

“I’m very impressed with your college — it’s fabulous. And well done to the Lips!” - Roger Daltrey

Roughly 150 students, professors and special guests were in attendance, while president Scott Booker hosted. Special guests included members of the Flaming Lips, Stardeath and White Dwarfs, Simon Townshend (who plays with Daltrey on his solo dates and held a master class of his own at ACM@UCO on Thursday), local politicians, select members of the media and yours truly.

The deadline for Spring 2010 admission to ACM@UCO is November 15.

Daltrey was very candid during the Q&A session, answering questions on various stages and aspects of his career. Two main points stuck out to me - advice ACM@UCO students should really take to heart.

He was direct about the importance of protecting your ears on stage and in the studio. The Who was officially given the title of “The Loudest Band in the World” in 1976, but that would not be without consequence. Guitarist Pete Townshend suffered from tinnitus in the 1980s and bassist John Entwistle was almost completely deaf for the last seven years of his life. Daltrey said Entwistle had to lean back on an amp to feel the band’s sound and keep in time.

Daltrey also dispensed valuable advice on performing your own style of music. After being informed that ACM@UCO students are working on The Who’s 1965 single “I Can’t Explain” this week, Daltrey was asked if he had any advice for students on playing the song.

“No… none whatsoever. Perform it how you feel it.” - Roger Daltrey

The crowd erupted into applause.

For a look into the rest of the night, check out this excellent article by George Lang of The Oklahoman.

After the jump, Lang discusses Wednesday night’s event.

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