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| Northridge's Student-Run Record Label A unique and hungry young "record label" called the MIS Music Group has emerged on the West Coast. More specifically, in the San Fernando Valley. In fact, it operates right out of California State University, Northridge's Cypress Hall. The MIS Music Group is a central element of a Cal State Northridge academic program - Music Industry Studies - that has impressed many in the industry, none more than alumnus and Curb Records chairman Mike Curb, whose $10 million pledge to the university includes $1 million to endow a Northridge faculty chair specializing in music industry studies. "If there had been a music industry studies program when I was in college", said Curb, "I know I would have stayed in school." As a freshman, working in the music building, Curb wrote the hit that helped launch his career. He would have a lot of help today from CSUN's eager young music entrepreneurs. MIS is one of the first degree programs of its kind in the country to teach the business end of the industry by allowing its majors to produce a music act from start to finish - operating like major professional labels such as Curb Records, Island Def Jam, Columbia Records or EMI. Music professor Joel Leach and Assistant Provost Jerry Luedders, then Music Department chair, hatched the idea 14 years ago. "As the industry keeps changing", said Leach, "as we invent new technologies and instrumentalists unfortunately begin to be replaced, students whose hearts lie in the music field are saying 'I want to be involved; how can I make a living?' Entering the business is a good possibility for them." Now the Music Department's largest option with about 125 students enrolled for fall 2006, MIS was launched in 1994 with 15 students in pursuit of executive and administrative careers in the music industry. "After all, where better than Los Angeles, the music capital of the U.S. if not the world, for a university to implement a music industry program?" asked Leach, MIS coordinator and award winning veteran of 26 years as director of CSUN's jazz band. Artists from all over the country who like the idea of 35 dedicated MIS majors devoted to their cause - at no charge - send in "demos" hoping to sign on as the label's sole act for the year, as did a singing Alaska Airlines pilot who once winged in from Anchorage regularly to record with the CSUN label. Junior John Kowalsky and senior Trevor Barrett, elected by their classmates to ride herd on MIS' 2006-07 production process, work with the student production, A & R (artist and repertoire) talent search, marketing, publicity and artistic design committees. After winnowing out their picks, the A & R team invites a number of the artists to "audition" for the MIS majors. The production team takes it from there, fanning out into the region to find a studio and start recording the label's new artist. Meantime, a marketing concept is developed for the artist and a full-blown press kit designed. The artistic design team prepares artwork for the CD, and the publicity people launch a full court press on behalf of artist and program. Along the way, students learn to make real world decisions. If an artist is late with promised publicity shots, for example, the students must handle it. "Working with us is not all that different from working with a label", said Leach. At the end of the spring semester, the class assembles the whole package - press kits with CDs, photos, biographies - and sends it off to major and independent labels, music supervisors, television and film music departments and other music industry contacts. "Professor Leach oversees everything, but it really is our project", said Barrett. "What happens to it - success or failure - really depends on what we do with it and how much we want it to succeed." Unlike the few degree programs offered elsewhere, MIS' "blended" program concept requires that its majors pass an audition on a musical instrument and study the art and theory of music. "Interestingly enough", Leach observed, "many of the other programs contain no music requirements!" About 65 percent of those seeking CSUN's music industry studies degree are active as performers - one played the lead in "Dreamgirls" on Broadway - but go after the MIS degree to learn how to deal with the contracts they're asked to sign. "Students today are very smart", said Leach. "They want to make sure they understand where the money is, how it flows, so they can play a meaningful part in the business side of their professional lives." Others go into key but less glamorous areas such as copyright administration or entertainment law. 2004 alumnus Jonathan Feldman next year will join O'Melveny and Myers, a law firm with an important entertainment component. A top student at Loyola Law School, Feldman said MIS students are "taking over the industry." Barrett, who plays trumpet, also will go into law. "A lot of entertainment lawyers these days don't have roots in the industry itself", he said. "After completing this program, an attorney would be deeply rooted in the music itself." write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Jazz News :: home page |