SF Music Week Promotes Local Industry as Economic Engine
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.

At the moment, New York, Nashville, and Los Angeles are really the cities where music-making happens, but San Francisco hopes to add itself to that list. To that end, last month Mayor Daniel Lurie announced San Francisco Music Week, which coincides with the Noise Pop Festival and includes live performances, workshops, and talks from industry insiders about how to reinvigorate the local music scene.

This morning, we'll talk to music makers about how the city can support live music and how the music scene could help revive the city's economy. That's all coming up next, right after this news. Alexis Madrigal here. I'm writing these mini essays and we're calling the series One Good Thing. It's a doom loop antidote, little tributes to bits of Bay Area culture and geography. And each day during this pledge break, I'll have one for you in this slot.

There is a new documentary about a serious Bay Area legend, Sly Stone. It's directed by Questlove and called Sly Lives. It's packed with vintage footage. A lot of it is thrilling, especially in the first half when Sly is on the rise. And for our purposes, what makes it one good thing is not only Sly Stone's music, but the way the film presents the Bay Area music scene at the time.

There were black and white music scenes all over the country. But what we had here in the Bay was a different kind of amalgam, a multiracial, multicultural, gender expansive, extremely groovy openness. And there's no greater artifact of that difference than Sly and the Family Stone, a band that wasn't all black or white, wasn't all men or women. This was a band that was ready for the future.

You look at what was happening in San Francisco and the Bay Area generally, and you have the white hippie counterculture coming into direct contact with these other migrations, both black Americans up from the South and also an increasing Latin American influence. You look up, suddenly you've got Santana and, of course, Sly Stone. This wasn't Detroit or Nashville, and the music reflected that.

It helps, of course, that Sly Stone was a musical genius on his own, that he was a gifted producer who had worked in different genres and as a radio DJ. But he was working with the peculiar gifts of our region at that time, a set of people and ideas that weren't found together very often outside the Bay Area.

In a town that's often now painted as merely a center of wealth and technology, it's worth remembering that the cultural vitality of the city was broad. Diversity was the foundation. Inclusion was the method. That there was music and musicians everywhere, mixing with the other artists and thinkers and writers of the city who were also from all over the country and the world.

And what they came together to produce has echoed down through time. One big tributary running straight out of Sly Stone to Prince, Janet Jackson, so many others. So that's your one good thing for today. Not just Sly Stone and this new documentary, Sly Lives, but the milieu that made this music possible.

Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. The Bay Area has produced plenty of famous musicians. Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, Tupac, Green Day, Metallica, the Pointer Sisters, of course, Sly and the Family Stone, and many more. But there's a difference between producing great artists and having a thriving music industry.

Thank you. Happy to be here.

We're also joined by Nastia Bonovskaya, who is an editor and reporter with KQED Arts. Welcome back, Nastia. Hi, Alexis. Thanks so much for having me. And we're joined by Laline Sanjust, who is a musician and producer based in Oakland, founded the independent record label 7000 Coils, and sings with the band The Session. Welcome, Laline. Hi.

Hi, thanks for having me. Thanks for getting up early. I always feel bad making musicians come on at 9 a.m., you know? It's fine. Jordan, let's start with you. You know, most people, I don't think, think of San Francisco as kind of a music industry city. Is that right? Like, is it not? That is very, very accurate. I wound up here...

Moved up here in 1995 To work for a management company and I moved from LA which is a music industry city, of course and in my mind at that point, I really I was recently out of college and

I wanted to work in management. It was a great opportunity to work for a management company. I thought I'd come to San Francisco for a year or two, learn about a secondary market, and move back to LA or move to New York because that's where the business was and is still largely focused. But life happens, and I'm still here, and there's always been an ecosystem of

if not an industry here in San Francisco. The ecosystem has changed a lot. You know, certainly it's not nearly as robust as it was for 30 years. And obviously we can get into that. Yeah. I'm sure we will get into that. But there's a lot of people working in and around music doing great things here. Yeah. But it is a small industry. You know, Nastia, as I was getting ready for the show, I started to think to myself, like,

what even is a music industry right now? You know, because we know that there's all this stuff that's happened with streaming. We know that the pandemic did all this stuff to live shows. We know that, you know, across media, more and more artists and writers and everybody are like kind of going direct. So,

To you, kind of looking at the scene, what are the actual components of the music industry? Right. Well, I think as Jordan mentioned, it is an ecosystem. It's an interconnected web that nurtures what artists are creating and performing. So, I mean, there's the recording side of it. San Francisco is home to some legendary studios, like Different Fur Studios, Hyde Street Studios.

A lot of others, you know, now people record, of course, in more DIY settings as well. But then also in tandem with that, there's a lot of independent labels headquartered here in the Bay, as well as one pretty big label, Empire, which we'll talk about a lot more later.

Then there's the live side of things. So there's all the... Wait, Nastya, can I stop for one second? Yeah, yeah. What is an independent label versus something else? Well, so the music industry, like many other industries, is very consolidated. So there are the big four labels at the top that pretty much put out all popular music. And they have smaller subsidiaries as well. So they...

own the vast majority of recorded music. And then they're just the small privately held labels that some of them are very DIY, you know, some are more midsize, but they don't belong to those corporate entities.

Lalene, you have one of these, right? You have an independent record label. So what does it do? Well, I started it really out of my own need. I was signed to a label based out in the UK called True Thoughts.

And I still work with them for publishing, but I wanted to really be able to put out music when I wanted to, how I wanted to, and really start a collective, especially among Black queer artists, where we can support each other and share our resources and share our knowledge and skills with each other so that we can

independently do what we need to do. So I put out my own music on this label and am still building it out. But the idea is that we are supporting each other in an underground way. Yeah. And, you know, just because this is an industry show, like,

What is the money flow here? Is it basically that the label, your label would like help people get recorded and then as they make money, it pays back into the thing? Is that what you mean by sharing resources or do you mean something else? I literally mean like sharing our skill sets with each other so that it's not necessarily always based in money because some of us...

are struggling with that. So it's okay. If you are able to do this graphic design or this album artwork, then I can also help you with a social media strategy. And it's a, in essence, like mutual aid. Ah, interesting. Okay. Uh, Nastia back to you now on, uh,

You were about to say, I think, live events and sort of the role that live plays in the music industry. Yeah, yeah. So I was just going to say that's the other key component of the music industry. So we have the giant stadiums where top 40 artists tour Chase Center. And then we have the clubs that hold several thousand people, like,

the Midway or the Regency Ballroom, and then just smaller, more intimate rooms, long-time independent venues like the Rickshaw Stop or Bottom of the Hill, to name a few. So...

Yeah, that's another crucial component because I think as Laleen hinted, because of streaming, recorded music just does not support artists like at U2. So the live component is really important. Yeah. Jordan, back to you in sort of with your other hat on as sort of artist management. Like when you look at you've got let's say you just have an artist coming up in San Francisco, right?

What are the things that they need to do to tie into this ecosystem and this industry? I think it's playing shows. Obviously, some artists... That still matters. I'm glad to hear. Yeah. Well, I mean, the reason I paused is because some artists aren't really live acts, right? I mean, the stuff we do, I mean, we are definitely a company that is very focused on artists that tour, career artists, et cetera. I think a mistake that a lot of...

artists make is just trying to move too quickly, right? And you just want to be able to develop an audience and you want to be able to do that in your own backyard, so to speak. It's not about getting on tour two weeks after you release your first song. It's about playing locally and creating relationships and creating trust with venues, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, yeah.

Lalene, I mean, how do you think about the relationship between developing kind of your internet audience and developing your sort of at-home audience? Oh, wow. I mean, I started in the music industry here in the Bay. I feel like it was before Instagram and all of that stuff.

And it really was, like Jordan mentioned, playing, saying yes to a lot of things here in Oakland, San Francisco, just playing as much as possible, collaborating with other musicians. And that's how we really were able to grow our fan base. But then also tying that into, you know, at that time, blogs were really big. And so it was...

emailing a lot of blogs and starting to get buzzed that way. And it was through word of mouth that led us to bigger parts of our career. And then now shifting into Spotify streaming and Instagram, there's this expectation and almost obligation to really be

active and create content and create material that can be accessible to people wherever they are. But that's kind of your calling card now. Everything must be content.

We are going to go into a little break here. We've got August Lee Stevens singing Citrus. This is actually, this was live on forum, but she's going to be playing the Noise Pop Festival at SF Jazz, I think, right? We're talking about SF music. We get to celebration. The music makers of San Francisco and the Bay Area coincide with the Noise Pop Festival. We've got...

one of the organizers of Noise Pop Festival, Jordan Kurland here. We've got Nastia Vonovskaya, editor and reporter with KQED Arts. And we've got Laline Sanjus, who is a musician and producer and founder of the independent record label 7000 Coils. We will be right back after a short break. Smooth like water. Smooth like water. Smooth like...

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Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here. We're talking about SF Music Week. That is a new celebration of the music makers of San Francisco and the Bay Area. The event includes, you know, workshops, panels, live music, coincides with the Noise Pop Festival, which is going on this week at venues all over the Bay Area.

We are joined by Jordan Curlin, co-owner and producer of Noise Pop Industries, organized as the Noise Pop Festival, also co-founder and partner at Brilliant Corner Artist Management. We've got KQED Arts' Nastia Bonovskaya, of course you know her. And we've got Laline Saint-Jules, who is a musician and producer based in Oakland, founded the independent record label 7000 Coils, and sings with the band The Session. We of course want to hear from you too, we know we have lots of musicians in the

the audience and lots of our listeners are also music fans. What do you think makes the Bay Area music scene distinctive? Love to hear that. Or maybe you're a musician. What are the joys and challenges of trying to make a music career happen here in the Bay Area? You can give us a call 866-733-6786.

You know, I know a lot of people who contemplate moving to LA to make their music careers work. If you've stayed, why have you stayed? 866-733-6786. You can email forum at kqed.org. You can find us on all of our social media things, blue sky, Instagram. We're always making content to work. KQED forum. Uh,

Earlier, yesterday actually, I was able to talk with one of the music scene stars, rapper, artist, and producer, P-Lo. He found a niche, not only raising up the city, but finding the nexus between music and sports. Let's listen to this interview from yesterday. Hey, thank you so much for joining us, P-Lo. No, pleasure to be here. Pleasure to be here.

So, you know, the music industry is dominated by New York and L.A., at least as I understand it. I mean, as a Bay Area person, musician, producer, what do you think the region brings to the music industry? The Bay is not only in music, but in, you know, in all facets of, you know, this world. The Bay has always brought something new, something fresh, something innovative. And I think that's just something that we're going to continue to do.

Do we get credit for most of the things that we bring into the world? Not necessarily, but we've just always been known for innovating and bringing something that no one's doing. Is there a particular sound where you go like, oh, that's a Bay Area sound? Or like an approach to the music? I think it's more of an approach.

And but if if if there would be something like a word, I just think it would be like either either funky or infectious. Mm hmm. That's a good one. Do you think our tech connection and just all the tech stuff we have here, do you think that helps the music industry or do you think it kind of crowds it out or hurts it?

I wouldn't necessarily think it hurts it. I think it hasn't found a way to help it yet. I think there's still... I think there's still that...

that bridge that hasn't been built yet and i think i think the place that it is going to happen is in san francisco or in the bay just just because just a proximity um with with tech and music i think it's only going to happen in the bay um just you know just because i feel like the scenes are are working too close together to not figure something out yeah

So, you know, the Bay Area, it's made an imprint on music over the years, whether it's kind of like the old school era of like Grateful Dead and like Jefferson Airplane or it's like Too Short, it's Tupac, greats of the hyphy era. What do you think it would take for the Bay Area to have that level of prominence again? I think that's I think that's I think that's coming up soon, to be honest. Like, I just think.

I just think it's like a cycle. You know, I think once the music industry becomes stale, the Bay is always going to come through with some new flavor and then just spread the whole music industry with sauce. Yeah. So San Francisco Music Week, you know, that's what we're doing this whole show about it. It's a way to showcase the industry. You're giving the keynote. Like, what are you going to tell them? Man, yeah.

I guess you'll have to wait and see. You know what I'm saying? No, but I just think I want, most importantly, I want everybody just to continue to speak your truth and be authentic and double down on yourself. And that's something that I've always stuck true to.

You know, that's something that I've always liked. Well, it's part of your music too, right? Like your latest album, For the Soil, is really about being rooted in this area, yeah? Yes, 1,000%. I really wanted to just, you know, do something that was for us, by us, with all, you know, all Bay Area creatives, producers, songwriters, artists. And I just wanted to showcase what, you know, the Bay has to offer and how, you know, well-rounded we are.

That's a music scene. Yeah. Two quick things before I let you go. One is, if people haven't heard your music before, what's like the one song you would want them to hear that you've, you know, produced or you've rapped on or you've created that's like, okay, this is like the Pee-Lo sound? I would, I'd probably, my default answer would probably be Put Me On Something. Yeah. Yeah. I like just, if you want to get a gist of who Pee-Lo is and what Pee-Lo represents, you'd, yeah, throw him Put Me On Something. Yeah.

Okay, also, last question. I know you're a big Warriors fan. I've got to ask you, after the Jimmy Butler trade, are we so back? We're so back. We're so back. We're so back. I mean, when Draymond guaranteed a championship. That's how you know we're back. He's talking crazy. He's talking crazy. Yeah, we're back. We're good. I think we'll be fine. I think we'll be right in the mix. PeeLo, thank you so much for joining us this morning. I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much.

Play on, play on, play, play.

That was rapper and producer PeeLo, I think predicting another Warriors championship. That's what I heard. He's keynoting the SF Music Week Industry Summit tomorrow. His new album for The Soil that was released by the Warriors label Golden State Entertainment. We heard a little bit of his song Players Holiday 25. I want to add another voice into our conversation about the San Francisco music industry. Tina Davis is the president of

Empire San Francisco-based record label that has a bunch of really high-profile artists, including Shaboosie. If you have heard any music in the last year, you might have heard one of his songs. Welcome to Forum, Tina. Thank you for having us. Can you just tell me, like, give me a sense of Empire's kind of trajectory? Because as I understand it, it is kind of the biggest deal in the San Francisco music industry.

Well, first and foremost, thank you for saying that, but we are the biggest deal in the industry overall. We are a disruptor, you know? We are outside of where most labels are. We are in San Francisco, and we are true to culture and the authentic artist and their sound.

You know, we are a global company, a lot different than a lot of other companies. Of course, you will find different labels in different territories, but we are one global company and we don't have to, you know, do deals with outside sister companies to break our artists. But we, you know, we're here to stay and we've been, we started from 2010, Ghazi's Vision, and we're still working. Yeah. Yeah.

Tell me what a label like Empire does for an artist. Like you said, you know, you're kind of a disruptor doing things differently. So like, what is it that Empire does?

Well, first and foremost, I mean, a lot of things have fallen by the wayside in the industry. I've been in the industry for 30 plus years and I've seen things, genres, people come and go. And the biggest thing I think is just actually caring, doing artist development, um,

Being patient. You mentioned Shibuzee. We signed Shibuzee four years ago and he was ice cold. He had great talent, but it wasn't being seen. So we made sure we put our time into him. We gave him the space to be able to grow and figure out where he wanted to go, what direction he wanted to go in because he's multi-talented in several genres.

And once he honed in on it and he brought the records that he believed in and had confidence in, we elevated and evangelized it across the world. I think a lot of people think that if you're on an indie label that's privately owned, that you can't make it to the level of a Michael Jackson or Beyonce or what have you.

But you can. And I think that's, we give the option to be able to do something different than what has been done before. And, you know, we allow people to have generational wealth. We do not own masters. And is the reason that this is now possible to like have, you know, I mean, Shabuzy's song, a bar song has a billion streams on Spotify, right? I mean, is the reason that it's possible to do that because the internet has just changed the kind of dynamics or like kind of the dynamics

geography of the industry or something? It is that, and it is also going back to the fact that it's global. We release music, and everybody releases music around the world. We know that because of the platforms, right? But at the same time, it's not always worked and marketed and promoted in every single territory at the same time.

And, you know, again, he's a hybrid of several different genres. So those type of artists that have that capability allows them to reach other places that some don't. Let's, just for fun, let's hear a little Shaboozy here. My baby born to Birkin She's been telling me all night long Gasoline and groceries The list goes on and on

It's nine to five ain't working. Why the hell do I work so hard? I can't worry about my problems. I can't take them when I'm gone. We're going to save the hook for later. Tina, I just wanted to ask you, are there challenges about having stayed in San Francisco? If you just had moved the label to L.A., wouldn't that have been easier?

It would have been easier, but then we wouldn't have been unique. There are pros and cons, right? Not as many cons to me because being in the industry, knowing that, you know, yes, you have to be mixy and into the scene and at, you know, every event if you can, right? So we're kind of off the beaten path. So we're not at every event.

But I don't know if we need to be at every event. You know, I think when we come into place, when we make our statement, when our brand walks in, people fill us because of that.

I think it allows us to have our unique mentality and thoughts and talent come to us and us work with them. It also allows us to have an up on everyone as far as whether or not something will work, whether we're working with different tech companies out here. We have a closer relationship because we can walk down the street and walk into some of these other companies that are our neighbors.

So there are pros and cons, but the pros outweigh the cons by far. Jordan Curlin, I want to bring you back in this time with your hat on as co-owner and producer of Noise Pop Industries, organizing Noise Pop Festival. What has happened with venues in this area? I mean, I feel like, you know, there was a time where we were doing shows about the pandemic's after effects, and it just seemed like it was really depressing. Have things come back?

I mean, things have definitely come back. I, you know, when I'm talking to, you know, this is more of the small, you know, smallish club, you know, lower than thousand cap. It's definitely still pretty uneven, you know, as far as ticket sales. And there are certainly some struggles. I think, you know, people leaving San Francisco during the pandemic has affected that, you know, given all the challenges of, you know, being an artist here, running a business here,

Etc. You had a lot of young people with money living here disposable income who were going to show So I think as a promoter it was a little bit easier I mean, that's not my main, you know noise pop is not a year-round promoter. Yeah, but that that's been my observation I think you know what we also saw is that a lot of those people who were here and left were taking from the city not really investing in it and I think one of the nice

silver linings about the pandemic is that the people who are here who continue to work in the arts community, the creative community, the music industry, they're people who really want to be here. And people really double down on trying to bring back the arts culture of the Bay Area. Laline Sanjus, how about you? What have you seen in the venues around town going to shows? Do you feel like we've reached some kind of new stability or new point?

I do feel like it's still...

We're still coming back, in my opinion. I really echo the sentiments of what has happened and shifted since the pandemic. And when I've talked to other artists and other musicians, they've shared that their ticket numbers haven't been the same since for some folks. And, you know, I do think there's so much changing happening

But then there's also the beauty of our community that folks do rally and folks do find ways to get together and make it happen. And so I, it's not, I'm not too concerned. I do feel that we are bouncing back and that there is this resurgence. It's just that we have to continue to find that equilibrium. Yeah.

Nastia, I mean, you go to a lot of shows, more shows than anyone I know. Do you think that there's... Give me your sense of the trajectory. Yeah, yeah, I've been going to two shows a night this week for Noise Pop. It's been awesome. But yeah, no, I agree with what Laleen just said. I interview a lot of venue owners and operators over the course of my work for KQED Arts, and I just hear that...

People today might be likelier to spend hundreds of dollars to see a top 40 artist and make it a big occasion than come out to a $15 show to support a local artist. And I think the pandemic still is a big factor in that. It changed people's personalities almost and made them more introverted. And instead of just shows competing with each other, shows are also competing with all the other ways people can be entertained. So it's a bit challenging in that sense.

Jordan Curlin, how much do you think the city can do to actually make that better, to make the live music seem better? Hopefully a lot. I think that our new mayor, the fact that he's talking so much already about arts and culture is a very, very important signal. And I did not hear that from the last at least two, maybe more mayors of the city. And I know Mayor Lurie...

You know, full disclosure, I helped him a little bit with this arts platform while he was running, so I know him. But I know he really...

believes in the arts and music as a way to bring culture back to San Francisco and rebuild our city. What's in that platform? Like just places can stay open later, easier to have live music. I think it's, you know, yeah, it's easier to have live music. It's easier to get permits if you want to, if you want to, if you're, you're trying to throw event, it's easier to navigate city hall. You know, it's really confusing. There needs to be some air traffic control within city hall. So if, if an upstart promoter wants to do something through a block party, they could do it and,

And right now it's just, or it has traditionally been very, very challenging to do that. I think there needs to be some representation in City Hall for the music industry. It's a big mess. We have the Arts Commission, which doesn't, does not represent live music or musicians. We have Entertainment Commission, which

which is focused more on permitting than anything else. And you have the Nightlight Commission, which certainly touches on clubs and bars, but it still does not really touch on the industry, the grassroots music industry. I think San Francisco, in the 30 years I've lived here, has done a good job of supporting what I call the societal arts. But not the like... Not the grassroots, not the backbone of what a creative community is. Yeah.

We're talking about San Francisco's music scene and industry. Of course, it's SF Music Week, a celebration of music makers here in San Francisco and the Bay Area. It coincides with the Noise Pop Festival, which is going on. You just heard from Jordan Kerr.

co-owner and producer of Noise Pop Industries. We're also joined by Tina Davis, president of Empire Global Record Label, headquartered here in San Francisco. We're hearing one of their artists, Shabuzy, right now. We're also joined by Nastia Vornovskaya, who is an editor and reporter with KQED Arts, and Lalene Sanjus, a musician and producer based in Oakland, sings with the band The Session. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned. Everybody

Welcome back to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. We're talking about the San Francisco music industry. It is San Francisco music world.

A new celebration of the music makers of San Francisco and the Bay Area, kind of touched off by the city here. You were just listening to Laline St. Jean's, St. Jude's band, The Session. They're based in Oakland. She also founded the independent record label 7000 Coils. Laline, do you want to tell us anything about that song?

Oh yeah, that's off of our latest album, Nowhere, that came out in 2023. Definitely check it out. Yeah, so interesting. We're also joined by Jordan Kerlin, co-owner and producer of Noise Pop Industries, Nastia Voronov-Skye from KQED Arts, and Tina Davis, president of Empire, global record label headquartered in San Francisco. Tina, before the break, we were just talking about what the city could do to sort of support the music industry. Empire is kind of like the big,

player here in the city. What do you all think the city can actually do to help you? I think that first and foremost, I do know that Mr. Lurie is definitely moving in that direction, like the gentleman said.

But that live music scene is going to be key for us to really break a lot of these artists here. Because when you think about that in the past, a lot of artists were broken by the radio stations and the things that were happening here. And some of the club scene, you know, you can't go to all

you know, clubs every night and hear your favorite records all the time or see your favorite band all the time. And there are live shows that do come through, but for the Bay Area talent, I just feel like we need to have it a little more often. I think that would definitely help. Yeah. Yeah. I was just watching the Sly Stone documentary and he's talking about playing a show every single night. You know, and that just seems like,

You couldn't do that now. No, you couldn't. And he was also on a radio station, you know, and and was able to really show his personality in several different ways. He's from Vallejo. So, you know, that's close to my heart. Oh, wait. Are you from Vallejo? I am from Vallejo. Oh, wow. Oh, man. I didn't know that. Let's bring in call. Let's bring in Marie in Redwood City.

Yeah, go ahead. You know, I think we need to talk about promoters. I'm old and was part of the music scene with Bill Graham presents in the seventies, eighties and nineties. And,

And, you know, Bill brought in local, all the, you know, all the bands that became big, they weren't big, Huey Lewis, Santana, The Dead, Starship. And he brought them in with other group, with other national, international groups and raised them up with all the concerts he did. Mm-hmm.

But, you know, so promoters, where's promoters in all this? But it's a very different time. You know, music now is big, big business. The minute you get out of the coffee shop, the minute you get out of somebody's living room, it's all about the money. And, you know, with Ticketmaster and...

It's just such a different scene. And, you know, there are people, there are other promoters that are trying to, you know, work on this. You know, another planet entertainment with Sherry and Greg, you know, they're trying to build stuff. And I know there's a lot of people trying, but it's just, it's tough. It's a very different world. Yeah. And it's really so much about the money. Hmm.

Thanks, Marie. Appreciate that. Yeah, let's talk about promoters. Nastia, do you want to talk about, like, sort of, for those who are not part of the music industry, like, what does a promoter do? Yeah, they're basically the people that promote

produce live events. And I think the caller was right in hinting at how that has changed quite a bit. There's more of a duopoly now with two huge companies, Live Nation and Golden Voice.

And yeah, like she said, we do have another planet entertainment that is a local company that is pretty prominent. They're the promoter that produces Outside Lands, books the Fox Theater and a lot of other large venues. And then, of course, Noise Pop. But yeah, I'd love to hear Jordan's thoughts on how it is in this time, you know, competing against those two corporate giants. Yeah, totally. Well, I think that.

You know, Golden Voice, which is part of AEG, which is an international conglomerate in the same way that Live Nation is, you know, they really put a stake in the ground here, God, probably about 15 years ago. And I think that, you know, Another Planet has done an amazing job as an independent promoter, not only competing, but if I think I'm getting this right, I think they're the biggest promoter locally, you know, even going up against...

those companies. I think that, you know, the challenge as a promoter and what the, I'm sorry, I forgot the caller's name, but the caller said about, you know, Bill Graham putting Huey Lewis on a, you know, on a, on a big national show opening, um,

One of the major ways the business has changed, and almost always when you're booking an artist a national tour, they have an opener. You don't have that same flexibility where you can build with local bands. You can do that more on a club level. Noise pop, we still have roughly 50% of all artists playing the festival are local. That's always been our mantra of that. We're focused on...

local artists national artists and national artists But we want to give a local artists the opportunity to share a stage or someone they might not already have the opportunity to do and we've been very You know, we booked Joanna Newsom's first ever show. She was first to five on a cat power show bimbos, you know so those type of things where you you can help an artist artist either just Have an amazing experience. I might not otherwise have or get in front of the right audience which really helped them a lot but

Yes, the business has changed immensely as far as money changing hands. Tina Davis, I'm curious about your perspective on this. How much does a record label like Empire end up acting somewhat as a promoter because of all the online stuff that has to happen to get people to shows? Some of the promotion has kind of gone inside, it feels like, the musician's side of things.

Well, I mean, we obviously help and work with the promoters and the agents to try to, you know, evangelize whatever the show is or whatever the performance is. But it's kind of it isn't it's kind of separate. You know, they do their thing. And then obviously we capitalize, especially if we have a project coming. It just kind of the ducks kind of line in that.

In that way, you know, we obviously support it, especially if it's in our neck of the woods. But we have 250 people around the world. So no matter where the shows are, we come in, we support it, we promote it that way. But for the most part, the promoters kind of, you know, have their normal procedure that they do. Yeah, to get people to show. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. We're talking about San Francisco Music Week, a celebration of the music makers of San Francisco and the Bay Area. The event includes workshops, panels, live music. Also coincides with the Noise Pop Festival, which is going on this week at venues all over the Bay Area. Joined by Tina Davis, who's president of Empire Global Record Label, headquartered in San Francisco. I know you got to take off, Tina. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me. We're also joined by Nastya Voronovskaya, editor and reporter with KQED Arts, Laline Sanjus, who's a musician and producer, founder of the independent record label 7000 Coils and sings with the band The Session, which you heard at the top of this segment. And we've got Jordan Carlin, co-owner and producer of Noise Pop Industries, which organizes the Noise Pop Festival. Earlier, you also might have heard Pilo, musician and producer. His latest album is For the Soil.

You know, we love hearing from you about what you think makes the Bay Area music scene distinctive or difficult. You know, maybe you're a musician. What are the kind of joys and challenges of trying to make your career here in the Bay Area instead of, you know, Nashville or Los Angeles or New York? You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6780.

You can email your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org. You can find us on Blue Sky, on Instagram, or over on the Discord. Let's bring in Sandy in San Francisco. Welcome, Sandy.

Hi, thanks for taking my call. I'm a Brazilian jazz musician. I have a band called Homem Nagem Brasileira, and I was a grantee of the SF Arts Commission. I just wanted to point that out because I heard someone say that they don't support musicians. So they do give grants for specific projects. And my suggestion, I produced a show at Jerry Garcia Amphitheater in 2023 called

And I know that there are other presenters that do shows in places like that. My suggestion was, how can we collaborate? So it's not just an independent musician handling not only the production of the show and the creation of the music, but the promotion and all the other great things that people like Noise Pop do. Yeah, yeah.

Thanks. I mean, what's the, what do you think the answer there is, uh, Jordan on kind of smoothing the cooperation of all these things? Well, I think, you know, partnering with a local independent promoter, you know, doing, you know, what we do, we've noise pops, done shows, um, at the Jerry Garcia amphitheater over the years. And,

Yeah, I mean, I think my, you know, my comment about the Arts Commission is I just feel like there's not proper representation, you know, for how much music brings into the city and given how the Arts Commission is, what it's comprised of and who it's comprised of. You know, they maybe have one person from the music community.

world on that commission. But that's great to hear that you got a grant. And I think if you're looking to do future stuff, it is about getting in touch with a company like NoisePop or other small promoters and seeing if you want to help produce the event.

You know, one of our listeners says, you know, I'm a student at UC Berkeley in a band, and I feel like there have often been college towns that become places where a bunch of good music comes out of, you know, Athens, Asheville, et cetera. How do you think the local universities in the Bay influenced the music industry? As a college band, I feel like we often have a hard time getting taken seriously, even as we were playing real venues like Bottom of the Hill and Neck of the Woods. Nastia, what do you think?

Yeah, I mean, Berkeley also has a pretty thriving small venue scene. Like there's Cornerstone, which I've seen some great shows with local acts. There's the UC Theater.

I'm having a hard time coming up off the top of my head of like a prominent band that's come out of UC Berkeley, but I actually am an alum and yeah, there was also like a very underground thriving small live scene there. So yeah, wishing the best for this comedy. And also artists, you know, UC Superb, which promotes shows on campus, that's, you know, Greg Perloff from Another Planet came out, you know, a lot of

People on the music side have come through that program. Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah. On the, on the industry side, I should say. Um, one listener on blue sky also just notes, we need more bars with live music. Maybe a dozen years ago, my niece's husband's band touring the West coast play tonight and grant and green that closed and became, you know, an upscale cocktail lounge. I think also just kind of gesturing at the overall idea of how difficult it is to like sort of keep bars and venues open right now. Um,

Also, everyone, you know it. This is a fundraising period for KQED Public Radio. For more information on how to support KQED, go to kqed.org. I am Alexis Madrigal. So what are the sort of, Laleen, I wanted to ask you this. What are the sort of economics of performing at a bar? Like, I feel like, can a band make money doing that?

You can. If you have some merch you can sell, I think that definitely helps. Or if the bar is able to give some type of guarantee. We definitely have played a lot of bars in our day, but I do think it's really challenging. It's not just one thing that you're able to make money from. It has to be all these different sources. And usually what we go for now is...

It has to be at least a couple, ideally a couple grand or something. I mean, I'm in a six piece band. Right, right, right. So, you know, those are the things that we go for. But at the same time, it's really important to have these smaller venues. And I think there is a lack that we're facing. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, Jordan, how much does it help to create this sort of distributed festival across the city, right? To kind of bring people to new places, but all in sort of one...

uh, banner or brand? Well, I think it's, you know, noise pop is not, you know, we are not a, you know, we're not a big business. We are, we are, you know, we do this as a way to support the, the local music community. For the love. Yeah. I mean, for, for me, for sure. I mean, I think it's, it's an opportunity to give artists an opportunity to, to play shows and celebrate what's going on here. Um,

I hope it's helpful. I mean, I think it is. People show up at shows, bands want to play, people rally around it. And I think that we were able to wrap SF Music Week

under it as a way to really try to make both events, you know, put a nice spotlight on both events and make them both feel a little bit bigger. Synergy, yeah. You know, Harp over on the Discord writes, thanks for mentioning Rickshaw Stop as a small indie club. I'm production manager at Rickshaw Stop and live sound engineer at several other independent venues in the city. I just want to mention that so many venues are struggling right now. Nostradamus, I know we touched on this a little bit earlier, but it certainly seems like

You know, all of the places that require people to show up live and in person seems like it has. They're still having trouble.

Yeah, I think a lot of it goes back to the very, very, very high costs of real estate and rent in the Bay Area. These businesses are struggling to pay the bills and therefore struggling to pay artists. And it all trickles down from rent. Right. I mean, you think about like the punk clubs of Soma or something, you know, like very old days. Trying to imagine like something like that in Soma right now. It's like pretty, pretty difficult, I think.

Right. And there used to be a lot of warehouse shows before the Ghost Ship Fire where it was, you know, it was an industrial warehouse kind of in disuse where a lot of underground... It would be a proving ground for underground acts that eventually would move on to bigger spaces. And because...

All real estate is at such a premium all over the Bay. Now that's not really as much of a thing anymore. Yeah, perfect on-point comment. Listener Joel writes in to say, as a working musician, there are reasons why I stay and why it's hard. One, the Bay Area has always had a more creative bent with the creative arts and music in particular, whereas L.A. has been more commercial. Two, creative tech is palatable.

partly why I'm here too, but tech's contribution to the rise in cost of living here is a negative. If artists can't afford to live here in the community, then it's hard to thrive. Lalene, what do you think? Is that sort of your same kind of calculus there as Joel's?

Yeah, the changing landscape with tech and the cost of living has impacted us so much. There are so many artists that I know who have unfortunately have moved away. But at the same time, the reason that I stay is what he mentioned around or what they mentioned around like the creative aspect.

existence that is here. I have been able to connect with such creative minds and collaborators and myself have grown so much as a solo artist and with the session. And it feels beautiful. It feels supportive.

I also throw underground shows where I live now and, you know, we just make it work, you know, however we need to. And I love that energy here. And it's definitely something I was raised in L.A. and it's definitely very different.

Yeah. I always think that like the Bay Area, like defining thing, I think of the music scene is like two short selling tapes out of the trunk. I feel like that's like such a part of like the mythos of the city, you know, like, we'll just get it done. We're just going to make our own tapes and sell them. And, you know, of course, no one buys tapes. Well, maybe some people buy tapes, but the industry has changed a lot for sure. Ernst writes in to say, you know, very simply, you can't have good art without cheap rent, period, period.

Well, there's not cheap rent, so let's hope we can still have... Let's hope Ernst is wrong, basically. I think that's the answer there. We've been talking about SF Music Week, a celebration of the music makers of San Francisco and the Bay Area. Event includes workshops, panels, live music, and coincides with the Noise Pop Festival. We've been joined by Jordan Curlin, co-owner and producer of Noise Pop Industries, and also co-founder and partner at Brilliant Corner Artist Management. Thanks so much, Jordan. Thank you.

Been joined by Lalene Sanjus, who's a musician and producer based in Oakland, founded the independent record label 7000 Coils. Check out her band, The Session. Thanks for joining us, Lalene.

Thanks for having me. And of course, we've got our music expert here at the station, Nastia Vornevskaya, editor and reporter with KQED Arts. Thanks for joining us, Nastia. Thank you so much. Earlier, we heard from Tina Davis, president of Empire, a big global record label headquartered in San Francisco, and PeeLo, rapper and producer. His latest album is For the Soil. Go out and see his show. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of Forum Ahead with Mina Kim. Selfless and tender

Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.