On September 6th, during Portland’s annual MusicFestNW music festival, Nemo will play host to two panel discussions presented by The Recording Academy Pacific NW Chapter, Nemo Design, The Musicians Union Local 99 and Spectre. This event is Free for MusicFestNW attendees and for Recording Academy members.

From 1PM to 4PM on Saturday September 6th there will be two panels. At 1PM ‘Get In The Van! - A Survival Guide to Touring’ a panel on what to do now that gas prices are crimping bands’ touring plans will include:
Wes Howerton, Barsuk Records
Ben London, The Recording Academy
Slim Moon, Shotclock Management
Alicia J. Rose, Doug Fir Booking
Tracie Verlinde, BMI
Tom Windish, Windish Agency

At 2:30PM Get Out! - Building An Audience Online and Off a panel on using the internet wisely to build your fan base offline will include:
Dave Allen, Nemo
Amanda Diaz, YouTube
Kate Jackson, Sub Pop
Kevin Kusatsu, Sony/BMG
Frank Nieto, 230 Publicity
Julianne Shepherd, The Fader
Bekah Zietz, Suicide Squeeze

A reception follows the panels from 4PM - 6PM. For more information please call +1 206.834.1000

Nemo is located at 1875 SE Belmont St, Portland, Or 97214. +1 503.872.9631

My good friend Brian Zisk, the man behind the always interesting SanFranMusicTech Conference, has announced the next gathering. It will be back at San Francisco’s Hotel Kabuki on October 20th. There are early bird tickets currently available through August 8th which you can grab here. I will be there as a panelist along with the following folks:

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith, Chief Search Officer
Steve Jang - imeem, CMO & Head of Business Development
Ethan Kaplan - Warner Music Technology, VP
Rachel Masters - Ning, VP of Strategic Relationships
Jack Moffit - Speeqe, CEO / Chesspark, CEO & Lead Developer / IceCast Streaming Media Server, Creator / Xiph Foundation, Co-Founder
Sean O’Connell - Music Allies, Founder & CEO
Dave Ulmer - Motorola, Sr. Director Multimedia Products and Services
Carnet William - Sprout, Co-Founder & CEO
Brian Zisk - SanFran MusicTech Summit, Executive Producer / Future of Music Coalition, Technologies Director

The back cover of the Damaged Goods EP

On June 18 I spent an afternoon with the University of Oregon’s philosophy department class presenting a talk on Gang of Four and our place in the “creative, potentially transformative popular music pantheon.” It was fun. As a band our achievements are well known, mainly in critical circles, but also from the few thousand passionate hard core fans who continue to hang on dearly to their vinyl copies of ‘Entertainment!’ For a band that didn’t sell very many albums we continue to draw new listeners and thought leaders to our music. Hence the invite to speak today.

It was fun taking questions from the students, and very good questions too, about our lyrics, our political stance, how we messaged through our music. We also discussed where music is going and how will musicians be able to make a living. The students appeared to take to heart my idea that musicians are no longer in the music business, they are in the T-shirt business.

As I researched for the talk I came across the Damage Goods EP ripped from vinyl and made available as a download along with a hi-res file of the back cover. 30 years ago, on June 28th and 29th 1978, in Cargo Studios just outside Manchester England, the original Gang of Four line-up recorded the EP. Two days, live recording, minimal overdubs, recorded and mixed. Three songs - Damaged Goods, Armalite Rifle, (Love Like) Anthrax.

It’s amazing to listen to today [the students loved it.] The disarming, sprawling charm of the non-production stands out. Performed basically live this version of Damaged Goods seems now perfect - unhurried, raw, prickly guitar, Jon sounding like he’s just yelling in a room. I’m glad I never trust my memory.

Dave Allen, Director, Insights & Digital Media, Nemo Design

Gang of Four - Damaged Goods (EP version 1978)

Damaged Goods 3 song EP Click, right click or control click to download. It’s a 12mb zip file and it includes a hi-res back cover image.