Last week a bunch of Sonicbidders trekked to NYC for CMJ’s annual Music Marathon in hopes of catching the sounds of over 1,000 artists from all over the world. As my first ever event at Sonicbids, CMJ 2011 was a fantastic blur of music, new friends and lots of Red Bull. Throughout the week, Tess and I camped out at Registration in Judson Church, saying hello to artists and industry folks as they picked up their badges. From catching up with old friends (Seth Glier, Jackie Indrisano) to making new ones (Bonnie & Little Red) we got our gab on and got to share some exciting news (in case you hadn’t heard, Sonicbids just partnered with Red Bull!)
On Thursday, it seemed the Sonicbids crew was all over the place. Our ceo, Panos, was at the Kimmel Center moderating a panel called “How Brands are Using Emerging Music to Reach Consumers” with Ron Faris, Director of Brand Marketing, Virgin Mobile, Jon Landman, Owner, The Syndicate, Jason Miller, SVP of National Ad Sales, Fuse, Evan Krauss, Executive Vice President Advertising, Shazam, and Matt Hirst, National Culture Marketing, Red Bull US. Panos and the panelists spoke to a packed room of artists, students and marketing folks about the potential of brand and band relationships. Just one floor up, College Day was in action! Heidi and Kimberly hung out at our booth handing out free Red Bull and asking college radio programmers to give us their picks for best unknown artists. In the coming weeks, we are going to pick our favorite artist from the list and hook both the band and student programmer up with some serious swag from Red Bull.
Of course, CMJ is all about the showcases. It was amazing to see international bands like Australian artists Little Red, Art vs Science, & Gotye, taking over NYC. We hung out with our friends in Aunt Martha, Hey Marseilles, Filligar and caught the sets from Boy & Bear, Caveman, ANR, Army Navy, Walk the Moon, Data Romance, Purity Ring, Scattered Trees, Passwords, Beast Make Bomb, Viva Mayday just to name a few. All in all, CMJ 2011 rocked my socks, literally. A big THANKS to all the friends we made from bands to managers, to industry folks, to the whole team at CMJ! Check out more photos on our Facebook page and read our tweets from the week. And by all means, if you've got any stories or favorite bands to share from your CMJ experience, post a comment!
