Show Me The Green Light At The Grammys

Archive for the ‘Music for Change’ Category

Show Me The Green Light At The Grammys

February 17th, 2011, by Sloane Berrent. No Comments »

I wanted to share a recent project I worked on that I’m really proud of with an awesome client, The Grammy’s! Many award shows are just about that ONE night. The Grammy’s have made an effort the past two years to showcase events leading up to The Grammys that are relevant to those in the music community. This year, I worked with SocialPeople on digital strategy and blogger outreach to promote an invite-only event called Show Me The Green Light: A Conversation About Greening The Music Industry.

Between spending five years in LA (lord I miss that place), working and heavily volunteering in the green space, I had a huge list of names of friends, contacts and peers I wanted to invite to the event. I would have attended myself but I had a previous commitment to be in New Orleans last weekend and hard as I try, I just can’t be in two places at once!

I was thrilled to see so many blogs posts, tweets and status updates about the event. I am really excited when my digital work comes together with my passion for sustainability..and music!

Here’s an excerpt from the official press release:

The Recording Academy will partner with Waste Management — the official recycling partner of The Academy and 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards — to present Show Me The Green Light: A Conversation About Greening The Music Industry as part of GRAMMY Week. The event will focus on the incorporation of a reduce, reuse and recycle philosophy and its emerging presence in an ever-changing industrial climate.
(more…)

Take 5: Newsletters I Love

December 8th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 1 Comment »

Roosevelt Hotel, New Orleans. Click here to visit NOLAlicious and download this image for your computer, iPhone or iPad.

I like information small and bite-sized and I know most people feel the same. With so much information out there nowadays how are we to find the good stuff? I’m taking a page from Rachael Ray’s Take 5 Ingredients to give you a series I’m calling “Take 5″ but instead of recipes (baby steps people, baby steps) it’s going to include five examples of websites, newsletters, nonprofits, places, people, things (you get the point right lovlies?) that I think rock and get IT right.

This does two things. One, let’s face it, I’m not called “ever-observant” for nothing. I’m always consuming information and it brings me great joy to share what I find. Second, I can’t write posts on each of these things individually – or I could but it would just about break me since there is so much great information to share. So in my quest for stronger and more cohesive content to bring you I’m starting with a topic that I happen to know a lot about. Email newsletters. I get more than the average bear and sorting through them I’m looking for information that tells me something, provides more information about that topic and is designed well (which can be a very simple design, don’t confuse simplicity for lacking in style). I’ll write more at another juncture about what I’ve learned makes a good newsletter, a topic I learned an intense and exhastive amount about this past year running NOLAlicious but until then, let’s start simple.

MY 5 FAVORITE (AND BTW FREE) EMAIL NEWSLETTERS:

1. Startup Digest – Self-designated members of the “email mafia” this newsletter calls itself “the insider’s guide to the startup world.” It is curated by city and provides the best in startup events, what you need to read and jobs at top startups in your city. I subscribe to three editions; New Orleans, New York and Pittsburgh – I could easily find more of interest but these three are a good swatch of what is going on in those cities. Their lists are rapidly growing, they host a pancake breakfast in different markets around the country to meet subscribers and have an awesome blog sharing tips about enewsletters. All around win.

2. Jauntsetter – Every week this enewsletter introduces me to somwhere new I want to go, a hotel to stay at, and a fellow traveller who shares their greatest travel tips and recommandations. They archive and keep everything on their website, but the weekly enewsletter is where it’s at. While aimed at New York travel-lovers, I’ve gotten it practically since they launched and it’s by no means only for New Yorkers. The editors are totally that person you want to sit next to in an airplane and exchange travel stories. Their simple layout helps me with ideas for upcoming trips and this summer when on a whim we ended up in New Paltz without a place to stay, Taylor was looking up places on Google and I went straight to Jauntsetter’s website on my iPhone and found the incredibly affordable and awesome Clove Cottages which was exactly what we were looking for. Curated content beats a google search anyday of the week.

3. Listings Project – This weekly email provides living and workspace for rent, sublet, swap, and sale focused around the arts community of New York and is curated by Stephanie Diamond. What I love about this is the options it provides. It’s like a curated Craigslist and has short and long term options for people looking for a place in New York. From temporary to permanent, art space to brownstone apartment, I browse through and find I’ve learned a lot about neighborhoods, about pricing in different places and it’s just a guilty pleasure to dream about living in one of these awesome places in New York. This enewsletter was recently written up in The New York Times, something that might catapult it past the very grassroots feel it has now, I just hope it keeps the same integrity of listings.

4. The Hired Guns Gig Alerts – The Hired Guns is a recruiting firm that focuses on the digital space. What better way to get the word out about your clients and also increase traffic to your website for job seekers than an enewsletter! The gig alerts are listings of the jobs they have available, networking events and courses they have at The Hired Guns Academy. I like this newsletter first because the copy rocks. Seriously, they write some of the best copy I’ve ever seen. Second, while they don’t say who their client is, it’s very interesting to look and see who might be hiring and what types of jobs are out there. I use this for conversation with friends at agencies and in the digital space and in general to keep me hip about what’s happening. I’m also dying to attend one of their workshops which look awesome (How to get a literary agent for one) and think it’s savvy marketing to combine workshops and a newsletter to an industry where you help place people in companies.

5. New Music Tipsheet – Scott Perry is like the cool rock n’ roll older brother of a friend where you want to break into his room and look at his record collection and dig through his box of concert stubs. New Music Tipsheet gives everyone, from someone like me who is a lifelong music fan to industry insiders, a look at the entire music industry including upcoming releases, TV listings, news, and headlines from today’s top music blogs. I’ll see what’s new, might check it against some of the music blogs, samples a few tracks while I’m working and slowly work my way down the Tipsheet during the week listening to new music and checking out who’s on tour and might be coming to a city near me (since I’m always on the move) and then rinse and repeat the next week. I like that it’s not editorialized, it’s straight information and I can decide for myself what I want to buy and what new artists I want to hear more of.

Well there you have it. A “Take 5″ look at email newsletters in my inbox. Are these new to you? Are you going to sign up for them? What are some of your favorite newsletters? Leave a comment and I’ll look to include feedback I get into an upcoming “Take 5.”

Walking Across America

August 20th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 3 Comments »

This video above is the final version. Compare that to this one…

The one above is the behind the scenes version. Which do you like better?

I saw this video originally on my friend Drew’s blog and I was immediately reminded of one dear friend who had a dream to walk across America. And I believe one day he will (to quench his desire for a journey, he biked across America instead).

But when I saw the video on Drew’s blog all clean and shiny – yeah – I mean it’s awesome. Let’s face it. The final version always looks pretty good. It’s the nitty gritty daily grind of life that is hard. And so when I clicked on the Walk Across America YouTube page and then saw the map of where they traveled, I got lost for a few minutes in thoughts of my own journey.

Sometimes it’s clear to me, it’s a Temper Trap song perfecly in sync with my every step.

But often it’s not. It’s messy. It’s undefined. It’s life smack in front of you every day. It’s an internal back and forth to be who I want to be and match who people think I should be or who I think I have to be for people. It’s giving and getting. It’s searching and being utterly lost and becoming found again.
(more…)

TONIGHT! Gulf Coast Benefits Unite Us For Good

July 1st, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 2 Comments »

This post is written by Nic Adler, co-producer for tonight’s events and owner of The Roxy in Los Angeles, CA. I’m honored to have partnered with him, Casey Phillips and the entire Gulf Coast Benefit Team for tonight’s shows around the country (and indeed now around the world). Please consider donating to our efforts regardless if you can attend a show tonight or not. To find an event in your area, see our Meetup Everywhere page where there are over 90 events listed in 13 countries (and counting).

*****

Photo Credit Kris Krug / Static Photography. View more photos from TEDxOil Spill Expedition on Flickr.

As I sit here writing this, up to 100 million gallons of oil has spewed into the gulf and as it continues to do so, it is destroying our fragile ecosystem and people’s livelihoods. We cannot just sit, watch the news and continue to say, “This is horrible!” and, “How could this happen?” without some action to back it up. This problem is our problem now and we need to stand up and help where ever and however we can.

WHO IS HELPING THE GULF COAST REGION?

There are so many groups doing amazing work along the Gulf coastlines. After days of due diligence and research, our co-producer Sloane Berrent came back to the group with multiple nonprofits to partner with and options but we all narrowed in on the Gulf Restoration Network’s new initiative, Gulf Future, because we all thought it reflected our mission. Support the coastal and fishing communities, restore the marine and costal environments and, maybe most important, make people aware and responsible for what has happened in the Gulf so history does not repeat itself in the future.

HOW ARE WE RAISING MONEY?

Naturally owning The Roxy in Los Angeles, I thought we should throw a benefit concert, but then wondering how to make it really have an impact, it came to me, what if we reached out to our neighbor businesses to see if we could all work together and really take something as simple as a benefit concert and turn it into a wave of action. I then reached out to Casey Phillips, who I knew as a true New Orleans man and someone who had a real “on the ground” pulse of what was happening. Not only was he a native of the area but also the talent buyer for multiple clubs including our own Sunset Strip neighbor, The Viper Room. Casey echoed my same thoughts and went into action immediately bringing in Sloane Berrent and The Roxy’s Megan Jacobs along with a team of people who knew something had to be done now. Three weeks and a couple of thousands emails later, we now have over 50 independent music venues and over 100 bands fighting for the cause.

All the venues will send their gate revenues from these shows directly to Gulf Restoration Network within 72 hours of our shows. Also, our donation widget send funds directly to the Gulf Restoration Network’s account so we don’t ever touch the donations and they all go directly to the nonprofit partner. We’re making sure it gets into the hands of community groups like Bayou Grace and St. Bernard Community Center within weeks and we’ll be sharing that with those who made donations both online and through attending events through social networks and follow up blog posts with our partners.
(more…)

Groundswell Growing for Gulf Coast Benefit Concerts Thursday

June 30th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 2 Comments »

This Thursday, July 1st, music venues and activists worldwide will unite to benefit those directly impacted by the Gulf Coast Oil Spill. Proceeds from all participating venues will be donated to The Gulf Restoration Network, a nonprofit committed to uniting and empowering people to protect and restore the natural resources of the Gulf Region for future generations.

This is the beginning of a blog post that I am seeing coming flying into my google alerts and into my inbox. It’s the start of a groundswell for tomorrow night’s Gulf Coast Benefit concerts.

Current stand is 60 Meetups, about 45 which are music venues and the rest are awareness get-togethers. It’s grown to 5 countries too (shout out to the Montreal and Paris contingent in particular)! 100% of online donations and the ticket price at venues is going to Gulf Restoration Network. Those who know me, know that I look to inspire others to find ways to give back and this benefit series is speaking to the passionate resolve we all have to help others in times of need.

How can you get involved? Make a donation, whatever amount you can give. Every dollar counts. Then, how about asking 5 friends to match you? Send an email or post to your Facebook wall and say something like:

I just donated $10 to support Gulf Benefit Concerts, will you match my donation?

You can attend. Full listing of venues is on the Meetup Everywhere page.

You can blog about the events. This takes our message to your fans, supporters and friends. A blog post goes a long way! An article in your local paper helps tell more people about what we’re up to. To give you inspiration, here are links to some of the most recent press we’ve gotten. (And huge thanks to everyone below).

Antiquiet Interview with Co-organizer Casey Phillips:

New Orleans has been in a fight for survival for the past decade. In terms of the deep musical spirit of the area, what’s the general atmosphere among local artists in relation to this crisis?

The strength of the NOLA musical community is a force that some may have doubted before Katrina, but few question anymore. They have lead by example these past 5 years by refusing to let our musical heritage disappear. To me they represent pillars of strength for others to draw inspiration from. The cajun culture of the bayou regions is as important to Louisiana’s heritage as jelly-roll jazz. Right now the future for the fishing communities looks bleak, however, but I can say with certainty that the cajuns are proud people, and the backbone of Louisiana – we will not let them down.

(more…)