ACM Music Business Guest Lecture Highlights 2012/2013

In the last academic year, ACM has had the privilege to welcome a host of special music industry professionals and executives to deliver some sensational guest lectures to our Music Business students. Each brought their own expertise and industry insight to help our students understand the very latest trends and avenues for marketing and promotion within the music industry.

Here are a selection of the guest lecture highlights and we look forward to more of the same in the coming year!

Mike Williams

Mike visited ACM’s Business Degree course to talk about his extensive career including his time as editor of NME Magazine and NME.com. During the guest lecture sessions, students engaged Mike in an in-depth question and answer session and a discussion about his experiences of the music industry.

Editor of NME
As the world’s leading weekly music magazine, for many, NME has become somewhat of an industry staple offering a unique take on some of the biggest and rising UK and international alternative music acts. As editor, Mike Williams has the enviable job of being able to live and breathe this industry and can call on his years of experience to get the story he needs.

“The teaching facilities are great, and the students are not only all very bright, they’re all incredibly engaged with their subject matter and eager to learn as much as they can. I’m really impressed with the work that’s being carried out and will take a keen interest in the development of the students as I’m sure that many of them will go on to have successful careers in the music industry.”
Mike Williams Editor of NME

David Rowell

David came into the ACM Business Degree first year marketing lesson and delivered a very informative session on how to market and artist on limited budget . Using industry case studies and examples, David tasked the students directly to explore and interrogate the value of each aspect of the campaign’s he had devised.

Partner with Autonomy Music Group
Specialities – Artist Development, Marketing, Campaign and Artist Management, Record label/3rd party distribution and Publishing.

“We help artists, managers, labels and brands to release and market their music. We devise and execute campaign strategies based on each of our client’s needs and objectives, prioritising budgets and creativity.”

Co-Owner Communion Music Group
Specialities – Record label, live promoter, publisher, production house, and marketing company.

Artist and Musician Roster – Ben Lovett and Kevin Jones, producer Ian Grimble, Maz Tuppini, Helen Sims, Jamie Emsell, Ben Howard (with Island), Marcus Foster (with Polydor, Matthew and the Atlas, Michael Kiwanuka (with Polydor), Three Blind Wolves, Treetop Flyers, Gotye (with Island, Half Moon Run (with Island).

“The Communion Live team promote 200 plus shows a year, run our own festival Bushstock (now in its 3rd year) and released records on our own label and recently through Island, Polydor.”

Marketing Director The Echo Label
Originally joining the Echo team as product manager I eventually become Marketing Director and was involved in the careers of Feeder, Moloko, Babybird, Julian Cope, BRMC, Bat For Lashes, Nerina Pallot and Ray Lamontagne amongst others.

Nick Halkes

Nick delivered a guest lecture to our first and second years with regard to management , publishing and setting up record labels

Founder and Director for Positiva / EMI Dance / EMI Records
Highlights include a platinum album with Vengaboys, gold albums with Alice Deejay and Reel 2 Real, Mobo album of the year with Adam F plus defining dance smashes from BBE, Bucketheads, Binary Finary and many more.

Founder / Head of A&R / Label Manager XL Recordings
Set up simply to release great music. Signed and went gold with the Prodigy, silver with House of Pain plus era defining smashes with SL2, Liquid and more.

“I look to work closely with great people – whether as manager/publisher/collaborator/record label or any combination of those. – and currently work closely with the Prodigy since signing them. Ii did A&R on the 1.3 million selling album ‘Invaders must die’, co-publishing several cuts on the record before remixing two of the singles, co-writing the title track and providing DJ support on the UK arena tour – ‘Hello Wembley’ and European arena dates.

I manage leading dubstep Producer/DJ Caspa, leading Producer/DJs Zinc and Adam F plus developing artists like Engine Earz Experiment and She is Danger.

I also work closely with leading Producer/DJ Dave Spoon, Richard Russell and have a number of co-writes on a gold album in Scandanavia, a track for major Japanese star Maki Goto and have previously enjoyed top 10 hits with acts such as Cascada, Matt Darey, Joey Negro , Dana Rayne and Higate.”

Jamie Searle

As a leader in Digital Rights Management, Jamie visited ACM with the aim of delivering an extremely future thinking and creative lesson to students. Centred around the complex world of digital right management Jamie took the students through a variety of campaign examples and discussed the finer details of the digital rights landscape.

Business Development Manager Base79
Specialties – Business development, Music industry, Commercial deals, Content licensing, Account management, Digital marketing and social media.

Previous Experience includes Business Development Manager at Universal Pictures and Digital Marketing Executive at Universal Music Group.

“I head up Music Content at Base79, a YouTube Certified Multi-Channel Network and YouTube’s largest partner in the EMEA regions. The Company manages content for over 350 rights holders globally including Guinness World Records, The Football Association, Ministry of Sound and HatTrick Productions. I work for music rights-holders, record labels and creators globally to grow revenue and audiences on YouTube. Base79 currently manages a content portfolio of 2,000,000 video assets that generate over 650 million views per month.”

Dave Lloyd Vitty

Dave visited ACM to deliver a guest lecture from the broadcaster’s perspective. Dave was explained to students what it takes to get onto radio in the UK, how the quarterly Rajar figures are generated and how they affect the industry. Dave also spoke about the future of radio in the digital age.

Broadcaster Radio One
David Lloyd Vitty is a radio presenter and is best known as having worked alongside Chris Moyles at BBC Radio 1. He was originally a broadcast assistant on Moyles’ early morning show, but soon became the show’s head writer and ‘Director of Comedy’. He moved with Moyles to the drivetime slot, and then to The Radio 1 Breakfast Show, during which time the programme was known as The Chris Moyles Show. In total, he spent 14 years from 1998-2012 working alongside Moyles.

Dave has also presented other shows on Radio 1 and BBC Radio 5 Live, as well as some presenting work on television, most notably on Channel 4’s Coach Trip.

Rich Walker – General Manager Beggars Group

Rich visited ACM to deliver insight into the running of one of the most innovative group of labels in the UK; Beggars Group.

Prior to becoming General Manager, Rich headed up Beggars Group Communications and thus was able to bring in some interesting case studies for our students on how to break a variety of artists across all genres into the world of on and offline press. Rich spoke about how to get your artist front cover NME to dealing with someone of the stature of Adele.

“I wasn’t expecting the facilities at ACM to be as good as they are. The students seem very clued up too. It was hard to be anything but impressed. Feels like a place that understands the needs of the industry right now, not what they were a decade ago and they’re training the next generation accordingly.”
Rich Walker General Manager Beggars Group

About Beggars Group
The Beggars Group feeds the hungry-for-independent-music-lover’s soul. In the last decade The Beggars Group has gone from strength to strength, not only confirming their position as one of the largest independent groups of labels in the world, but also, by allowing their artists the time to develop, affording them freedom and support, releasing the best the decade had to offer.

The company boasts a collection of recording labels, including 4AD, XL Recordings, Rough Trade, Beggars Banquet, Stolen Recordings, Young Turks, and the New York-based indie label Matador Records.

Artist Roster – Adele, Antony & The Johnsons, Arcade Fire, The Avalanches, Badly Drawn Boy, Basement Jaxx, Beirut, Belle and Sebastian, Biffy Clyro, Bon Iver, British Sea Power, Cat Power, The Delays, Dizzee Rascal, Electric Six, Emiliana Torrini, Friendly Fires, Gotan Project, Interpol, Jack Penate, Jarvis Cocker, Lemon Jelly, M.I.A., The Libertines / Babyshambles, The Prodigy, The Raconteurs, Radiohead, The Strokes, Sufjan Stevens, Vampire Weekend, The White Stripes and The xx.