Catch A Rising Star (Early)

Note from Anastasia: Jay Frank is the head of programming and label relations at Yahoo! Music. He is also on the 2007 Mashup advisory board. I asked him to share his thinking on the program lineup he put together for the Music Mashup pre-conference on July 16. When you register for a "Deluxe" pass, you can attend either of the pre-conference offerings. Coming soon: A post from Gary Rudman on what he has planned….

When Anastasia asked me to put together the agenda for the first Ypulse Music Mashup, I wanted to do something that's a little more compelling than normal. To me, it's easy to talk about teens enjoying Beyonce or trading music online. For certain, they do that (and Eric Garland's keynote will really address those points so directly you'll hardly believe he's being that honest). Yet teens are doing so much more than that, much of which goes unreported.

For example, mixtapes got the most press it ever had when one of the top mixers, DJ Drama, was arrested for practicing his craft. Even then, most people are unaware of this tool to distribute music to teenagers. We're bringing together some of the experts in this field to really get into how this has become such a strong, unsung tool to distribute music.

What really was key, though, is to bring an artist in who is truly living the new paradigm of music distribution. Someone who is actually connecting with teens and doing it outside the system: using MySpace, Yahoo! Music, etc. and not relying on getting a Top 10 radio single. Actually going peer to peer to build up an audience that brings in fans on tour as well as fans that buy records.

That artist is Secondhand Serenade. Very quietly, this earnest San Francisco singer-songwriter made great acoustic songs that he connected to fans thru his MySpace page, earning hundreds of thousands of friends in the process. It quickly found its way onto the Yahoo! Music radio station where he became the first unsigned artist to break the Top 40 most played songs. Released 3 months ago, his debut album AWAKE has sold 25,000 copies and 120,000 downloads. By the time the Mashup rolls around, he will likely have sold 100,000 copies given the current trajectory and people will start waking up to who this new "rising young star" is.

By attending the Music Mashup, you will get such a headstart on this new teen success. We will be having a panel discussion with the artist, his manager and Daniel Glass, the music industry legend who chose this artist to start his new independent record label with. We will also be having a cocktail party afterwards where Secondhand Serenade will do a special acoustic performance for all attending. Then, you will walk away being one step ahead of everyone else on what is certain to be one of the most organic teen music success stories of 2007.

This will truly be a memorable event all around that is worth getting to the Mashup early for. Be prepared to have complete immersion in teens and music. I look forward to seeing you all in San Francisco in July.

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