By The Book

If ever you've wondered what it takes to make it in the music business or what the next step is, but didn't know who to ask or where to look for answers, AXiS Entertainment and Swahill Studios are opening their doors to help you figure it out. Thursday, Feb. 25, the two entities are pairing up to open a new series, currently dubbed the "Artist Industry Educational Forum" to help educate musicians as to what their next steps should be.

More often than not, a new artist starts out with talent and grand aspirations, but no idea how to accomplish their goals or get their music out on a broad scale.

While working the local scene and learning from your peers is an invaluable source, it's rarely enough to help you land a record deal or tour nationally. Although the conference portion of festivals like SXSW and DFest address a variety of issues, those opportunities only arise once a year and can involve a lot of travel. And surprisingly, even though the DFest conferences have been available for a wealth of information, artist participation throughout the past few years has been lacking.

Local promotions firm AXiS Entertainment and Swahill Studios have been keenly aware of many local musicians' lack of knowledge of the music industry. That's especially the case for young and emerging artists who are just getting started or beginning to develop a following.

Often those artists' missteps are simply a matter of being unaware of what they need to do next. With that in mind Swahill's Damen Banks and AXiS' Pamela "Sunshine" Washbourne have developed a new series focusing on the needs and interests of developing artists.

The first installment of the Artist Industry Educational Forum opens this week with an overview of the music industry, beginning at 6pm. Held at the Del Rey Building, 417 W. Seventh Street in Suite 104, the session will offer insight into a number of issues that many artists either don't understand or often overlook.

Subjects that will be covered in broad fashion will include: Why sound quality is important, how to get registered with Soundscan and acquire bar codes, how to make your product radio ready, how to shop your project and how important are record deals?

While all these are pretty open in scope, the format will allow attendees to ask questions and delve deeper into the topics that warrant further discussion.

As Sunshine said: "A lot of artists don't realize why it's important to register your work with ASCAP or BMI, or why bar codes and Soundscan are so important. And many don't understand why you should package your music and make it industry ready from the beginning, so you don't have to go back and redo or complete it later. Hopefully, this will be the first step to clearing some of that up for people."

Although the Artist Industry Educational Forum is a great icebreaker for new artists, it's open to anyone and could prove beneficial to all types of acts--especially artists who have hit a virtual brick wall and are wondering what their next step should be. Speakers at the first event will be Pamela "Sunshine" Washbourne of AXiS Entertainment addressing the business aspects of the music industry; Damen Banks of Swahill Studios covering production, mastering and sound quality; and Damien Greene, representing recording artists' interests.

This week's event is only the first of what is to be a monthly forum and classroom session, planned to take place on the last Thursday evening of each month.

Future sessions will include guest speakers from different aspects of the industry, including entertainment attorneys, DJs, radio program directors, producers and record label A&R reps.

Each month's forum will begin at 6pm and run as late as necessary to address any questions and topics as they develop.

Although the first forum is at hand, musicians, artists and even hardcore music fans can register by calling 902-3955 or emailing a reservation note to HYPERLINK "mailto:AIEForum@yahoo.com" AIEForum@yahoo.com.

If necessary, you can even show up and register on site as the Forum prepares to begin. A registration fee of $50 will be required for each class, in order to offset event and speaker expenses.

With a monthly forum and class such as this, there's even more promise that Tulsa's local music community will continue to develop exponentially. The talent is definitely here--with a little knowledge, the sky's the limit. Hopefully our local artists will show up and learn how to launch Tulsa music scene to the next level.