Lenny Kravitz Remix Contest

Grand Prize Winner

 
To check out the winner's diary of Winter Music Conference, click here.

Prizes

We're offering up a year's worth of loops from the Loops Subscription Series and a copy of Vegas Video 3.0, the biz's best digital audio editor.

Here's where it hits the fan: the winner will receive an all-expense paid, full-week trip to Winter Music Conference in Miami, March 23 - 30 2002, courtesy of Virgin Records. And while you're there, you'll hang with Lenny at a rehearsal and receive an autographed guitar. Virgin's talking airfare, seven nights of first-class hotel accommodations, limo service to the hotel and rehearsal, registration to Winter Music Conference, and $1000 spending cash. And parties. Don't forget the parties.

Dig that. The heaviest of the heavies in the dance world will be there. It's a career-making opportunity. Poolside in Miami, rubbing elbows with everybody who's anybody in the dance music biz. Bring your demo CDs and sunglasses. Network for a week, get tanned, snag a limo to the jam then jet-set home. Ciao, baby. You're a winner.

About the Contest

"Believe In Me" has been called a full-on make-out ballad. It's got a bluesy sound with an acoustic guitar solo—not the usual stuff you'll find here at ACIDplanet. That's good. Lenny is interested in new sounds, taking the past and morphing it into something distinctive. Since Lenny's going to be checking out your stuff, he's throwing you a curveball. Make something killer with this track, and you'll (literally) get a chance to rock his world.

About the Artist

Lenny Kravitz is an iconoclast, an original. He singularly pursued his muse since high school and crafted his own unique sound, critics be damned. Multiple Grammys, MTV Video Awards, multi-platinum albums and rock-god status prove the success of his pursuing that musical vision. Lenny is one of the few artists whose new releases can appear concurrently on progressive, hit, dance, and classic rock radio. His sound doesn't just span genres, but pop history itself.

You wanna talk about assimilating influences into a new, powerful sound? You talk about Lenny Kravitz.

After fusing psychedelia, soul, blues and rock in his first few releases, Lenny started to play with loops and digital technology on his album "5," which included the Grammy-winning hit "Fly Away" (and, in later pressings, also included another Grammy-winner, his cover of the Guess Who's "American Woman" from the Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me Soundtrack). Though he still wields a mean Flying-V, Lenny's also established himself with the techno and remix crowd, so much so that he's become a regular presence at the Winter Music Conference.

Lenny's new disk is simply titled "Lenny," and contains the hit "Dig In." The disk was produced and written by Lenny; he also plays most of the instruments himself. We're offering "Believe In Me," an upcoming single from the disk, for remixing. It's a change of pace, something to test your skills.

And you'd best bring all your skills to the table, baby. 'Cause this remix is a Lenny-styled workout, serious players only. Focus on your sound and make it happen. There will only be one winning remixer here, and that artist will win BIG.

Pick up a copy of "Lenny" here.

REFLECTIONS OF THE 2002 WINTER MUSIC CONFERENCE

We asked Mark Chubb, winner of the Lenny Kravitz remix contest, to keep a record of what happened in Miami to share with other ACIDplanet citizens. Winners win big on ACIDplanet - here's proof!


Introduction
To be honest, I had no plans of attending the 2002 Winter Music Conference. It's not that I didn't think it would be a great conference full of intriguing panels, wonderful DJ's and artists, cool industry executives and all-night parties. It was more the investment. After all, in the present economy, it's very hard for a struggling remixer, composer and producer to make a living.

But the call came from Steve at Sonic Foundry on Tuesday, March 19th that I won the Lenny Kravitz Remix Contest sponsored by Sonic Foundry and Virgin Records. Steve asked me if I would be able to attend the Winter Music Conference in Miami since I would have to fly out that Saturday, possibly Friday. I said, "Sure." After I hung up the phone, I think I thanked God and screamed for at least one full minute. Why? This was the fifth remix contest that I entered hosted by Sonic Foundry, and the first one I won. It was almost a year since I quit my "day job" as a church administrator to pursue a full time career in music. Now, don't get me wrong, I have pursued a career in music for as long as I can remember. I even have two degrees in the field (a BA and MA in music composition). But it had been almost a year since I decided that come hell, high water, or bankruptcy, I was going to persevere. This was my first break.

What follows are brief highlights of my experience at the 2002 Winter Music Conference and my attendance at the Lenny Kravitz Dress Rehearsal for the Lenny World Tour. The thoughts and opinions in this essay in no way reflect the thoughts and opinions of anyone at the 2002 Winter Music Conference, Virgin Records, Sonic Foundry, or any other entity except myself -Mark Anthony Chubb, The 3rd Messenger.


Day One -Saturday, March 23rd
Most of my day was spent traveling from my base of operations, Des Moines Iowa, to Miami Florida. There was the opening party at the Billboard Live to attend at eleven PM, but after being up 48 hours straight to prepare for the conference (you know, demo CD's to burn and business cards to make) I was too pooped to party.


Days Two- Five The 2002 Winter Music Conference
One of the best panels I attended was called "Creative Business-What's the Deal?" The panel was made up of three attorneys, a manager and a label owner. The coolest aspect of the panel was the mock negotiation of a record deal. A few valuable things I learned during this panel came from Ted Weis, an attorney with Serling, Rooks & Farrara of New York City. Ted mentioned that if you wanted to treat your profession like a hobby, then you probably didn't need an attorney, manager, or agent, etc. If, however, you wanted to have a long, successful career, you should treat your profession like a business. He also mentioned that once you consult an attorney, you should make sure he/she knows your financial situation. In negotiating a contract, it is necessary for the attorney to know how much you have and how much to push. The panelists also mentioned a few books that everyone working in the music business should read. These included All You Need To Know About the Music Business by Donald Passman, Hit Men: Power Brokers & Fast Money Inside the Music Business by Fredric Dannen, and Music Money & Success by Jeffrey Brabec, Todd Brabec, et al.

The panel "Dance Music 2002 - The State of the Industry" was quite an interesting experience. This was a heated discussion. The first big topic was the issue of people downloading music on the Internet. Many of the panelists noted that the industry was losing thousands of dollars in revenue because of this problem. The best suggestion that came out of this discussion (in my opinion) was the idea of a subscription payment for anyone who downloaded music on the net. This money (whether 5 cents a song or 25 cents) would go to the record company to pay for royalties, marketing fees, etc.

A big topic at the conference was the identity of dance music and its place in the ever-evolving marketplace. Many felt that dance music doesn't get the respect that it deserves and that many artists establish themselves through dance music only to become pop or rock musicians. Some suggested that dance music did have a "face" (hence an identity) in Kylie Minogue. It didn't seem that anyone disagreed with that, but it didn't calm anyone down either. Others raised (what I thought) was a great point in saying that other types of music didn't have the infighting and strife that dance music seemed to have. The other fields (Hip-hop, Rock, etc.) seemed to be able to get past their differences and present a united front. As I sat there and listened to the debate, I realized that what existed in dance music was akin to what exists in classical music today.

Briefly, in contemporary classical composition today, there exist different types of music. There is atonal music (early Schoenberg), twelve-tone (later Schoenberg), strict serialism (late '50's and '60's), and pluralism or post-modern music. Now by no means are these all of the types of contemporary classical composition, but for our purposes, this is enough. Anyway, when I was in graduate school, students identified themselves through various compositional types. While we tolerated each other, we didn't like each other very much. In other words, the atonalists didn't like the pluralists. The pluralists didn't like the strict serialists and etc., etc. The point is that instead of celebrating each other's differences and just referring to it as classical music, we were too busy stabbing each other in the back (a phenomenon that happens a lot in graduate school).

The same problem seems to exist in dance music. The house and techno people don't like the drum n' bass people, who don't like the chillout people, who don't like the garage people and so forth. This doesn't seem to exist in other forms of popular music. You don't really hear about people in hip-hop hating each other over the music. If "someone's got beef," it usually has nothing to do with music at all. Furthermore, I really don't think Brittany cares what Christina is doing musically, and Madonna and Janet aren't trying to see who can out-dance the other. The point is that it's just hip-hop. Its just pop. It's just MUSIC.

Until people in dance music stop "hating" on each other and realize that we're all in this for the same reasons, dance music will continue to exist on the fringes of the marketplace. You'll still have people who start out as dance musicians and become something else.

I can't leave out the parties. There were parties every night of the WMC. Many of the clubs highlighted by the WMC featured mostly house and techno. I was hoping that each club would play all types of dance music, but I quickly found that clubs cater to specific audiences. One of the panelists later spoke about how in the golden days of New York's dance club scene one could go to any club and hear lots of different music. Miami clubs seem more focused, and go deep into specific genres.

Overall, the 2002 Winter Music Conference provided a great peak into the world of dance music. I had the opportunity to meet quite a few executives and make some very promising professional contacts.


Days Six - A free day.
I listened to some demos that I received, started making a list of the people that I met, and spent a good amount of the day listening to music that I bought. I also spent some time reading the large amount of literature, (magazines, etc.) I received at the conference.


Day Seven - LENNY
The limo picked me up at around seven PM. Although I heard that Lenny spent some time hanging in South Beach, the dress rehearsal for the world tour was (I believe) in North Miami Beach. About 100 people attended the dress rehearsal. Some were radio contest winners from around the country. Others were people that worked for the record company, were affiliated with the company (I'm assuming), or with Lenny.
After waiting around for a bit, we were allowed into the stage area and treated to a great, but short show. Lenny had been suffering from the flu for the past few days, and had just begun to get his voice back. Needless to say, he was as friendly, cool, humble and real as I'd thought he'd be. Not at all pretentious, he told us before the set that this was not a performance and that we should feel free to get up, dance, walk around or whatever. We were all "just hanging out" in his words. He apologized for not being able to really sing, but he promised would give us all that he could.

Now, in my opinion, there are two types of artists/groups in the record industry. The first type is what I call a "studio" act. The second type is called "real performers." The "studio" acts may make great records, but when you attend a live show or see them on an awards show on TV, they never seem to sound as good as they do on the records. What's missing is the musicality, the singing, and the showmanship that you hear on the record but don't see at a performance. The intangibles of music. This is not Lenny Kravitz.

Lenny Kravitz is a "real performer." What you hear on the record is what you get in person. I believe he did about seven or eight tracks and all of sounded better than they did on the records. He even performed Little Girl's Eyes at the request of an audience member. He was that nice, and the performance was absolutely wonderful. Although he was visibly ill (coughing profusely between songs) once the music started, Lenny was totally into the moment.

After the set, a photographer took pictures of Lenny with various people, including me. Lenny gave me an autographed Gibson Flying V guitar. I still cannot believe I met Lenny Kravitz, a man that I consider one of the great musical icons of our generation, and had the opportunity to remix one of his songs. WOW!

This has been the opportunity of a lifetime. I enjoyed every aspect of it and it is an experience I will never forget. I would like to thank Lenny Kravitz, Virgin Records, Sonic Foundry, Cary, Ty, and Steve. A special thanks to my wife Teri McMurtry-Chubb, who puts up with me and loves me and offers an unending amount of encouragement. Finally, I thank my Savior Jesus Christ for the gift of music.