Music Matters Asia Conference 2009

This past week Hong Kong was host to the Music Matters Asia conference.  In brief its a music industry conference addressing the business side of music.  alivenotdead.com worked with the organizers to promote the event and to bring artists to attend.  They generously offered free registration to AnD artists too, which is a great opportunity for artists big and small to learn a bit to hopefully help their careers. 

Jasper from Branded gave the opening talk.

Wow,  very big!

They had several interesting panels,  including this one on the Japanese music industry.  Its interesting to see how the market differs between each country.  Since I used to live in Japan I have very strong opinions about certain aspects of the industry there.  But it was interesting to learn more details from industry people. 

What kind of conference was I attending?  Just kidding....  there was some language issues at play in this international conference.  Apparently in Japan the 'Adult Market' is what they refer to as music for the 40+ demographic (who focus on buying CDs much more than the 'youth market')

Next up, special surprise appearance:

MC Jin!

Jin was actually participating in a 'real time mentoring' session with Terry McBride, who is CEO of Nettwork Music,  that manages artists include Avril Lavigne and Jamiroquai.

The idea is that Terry will meet an artist he's never met before and try to give them advice on their career.   

Yes that is the handsome Carl Choi of Catch music up there on stage.  

Most of Terry's advice was pretty good.  Good advice for any artist (engage with your fans on an emotional level!),  although I'm not sure there was enough time to really grasp the complexity of Jin's career (going from the US to the HK market,  rapping in both Cantonese and English, etc).  

Valuable advice from an industry giant aside,  Jin also got a very fancy guitar from sessions sponsor Gibson guitar (i think it was a Les Paul special edition or something).

The next morning Patrick was on a panel on Social Networks (how appropriate!)

The guy next to him was from Friendster.

This session was fun because they accepted questions through twitter.  I don't really use twitter, but in this case I tried it.  it was fun when he actually used my Q... :-P

Later that morning they had a special performance by a local singer ' Gem Tang'  -- i wasn't really familiar with her work (i'm not the right demographic!), but I had heard her name.

She actually is a good live singer. I enjoyed her performance.

I was totally falling asleep before lunch, and I really wanted to go home and take a nap, but I stayed long enough to grab a free lunch at the Grand Hyatt's restaurant.  I enjoyed the dessert the most. :-P

Unfortunately because of my persistent jet lag I totally passed out when I got home and I totally slept through Jamie Cullum's conference closing performance.  I heard it was quite good.

Bonus pic -

With the beautiful Miss Celina Jade at the opening party on Tuesday Night