St. Thomas music industry students launched a new concert series on May 15 featuring two local bands, Static Panic and Graveyard Club.
The inaugural Sessions Live at UST event was planned by 14 students in the Emerging Models in Music Industry class taught by Steve Cole, head of music industry studies and recording arts at St. Thomas.
“When we started working with the artists, it became the natural progression from helping them release new music, market and promote that music to trying to create an event that featured those artists and give them an opportunity to perform for St. Thomas students and the St. Thomas community,” Cole said.
More than 50 people attended the event in the Anderson Student Center’s dance room. Students danced to the performances, ate free pizza and had the option of buying band merchandise.
“It was really good to see just how many people showed up,” Static Panic’s lead singer Ro Lorenzo said. “We had a lot of new material so there were some nerves, but it seemed like the crowd was really into it.”
Booking the bands
Students from Cole’s class had been planning the event for months. During the semester, the class worked with local music industry partners including The Current at Minnesota Public Radio, Basilica Block Party, iHeartMedia, Doomtree and NoiseTrade.
Students were able to learn about all aspects of an artist’s career including making, promoting, and performing the music. Students also learned about the challenges in the music industry.
“The class has kind of conceived and launched this concert series,” Cole said. “We hope that it exists beyond the class in the future.”
One of the class projects included assisting the Graveyard Club’s manager with touring and distribution, which led to the idea of bringing the ‘80s style pop band on campus to perform.
“They were really excited about us doing this,” said Cole. “To be able to apply all of these different tools that we’ve developed throughout the course.”
Last summer, St. Thomas music business sophomore Greg Dobihal interned at Periscope, a Minneapolis-based artist management firm, which manages the local modern, electronic pop band called Static Panic. The band’s manager reached out to Dobihal for a potential performance at St. Thomas.
“At the same time, Graveyard Club was looking to do a gig, and the two of them kind of just came together,” Dobihal said.
Show day preparation
Cole said the class’ first reaction was that there was a lot of planning and preparation to do.
“The thing that’s really cool is to see them working through all of those things, and making sense and forming teams around each initiative; dividing and conquering,” Cole said.
Students split into three teams: production and logistics, social media and digital marketing, and promotions. St. Thomas senior Robert Muehlbauer worked on the production team. The team started setting up the show day stage at 2 p.m. Wednesday to prep for both of the bands’ soundchecks. Muehlbauer, who plays the drums for three local bands, used his eight years of experience to help set up and sound check the drum set.
“I’m in charge of making sure everything runs smoothly. We put together a day schedule for every 10 or five minutes,” said Muehlbauer, who is majoring in marketing and minoring in recording arts and music industry.
Improving St. Thomas’ music scene
Muehlbauer hopes this concert series will add to the music scene at the university.
“I think St. Thomas needed something like this,” Muehlbauer said. “St. Thomas just has the fall concert and spring concert, as well as Thursday Night Live, but the emphasis is more on food than music for that.”
St. Thomas junior Courtney Yurich, who is in the class, said this event is a good start, and she hopes to have more events like this next year.
“Seeing it all come together — it feels really doable, even just for getting a group together and saying I want to do this event; we just need people to help out,” said Yurich, who is studying music business and hopes to become a music supervisor.
Studying music industry
Cole said being located in the Twin Cities area helps St. Thomas be a valuable partner to the local organizations in the music industry.
“It’s really great that we’re here in the middle of such a vibrant music community,” Cole said. “Our students can do work with industry partners, and we’re right in their neighborhood. But also, they can come into our classroom and work with us.”
Dobihal, who aims to work in artist management, said the class has helped him develop real world industry experiences and skills.
“The class isn’t just theoretical learning … this class is actually taking what you’re supposed to do and taking it into action, learning firsthand through experience,” Dobihal said. “I think that helps me significantly.”
Samantha HoangLong can be reached at hoan1058@stthomas.edu.