Adam Kenny and Quinn Slattery, both AMD’16, are studying music industry at CAMD. They recently traveled to New York City to attend the CMJ Music Marathon, a week-long showcase of new talent and up and coming artists in the music industry. Adam and Quinn represented WRBB Radio, Northeastern’s student-run radio station, and had the opportunity to interview ten Northeastern alumni who are working throughout the music business. Read on to learn more about Adam and Quinn, their co-ops, the CMJ experience, and their future plans for the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.

Adam Kenny

My first co-op was here in Boston at Harpoon Brewery. As part of the marketing team, I did everything from running promotional events to cleaning dirty kegs. A marketing position at a craft beer company may seem a bit off the beaten path for someone looking to start a career in music business, but I was able to apply almost every aspect of my role, back to the music industry. It seems that almost everywhere there’s beer, there’s also music. Wherever their music, there’s probably also beer.

More recently, I was lucky enough to co-op at the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, a 180 in terms of my day-to-day responsibilities. As the Music Intern, I spent most of my time hanging out and assisting the house band, as well as working with that day’s guests. I was able to meet some really cool people while working at NBC and learned exactly how much work goes into putting on a massively successful primetime talk show. But more then anything else, I’m humbled to have been given the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the A-list lifestyle. God knows I’ll probably never see it again.

Quinn Slattery

Although I had spent my previous summer there interning, this past summer I had my first official co-op within the A&R department of RCA Records in NYC. While I was there I had the pleasure of working closely with the team behind artists such as Kygo, Tinashe, Walk The Moon, and Kelly Clarkson, among others. I was responsible for reviewing potential demos for RCA’s artists, pitching artists to the label, collaborating on remix projects, and reaching out to writers and producers for upcoming projects.

During my time at RCA I learned a lot about the scouting, signing, and development processes of artists on a large scale, as well as the behind the scenes efforts of the producers, songwriters, and engineers involved. After graduation, I plan to pursue a career in A&R at a major label; and it was my time spent on co-op at RCA that played huge part in confirming that decision.

CMJ in New York

This past October we were both fortunate enough to attend the prestigious CMJ Music Marathon in New York City as co-music directors and representatives of WRBB Radio. This was the first time Northeastern and the radio station were officially represented at the conference and it proved to be an extremely insightful look into the landscape of college radio and the music industry as a whole. There we had the opportunity to meet up with many members of college radio programs across the country and see differences in how our stations are run. While in New York City we also got the chance to interview ten Northeastern graduates who are successfully working in various sectors of the music industry today. Ranging from A&R scouts to booking agents, we got an inside look at how Northeastern’s music industry program and resources as a whole translate to real world practices on a larger scale. Our CMJ chronicles can be found at the Tumblr page we created specifically for the occasion. Also, check out WRBB’s Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts.

Building off the successes we experienced through CMJ, our next project is to represent CAMD, WRBB and Northeastern as a whole at the annual South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas this upcoming March. SXSW is essentially the mecca of networking, talent scouting, and educational workshops for the music, tech and media industries and boasts an attendance of close to 30,000 musicians, industry professionals, entrepreneurs, and like minded creatives. This will be a huge step in establishing Northeastern and CAMD as a driving force within the music industry at an institutional level.

By attending SXSW we hope to network with industry professionals, meet up with like minded students from other colleges, represent the brand of CAMD as strongly as possible, organize an alumni meet-up to engage past Northeastern graduates, and build a tightly knit support system between students, faculty, and alumni.