I always like it when Portland talent gets a larger stage to showcase their expertise. And Dave Allen just got a pretty big stage. You see, Dave has just joined Beats Music, the startup by musicians, for musicians. That’s looking to change the world of streaming music.
What’s Beats Music, you ask?
Beats Music was launched in 2014 through a unique collaboration between Interscope/Geffen/A&M chairman and Co-Founder/CEO of Beats Electronics Jimmy Iovine, legendary artist, producer and Co-Founder of Beats Electronics Dr. Dre and Beats Electronics President Luke Wood, led by CEO Ian Rogers and CCO, award-winning musician Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. The company is privately held with offices in Santa Monica and San Francisco, CA.
And for those of you who don’t know Dave, he’s been a fixture of the weird gray area between music and tech. He’s served roles as a digital creative and an educator in Portland. And he’s been an instigator and educator—on any number of levels—with his writing and insights.
And now he gets to put all of that to work for one of the most compelling music startups around. Straight outta, ahem, Portland. As it were.
What will I be doing for Beats Music? Well, I have signed on as Director, Artist & Music Industry Advocacy. What does that mean? It means I will continue to do what I’ve been doing for many years now – writing about the issues that artists have with these new music business models; speaking at conferences or giving Keynote speeches on the state of the union as it were; writing op-ed articles to elicit awareness and receive comments on my views that help me refine them; by adjusting to the new while admitting to my mistakes in the past. I will also continue to expand my reach to a broader audience as a LinkedIn Influencer.
In short I will act as an ambassador for Beats Music, reaching out to artists and the recorded music industry to find common ground and debate real issues and real problems, problems that can hopefully be solved without resorting to rhetoric that inflames rather than assuages doubts.
But he won’t be alone here in town. You may recall that Beats picked up the music streaming service MOG a while back.
What you might not recall was that MOG had a Portland office. Yup. And back in the day, the current Chief Innovation Officer of CenturyLink and founder of Portland startup AppFog, Lucas Carlson, used to lead product at MOG. And there are still a couple of MOGgers here in town, working for Beats.
So now, Portland has another interesting Beats connection. And I can only hope that presence grows. Because Portland isn’t just a great town for startups and tech. It’s also a great town for music.
For more information on the hire, see Dave’s post on the Beats blog. For more background, see Dave’s personal site.
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Yeah. Would love to be a fly on the wall with Dave, Trent Reznor, and Dr Dre brainstorming 😉
Wow… Beats Music snagged Dave? Congrats to both. Have been enjoying his writing over the last few years on the topic of music artists, digital music, and where record companies fit into all that.