Music Industry

Back in 2002, when Brian McTear was producing an album for chamber-pop songwriter Matt Pond at his Miner Street Recordings studio, the two friends batted around ideas about the future of the music industry. CD sales had peaked the preceding year. And though Napster had ushered in the file-sharing revolution, the recording industry was not yet in free fall. "It was obvious even back then that the music industry was on an unsustainable path," says McTear, executive director of Weathervane Music, the Fishtown nonprofit that assists young artists in a response to the music business' transformation.

THE TINY BOROUGH of Sellersville in northwestern Bucks County is hardly the heart of show business. It's probably not even the spleen. But that hasn't stopped it from being the home of what is arguably the Delaware Valley's busiest and most diverse concert venue, the Sellersville Theater 1894. Named for the stable that was built in 1894 on the site at 24 W. Temple Ave. (just off Main Street), ST94, as it's known, is something of a music-industry anomaly. Though small (340 seats)

How to put this politely? Though frequently riotous, Get Him to the Greek , the Forgetting Sarah Marshall spin-off with Russell Brand and Jonah Hill reprising their characters as shaggy British rocker Aldous Snow and his fawning fan, is Hamburger Helper with more helper than hamburger. This time, the supporting players are the stars. Yet even while these secondary figures don't fully rise to leading-man dimensions, the film succeeds as a music-industry satire, a very naughty version of Almost Famous . This time, the fanboy does not write the legend of the rocker but restores him to former glory.

You might not recognize the name Joseph Arthur, but if you turn on the television, there's a good chance you'll come across at least one of his songs. In Philadelphia for a five-week residency at the Tin Angel, Arthur is one of rock's most prolific misfits, with seven albums and nearly a dozen EPs to his name. Arthur, an Akron, Ohio, native who lives in New York, has earned a reputation as a powerful singer-songwriter with both a lyrical gift and a commercial edge. Sitting down to talk before his solo show Saturday night, he reluctantly removed the oversize sunglasses from his face.

American music fans don't yet know who V V Brown is, so only a couple of dozen of the curious came out on Thursday to MarBar, the inviting new venue shaped like a long sliver of pie that looks out on the corner of 40th and Walnut Streets from above the Bridge movie theater complex. There will be more on hand the next time Brown comes through, that's for certain. The British pop-rock singer, born Vanessa Brown to parents of Jamaican and Puerto Rican descent (to whom she dedicated a slowed-down reggae coda to the upbeat "Crying Blood")

Once a year, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers holds its convention on the West Coast, with big-name stars performing, would-be-stars seeking a moment in the spotlight, and retailers gathering to find out what's hot in music. The 51 other weeks of the year, NARM does its business from a nondescript office in Marlton, where it has been for more than 20 years. "It's the first question people ask," said Jim Donio, president of the organization. "Why aren't you in L.A.?"

Old-school R&B will have its day in Philadelphia on Sept. 9, when the Rhythm & Blues Foundation's Pioneer Awards 20th anniversary gala is held at the Kimmel Center. This year's honorees, announced yesterday at the Loews Hotel, include singers Chaka Khan, Teena Marie and Bill Withers, dance-pop band Kool & the Gang, vocal group the Whispers, Motown musicians the Funk Brothers, 1950s and '60s R&B star Sugar Pie DeSanto, Stax records executive Al Bell, and the late soul man Donny Hathaway.

As CD sales keep falling and the business is reshaped by the Internet, the music industry doesn't know what the future holds. But at least it knows where the music is: Right here in the capital of the Lone Star State, where last week's 23d annual South by Southwest Music Festival was the biggest ever, with more than 1,700 bands playing to 12,500 attendees at more than 70 venues from Wednesday to Saturday night. And that's only counting official showcases, where acts like Philadelphia's carnival shamans Man Man and Brazilian rockers Telerama and New York indie-Afro-poppers Vampire Weekend, and Mexican noise-punk band Los Llamarada and Chicago rappers Cool Kids played clubs packed with bloggers and booking agents, giddy indie music fans, and even a few specimens of that endangered species: the major-label record executive.

With the Internet and sites like MySpace revolutionizing the business, young people with music talent are on the edge of unprecedented opportunities to break into the industry, local music executives say. "You guys are spoiled and you don't even know it," said "Grouchy" Greg Watkins, cofounder of allhiphop.com. "The music industry is at ground zero. There's an opportunity to break in like never before. " To make things even easier for young students interested in careers in the music industry, the Jr Music Executive organization started a speakers series in association with the Friends Neighborhood Guild.