Event Spotlight: San Diego Music Thing

Coming to the beautiful city of San Diego, The San Diego Music Thing is back for its 7th year of panels, mentoring sessions, networking, pop up shops and tons of live music! Sponsored by Blue Moon Brewing Company and the City of San Diego’s Commission for  Arts and Culture, all proceeds from the San Diego Music Thing benefit the San Diego Music Foundation, a non-profit that develops music programs throughout San Diego County. We here at GroundSounds think thats pretty freakin’ cool! The original program was “Guitars for Schools,” a partnership with Taylor Guitars to introduce guitar to music curricula in San Diego schools, as both a way to augment existing programs and to offset the loss of arts instruction due to budget cuts. Since it’s inception the program has helped over 45,000 students from grades K -12.

The San Diego Music Thing music and media conference will take place on Thursday, September 11th through Saturday, September 13th and has recently added additional bands to the festival line up including Cults, Colony House, The Griswolds, The Hood Internet, Mini Mansions, Cherry Glazzer and more. The full lineup can be viewed HERE and you can stream a few tracks below from some of the upcoming artists set to perform during this amazing 2-day event. Festival passes and single day wristbands can be purchased HERE.

Joining Moby as featured speakers during the conference portion are Swamp Dogg and Jack Grisham. Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams is a songwriter, producer, and cult hero. Swamp Dogg is best known for his boundary pushing brand of R&B that has been cited as a major influence on contemporary artists such as Jack White and The Black Keys. A native of Southern California, Jack Grisham is an activist, musician and published author best known as the front man for the politically charged hardcore punk band T.S.O.L (True Sounds of Liberty). T.S.O.L rose to underground fame during the Regan era with their politically charged and aggressive music and riot inducing shows. Grisham has gone on to launch additional music endeavours, Joykiller, Jack Grisham and the Manic Low, in 2011 published his first novel An American Demon : A Memoir and ran for Governor of California in 2003. A full list of speakers and panelists can be found HERE.

This year also marks the introduction of SDMTU, a music business boot camp developed for college students looking to pursue careers in the music industry. SDMTU will be lead by Storm Gloor, a professor of Music and Entertainment Industry Studies at the University of Colorado in Denver (National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences member, Music Business Associate member) and will take place on Thursday September 11 from 12pm-5pm. Registration and information can be found HERE.