Intern Meeting

Thursday, July 17th

I love our intern meetings. I really do. Although for me, it consists of a thirty minute car ride (twenty if I'm feeling risky), an hour train ride and then a fifteen minute walk to the NBC tower. My commute may sound like a hassle, and it is, but when I finally get to the office, I'm relieved. These meetings give the interns and the staff a chance to meet once a week as a team. We generally discuss the upcoming weeks and give feedback on how our previous week was. These meetings are usually generic, however the occasional "best story of the week" always seems to shine through.

From time to time, we have guest speakers come in. This week we had two: Live Nation and our very own Terri Hemmert, a DJ for WXRT.

Live Nation is an events company, that basically promotes concerts. What used to be Clear Channel, is now a worldwide promoter of music concerts, theatrical shows, specialized motor sports and other events, with total attendance exceeding 61 million. Two representatives shared with the interns their duties as marketing assistants for the company. Meagan has been working with Live Nation for five years and mainly is in charge of booking concerts and managing ticketing for pre-sale, online sales and works closely with Ticketmaster. Anna keeps track of invoices and marketing packets. She is responsible for facilitating meet and greets with the artists and concert winners (such as XRT listeners). She has a strong relationship with label records and the various venues in her region (which extends all over the Midwest). A few of the venues she works with most regularly includes Alpine Valley, House of Blues (which is owned by L.N.), Charter One Pavilion and the Midwest Bank Amphitheater. One of the things I found interesting was that they choose which venue a band or show should perform at, where that band will thrive with it's audience. For example they are not going to put a Dora The Explorer show at Alpine Valley. A better option for Alpine would be Jack Johnson or Dave Matthews Band, where this different type of crowd would fit the environment more logically. I really gained a lot from listening to these young women speak about their company. It gave me another option for my future career.

Our next guest was XRT DJ Terri Hemmert. Terri has been with XRT since the beginning. For over thirty years, Hemmert proudly stands as the first female morning radio personality in Chicago in 1981. You can hear her on WXRT from 9-noon as she hand-picks her own songs, and also plays host on Sunday mornings bringing you Breakfast With the Beatles. She is also a professor at Columbia College Chicago, where she teaches the history of Rock and Soul. And today, she gave us a quick lesson on this exact subject. I was so excited to have been sitting in the same room as Terri. She knows more about music than I ever will, and has an everlasting passion for it. WE quickly sped through music history starting with Jazz in the 1940s moving into Rythym and Blues and BB King into how gospel influenced Rock and Soul. We discussed the Civial Rights movement with Martin Luther King and how gospel was defined as "liberation music." The church influenced the blacks freedom of expression through song and also introduced the blues, which was viewed as "devil music". Soon after, country, folk and R&B became extremely popular as these written and published songs became the cornerstone of the American culture. Moving right along, Terri described the psychedelic era and introduced us to the singer-songwriters we are familiar with today. She provided a few youtube videos for us so that we could understand the today's artists turn to the past for influences in their music. For example, Duffy and Amy Winehouse can easily be compared to Dusty Springfield. Before we knew it, it was time to go. Terri encouraged us to research the list of artists on the hand out she gave us.

This intern meeting was comparable to a class setting. I learned so much, yet have never felt a better connection with music. She made me very eager to learn more and experience more concerts, festivals, etc. Although it was an information-packed two hours, I would vote this was the best meeting I had ever attended. I hope someday I can enroll in Terri's class and really grasp every bit of history behind rock and soul...