Weathervane Music

Weathervane Music is a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Weathervane Music's mission is to create community, opportunity, and resources that advance the careers of deserving musicians while promoting a healthy independent music ecosystem.

Background

In 2008, Philadelphia record producer Brian McTear (Matt Pond PA, MeWithoutYou, Marissa Nadler, Dr. Dog and The Dead Milkmen) founded Weathervane Music with friend and musician Bill Robertson. The two initially set out to create projects that would bring quality, culturally significant music to society despite a collapsing music industry.^[1] Initial advisors to the project included Kristin Thomson from the Future of Music Coalition and the 1990s indie rock band Tsunami, Bruce Warren from WXPN, video producer Andy Williams from Shooter Post and Transfer, entertainment attorney Paul Dickman and Mark Schoneveld of the music blog, YVYNYL.^[2]

In 2009, Weathervane Music created a video series (The Weathervane Music Project Series),^[3] showing the birth of a song by emerging independent musicians in a high-end recording studio. In 2010 Weathervane partnered with WXPN radio, the non-commercial radio station from the University of Pennsylvania, to produce the series, which as of that point was re-branded Shaking Through. This series has featured artists such as Sharon Van Etten, Twin Sister and Reading Rainbow, as well as others. Shaking Through artists are selected with the help of guest curators, who are well known and respected members of the music and arts community. Past curators have included members of well known bands, music writers, radio programmers, and record producers.

In June 2010, Peter English, a musician, artist, and graphic designer, became the Assistant Director of Weathervane Music, as well as Producer of Shaking Through.

Board Members

• Brian McTear - President
• Bill Robertson - Secretary and Treasurer
• Kristin Thomson - Future of Music Coalition, Founder of Simple Machine Records

Shaking Through

Shaking Through is a music and video web series produced by Weathervane Music and WXPN, the non-commercial public radio station from the University of Pennsylvania. The series, designed to show "the birth of a song" by an emerging independent artist, is the outgrowth of the Weathervane Music Project Series (2009), which was re-branded as Shaking Through when WXPN joined the project in 2010.

Selected artists record a previously unreleased, original song in a high-end recording studio (Philadelphia’s Miner Street Recordings) over the course of two to three days. The episodes are shot in hi-definition as documentary shorts under the artistic supervision of the series producer/director Peter English. Episodes are released on the Shaking Through website on a monthly basis, excluding the months of July and December. The episodes include video interviews, information on the recording and engineering process, and a free download of the featured track.

Shaking Through has featured artists such as Sharon Van Etten, Twin Sister, Reading Rainbow, among others. Shaking Through artists are selected with the help of guest curators. Past curators have included members of well known bands such as Dr. Dog and The Antlers, music writers such as Mark Schoneveld and The Pelly Twins, radio programmers such as Bruce Warren, record label owners such as Ben Swanson, and record producers such as Quentin Stoltzfus.

Since January 2011, Weathervane Music has also initiated a "Stems Project" in which raw multi-tracks and mix-stems from Shaking Through recording sessions are available to the worldwide creative community for download. Through access to these tracks, users can remix and share their own versions of songs featured on the Shaking Through series.

Critical Response

Weathervane and the Shaking Through series have garnered positive responses from various media outlets. In a statement published on IFC’s website, journalist Grayson Currin wrote that Shaking through was "a trusted new series … for watching and discovering new music on the Internet."^[4]

Weathervane has also been praised by Pitchfork,^[5] The Philadelphia Inquirer,^[6] and Paste Magazine.^[7] In March 2011, Tri-State Indie wrote that "Weathervane grants musicians the opportunity to create music while maintaining and appropriate standard of living while making a career out of music."^[8] Additionally, Weathervane projects have been featured on various music blogs.

References