Ariel Hyatt | Trevor Dye | Christina Duren | Kevin Greenstein | Ben Lazar Bio Writer
Ariel Hyatt founded Ariel Publicity 10 years ago in Colorado and her company has since publicized thousands of dates for touring bands, hosted hundreds of special events, launched countless record release campaigns and served as the PR director to several live music venues and festivals.
An aggressive cheerleader for independent musicians, Ariel Publicity built its reputation by working primarily with indie artists. They give back to the independent music community by educating artists through their website, and Ariel has been honored to speak at music conferences such as SXSW, NEMO, and The PMC.
Ariel Publicity in New York - 2001 and Beyond
Our offices are located in the heart of Hells Kitchen, the newly gentrified (nary a junkie in sight) 'hood just west of the gorgeous and inviting Times Square! Our offices like our website are Purple and Orange and feature old gym lockers (each band we work with gets one) and an old school Ms. Pac Man. The record high score was set in 1998 by Chris from Spring Heeled Jack (now in the Bosstones). Aside from him, Ariel will kick anyone else's ass on it it's in the blood.
Ariel Publicity in Colorado - Beautiful Boulder was the perfect place for a new company to launch due to the amazing talent that live in the area and the incredible Fox Theatre (where Ariel proudly served as the PR director for 5 1/2 years.) Boulder and the Fox were the best place to get a masters degree in touring bands. Ariel worked for several Colorado bands that helped to put Boulder on the map including Leftover Salmon, Sally Taylor, Zuba, and Acoustic Junction. For a few years she had a booking agency and handled a ton of Ska bands including The Toasters, Skinnerbox (both childhood favorites), Skavoovie and the Epitones, The Stubborn All Stars, The Slackers and The Skoidats.
'95 & '96 - Small Axe Concerts - A concert promoter and management company, appointed her vice president and director of publicity. Small Axe regularly promoted small club shows (Spearhead, Barenaked Ladies), stadium tours (The Red Hot Chili Peppers, 311), and summer festivals (Reggae on the Rocks, The American Music Festival), throughout the Rocky Mountain region. The opportunity to publicize countless national acts coupled with the experience of managing some of the hottest bands in the area was the perfect springboard from which to launch her own company.
'94 & '95 * What Are Records? (W.A.R.?) - She spent a year as the assistant to the general manager at What Are Records?, an independent record label that launched the career of The Samples (selling 1,000,00 Samples records). When the label moved its headquarters in 1994 she moved with them from New York City to Boulder, CO.
'93 & '94 * KSA & NYCD - During the days she worked as an assistant at KSA The publicity firm for Sting, Peter Gabriel, Lenny Kravitz, Tina Turner and Bob Dylan. At nights, she worked at NYCD, a record store on her native Upper West Side. It's still there on 81street and Amsterdam and it is the best CD store in Manhattan.
Fresh Out Of College - WNEW FM - Ariel began her career in music as the "associate producer" of the morning show on WNEW FM in New York. There, she earned the impressive salary of $60.08 per week.
The '80s - One hell of a time to grow up in New York City. Ariel spent 6 long years at The Dwight School (which later would turn out to be great training ground for participating in the music business) She spent days watching Iann Robinson torment the teachers, and Lizzie Grubman torment the students, and she actually has a 7th grade photo of Damon Dash. This was the eighties - way before The Strokes, and The Hilton Sisters passed through the halls of Dwight. The clothes however were very much the same.
On weekends, no one carded at the door and the live music scene in New York involved The Ramones a thriving Ska scene, long Sunday afternoons at CB's, and plenty of late nights at The Ritz, The Palladium, Nightingales and The New Music Café. It was a great place to fall in love with live music.
When not out seeing bands kick ass on the live music scene Ariel is an obsessive world traveler, a total foodie, a vintage lunchbox collector and has been studying tap on and off for 22 years.
|
If there ever was an Ari-palooza it would be at Red Rocks and the lineup would be:
The Clash
|
The Police
|
Bob Marley
|
Bowie
|
Spearhead
|
Jane's Addiction
|
Dave Matthews Band
|
Elvis Costello
|
The Authority
|
Bruce Springsteen
|
Thursday
|
Pete Miser
|
The Spin Doctors
|
The Pretenders
|
The Stubborn All-Stars
|
Prince
|
Luscious Jackson
|
Acoustic Junction
|
Stevie Wonder
|
John Brown's Body
|
The Scabs
|
Moonraker
|
Aretha
|
Bonnie Raitt
|
Morphine |
|
|
|
Trevor Dye Escaping the dull realities of small town West Virginia, Trevor came to New York with the aimless ambition of a wide-eyed optimist. Time spent at New York University helped guide his aspirations toward his affinity for music. He quickly began soaking up every opportunity to gain experience that arose. Trevor's first internship was at mtvU where he worked as the Campus Representative for NYU. This role included a large amount of event promotions and grassroots marketing for the rapidly growing college channel. He also aided in the launch of mtvUs first live award show, The Woodies.
The following spring, Trevor joined the staff of Ariel Publicity at a time when a momentous shift was beginning to take shape. The forward-thinking innovation of digital, paperless publicity brought the adventure of the unknown; a unique quality that has been exhausted in many of todays thoroughly defined professions. Trevors role is constantly expanding as the company grows exponentially. Presently, he handles a majority of the CyberPR operations. Sharing in Ariels vision regarding the Internets revolutionary power on the music industry led to a newfound passion, opening the door to limitless possibilities.
To balance such demanding work Trevor remains in the pursuit of leisure. Despite growing up in a landlocked state, he quickly became hooked to the tranquility of spending a warm summers day tearing through waves on his surfboard. Who says the East Coast doesnt have surf? Trevor is also an enthusiast of self-expression. Spending countless days lost in a world of canvas and vibrant acrylic paints. Only to be paralleled by his love for the majesty of writing. Currently, he moonlights as a writer for the print publications Free Magazine and US1 Magazine, as well as several online music magazines.
|
|
Christina Duren is a passionate music enthusiast, daughter, and writer. Christina was born in SUNNY Miami, FL and moved to the lovely NEW YORK CITY in 2004 in search of BIG DREAMS. She attended St. Johns University in Staten Island, NY, where she received a bachelor of Science degree in Communications with a concentration in Public Relations. At one point, she thought about going into the medical field, but decided instead to study what she really enjoyed MUSIC!
Christina has always been a music lover to the extreme. As a young girl she remembers flipping through her moms collections of vinyl (which she still does to this day) Christina started out at Island Def Jam where she was an intern for a year in their Radio and Promotions/Publicity department. At IDJ she worked with great artists including as Mariah Carey, Fall Out Boy, and Ne-Yo. From there she worked at Shore Fire Media a Music PR agency (Norah Jones, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello). At Ariel Publicity Christina oversees online PR campaigns and focuses on tour press
|
|
Kevin Greenstein is a professional musician and a grizzled Internet veteran. He recognized that many artists needed help sending out regular email communications to their fans so he launched Band Letter with Ariel Hyatt in 2005 the service has enjoyed a very successful first year of operation. In addition to his work with Band Letter, Kevin is also the Publisher of Inside Hockey and the regular hockey columnist for the New York Sun. Prior to launching Band Letter and Inside Hockey, Mr. Greenstein worked in marketing and business development for Citibank, Yahoo/GeoCities, Net4Music, Luminant Worldwide and Today Media.
|
|
Ben Lazar has been in the music industry since leaving college in 1993. He has held A&R positions at Elektra Entertainment, EMI Records and most recently, the Island Def Jam music group, where he worked from 2001 until 2006. The signing hes most proud of is the band Thursday, whos Island debut, War All The Time, debuted at #7 on the Billboard Top 200 chart in 2003. He also was the Showcase Director for the CMJ Music Marathon in 1999, booking 1000 bands over the course of four nights, and managed to not lose his mind in the process.
Ben has an encyclopedic knowledge of music, and can speak knowledgeably about anything from classic soul, American post-punk, rockabilly, early 60s r&b, 80s hip-hop and about 50 other genres. His greatest musical loves are Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones and Coleman Hawkins.
Currently, Ben has started his own music company, Tenth Avenue Music, which he is devoting to the resurgence of true soul music, and runs his blog A Deeper Shade Of Soul www.adeepershadeofsoul.blogspot.com. He is one of the few true music renaissance men; someone who has been on both sides of the stage and the control room and can create and critique with the best of them.
|
|
|