Sites Find New Paths for Music Hopefuls

Like an old-fashioned gold rush, the past two years have seen a stampede of new businesses trying to cash in on the Internet and music--the medium’s first great downloadable commodity. And just like those dusty prospectors of yore, there are plenty of colorful characters and unlikely alliances among the eager hordes.

Take, for example, a pair of ventures called Tonos and FreedomZone, neither of which sells songs so much as traffics in the power of music, either as an alluring career or as an advertising vehicle.

The first bills itself as the “ultimate insider’s network” for music, and indeed, its leaders are a veritable who’s who of elite music creators, including producer David Foster, singer-producer Babyface and songwriter Diane Warren, who have combined for more than two dozen Grammys and scores of hits. They promise to offer access and insights into the industry’s star-making machinery.

“To pull the curtain back on the music industry, to demystify it and let newcomers back behind the stage,” is how songwriter Carole Bayer Sager, a Tonos founder, describes it.

Meanwhile, FreedomZone is a quirky, underground effort that could call itself the ultimate outsider’s network.

It has a roster of unknown musicians, gives away their CDs, books them in concerts at prisons and basketball games and is led by a Wall Street veteran who wants to completely sidestep the industry’s star-making machinery. His business model is based on turning these unknown artists into vehicles of advertising.

“It’s easy to think outside the box when you’re not in the box,” says Jim Milligan, founder of FreedomZone. “We don’t even know what the box is. I’ve never even met a music industry insider. I don’t know what they look like.”

They look a lot like the people who run Tonos, a company launched last year that takes its name from a Greek word describing music notes on a scale. Along with Sager (who co-wrote “That’s What Friends Are For” and “Groovy Kind of Love”), the founders are Foster and Babyface, a.k.a. Kenneth Edmonds, a pair of superstar producers who have worked with stars such as Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston and Eric Clapton.

They are joined by an impressive gallery of industry heavyweights, including producers Max Martin, Rodney Jerkins and Matt Serletic, along with leading songwriter Warren.

What exactly is Tonos? The Web site, https://www.tonos.com, is a repository for industry advice, with periodic essays on topics ranging from the legal to the musical, but the most notable function is as a cyberspace talent scout. The site presents itself as a place where unknown singers, musicians and songwriters can be discovered. It’s also the new home of the Velvet Rope, a popular industry gossip site.

There are other sites that seek out new talent, such as Jimmy and Doug’s Farmclub.com and Garageband.com, and online labels, such as Atomic Pop, but the mentoring aspect of Tonos sets it apart.

Most of the principals involved run their own labels, so for them it’s an opportunity to cash in on a new dot-com opportunity while also getting the first crack at a potential next big thing. (The site sees some its revenue sources as subscriptions, possible tutorial services and advertising, according to CEO and President Matt Farber.)

“Instead of sending your tape into a record company where it ends up getting tossed into a big box, with Tonos, people get to hook up with an all-star team,” says Jerkins, who has worked with Brandy, Destiny’s Child and Jennifer Lopez. “If I hear something hot, that person is immedately going to be on a plane to come meet me.”

Because Tonos is banking on the fantasies of would-be stars who are far from the industry’s view, it’s fitting that its first major bellwether involves a song called “Dreams” and a 12-year-old girl from Scott’s Valley, Calif.

The winner of the site’s first “vocal challenge” earlier this year was Alysha Antonino, who was among the hundreds of of visitors to the Web site who had left a singing sample hoping to catch the ear of the Tonos brain trust. After her win, Antonino was flown to Los Angeles for a whirlwind of performances and a recording session with Foster and saxophonist Kenny G. It produced a polished, Celine Dion-style track that was posted on the site.

That song, in turn, came to the attention of Darren Higman, vice president of soundtracks for Atlantic Records. Higman says he was a first-time visitor to the Tonos site when he clicked on the Antonino track out of curiosity.

“I was impressed immediately,” he says. “When I hear her voice, it moves me. And I was looking for a fresh voice for the new ‘Pokemon’ soundtrack, and I called the Tonos people right away.”

The result is “Dreams,” written and produced by Jerkins. It’s one of the tracks on the “Pokemon the Movie 2000” soundtrack that hit stores Tuesday, and also features Donna Summer, Youngstown and Nobody’s Angels. Higman says Antonino was tapped purely for her talents, not to hype Tonos or woo its stable of high-powered leaders.

“We didn’t want to be part of something fabricated,” Higman says. “She is absoluetly a viable artist. . . . If we didn’t think she could be something major, we wouldn’t have done this, and we wouldn’t be negotiating [a record label contract] with her now if we didn’t think she could be.”

It’s a different brand of potential that drives FreedomZone, a Web site launched last year and shaped by the philosophies of founder Milligan. Instead of selling CDs or concert tickets, FreedomZone gives music away--an approach that Milligan says only recognizes the looming realities of the music business in the Internet age when hundreds of thousands of fans pluck free music via Napster and other controversial song-swapping networks.

Unusual Path From Finances to Music

Milligan’s story is an odd one.

After a childhood in a single-parent household in upstate New York that included long stretches on welfare, he became a minimum-wage research assistant for Wasatch Advisors, an obscure fund manager in Utah. Rising through the company’s ranks, the brash young Milligan almost single-handedly transformed the company into a powerhouse, prompting the Wall Street Journal to do a lengthy 1996 profile of him and his ability to create “a mountain of money.”

Then, after reaching his 30th birthday two years ago, he decided to retire and pursue a longtime dream--sailing around the world. But on the eve of his trip, he learned he had cancer, and he spent the next year battling for his life. Then, in a parking lot at a Dave Matthews Band concert, he had an epiphany while watching a young man with a guitar sing on a car hood. Milligan decided he wanted to work with music and help unknown artists find their voices and an audience.

Now he has musicians living in his Utah home and they travel, by bus and by sailboat, to concerts around the country, including gigs at NBA games, fairs and prisons. Members of the FreedomZone crew hand out thousands of free CDs everywhere they go.

So how does Milligan expect to make money? The advertising world.

Signing up major sponsors is the key to the plans bouncing around inside Milligan’s shaved head. Levi’s is already on board and has covered the costs of much of the group’s current road tour, and Milligan rattles off a list of other well-known brand names he says are considering or already negotiating to become future sponsors.

Some of Milligan’s plans are decidedly novel. The FreedomZone group has been filming its road exploits and creating “raw, real organic concept advertising” footage--which translates to musicians being musicians while carefully including products and corporate logos within the camera’s view. Milligan hopes to give this footage to soda makers, airlines, etc. to create a series of television commercials that will bring more notoriety to FreedomZone.

“What we are, ultimately, is a conduit between corporate America and youth culture,” Milligan says. “For the music industry, the CD is a revenue source, but for us it’s an awareness tool. It’s like America Online giving away 500 free hours.”

Milligan smiles when asked if unknown musicians providing free music is really a good business idea. “We’ll see. We’re the outsiders now, but things are changing and it’s time for new approaches.”

A special Times report on the growing controversy about music sharing on the Internet can be found at https://www.latimes.com/musicweb.