By Madelyn Stone

News Correspondent

When Northeastern students think of experiential education, co-op is usually the first thing that comes to mind – but in Department of Music Professor David Herlihy’s record industry class, students get the chance to incorporate real-world experience by working with Green Line Records, Northeastern’s student-run record label.

 
“Green Line is a place for students who want to get hands-on experience as they would if they were out in the real world,” Green Line president Lindsay Kelloway, a second semester sophomore and music industry major, said. “It could prepare them for a co-op off-campus, or for a music venue job at one of the local music venues.”

 
Students do not have to be in the record industry class or even a music major to get involved with the record label, and Green Line hopes more students will attend the shows and become active members of the organization.

 
“Our meetings right now are every Thursday, 3 to 4 p.m.,” Clendaniel said. “We welcome all majors, just whatever you like to do. We have a bunch of different areas in which they can get involved: We have graphic design, we have web, we have promo.  It’s a lot of fun, and you don’t even need to know a lot about music to be able to do it.”

 
Green Line’s secretary, senior music industry major and business minor Erin Clendaniel, said the label was active in the seventies, but then “went defunct for a while.”  After regrouping in the summer of 2010, the organization received official student group status last spring. Now officialized and funded, the label has signed several artists.

 
As a student-run organization, Green Line Records offers students the opportunity to become familiar with the process of running a music and media enterprise, from artist relations to market research to technology development.

 
“It’s fun because it’s all student-run,” Erik Giusti, a senior music industry major in the record industry class, said. “Students are doing the recording, are finding artists, are doing all the marketing. It’s kind of cool because we get to learn from it.”

 
On Nov. 21, students presented the results of their efforts in a record industry showcase, where five local artists performed in afterHOURS. Performers represented several different genres and included many Northeastern students. Indie folk musician and middler music industry major Greg Marquis began the show, followed by alternative rock musician Thumbsucker, Berklee College of Music singer-songwriter Seve, hip-hop artist Tha Jist and rock ‘n’ roll act Tom Flash and the Lightning Band.

 
Giusti helped run the table at the event, giving out Green Line shirts and band merchandise as students signed up for the label’s email list.

 
“This whole event is part of a record industry course that we’re all in,” he said. “It’s six groups broken up and we all are individual record labels. We all have to find an artist, sign them to Green Line for one song contract deal, market them, promote them, make merchandise, and this [event] is the big showcase showing all the work we’ve done all semester.”

 
Prior connections with Northeastern’s music industry scene brought many audience members to the event. Mollie Dowst, a sophomore chemical engineering major, said she knew little about Green Line but enjoyed the showcase.

 
“One of my roommates is a music industry major so she helped organize this,” she said. “I like it. It’s been really interesting to hear about something different, because it’s a lot different from my major. And to see what else is out there and going on, it’s cool.”

 
Also present was Sarah Harrington, a middler music industry major in charge of the technical aspects of Green Line.

 
“We’ve had a few teamed-up events with MEISA [Music and Entertainment Industry Student Association] and Tastemakers,” she said. “This is the first independent Green Line event.”

 
The showcase event gave students a chance to experience a record label’s part in running a show.

 
“Basically the students who are in the class get a feel for what it’s like to put on an actual show, night of,” Kelloway said. “So say you were working at a venue, this is what it would be like, night of, with load-in at the beginning for the bands, and then doors at a certain time, and then the actual show – letting people in, working through the obstacles that a normal venue would.”

 
Clendaniel said the group’s biggest current project involves opening a licensing library using its bands’ music.

 
“We’ll gather songs from bands and be able to send them to ad agencies and TV and film studios, and hopefully have them placed in the studio so we can earn some money for the bands,” she said.

 
Kelloway said the group has put much effort into this library.

 
“Right now we’re focusing a lot on the licensing portion,” she said. “It takes a while to build up a library in order for publishing companies and ad agencies and stuff like that to have enough to choose from for songs. So these days, what you see in TV like ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘One Tree Hill’ is a lot of upcoming musicians and artists and that’s basically where the music industry is going money-wise.”

 
In addition to the licensing library, the group is working on larger-scale events for next semester, including getting off-campus shows for Green Line bands.

 
“Now we’re doing less booking and more of this concept called Green Line Nights,” Kelloway said. “We’re trying to book our group of artists at The Middle East and Cafe 939 so that all the efforts are into one big night instead of just one night for one band.”

 
After co-sponsoring a show with MEISA in December, Green Line plans to collaborate in February with Invisible Children at Northeastern, an organization working to end the use of and rehabilitate child soldiers in Central Africa’s rebel wars. The label also has a date set for an afterHOURS music event in March.

 
Offering practice-oriented education that is both accessible and applicable, Green Line Records provides students with a chance to explore the real-world music industry from the comfort of campus.

 
“It’s rough out there,” Kelloway said. “But this is a good experience. It gives the students a chance to see what it’s like out there, and just have fun while doing it. This is something that people can be passionate about.”