Students in the SF State College of Extended Learning music and recording industry program are putting on a free music show at Slim’s featuring live performances by the rock bands Numic, A Burning Water and Crackpot Theory on April 11 at 8 p.m.

Two MRI courses, Music Business Publicity: MRI 331 and Behind The Stage: MRI 329, have joined forces to put to the show in motion.

The students in the Music Business Publicity course are responsible for promoting and publicizing the show through radio, print and guerilla marketing.

According to Marcelina Blea, a MRI 331 student, guerilla marketing is basically grassroots promotion, which means the students get out on the streets and post flyers throughout the city at various locations.

Students in the Behind The Stage course are responsible for just that - everything that happens behind the stage, including lighting, setting up the venue for the performance, tickets and even promotion, which enables the students to get an up close and personal look at the music business.

“We have this class so that the students can have experience putting on a show,” said Dawn Holiday, instructor of Behind The Stage. “It’s a hands-on class.”

Music Business Publicity instructor Jennfier Otter said the class gives students virtual to real experience.

“Just to get one person to come to the show is an accomplishment for the students, but that’s realistic in publicity and marketing,” said Otter.

Students agree that the courses are beneficial and provide a clear and accurate scope of life inside the music business.

"It’s a good starting point because I don’t have an internship right now," said Blea, 22, about the publicity course. “It gives me a reason to call magazines and newspapers.”

Dominic Del Bene, a 24-year-old MRI 331 student, said the class can be a good start to a foundation in the music industry.

“It’s a good real life experience and it teaches responsibility,” he said. “It shows you how successful you can be or (how) unsuccessful (you can be).”

Yes the two MRI courses offer a lot to its students, but those who attend the show will reap some of the benefits as well.

It will give attendees a chance to rock out and party free of charge to the tunes of some hardcore rock bands. Numic is the scheduled headlining act, while Crackpot Theory will open and A Burning Water will perform second.

The event, planned entirely by both MRI courses, is overseen and guided by Otter and Holiday.

For approximately the last 15 years or so, the MRI program has offered students experience in various aspects of the music business ranging from publicity to artist management and audio production.

But only in the last three years have such interactive courses been offered.

Otter and Holiday thought it was necessary for students to get out there and really see how things go down when putting on a show instead of just kicking back in class, where real experience is limited.

Otter said the experience the students receive is realistic because people who work in music publicity will not always be fond of the artists they are working with, and people may not even show up to the event. But, the students would have to be out there putting on a show to really understand that
concept.

Otter has been involved in the music business for the last 13 years. She worked for Interscope Records for six years and has been teaching for the MRI program the last three, and she is currently working on her master's degree in humanities at SF State.

Holiday is a booker at the Great American Music Hall and Slims, where she books and schedules acts to come and perform.

Slims is located in San Francisco at 333 11th Street. The doors open at 7:30 p.m. and the show begins at 8 p.m. There is no charge and all ages are welcome.