Chameleon MusicTM

Chameleon Music began as a simple music website in January of 1999. The site was created by an independent San Francisco musician named kutre.

Mission and Objective: Chameleon Music's mission is to provides technology solutions and resources to Entrepren-Artists, songwriters, producers, and labels to help them compete in today's fast-paced marketplace.
We want you to be able to run your business, not let your business run you.

Through our partnership with IDC, we can provide the physical distribution, digital distribution, music licensing and promotion for emerging and established music content creators. We also utilize our other strategic partnerships to help find what you need to move forward in your career.

SUBMISSION INFO:

where to send demos, free t-shirts and tickets to your shows:
chameleon Music
1693 Polk Street, ste 201
San Francisco, CA 94109

Phone Number: 415.282.2927

Fax number: 415.276.2989

general e-mail: info@chameleonmusic.com

Chameleon Music Is...

Kurt Andrew Founder and CEO.
Kurt handles the website, artist development and business development. B.S. Accounting 1994, M.B.A. International Business 2000. Formerly a Bass Player for 3 Phanta'stic Men, TYG, The Johnny Oats Hour, and now working with DJ Tariq and DJ Dre. Also freelancing as a session bassist with artists such as Donovan Miller.
contact: contact@chameleonmusic.com

Elijah Hip-Hop Artist, Publicity and all-around promotions. Elijah helps chameleon with publicity, video submissions and other promotional projects. elijah@chameleonmusic.com

Chris Petty- Web Designer and inspiration. Chris handles the web design and other technical issues. No B.S., just a lot of tinkering, futzing and sticking-with-it. Chris has a background in computer technologies, audio engineering, songwriting and performing. Mostly he just assures us that things work.
contact: webmaster@chameleonmusic.com

Lyle Brooks- Lyle Brooks, originally from Austin (Texas), is currently a Master's candidate at the California Institute of the Arts.
He has written for noreasterzine.com for the past year and a half, reviewing live performances by artists such as Sonic Youth, Varnaline and Crooked Fingers.
He is interested in a broad range of music from Americana to Experimental. He is a newcomer to the San Francisco Bay Area but is excited to learn as much as possible and is a welcome addition to the Chameleon Music staff.
contact: lyle@chameleonmusic.com

Blue Lew- Promoter. Blue Lew has his own local cable access show in which you can catch bands from chameleon on. His show is on San Francisco Cable 29 every 2nd and 4th Tuesday @ 10:30 pm. His show is also on Berkeley Cable Access 25 every Friday and Saturday Night.
contact: bluelew@chameleonmusic.com

Other notable chameleons:
Devorah Petty (she is listed as texture painter AND is the designer of chameleon Music logo)
Matt Quirie
Nick White
Donovan Miller
Slava

Company History:

Kurt - a.ka. "Kutre" had been in several bands over many years in the San Francisco area. He had his chance to get signed in 1996, when an A&R rep from a well known label was following a band that he was in named "3 Phanta'stic Men". As is so often the case in this industry, things went awry. The band disorganized and kutre was shocked. This shock, though, gave him the motivation to one day form his own music company.

During 1997, kutre started reading about this new technology on the horizon known as 'mp3.' mp3 files were created to help musicians swap sound files with film companies to speed up and improve the soundtrack creation process. This caught kutre's interest and he filed the info away for future use.

In the meantime, kutre delved in to the business side of the bands that he was playing for: TYG, Kutre and most recently The Johnny Oats Hour. Fellow Johnny Oats co-founder, Chris Petty, was also getting involved in digital music and they formed a music website for their band. Kutre liked the website idea. So did other members of bands that he was friends with. Hmmmmm... but no one is purchasing mp3s...

Then one day, BAM!! Liquid Audio showed up on his screen and he officially registered his business within days. Kutre had been doing behind the scenes business work in music, mostly promotion, but this would help immensely. Now people could buy the songs and we would all be rich and famous!!

Well since those first days it has been quite a struggle. Kutre did not know a thing about website design, but dove right in and had been maintaining and designing the site until recently. nicholasMedia worked with Chameleon Music to hammer out a new website concept. The new design was further developed by Chris Petty with designs from his very talented wife, Devorah. Chameleon Music is finally realizing kutre's dream to help talented artists compete with the promotion dollars and distribution channels of the big labels.

2006 became a huge turning point with a part ownership for chameleon Music in IDC (Independent Distribution Collective) – a physical distribution company founded by Steffen Franz. With this partnership, Steffen and Kurt have elevated the careers of emerging and established artists by allowing artists to release, market and distribute their music on their own terms.

Kurt has worked with Steffen to develop the following programs: IDCLicensing (licensing), IDCDigital (digital distribution and digital asset management),
Instant Distro (publicity, promotion and marketing), and they are currently working on IDCFilm (Indie film distribution both digitally and physically).

updated July 2011