SF’s “Chat Room: Music” w/ Free-Flow Beer & Wine (2025)

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Gazatteer’s Second Chat Room event will focus on music in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Don’t miss this unique evening hosted by the vivacious Jillian Gnarling, featuring DJ: Tigerchild

In Defense of Our Nightlife

The Bay Area’s nightlife is under siege from high rents, lack of investment, and challenging business conditions. But we must defend it! KEXP DJ Gabriel Lopez leads a discussion about the challenges and promises facing the nightlife and dance music scene in the Bay, with speakers to be announced.

From Analog to AI: The Evolution of Music and Technology in the Bay

Over the past quarter century, we’ve witnessed a profound transformation in the relationship between music and technology in the Bay Area. Our tech industry has played a pivotal role in shaping how music is created, distributed, and consumed across the world — we’re talking about Napster, iTunes, YouTube, and Pandora. Industry vet Ted Kartzman speaks with AudioShake CEO Jessica Powell and seasoned Granderson Des Rochers; music tech lawyer Liz Moody about the intersection and evolution of music and technology in the Bay Area.

Chat Room: Music
Presented by Gazetteer SF
Wednesday, February 26, 2025 | 6-9p
Swedish American Hall, 2174 Market St., SF
Get Tickets – $27.22 (fees included) or FREE for Gazetteer SF Subscribers

All Chat Room events are free for Gazetteer SF subscribers but space is limited. Subscribers may write to at lc@gazetteer.co to receive your free ticket code. Non-subscribers may purchase tickets here for $20 + fees. 

• Tickets include free-flowing beer and wine from 5:30-8:30pm.
• This event is 21+

SPEAKER AND PERFORMER BIOS

Jessica Powell

Jessica Powell is the CEO and co-founder of AudioShake, a sound-splitting AI technology that makes audio more editable, accessible, and useful, powering new creative use and monetization across the entertainment, tech, and speech industries. Powell spent over a decade at Google, where she sat on the company’s management team. She is also an award-winning author whose work has been published in the New York Times, TIME, WIRED, and elsewhere.

Gabriel Lopez

Gabriel Lopez is a music journalist, radio DJ, and dues paying member of the IWW. He hosts the Bay Area local music show Vinelands on KEXP 92.7FM Saturdays from 6-9pm, and the online radio shows Garment & Fool’s Cavern on Lower Grand Radio and Hyde FM respectively. When not digging through the releases of Mexican ambient labels or 80’s private presses he is getting lost in the woods, losing to prodigies (he swears they are) on chess.com, and droning on about his favorite bugs at the club. Photo by Gabriel Saravia.

Ted Kartzman

Ted Kartzman believes in the power of music, and has been inspired since childhood by how music shapes our culture. Ted has spent the past 25 years immersed in the independent music industry, applying technology and to help level the playing field for independent artists, labels, distributors, festivals and brands.

In 1999, Ted co-founded startup JamBase.com and moved to San Francisco where the promise of the world wide web was alive and golden, with the goal of supporting like minded bands and getting free concert tickets! Through a tour date engine and music news portal, he built a 1000+ client marketing company, a business that is still alive today.

As legal digital music was becoming real, he moved into digital music licensing, partnering in 2001 with Listen.com to launch a white label of pioneering music subscription service Rhapsody. Ted worked on the first streaming subscription deals for live music, then directly for Real Networks after Rhapsody was acquired, overseeing global independent label licensing. In 2008, Ted went to work at San Francisco based IODA to manage clients as VP of Client Services, then was hired by Google, working first at Android and then on the team that launched Google Music and then Google Play, licensing over 100 million tracks in the process.

In 2015, Ted moved to YouTube, managing relationships with the largest independent music distributors, maintaining his commitment to independent voices.

Today, Ted coaches arts and technology startups and founders on how to grow and develop their business, how to manage partnerships and build culture, helping independent businesses grow with integrity.

Elizabeth Moody

Elizabeth Moody, partner and chair of the New Media Group, is a pioneer in the digital media world. Moody has been spearheading digital music and video initiatives since the post-Napster era, both as outside counsel, and as a business executive in-house at companies like YouTube and Pandora. Today, Moody remains positioned at the intersection of technology and music rights and continues to advise her technology and rightsholder clients toward new and innovative business models and licensing deals.

Moody is at the forefront of the developing opportunities that AI presents to the music and entertainment industries. She counsels nearly a dozen generative voice and audio AI companies, including some prominent services that have already launched to the public and some that are forthcoming. She also advises certain rights holders on their approach to AI companies and advises the non-profit Fairly Trained, which certifies AI companies who are training the data sets with fairly acquired, licensed or owned data, and Audioshake, an AI-based stem separation tool in use by record labels, movie studios, and entertainment companies today to ease production and marketing. She is particularly interested in developing technologies which permit attribution of AI generated output and works closely with Sureel AI, which provides systems for protection, control, monetization and attribution of AI content, as well as Copyright Delta, providing data connections and processes to rights holders and AI tech platforms.

She is also keyed into the gaming and the web 3.0 world. She is partnerships counsel for the gaming company Roblox. Moody also works closely with Wave XR, a virtual reality concerts start-up that works with artists to create unique live performances as avatar versions of themselves in imaginative digital landscapes. She developed and continues to grow Styngr’s efforts to power music in video games and online gaming experiences.

Along with gaming and the metaverse, she remains passionate about the opportunities web 3.0 can bring to the music community and creators. She represents Audius, the blockchain-based music streaming service, in its efforts to help creators and their fans connect more authentically by embracing the opportunities offered through a decentralized network and Revelator, an all-in-one music platform providing digital distribution, analytics, and web 3.0 services to artists, record labels and publishers.

Moody is excited to bring opportunities to the music industry by forging deals with those in industries outside of music, including at the intersection of music and fitness. She represents connected fitness, yoga, pilates, mindfulness, cycling, and dance services to help them integrate music into their services. She has worked closely with Hydrow, the successful Peloton-style live reality-connected rowing experience, since its launch in 2019. She believes that VR plays an important role in fitness and works with Litesport and FitXR to ensure they have access to top-notch music experiences. She has also been working in the medical and wellness space exploring licensing structures to use music in the treatment of pain, dementia, and mental illness concerns through her work with MediMusic.

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Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.