Ariel Hyatt | Christina Duren | Kevin Greenstein | Ben Lazar – Bio Writer
 Ariel Hyatt founded Ariel Publicity 12 years ago in Colorado and her company has since publicized thousands of dates for touring bands, hosted hundreds of special events, launched countless record release campaigns and served as the PR director to several live music venues and festivals.
An aggressive cheerleader for independent musicians, Ariel Publicity built its reputation by working primarily with indie artists. They give back to the independent music community by educating artists through their website, and Ariel has been honored to speak at music conferences such as SXSW, NEMO & The PMC.
Ariel Publicity in New York - 2001 and Beyond
Our offices are located in the heart of Hells Kitchen, the newly gentrified (nary a junkie in sight) 'hood just west of the gorgeous and inviting Times Square! Our offices like our website are Purple and Orange and feature old gym lockers (each band we work with gets one) and an old school Ms. Pac Man. The record high score was set in 1998 by Chris from Spring Heeled Jack (now in the Bosstones). Aside from him, Ariel will kick anyone else's ass on it – it's in the blood.
Ariel Publicity in Colorado - Beautiful Boulder was the perfect place for a new company to launch due to the amazing talent that live in the area and the incredible Fox Theatre (where Ariel proudly served as the PR director for 5 1/2 years.) Boulder and the Fox were the best place to get a masters degree in touring bands. Ariel worked for several Colorado bands that helped to put Boulder on the map including Leftover Salmon, Sally Taylor, Zuba, and Acoustic Junction. For a few years she had a booking agency and handled a ton of Ska bands including The Toasters, Skinnerbox (both childhood favorites), Skavoovie and the Epitones, The Stubborn All Stars, The Slackers and The Skoidats.
'95 & '96 - Small Axe Concerts - A concert promoter and management company, appointed her vice president and director of publicity. Small Axe regularly promoted small club shows (Spearhead, Barenaked Ladies), stadium tours (The Red Hot Chili Peppers, 311), and summer festivals (Reggae on the Rocks, The American Music Festival), throughout the Rocky Mountain region. The opportunity to publicize countless national acts coupled with the experience of managing some of the hottest bands in the area was the perfect springboard from which to launch her own company.
'94 & '95 * What Are Records? (W.A.R.?) - She spent a year as the assistant to the general manager at What Are Records?, an independent record label that launched the career of The Samples (selling 1,000,00 Samples records). When the label moved its headquarters in 1994 she moved with them from New York City to Boulder, CO.
'93 & '94 * KSA & NYCD - During the days she worked as an assistant at KSA The publicity firm for Sting, Peter Gabriel, Lenny Kravitz, Tina Turner and Bob Dylan. At nights, she worked at NYCD, a record store on her native Upper West Side. It's still there on 81street and Amsterdam and it is the best CD store in Manhattan.
Fresh Out Of College - WNEW FM - Ariel began her career in music as the "associate producer" of the morning show on WNEW FM in New York. There, she earned the impressive salary of $60.08 per week.
The '80s - One hell of a time to grow up in New York City. Ariel spent 6 long years at The Dwight School (which later would turn out to be great training ground for participating in the music business) She spent days watching Iann Robinson torment the teachers, and Lizzie Grubman torment the students, and she actually has a 7th grade photo of Damon Dash. This was the eighties - way before The Strokes, and The Hilton Sisters passed through the halls of Dwight. The clothes however were very much the same.
On weekends, no one carded at the door and the live music scene in New York involved The Ramones a thriving Ska scene, long Sunday afternoons at CB's, and plenty of late nights at The Ritz, The Palladium, Nightingales and The New Music Café. It was a great place to fall in love with live music.
When not out seeing bands kick ass on the live music scene Ariel is an obsessive world traveler, a total foodie, a vintage lunchbox collector and has been studying tap on and off for 22 years.
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If there ever was an Ari-palooza it would be at Red Rocks and the lineup would be:
The Clash
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The Police
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Bob Marley
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Bowie
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Spearhead
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Jane's Addiction
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Dave Matthews Band
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Elvis Costello
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The Authority
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Bruce Springsteen
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Thursday
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Pete Miser
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The Spin Doctors
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The Pretenders
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The Stubborn All-Stars
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Prince
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Luscious Jackson
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Acoustic Junction
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Stevie Wonder
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John Brown's Body
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The Scabs
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Moonraker
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Aretha
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Bonnie Raitt
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Morphine
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 Christina Duren – In the volatile world of music, most industry insiders vie to climb the corporate ladder and hold steadfast to the hope of stability in an unpredictable and chaotic business like Online Music Publicist Christina Duren. Christina's early years started out in SUNNY Miami, FL. She moved to the lovely NEW YORK CITY in 2004 in search of BIG DREAMS.
For Christina the pivotal launch of her career in music began in her college days at St. John's University where the undergrad worked as an intern for Island/Def Jam Record Label. At Def Jam Christina was able to establish vital relationships with executives and began her rise in the interlocked worlds of publicity and music. Christina worked on several major label campaigns for artist such as Rihanna, Ne-Yo, Christina Milian, and Mariah Carey. From their Christina moved on to Entertainment/Music Public Relations firm Shore Fire Media. Christina assisted in campaigns for The Roots, and the Heineken Red Star Soul tour, and more!
With the ever changing music industry now finding its resting place online Christina made the move from Traditional PR to Online/Digital Public Relations. Here at Ariel Publicity Christina's responsibilites include artist and label relations, online PR outreach, pitching musicians (all genres) to new media outlets including bloggers, podcasters and internet radio stations. Christina now heads up the new Cyber PR Urban Division.
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Kevin Greenstein is a professional musician and a grizzled Internet veteran. He recognized that many artists needed help sending out regular email communications to their fans so he launched Band Letter with Ariel Hyatt in 2005 – the service has enjoyed a very successful first year of operation. In addition to his work with Band Letter, Kevin is also the Publisher of Inside Hockey and the regular hockey columnist for the New York Sun. Prior to launching Band Letter and Inside Hockey, Mr. Greenstein worked in marketing and business development for Citibank, Yahoo/GeoCities, Net4Music, Luminant Worldwide and Today Media.
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 Ben Lazar has been in the music industry since leaving college in 1993. He has held A&R positions at Elektra Entertainment, EMI Records and most recently, the Island Def Jam music group, where he worked from 2001 until 2006. The signing he’s most proud of is the band Thursday, who’s Island debut, War All The Time, debuted at #7 on the Billboard Top 200 chart in 2003. He also was the Showcase Director for the CMJ Music Marathon in 1999, booking 1000 bands over the course of four nights, and managed to not lose his mind in the process.
Ben has an encyclopedic knowledge of music, and can speak knowledgeably about anything from classic soul, American post-punk, rockabilly, early 60’s r&b, 80’s hip-hop and about 50 other genres. His greatest musical loves are Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones and Coleman Hawkins.
Currently, Ben has started his own music company, Tenth Avenue Music, which he is devoting to the resurgence of true soul music, and runs his blog A Deeper Shade Of Soul – www.adeepershadeofsoul.blogspot.com. He is one of the few true music renaissance men; someone who has been on both sides of the stage and the control room and can create and critique with the best of them.
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