Man enjoys promoting musicians’ career
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

BILL SPARKES/Acorn Newspapers TALENTED TWOSOME—Jon Avila, founder and owner of So Cal Musician, adjusts a mike for Kelsi Scott, who is a singer, songwriter and booking manager for the company.

Jon Avila wants to be the ultimate source for grassroots musicians in Southern California looking to market their talents.

High aspirations for a 20year-old, but Avila may be on the right track with the promotional business he launched in August, So Cal Musician.

The lifelong Camarillo resident seems to have found a niche market in assembling under one “roof” services musicians had to travel throughout traffic-jammed Los Angeles or even parts further south to find.

Avila offers booking and management services. He creates press kits and CD covers by offering photography, graphic design and publicity writing, and can even record CDs at his homebased Insomnyac Entertainment recording studio.

“I had this strong passion for recording,” he said. “I’ve always loved how musicians can tell stories in their music.”

A 2004 graduate of Adolfo Camarillo High School, Avila has been a songwriter for as long as he can remember. He recorded his own songs but only for the joy it brought him. He discovered, however, that he enjoyed throwing all his skill and talent behind promoting the careers of others.

“I really fell in love with the local music scene,” Avila said. “It’s so amazing how much talent you can find out there.”

That was the case with Newbury Park resident Valerie Day, who recorded “Nostalgia” with Avila last year. Day, known onstage as Amethyst, said the high-quality recording has been a springboard for her career. From it she’s caught the attention of a producer interested in promoting her music to record label executives, she said. And one of the 10 tracks on “Nostalgia” has been No. 1 on an Internet radio station for 49 weeks, she said.

In addition to offering more

information about the fee-based services, the SoCalMusician.com website has a free netw o r k i n g f e a t u r e where artists can communicate with fans, each other, and movers and shakers in the music industry.

More than 500 musicians from Santa Barbara to San Diego are

signed up on the network. They’re so excited about it that they call it the So Cal Movement and are spreading the word to other musicians, Avila said.

Av i l a had been a business and journalism major at Moorpark College but left to put more energy into growing So Cal Musician. He spends nights working the graveyard shift at a local hotel and his days registering musicians to the network, updating the website he created and, along with business partner Kelsi Scott, negotiating booking and management contracts.

“Every day is new journey,” Avila said.

Where does Avila see himself in five years? With every musician in Southern California registered on the website’s network and the business supporting a larger staff, he said.

For now, the business seems headed in that direction. “I can tell you we are doing very well,” he said.