Music Education
The premature death of our beloved artist Kirsty MacColl in December 2000, left my wife Sarah and I somewhat in need of a restart in the direction of our careers. We loved being managers and I loved producing records, but Kirsty would be a hard friend to follow, and we felt ready to do more than just make albums and tour the world. So we didn't overthink it, and moved to Brighton to found BIMM, the Brighton Institute of Modern Music.
Beside managing artists, I was also Director of A&R at Richard Branson's V2 label, and I'd been receiving rather too many, almost weekly, calls from my senior pals around the Biz (man), particularly those with daft titles like CEO, COO and MD, all asking me to recommend people for some overly available top jobs. But there wasn't anyone left, and I began to realise that the music business does no training. None. Nothing... zero. I knew only too well that if you hired the right lawyer (with accompanying restaurant) then pretty much any bugger could be in one of these lucrative roles, especially if you had been to public school.
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Clearly, it was time to educate, but to do so in a relevant way. Napster was the new name in town and it was crucial for us to reach the next generation of young entrepreneurs fast, so that they might understand the values of the real music business before their personalities disappeared into their mobile phones. This had to be Music Education that was in the real world, not the jobless snobbery of Jazz and Classical, which remained exclusive to literally all University music departments. No, we built a college where you could meet Lemmy and get a gig on the beach for 6 months of the year.
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After ten years and 4 more cities, Sarah and I did it again and moved to Detroit and built DIME, the Detroit Institute Of Music Education slap-bang in downtown Motown, and with talent like that all around the place, it was us who did the learning. After DIME Denver also kicked-off with twice as many students as any Uni music department, we built DIME ONLINE and took away any remaining borders. Twenty years, over 10,000 degree-level graduates, and here's the best part...​
Everywhere we go we get a handshake and a 'hey I was at your college'. Nothing can compare to that.
British Institute of Music Education
Here's an extract from Kev's Press interview with The Irish Independent - Feb 2011
Kev Nixon is one of the founders of BIMM and well used to those who say that rock music does not lend itself to a degree course...
"It's snobbery, plain and simple," he says. "Music is not measured by era. Rock effectively began with Elvis so it's not yet 70 years old, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be studied like any other genre of the arts. Contemporary music encompasses so many different styles and it has as much validity as classical music, theatre, you name it.
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"We've put 6,000 students -- or musicians, as we prefer to call them -- through BIMM and while several have gone on to forge high-profile careers, like The Kooks and Tom Odell , others are making a very good living as session musicians, booking agents, marketeers, A&R, producers, music management and every area of the industry. From drummers to road crew, what we're doing is giving young people who already have the skills, the knowledge and information to know how best to use them."
DIME Group
DIME was the best thing we ever did. With campuses in Detroit, Denver, and (had Covid not struck) two more pending in San Francisco and Beijing, plus DIME Online, and twice we came third in Billboard's Top Music Schools In America in 2019 and 2020. That's ahead of around 27 other US establishments, many of whom had been around since Al Jolson. Legends like Don Was, Michael Bolton, Madonna, Alessia Cara, Above and Beyond, Allen Stone, George Clinton and Thornetta Davis came to DIME and gave their time and love to our students with their extraordinary masterclasses and in-person discussions. This was the Music Industry doing the right thing and getting back to the streets.
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Here's a few press quotes and a great little film about DIME made by our friends at JLL in Detroit, Michigan...
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​“We’re music business people first, who have become education people” .
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“We became involved in music education because we feel it’s desperately needed. Particularly from an academic point of view. We’ve always been on a crusade for an Eminem to be recognised at the same level as Mozart. That’s why we created DIME.”​​