Last night I watched a broadcast of Jeff Beck and his band. This was a film of a live show he did at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in 2007 and I saw it in HD. It’s rare that I actually sit down and watch an entire concert on TV, but last night was an exception. What captivated me was the simplicity of the whole thing. Here were 4 musicians actually playing the heck out of their instruments. What a rare concept these days. There were no flashing lights, no dancers, no short skirts and high heels, no narcissism, no costumes or make-up, no drama and no auto-tuning. No Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. Just raw musicianship, talent and creativity at their finest. Actual musicians at the top of their game communicating and having fun while doing so. This is something that has become harder and harder to find these days, and it was a real pleasure to experience it while watching this program. It’s important for people like Jeff to continue their mission so that the general public doesn’t forget what real music and musicianship is all about. Of course, he had some special guests sit in like Imogen Heap, Joss Stone and Eric Clapton. They all sounded ok, but kind of watered down the main issue which was hearing Jeff and his band do their thing.
The band consisted of Jeff, Tal Wilkenfeld, Jason Rebello and Vinnie Colaiuta. Check out the clip below if you’re interested.
Michael is currently interning with us as he completes his music degree at UAlbany.
The Monster Mash Album
On the way into the studio yesterday, I heard “The Monster Mash” on 88.3 WVCR. The track, by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt Kickers debuted in 1962, where it was a number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks starting on October 20.
Even though this is a novelty song, it’s got some REALLY great production and in addition to Bobby “Boris” Picket, it features Gary S. Paxton, Leon Russell, Johnny McCrae, Rickie Page, and Terry Berg as the house band “The Crypt Kickers”.
Just listen to the background vocals: “Monster Mash, ah ooh” how could you go wrong?
I bought the whole album of spooky Halloween songs this year, it’s fun! Think 1960’s girl group / Spector / Beach Boys pop music narrated / sung by a faux monster. It’s a win / win situation. Happy Halloween!
Bonus clip: A far out speech from spooky Vincent Price and a video of him singing a disco version of the song!
Double bonus clip: The Beach Boys covering The Monster Mash shortly after the track debuted.
I audibly gasped when I recently heard the Party City radio spot promoting their Halloween costumes. The background was Michael Jackson’s Thriller. My first reaction was ‘oh my god, they stole his song’. After some further research I found out that they indeed did get the rights to the piece – kudos to them for not inviting such an obvious law suit. Here’s a look at the TV version:
Even still it didn’t feel right to me. The man died only months ago. Isn’t there some time span that should pass, even if merely out of respect for his musical contribution to the world? If there isn’t, shouldn’t there be?
Then this morning I saw this story from CNN on dead celebrities. Apparently the real big money kicks in after you kick it!
Earlier this year Cotton Hill recorded an audio version of Ryan Smithson’s memoir “Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19-Year-Old GI” for HarperCollins Publisher. Cotton Hill’s Aaron Scher engineered the session.
Smithson, a native of East Greenbush, NY, gives us a unique view of his experiences in Iraq and his return home. “It was interesting to get a soldier’s-eye-view of the war in Iraq, and to see what life is like after returning…something we rarely get exposed to.” Scher said. The book was released April 21, 2009.
Start at the end. The road to project completion can sometimes be much clearer if you start at the end. Ask yourself, “What do I need to walk away with and when?” Once your end product is determined, work backwards to outline other milestones in the creation process.
Know your final deliverables as they can take many forms. Would you like a hard copy (audio CD, data CD or DVD) or an electronic copy (.mp3, .wav or .aif)? For spots, who will be trafficking the spots to the stations? When is the project due? Did you allow for approvals? These specifics are sometimes left out or overlooked until the last moment. Knowing these details in advance can influence and streamline the process.
The bottom line – know where you want to end up. It’ll help you figure out the best and most expeditious plan to get there.
I deleted my old Myspace account a few years ago. No one noticed.
These days, my appearances on Facebook are few and far between. In fact, if you see me make a Facebook update, it’s probably because I linked my Twitter account to my status for the sole purpose of avoiding the site. Facebook is too much work.
I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: The best social network out there is hiding in Google Reader.
“Google Reader? Isn’t that just a feed reader?”
Sure it’s a feed reader. And a damn good one at that…but it’s become so much more in the last few months.
Now, you can share items from your feeds with your friends and comment on their shared items. I can’t tell you how many cool, hilarious, thought provoking, revolting, and depressing things I’ve learned thanks to this feature. Plus, we’ve all discovered great new sites to follow just by sharing with each other.
My little Reader community has grown to about 20 or so people. Just enough to keep a great dialogue running, but not so many people that you can’t sift though all the content. Every day there are new items that spark conversation…from a story on CNN to what apps I should be putting on my iPhone. It’s really like having our own mini Facebook…except without all the quizzes, boring updates, mafia wars invitations, and overbearing relatives.
So go check it out, and invite your friends to join you once you’re there.
Yesterday I upgraded my iPhone software to V3.1. It went something like this…
Open iTunes and click on the button that says ‘click here to download and install’.
Wait for the software to download and install. Unfortunately halfway through the install I get an error message. Something like ‘an unknown error has occurred, etc…’
Try and have iTunes find my now frozen iPhone…and it can’t.
Realize that there is a new (V9.0) version of iTunes and go and download that.
Wait for it to download.
After it downloads I click ‘run’ making sure to turn my virus protection software off first because through hard lessons learned I know that it will totally crash my comp if I don’t.
Wait for iTunes V9 to install.
Now iTunes can find my frozen phone but the only thing I can do is ‘restore’ it. That means it will erase everything I have on the phone and return it to the factory settings. Fortunately I have it all backed up and am now hoping that when I re-sync the phone everything will be as it was.
Wait for the iPhone to restore itself.
Now that the iPhone is restored, iTunes will let me try and re-sync.
Wait for the iPhone to re-sync.
When that’s done I check the iPhone. Everything is there except my custom ring tone.
Go to iTunes to make sure my ring tone is there. It is.
Re-sync the iPhone making sure that I turn on ‘sync ring tones’.
Wait for it to re-sync.
Check the iPhone again and the ring tone is still not there.
Go back to iTunes to make sure the ring tone is still listed under ring tones. It is, but when I try and play it I get the message ‘file not found’.
Search my entire comp for the file. Fortunately I had saved it on another drive.
Copy and paste the file into iTunes under ring tones.
Re-sync the iPhone yet again.
Wait for it to re-sync.
Voila. My ring tone is back and my iPhone is exactly how it was before I tried to upgrade the software.
Total time to accomplish this – approximately 2.5 hours.
The funny thing is that when I can’t get to my computer I know that I can always use my iPhone to check my email, schedule, twitter, etc. And when I can’t get to my iPhone I can use my computer for all of that. But at some point through all this I got a sinking feeling…I can’t use either one of them!!! (because they’re both tied up trying to figure each other out) I’m totally cut off from the world! It made me think about how much we tend to depend on these electronic devices and the communication that they bring. What would we do without them? Could we survive?
I had the great experience of brainstorming with an amazing copywriter the other day for an upcoming project. He’s a solo entrepreneur so he is typically alone with his thoughts and his keyboard. At the end of the meeting he remarked how refreshing it was to brainstorm and bounce ideas off of a group of like-minded creative people.
It reminded me of how typical that type of collaboration is around our offices. I enjoy getting a fresh pair of eyes on a challenge or a new approach to a task. I’m not sure how solo entrepreneurs are able to stay fresh. I give them credit!
How do you best operate – nose to the grindstone, fly solo or are you better in a team environment? What strategies do you follow when you are outside of your comfort zone?
