I’ve spent most of my career as a completely behind-the-scenes marketing guy or publicist, or the guy interviewing people for my book, but now I’m getting a good understanding of what it’s like to be the guy being interviewed – and it is not super-simple. While writing my first book, I was fully reminded of just how much work goes in to a creative endeavor, and it is remarkable. From concept to motivation to execution – it takes a lot to complete a book, or an album, or a movie, etc. Now I’m fully learning how much effort and attention goes into marketing a product with my name on it, and how important it is to try and do really great interviews. It is easy to make fun of people being interviewed on your local news, or even professionals on …
I saw Counting Crows for the fifth time the other night (5.5.12) with Sarah at the Ryman. It easily went straight to my top three shows of my entire life. Maybe the top. Why? Multiple reasons. But the more I think about it, it had a lot to do with the overall atmosphere of the evening, mostly things I have little control of coordinating: who I was with, where I was, how people around me were treating others, the music, the band, my nostalgic love for half of the set-list, my new love for the other half, etc. When I think of other shows in my lifetime, and I’ve seen some good ones – The Police, Billy Joel, Tom Petty, Elton John, Radiohead, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Ben Folds, Foo Fighters, Spin Doctors, U2, to name some personal highlights – yes, …
Towards the end of the 2 year period it took to write my first book, The Music Industry Doesn’t Have To Kill You, I started putting together a Spotify Playlist by the same name. It is specifically intended to accompany your reading of the book. Whether you will like all of the songs or not, I can’t say. But I can say that if you are at all interested in the types of music that continually inspire me – especially what inspired me while writing this book – you will find them in this (currently) 138-track, 10-hour playlist. Every artist and/or song on this list is intentionally selected to show motivation behind the book, add to the book, further prove the points I’m trying to make in the book, make you stop and think about your life, or simply make …
I am honored to share that my first book signing will occur at my hometown library on Saturday, June 2, 2012. From 2-4 PM CT, at the Eldorado Memorial Public Library, in Eldorado, Illinois, my new/first book – The Music Industry Doesn’t Have To Kill You – will be available for purchase on-site, and I will be there to sign copies. I hope to see you there.
I have no problem whatsoever telling you that we went to see American Reunion last night. It was my choice. We both ended up liking it. Well, I loved it. Stifler alone is worth going to see this movie, especially if you were a male teenager in the ’90s. The original American Pie class graduated high school in 1999, as did I. The music supervisors did a superb job of appealing to me and all of my friends in this age range. As Third Eye Blind’s “Never Let You Go” started at the beginning of the film, I said to Sarah, “They’re going straight for us, and we’re here.” Music is a powerful thing. Yes, the words and imagery in this movie – seeing the actual original line-up on-screen, the hilarious writing of Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, etc. would …
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