Madison and Pine

oh just in case you missed the bus

I totally forgot to mention that we have announced a ton of stuff about preload and price etc etc, my good friend Cesar has all of this stuff over on his blog so I wont repeat for the sake of it but go here and the full preload list and all sorts of goodies are there...what I would like to introduce is something rather interesting, can't tell you much about it right now... but

pic: weez gotz wheeelz

ain't she purdy ...

first one to send me a picture of this out on the highway gets a zuneshirt from Cesar over at Zune Insider... of course he deosn't know this yet... but he's a generous fellow!

l8tr

r

Phoenix

I was sooooo knackered last night I really had to drag myself out to see Phoenix at The Crocodile Cafe last night. I promised myself 2 songs and you're outta there... by the encore I was still shouting for more.. what an awesome show.. to be honest I think the band surprised themselves, the crowd went mad , they pretty much had a mosh pit going on at one point!

pic: Phoenix - less bird more fire

If you haven't checked out Phoenix now would be a good time! oh and just in case you were wondering.. no they're not in preload!!!!...

r

Love you miss you....

My goodness it is like shoveling snow in a blizzard here at the moment... so crazy busy, and to add to the fun last night the fire alarm went off in the building , I think I may have a lemming gene in me somewhere as despite the deafening siren and flashing lights I carried on at my laptop, taking my lead from Davey P who sits opposite from me and merely inserted earplugs and continued working.. it wasn't until we realized that we were the only two people left on the floor that we decided fire alarm= leave building.. !! To add to the joy we're moving into different offices on Friday so we're all in boxes again... woohooo... anyway.. also "en fuego" was DJ Shadow who I was lucky enough to catch last week, the new album is great and the live set is wicked

pic: DJ Shadow- never Enuff!

If you're around in Seattle and want to check out a device I'll be up watching Phoenix at Crocodile Cafe tomorrow night... see ya there

r

Serena Maneesh in Seattle

It's been an awesome music week so far. Tuesday night was no exception, Serena Maneesh at Neumos. These guys are so much larger than life.. even before note #1 they were rockstars and then they proceeded to crank up a set that was somewhere between Einstürzende Neubauten and Spiritualized

pic: Serena Maneesh-S&M is far from torture!

If you have opportunity to see these guys while they're in the US take it, I feel they're not going to be in little clubs for long.

pic: Serena Maneesh

Mel Klein RIP

Early Tuesday morning Mel Klein was killed instantly in a car accident in Southern California. To me he was a dear friend, a mentor, an example of the American dream and a future thinker. While he's not a household name, his passion was always music and art and his impact as the CFO for Island Records for many years helped facilitate the vision of Chris Blackwell and his team. He was directly involved in the careers of such artists as Bob Marley and  U2 amongst a huge list of legends and influentials.

To try and explain the beauty, the humor and grace that was Mel Klein to those of you that weren't lucky enough to have known him is beyond my words. I will always miss him. He leaves behind his wife and daughters and a group of friends and family that cared for and cherished him more than perhaps he will ever know.

Good luck on your new journey Melvin

r

I saw a superstar.....

Unlike Friday, last night I could have done with an early evening, but because I've seen all the buzz around LA based Mickey Avalon I turned out for his midnight show... and he rocked it. This guy is a superstar, you wouldn't even need to hear him do a thing, he has soooo much coinfidence and attitude it's undiniable even infront of a relatively small, but totaly dedicated crowd of fans... if you haven't, you have to check this guy out....

pic: Mickey Avalon-life's tough being a supserstar!

Ratatat the lost show.....

So I have my good friend Ryan in town this weekend (he manages the fabulous Simon Dawes) we figured it would be great to catch some shows so Friday night the plan was to check out Ratatat, perhaps grab a bite ahead of time, you know the drill. Half way through dinner, we get a call saying that Ratatat are already on.... 9:15 for a headliner!!... I'm sorry, but that's just plain weird.. so the show was missed and we were forced to bar hop Seattle instead.. acht a tough life!

So here's a picture of the band I didn't see

pic: Ratatat - wake up it's 9:15!

Oh tonight I'm popping out to see Mickey Avalon at Chop Suey..I'll have my device with me should ya want a lil sneak peek..

see you there.. or perhaps not, this is a midnight show!

l8tr

A voyage of discovery.....

So someone actually emailed me and said "now you have this news out it must be quiet over there" !!!! Goodness no!! It's nuts in the best possible way! You may be starting to see a thread emerging in much of the media that started to drop today and that is that we're very aware of the importance off connecting to the core music lovers and to help those that wish to to discover more music , to experiment with their taste and to use Zune as a vehicle for this journey.

Obviously the connectivity of the device opens us up to all manner of scenarios, perhaps the most important of these is the simple act of turning a friend on to cool music, the ultimate music discovery experience...and it's this that changes everything at least for me, because it's not the "walkman" experience (which it of course can be, if like me you have no friends!!)jk.

I guess what I'm getting at is, certainly from my perspective and now you all know about the device, specs etc etc is that the departure started in the thinking... the thinking is that there's nothing in the world that communicates and transcends social and geographic barriers better than love and music. We love music... now music communicates in a different way.

pheeww.. hope this wasn't too deep, but as you may be able to tell..the potential holds me in awe everyday.

r

Simon Dawes and BOH

pic: Simon Dawes -oh to be a goat.. or a Horse

Hey there, so I know it's a little self gratifying but certainly a strange coincidence too, but I just received the new/debut Simon Dawes album (a band I have followed closely for while now) and they gave me a thank you credit!!!.. woohoo.. and all I ever did was help fill the room when they were starting out, very kind.. but here's the koinky dink.. their manager calls me up and let's me know that they're going out with our good friends Band of Horses for a US tour, which will be awesome, but it looks like he'll be in town this weekend staying at Casa Richard (allegedly he has some killer new material from Simon Dawes and a very interesting new project from Smashing Pumpkins keyboard player Chris Holmes, Brian from Filter and a crew of guests under the name Ashtar Command).... pheewww  OK I feel like I just downloaded     hope the punctuation helped make some sense of the data

oh blog .. how I have missed you

aaaargghhhhh .. what a completly insane week... sorry I have been away.. perhaps you don't care.. who knows? but I've been suffering major bloggers remorse.. so here's what I've been doing.. Bumbershoot last weekend.. suprise highlights included Thermals, Bitter Sweet, Nouvelle Vague and this guy wearing a t-shirt so small for his very large belly that in an effort to remove BBQ sauce from his hands he missed the shirt entirley and without even blinking happily wiped his hand on his stomach and carried on walking.... fantastic!!

pic: The Thermals - not hot air!

oh and then I almost forgot... the fire machine (well at least that's what I'm calling it) completely unlike The Thermals was nothing but hot air

pic: fire machine - all hot air

mm ok so now blogging remorse is feeling a little better... more on Zune very soon, as soon as I can work out what happened this week!

r