Madison and Pine

post turkey chills

Hey there, so here I sit at casa Ricardo snowed in heavily enough to prevent jeep travel and finding the contrast from my LA dwelling of only a few weeks ago quite amusing , if not a little stark!

However, while many were in the throws of digestive dozing, I popped out to see The Silent Years here in Seattle at High Dive

pic : The Silent Years - not so quiet

Despite the absence of their food poisoned keyboard player, they put on a great show.. I'd not seen then before, but they're super tight in a very XTC way.. and manage to demonstrate their obvious musical abilities without being indulgent or boring... (unlike me who just used 50 words to say "they were good") anyway if you get a chance check em out.

On my calendar and that of any right minded Seattleite (?) is Small Sins and The Little Ones at Neumos on Thursday. This will be a killer show, they're also recording for KEXP that day and popping by the Zune HQ.

Pic: Small Sins - visitors from Canadia

Pic: The Little Ones - ballooning careers

Also hitting my radar is a brand new signing to Capitol in the shape of Mims

pic: Mims - Hot in NYC

Watch this space I want to be involved with this guy..he will be a success.

anyway time to stop being musical Nostradamus and probably get the snow plow out... ttyl

r

Talkin Turkey

Hey there.. so I'm finally getting back to some kinda normalcy (whatever that is) I think I'll quantify that by anything less than 200 unread emails at any one time! So while I'm at 199 I thought I'd catch up on a few things I'm happy about today.

#1 our Small Sins / The Little Ones tour is kicking the proverbial ass.. sold out so far with NYC tonight and Boston tomorrow all is looking great

Nov 20 2006 8:00P	Mercury Lounge	New York, New York
Nov 21 2006 8:00P	Middle East Upstairs	Cambridge, Massachusetts
Nov 22 2006 9:00P	Zaphod Beeblebrox	Ottawa, Ontario
Nov 23 2006 8:00P	Zoobizarre	Montreal, Quebec
Nov 24 2006 9:00P	The Horseshoe Tavern	Toronto, Ontario
Nov 27 2006 8:00P	Varsity Theatre	Minneapolis, Minnesota
Nov 30 2006 8:00P	Neumos	Seattle, Washington
Dec 1 2006 8:00P	Transmission Festival	Vancouver, British Columbia
Dec 2 2006 6:00P	Lucky on Yates	Victoria, British Columbia
Dec 4 2006 8:00P	Doug Fir Lounge	Portland, Oregon
Dec 5 2006 8:00P	Bottom of the Hill	San Francisco, California
Dec 7 2006 8:00P	House of Blues San Diego	San Diego, California
Dec 9 2006 8:00P	Echo	Los Angeles, California

While SS/TLO are up in Canadia our good friends Plastilina Mosh and MIS will be here in the US

Dec 1 2006 11:00P	MIS w/ Plastilina Mosh @ Gypsy Tea Room	Dallas, TX
Dec 2 2006 11:00P	MIS w/ Plastilina Mosh @ Stubb's Bar-B-Q	Austin, TX
Dec 3 2006 8:00P	MIS w/ Plastilina Mosh @ Meridian	Houston, TX

This show is something you really don't want to miss. and of course brought to you by your good friends at Zune!

.. oh and something I just got sent.. and my fave picture from launch... just look at the expression on Benjamin (from Secret Machines) face.. Bill G has just walked past him... oh and yes I did mention to them that a "senior MS exec would be present" just don't think I told them who!!

pic: Zune Launch in Seattle - "here's my secret machine!"

ok mail just hit 230  gotta go

l8tr

r

Happy, halloweenlaunchthanksgivingholiday2007

The train has officially left the station.... woooohooo yes folks we're launched, and despite only being a matter of a day or so ago it already feels like a lifetime...what feels like a different lifetime altogether is Halloween... remember that?  Here's a picture from NYC.. hint: I'm not the one in the riding hat!

pic: all hallows eve - I got robe...

Anyway as I'm working in some weird chronological order here's a pic from Chicago on launch day, with Lupe Fiasco

pic: Lupe in Chicago - so cold yet so warm :)

and in Atlanta TI turned a few heads

pic: TI in Atlanta - certainly the new IT Guy ( and that's "it" not eye tee)

Pic: TI turning heads - power to the peeps

and I have more pics but the power just went out here... and working in the dark on battery power isn't exactly ideal.. so l8t

r

on the road again!!

So it's Thursday, this must be LA or something like that!...anyway I got to meet a bunch of cool folk at our preview event today and we're having a party tonight which should be a blast so life is pretty darn good in Zune land.. I did get to meet Harvey from Zunerama this afternoon which was great, then I drank way too much Redbull and now instead of getting a quick cat nap before tonight I'm bouncing off the walls of my hotel room!.. oh well what can you do?

So I promise to get some pics of tonight's bash up here soon, but just for the complete vintage gear trainspotters amongst you and because 120days are my new fave band (along with all my other fave bands) .. here's a pic of their setup from our NY show

pic: 120 days setup - analog meets digital

anyway... now I have yet again exposed my inner geek.. I'll talk to y'all soon.. Bitter : Sweet and Jason Bentley playing tonight so that'll be fun... l8tr

r

back in the NYC

ahhh so after weekending in sunny Seattle I'm back in the NYC for a couple for days before heading out to my former stomping grounds of LA. Tomorrow we're hosting a little press and peeps event with a little evening shindig feat MSTRKRFT and 120 Days which will be fun.. more to the point I just got this fab pic from the Zune/Club NME event last week at their Chinese restaurant takeover event..looks like the flash was more like a solar flare.. surprised the audience didn't all walk away with 2nd degree burns.. but as you can see this was a real rock show.. The Sounds.. the people... oh it makes me soo happy !

pic: The Sounds - ain't no dim sum here ...

l8t

r

Over and Over n stuff

Ahhhh back in the airport again... such joy I can hardly contain myself... oh and Alaska are running an hour late  Quelle Surprise? they have been so on time recently..oh sorry correction this is the 6th flight in a row I've been on that has been delayed...Over and Over and Over again.....

yes.. the fab Hot Chip single "Over and Over" as featured in our fab new Zune player (yes I'm in shameless Zune player is fab mode) is stuck in my head after a wicked show at Webster Hall last night. ..Hot Chip are to be taken seriously(in a fun way), this is a real band with a killer show and they're in Seattle 11/14 the day of our debut... who knew..

pic: Hot Chip - the geek has inherited the earth

A super added bonus to being at the afore mentioned Astralwerks show was the I got to meet Small Sins and The Little Ones, who are heading out on another Zune tour in a few days...excellent folks and hell bent on staying out way beyond anyone's normal bedtime (even in NYC bedtime mode)... anyway.. I guess I'd better get back to concentrating on waiting... bless you Alaska.. maybe there is a reason why you're one of the states that isn't connected.. or is that just me being cranky?..

Trapped in my phone

I would love to share some of the wonderful pictures I took this week, but for some reason my new phone disagrees... in truth yet again the anomalous crap that seems to get in the way every time a mobile device gets near a computer of any make brand and OS has again reared it's stupid head...OK I'm going to rant.... why oh why is it that the most basic function of copy material/pictures music or contacts from a damn phone to your laptop even when plugged in and using the manufacturers install disk anything less than completely seamless? Who checked this process? It plainly doesn't work... and I'm supposed to be a least semi computer literate.. why is this experience so universally crap?

Anyway, that aside... it's been a great week and this is where your pictorial imagination has to fill in for images detained by my crap cell phone.. bands Simon Dawes and Band of Horses performed on Monday for this years Microsoft giving campaign event, which went really well over at Showbox.. lots o cash made for a great cause.. and as part of the auction, I have to pick some music for one of the guys from MTV... strange but I'm game!!

Following evening, I popped over to see Verruca Salt...and yes I'd all but written them off but went with Simon Dawes manager for fun.... and THEY ROCKED HARD... seriously with ex Failure drummer holding down the beats, this was a serious rock band.. certainly one of the surprises of the year.. following night I went to see Chris Holmes DJ opening for Placebo and She Wants Revenge. Chris is Half of Ashtar Command (see Bird at https://www.comingzune.com/ there are also a host of fab new bits to look at if you haven't been in a while including one of my faves....shown here)

pic: new to comingzune.com - shake hands why don't you?

It was great to see Holmes, and I got to show off the device to the SWR guys who seemed quite impressed, with the restrained coolness of rockstardom of course! Apparently Adam was interested enough to join Chris Holmes and a rare day off on Friday and pop over to Zune HQ and join Chris DJing for a couple of hours which was great.. in a strange ComingZune koinkydink Chris played his new remix of Regina Spektor during his set  Ashtar v Spektor.. who knew?  Anyway Friday night I didn't make Silversun Pickups and Viva Voce but reports very very good and with CMJ next week I'll get a chance to catch up on at least half of that at our co sponsored Puma show... phew.. apart from that.. not much going on this week... if I get the phone to release the pictures I will of course post them.. until next time..ttyl

r

Running with Scissors..

The last couple of days have been even more frantic than those before, and it seems that the trend isn't going to abate anytime soon... but it's soooo much fun at Zune at the moment... sure there are some minor glitches like more power outages and the fact that the new offices we're in lack a simple map so trying to find people is like a hide and seek exercise every time... on the upside we now have food on site.. so now we never have to leave! I did get to pop out the other night to catch the very end of Small Sins and the full madness that is the Scissor Sisters... what an awesome show they put on.. and the audience was almost as much fun to watch... good to run into a bunch of people from Xbox there too..

pic: Scissor Sisters - happy campers!

anyway, back to work for me...thank heavens for the free soda/kool aid! 

l8t

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

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!