Mary B Blog

Them's the Brakes

2011-03-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

Well, as suspected, the Linda Perry gig did not in fact go through. i was given and bit of a tease on Monday evening with a phone call and interview which shot my hopes high to the sky, however turns out the tour decided that they didn't want to bring on a merch person/assistant. Oh well. I am a little depressed about this, as I was really banking on getting picked up by this tour and it would have worked out so well with the rest of the plans I have for the year, however, I won't let it consume me full and will keep calm and carry on as the Brits are harping now-a-days.

At the moment, i visit you from the lovely and quiet, Burbank library. I really wasn't thinking this place was going to be packed, but I assume the free wireless is a very enticing reason for most of the general (jobless) population to come here and spend most of their day at. It is quite depressing to see...but I am sitting next to a few students who are busy studying up on medical things like the human body, so it's distracting me from thinking that there's a long line ahead of me in the unemployment market.

For the next order of business, aside from looking for a paying job, I've decided to REALLY clean out and finish up all the little tasks, errands, and unfinished business(es)? that have piled up for me since the end of last year. I'm making progress so far, getting my closet and bathroom all cleaned out for the Spring. Also I started a new blog, to help manage my procrastination and will be working on my website(finally) and online writing portfolio too.

Well, I could go on, but I feel I should continue getting things done! I'll check in at a later date.

Free Pancakes!!

2011-03-01T18:53:00.000-08:00

Hello fellow readers!

Today I greet you from the lovely restaurant, serving America with their tasty breakfasts and compromising prices. Yes! It’s IHOP. And today is National Pancake Day, which I am partaking in for the 3rd year. I was introduced to this tradition a few years back when my friends, Shelly and Mike discovered it living in Florida, and I must say, every year has been as satisfying as the last.

Alright well, I’m not particularly sure what the last entry was about..so I’ll try and update you with what I can remember.

The Ramones All-Girl Band: This unfortunately did not work out. The guitarist didn’t have the time to commit to the project any more, and since it was her idea, everyone else fell to the wayside out of respect. I’m sad it’s never gonna see the light of day, but happy I suppose because the drive down to Long Beach always caused us to start practices late.

Camila & Me: that is going quite well. We put down scratch vocals last week for our song ‘The Thames’ and worked on tweeking ‘Diamonds’ with Barry (the producer). Both are gonna sound great and tomorrow we’ll be writing our third song ‘Honeymouth.’ Hopefully we’ll be up and rehearsing as soon as we have the two songs done.

Writing: It’s been going well with Campus Circle and Valley Scene Magazine. I do feel though I’ve bitten off more then I can chew with some of the assignments and have eased up for the beginning of March to focus on more concerning matters in my life…however I am going to focus on trying to write and article a day for The Writers Network, due to it being a paying gig.

Touring: there have been a few offers on the table touring and otherwise, but nothing that seems to gel. I was truly hoping that I’d be out with Deep Dark Robot for their 1 month tour, but it looks as though that’s not going to happen. I will however do a 2nd follow up to the office tomorrow just to make it clear I’m out of the running for this. I also received an interview for Go-Bee, a Canadian tour company, but I’m not sure if that is a smart match either. For the last, my friend, Juan, asked me to submit my resume to a playstation tour, that is still amongst the hopefuls right now, but again, I’ll have to see. Otherwise there will be some touring later on in the summer, but I wish there was something to keep me pumped about right now.

Other Projects: I completely forgot though! I may infact be tour managing an Aussie band going to SXSW. However the job would probably be non-pay. I am also probably going to be taking pictures and writing a story on some of the best bands to see at SXSW for Campus Circle. Lastly, Barry has asked me to handle booking his band to perform in late March early April for his personal project. All are great happenings. But I wish they paid me a little money :/

Anyways, I must finish my short stack, and you all must get on with your days.

Chow for Now!
MaryB

Taking a Walk Outside

2011-02-17T18:10:00.000-08:00

Well today was a gorgeous day in Los Angeles. I was told that it was going to be raining all this week, but to my surprise woke up to the sun shining this morning. The day's been fairly productive for myself. I've made a few appointments and plans next week for some health visits and music related meetings. Also I took my car into the shop for an oil change and didn't have to pay! pretty awesome!

This evening I'm going to be prepping for questions to ask Ms Dia Blow at her burlesque show at the bordello and Raphael Sadiqq whom I'll be having a lovely phone chat with tomorrow...I am always quite shy when it comes to talking to people, however the last face to face interview I had went rather well, so I believe these two will go just fine too.

Anyways, here's two reviews that just came out in this weeks' Campus Circle and Valley Scene Magazine. Should be more to come!

Review Elisabeth Ashley at the Viper Room

Review Crack Whore Galore-Live at the Atwater Village Theatre

Today's a new Day!

2011-02-13T16:51:00.001-08:00

Hello!

In an effort to try to stay on top of this blog, I have a new post for you and as it seems two new articles to share that I've written for Campus Circle.

Oscar Nominated Short Films: http://www.campuscircle.com/review.cfm?r=12525
Typhoon Review: http://www.campuscircle.com/review.cfm?r=12528&h=Typhoon-Jan-The-Satellite

Recently I also reviewed this wonderful play called Crack Whore Galore-LIVE! if you get a chance to see it at the Atwater Village Theatre in the Glendale, CA area, please do!

Please read and enjoy them if you may. I'll be off to finish an article for VSM on The Numero Group's Grammy Nom for their performance at The Echo and Grammy Nom and also a few CD review for Campus Circle. Pip Pip!

February UpDATE!

2011-02-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

Dear readers,

My utmost apologies for the lack of interest in updating my blog.

To put you up to speed with my on goings, I'll try to be brief, but thorough!

Well after July I was asked to jump up to a Dispatch position at Centerstaging. How wonderful! A promotion! I was very thrilled with this idea, and made a very hard decision to stay harbored in Los Angeles and miss the adventures of the road with IMG Live tour managing that year. However after a few months holding the position I soon realized it was not for me and caused more stress and grief then it was worth, so I suppose you could say I just stopped caring because when you feel no one cares about you, then you lose interest in caring yourself. So I parted ways with the company which was for the best and looked ahead to 2011!

At the end of the year I had a lovely visit from my parents. They hadn't been to LA for a very long time together, so I showed them around my new place and they helped me fix it up a bit. Christmas was good, but a little stress filled as my parents and myself kept breaking things, this bad ju-ju lasted for about two days. Luckily though nothing large, or expensive broke, just one curtain rod, 2 wine glasses, and a whole bottle of unopened Baileys..

After the parents left I moved on to the New Year. I spent this time party hopping and having fun with friends however i will say it wasn't as eventful as I had hoped.

January was quiet but still quite productive. I joined another magazine to write for called Campus Circle and having been getting lots of assignments from them both music related and other wise. I also joined the Writers Network which gives a few paying gigs here and there for articles. And lastly joined as the lead singer of an all-girls Ramones cover band. On top of this, my first freelance writing gig, and my band with Camila, I have been quite a busy girl. To finish up the month, I was in a music video with Linda Perry for her new band Deep Dark Robot. Also there is an opportunity to tour with the band this year, so fingers crossed as that would make me very happy.

February is now upon us all, and with it being half way over so far I've just had good times hanging with friends and writing articles and music. Tonight I"ll be heading to cover a Pre-Grammy Party at the Echo for one nominated band, and this weekend I'll be busy writing up about 5 articles for CC and The Writers Network. I might also start another blog soon that is just my own personal reviews on music, but I have to polish the concept to make sure it's something i can take on long term. Wouldnt' want to put it off like I do with updating here.

in the future months...there are other job offers on the horizon, 2 are for marketing tours and there are a few personal assistant positions that are up for grabs. Also my birthday is just around the corner so there will be some preparation for that. I did plan a trip to Big Bear, but seeing as how it would be quite a bit of money and an uncertain amount of people going, I can't say I want to commit to my original idea of this plan. For now, the idea will be drinks on the day of and dinner at pink taco that weekend. We shall see though, things can change. Also my friend, Tracy, invited me to go to Vegas with her in the first weekend of March so I will probably do that for further celebration, then on to SXSW if my 2 job options don't take me there, a road trip will!.

Well, I suppose that's all for now. Eventually I'll be putting up my website, so you can soon check there, and here, and there again for updates!

luv, Mb

July Bloom Gloom

2010-07-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

Hey-o

So the weather's been kinda wacky this month. I haven't felt this supposed 'fryin' pan' feeling that happens in the valley every summer. Makes me kinda happy i'm still missing out on this and won't burn.

Anyways, I've been off the grid for a while. Mostly due to fixing up my place and getting ready for a few big events in August. One actually being the arrival of Petie D! I think he actually arrives tomorrow?! As of now the only thing that's a set plan is going camping with him and an assortment of others over next week.

Other things...

-visitng San Fran to see Alyssa (hopefully) and Dan (probably)
-dinner with ms. amie & john
-miniature golfing with the crew soon
-possibly roller skating with some CS peeps this saturday

Alright well, gotta get these errands done and do some writing. My buddy at work Mike Maye is expecting 3 tracks from me sometime on Sunday..eeek!

No Road to Wander

2010-07-07T17:57:00.000-07:00

So my lack of entries has been high as of recent, which inevitably means my life has been quite busy!

To cut to the nit and grit, I was offered another TM job back with IMG Live for their DirecTV tour, unfortunately this coincided with the opportunity to advance further with my current job at CenterStaging. Weighing my options and checking my finances, I ultimately chose CenterStaging. I think it's a good choice, although right now I am suffering from a major aching for the road and keep on planning 2-day mini vacays to San Fran and Vegas in my head..I'm sure this will benefit me in the long run though, and possibly the opportunity to tour in the future is still afoot.

While being stuck here in one place for the summer does sound a little off, I'm going to try to make the most of it by takings some small trips outside of Los Angeles, as well as take some lessons surfing or something fun like that...I was even thinking going to try for working a little over at Filter Magazine again...suppose we'll just have to see how it all pans out.

Other news, well I have been lagging a bit on finishing up my place. I put up some shelves and new frames, but have a wayz to go. I'm kinda stuck on what to do with one wall in my kitchen, I want to put up a calendar, or poster, or tiny shelves, but nothing is really sticking in my mind yet.... Also I need to get a smaller bed frame for my sleeping area. I have a queen bed, but this blasted air conditioner is making the frame awkward as of now, so downsizing is in order.

One of the newest additions to my pad is the Gustav Klimt "The Kiss" painting. Last week I was randomly at the mall and there was a frame/painting shop going out of business. Alot of their items were severly marked down and the one just staring at me through the glass was this painting.

I've always wanted to get it, although I thought it would be a poster, not an oil painting. My mom's fav artist is Gustav Klimt, and this painting in particular is in my parents house. Story behind it is my dad gave my mom the painting. I always thought that was very sweet of him, and now I can hang it up and think of them. Phew..that sounds sooo cheezy, but it's true. I don't have any pictures of them surprisingly enough, suppose I should fix that problem too.

Anyways, tomorrow's gonna be another day off so I have a few plans already in action. One being an afternoon trip to the movies. Tonight I'm gonna cook some Amish Bread my friend, Danyelle, hooked me up with, this pesky tomatoe pie i've been putting off making, and some banana bread. I actually am gonna need to go to the store to get some ingredients like milk, a roller, a few tomatoes, and probably some baking powder. I think I'll make the banana bread for our Friday Morning Breakfast at Centerstaging. I like baking, but don't like to have a whole lot of semi-sweet products just chilling at my place. This would be a good way to eliminate excess sweets.

In the future though, I've decided to have Sunday Sit-Downs, which basically consists of me cooking a new meal each Sunday from scratch. I am hoping this week to make Thai Green Curry. I went to a Thai place a few weeks back with Nancy and Tracy for Thai and it was pretty awesome. People at work were also talking about Thai the other day, which has reignited my craving for it. After that, I'll probably grab something from one of my recipe books...or maybe just make hush puppies and crawfish etoufette!

Alright, well now a quick update on my webpage and I"m off to the store.

Chow.

B in my Bonnet

2010-05-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

Hello! Today in the lovely part of the world known as Southern California, it is quite rainy.

This compliments my mood quite well as I am not feeling so wonderful. But instead of boring you with how tragic I feel about things at the moment, since we all have our own issues and I prefer not to share mine on the web...although I kinda just did....I'm going to give you a couple updates on things that I've been doing.

Well, the webpage is still troubling me a bit with pesky links not working, hopefully when I reload my site today that problem will vanish. A new feature on the website..will be my review for Valley Scene Magazine, but this all goes back to the links-not-working problem so as soon as that's fixed you'll actually get to go to the About Me page, and then click to the Writing page I'll be setting up.

I wasn't able to grab hard copies of VSM with my reviews in them, but found them on the web and am pretty excited you can too!

http://www.valleyscenemagazine.com/archives/mar52010/arts/
http://www.valleyscenemagazine.com/archives/apr22010/music/

Soon they'll be on my website, along with some other reviews I've done from the past. Currently I'm working on a fashion review for a Kitson trunk show I went to this past weekend. I'll keep you posted on this!

I also went to the Santa Monica Beach two weekends ago with my friends Tamra & Rene. It was a bunch of fun and reminded me why California is so great and how close the f-in ocean is! I was craving going to my little look out point by Zuma Beach this weekend to watch the waves crash, but unfortunately my work conflicted with this, so it'll have to be postponed to another date.

Also I recently did some house sitting for a friend. It was alot of fun, but reminded me of how huge of a responsibility it is to have animals, and not something I can devote alot of time to at the moment...I do love the idea of a little dog, and possibly, I'll get one some day, but it might end up being a cat if anything. I've already had those before and i love how they can chill and watch a movie with you, but then be like 'alright that was fun, later!' and you both can do your own thing. With dogs I feel bad not dedicating tons of time to them when I can't, and that's probably how having a dog would go at this point.

other things.....

-merched for Thomas Nicholas Band @ Molly Malones: fun fun fun!
-my lemoncello is done!
-developed some photos ;)
-wrote songs with Camila for band ;)

Tonight I'll be hanging out with my buddy, Chad, @ Sardos. Not sure what the scene's gonna be there as it's an Emerson related affair and I rarely socialize with old college collegues that haven't naturally progressed to the friend stage, but should be a good time. Also an old co-worker might be having some people hang at his place, but that seems up in the air at the moment so i don't know about that, then there's a lovely evening at the gym to clean my head and get some endorphins!

talk laters.
b

The Web Site is Up Up UP!

2010-05-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

Working on the website at work today. Got it up no problem this time...only thing is some of the links are being a little sketch and not working properly...maybe i've loaded up too many links? hmmmmm....

I have the link to the page listed under my I Spy section on my blog now for those of you avid readers who simply can't get enough of me from just a blog here and there on occasion!
or

you can just go here: www.marybroadbent.net

Enjoy!

luv B

Soo Happy for the Weekend

2010-05-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was Ca-razy! Centerstaging was super busy with lots of shows, booked rooms, and tons of paperwork! On top of all this was the planning for the Showbiz Expo which Danyelle and I handled during the weekend. I think ShowBiz overall was a great experience and we've gotten some success & new cliental from it. Hopefully in the next few weeks we'll get more positive feedback.

In other news I finally had some spare time to make it to Ikea and get these emerald green curtains i've been itching for. Along with this, double curtain rods, and some pictures from Walgreens my kitchen's gonna be all said and done very soon! All that's left is a few more pictures, hanging a spice rack and getting some shelves for my cook books!

Aside from work work work, I've been trying to put together a band with my friend, Camila. it's been a while since I started from the ground up on music, but after seeing my friend, Barry, play last weekend, it reminded me how much I love to be on stage and sing, so i'm really hoping that this will all work out. After touching base with Camila, it looks like we're gonna start back up with practices soon, so that's a good sign we're stepping in the right direction. Also i've enlisted Barry to help possibly with playing live for this act since there's no way we're gonna be able to get things off the ground if i'm the only one playing a guitar. Also if i wanna get super good, i'd have to practice like, 3 hours a day, and I hardly have time for that commitment, it would cut into sleep and then I would be grumpy..that'd a a lose situation.

Tonight i'll be soap peddlin'. was gonna hit the gym, but then I caught up with Tara, Chris, Camila, Barry and my mom. Phew! Hopefully tomorrow the gym and I will be spending some long hours together :) The plan right now is to go hiking with Rene and Tamra, then possibly explore some LA treasure i've discovered from reading LA Bizarro. So in the evening before baking a tomatoe pie, writing music, and watching a movie! i'll probably be able to get in 2 hours at the gym.

Anyways, suppose I'll work on some aforementioned music writing now before I have to get to work.

chow!

EarthQuaker!

2010-03-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

This morning I was disturbed (minorly) by an earthquake, or more so by my mom calling me at 7:30PCT to make sure I wasn't dead from the earthquake. Obviously, since I am writing this now, I am not dead, but a little cranky from being woken up.

Aside from the lovely rumbles of Mother Nature, there's nothing that crazy and wonderous to report. I'm still working over at Centerstaging, and enjoying my time there. Right now the main focus is on the ShowBiz Expo which will be happening at the end of next month. Today we had a meeting as to how to approach the festivities, and I believe we'll be able to take the bull by the horns on this one and create a successful promotion for CS. Sadly plans to Austin for SXSW did not work out for me. I really wanted to go, not only for the fact of promoting CS and Soundcheck, but also because it is my one and only true escape every year. I am bummed I'm going to miss out on all sorts of new good music, but maybe this is just the year NOT to go?

In other news I am working on booking for Red Wine Rewind and Jim Hanft which is taking up most of my afternoons. Things are going fairly well with that and I'm hoping I'll be able to book a good tour for both these bands since they have quality music which I enjoy listening to. Another thing I'm now involved in is free lancing for Valley Scene Magazine. I'm still unsure if it's just an online publication or something in print. I seem to recall picking up their magazine last year at Dupar's in Studio City, but I could be completely wrong. So far, I've done two reviews for them, one theater, one music, i'm hoping more music reviews will come my way, they did need someone for the Grand Re-Opening of The Key Club, but unfortunately it was a last minute deal and I had to work. LAME.

Also, music writing is going good. I recently came up with a song that has clapping and a toy piano and some simple synth and guitar, now I just have to finish writing the lyrics. Aside from that Barry and I are at a continual need to finish these other three songs. I need to get the break down for two of them and send them to Scotty, I don't think they'll ever be done in the complete fashion I want, and I'd rather him just look it over and play with it for me before the producing offer goes off the table with him.

Hmmm...what else? Well this evening I'm going to the craft store to find a scarf that goes with this new seahorse pin Tamra got me for my Bday. Then I'm going to head over to Birkham Yoga, which is this 108 degree yoga class that Rene got me into. I'm hoping this will be a good kickoff before i detox next week. The plan as of now is hot yoga this week, master cleanse next week, and then raw fruit and veggies the week after. I just want to cleanse my system, it helps so much and I'd like to make it a yearly routine.

Well now i'm going to clean my place for a little bit, maybe squeeze the juice outta these remaining lemons to prep for the cleanse next week. chowza!

Mb

I wish I was asleep...

2010-02-13T07:38:00.000-08:00

The PST is 7am, and unlike most of my friends residing on the West Coast, I am awake and sitting at a Keyes Toyota while my car goes under the knife due to a recall.According to sources, it's going to take a least 4 hours for this thing to get repaired..worst. Luckily Keyes is making up the inconvenience by giving me a lift back to my place as soon as the shuttle guy can get himself out of bed and get over here. You think car places would have the whole coordinating of times down properly by now...ie not opening up the mechanic shop at 7am and making everyone wait til 8am to sign up for a lift home, which there in might take another 30mins to an hour to actually receive said ride home. Psh.

In other news of minor importance, I am in the process of getting an interview for a marketing internship at Filter. I would of went in last week to speak with someone there, however their ?email wasn't working? so all interviews were postponed til that's been figured out. I know I'm overly qualified for an internship position, but if there's an opportunity to get a little writing in for a music magazine, then it's something I'd like to try at least while I'm grounded for a bit.

Also my friend Kerri has asked me to step on board for booking with 2 bands. Now that I have my whole morning free, and am out of the radius of a nearby gym, I'll probably start investigating this today. One of the bands is Redwinerewind and I think they're based out of Vegas. I haven't had time to listen to their music just yet, but from the pictures i've seen they look like a good group of boys to work for. The other artists' name escapes me at the moment, but i'm sure they're swell too.

In other news of major importance, I'll be getting my fridge today! (FINALLY!) This means back to eating properly and all intake of nasty cheap food will stop post haste. Then when March rolls around I can once again begin my master cleanse and get out all the nasty toxins that have settled in over this past year. I'm also a little excited just to go out and buy a few magnets for the fridge too. Silly I know, but a little joy in a lady's life none-the-less.

Camila's also going to come over around the same time that the fridge is delivered and then we're going to head on down to the LA Food Festival. http://lastreetfoodfest.com/ I've never been and am hoping it's going to be a good time, but we shall see. One of my main interests at this place is going to be the Buttermilk Truck which apparently serves nice warm biscuits. If they're any good I'll make sure to buy some for my friend, Tamra, for her birthday the following day.

I also might check out some co-workers recording music this weekend, but we'll have to see if I can work that in given an already time consuming schedule.

I suppose with this new abundant amount of time on my hand I can get all the little things done in my house that need tending too, or just fall asleep for a few more hours til the fridge people come...hmmmm.....

Anyways, time to take the shuttle back home.

pip pip!

Floods Of Biblical Proportions!!!

2010-01-18T12:35:00.000-08:00

Yup, that's what all us Californians have been hearing about the weather out here for the next week, and so far it's looking to be true.

I however am a fan of the rain, and personally believe we need it out here. It does put a damper on work though. I'd rather be at home snuggled in my bed watching a movie or playing a video game.

So the latest news is that I was sort of offered another Tour Manager gig, but had to turn it down due to it lasting throughout 2010. Also it was a little low in price range for me from what I understand, but it seemed like it would be fun none-the-less.. Hopefully a buddy of mine will get the gig instead and I'll get to hear about his adventures and maybe see him later on this year.

The other good news was a I finally saw Avatar and got chills (literallly) from watching it. I was a little disappointed by the Alice In Wonderland Trailer. It was more of a teaser trailer then the actual full length version I was hoping for in 3D. Movie will probably be sick though.

Tonight I'm going to put together my shelves and clean my place up. Probably throw in a little bit of laundry and movie watching on the old computer. Maybe even throw out a couple of things and make some soup!

Happy MLK Day!

Old2New

2010-01-12T19:45:00.000-08:00

Well I suppose it's time for an update for the new year.

Christmas was fun, but quite draining. I was very tired throughout the trip and when I returned back to LA I had to go straight back to working alot. One of my jobs tends to lay the work hours on hard whenever i come back from taking time off....I suppose in the future I should just request my first day back in town off too so i can recover.

The rest of the year was spent moving and working. New Year's Eve was celebrated in a traditional Mary B fashion where I didn't party or celebrate at all. Kinda like it that way, I never have to worry about what I'm going to do because I'm always working or have something planned out ahead of time. That morning was spent at Lush, after that i rented a truck and grabbed moving gear, then went to a wedding, was there for a bit, then drove down to my old house, and loaded my truck with my remaining furniture. I thought i'd already missed it striking midnight then heard Jed the fish on some radio program say 'happy new year!' as i was cruising on the 101 back to the valley. It was relaxing driving on the freeway watching the fireworks, but made me feel kinda lonely too, but in a good stable way? meh.

then the new year happen and woot woot! here we are!

Umm....let's see, my new place is coming along nicely, right now I'm focusing on my kitchen area. I went to IKEA this past weekend to savor in their free breakfast and inexpensive (sort of) furniture. I picked up some chairs and a stool and lots of pots, pans. plates. and cookware. I can't wait til the kitchen is all settled in, then it'll be time to make lots of tea and cook a bunch!!

The next big objective for my place is to find a fridge that will suite me good. I went over to Sav-on this evening and found a few options which gave me some good ideas for a price range to start with. I'll probably search around a little more though before committing to anything. Another concern on my mind is having trouble finding an emerald green curtain for my kitchen. It's an essential part of the home decor! That, and painting a few objects, like my table, which I plan on starting tonight.

Probably next weekend I'll move over to the bedroom area a bit and go ahead with buying these tall bookcases to act as a room divider for my single. soon as that's good and ready I can then get a better idea as to what to do with my living room space.

Earlier this week I also met with my good friend Emily Simonian to discuss getting the ball rolling on marketing strategies for her and also on a tour for the summer/fall. I'm kinda excited to get back into the mix of this as I did it last year for Courtenay Green. This time however there's no money i'm being paid so i'm not going to get stressed and feel bad if I can't commit all my time to helping Em. Also I'm gonna see if she can help me with some freelance writing when she has the time as her sister's in the publication business.

My music has been put on a stand still with the moving and constant changes I've been going through, but I think that after it's done I'm going to give it to my friend, Scotty and get his opinion on what to do next besides the obvious 'play shows' answer I know he'll probably give me. I also want to go to a few auditions this year and maybe work with a band again. I went to a co-workers birthday party last night and it kept reminding me of high school. Like, how everyone one knows everyone playing the show and mostly its all the people playing who act also as the crowd watching, but there are a regular friends that show up to support you too. There were a few guys that played who had the same manorisms? as some friends of mine I used to play with so that made me a little sad thinking of my Philly boys.

but hey! that's the past! I'm in the present! and now it's time for me to listen to a movie while i paint and then take a sexy bath, followed my some snuggle time in my bed!!!

hzah!!

p.s. just saw the list of artists that are on the new Alice in Wonderland Soundtrack.....can't wait to nab it and hope for the best.

October 2010- Christmas Eve

2009-12-24T14:23:00.001-08:00

Alright, time was made to finish those last two posts, so I'm going to put a little effort into rounding up the recent events as well.

Once I returned from New Orleans, I also reclaimed my job at CenterStaging which was super awesome. So far there, it's been very good and kept me busy which I like. Also I have been sticking with Lush for the time being, but may cut back on that in the new year, don't really know yet though. Having both these jobs and that long drive from Inglewood to the Valley pretty much killed any ounce of social life I had, but I was able to squeeze in a few things at the end of the month such as:

-Dinners in Downtown with Araceli
-The Viper Room to see Thomas Ian Nicholas
-Watching the Phillies/Dodgers game with Nick, Em, and Peter S
-Hitting up the Roxy to see Peter Daily and Flynn Adam with Peter S
-Hanging with Aaron to see Nathan Maxwell @ the Dragon Fly
-watching Rene, Tamra, and Brian make Xmas Soap
-attending Mark's Christmas Party

I also had to skip out on many events including Liz's and Topher's goodbye parties which I do apologize for as I'll miss both of them, but I'm sure it wont' be the last I see of those peeps.

Things will hopefully settle down a bit since my move to North Hollywood. I really am looking forward to hitting the gym up everyday again. I haven't had ANY time to do so in the last three months and my mental calm is being tried due to this. The gym I just joined has kickboxing and yoga which are my two fav work outs aside from the eliptical, so I'm pretty stoked.

Another thing to be excited about is decorating my new place. I'll probably go about it a room at a time. Maybe starting with the bathroom first and then on the closet since that room is closest to being done as is.

Right now I'm in Ohio at my sister's place. The new nephew, Remy, is sooo cool, but it still seems weird that my sister had a baby. I kinda feel like they picked it up at the store or something..We also brought Horace, our dog, along with us. He seems quite jealous of Remy since he's used to being spoiled with love, but hopefully he'll come around. The only other thing worth mentioning is that for the first time ever my Dad has a beard! I've never seen him with one, and he claims he's never grown one before. It's mostly white with a few gray & black specs. The other day he went into McDonalds with a red sweater on and his santa hat and he was ran sacked by kids who thought he was Santa Claus, but really he's Santa Clive :)

Today Laurean and I did some last minute shopping, but we've now settled in for some Chinese take-out (not my choice) and will later go to see Princess and the Frog with Adam. While waiting for the food to go down, Dad, Horace, and I are tuning into Dr. Who followed by the Black Adder's Christmas Special. Yip!

The Rest of the IMG Live Tour

2009-12-24T14:12:00.000-08:00

Alright, time for me to get this ball rolling on the rest of the tour.

We went to Houston for a gig and then I believe proceeded straight to New Orleans after this again.

I got to see my friend, Maggie, who's going to school down there, and Juan got to check out the strip clubs on Bourbon Street.

There was also three stops in Missouri. While we were in one city, I researched the local sites to see, and went on a trip to the caverns. This was cool because it wasn't walk through, but an actual ride. I also learned that the caverns were used for Speakeasys, cults, and other crazy happenings in the 1700s. They had the original signatures of the 7 women that volunteered to explore the cave which was cool and the outside area around the caves were pretty bomb.

After getting the hell outta Missouri, we high-tailed it back to Atlanta. On the way Juan got a warning which was only really amusing because I got a warning earlier on while driving too. So for the rest of the tour I wasn't allowed to drive in Texas and he wasn't allowed to drive in Arkansas :)

We finally got back to Atlanta and met up with Dougie, Charlie, and Adrian for a little goodbye meal while watching the football game on tv. The next day Juan and I parted ways and resumed our lives off the road. I had a great time with Araceli, Rod, and Juan. All of them plus those other kats at IMG Live I met this summer were great.

Just a Quick Interjection

2009-11-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

So, I'm sorry that it's been a while since I posted here, I've had to move and rearrange things in my life and blogging hasn't been the major priority.

Hopefully though i'll be able to figure out things and get back on track soon enough. Right now I'll try to spend the afternoon working on my webpage. I would like to get that rolling now that I have business cards made provided by Moo.com, which i highly recommend!

Hang in there for me, and I'll chat with you soon!

Thanks!

Mb

Down In San Antonio, TX

2009-11-22T15:50:00.000-08:00

We were in San Antonio for a couple of days before the event. Luckily we stayed in Towneplace Suites during this time so there was a kitchen and lovely flat screen TV to take advantage of.

Juan and I were both in hearing impaired rooms so we took advantage of bothering each other sporadically throughout the days there ringing the door bells, which were loud, obnoxious, and annoying if anything. But it was a lot of fun!!

The first night there neither one of us felt like going out. I was still feeling the hangover from drinking the evening before and Juan I think didn’t get enough sleep either. Both of us just watched the TrueBlood marathon that was going on and made plans later to grab food for ourselves and shop for the even the next day.

After the Trueblood season finally, I decided to try to get in a little of San Antonio and visit the Alamo. Whenever I visit, I always think of the Alamo Basement joke, and Ozzy Osbourne peeing on the Alamo. Gotta be a tough break to never be allowed to visit this city again, it’s pretty beautiful. I like to think of it as the New Orleans of Texas, except less drinking and more relaxation.

I got out to the riverwalk rather late, so I was only on it for a little bit. I did swing by the Alamo though, but again it was late so there was no where to park and everything was closed down for the day.

Last time I was there was with Voodoo Daddy and I was able to walk around a little more. I sat out by the river and had a margarita by myself and took in the view. The only bummer I ever experience from touring is that I always miss my friends the most when I’m taking in the greatest things that make me happy, probably because I wish they were there for them as well. Just to share in it all.

The event the next day was good. Here our buddy, Vince Clemons joined us. The call center was divided into two buildings so we broke our power hours in half and were able to squeeze in a lunch at FreeBirds to boot!

We left immediately after the event and headed to Houston. Woot woot!

Summin' up the Good Stuff Sept-October 2009

2009-11-22T15:49:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been quite sometime since I've gotten everything up to date!

Sorry that all these blog entries are coming in in one go, but that's how it goes when I have an ample amount of free time and just feel like bounding out my adventures on a keyboard!

Since you're already been hit with a ton of updates that are ummm...a little lenghty, I figure I'll just bulletin the current events of September & October, with a wee bit of detail.

September - October

-Moved! : yup, it FINALLY happened!!! I moved right when I got back home from my place in Van Nuys to a new place below downtown LA. Now I'm living with a new set of boys from my Emerson days, and surprisingly, they're alot cleaner.

-Back to Lush: as I am a little worker bee, I just went straight back to working at the ol' soap shop as soon as I knew my end date, now we're prepping for the holidays and getting some awesome new items which I'm super excited about!

-CenterStaging: I went back here too, but wasn't working through the month of October due to the company transitioning, but now I just started back and look forward to being there for a while with a fresh start and a new desk :)

-Disneyland: another thing I always like to do when I come back home is take another vacation!! Haha. So the easiest and cheapest one (because I have the annual pass) is Disneyland. Usually my tours always end around October, so I get to catch the fall decorations that are at the park and see the Haunted Mansion decorated with Nightmare Before Christmas stuff (love it). I probably went 2 or 3 times when I was home, once with Alexis and Tamra, then another time by myself (which was actually really awesome) then another time with Tamra and some friends. Hopefully, I'll go one more time before my pass expires, but we'll see.....yeah I know I'm a little freak..

-Friends: caught up with a couple of people when I got home like Emily, Nick, Tamra, Camila, Peter S, Cricket. Also went to some parties and missed some others :/ but what are you gonna do when you get triple booked on the weekends!!

-Shows: Saw Dr. Dog at the Music Box which I was really looking forward to and caught up with Sara and Kevin there. Also saw Flynn Adam and Peter Daily play at On the Rox which was a good time. I've been meaning to go to a burlesque show that some friends of mine, and my roommate have talked about, but still haven't found the time to do that. Also saw the opening act for Dr. Dog, can't remember the name of the artist, but I'd really been interested to hear his music live, now I'm not sure if I've still completely into his sound though. As soon as the dust settles though (as I just got back from another trip) I'll probably see who's playing and go check them out.

-VooDoo Fest: Well, this event was super yummy! Again I had to take a car and metro a bus and a plane to get there but it was an adventure all the same. I stayed over in Loyola with my good friend Maggie. It was sooo cool to see her school and check out New Orleans from a different location then the quarter. While Maggie was in school I would go to the Audubon Zoo which was located near her campus. I hadn't been there since I was really small, and of course it looked different, but I had vague memories of a few locations in the zoo. One of my favorite parts was the swamp area where you're walking on a wooden bridge for the most part. There, of course, is where they keep the alligators and other swamp livin' creatures. They also had 2 of the 8 (?) albino alligators there still. I think 3 had died and the rest are in a farm in Myrtle Beach.

The hurricane really gave the zoo a bit of a beating, but aside from alot of the trees being gone, everything else seemed fairly similar from what I remember.

Another location I went to was the French Quarter. I went down there one day by myself over near Jackson Square and checked out the church for the first time. It was real nice inside, but nothing I'd call super amazing. I suppose once you have seen some of the greater churches in the world that are all in europe, some other churches just can't make the cut.

As much as I am not a festival person, I did enjoy this one. Probably because I got a mad hook-up from my friend, Dan. We got there on Friday and I got my wristband which apparently had access to some special lounge where they kept the free food and free massages. There was also no need to campout infront of the stages for hours as we had access to a special area that provided front row access!

The first day was a little crazy. I kept trying to find Maggie and her friend, Ryan, which failed for th most part. It was also raining alot, which was no bueno. Eventually I found them towards the end of the evening, but couldn't hang with them for too long, as I was going to the Park the Van Showcase near the quarter. Eminem was supposed to be playing at the festival that evening, but Maggie and I got to see his soundcheck the day before (curtosey of Dan), so I was satisfied with that.
After leaving the festival I met up with my friend, Kevin near the quarter and he took me to where the show was. Spinto Band, the Generationals, and The Peekers were playing that night, and it was definitely a show not to miss. Spinto Band of course did a great job as always, and the Generationals were interesting too. I'd never heard them before, and will probably give a listen to them in the future. I really liked how they had a female drummer, and she was quite good and quirky.
The Peekers rounded out the show headlining. This was suiting for them as it was their last show ever, kind of a bummer, but things have to change I suppose. Kevin, was hoping that Giant Clouds and some other bands under PTV might be able to play some of the Peekers songs live in their sets, which isn't a bad idea, but has to be something I guess the Peekers agree upon.
I'm a little sad about the Peekers not coming out with anymore music collectively, but I think there will be branch offs from that group that might be just as strong. I am happy though I got to hear 'Close My Eyes' one more time, I wish they would've played 'Hey Little Kitty' also though.
After getting a ride back to campus from Kevin, I went to go reunite with Maggie and her friends. They were at this bar called The Boot which wasn't too far of a walk. Just being there made me think of how I was sooo over (and really never into) the college dancing scene. I dunno, maybe it just depends where you group up. This place was loud trendy music (mainly hip hop) and alot of people grinding and drinking. Sooo not what i'm into. I prefer dancing with friends and going to bars yep yep yep. Soon as I go to the bar though, everyone was pretty much ready to head out, which was fine with me, I was pretty tired.

The second day of Voodoo Fest was Halloween! This was probably the first year I really didn't pay attention to the holiday as much though due to being busy with music all day. When Maggie, Ryan, and me got there, I volunteered to get us some free food from the VIP area. As I was in line for food I was texting Dan, and eventually met up with him for some Wolfmother sidestage passes. It was a little stressful for a second to get Maggie and Ryan to meet up with me on the right side of the stage. There was sooo many people and Maggie's reception on her phone wasn't on point. But we found each other and went backstage for ths show. Maggie and Ryan were super excited about it, which made me really happy. I always love to spoil Ms. Mags when I'm able to :)
After Wolfmother played we exited over by the VIP area & VIP pit, since Maggie and Ryan had regular tickets, we just stayed here a while until it was time for KISS to play. After Jane's Addication wrapped on the other stage, KISS was gearing up to go on! I was telling Maggie earlier that day that I was actually kinda excited to see them. I mean, if you think about it, they're one of the most iconic living acts still around today, so it would be worth seeing. The show was amazing, and seeing KISS on Halloween is just the coolest thing in itself. I can't believe that they're now the best show I've ever seen live, but it's true! And I only know one of their songs!! After the show we went back to the VIP area and ate some of the KISS cake that was made for the VIP area. It was soo good!
To finish off the night, we were going to go down to Bourbon & Frenchman for some crazy times, but as soon as we got back to the dorm rooms reality hit, and we were tired. We opted instead to go back to th bar area around the campus as it would be just a walk and wouldn't take as long to get there. Again, it reminded me of college and a part of my life I was already over and done with, but it was a good time all the same to be hang with Maggie and meet some of her friends. Maggie's roommate Carla also joined us later that night which was awesome. She's just a ball of fun!
The next day we slept in for a bit, but went to go check out some band that Maggie and Ryan really wanted to see. I went to go get grits at the VIP area. I was also gonna try getting a free massage, but the line was long for that and the show was done for Maggie and Ryan. We went back to campus to get some food then took showers and napped for a while. We were gonna head back to the show to catch Flaming Lips play at 6ish, but then I got in contact with Dan again and he was gonna hook me up with some side stage passes for that. We hurried on down there, but by the time I met up with him they were over capacity for the side stage so we couldnt' get in for that. No worries there though, Dan, definitely did his best hooking me up that weekend for sure :) He also gave me and my friends some side stage passes for Lenny Kravitz. Not an artist I thought I'd see perform ever, but he was pretty good. When we went backstage for that, we had to hang out on the other side of the gate for a bit because Lenny, himself, was getting to the stage and they didnt' want anyone moving around til he was on it. We did get to see the drummer and the guitarist for the band backstage and they were really chill. Maggie and Ryan were having a good time taking pictures etc. so that made me happy.
After the show Ryan left for Baton Rouge and me and Mags just chilled and went to sleep.
On my last full day in New Orleans, I spent it in the French Quarter. I wanted to go shopping and get Maggie some cute things since she was nice enough to let me stay with her, and I hadn't bought her anything in years. I thought of it as making up for birthdays. I also had lunch with Frances Bordlee which was awesome. I hadn't seen her in a while and it was good to catch up with her on her life and what she was up to. Her and I went to Two Sisters for lunch and just exchanged info on other people we new as well as talked about ourselves and our own personal plans for the next year. It was really awesome, I missed Frances.
After parting ways, the shopping commenced and I picked up some lovely things for Ms Mags to make up for all those Bdays I missed.

That evening, Mags, me and her roommate, Carla, went to a near by night spot for some late night grubbage. The next day I caught the streetcar up to some road, which took me to some bus, which then took me to the airport and flew back to Los Angeles. It was a great stay with Mags and I am soo happy that Dan was able to hook it up and get me a pass to voodoo fest!

Out in Austin

2009-09-26T12:16:00.001-07:00

As we had a lovely weekend ahead of us, Juan and I decided to take a side trip over to Austin, TX before going to San Antonio.

On the way we stopped in a town called Ozark? It apparently has a statue of Davey Crockett there. The statue was meant to go over to a town called Crockett not too far from Ozark, but someone got lost/lazy delivering it, so there in Ozark it lies!

We had lunch at some tiny little restaurant there. The wait-staff was pretty chill, but they kept on thinking Juan and me were a couple, probably becuase we joke around and bicker sooo much on the road.

The town was cute, but super small, still the Davey statue is worth mentioning I suppose.

We got in around 8ish to the city and checked into a spot right off 2nd street I believe...could've been first.

It was a little early for partying at the moment and it was raining ALOT, so Juan and I went to a Irish spot on 6th and had some dinner. I had some fish with a little HP sauce, which wasn't made in the UK but was made up in Canada (psh..), and Juan had some mini burgers or something.....

After eating we walked around for a bit up and down the strip. Soon we decided to just start bar hopping and taking shots and different spots. We must have had about 14 shots before the night was out...along the way we met some other marketing people that were promoting for some sports thing...it caught our eye becuase their signs said something about DIRECTV. We all got to talking and later on met up with them after work which was cool. You dont' really get to bump into a ton of marketing people while you're out on a marketing tour surprisingly, so it was nice to meet kindred spirits that evening.

The rain was still coming down though, and since it was getting really late Juan and I decided to bail from the bar we were all at and head back to the hotel.

The next day I woke up with quite a headache and made Juan drive us to San Antonio, but not before stopping at Freebirds for a tasty burrito for the journey :)

On to El Paso

2009-09-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

We left after our Paris, TX event for El Paso.

It was an okay drive, pretty long. The only thing I can really say was memorable about El Paso was that it's right next to the Mexican Border, and the alcohol over there is wicked cheap.

Juan and I had dinner with one of his friends at Cheddars and she was saying that there is a drink special every day of the weeknight. I thought this was crazy. I had never seen large margaritas and other mixed drinks for 4-5 dollars, that's sumthin'

We were thinking of going to hop over the border and have a drink in Mexico, but it was getting late and I think the drive pretty much took all our energy away.

The event here went pretty well. We were trying to see if we could get out of there early enough to go to Carlsbad Caverns. I'd been there once before and from what I can remember it's pretty much worth seeing. However, it closed at around 5 and we weren't outta work that day til around 6pm. On the way out of El Paso, we also saw the McDonald's Observatory, another awesome site to see and check out all the stars. I had also been there, but it was a very long time ago and i was super young so i barely remember anything, except wondering if i could get some french fries there.

We stopped in Fort Stockton that night, again there really wasn't much there..

on a side note, i just rememberd that at the call center in Paris, TX, I think we stayed at one of their first Hampton Inn hotels. One of the ladies at the call center was talking about where we were staying and saying how excited she was when the hotel first was built that she rented out a room there and stayed the night just to test it out...I thought this was alittle odd, but I suppose even small town folk need a small escape from small town living....

DTV DOES DALLAS!...and Paris

2009-09-24T09:44:00.000-07:00

There wasn't too much to see on the way to Dallas except for a Buccees. I've never seen a gas station that looks more like a theme park in my life aside from this place. They even had an electronical beaver to great you when you entered the store..soo weird.

When we finally got to Dallas, it was around 8pm. Cari,(my cousin), and I planned to meet up for a little bit since she lived near the area. It was good seeing her and nice to take a break from tour with family. She was telling me all about her wedding and her bachelorette party plans...i was getting a little bummed i wasn't going to be able to go to her bachelorette party because of tour. Financially though it was probably better for me to not attend.

Next morning Erin, Cari, and myself went to IHOP for breakfast. There wasn't too much to the rest of my visit aside from this.

We only really made a pit stop here before getting to Paris, TX later on that day.

When we arrived in Paris, we first went to the Eiffel Tower there. Of course, knowing Texas, they put a cowboy hat on top of the tower. Juan and I climbed it to take some pictures which was fun for a little bit. That was pretty much the extent of excitement we had in that town. Paris really doesn't have too much going on in the town.

Onward to El Paso!

Strike Force Tour: Week 1, Part 1- Norcross, GA to New Orleans, LA

2009-09-20T19:13:00.000-07:00

After landing in Atlanta, I met Juan at baggage claim and we took the Marta to Norcross. Juan was the Tour Manager for the East Coast version of the tour I was on, so it was good to catch up with him and swap stories from both our time spent on the road.

Dougie soon scooped us from the Marta Station and we immediately went over to IMG Live to begin advancing our tour (ie booking hotel rooms, calling balloon locations etc). Juan and I pretty much couldn't stop laughing and joking around, which I've rarely been able to find in another person on the road, so I enjoyed it, eventually though we did get our work done for the day and checked into our hotel rooms that evening.

Friday was somewhat of the same. Juan went out to get us some food and one point and change the oil to the car, but aside from that we just stuffed balloons and prepped shipping them for Strike Force team 1 and 2.

Saturday we left for the road. Juan had never been to New Orleans so we decided to make a pit stop there for the evening. We got there around 4 in the afternoon, but had to walk around a bit until our rooms were ready. We started at Pat O'Briens (where else?) and got some hurricanes, then we slowly made our way down Bourbon street. Juan loved it. He said it reminded him of some part of Florida...I can't remember which though. We eventually stopped at the Gumbo Shop to get some dinner, it was okay, not the best cajun cuisine i'd had, but decent.

Our hotel room ended up being ready after dinner so we checked in. I was pretty beat from that day, and since there was a Gay Festival going on, which meant, alot more crazy people having lots of fun then i was willing to deal with, I opted out of returning to the streets past 10pm. Juan however went out and had a good time, which I'm happy about. I'm always glad when I break people in to New Orleans, makes me feel like I've done my duty as a local citizen :)

The next morning we were set to leave around 1ish. I got up early so I could have time to walk around Jackson Square and meet my friend, Kevin, for breakfast. I quickly took a stroll over to Cafe Du Monde to grab some Beignets and coffee, then power walked down to Poydras where Mother's is located to have some food.

It was good to see Kevin again, we basically caught up and he was telling me all about life in NOLA and how he'd got another job working for a TV Production company. He also told me that Dr. Dog had moved on to Epitaph which I thought was a little sad, but hey, suppose it had to happen, and that the Peekers were breaking up. I was really bummed out by this. They're such a great band, but when you problems that can't be fixed, I suppose that's how it goes...

After saying goodbye to Kevin, I headed on back to the hotel and met up with Juan. We said goodbye to the lovely Big Easy, and started to make our way north to Dallas, TX for another night to stop and say hello to friends before hitting out final destination in Paris, TX.

I'll report on Dallas a little later, now it's time to take a nap!

Out with the Old and in with the New!

2009-09-18T12:52:00.000-07:00

I landed in Dayton, OH later on that day...around 7pm. I thought that it would just be my mom and possible dad picking me up, but it turned out to be Laurean and Adam (bro by law) too!

I finally got to see my sister pregnant which was awesome! i was so sure i'd missed my chance earlier in July when I planned to see her after my two week training in Atlanta, GA on the way to my first event of the tour.

Anyways, it was evident that the baby was about ready to be born by the size of her stomach. I'll refrain from description because in case Laurean does read this, I wouldn't want to say anything that would make her feel sensitive about being pregnant, because it's a beautiful thing regardless of whether or not you feel that way when you are pregnant 100% of the time.

Not too much else happened on the ride from the airport back to West Chester, OH where my sister and bro by law live. The only thing of note was that past Monroe, OH, my sister and mom showed me the Touchdown Jesus! It is probably the most ridiculous thing to have in the middle of nowhere.

Take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Kings_(statue)

The only thing I wonder about this is if pilots point this out to passengers when they're flying overhead....hmmm...

when we finally got to West Chester, we stopped at a Roadhouse Ribs place for dinner. I was itching to grab a book to read for the car ride back to Philly the following day so after dinner I asked my parents if it was possible to drop everyone off and then one of them let me go over to barnes and noble real quick to pick up a book i had in mind.

Dad was completely against this, mom said no too. And of course neither of them wanted me driving alone in rural Ohio at night.....sooo weird. Adam pointed out the barnes and noble was literally a 2minute walk across the road from where we were. So i decided that while they were waiting for the bill I'd walk over there and get what I wanted. Mom again, started acting all crazy saying 'no i don't want you walking out there! you might get accosted!!!!....

Now folks, let it be noted this was one of those really nice shopping areas, not Compton, CA...so the idea that my mom thought i would get accosted exiting one building,and then walking two minutes to get to the next building is completely and utterly RIDICULOUS. And yes, i did call my mom crazy for this.....It's like she forgets I travel around for work and am hanging out in cities late at night on the regular by myself....geez....

Anyways, I still went across the street (by myself & no i didn't get accosted) to get my book. I wanted to start reading the Sookie Stackhouse books that are best known for inspiring the hit tv show Trueblood.

Next morning we set out bright and early to start back to philly. I read my book, listened to music, and slept most of the way. We also stopped somewhere in the morning to get some Coldstone. My mom and dad love ice cream, so that was our little treat for the day. I got a sorbet.

After getting home that evening, Tara came over and we go to catch up for a bit. We went out to have some dinner over at howl and the moon, but it was closed. AS we were making our way into Kennett Square though, we did see Darryl Brown! I hadn't seen him since i dunno, i guess graduation or something. It was nice to see how he was doing. I think he said he'll probably finish up working at the bike shop til winter up in Philly and then close that down to do the same thing in Key West. Sounds like a pretty good setup in my opinion, having consistency that varies here and there, however I also think he said he's probably not gonna return to Philly to do it next year though....

The next day I went out to lunch with Mrs. Buckwalter and my mom to Two Fat Guys. What made this outing sooo eventful was that we saw Fran Wildralaga there. I like him a bunch and even though there wasn't tons to talk about with him, it was still awesome to see his face!

Later on we heard from Laurean that she was in labor and started to await the birth of my new nephew/niece....oh the anticipation.....it took a little over 24 hours for Laurean to actually give birth, and in all that time we I watched Trueblood, hung out with some more of mom's friends for a chapagne lunch, we driving around with dad, and went to Lush and the Christiana mall....also saw mike Pesce there too!

Finally the kid was born in the evening. The hospital Laurean had the baby in was practically a resort! the pictures for the place were CRAZY! The baby ended up being a boy and was named Remy Alexander Leigh. I think mom was a little worried Laurean and Adam would name it something crazy, but they have good taste with those types of things, and the baby is half Broadbent, so it will have taste anyways :)

The remainder of my stay with the parents was good. I went out one more time with Chris Harne to see 'Inglorious Bastards' it was okay, not my fav Taratino film for sure. Thursday finally rolled around and I left early in the morning to start a new tour in Atlanta..and so it goes

End of Tour- DA WRAP UP!

2009-09-16T13:54:00.000-07:00

So after dropping off Araceli at the airport I reported back to IMG Live for a day of work ahead.

It was raining alot that day, but i didn't mind working outside. A Californian (well, sort of) such as my self rarely gets the opportunity to relish in a day of gloom and thunder, so I enjoyed my labors outside. Dougie wanted me to tidy up all 3 trailers from the tours that had just finished. I started with Direct Sales East since that was the easiest. After doing inventory there, I moved on to the Sell and Save trailers which had alot more items in them. I can't believe they were able to fit all their luggage in there.

I was in the middle of figuring out how i was going organize the Sell and Save East's trailer when another IMG LIVE Tour celebrity appeared to help the cause! Jay Couch had been helping IMG Live out with Coke and other random errands in the office that week, so Dougie sent him out to help me too. With Jay there, everything went alot faster. I think the best part of the day though was when Smitty needed us to remove the brake governor boxes for the trailers from each of the vehicles.

It was easy to get the ones from the Expeditions out, but the 15 passenger vans were a completely different beast. First we tried twisting our hands deep inside the heart of the car where the cord was nestled/tangled through, then we decided to sort of 'disect' the car by unclipping the front console area and pulling it to the side. It was CRAZY to see the engine RIGHT THERE! then we figured that the cord twisted even higher up. Luckily Jay knew how to carefully disassemble the plastic that was around the audio/radio area. After he did so, we found the cord just chillin' there connected to the outlet. AFter this little dilemma it was easy to get the black box outta the other vehicle.

When this was all said and done, we still had to run the trailers all over to the warehouse, while getting oil changes and cars cleaned. Jay had to be out at 4 that day, so we were only able to get the car cleaned up...oil changes would have taken too long...

As we were somewhere along packing up the trailer, Dougie told me that my tour had been post-poned a week and that I would be able to fly home to see family for a bit. This was awesome because my sister was about to have her baby and I hadn't seen her pregnant yet, so the timing was too good.

Jay finally left at 4, and my last task of the day was to go down to the warehouse and chain up all the trailers, which I'll tell ya, was not an easy task. Those chains are heavy to wrap around 1, and 2, I thought I'd grabbed enough long chains the first time at Home Depot, but after getting back to the warehouse and realizing I didn't have enough chain, I had to drop work for a second, go back to Home Depot, and get more chains to tie around the trailers. But hey, at least I now know I can chain trailers together!

When i was done, i was going to try to meet up with Jay Finn for dinner, but our timing wasnt working for us that evening. So I just went back to my hotel room and chilled that evening.

The next day I ran errands in the morning, mailing Rod and ARaceli's things to them via UPS and making sure all the locks & keys were together for the right trailer. I also had time to grab some awesome Sushi and Publix. There was someone in the IMG office who had sushi and it tasted pretty good for grocery bought, so since I had no time for Happy Sumo, and still harbored the craving for some spicy tuna, I opted for this. It was good stuff.

Eventually it got around the time to leave and head to the Marta. The hotel called me their regular cab service which turned out to be a Lincoln Towncar...I was not thrilled about this...I think the last time i was in a towncar i was in New York, and probably tipped the guy as poorly as I did this one to the Marta. When I see fancy cars, and no meters telling me how much to pay, and someone just throws a number outta the air, I immediately feel ripped, and don't tip good.

I could have called a regular cab, refusing the towncars' service, but I was running outta time. The whole time though the driver kept on saying I should just take him straight to the airport and not bother with the Marta. I told him i'd take my chances, that i liked the train, and that cab fares are too expense & the Marta is cheap...he still tried, no result though...

After I paid him 18.00 for the ride (seriously, it was like 15mins away) and tipped him 2.00 (to which he said that was cheap..yeah i didn't care) I was off to ride the Marta and get to the airport.

Anyways, gotta jet for now, more tales to tell later!

MB

Tour Part Three-Missouri Central

2009-09-01T10:58:00.000-07:00

Alright, so after we ventured into Lee's Summit, MO, we settled into our hotel and rested up. It was good to be stationary for a day or so since we'd been roaming the roads of the America for a little while.

The following week and a half continued on as such. There isn't too much fun to be had in the rule areas of Missouri. I believe after our second event in Olivette, MO me and Araceli went to Massage Envy to spoil ourselves from all our hard work. Araceli had a good massage, mine sucked. I don't know why people think that when I tell them they need to put lots of pressure on my massage they always give me a cold fish massage. Oh well....Anyways after that we went to get sushi, but there was no place around the area for such. We settled on store bought sushi (or at least i did) but disappointed still, none the less.

That weekend we stayed in St Louis at the Hampton Inn. I'd been there a year ago, but the Hampton Inn changed it's location and moved closer to the heart of the city. It was super vamped up too which was great. Definately an improvement. Araceli and I walked around the Arch, the parks, we went to the zoo, art & history museum, and even had time to get lost in Forest Park because we forgot where we parked our vehicle. We also went out for sushi with Rod and one of his old tourmates which was fun and to the City Museum! The City Museum is a childrens museum during the day, but is open to everyone at night on the weekends. You can also get alcohol and run around through all the caves and jungle gyms they have set up there. It was the craziest thing and gave me more respect for the that city because we went there. They also had a wedding reception going on there which was pretty cool. I suppose if i lived in St Louis, that would be the location I'd want my wedding to be at :)

The only down side to this whole trip was that our car was broken into. It was annoying and could have been avoided if Hampton Inn's security guard wasn't on the interweb, but alas, that was the case and therefore we got our car broken into. They only stole our GPS and a car charger though, so that was good it wasn't something more valuable since all of us left at least one bag in the car.

The morning after this we all packed up and left for our last event in Cape Girardeau, MO. It was a cute little place, and the people there were super nice. I was happy it was our last stop, and extremely easy. The day was a little long, but went by soon enough. After the event Araceli and I said goodbye to Rod, who'd rented a car earlier that day so he could just drive home to Ohio after the gig. it was great having Rod on tour, he was a super helpful tourmate, hopefully I'll work with him again in the future. Araceli and I journeyed on to Norcross, GA and got in around 2am the next morning. The rooms we booked were awesome though, had nice little kitchens, a seperate bedroom, and a living room area. it was wonderful to see that after a long trip :)

The next day I went to the office and started unloading the my truck and the warehouse and doing the regular inventory. Then I went over to IMG Live to get another set of keys to Juan's trailer to do the same. As I was waiting for Dougie to finish up a meeting, I heard some familiar voices. The door soon opened and after Josh Pate low-fived me, out came Charlie and Adrian with hi-five's of their own! It was good seeing the two of them again, and most unexpected as their tour finished a week earlier. They however were out on another extension of their own. After catching up on how each other's tour went, and getting a few things out of trailers, I took Juan's trailer to the warehouse and Dougie drove Charlie and Adrian out to the airport for their flight to colorado for work.

I then went back to hang with Araceli for a bit, her and i scheduled another massage together and were planning on going to MAC again to get another good ole' discount on products. The girl at MAC wasn't as cool as the first one we went to in Chicago, but still fairly informed. AFter the massage, which was sooo freakin good! we went back to the hotel and tried to get some sleep.

In the morning, we nearly missed Araceli's flight because we both slept in, then after dropping her off, she realized her purse was still in the car! however all thoughts of missing the plane were averted and she got home safely.

alright, have to take a break writing now. I'll continue onward in a bit for a little taste of what I've been doing since then.

later

Tour Part Two-California Leg Done and Done

2009-08-31T16:19:00.000-07:00

Well, the tour was done a little while ago. I do want to keep things compartmentalized however, so I'm going to have to break up the rest of the tour into separate blogs...they'll just all be written today since I have time.

Alright, after our overnight drive from Rock Island, IL to San Jose, which I am VERY proud of my team for being so adamant about doing, we crept on into San Jose, CA in the late evening. I checked with my mates to see if it was alright for me to take the car on down to Los Angeles, A) so I wouldn't have to pay for a rental car B) so I could go see No Doubt C) so I could save us some money by spending the night at home. They were quite cool with it which rocked.

It was a nice drive down the 5 the next morning, and around 11ish I was safe and sound back in Los Angeles. I believe that day I went home to check on my mail, then went down to Torrence, CA to see another old tourmate of mine, Matt, who was working for the same company, but on a different tour. Matt and I had promised to see the new Harry Potter movie together, and it just so happened Matt found a time that worked for both of us that day. Due to LA traffic, though, I was a little late. The movie was good though, and Cliff, Matt's Asst Tour Manager, also joined us. Afterwards, we went to some Dog-named bar and insisted that Cliff get a Hot Toddy to relieve himself of a cold he was fighting off. He wasn't too impressed with our remedy, but I think it might have worked for him in the long run :)

Later on, Matt's cousin, Chris?, joined us along with Matt's friend, Jennifer. Jennifer was showing us some of her jewelry collection which was very pretty and apparently she lives very close to me in the Valley so hopefully I'll be seeing her again sometime. Chris was a fun hang too. He was telling us about being a pilot and flying for private affairs in different places. Very exciting stuff. It was very good to meet some of Matt's family and friends I always feel like you learn a little more about a person by meeting people they've grown up with.

The next day was No Doubt! I had some breakfast with another former tourmate Susan, and her boyfriend, Steve at the Griddle. Matt was supposed to meet up with us, but he ended up sleeping in, which was a bummer but understandable, touring does make one tired at times. Susan and Steve told me they were going to go kayaking that day in Marina Del Ray and invited me to come, however I couldnt because of No Doubt. I then went back to my house and got ready for the concert. Alexis, who i was going to the show with met up with me and we then headed down the 5 to the show in Irvine.

On the way we stopped in Seal Beach for a drink at Dan's Beachcomber? at least i think that was the name of the bar...it was an awesome scene in there. Very tropical and jungle like. We went at happy hour too, so we were able to get a nice cheap dinner and a drink. We still however have no idea what a beachcomber is....

After drinks, we went to the No Doubt show and it was pretty great. I would have to say that it was good seeing them at a regular show aside from the Friends and Family show i went to earlier this year. I think there was just more energy on stage, and they changed a few things in the show too, which was neat to see. The openers were The Sounds and Paramore. I went in a fan of The Sounds and not a fan of Paramore and left with an entirely reversed opinion of both bands. Probably would have still liked The Sounds if Maja (the lead singer) wasn't gyrating all over the guitar players and looking like she stepped out of a Vogue magazine....

The next day I drove back up to San Jose and did a site check, the gig the day after that went really well! We got some high marks from our client and he said to our bosses and IMG Live that we were 'a well-oiled machine!' which was awesome.

When the San Jose gig was done, me and my team drove down the 5 again. Rod was dropped off in West LA, I went home, and Araceli took the car on to San Diego. A few days later we met up to do our gig in Pasadena, which was another success, then split up again in the same fashion. This time however i drove down to San Diego with my friend, Katie, to see another No Doubt show with Araceli and her buddy Dustin. At the first show I went to, there was a guy there offering $20 tickets and the seats were pretty good, not grass seats, sitting seats, at the amphitheater! So i nabbed a few for us to go see them.

It was a long drive to SD, but staying there made me realize how I should try and make a long weekend trip outta that place sometime, there is alot to do down there that I'd like to take advantage of sometime. Katie and I grabbed a drink before the show at some nearby shopping street place...Old Town? i think....then met up with Araceli and Dustin. We got there a little later just to catch No Doubt, which was awesome...i really didn't wanna sit through the whole show again....the only thing we had to deal with was knocking some 8 year olds outta our seats, since we arrived later, oh kids!

The seats were great, the show was fabulous, the ride home took longer then I liked, but the finale was awesome and memorable. At the first show, during the encore, No Doubt had all the bands come out during 'Stand and Deliver'. They had Hayley Williams and Maja come out to sing verses and their band members all came out at the end and ran around on stage. Being it was the last night for Paramore No Doubt first came out during Paramore's set and danced around in costumes, then during 'Stand and Deliver' paramore and the sounds came out all wearing tu-tu's to play off of the large pink tu-tu Adrian wears during the encore. During the second finale we saw, Shirley Manson came out to sing Hayley's part since Paramore was no longer on tour, and The Sounds came out dressed as No Doubt which was hilarious!!!!

Anyways, show was good, drove back up to LA after this, then went down to Marina Del Ray to go kayaking with nick and emily. that was another good time, then we went for mexican food and margaritas right afterwards. I also was able to put in a little bit of work at Center Staging while i was home. It was good seeing everyone again for a bit, I did miss working there.

My team later reconveigned and we went down to Tustin, CA for another gig. I went back up to LA that night to save more money, then on to San Diego the day after that, then back up to LA the night after the event. I'm glad I did, it was good to be at home for a bit and save some money in the same process. I was also able to have dinner with Cricket, Jesse, and Ryan too. We went to eat at Pann's and Jesse asked if I'd like to have the room that was open in their house...after a little bit of convincing and a night at their place I decided it would be a good move. I love my room in my place now, but it's gotten to the point where I'm just not happy there and no matter what I do to try to make myself happy there, some of the same problems will still exist. So to the other side of the hill it is!

Araceli and Rod picked me up at my house on Friday and we drove to Vegas. We had been talking about going to Pink Taco FOREVER and went there straight after we checked in. I also invited my friend, Jacob, to come with us and then we went to go see him play at Excaliber right afterwards. It was such a great night. His friend, Tony, who I'd met earlier that year, was also playing and it was great to see him again too! Jacob was sooo awesome playing, I was swooning at the bar watching him sing! haha! I just love guys who show off their talents, whatever they may be, it's truly one of the most attractive things to me. Anyways, after dancing around, and Araceli NEARLY losing her wallet, we went back to the hotel and next day on to Denver, CO.

We drove all day to get there, nothing to eventful aside from a late check-in and 8am check-out. On ward we went to Lee's Summit, MO, which didn't turn out to be a bad location I think...can't really remember....sooo many hotels....but it was a good adventure for the second leg none the less! Anyways that concludes this little update, check out da next one for more fun on the road :)

Tour Leg Part One- The Mid-West - Is OVER!!!

2009-07-30T15:25:00.000-07:00

yes my friends. Sad when things come to an end, but that's all a part of touring.

Chicago was a hurdle for us most definitely, but we took control at Rock Island for another successful event. As me and Rod like to say 'Cake.'

We woke up early and had plenty of time in the morning to get everything set up and ready to go. We were even able to get our oil changed a block away from the event, which is a huge blessing, and that only took 15min!

now we're on our way to San Jose. My team is soooo gung-ho to get there, that we're going to do a night drive straight to San Jose, get there tomorrow, and have the next three days off.

I however will be renting a car and gunning down to Calif for two days to see my boy, Matt on his tour, and partake in a No Doubt concert with my buddy Alexis. I'm hoping for a superb weekend and I think i just might get my wish! yippee!

Trying to decide whater or no I should buy swag at the ND show, or just go online. Always cheaper online....minimum will be a 25 dollar purchase on anything, 40 for a hoodie. Guess I'll just have to compare based on what I see.

Only obstacle between me getting my music done now and my webpage is time. I'm driving all night to the early morning to San Jose, so I can't really sing, which is what I have to do to write lyrics...I could work on my webpage, but I can't upload any pictures, since I don't have any that I find suitable....well, there is one I kinda like, but I'm not sure it really demonstrates being a tour manager. suppose I'll just have to see if it gels.

Alright, now I'm gonna try to upload these pictures for my live reporting, but probably fail again due to bad reception. Then gonna watch season 1 of TrueBlood before I meet up with Matt in Cali.

Ta

IMG Live Tour Part 1

2009-07-29T15:49:00.001-07:00

Alright, so here's the lovely recap of touring for the past three weeks.

At the beginning of July I flew out from LA to Norcross, Ga for another lovely two week training session with the folks at IMG Live. Celebrities old and new were there such as Bryan Icenhower, Josh Pate, and Ryan Smith. Also my ol' buddy Matt was there too.

This made for a lovely time and I got to meet tons of new people which is always a perk when they have a good vibe about them.

Training was usual with lots of early mornings and end of day sessions.

My team for the AT&T West Coast looked to be pretty awesome. I have two people, both emcees, Araceli and Rod to work with on tour. Both have been super helpful from the get go and I can only imagine it will continue that way for the rest of the tour.

However I didn't get to spend too much 'team building' time with them during the work days as they divided the Emcee's and the Tour Managers up so that each could attend to their job to prepare for the tour.

My days were spent with Matt, Charlie, Juan, and Asst TM's Adrian & Cliff. Oh! such is the life of Mary B to always be working with men. But we had a good time getting things done, even though sometimes it took a little longer then need be, I think we really got to accomplishing everything 3 days before we left! haha. I suppose though it was good to spend time with other people since there seems to be a better outlet of communication between the other TM's and myself on this tour then any other tour I've experienced. All tours roll differently though.

After the two weeks of training, we headed out to our first event in Columbus. On the way Araceli and I experienced a minor problem with the electrical wire that runs from the trailer to the car to power the lights. We stopped at a walmart and figured out that the plug to the trailer must have come out and was scraping on the road. We then purchased an extension wire and a new cable to fix the problem. Luckily a kinda couple came over and knew exactly what to do so we were saved by 11pm! In these instances I'm pretty happy to have problems happen, mainly cuz they get solved in the end, but also so if it ever happens again, I can solve the problem.

When we arrived for our event in Columbus, I couldn't have asked for anything smoother & it was actually the first time I was able to see Araceli and Rod's presentation which was awesome. They have this sassy routine down that stands out from the usual cookie cutter presentations which can come off as fake. It's got charm for sure.

Kalamazoo had the same impact and no problems to it. After this event we said goodbye to Rod for the weekend and me and Araceli headed up to Chicago for a weekend of well-mannered frivolaty.

Araceli's friend, Jenn, let us keep our trailer by her house and she joined us in the city, along with our personal tour guide Noel. We went to eat at Lasalle, Rockit Bar, Aja, and the Beachstro. We took in sightseeing on a sunset tour in a boat (which was free) and we went on a bike ride along the water after getting a little sloshed at breakfast.

Araceli and I also went to Lush in Chicago. i got to see some of the new products they put out, like a choclate soap, sugar scrubs, lip balm, and my ULTIMATE FAV, a new face mask with bananas in it! We also went over to MAC and we both got hooked up with some awesome makeup, curtosey of Araceli.

I'd say overall the weekend in Chicago was great. There was a little confusion with boxes getting delivered from IMG Live to our hotel. Everyone in the hotel said there was no record of boxes being delivered. The man who the Transgroup shipping company said signed for the boxes said he didn't. It was a huge mess, luckily we found the 20 boxes in a conference room and the hotel allowed us to keep our trailer behind their grounds overnight for ultimate safety.....only bad this was this happened the next day AGAIN! when I had a package delivered to the hotel. They claimed they didn't have it and no one signed for it, then I went back behind the counter and found it. I don't like being a jerk to people, but after the same thing happening twice I had to tell the manager to get on top of this cuz it was the second instance it happened to my stuff. Sheesh!

Anyways, we drove to Rock Island and are staying in a lovely Hampton Inn by some pretty awesome bars and a cinema that's walking distance from my hotel room. I'm hoping to take adavantage of some of this, but fear that the days been spent. However I will be having dinner with a DIRECTV client and my team tonight, so that should be awesome all the same.

Tomorrow is our event in Rock Island, we're going to kill it like we always do. Then it's on for a night drive towards San Jose, CA. Hopefully we'll make it there by Aug 1st so I can rent a car and drive down to see Matt before his team leaves for Idaho, but most importantly so I can go catch NO DOUBT! with Alexis.

Gotta love touring...

Other news is Courtenay Green's booking seems to be going well. there was a little hiccup a few weeks ago since my time was dedicated to DTV, but now things have settled and I'm focusing on her more.

I'm also looking forward to getting back to Center Staging and see the lovely family there. I should have some catch up work to do for Kerry for sure. Also I'm hoping i can work with Barry on my vocals and I can get this website up and running as well as print some business cards.

Alright well off to do some more work for IMG Live.

Hamer Guitars: Amazing Custom Guitar Designs by Jol Dantzig. Handmade Guitars

2009-06-08T11:13:00.001-07:00

Hamer Guitars: Amazing Custom Guitar Designs by Jol Dantzig. Handmade Guitars

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2009-05-10T23:10:00.000-07:00

This past week I had the pleasure of ms. tara staying with me, which really means 'Mary the Tour Guide!' Week. I suppose this happens with most people who live in vacation/site-seeing/iconic places, and like most, I am not good at giving tours.

Tara had also been here before, so Disneyland, the beach, the hollywood sign, and other places that would 'oooo' and 'ahhhh' people were out of the question. Instead I took her to some locations that weren't as savvy to tourists, like:

-the griddle
-hiking in the hollywood hills
-Lex Deux (not classy, but a friend's band was playing)
-the metro
-downtown
-sushi mac
-hot dog on a stick
-diddy riese

These were all wonderful spots. We also went to the beach. Everytime I go there I am reminded of how much of a waterbaby I am, and how awesome it would be to just live by the beach so that I can wake up, have a mimosa, go for a swim, and then lie in a hammock all day. Instead I wake up to roaring garbage trucks, cop sirens, and noisy neighbors around noon, then have coffee, and go about my usual routine of moving with purpose. Oh well, one day.

I'm happy though that tara came out, she was a well needed distraction that preoccupied my mind whilest waiting for this next week to take shape. What may you ask will I be up to? The following!:

-Piloxing (kickboxing and pilates bootcamp!)
-dinner with my ex-roommate ryan ( I am excited, I've never had a guy prepare me dinner before)
-Brunch with Sue B and Steve!
-LOST season Finale
-Recording with Barry
-Party at Rene's
-No Doubt Friends & Family show in Vegas with Tracy!!!

Very exciting week ahead, I am especially excited for the last bit. I mean, who really gets to say they've gone to the Friends and Family show? Probably only a handful of people! This year my friends, I will be in that handful of people and it's going to be for free!!! hooray!

Not too much else is happening. Going to finish reading Coraline, the book, and see how it's different from the movie. So far it's very fast paced, which is good since I already know how it plays out, but Neil Gaiman could have given it a little more depth.

Well, time to go to bed, have to get up early for this kickboxing all this week. I practiced the other day, sort of to rejog my memory on stance and positioning, it went pretty well, only problem was I later discovered I poped a vein or something between my ring and pinky finger. it looks like I stained it with a marker, but it's definitely not a stain from ink, but of blood. Hopefully this will not happen tomorrow....also I hope my ankle will not break or something like that...it was pretty sore

The Weekend

2009-04-13T00:26:00.001-07:00

Alright, I'm going to try to remember as much as I can as I am EXTREMELY tired....

this week has been busy, lots of music blog researching and reaching out to people for the Music Management project I'm on. Also I wanted to help out my friend Emily sell her Peeps Pies, so I made some deliveries for her, and I barely had time to give Ol' Mamba a car wash, which she was in desperate need of.

One sexy happening though was my friend Lindsay finally got her Coraline shoes from Nike so I got to see those. here's a picture of what they looked like:

So for the past few nights I've made a nasty habit of staying up til like 2, 3 in the morning. This is pretty bad when you have to get up the next day at around 9 to go to work, get out of work at around 5, then come home, try to unwind for a hot minute, then busy the rest of your evening working on music management and contacting blogs for promotions....I am thankful to be doing this, just wish my body's clock wasn't so fishy.

This weekend I had two birthday parties to go to. Got to my friend Mark's just in time for the ol' Happy Birthday Song, then after a few house specialty drinks I decided to cancel on the second party. The rest of the evening was pretty awesome, i'm glad I stuck around for Mark's party. Just good people, good talk, and some catching up. I hate going to parties sometimes and it's alot of the same people you know....then you have to make small talk and sometimes that can be a bother if you're not really friends with the person, or you don't even know them, or you pretty much just have nothing to say to the person, but for some reason you've been shuffled together and have no one else to help fish you out of a bad situation.

I digress...at mark's party my ankle went out and since I was real tipsy I put weight on it and sprained it. It hurt real bad, had to sit down for a bit. Today it was swollen and still not feeling so good. I spoke to my friend who's taking massage therapy and she said I can't work out for a week Ugh! hopefully it will be healed tomorrow since she worked on it a bit for me tonight, but if not, it's off to swimming all week and light weights. Working out is my meditation, I can't NOT do it.

So after staying up til 3am for that party I woke up today at around 9 to meet emily and nick for breakfast at dupars'. pretty awesome joint, i thought there was more then three locations though. They have the most kickass mugs...and just thinking about those mugs makes me think about coffee and how i want some...but it's late and I shouldn't.....ANYWAYS they served their pancakes with liquid butter, it was weird, i prefer soft fluffy butter on my pancakes that's slightly melted and therefore a little frothy as it spreads itself across the surface of the pancake...hmmm. They were good though all the same, we all split a short stack and got omelettes. Then afterwards we checked out all their pies....ugh! delicious. Em and i went to 4&20, a different diner two weeks ago and experienced the same luxury of looking at pies, we were about to get one, but then em had to get back to work, oh wel.

alright, well tomorrow I have to get back to the grind of this Music Management thing I'm doing, then have a meeting for it at 7, then go to Thomas Ian Nicholas' Show at the Viper Room with Ryan...and some how work swimming into that as well as other errands....some how I'll manage.

A Little Update

2009-04-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

Alright so let's talk about how much I've been sweating Lamb's Baby Cami tan shoes...I have been loving these forever, but my wanting comes and goes for them...

Ugh Delicious!

Also I added my buddy Melissa Laine to my I SPY page. I have no idea why she wasn't on here sooner. Her stuff is remarkably clever & I am sooo happy/jealous of what she's able to come up with! Here's some stuff she's done:

The Peacock Shoes in the far corner are mine :)

Those are her designs she did for Roxy

Also my friend Emily just participated in LOLA's (ladies of los angeles)Spring Sale where she got to sell/show off some of her lovely baked goodies. Her online store is kicking but right now, I'm soo inspired by this lady...Here's her Peeps Pies she was selling at the event:

I swear I have soooo many creative friends, sometimes I feel like I'm doing nothing! But it's soo great to have them all around to inspire and motivate me for my own projects....Since we're on the topic....

The webpage is almost up and running, just waiting to hear some feed back from my brother in law who's helping me set up the page...I should work on this blog a bit though...needs a little remodeling to go with the website theme.

Music is coming along wonderfully, soon I'll have the first song up on the web. Started working on another song last week. My producer and me seem to be on the same page about it, but tides always change in that pool :)

I started helping out with mangaing this upcoming LA artist. I'm super excited about it cuz I get to learn loads about management, and get paid for it ;)

Waiting to hear on options for tour this summer, have a few looming, but hopefully will make decisions on it all next week.

Am going to start writing for a few different websites soon. I'm currently working on submitting my clips...

As soon as all this information is in order....which will be next week....I'll probably post another update....

til then cross your heart and fingers for me!

Where the Wild Things Are!?!

2009-03-30T09:44:00.000-07:00

Quite excited for this.....

Let's talk about how genius it is to put this movie to Flaming Lips...

So Inspired

2009-03-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

As of recent I've decided I'm way over due to get my own webpage running. So this week it's all about that...and taxes. Tamra's volunteered to help me with the graphic design element, nick the html bit and my sister with obtaining the domain name.
Can't wait til it's up. It will definately be a step in the right direction, for now though I want you guys to note how awesome another super hot female friend of mine is doing. Ms. Melissa Scotton.

Check out all she's done!

check more of her stuff out at Twentyfree.com

February Wrap UP

2009-03-02T12:43:00.001-08:00

well, a wurl-wind of events has occurred since I last made an entry.

It all started towards the end of January when I decided to redecorate my living room. After searching for just the right couch, I asked my friend Camila to assist me with picking it up in her big truck. To show my appreciation, I took her to a resturant in Canoga Park, where on the way I got into an accident.

Someone hit me and another car from behind. My damage didnt' look soo bad, but due to the fact that my car is in 'fair' condition, the insurance agency declared it totaled. Therefore car shopping was in order!

I recieved the actual news of the car being totaled on my trip to disneyland for my friend nick's birthday. good thing i was headed towards the happiest place on earth while recieving such disappointing news.

Most people I think would be pretty stoked to get a nice check for their car, and the chance to buy something new, but I was pretty much bothered by the whole ordeal. All it means to me is dealing with liers & everyone trying to milk me for more money. ugh! Anyways, after much searching I finally purchased a vehicle about a week later. A matrix toyota, which I have named Black Mamba.

After the initial purchase, there was more drama from the insurance company about me paying for my rental. But I was firm on not paying it and stood my ground. In the end, the insurance and the rental company had to eat the money, which made me happy. I'm not usually one to stand firm, and usually end up just forfeiting and paying for those things. But I'm glad i wasn't this time. I suppose that was my little victory for the month.

Later on, I celebrated my birthday! It was a jam packed day. Breakfast at The Griddle with Susan, Lunch with Emily at Watercress, and then a lovely evening at Disneyland with Tamra, where I scored a $69 giftcard from disney! After drinking and stuffing ourselves with Beignets (mmmm), we went on the new 'It's a Small World' ride. Which i personally think is still pretty good. Disney didn't kill it too much by adding Disney Characters to the ride. Pretty much looks about the same.

Other then these things, my living room is coming along nicely. I dont' really know what the theme of it will be, or if there will even be one, but I'm excited to see what's going to develop.

Oh yeah, and today i'm working with Barry on my EP. So far it's coming along pretty good. One song, 'Better Lookin' Baby' just makes me super excited to sing it. It's really rock & gritty, but has some rockabilly going on with it too. We're gonna try to throw down some more drums and synths and see what we come up with today. Also lay down some new vox for it.

The other song, 'Like a Lighter' is going under some major construction. I don't even know if that will be it's name at this point when we've completed the song. It's got a happy go lucky piano feel to it, and it sounds a little Lily Allen, but the lyrics I have just don't fit the vibe for the music. I have rewritten the chorus, and if it were to go on the EP, the new lyrics would be more consistent with 'the sound' I am overall trying to create. The current lyrics are a little too in depth, direct, and need to be watered down.

Another nugget of news is that my buddy scotty listened to BLB and wants to tinker with it! Since Scotty is fairly reputable in the music scene & for him to give me any of his time, I am SUPER greatful :) So that's gonna happen eventually.

Also when I have all the tracks ready. I'll probably list them here, see if I can throw them up on this blog, & probably list the background story behind each song. I'll try not to go too crazy in depth (like this blog entry), but just leave you with a taste of my magic :)

gettin in the habit

2009-01-13T20:46:00.001-08:00

So I've been slacking on the workout a bit. but that all changed when i finally took a piloxing class that pretty much kicked my ass.
So yesterday I did an hour run, and today i've done some jump roping/workout video, and will go for another hour run. yeah!

For some reason today seemed very blissful, dont' know why, just did. probably because i had multiple conversations with various friends. Chris called me, which is also a rare occasion, and told me he's going to be in California in April....who knows if i'll be. but i would like to see him.....

hmmmmmm......i guess that's about it for the reporting part of the day. i am a little pissed at a coworker though, but i'm sure i'll get over it like most insignificant things that infuriate me, aint worth it yo.

survey.

2009-01-09T19:21:00.000-08:00

What were you doing at midnight last night?
Hanging out with Tamra having tea.

Have you ever regretted kissing someone?
yes.

Is there one person in your life that can always make you smile?
i'd like to think so.

Were your last three kisses from the same person?
yes.

What time did you go to bed last night?
2:30ishAM

What are you listening to right now?
Jaydiohead, go to jaydiohead.com check it out!

Have you kissed anybody in the last 5 days?
just friends, on the cheek.

How's your heart lately?
strong.

Will next friday be a good one?
today is friday. it has been relaxing.

When was the last time something REALL Y bothered you?
yesterday, but i shook it off.

Done anything illegal in the past month?
yes.

If the last person you kissed saw you kissing someone else right now what would they do?
probably take it like a man, right me off in the future and move on to another lady.

Who did you last eat Chinese food with?
Jesse, Rich, Steve, & Payton

Are you happy with where you are at?
i am content.

Have you ever had your heart broken?
yes.

Do you believe that there are certain circumstances where cheating is ok?
hmmm that's a tough one.

Would you ever take someone back if they cheated on you?
see above.

Have you talked about marriage with another person?
yes, but not in the sense where i was talking about getting married to that person. just talking about each others ideas on the matter.

If your ex came over, would you let them in?
yes, i would be curious as to why they would be all the way in California when they live in Philly.

Did you ever lose a best friend?
yeah. people aren't what you think they are sometimes.

Where will you be two hours from now?
either in Noho or at home still.

What are you doing tomorrow?
piloxing, baby shower, susan's bday party

Where are your parents right now?
in philly, probably sleeping.

What's the last thing you put in your mouth?
hot toddy.

What are you stressed out about?
my vocation, my music, my love life, myself, seems i'm a little self-consumed?

Who was your last call from?
some wrong number

Think of the person you told "I love you" to last, did you mean it?
yeah, i don't say that lightly

Is it okay if you kiss people when you're single?
mos def

Are your nails painted?
nope.

Should you be doing something else right now?
cleaning,reading,wrappingapresent

Who was the last person to text you?
Cricket

Would you ever live with anyone on your top friends?
haha, they're all bands.....i lived with a number of them on the road, does that count?

Are you sleepy?
no not yet.

When was the last time you talked to your number 1?
a few months ago.

Has anyone of the opposite sex ever hurt you emotionally or physically?
Emotionally, a few, but i'm sure that goes both ways. Physically, never, my homies are top knotch even when they're wankers.

Where was your default picture taken?
The Little Next Door

This time last year can you remember who you liked?
not really.....i think it might have been some dude that i was trying to get over

Do you get butterflies around the person you like?
no, i just can't stop smiling and looking at him....he does make me a little nervous though.

Are you anything like you were at this point last year?
Sort of, I feel i'm almost on the same track I was last year right now.

Have you lost contact with someone you wish you didn't?
keeping in contact with people works both ways, you give what you get, and you get what you give.

What did you do today?
woke up, had some tea & a PBJ with emily, bought a baby shower gift, and have been watching some television.

What will you be doing in three hours?
citywalk or cleaning or both

Do you miss the way things used to be?
sometimes, depends on what part of my life you're referring to.

Are you a patient person?
yes. even when i'm surrounded by idiots 24/7.

How was your day?
good-o

What color are your eyes?
brown and green

Do you like haunted houses?
disney's especially at xmas

Why did you cry the last time you did?
probably thought of someone i cared about, i dunno.

What's b othering you right now?
my lack of motivation

Did you wakeup happy today?
i can't remember

Is there a night you would like to put on repeat and live it forever?
haha, there are a few....5 come into mind right now.

Is there someone you'd like to fix things with?
no.

Did you kiss someone before you were sixteen?
does kindergarden count?

Did you kiss them?
i can't remember, although I am forward sometimes.

Are you good at hiding your feelings?
yes/no.

Do you wave when you see people you know?
sure.

Who did you last have a sleepover with?
my buddy Lee.

Can you braid hair?
Sure

Name something you have in common with all of your siblings?
we have the same parents.

Who is the last person who wrote a letter to you on paper?
Benny

Name a sound that disturbs you?
Garbage Trucks in the morning that roll by my house.

Have you ever had the same dream more than once?
Yes

Who have you talked to today?
Emily, Cricket, Tamra, Barry, Nat

What are you going to do after this survey?
clean

This time last year, were you single?
I prefer Unattached.

How was your night last night?
wonderful.

How are you feeling right now?
beside myself

Have you ever stripped for money?
no, i have danced on tables tho.

When was your last nap?
Flight back to LA

Are you over your past?
Everyday it gets easier

here we go again!

2009-01-03T17:24:00.001-08:00

Alright time to wipe the slate clean and start the year anew!

Three day's in, the new year's been pretty good. I've got myself finishing up some projects of major importance and starting a few new ones too. Those projects include:

1. the EP! yep, I've decided to put some of my sporadic writing on paper napkins and pieces of paper to good use. As of now, there's two songs completely written, they just need polishing from my producer. The other 4 hopefuls, which will have to be narrowed down to 3 or less are in the final stages of being written. I'm really hoping to get these tracks done tomorrow.

As of now the sound of the vox is very jazzy to me, but we've thrown in some guitar riffs for one song and a piano bit for another, so the sound is still being developed, but i have a pretty good idea where i want it to head.

2. I decided to write a book of letters. this really is just another form of a journal, however all the letters are specifically written towards people in my life that either irritate me, i love dearly, or those i just think of from time to time. Hopefully i'll be able to keep on this for the entire year and then at the end read through all the nonsense i've written and figure out if it's helped me get a better understanding of myself. This probably will never be seen by anyone but myself.

3. Books books books! I have a large collection of books that I need to either dispose of or read. Right now i've started reading the Twilight Series. This is mainly due to the fact that I need something to jumpstart my reading habits again. Also three of my good friends have read these books, so i suppose if anything, it's something discuss over tea.

4. Adventures: I hope to go on more adventures this year for work, or otherwise. I would like to:

-snowboard
-camp
-visit monteray bay
-go to vegas
-go surfing
-go rock climbing

I have a whole year, so hopefully some of these things will get done.

4. Be healthy & enjoy life.

As of now these are the only things that I can think of that i should work on/improve/do/otherwise.

i will say though that last year started off very good, then went pretty bad and then the rest of the year was clean up time. hopefully i'll try to remember what happened at the beginning of last year that made it so great and focus on that. ;)

2 days til the new year

2008-12-29T16:45:00.000-08:00

Well I've readjusted to my surroundings at home, which eventually means in one form or another, a new job will come along that will require travel.....

I think I will look forward to the next gig. and am crossing my fingers it will be music related as I really have been aching for it.

Right now i'm at home in Philly. While here all i did was visit some family and friends. I also baked some black bean cookies....very odd things, but they were okay.

other then that nothing is really happening, except working on the EP. I hope i get it done by February....not everything's laid down yet, but what i have so far (lyrics) is like hot butter on sugar. I hope that's what it's going to sound like.

new years resolutions

-follow my heart song
-stay in shape & eat healthy
- let the magic dance on

at last, my love has come along

2008-10-16T05:32:00.001-07:00

Today I am flying back West!

Since being home I've seen my fam & friends. This has been nice, but does not match the granduer of my soon to be home experience in California.

Fun things ahead:
-sleeping in my own bed
-exercising at my gym
-seeing emily, cricket, & tamra
-seeing my lush crew
-3rd encore peeps
-shows (lady disaster, spinto band, emily's band)
-Feng Shueyin my room
-camping, vegas, monteray bay
-halloween & thanksgiving

In other news I'm happy about the Phillies winning the pennett. yes, this might be a bit rude since I should support the dodgers, but i'd be happy with whomever won. I'm not one to really take sides on baseball. I just talk like i do sometimes.

What's up next for the B? lookin' for a new gig, & probably hangin with old friends this weekend ;)

Another One Bites the Dust

2008-10-13T06:16:00.001-07:00

Yes, it's been ages since i wrote in here, but now that the tour is over with I have a little more free time to keep everyone up to date on my standings in life.

The tour ended last week & the team as a whole did a great job & our tour manager got high acclaim which was awesome for him.

As for myself, I am down visitng the parents in Philly and just trying to wash away the past six months of road. I get very ambivalent about things after the road, possibly because my head is still there. This trip though is helping out tremendously with getting me back into motion with my life.

hmmmm......i was all inspired to write some more stuff of importance down, but I have all of a sudden lost interest......

another time i suppose

Pretty good day.

2008-07-22T16:48:00.001-07:00

Today's been a pretty good day which normally I would just sit back and silently keep to myself but however since I've been feeling quite depressed for the past three weeks I feel the need to write it down.....I guess to relive it in a way.

First thing that was amazing about today was there was a huge ass thunder storm happening from probably about 2am to about 10am. The only bummer with this was that I was woken up by the thunder alot. However seeing as how i live in LA and it's been really hot in Columbia I was more happy then sad about the weather.

Secondly after doing some work and fooling around on the computer I went back to sleep and had one of the best dreams ever. I dreamt I was flying (which is always awesome) over some huge ass swamp with these weird black dolphins and reptiles all chilling in them. Then there was a scene in the dream where I was able to call upon a mass amount of Alligators. One even acted like a dog in my dream....it was super cool. Probably one of the best adventure dreams i've had in a while.

Thirdly I was woken up by my phone and Mike texted me to say he was going to the movies. I decided to jump on this too because 1. i'd get to hang with mike for a bit, 2. it would kill some of my day 3. raining = movies in my book. Turns out mike wanted to see Batman and Hellboy back to back which was super awesome. Seeing Batman again was great, the first time was just too much to take in in one sitting. The film revisited was great and I was able to really sink my teeth into some of the scenes. I think I like the motorcycle scene and any of the sitdowns the Joker had with Batman or Harvey Dent. Such a great film. Hellboy was good too, but got kinda goofy. Special effects were great, but the story line was a little to soft and cheesey which made the film weak.

As for the Rest of the Day....I'm probably gonna sit back and watch one of my guity pleasures while having a glass of wine, then go to jimmy johns for dinner, round that off with a nice evening workout, and go to bed with a book in hand.

Tomorrow I"m gonna be working from 12 to 4, then the plan is to go to the Penguin piano bar & maybe do some workoutin' again.

laters

columbia

2008-07-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

yes i am here. and boy this place is quite boring to people who don't know the area....like most of middle america i suppose.

Today I had a really long dragging day of work and had to deal with multiple frustrations of weather, people, and the tour lifestyle. So as soon as i was off duty i went a playin' some b-ball to relieve my stress and tension...seemed to have worked a bit..i think i'm still gonna do some jump roping in a bit....

Aside from that i have found 3 of my 4 lost items and they are being delivered to me this week. the exercise pants are still at large...sadness....

also i saw the new batman, heath ledger did a great job...i thought the move had a few unnecessary bits, it was overall good though.....

anyways i'm beat. talk later
m b

Tour part 5

2008-07-16T19:42:00.000-07:00

Well, we're almost to the half way point of tour. Right now i'm in Columbia, MO at the lovely residence inn......as of now, it's very boring.

Today i went to downtown and got a very weak grilled cheese sandwich, then i went to get my nails done, and now i'm working on my music.

There is really nothing else to report except that I have accomplished losing some very dear items on tour so far

1. tour smart book
2. tour folder
3. exercise pants
4. liquid eyeliner

bummed? you bet i am. Tommorrow though i plan on calling two hotels in PA that i do believe have said items.

Besides this I plan on seeing the following movies

1. hellboy
2. batman
3. hancock
4. narnia
5. gonzo
6. step brothers

probably more also....I do have a lovely week long break that is coming at a good time, so i'll try and see all these flicks then. Also I plan on finishing my Drugs Sex and Coco Puffs book this next week and a half & cleaning my already destroyed hotel room

Things I look forward to at home:

-Emily and Nick
-Cricket and Alcohol
-Surfing
-Horseback riding
-My Bed
-Get'em Gators
-Guitar Hero
-Exercising

That about sums it up for now....off to watch movie trailers on Itunes.

ps for music people, i checked out Alphabeat today, pretty good stuff.

Tour part 4.....2...?

2008-06-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

Location: Penn State
mood: bored outta broadway
weapon: ipod shuffle & red lipstick

I guess i skipped tour part 2. For shame!

Tour is going okay. I think at the moment I'm having a realization that I've started focusing more on the ongoings of tour then on what I do on my own time. so i'm pretty much trying to stop that, hopefully i can accomplish this.

aside from that vague thought...

I saw Wanted, the new angelina jolie movie. angie was hot of course, james macovoy ruined it for me though....not great script writing for his character at all.....

Also I saw Sex and the City, Ironman, & indiana jones. First two mentioned were great....last one not good at all.

hmmmm......also one dude on tour is going to be taking on his dream gig up at Lake Tahoe this fall which means i'll be going up there to visit him and finally learn how to snowboard....possibly for free? who knows....

Other things i'm hoping to do when I get back...

-Camp at the Redwoods
-motorcycles
-vegas

That's about it right now....shows go without saying.

What I will leave you with is this....would you consider a Popple a Marsupial?

think about it.....

Tour Part 3

2008-06-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

Location: St. Louis, MO
Mood: excited
Weapons: cream cheese

Just a few moments ago i learned of the possibility that I can swing going to Europe for Free! how nifty is that? I wonder if it would actually happen....probably would be quite expensive for food and hotels though.

besides this little ray of light, the tour is otherwise ridiculous.

I dont' think we've actually had one full weekend of work....maybe two....

Every week there has been wind and rain disrupting our promotions so we intern have to pack our gear up early and head back to our bungalows. I dont' mind this, but it does get a little old when you're in work mode and would like to remain in work mode for a longer portion of the day then you're allotted.

Last week we were in Wisconsin when the Tornado/Flash Floods hit, but fear not, we weren't in harms' way. We did however stay on a golf course that weekend so there were puddles all over the place. One traffic light went out, and there was a car submerged under water to boot!

We just arrived in St. Louis yesterday. So far I have found a healthy little corner grocery store, a music venue to attend tonight, and Union station which will probably entertain me for a few hours. Tomorrow I might go to the zoo since I believe it's free here.

Other then that hope you're all doing splendid.

Sony Alpha Tour leg 1

2008-06-01T17:05:00.001-07:00

Alright, i'm back in the habit. Currently we're in Dayton, OH. Tomorrow we venture to Chicago, one of my fav. towns in the states. Unfortunately this time i'm not gonna partake in Gino's Pizza seeing as how i had a gang of free coldstone ice cream today from a neighboring vendor.

i will however be taking lots of pictures, mainly of polar bears swimming under water and the lovely architecture in the big city itself.

Let me back up though and explain what's happening.

While at SXSW, which was freakin' awesome. I got hired to do a Sony Alpha tour for the Midwest. This basically means i'm going to sporting events for youngsters trying to promote a camera for the kids' loaded parents to buy. Also a perk to this tour is that I get to hang out with Mike Shane & have my own professional camera to take pictures with this summer.

So far the tour is going well. We were in Boston about a month ago and since then have pretty much bounced back and forth between the states of Illinois and Michigan. Just to reassure anybody who thinks the Midwest is something of a 'Diamond in the Rough' though, it's absolutely not! There' is nothing to do out here but go to malls, see movies, exercise, and read books. No, these are not all bad things, but I do prefer trying to take in the novelties of places I see in the world, and the Midwest unfortunately doesn't have too many. But Chicago will! so as you can imagine i am very pleased to be going there tomorrow.

The only other perk to this tour so far is that I got to see my sister and her husband this past week. They were in very good spirits and showed me all their plans for redecorating their house. We also got to go out to an Irish pub which was wonderful & I finally snagged my sister's animation portfolio so hopefully I'll be able to set it up and show it around to a few people I know in the biz.

Other news on tour....? hmm....Well, to some of you folks who don't yet know it, the life of any person on the road, rockstar or vagabond is close to being the same. I suppose the only difference is how much you can splurge financially on your lodging, and the reason for pioneerin' around the country to begin with. By the same though, I mean BORING (after a while). You get up, eat, drive/go to work, eat, work/drive, eat, go to bar/movie/other place of interest, sleep & do the same thing the next day. Things may vary, but that's basically what you're getting yourself into.

yeah, you could argue the point that you're in some city, so at least you get to be there and see it. WRONG. If you're touring with band, that shit don't happen because you have a gig the next day that's probably 500mi away, so it's simply roll in fromt he last gig around 4, set up your shit, and then do your show, sleep, then get up at the ass crack of dawn and roll to the next city. For marketing, you're ususally is some dumb hotels by a mall, and you ain't seeing anything there either.

Also you get in these funks where you just lay around and waste away and lack being productive. I should know because I've done this quite a bit on the road. However this time I've prepared a few things to focus on. Mainly reading, some music I'm working on, and exercising. Right now the two main concentrations have been exercising and reading. Which reminds me if you haven't read 'Drug Sex and Coco Puffs' you should at least pick up this book and read the first chapter because it's very interesting to hear chuck klosterman's take on the pop culture of the 90s.

Aside from this im going home soon to LA. I really can't wait to see my friend Amie get married. She's been around since I was like 3 so it's gonna be pretty intense to see her get married, but I'm glad she's still in my life, so at least I can have some constant since a stable place to live has never really happened for me.

Oh yeah, I went veg & am still veg....i think i've only slipped like once or twice since Feb. Also Coffee has been cutt down majorly...this might be a problem for me in the future if Emily and I decide to ever open up a coffee/cake place. her and I get on with coffee like those two guys in Sideways.....we just have fun going to coffee places and discovering new coffee....yes its retarded, but classy and damn, i bet you wish you thought of it!

welp. I think that's about all for now folks. check out the myspace page if you wanna hear more rappin' that's happenin'

-MB

happenings and unhappenings

2008-02-13T21:02:00.000-08:00

Alright, so it's been sometime since i bothered posting here.

Since i have been home things are slowly getting back to normal and I'm calming down from my post-road angst which i usually suffer from.

After getting home from the parents for the holiday, I think I've pretty much stapled it to my head that Philadelphia may not be something I want to go back to anytime soon. Mainly because there's no future for me there at this time. So I'm trying to let go of all the stuff that's made me wanna reconsider spending the remainder of my 20s there and am moving on to open up to L.A. as a possible settling for me. However I will probably review my surroundings when I turn 30, because by that time I'll be under the impression it will be time to at least own some kind of property, if not in L.A. somewhere else for sure.

Anyways, I also am going to try to live a healthier life, or start making changes. I'm reading a book right now that's been real sneaky about laying down healthy eating habits. Basically the book tricks you half way through into becoming vegan. It all makes sense and their reasoning behind eggs, dairy, protein etc & the argument that we're not born to eat this kinda stuff, we've just adapted to the habit is a good point. it's something I've thought about before, so I'm going to try and start off slowly by dropping meat.

It's completely odd of me, and I don't know if I'll ever find anything as good as a scotch eggs again, but for a few years i've been saying 'i am gonna go veg, just not right now." I believe friends, the time is now! and i'll at least try it. not for the sake of animals so much as for the sake of my own body, which doesn't need meat really, and shouldn't have lots of unwanted hormones, arsenic, and other harmful ingredients put inside of it.

other things hmmm....dan keeps buying pinball games and putting them in common areas of the house. it's very bothersome and i probably yell at him once every two weeks for it. he's a bitch sometimes, but a good roommate in other ways.

Also there might be another tour in the horizon. I am a little bummed about it right now, and I suppose it's a 'no-no' according to 'The Secret' but i'm almost negative about the idea and I feel like i'm not gonna get the job. Mainly because I was told I was going to be interviewing for the Tour Manager position, which I would Kill at. But unfortunately on the phone for the 2nd interview, they're now looking at me to be the Senior Legistics Manager, which is a fancy way of saying Asst. Tour Manager. which blows cuz it's less money & I'd rather have TM on my resume & rather run a tour and be insanely busy, that's my bag.

however the positive light is that I went on to get another interview for later this week, so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully they will review my resume after our conference and change their minds. also hopefully mike shane will be on the tour again, because that would kick ass, and we work real well together as a team. but we will have to see.

well, that's all my talk for now. I'm quite tired and plan on eating sushi and green tea ice cream tomorrow in celebration of V-day whilest watching monster movies..

pip pip!

Old People

2008-01-04T19:23:00.001-08:00

I don’t’ know if it’s just me, or what. But people always seem to bother me on the streets whenever I’ve decided to have alone time. I don’t know why this happens, I’m not exactly screaming ‘I’m alone right now! Please come talk to me’ but it just always seems to happen given it’s a bum or otherwise.

The other day while waiting at the train station in Philadelphia this once again happened. This time however it was an old man. Very withered in the face, with a rather warm disposition about his character. He also was very hard of hearing which after a while became a little aggravating because whenever I wanted to say something I had to repeat myself in a rather loud manner. But I didn’t talk much, he was quite a chatty man.

He mainly discussed how Philadelphia used to look and how all it’s wonder has been lost over the past years. Once being a place that was bigger then New York and having only 5 large hotels, none of which were chains, has now crumbled into a forgotten land full of indie-pop-hipsters, lawyers, and bums.

As well as discussing his thoughts on the city, he also mentioned how he left home when he was 14 years old and during those times he wasn’t expected to go to college so it was natural to wander about as he did. He apparently made his way done the east coast to New Orleans where he lived for a while. I think he probably did small jobs or pawned money off people, I can’t exactly remember.

I tried getting in a few words. I really didn’t know what to ask him about except what I could learn from him after all his experiences. I can’t remember what he said actually, probably darted the question. But after our 30min conversation I kinda got the impressions old people always get the ‘Any Advice I Can Learn For My Life?’ question and that really old people just want to have some nice stranger to talk to to tell them about their lives, and have this person react in a manner that would make the old people realize their lives were worth living.

At least that’s my guess.

October 2007 to December 18th 2007

2007-12-23T20:16:00.000-08:00

So, after the tour was said and done, I went back to Philly for a little while to hang with the family and friends. There wasn't too many things going on. Saw some friends, celebrated the glorious event that is Halloween! And went to my mom's annual Halloween Party.....oh yeah, there was Chris's b-day which was a bunch of fun!

We all went out for vegetarian chinese food, and then i think a few days later people came over for another celebration at Nat and Mark's house in Northern Liberties. Overall i think Chris had a good 25th b-day.

After seeing people and hanging with the family, i went back to L.A. immediately upon arriving home my computer decided to die on my causing my withdrawal from the web for about two weeks. After a few calls to apple, it was fixed, then it was time to look for a job.

however this coincided with Thanksgiving, which was at nick and emily's and was awesome, so i wasn't looking for something that was going to give me lots of work, becuase i still had to pack for home, run other errands, and hang with friends. Therefore I fell back on the ol' Lush for employment, which was nice.

Probably i'll go back working there as soon as i got back to L.A., that way i'll immediately have a job and a little bit of money coming my way while i try to find employment on tour.

Anyways, i'm back in Philly now. So far i've just been hanging with the family, playing with the dog, and christmas shopping. The only other interesting thing i could say going on is that i'm working on music again, i know i say this alot, but there's one song i've been working on since this summer and i feel like it finally might be coming together.

All my music and recordings got scrapped from my HD failing, so this was the only song i could remember, and i kinda like the way it's going, so i think it's a good sign the rest got scrapped.....

welp. i'm goign to be off, have a good holiday season

(p.s. if this isn't making too much sense or my thoughts aren't worded right, i apologize, i'm watching tv and doing typing)

-Mb

IMG LIVE August 2007 to October 2007

2007-12-05T18:48:00.000-08:00

Well, after the last tour ended, IMG Live let my buddy Emily fly in for the weekend to Atlanta to keep me company. That was super cool of them to do and i really appreciated seeing my buddy.

After Emily arrived I made some awesome soup and some tomato & mozzarella sandwiches on whole wheat. I also was obsessing over Mimosas' so we made those two. Emily really dug the layout of the hotel room. You'd walk in, and on your left there would be a small kitchen complete with stove, sink, & fridge. then ahead of you would be an awesome living room with one of those fainting chairs and a flat screen. Then in a seperate room was the beds with an awesome shower & soaps etc from Bliss.

I think the next day we went to the flying biscuit for lunch or breakfast which emily really liked, i'd been there earlier in the week with Ashley from IMG. I highly recommend going there if you ever get stuck in Atlanta and are just wondering where there is an awesome local spot to eat at.

There was a little bit of work that interfered while Emily was there, but nothing too grave...we also went to the mall for a bit,...oh! we tried to go see a movie i think , and failed at that, but we were able to get some massages which was really awesome!!!! Also i think emily and me hung out with Matt and his buddy Mark a bit. Mark was a really cool dude, very funny.

Soon Emily and Mark both left back to their places of residence and Matt and I met up with Jay Finn and we started our trek out to pick up Susan in the North.

The second leg of the tour went really well. Me and Matt were so surprised at how we had little to do on the tour. Jay Finn and Susan just sorta handled their side without any complications. We had a great time on the tour and tried to make the most of our days off going to Disneyworld, New Orleans, Baltimore, Omaha, NE, and some other amazing spots....I could go into major detail about incidents with cops, walking a few miles to go get gas when we ran out, getting peed on, and eating lots of crab, but i'll just leave that to your imagination, or you can just ask me about it and then we'll have something to talk about when i see you next!

chow for now

mary

IMG Live Tour: July 2007-August 2007

2007-10-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

Hey ho! so it's been a bit of a while since I wrote in this here blog so I thought I'd give you a recap of the tour from July to August.

It was a pretty good tour. We went to Miami, I saw some friends there, then we kinda made our way up the coast. I got to check out Asheville, NC which was really rad. My mom used to live there so it was kinda cool checking out the hippie digs of that town. We also went to Virginia Beach for a long weekend, which kinda sucked, there was just nothing to do after two days, but luckily that's when the last Harry Potter book came out so I was able to snag that.

Eventually we made it up north where we hung out with my parents for an afternoon. It was really good seeing them and having my mom prepare a lot of awesome food for us. Then we headed into Philly which was rad. We stayed right on Walnut and my buddy Chris came up to hang out with us for the weekend. Me, Chris, & Matt all went to a show which was cool, we got in for free!!!! I think a couple nights later we all went bar hopping and got really drunk which was not so great the next morning.

We left Philly and went up to New York. We got another day off there, then headed up to Boston for the weekend which was great. I got to see my friend Laura Darby and had a lovely breakfast with mimosa's at the Other Side Cafe with her, which is now really swank looking.

Next stop was Ohio. Cleveland was kinda boring, well except for the rock and roll hall of fame. me and matt got in there for free! I also got to see my sister while we were in the area which was nice. Oh yeah, we also saw Ratatouille, which was a good disney movie, i'd say.

At the very end of the tour, we sorta ended up right where we started at in Omaha, NE. Our last event was long, but we got through it. That night Susan, one of the DirecTV people, took us out to eat at the same spot me, matt, & josh went to at the beginning of the tour. Me and Matt also had our 'end of the tour' shot, which we agreed upon having when we had our 'the beginning of the tour' shot.

The next day we dropped Angela off at the airport, Mike rented a car back to Chicago, & Matt and I started our journey back to Atlanta, GA to eventually rest up for another month long trek out on our tour's extension.

On the way back Matt and I got to see his dad's new house, which was awesome and reminded me of Beetlejuice, and his dog Bella.

When we got back to Atlanta, GA IMG showed their many thanks by hooking us up with some nice diggs at The W which was super awesome. They also allowed us to invite someone to fly in for a few days while we were stuck down there inbetween gigs!

This concludes my story telling for now, I'll go on to talk about seeing Emily & the Extension (pics included) next time.

As much as some aspects of this tour really sucked, just based on having to deal with certain attitudes that were insane, I am glad I was exposed to this tour because it helped me realize a few things i personally need to work on when tour managing and some things I've already conquered that others have not.

But most importantly I'm very happy I got to work with Ashley, Matt, and of course MIKE SHANE!!!!
Happy Halloween folks!!!!

-mb

IMG LIve Tour : June 2007

2007-08-21T07:50:00.000-07:00

Well, we're near the end of the tour.

Right now I"m in Council Bluffs, IA and will partake in their lovely casino cuisine in just a few. But before i get to the everlasting mediocre food that is alwasy served from the buffets, I'll review the first month of the tour.

June 10th to June 25th:

I arrived via night flight to Norcross, GA (just outside of Atlanta, GA) to meet up with the rest of the tour. While in Georgia, i met both the West & East coast teams and we went through 2 weeks of training. Although sometimes it was a little boring, IMG Live was really good about taking care of all of us and event let us have the weekends off to hang in the city. The only places i really got to check out though were the malls, five points (where i saw Andre 3000) and Twisted Taco (some kinda hook-up bar).

This was all good and fun and it was awesome getting to know everyone on both teams. My team seemd like they would be pretty cool and get along well. I had Mike, who previously toured with me on the MTV U tour i did, and there was Matt, who got the gig via Mike somehow, and Angela, who was recommended for the gig through accounting.

Some highlight of training including setting gear up and breaking it down, figuring out the pack, making hotel reservations, cargo plans and flight reservations. Also we all went out for sushi one evening which was really fun and Josh pate (sorta one of the head dudes) took us out to eat at Ted's which was really cool.

Eventually training was over, which was good because we all wanted to get on the road. Our first event was in Kennesaw GA which went off really well, partially because we had alot of people to help us out during our presentations. AFter this event we flew off to Iowa and did some gigs there. It was pretty awesome getting to ship our gear, reminded me of what Brian from BBVD goes through when shipping the bands gear via plane. It was pretty simple and i was not intimidated by it which was awesome. After a successul stay in Iowa, we headed back down to Miami where we met Chanel. By this point we'd gotten to see some people's personalities come out, some good for the tour, and some bad, but hey that's the road.

However this brings us to July and I will have to hold off before venturing further into my storytelling as I have to get dolled up for a night out with the boys.

TTFN

M to the B

What I did on my summer vacation....

2007-06-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

Well, not really a summer vacation...and it's not really even summer, but i suppose what i've done is as close to a summer vacation as i'm going to get this year.

After coming home from Orlando, I snuggled back into being at home and doing nothing, which was very irritating and i was anxious alot of the time because I didn't know what to do with myself....However that period was soon smoothed over and heres' what i ended up doing...

-Hung w. Emily @ Sharky's
-Saw ALIENS @ the 1209 boys' house
-went to Disneyland w. Tamra & saw the new Pirates movie
-went to Cha Cha's, which was crowded
-went to Zach Round's B-day Celebration! celebs such as (Nick Cofrancesco, Ken Dodge, Ryan Martin, & Zach Rounds were there.
-Hung out in Venice w. Emily & Shady
-Went to a Homesick Elephant show and hung out with some really good people, made omelets at 3 in the morning
-went to El Cid for an open mic night, good stuff.
-caught a High Strung show at Spaceland
-had a lovely afternoon bbq/dinner @ Yuki's
-saw Tamra at the Olympic Emporium w. her Improv Group
-sang Karaoke w. John & caught up w. him
-played guitar hero w. Dan
-made a wonderful afternoon feast w. Emily, dishes included cheese blintzes, indian food, strawberry soup, home made truffles & watched Homicidal
-had a roommate dinner w. Sean and Dan, making some of the same things as listed above plus a three-cheese maccaroni & ham steak & carrots
-Went to the Troubadour to see Mike Pinto, Bargain Music, & some other band play. Norwood from Fishbone made a special appearance, doing back up vocals for 'The Suffering' & also met one of the L.A. roller derby girls who said i should join the team!
-gave Dan his b-day present early (light up drum sticks & the first season of anna nicole's show)
-went to my friend Mark's Foxfire party and saw an awesome nintendo video he made, along w. getting to hang out w. some friends for the evening.
-today I will pack, i just got back from the grand opening of a pole dancing studio that my buddy leigh works at...i plan to take classes when i get home in september! should be awesome.

Anyways, that's what happened from the middle of May to the middle of now. Hope everyone is well, i'll be reporting from the road as usual to let you all know what's up.

chowza!

MB

Tour Again

2007-06-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

Welp, It was bound to happen. I got work for the next 3 months straight on another Mobile Marketing Tour which will be happening all over the East Coast. It's gonna pay good which i'm excited about and the PD's pretty awesome too.

All I have to worry about now is employment for four more months after that, however being able to hop on all these tours steadily and having been able to work steadily for 1/3 of the year thus far is good.

DisneyWorld

2007-06-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

Disney happened last month from May 11th to the 18th. It was a great time. Right after I was done with tour and the dust seemed to be settling, my sister invited me to go with her and some friends to Orlando.

They got a really good deal 500 bucks per person, this included transportation, lodging, and the park hopper passes to all four parks. The Lodging was at the Orange Villa, only 6 miles off disney property, but definately well worth the trip i'd say.

Here's me and Tigger:

Here's me and my sister at Epcot, we got stopped by Imagineers' who gave us the mickey hats!

And here's a night shot of the Magic Kingdom

For more pics, if you have spare time, go here:

http://photophaser.com/

&

http://www.fuhq.net/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=21

Enjoy!

Meez

2007-06-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

today I made myself a meez.

PROTOTYPES LIVE!

2007-05-09T18:09:00.000-07:00

I just put up the video for their whole performance at the SXSW SHOWCASE for baeble.

go back to the post to check it out if you want. Also at the very beginning you'll see me looking like a boy with glasses on in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

PICTURES!!!

2007-05-09T10:03:00.000-07:00

So I just took some sweet time out of my day to upload photos properly through photobucket to this blog.

please let me know if you can now see the images from previous entries......and this image below too

MTV U CAMPUS INVASION TOUR-ALL OF APRIL

2007-05-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

The tour started in philly, then went to austin, then back to philly then to atlanta, then back to philly. we went to the campus invasion show in philly at penns landing, that was nice.

now it's over.

I could detail all the tragedies seen with my eyes
of crys, and fights, and blood shot eyes
but i care not to waste energy on bitches and moans
when i'd rather be a fish swimming then a sinking stone.

i learned alot of things about myself and others
i even made time to call my mother
sometimes it was shoty, i'd feel overwhelmed
but everyone made it through and that's a virtue in itself.

now my next journey takes me down south
where alligators swim and you're watched by the mouse
so tune in for more of my life's documentation
i'll report back after a week's vacation...

toodles

oh yeah, i'm going to change up my options here on this page so you can actually see these pics i've posted....since apparently they don't show up on other people's computers...

DAYS OFF!!!!

2007-05-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

During time off i caught up with nick, em, dan, and tamra. we discussed many things such as guitar hero, baking, the constellations, and nick blew the ending of harry potter for me....

i played playstation 2 a bit, cleaned my room, worked on taxes, hunted for a new job, and closed my prototypes account.

somewhere in the mix the teeth came and stayed at my house a few nights, they put on some great shows which i went to. I also saw amie! which was awesome cuz i barely see her these days.

then i got hired for some other gig which went all through april....i'll say more in the next entry....

as a side note i feel i'm getting a little behind being so detailed on all these day to day things...so i'll probably give a summation of the next tour...just because there's really no point in detailing it all...plus pretty much most people that read this already have an idea of that tour, so i don't need to reiterrate too much with it.

chow.

TRAVEL DAY-TOUR DAY 13

2007-05-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

After taking a nap, I woke up and called Alex to arrange an alternative time to get him home via bus. We ended up going out to dinner at some steak place and I made Alex eat pickle chips.

It was a pretty nice evening, very chill. Afterwards more sleeping occurred.

The next day we were all ready to leave for the airport...as we shuffled on in to first class we were all praying our flight wouldn't get canceled this time....which it didn't

we landed in newark and proceeded to baggage claim to get everyone's luggage and re-check everyone in for their next flights out. As soon as everyone was settled, we had our last supper together from the food court. I was holding up okay till i had to say good bye to the band and take Alex to the greyhound station....stephane said 'now mary don't cry' which pretty much was the catalyst for my tears...i'm such a softy...geez...anyways, after hugging them goodbye me and alex caught the bus to the greyhound.

on the ride over, the bus broke down so we had to hail a cab...then we had to wait for a while for alex's bus to show up. while we were waiting there was this woman there with her children. it seemed as though she'd gotten kicked out of her boyfriends house with her two kids and they had to catch a ride down to philly via the bus. she had about 8 bags with her and was only allowed to take four so she was really breaking down at the station....i wish there was something that could have been done to help her...i'm sure she's okay now, and that her stuff was just stored and it's with her now. the bus station people seemed really reasonable...but it's really sad when someone's in a tough fix like that and you personally can't help them out. her kids weren't helping her that much either though, which was a bummer...

after i said my goodbye's to alex, i went back on the bus to the airport. I tried to find the prototypes again, just to see if they might be hanging around...but they weren't there, which i kinda figured....

with no one left to tend to i went to my own airline and proceeded to check in. I was flying from newark to chicago to lax. the game plan was that i would drop off minty fresh's cymbals in chicago during my layover, then go on to lax....however when i checked in the flight attendant said that my plane was already delayed...so there would be no chance of me handing off the cymbals to anthony or whom ever else was supposed to pick them up. I called minty to tell them and they were satisfied with me just taking the cymbals to LA and then mailing them back to the label...after this was ok..i asked the flight attendant to change my flight to whatever they had leaving asap to LAX.

She found me a flight through washington dc which was sweet. probably the smartest move i made because i found out later on the flight from newark to chicago wouldn't have left the airport till around 2am that morning had i stayed on it.

the rest of the night was smooth, i just slept on the plane, and took a cab home.

recovery mode proceeded there after.....i'll write up a summation of time spent at home next time.

ta

MERCURY LOUNGE SHOW-TOUR DAY 12

2007-04-09T06:18:00.000-07:00

We made our way to the airport with time to spare. I took the liberty of double checking with some employees of the airport about my lost ID & the police report I had on hand to use. seemed all good though.

When we were finally in line to check in, the people who worked there immediately informed us that our flight had been delayed and we wouldn't be in NYC til 4pm. I was a little bummed because we had counted on that extra time in the morning for the band to sleep. Slee is extremely important to this band, esp. since they were still a little jet lagged to begin with. We came up with a new plan to tell the venue the band just wanted to skip sound check and do a line check that night so they could sleep most of the day and perform that evening.

After everyone was good and checked in, we tooled around by the gate for a while. Eventually there was another announcement saying our flight was cancelled, and a long line started forming infront of the gate kiosk for people to change their flights at. We probably ended up waiting in line for a while....I was really bummed about this, since it was the biggest problem that came out of no where yet. I called anothony and jim to let them know what was up, then tried to devise a plan of action while waiting.

My only thoughts were to rent a car and drive to houston to catch our connecting flight to NYC, but I was exhausted, delirious, and it seemed to be a little too late to still catch our connection since it's a 3 hour drive to houston from san ant.

The band was pretty much over it. They said 'it's over mary, it's not your fault, but the tour is over' i think they were just tired and they had a different perception of how the tour was going to be played our then from how it actually ended up being. They just wanted to go home. So they told me I just needed to get them home now.

We convinced anthony there was nothing to be done, which there wasn't. They only later flight to NYC from San Ant. left and 4pm and on top of that it was overbooked and we'd be on standy by. no chance. Then we made arrangements with a stewardess at the kiosk for hotels and a new flight out to NYC the next day.

We got free hotel rooms for each person
Lots of meal vouchers
And 1st class tickets.

After all that, we got our luggage back, went to the hotel, and ate some lunch while we waited to check in at 3.

more trouble arose at our lunch spot, applebees when the waiter was being shady about letting us see how much we owed on the bill after we gave him vouchers. But Isabelle stepped up and totally scared the crap out of the kid, so the bill got fixed.

More waiting occured for our rooms. slowly one by one we got rooms. I was the last.

when I got to my room it was awesome. But i was kinda shaky at this point, and sooo tired that my body had trouble actually sleeping, which i'm sure makes no sense.

TBA

SXSW-EXODUS SHOW-TOUR DAY 11 (PRT 2)

2007-04-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

We got to the Exodus venue for the last and final show! After dropping off the band, I met up with Division Day at a said location and got their gear for the gig. After dropping the gear at Exodus, I met up with the band and Minty peeps for a little R&R and some dinner.

On the way to eat, we secured our vehicle in an underground parking lot hotel where Anthony, Al, and Angie were staying and walked from there to dinner. I however decided to bail on free food and fine dining opting for a little 'quiet time' for myself instead. I just needed a break from being around people and needed to calm myself and not think for a while.

I cruised down 6th street and just let myself get lost in the mix of people, music, and insanity that was going on, it was awesome. Eventually I stopped by this coffee spot near the tail end of 6th that also makes their own cigars. Inside I found Astrid chilling with her boyfriend so I talked to them for a while until a fairly 'out-of-it' character walked in and started talking about how he wanted to see Amy Winehouse.

At this point, Astrid and her boy went to some show down the way, and I think i was txting jonas at this time and went to see the park the van showcase.

The venue, Halla Catina? where the showcase was was really cool. It had a bar/resturant upstairs and a really nice stage area & bar downstairs. There was even a way out the back that led to another show that was going on outdoors. I feel like I saw more then Tulsa play, but they're the only band I can remember. The drummer for that band was pretty amazing, and they were a good gig over all. Somewhere in the mix i went to go get a drink and there was a bartender there who i was waiting on who kept ignoring me and helping other people. even though she saw me standing there. What a jerk.

Later, Chris Watson, who I didn't know as Chris Watson at the time kept pushing for me to get a PTV compilation, which I kept insisting to him that I had already gotten and downloaded only two days earlier. He was persistant I tell ya, even when I mentioned a friend of mine was in the band and how much i dug the band, but i suppose when you're the head of a high rising indie company you can't take 'no' for an answer...at least the first four 'no''s.

Other on goings were talking to a photo guy who had been touring with 'What made milwaukee famous' and talking about Lady Sovereign, Amy Winehouse, and people musically showing off.

I then left after this and made my way back to the Exodus. It was a bummer though, I wish I stayed only to bump into Al from Minty who i later found out was inside talking to PTV people when i was outside. I just went out the back too so i totally missed him...ugh! that would have been cool.

Anyways I went back to the venue and checked to see if the band was there yet. They weren't. I think I bumped into Angie at this point, but i'm not entirely sure....I might have gone to get some more coffee actually....no wait.

People were coming back to the venue, I still needed to get the merch, so i went back to the hotel where had some. I ran into Angie and Alex there and we just chilled in the lobby for a long time just shootin' the shit about stupid stuff.

Later on Al and his friend joined us which was cool. Eventually Alex and I left to go back to the venue and THEN i got coffee. On the way out some kid started talking to me, i think because I said excuse me or something for reaching over him to get sugar at that coffee prep station. he noticed my laminates and just asked 'are you a tour manager?' it was awesome. That's probably the first time someone's just asked me first if i was a tour manager and not if i was in the band it made me feel good.

When Alex and i finally got back to the venue, him and Francois decided to check the equipment to make sure everything was in order for their performance. I stayed out side and talked to Sage Allen, the promoter, who was a bit of a cutie with his southern drawl. Alex then frantically ran out to me and said we didn't have a drum pedal...and it was about 30 so minutes before we went on. I just told him 'give me five minutes' and immediately went down the street to where the teeth were and borrowed jonas' pedal. it was awesome. the teeth JUST finished there set, i rolled up, grabbed the pedal...to which jonas kinda gave me a scowl of disapproval....but he offered earlier in the day so can't be going back on his word, haha. but really, it was awesome of him, and booked it back to the show.

I got back to the venue, gave Alex the pedal, then another problem arose. 'Mary I don't have a thrown' Great.....at this point i sure as hell wasn't going back to ask for a thrown from jonas, so I just kinda asked the tech who was helping us on stage and he let us borrow Jr. Sr's...but luckily we didn't get charged for using it, thank god.

When the band played I went to the hotel to get the car and brought it around to be loaded. I also had a few mintues to take some pictures of the band. There last show was off the hook and it was jam packed with sweaty people. After the show we packed up both our stuff and Division Day's. That ;venue sucked though. Just the structure. No loading dock area, no dressing room, no nothing, it just blew getting all our stuff out past lots of people in the dark at 1am.

After everything was loaded into the proper vehicles we paid the band off with 75 bucks. super cheap! the only thing that we messed up on was loosing a inch thick piece of padding for one of division day's cases. But Sebastian, from DD, and I agreed to make amends by me taking him out for a beer sometime in LA since they're from there, so it's all good! They were the best guys any TM could find at that point for help, we seriously lucked out they were amazing!

All was loaded and ready to go at this point. I scooted out the band best I could into the car after we said our goodbyes to Minty people and DD. It was sad to go, but was nice to be back to just 5 people on the road once again!

The traffic wasn't bad, I was good to drive and we were off to San Antonio for the flight to our final show in NYC....or so we thought.......

SXSW-HOT FREAKS! SHOW-TOUR DAY 11 (PRT. 1)

2007-04-08T17:34:00.000-07:00

Alright. So Alex and I woke up early today and walked over to go pick up our rental car. We pretty much lucked out on that only paying 70bucks for a big ol' SUV cuz they didn't have any smaller vans available. Then we picked up the rest of the band, and went to our first show that day. It was okay. Wasn't the best venue, and the set times were running behind. High lights were free drinks, a nice lounge area, and Alex climbing up the stone wall in the middle of the set. Also ran into my KEXP buddies Jim and Shannon who were there to check out the band, The Early Years, playing at the neighboring venue Mohawk.

During their performance I mainly tried to convince two different groups of people to let our band borrow their backline for the last show we had to do that evening but failed miserably at doing this.Basically for a little summary we already had backline through another band, but they were renting and charging other bands for some of the expenses on that rental. Our expenses would have been 400 bucks which we couldn't do, and since we didn't get a receipt with a breakdown, which i asked for from the band, i was feeling it was a little sketch, and Minty and I agreed it would be best to find a cheaper alternative.

After the gig we went back to pack, and sleep before our crazy flight at 3 the next morning would happen.

I however had to find backline, so after getting the next few days ready and my stuff packed, I left the house and went to scope out backline. I stopped briefly by to see another teeth show and find out what time they were playing that night too, but it was too close for any kinda borrowing to be going on so i bailed on that idea.

After departing that scene i returned to the house to do a little more work and was thinking about crashing or meeting up with some dude who was considering letting us use drums. Angie then called me and told me she found the band backline and it was completely cool, I just needed to come down and handle the arrangements! This was awesome, give that girl a little liqour and she's on it!

I rushed down, found parking and went back over to Club Deville where we played the Hot Freaks show earlier that day. This band from California called Division Day was responsible for lending us a hand. All super cute dudes too. One of them also had the exact same different colored eye thing going on that I had too! After making arrangedments I split with Angie and we went to pick up the band.

The band was a little groggy, but they were in good spirits and super happy we found backline. We all loaded up with gear, people, and bags, said goodbye to the house we were staying at and made our way to Exodus that night! Hooorah!

SXSW-DAY OFF-TOUR DAY 10

2007-04-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

I woke up early today because I was wiggin' out about my ID. Immediately I decided to get on the phone to the DMV for Austin and see if I could be issued a state ID or something. DENIED! They referred me to the airport though, and I proceeded to take action there while making phone calls to my roommate Dan, and my parents to get me my passport.

It was a very frustrating morning and the band kinda knew i was having a rough day, so they layed low on asking me questions. I don't really mind answering questions when i'm frustrated, I just have to concentrate on giving a clear answer that won't cause a secondary question is all so I always look like i'm mad when i'm concentrating on answering ?'s.

We were all getting ready to leave for the band's TV interview when Francois informed me he broke the toilet, but after looking at the piping and seeing he just cut a line, it was easy to repair. I only had to use some scissors to cut a piece off and retied the whole thing together....however in the process of cutting off said piece I also cutt of a bit of my finger so I started bleeding.

While Dr. Francois fixed me up, I fixed the toilet and the day continued with only a minor casualty!

Soon I was able to get some info from the airport saying all i needed was a police report saying my id was lost/stolen. This was a bit of a relief to hear and it put my mind at ease. I put the ID thing on hold and took the band down for an interview with current TV over on 4th street. While there I spoke with the TV people if they knew anyone locally who would be willing to lend the band backline for our last show tomorrow. They said they would get back to me.

After dropping off the rental car, I walked on down to the police station to take care of the matter. First I had to call a number and tell them what was up. Then some other people were supposed to call me back giving me a ref. number for the report, then I was supposed to go back to the police station to get a copy of the report. This took about 3 hours out of my day..

While doing all that, I went to kinko's to get a copy of my passport from my mom, and continued to ask people for Band Equip. I think at this point I went on back to the police station and got my report! HOORAY! I CAN FLY!

After that I called up Angie and we met at Stubb's to go check out the SPIN magazine party. Also there was the infamous Matt Rucin and his lovely wife. There was also a woman named Margaret Mary there which was a fun conversation for about 3 mins haha. she actually had some fun SPIN VIP passes that I think she made, so Angie and I went throught those. Angie got a James Brown one, while I chose some dude with a beard and yellow hat who was playing drums. then we mostly strolled around for a bit, then decided to partake in some free tequilla. The band onstage was pretty good I can't remember who it was though.

Al met up with us somewhere in the mix and I think eventually it was just me and him wandering while Angie did some work related affairs. Al & I proceeded to go see the Teeth at the Sidebar right around the corner, but at this point they bailed to their second gig, so Al and I took Park the Van compilations and headed down to check out their second show, and catch OH NO! OH MY!

We ended up over by Malaga so i took the liberty of going in there and checking for my ID again just to ensure it wasn't there. Al and I couldn't find exactly find where OH NO! OH MY! was, so while Al still searched, i peaced out and met up with Angie to see the Teeth play at the speakeasy. They put on a pretty good show. After the show we all hung out on the top of the speakeasy in this sort of roof-top lounge.

There were couch type beds set up with little tables for drinks built in all around the edge of the roof, there was also a dj in the center, and on top of that they were serving Dewars for free. It was pretty awesome. As me and Angie soaked up the sun and loved life at that point the teeth, chadwick, and Joel joined us. Angie eventually bailed for a Fader party and I kicked it with the teeth helping them load up their van and going to dinner with them, Andrew, and the girl who was with them playing pool the other night. We kept on meeting up with Joel and Chadwick who were show hopping, eventually the teeth bailed home for the night, and I lost chadwick and joel. I called up Angie and we hung out for a bit. Angie however wanted to check out some other show, and I was feeling lousy from the day and felt there was stuff I needed to get done for tomorrow so I ended walking back to the house. I thought I might be that last one home that night, but it was only 10p.

I just did paper work, and waited till the rest of the band got home, went over the next day with them and went to sleep.

SXSW-NIGHT OFF-TOUR DAY 9 (PRT. 4)

2007-03-31T17:13:00.000-07:00

After we all got back to our lodging, we devised a plan to shower and chill for a bit before setting out on foot for the evening. I made up a few maps for people, and gave them my number just incase something should arise where they need me or got lost getting back to the house.

I also took the time to scope out the SXSW pamphlet that provided info for most of the shows happening that night. After making a list of all the bands playing that I wanted to see, then cutting it down to a list of bands I really wanted to see. I was able to devise a nice course of action to take that evening. The line up was Cold War Kids, Amy Winehouse, Menomena. I'm sure there was some other bands tagged onto the beginning and end there, but I can't really remember.

I called up Angie since her and I were gonna be partners in crime that evening & have the same likes in music. She said she was gonna be late to CWK because she had to run back to the hotel with Astrid Swan (another Minty artist) to get her bag or something...actually now that I think about it I didnt call Angie at all...let's back track...

After devising a plan of action that evening, me and the band walked down to 6th street. They eventually took off to do their thing and I went over to some club on Congress to see Astrid Swan perform. I got there before everyone else which was a bit of a bummer, but eventually Angie, Astrid, Al, and Anthony showed up. Astrids' show was pretty cool, I love that song 'Old Fashioned Couple' of hers, real nice.

While watching the performance, this is actually when i narrowed down my list of possibly shows to see, Angie and i coordinated our schedules, and that's when we came up with the break down CWK, Amy, & Menomena. Angie also said there was a possibly Paris Hilton party that night where you had to say "foodsty"? to get into and there was a playboy shin-dig at 2am.

After Astrid played, Angie said she had to go back to her hotel to grab a bag of Astrid's or something, so I told her i'd just meet her at the cold war kids show. Good thing i did too. The line was really long, esp. for people who just have wristbands...see if you have a badge you can just waltz right in, which Angie and Al had the luxury of doing, but no matter I got a free wristband, so i'm not complaining, and I got to eat some free Ice Cream while waiting in line.

Eventually I got into the show. The venue was really big and there was probably like 2,000 people there to see CWK play. Angie and Al arrived later, but i didn't see them till after the show. It was kinda funny watching the band play, seeing as how I saw them at Johnny Brenda's in philly and the stage/venue was much smaller and here they were now in a much bigger place with lots of people watching them. They put on a good show. I believe some fellow musicians from other bands came out near the end of their set with brass horns to give the audience and extra juicy performance. i was only half paying attention at this point.

After the show I met up with Angie and Al. We made our way over to check out the situation regarding Amy Winehouse, well I did really, because I knew I'd have to stay in line much longer to wait to get in then Angie and Al. I got up near the front door of the venue and was bout to go in when I realized Amy got pushed back in the lline up, so i went on over to Buffalo Billards where Angie and Al were watching Menomena. I told them the situation regarding Amy and they were all drunk, haha. Also somewhere in the mix, my buddy, jonas was txtin me to meet up. Since I wasn't a huge Menomena fan...and I don't really think they'd gone on at that point anyways, I opted to go meet up with hiim and the rest of the teeth(jonas'band) at Malaga some irish pub down on 4th. I tried to get Angie to come too, but she was right satisfied where she was, bummer.

When I finally arrived down at Malaga's, there was an outdoor patio area and some swank indoor bar. I went inside the bar to first see if the boys were in there and get a drink. It was pretty empty, and the guys weren't there, but I decided to get a drink all the same. Two bad things happened at this point. 1. the bartender wouldn't give me a drink because they wanted to keep the inside bar and the outside patio seperate entities for that evening. 2. I lost my I.D. indicating my age, and posing as a problem if I wanted to leave Austin in two days via airplane!!!

Immediately I freaked, then figured when i pulled out my map from the back of my pocket somewhere along the way on the walk down to Malaga's my I.D. had fallen out. So I did what any other determined being such as myself would do...i immediately back tracked ignoring prior engagements. I walked all the way back to Buffalo Billards retracing my footsteps as best I could...which is pretty pointless when you're half drunk and you're not paying attention to the steps you take to begin with. I met up with Angie and Al and told them what was up. They checked out the area we were hanging in, since that's where I last used my ID to get into...but there was no such luck.

I eventually left them and went back over to the Amy Winehouse venue since I did accidentally headed that way after leaving Buffalo Billards to go to Malaga's in the beginning.I didn't find any ID but noticed there was no line for Amy, which was odd. The bouncer there told me her show got canceled on account of drunkeness, that Amy, always staying true to form!

At this point jonas texted me again saying they'd all moved over to this bar called The Bayou. Since it was a block from where i was, I quit my search for the ID and went over there to join them. I pretty much thought this would be a fool's errand seeing as how I couldn't get into any bars w/o an ID, but thought i'd try all the same.

At the door to the place there was a big black security guard lookin' dude. He asked me for my ID and I just told him the truth of the matter and tried to look for anything on my person proving I was over 21. He just said "Hey, I'll let you in, but you should tip me!" haha, I said "alright!" and gave the man 2 bucks. real awesome dude. I dunno what it is about black men, but usually they're always nice to me.

So, I went inside to the back of the bar and there by the pool table was jonas, peter, andrew, chadwick, and a friend of peters? some girl who's name I can't remember. We all just played pool and hung out. Just kinda talking about how our tours were going thus far. somewhere in the mix I really wanted a drink, and thought i might be able to snag myself one seeing as how the bar ID's at the door, but I didn't wanna chance possibly getting kicked out and getting the security guard in trouble for letting me in....so right before I had to take a shot I gave jonas money to buy me a drink and thought this routine would work well if I wanted to keep on drinkin! ....& save myself both embarrassment for losing my ID and the hassle of not being able to drink because I had no ID. My whole policy is if I can avoid telling people things that will cause embarrassement and make me look stupid, I'll probably be clever and do so. However the second time I asked jonas to get me a drink he queried me about why I couldn't get it myself, and my plan was defeated.

I think like 30mins. later we left, and I thanked the security guard again for hiim being awesome and he gave me a special brotherly handshake and hug. I started walking back with the boys to where their car was at. I think at this point they were all pretty drunk because all they talked about was refried beans they were gonna have back at the place they were staying, and smoking pot. Chadwick was talking about how wary he was of smoking when he was drunk because he'd take off his pants and whip out his goods which he was also recounting in detail....on this note i realized i'd lost my glasses, yeah another tragedy that night. So I just said 'oh you guys are leaving now right?', they agreed, so i used it as an excuse to bail and look for my glasses. another account to avoid embarrassment...

Again I back tracked, and went back to the bayou to search for them. There were a few people standing on the corner by the club and were lookign around trying to help me out. I looked around the area of the club for a bit and right as I turned my head in one direction I saw my glasses skid across the pavement. I ran over to them and so did the person who caused them to skid in the first place, probably by kicking them or something. He picked them up and the frame was crushed and one of the eye pieces was broken. I was bummed, and pretty much blamed the whole night on the fact I went outta my way for people, but really it's no one's fault but my own and i was looking for a scapegoat at the time.

However the good thing was that since I had my glasses I could take them back to the place that made them and get a new pair since I have insurance on them up to one year. And I also had a back up pair of glasses at home just in case of situations like these where I lose my original pair.

i wandered over to Maggie Mae's then, to go find Alex and Isa who were checking out the French/Canadian Connection showcase. They were just hanging outside the club. We ended up just walking back up to the house. Isa also had a bad night that evening losing this awesome pullover she had...which she was borrowing from a friend from home. ..

I still had the idea that i might find my ID for some reason, and kept kinda looking for it. Alex said though it was impossible to find and I should just give up...so I did, and we got some huge slices of pizza before going back to the house.

i think once there we met up with Francois and Stephane...or maybe they showed up later. I sat down on my computer for about an hour or so and tried to talk to airport security about my license. I also tried to rack my brain to solve the problem of getting an id to me in time....this pretty much sucked that I had to do all this stupid work when tomorrow was my day off from working....what a pisser.

SXSW-BAEBLE SHOWCASE-TOUR DAY 9 (PRT. 3)

2007-03-30T17:51:00.000-07:00

After loading up into the van, we made our way back across town to Red 7 where our last show of the day was being held. This was a no sweat load in really. The venue was on a street that wasn't blocked, and since it was the last event there was no real rush to go anywhere afterwards.

We pulled up to the corner of 7th and Red River and parked illegally, but didn't get caught! The band loaded in and they were pretty much chill. Besides racing around getting the merch display up, talking to Amylu (promoter), and just making sure our van didn't get a ticket it was a pretty easy day.

Somewhere in the mix I heard that I'd recieved a complaint because I wasn't around to get the band drinks, which really bums me out because it's not that difficult for the band to get drinks, or anybody else, and on top of all that it's not my job to get the band drinks, it's my job to make sure the band gets on stage and all the aspects, which are far more important then quenching ones' thirst get solved before, during, and after the show.

But whatever, it's understandable when you're at SXSW all you wanna do is relax and just have a good time. I suppose SXSW is a pay off alot of people get for working really hard all year, so it's understandable when people just wanna chil and not have to answer to anyone for awhile.

I think at this point i left to park the car, came back for a while, checked on the band during the show (which was awesome), then got the van, drove it back to the venue and did the load out. Some plus's to this show were super-duper awesome Amylu, free beer for people(not me of course), and getting some free gum and Bust Mags.

After this event we went home to chill and get ready for the night that awaited us! Oh what a night! To be continued...

SXSW-SCHUBA'S 11TH ANNUAL YARD DOG GALLERY SHOWCASE-TOUR DAY 9 (PRT.2)

2007-03-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

Alright. So we picked up from Buffalo Billards and made our way over to the next venue. It's sooo awesome we had a car for this day because honestly if we didn't we wouldn't have been able to make all our shows in a timely fashion.

Yard Dog Gallery wasn't too hard to find. We pulled up behind the building and just kind let our car chill. Eventually we loaded our stuff off to the side, I checked the merch in, and we just watched some other band play. The whole scene was completely chill and that can be owed to the god that is Matt Rucins. That boy has his shit together I can't say that enough, he rocks!

It was real awesome seeing him, and once again he just provided me with all the info I needed, gave me drink tix for the band, and meal vouchers too.

Everything was going smooth until we realized we didnt' have the transformer/adaptor that we needed....to which I thought the show couldn't happen w/o. This caused Stephane to panic a bit and get frustrated. We ended up having to call Anthony to pick up the thing from Buffalo Billards where it was left behind. The panic attack only lasted about 15mins though because Stephane being studio-boy genius that he is figured out a way for the band to play without it. So the show went on! Hzah!

While the band played I took a little break snagging some BBQ. Also Matt Rucins pointed me in the direction of my free Saucony shoes. The band was asked earlier on before the tour if they wanted a pair, but they all declined. Mainly because the Saucony website only showed these really sporty looking shoes. I wasn't that into them either, but thought 'hey i can always use some free shoes' I lucked out because they're actually a pretty sweet pair.

Anyways the band kicked ass. After they got off stage I told them I would take care of loading up the van because they needed to eat and relax for a second before we all went to the next gig. So while they chowed down on some BBQ I went ahead and loaded the van passing by some photographer for some magazine who kept taking pictures by the van, which was rather annoying.

After the band was loaded up and ready to go, I then went to grab the merch, did the count out and we were off to the next venue!

As for Anthony and the transformer I called him sometime during the show to tell him there wasn't an extreme rush to get it there. he was a little pissed because of sitting in traffic worrying to the high heavens the show wouldnt' go on because of this thing, which is understandable, but the show went on, we didn't lose the transformer and we were on schedule.

I was a little bummed though cuz i wanted to see cold war kids play after us, but didn't get to.

SXSW-THE CURRENT-TOUR DAY 9 (PRT.1)

2007-03-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

The next morning I woke up pretty early. One because that's what a tour manager does! two because I couldn't get in a wink of sleep all night due to the uncomfortable floor and not being able to figure out how to turn off one of the lights of the room i was staying in.

I mostly did a little work on my computer, and rearranged my tour binder which had fallen apart in the process of loading the band in/out at the show yesterday. Eventually I woke up the band and started making breakfast. I'm not the most skilled cook, but I did a good job makin' scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon for everyone. I personally ended up makin a breakfast sandwich for myself, which was awesome. Stephane also added some awesome music to the morning mood, which is always a great way to wake up i'd say. Couldn't tell you exactly what was playing though, i think it was a mixture of French music, and some soundtracks from movies.

After breakfast we had our morning meeting, just a little run through of what was going on that day. Then we all loaded into the car to get to the first gig at Buffalo Billards on 6th street. Now 6th street is where all the bars and venues are. it's sorta the heart of SXSW. So naturally all the roads are blocked, it's impossible to load in, and it takes extra long to get to where you need to be. What made this semi easy was a reasonable police man who let us drive in behind the venue for load in, and my knowledge that there was a back alley way we could drive through to cause no hassel.

Soon as we got to the gig, I went upstairs to where the radio/interview/performanc was being held. It was real low-key with a nice little bar and some breakfast type foods. There was also about 50 people there who were witnessing Peter Biorne & John when I walked in. We were early for load in, so after checking with the club if it was okay for us to leave our stuff down stairs we kinda just chilled. Only casualties in this performance were the power going out for a few minutes which caused the Prototypes to go on a little later then anticipated and the fact that since we were filling in for a band that dropped out last minute we weren't on the advertised posters so there wasn't alot of people there to see us. I mostly took pictures and video taped the show, then handed the camera off to Al to take over while I prepped the van for loadout.

I think at this point I left to pick up the merch at the house, or I went to try to find parking...eventually I came back and picked up the band and their gear to race them to the next show across town at Schuba's 11th Annual Yard Dog Gallery show. The load out went pretty smooth, and from what I can tell the performance did too.

SXSW-DAY STAGE CAFE- TOUR DAY 8

2007-03-27T17:46:00.000-07:00

Finally we've gotten to the much anticipated portion of my tour travels, that being SXSW! Oh what marvels I have to tell....

So, we woke up the next morning in Chicago and made our way to the airport. Dropping off the rental van was a pain in the ass. Mainly, because I didn't know where the drop off location was and was nervous about leaving the band alone when we were running on a tight check-in schedule for the flight.

When I finally met up with them, we were able to get checked in on time, but with the security check point and the gate being on the otherside of the airport, our time was very limited to getting on the plane.

We landed in San Antonio a little early. I went ahead to go get the rental van while the band waited for their luggage. When I arrived we hit our first bump in the road that day, Francois's suitcase didn't show up.

Apparently it ended up on a later flight. Francois didn't wanna leave the airport without his bag and really wanted to stay to wait for it. I might have freaked, but this situation really isnt a big deal, it's happened before on other tours, so I wasn't really worried about the airlines shipping it to us later that evening. I think Francois thought he might not see his luggage again, poor thing.

After a little convincing and reassuring with Francois we left for Austin to do the Day Stage Cafe Show. On the way we stopped to get the band something to eat since they were running on empty and tired at this point. They kept on wondering how important this gig was because of the lack of sleep, lost luggage, and the show night before was terrible. They really didn't feel like playing.

I thought the drive into Austin was gonna be really bad, but we lucked out and found some pretty decent parking near the convention center where we were playing. We didn't have much time till load in, and I was told we had to go to artist registry before we could perform. I just thought it would be a better idea to go straight to the stage and then register afterwards, but people kept telling me it wouldn't take long to get the band their wristbands and badges for the four days they were there. I covered my bases calling the stage manager for the show we were playing to make sure it was cool for us to wait in line or if we should just go ahead to the show. She said there was no prob if we were a little late to load in... Although I was happy for the laid back, self-assured response, waiting to register was not the best, however that's what we did and the line took forever.

We were able to hook up with other minties at this point, but were running out of time for load in. Angie, Al, myself, and some sxsw volunteers took the liberty of rolling our van around and doing a throw-and-go style loadin. Anthony took care of getting the band wristbands and their whole registration thing out of the way.

That day was the worst out of the whole 4 though. Just complete stress, too many cooks in the kitchen, nothing really getting done...., But hey, the band made it to the stage, they did their show, and it's all good. After this though i prayed the rest of the time in austin wouldn't be as bad as this...and we had 3 shows the next day so i was really nervous about the same 'last minute, running behind, no time' stuff happening. I didn't get to catch this performance btw because i was too busy parking then unparking to bring over the transformer, then parking again, then loading out. i"m sure they did good though.

AFter the show we all went over to the house we were staying at. I found it on craigslist for a sweet deal. basically the tenants said 'if you're international, you can stay here for free!' This is cuz of some deal at south-by where you can get free wristbands if you house an international band. It was only 6 blocks north of all the fun stuff at sxsw and was real chill, also everyone in the band was able to get their own room and bed to sleep in, so it rocked.

When everyone was done freshin' up, we had the evening to hang out in the city. The band was hungry, so I suggestd going to Stubb's for some awesome barbeque. When we finally found parking and walked down it was over an hour wait to have dinner there. Al, Angie, and Anthony were all meeting us there to eat, but decided to wait in line at the Stubb's main stage venue in the back of the resturant to see the Lily Allen, Bravery, Razorlight, Jamie T, the automatics, play. It actually turned out good that they did that. Since Al, Angie, and Anthony all had badges and we had our Prototypes badge, we were all able to pass up the long line and get in right quick to the venues. So while waiting for our table to be called upstairs at the resturant, we chilled downstairs in the back just hanging out.

This was probably when it hit me I was at sxsw! I was completely elated. But I totally had to water it down for myself because I was technically still working and couldnt' go crazy happy in front of co-workers....not yet anyway....Mostly while waiting we all just talked. I think somewhere in the mix we ran into the Young Knives again...they were on a route to find some foreign substances, so we parted ways reasonably soon after saying 'hey.'

Finally our table got called and we all sat down to some awesome bbq. I had some pulled pork and a cup of beans, it kicked ass. I couldn't really tell you too much of the conversations being passed around the table, cept witnessing Al get more smashed and gropping some lady's ass a couple times to see if she would notice. Also there was mention of how stressful today was, and I suggested to teh band we just take it easy tomorrow morning, and I'll buy some eggs, bread, milk etc and we'lll have a nice low key breakfast. they seemed to dig that idea, and francois wanted to get apricot jelly (what a smart man)

After dinner we went back to the lodging, I'm pretty sure we layed low this evening because we were tired. I think at this point I decided it would be best to go to the grocery store to get food that evening instead of wake up wicked early to get food for everyone. For some reason Al was with us, so i decided to give him a ride back to his hotel, but on the way stop and a 7-eleven so he could pick up something that I can't remember at this point....but there was food there so i got food there for the band and myself.

meanwhile i discovered my phone was ringing and I had three missed calls from Francois. Thank goodness he called again. he was wondering why his luggage hadn't arrived to the house yet and was very worried the man who would be delivering it wouldn't be able to find the hosue we were staying at...which francois has a point on, it wasn't the easiest house to see in the dark.

Anyways, I spoke with Francois and told him i'd be home soon so we could call the austin airport to check on the bag and then go to the airport to pick it up. After calling we found that Francois' bag was being held there, so we jumped in the car and went to go pick it up.

Francois was very happy about this and said he could sleep that evening now and would be in a much better mood the next day. I was happy because it was one less concern to handle on top of three shows the next day.

FUNKY BUDDHA'S- TOUR DAY 7

2007-03-23T20:02:00.000-07:00

Today was real busy. I was mostly caught up with finalizing the advancing for the Current show, and printing out directions & day sheets. Also I had to go to the airport to pick up a rental van for this day. The Minty crew was leaving early the next morning for sxsw, so they weren't able to give us a lift to the airport or Funky Buddha's that evening.

While I was out getting the car, I stopped by Sensaphonics to place an order for a new ear mold to be made. In LA one of my in-ears broke, but luckily I knew we were going to chicago so that situation wasn't as annoying as it could have been. After chatting it up and grabbing the philly in-ear number for nat, I cruised back to Minty.

When i got back, I picked up Angie for lunch at Schuba's as to partake in some fine food whild getting the band's cutt from last night's show. Angie was really cool, like i said, she has all these great ideas for minty and hopefully she'll get to have some of them happen. After talking 'shop' we talked about life related matters then paid the bill.

Meanwhile the band was cruising around the city with Jim Powers. They really liked chicago, which is awesome. I'd have to say Chicago is one of my fav places to visit. I would consider living there if it weren't for the wind and cold....

Come show time we seemed a little destine for destruction..For some reason this show had a bad vibe set with it from the beginning. The band and I loaded up into the car and we ended up getting to Funky Buddha's around 8. I of course was getting us a little lost thanks to mapquest, and my driving skills...No one was there which was mysterious...Basically from this point on it was a whole lotta miscommunication. I won't go into it a great deal, but basically it was one of those 'too many cooks in the kitchen' incidents which no one can be completely held responsible for on all sides.

It was a bummer cuz we ended up playing earlier then was advertised and I believe alot of the Prototypes fans didn't show up till midnight. I mean the band was happy about it, they were real tired and jet lagged and I think were more concerned with the show the next day then anything, but it still blows for the fans. The promoter dude was pretty cool though about the whole thing, i felt bad for him, it sucks this gig got confirmed last minute. The promoter really put alot into it like getting us full backline, and drinks etc.

Oh well, after this event, we ended up bailing back to minty and prepared to leave for the airport the next morning. At this point i was excited about south by south west but also very nervous about getting to the first gig on time for the band. I really thought it was gonna be jammed packed with traffic going in.

SCHUBA'S TAVERN-TOUR DAY 6

2007-03-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

SCHUBA’S TAVERN

After a restless night of not really sleeping, we all woke and started getting ready for the day. Isabelle and myself were located on the main floor of Minty Fresh’s office and the boys were in the besement. Francois was the first of the guys to come up stairs. He had a shitty night so he just bailed to get something to eat. I grabbed some cereal from the kitchen in the office and started cleaning up my sleeping area.

Angie came in to work and then the rest of the MF staff followed. Anthony gave us a map of the area and pointed out some vintage shops we could check out til soundcheck that evening. Like I said before, the band really digs lots of vintage stuff so they were into checking out all the stores. My main goal that day was to finish advancing the exodus show in Austin and talk to Anthony more about the 450 expense for using junior senior’s drums at that show. Also I wanted to scope out schuba’s. I just wanted a feel as to what the stage and the venue was going to be like that night.

After we walked around for a while I received a call from the office regarding guestlists and also regarding another show. There was apparently an opening for a radio/performance for The Current, some radio station at sxsw. After having some sushi with stephane and francois, I high tailed it back to the office to do advancing for the Current. It wasn’t as complicated as it could have been. We were able to get all the backline we needed for this show and that was usually the thing that took the most time to deal with.

Soon the band came back to the office and theyall took short naps before we walked over to the venue. Once again we got there and the headliner hadn’t arrived yet, so the band walked around the area with Anthony and I stayed at the venue working on a ‘to do list’ for the next couple days. I finally got to meet matt rucin and talk to him for a bit. He was super cool, knows all his shit, just an awesome guy who’s got it down. I was also pretty happy about meeting him then because I knew I'd have to work with him again at the Schuba's Yard Dog Gallery Show for SXSW.

After kicking it at the venue, just having a little down time, the headliner arrived and I was able to thank them for lending out backline to us. They were pretty nice, but a little distant, overall cool dudes though. The band showed up right near the tail end of All Smiles (who's lead guy Jim Fairchild is from Grandaddy) sound check and set their stuff up right after.

I can’t remember exactly what caused me to be very busy after their soud check…oh yeah. I was still working on finishing up my to do list and then after that I took pictures of the bands’ sound check. What was real awesome for them at this venue was that fabrice, their sound guy, was French, so they felt right at home and their show was probably super awesome because of that. After the band had their soundcheck, we ate at schuba’s harmony grill which kicked ass. I had an awesome south western salad, yum.

I went back to Minty after dinner to pick up the merchandise for the show. Unfortunately I didn't have all the right keys on me to get into the office, so i had to wait for Anthony to come over to let me in.

Merch was fun, just same old same old. While selling some girl came up to me and formerly introduced herself thinking I was from this radio station that had all their free stuff sitting next to me at the merch booth....I was later led to believe she was drunk from the loud yelling she proceded to do at All Smiles during their set. Aside from that I talked with Al (Minty intern) and Angie a bit. Finally got to meet Jim Powers who's probably one of the nicest guys ever. He was very happy with my work and thought I was doing a real great job, which was awesome.

When the gig was over I packed up the merch and got a ride back to Minty with Al to drop stuff off. No one was there so I assumed everyone was still back at Schuba's hanging out. Al dropped me back off there and I discovered no one was there either. I called up Anthony and he told me everyone bailed. I immediately was like 'oh shit!'. This is because I was the only person from the Proto Crew that had a key to Minty and knew the band was either already outside the office locked out, or on their way to the office soon to discover they were locked out. I ran over there, and ended up only being a few blocks behind the band. They felt kinda bad for making me run up to catch them, but I can always need a quick spike in my heart rate, so I really didn't care too much about it. Alex was sayig 'yeah i told them you might come back after dropping stuff off with Al.....or not...." haha. So I suppose they just figured I'd be at the office.

Anyways, after piling inside I settled down to work a little longer on getting directions for Austin together and my 'to do' list. This time it wasn't so cold when I fell asleep. Only wish I could have slept longer.

Day Off Chicago - Tour Day 5 (posted esp. for Chris Harne)

2007-03-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

DAY OFF CHICAGO

TODAY WE WERE ABLE TO SLEEP IN. I THINK I MIGHT HAVE ACTUALLY BEEN WOKEN UP BY MY PHONE, I CAN’T REMEMBER. OH YEAH, WAIT, IT’S COMING BACK TO ME. I HAD TO WAKE UP EARLY TO RETURN OUR RENTAL VAN TO THE AIRPORT. AFTER THIS I WENT BACK TO THE HOTEL, MET UP WITH FRANCOIS TO DO LAUNDRY, DID SOME MORE ADVANCING, AND LATER HAD BREAKFAST WITH ALEX AND FRANCOIS AT DENNY’S. THE FOOD WASN’T THAT BAD, BUT THE PORTIONS TO THE GUYS SEEMED REALLY LARGE.

AFTERWARDS I WENT BACK TO THE HOTEL ROOM AND ISABELLE WAS JUST GETTING UP. I MAINLY JUST STAYED ON MY COMPUTER MAKING SURE EVERYTHING WAS READY FOR CHICAGO AND SXSW. STILL BUGGIN PEOPLE ABOUT AMPS AND CYMBALS ETC.

EVENTUALLY, IT WAS TIME TO GO TO THE AIRPORT SO WE ALL LOADED IN THE HOTEL SHUTTLE AND I CHECKED EVERYONE IN. WE HAD ANOTHER SMOOTH FLIGHT WHICH ROCKED. I THINK THOUGH THE BAND WAS A LITTLE WORRIED BECAUSE I WAS SITTING UP FURTHER IN THE PLANE THEN THEM AND THEY DIDN’T’ SEE ME. I THINK THEY THOUGHT I DITCHED THEM. I WOULD NEVER DO THAT THOUGH, THAT WOULD BE THE WORST.

UPON ARRIVAL I CALLED A CAB COMPANY THE LABEL RECOMMENDED WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE NO GOOD. THE CAB COMPANY WAS ONLY INTO HELPING PEOPLE GOING TO SUBURBAN AREAS, NOT THE CITY. SO WE ENDED UP WAITING IN LINE TO GET TWO CABS. THE FIRST CAB DRIVER WE HAD SPOKE FRENCH AND KNEW EXACTLY WHERE HE WAS GOING WHEN I GAVE HIM THE ADDRESS. THE SECOND CAB DRIVER EITHER COULDN’T UNDERSTAND ME, OR JUST WASN’T PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT I WAS SAYING LIKE ‘PLEASE STAY WITH THE OTHER CAB, WE ARE A GROUP DRIVING TOGETHER’, OR ‘WE ARE GOING TO NEWPORT AVE’. THANK GOD THOUGH I WAS IN THE SQUIRRLY CAB, I THINK I WOULD HAVE BUSTED A GASKET IF THE BAND WAS LOST IN CHICAGO WITH A CAB DRIVER THAT DIDN’T KNOW WHAT WAS UP.

EVENTUALLY BOTH CABS MADE IT TO MINTY, AND WE ALL PILED INSIDE. THE LABEL’S OFFICE. IT WAS A REALLY CHILL SET UP BASED OUT OF A HOUSE. THERE WAS A LIVING ROOM AREA, A HUGE KITCHEN, NICE BATHROOM, AND EVEN A DOWNSTAIRS BASEMENT WITH A BATHROOM AND SLEEPING AREA FOR THE BOYS. EVERYONE WAS RUNNING LOW ON FUEL SO ANTHONY TOOK US ALL OUT FOR DINNER AT THE BURRITO HOUSE, WHICH KICKED ASS.

ALSO I FINALLY GOT TO MEET ANGIE, THE BAND’S PUBLICIST, WHO I’D BEEN DEALING WITH OVER THE PHONE. SHE WAS SUPER AWESOME AND HAS SUCH GREAT IDEAS FOR THE BAND AND THE COMPANY. SHE WAS TELLING ME HOW SHE USED TO WORK FOR SPIN AND I WAS TELLING HER HOW I WAS INTERESTED IN WRITING, SO HOPEFULLY I’LL BE ABLE TO GO WITH HER TO THE SXSW SPIN PARTY AND MEET SOME PEOPLE THERE. ALEX ALSO OVERHEARD ME TALKING ABOUT FINDING ANOTHER GIG AFTER THIS ONE AND GAVE MY NUMBER TO HIS FRIEND’S BAND LES BREASTFEEDERS, WHO WILL BE AT SXSW SO I’LL GET TO CHECK THEM OUT TOO.

AFTER EATING, WE ALL WENT TO BED. THE FIRST NIGHT SUCKED BECAUSE IT WAS REALLY COLD AND I WAS SLEEPING ON TWO SOFA CUSIONS ON THE FLOOR IN A SLEEPING BAG, SOMEHOW I THOUGHT THE FLOOR WOULD BE BETTER, MAYBE IF IT WAS CARPETED.

KEXP STATION & CHOP SUEY- TOUR DAY 4

2007-03-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

KEXP STATION SEATTLE, WA

I WOKE UP A LITTLE GROGGY FROM TWO HOURS SLEEP. AFTER GATHERING EVERYTHING FOR THE TRIP, THE BAND AND MYSELF LOADED INTO A SUPER SHUTTLE AND WENT TO LAX. THE CHECK IN WENT PRETTY SMOOTH, AND SO DID THE FLIGHT.

WE LANDED AROUND 9AM AND I PICKED UP THE VAN FOR THE DAY TO TAKE THE BAND TO KEXP STATION FOR THEIR INTERVIEW/ON-AIR PERFORMANCE. THE VAN WAS A LITTLE SMALLER THEN EXPECTED AND THE BAND WASN’T TOO CRAZY ABOUT THAT SINCE I SUPPOSE THEY DID A TOUR IN CANADA AND RECEIVED A 15 PASSANGER VAN FOR ALL THEIR GIGS. HOWEVER THEIR BUDGET WAS PROBABLY DIFFERENT FOR THIS AND VANS MIGHT BE CHEAPER TO RENT IN CANADA THEN THE STATES.

WE GOT TO THE STATION AFTER GETTING LOST A BIT. I REALLY HAVE NO GOOD DRIVING SKILLS, IT’S OFFICIAL AND I’M NOT AFRAID TO ADMIT IT. I’M SURE BY THE END OF THIS TRIP THEY’LL ALL BE SICK OF MY DRIVING SKILLS OR LACK THERE OF.

AT KEXP I COULDN’T TELL YOU HOW THIS EVENT REALLY WENT. I DECIDED IT WOULD BE BEST TO DROP OFF ALL THE LUGGAGE FOR THE BAND AT THE HOTEL AND CHECK IN WHILE THEY WERE DOING THEIR THING HERE. BUT FROM WHAT I HEARD FROM ALL THE DJ’S IT WAS PRETTY DOPE. I ALSO BELIEVE THAT ISABELLE HAS A RECORDING OF THE PERFORMANCE, WHICH I’LL HAVE TO SNAG SOMETIME.

ANYWAYS, I WENT TO THE HOTEL BOUT 20MINS DOWN THE ROAD, IT WASN’T THE BEST PLACE TO STAY AND THEY CHARGED US EXTRA FOR ANOTHER PERSON AND A COTT BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS DOABLE FOR THE BAND TO HAVE.

AFTER DEALING WITH THE HOTEL AND BAGGAGE I WENT TO PICK UP THE BAND AND MET UP WITH SHANNON A DJ I WAS KEEPING IN CONTACT WITH DURING THE WHOLE ADVANCING FOR THIS. SHE WAS SUPER COOL AND HAD JUST GOT THIS AWESOME TATTOO ON HER SHOULDER WHICH REPRESENTED SOME BAND SHE WAS INTO (I CAN’T REMEMBER THEIR NAME). AFTER SAYING GOODBYES’ AND ‘CATCH YA LATERS’ TO THE KEXP PEOPLE WE HEADED TO THE HOTEL.

AGAIN THE BAND PUSHED FOR A LINECHECK SO THEY COULD GET SOME SLEEP, I CAN’T BLAME THEM I WAS PRETTY BEAT TOO. HOWEVER TROUBLE AROSE ONCE WE ARRIVED AT THE VENUE. I SUPPOSE THAT FRANCOIS IS VERY PARTICULAR ABOUT THE SLEEPING CONDITIONS FOR THE BAND, AND WHICH I LATER FOUND OUT, HAS DISCS IN HIS BACK…SO HE WASN’T VERY DOWN WITH SLEEPING ON THE COT. STEPHANE ASKED IF THE BUDGET HAD ROOM FOR AN EXTRA BEDROOM AND I TOLD HIM NO, I ALSO SAID I’D TAKE THE COT, BECAUSE FRANKLY I DON’T CARE, I EXPECTED THIS TO BE A ROUGH AND TUMBLE TOUR. FRANCOIS HOWEVER ENDED UP GETTING HIS OWN ROOM ON HIS OWN DIME THAT EVENING. I FELT BAD, AND TOLD ANTHONY AT THE LABEL, BUT ANTHONY WAS REALISTIC ABOUT IT, WHICH I AM TOO. WE CAN’T GO SPENDING EXTRA MONEY AT THIS POINT FOR ANOTHER BEDROOM WHEN WE CAN ROOM PEOPLE CHEAPER.

PEOPLE THEN WENT TO SLEEP ETC. I STAYED UP AND JUST WORKED ON GETTING THINGS DONE. AT THIS POINT I WAS A LITTLE DELIRIOUS AND THE TASK OF GETTING A RENTAL VAN FOR CHICAGO AND EXTENDING THE RENTAL ON OUR AUSTIN GIGS WAS AN EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TASK TO ME.

I HAD MY THIRD WIND AFTER WE GOT TO THE GIG THOUGH. WE PULLED UP RIGHT NEXT TO THE LOADING DOCK, MOVED ALL OUR STUFF IN AND THE BAND JUST HUNG OUT FOR A BIT WITH YOUNG KNIVES AND FUJIYA & MIYAGI. BOTH BANDS WERE AWESOME AND SUPER NICE PEOPLE. I HOPE AT SXSW WE’LL GET TO HANG WITH THEM AGAIN. I KNOW WE’RE PLAYING WITH BOTH BANDS AGAIN, I THINK THE YOUNG KNIVES MORE SO THEN FUJIYA & MIYAGI.

THE VENUE WAS ALSO REALLY AWESOME AND HAD A NICE DARK ASIAN VIBE TO IT. COLIN THE REP THERE KNEW HIS SHIT, AND WAS REALLY EASY GOING ABOUT EVERYTHING.. I CAUGHT SOME OF THE YOUNG KNIVES PLAYING, BUT MOSTLY CHECKED ON THE BAND TO MAKE SURE THEY WERE GOOD. I ALSO FOUND A VERSION OF THE VAN WE ARE GOING TO GET FOR OUR SXSW DATES. I RAN IT BY FRANCOIS AND HE WAS A LITTLE HESITANT ABOUT IT AND STILL WANTED THE 15 PERSON VAN, BUT I THINK THAT THE STOW AND GO IS GONNA BE PERFECT TO BE QUITE HONEST.

WITH THAT LITTLE WORRY TAKEN CARE OF I WAITED TILL THE BAND WENT ON AND TOOK PICTURES FOR HALF OF THEIR PERFORMANCE, THEN I SOLD MERCH FOR THE REST OF THE PERFORMANCE. WE MADE 209 ON MERCH, I KINDA WISH I STUCK AROUND MORE, WE WOULD HAVE PROBABLY SOLD MORE.

AFTER THE GIG I TRIED TO TAKE THE BAND TO GET SUSHI DOWN THE ROAD. TURNS OUT IT WAS WICKED FAR DOWN THE ROAD WHICH THEY WERE NOT ALL ABOUT WALKING FOR. SO WE BACK TRACKED AND THEY ATE PIZZA NEAR THE VENUE. THEY ALSO HAD THE BILL TAKEN CARE OF FOR THEM BY SOME AMERICAN/FRENCH FAN. HE LOVED THE SHOW AND SAID ‘LET ME SHOW YOU HOW ALL AMERICANS AREN’T ASS HOLES’ AND PAID FOR THEIR TAB. THEY WERE TOTALLY THRILLED BY THIS, WHICH MADE ME HAPPY. I REALLY WANT THEM TO HAVE A GOOD TIME WHILE THEY’RE HEAR IN AMERICA.

ALEX AND I TOOK THE LIBERTY OF LOADING THE VAN BACK UP BECAUSE CHOP SUEY HAD ANOTHER SHOW AND WAS KICKING EVERYONE OUT. WE MAD ABOUT 144 EXTRA BUCKS ON THE VENUE CUTT, AND AFTER THIS SHOW I WAS FINALLY ABLE TO GIVE OUT SOME PER DIEM TO EVERYONE, WHICH REALLY MADE ME HAPPY.

WE LEFT THE GIG, WENT BACK TO THE HOTEL AND THE BAND CRASHED FOR THE NIGHT. AROUND THIS POINT THOUGH I RECEIVED A CALL FROM MY BUDDY PETER SZYLAGI. HE HEARD THROUGH MY ROOMMATE DAN I WOULD BE IN SEATTLE WHEN HIIM AND HIS FRIEND ALEX WERE GOING TO BE THERE. I WAS THINKING OF BAILING ON THIS INVITE TO HANG SEEING AS HOW I WAS ON THE END OF MY THIRD WIND, BUT I THOUGHT ‘FUCK IT’ MIGHT AS WELL HANG, NOT GONNA HAVE TOO MUCH TIME TO DO SO ON THE ROAD. SO I MET UP WITH THEM AT THE PIKE BAR. I CAN’T REMEMBER WHAT STREET IT WAS ON BUT IT WAS A NICE HANG.

PETER AND ALEX WERE THERE FOR A BIG LEBOWSKI CONVENTION OR SHOWING THEY HAD AT THE THEATER ACROSS FROM THE BAR WHICH WAS AWESOME. I CAUGHT UP WITH ALEX WHO I HADN’T SEEN IN FOREVER AND HE TOLD ME HE DROPPED OUTTA THE ENTERTAINMENT SCENE AND WAS DOING MORE COMPUTER BASED WORK, PROBABLY A SMART IDEA, I ONLY WISH I WAS SAVVY TO COMPUTER KNOWLEDGE SO I MIGHT TRY AND DO THAT WITH WEB DESIGN OR SOMETHING. ALEX IS ALSO APPARENTLY MOVING UP TO SAN FRAN AND IS HAVING SOME GOING AWAY PARTY AT THE END OF THE MONTH, WHICH I’LL TRY TO ATTEND. PETER WAS DOING WELL, STILL AT COMEDY CENTRAL I BELIEVE, IT WAS GOOD TO SEE HIIM AND HANG FOR A BIT.

I ONLY STAYED FOR 30MNS BUT IT WAS WELL SPENT OVERALL. I THEN WENT BACK TO THE HOTEL AND CRASHED FOR THE NIGHT.

THE TANGIER- Tour Day 3

2007-03-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

TANGIER

TODAY I WOKE UP REALLY EARLY AND CLEANED THE KITCHEN, MY BEDROOM, AND THE LIVING ROOM TO GET THE HOUSE READY FOR THE BAND.

AFTER PICKING THEM UP AND DROPPING OFF THEIR GEAR AND LUGGAGE, I TOOK THEM DOWN TO MELROSE FOR THE DAY TO GO SHOPPING. THEY REALLY DIG VINTAGE T-SHIRTS AND OTHER THINGS LIKE THAT, SO MELROSE WAS A PERFECT PLACE FOR THEM TO KILL SOME TIME BEFORE THE SHOW. MEANWHILE I WENT TO THIS LITTLE INTERNET CAFÉ FOR A BIT TO CHECK MAIL AND DO SOME MORE ADVANCING. I THINK IT WAS CALLED @ CAFÉ. ANY WHO, THEY HAD FREE WIRELESS FOR THE FIRST HOUR, SO I’LL HAVE TO KEEP THAT IN MIND NEXT TIME I CRUISE DOWN TO MELROSE FOR ANYTHING AND NEED TO GET SOME WORK DONE IN THE PROCESS.

I LATER HAD TIME TO HEAD BACK TO MY HOUSE AND PICK UP SOME THINGS FOR THE TRIP LIKE WHITEOUT AND TOOTHPASTE. I ALSO HAD A MOMENT TO COOK UP SOME BROCCOLI AND EGGS FOR LUNCH WHICH WAS REALLY YUMMY WITH THIS AWESOME CILANTrO SPICE I BOUGHT AT THE L.A. COUNTY FAIR THIS PAST YEAR.

I HIGH-TAILED IT BACK TO MEET THE BAND SHORTLY AFTER. THEY BOUGHT JUST SMALL THINGS LIKE, T-SHIRTS, SUNGLASSES, SCARVES, AND THINGS FOR THEIR KIDS. (THE GUITAR PLAYER AND BASS PLAYER EACH HAVE SOME NEW BABIES ). WE WENT BACK TO MY PLACE AND KEEPING IN MIND HOW WE WERE SITTING AROUND AND WAITING LAST NIGHT FOR A LINECHECK/SOUNDCHECK, AND HOW ANNOYING THAT WAS, THE BAND DECIDED IT WOULD BE BEST TO CHILL AT MY PLACE TILL THEY REALLY NEEDED TO SHOW UP, WHICH WAS RIGHT BEFORE THEY PLAYED.

THIS IS TOTALLY SOMETHING I HAVE TO KEEP IN MIND FOR THE FUTURE, I’M SO USED TO WORKING ON THE CREW SIDE OF THINGS I FORGET COMLPETELY THAT THE BAND ARRIVES LATER, DOESN’T DO ANY WAITING, AND JUST DOES THEIR SOUNDCHECK/LINECHECK THEN BAILS FOR DINNER OR TO CHILL BEFORE THEY PLAY. ON THIS TRIP I’VE SLIPPED UP A BIT ON THAT, BUT IT’S ONLY A MINOR KINK IN MARY B’S PLAN FOR ACTION.

I WENT TO THE VENUE EARLY BECAUSE SCOTT STERLING TOLD THE BAND WHO’S BACKLINE WE WERE BORROWING TO SHOW UP EARLY FOR US. SO IF NO ONE WAS GOING TO BE THERE TO REP. PROTOTYPES, PAPILLON (THE OTHER BAND) MIGHT BE ALL ‘WTF’.

THE VENUE WAS COOL, EXACTLY WHAT I REMEMBER FROM SEEING DR. DOG PLAY. IT’S NOT A GOOD VENUE FOR THE PROTOTYPES THOUGH, I MEAN THE SHOW WENT WELL, BUT IT JUST WASN’T A TYPICAL VENUE THEY WOULD PLAY.

IT WAS GOOD THOUGH TO GET THERE EARLY AND TALK TO THE OTHER BANDS, THAT’S PROBABLY ONE OF THE BEST THINGS ABOUT THE JOB IS TO TALK TO THE OTHER BANDS AND HEAR THEIR EXPERIENCES ON THE ROAD AND SUCH.

PAPILLON WAS TELLING ME HOW THEY KNOW THE BRIAN JOANSTOWN MASSACRE AND THE INFAMOUS ANTONE FROM THAT BAND. IT WAS INTERESTING HEARING THEM TALK ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCE WITH THE BAND AND HOW IT’S INTERESTING FOR THEM TO HEAR OTHER PEOPLE’S TAKE ON THE BAND FROM JUST WATCHING THE DIG DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THEM.
REAL COOL PEEPS, THOSE BOYS, I WAS EVEN ABLE TO SCORE AN E.P. FROM THEM WHICH ROCKED.

ALSO SOFT LIGHTEES AND THE OPENER WERE GREAT TOO. I DIDN’T GET TO TALK TO THEM TOO MUCH. BUT I’M DEFINITELY GOING TO CHECK THEM OUT NEXT TIME I HAVE A MOMENT IN LA.

I SAW SCOTT DOWN AT THE VENUE, BUT I THINK HE JUST SHOWED UP TO MAKE SURE THINGS WERE COOL AND BAILED FOR ANOTHER SHOW. I’M PRETTY SURE HE WAS STILL IRRITATED ABOUT THE WHOLE CAMERA SITUATION AT THE BORDELLO BUT OH WELL, HE’LL GET OVER IT I’M SURE.

EVENTUALLY I WENT BACK HOME TO GO PICK UP THE BAND. THEY WERE JUST WATCHING SOME TV AND TAKING NAPS WHEN I ARRIVED. IT SUCKS THEY WERE REALLY JET LAGGED. ESPECIALLY THE DRUMMER, ALEX. HE HAD TO FLY FROM MONTREAL (HIS PLANE ALSO WAS DELAYED) TO PARIS. STAY IN PARIS FOR TWO DAYS TO PRACTICE, THEN FLY TO LA. POOR THING.

ANYWAYS, THE BAND GOT TO THE VENUE ON TIME. SOCIALIZED WITH PAPILLON FOR A BIT, THEN WENT ON.

ONE AWESOME PART OF THE EVENING WAS SEEING NICK, EM, TIM LUKE, AND FRANCESCA. THAT’S PROBABLY LIKE THE 5TH TIME ANY OF MY FRIENDS HAVE COME OUT TO SEE THE SHOW AND ME. BUT PROBABLY THE FIRST ONE IN LA SO IT REALLY MEANT A WHOLE LOT TO ME THEY WOULD COME OUT AND SEE THE BAND AND SUPPORT ME. SO THANKS GUYS! ;).

THE GUYS PUT ON A GOOD SHOW. ISABELLE HAD ME TAKE PICTURES. MOST PICS I TOOK WERE OF HER THOUGH BECAUSE THE ROOM WAS SOOO DARK YOU COULN’T SEE ANY OF THE BOYS ON FILM.

THIS SHOW WAS BETTER THEN THE BORDELLO, BASICALLY BECAUSE SOFT LIGHTEES WERE AWESOME ABOUT GETTING OFF OF THE STAGE ON TIME AND MY BAND GETTING IN ON TIME. ALSO I THINK THE GUYS HAD MORE SLEEP WHICH IS ALWAYS KEY ON THE ROAD.

AFTER THE GIG WE LOADED UP. I HUNG AROUND AND PUSHED SOME MERCH ON ONE TABLE SCORING 17 BUCKS FOR THE NIGHT, SAID GOODBYE TO MY FRIENDS, AND WE BAILED TO MY HOUSE.

WHEN WE GOT BACK, WE HAD ONLY ABOUT TWO HOURS TO SLEEP BEFORE TAKING A SUPER SHUTTLE RIDE TO THE AIRPORT. I WAS THINKING OF DEALING WITH VAN NUY’S FLY AWAY AND THE WHOLE CAB THING, BUT THEN I WAS LIKE 'SCREW THAT', IT’S GONNA BE TOO MUCH OF A PAIN IN THE ASS FOR THE BAND TO DO THAT. SO WE DIDN’T.

THE BORDELLO- Tour Day 2

2007-03-12T22:41:00.000-07:00

BORDELLO

So sorry for the delay in my tour diary, it’s kinda hard to keep up given the errands to do and the lack of internet available at venues.

10AM I went to pick up Alex and Isabelle to take care of getting drum sticks and some shoes repaired. Stephane and Francois decided to come along as well. After dropping off Isabelle’s boots, we went to the guitar center on sunset. The band enjoyed looking at all the hand prints in front of the store and took some pictures as well.

After that Stephane told me he wanted to meet up with a director friend of his, Twist, who I guess is well known for doing one of the Vines videos, also his brother did eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. We arranged to meet up with him at the Griddle after picking up Isabelle’s shoes from the repair shop. Until it was time to go there though, I showed them around LA. I ended up taking them by Ozzy’s house, through Bel Air, and all the way up the PCH back tracking through Santa Monica. They had a really good time laughing and talked to me here and there to answer some questions they had.

After picking up Isabelle’s shoes we went to the Griddle. It was a good meal. I don’t’ know if they enjoyed it or not, but they seemed happy. I didn’t have too much to add to the group conversation after Twist arrived, because everyone was conversing in French. But I’m not really a big talker in large groups of people anyways so it suited me just fine.

After the gig we went back to their hotel and they got ready for the show while I went home to grab my computer and tour book for the day. I picked them up a little after 5 and we went down to the venue. The main band Paris Love L.A. was on stage working out all the details of their performance. They were taking a very long time though, and the band who’s backline we were using weren’t going to show up until 9pm that night. So the band dropped their gear and went back up to the hotel. I hung around the venue to catch some of the show and prepped the guestlist.

Paris Loves L.A. was a good band, but they weren’t that great in my opinion. Also they hogged the stage and went over their set time and no one did anything about it. This caused the prototypes and magic & rattles to shorten their set. One thing that will piss people off is when you go over your set time by taking a long ass break and they playing ten more songs after that break. Very uncool on Paris Loves L.A’s part, And I’m kinda mad that the plug wasn’t pulled on this band for doing that because it should have been.

Anyways Adrian Greier? The main dude in the HBO show Entourage was there. He came to see Paris Loves L.A. I think, what a silly choice on his part, He should have stayed later for the Prototypes when we went on which was 12:11, not 11pm. After the show we loaded up. The band was still jet lagged so I took them to the hotel.

Problems with this show included not having enough comp tix for the guest list, and Twist getting in trouble with the venue for having a camera rig. People being all “L.A’ about things is a pain in the ass sometimes, meaning Twist getting booted not him filming. Aside from that it went okay. The show had some technical difficulties, but they’ve been adjusted since.

After the show I also forgot to get the cutt from the venue, but raced back and caught up with the promoter and got our whopping 60 bucks. Then I think I went home and tried to sleep…

That’s all for now, I know I’m a loser for doing that, but I have to go to bed, I will try to write more tomorrow because I have most of the day free.

Cheers,
mary

Prototypes Tour Day 1

2007-03-07T23:26:00.000-08:00

For some reason today I wasn't wiggin'out about touring...I think that's because I got a head start on it two days ago, when I felt I didn't have time to get everything done.

Anyways, I went to the airport and met up with Francois which went smoothly. He was mostly very tired and drunk from what he told me, which made me more relaxed. He really wanted to get to the hotel, and since my car didn't have enough room for his luggage plus the rest of the band's (who arrived later) I took him to the hotel first.

I was a little crazed when checking him in and having the room keys...

Then I left for the airport again and ended up getting in around an hour after I should have been there to pick up Stephane, Isabelle, and Alexandre. I already told Francois though to (call, or leave a message) for Stephane so they would know i was running late and why. They were in good spirits when I met up with them, but very tired all the same.

I dropped them off at their hotel and they invited me to come out to dinner with them.

We ended up going to Mel's diner right near Hollywood and Highland. Dinner went fine, lots and French and English being thrown around. They also were very happy with how organized I am and pleased with their tour booklets, which made me very happy.

After dinner we went to the Famous Groemanns Chinese theater for them to check out. Since we have two shows in L.A. it's going to be hard for them to get out and actually see L.A. so I think they were happy with walking on Hollywood Blvd for a bit.

So, one day down, went pretty well, tomorrow we'll see how the actual show day goes.

Here's info on that if any L.A. pals wanna stop on by.

Bordello
901 E 1st Street
Los Angeles, Ca 90026

we go on at 11pm
support: Paris loves France and Magic & Rattles.
tix: 5.00

signin' out.

Getting Excited

2007-03-02T09:02:00.000-08:00

Well Folks,

At the end of this week I will be wrapping up my gig doing sound for the Lady Bird play. The Crew and Cast have been great and I know I'm going to miss it in some ways....but it was always cold there and my car sometimes didn't start so in other ways I won't miss it one bit!

The Prototypes tour is shaping up nicely, just a few more people need to get back to me about backline and I should be all set to rock this beast. I just hope I don't get yelled at, would cause me to be more nerve racked then I already am. However I know if I just take a deep breathe and think back to the days I was under the leadership of the TM from BBVD for consultation I'll be fine.

There was a post on myspace today for the Prototypes' Video "Who's Gonna Sing". Here it is!

Who's gonna sing/Prototypes/clip-video

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Hopefully this will show up.

Off to the gym and to see black snake moan!!!

Bloggeriffic

2007-02-16T23:02:00.000-08:00

So what aspired me to actually start blogging again was Emily's creative usage of her own blogspot- heartbaking.blogspot.com. I actually registered earlier on when my friend Nick put up his own blog, it looked so easy I had to try it out, but then never got around to doing anything with it.

I suppose the purpose of this old thing will primarily be for just what I'm up to when it's worth mentioning, however I have nothing too amazing to mention now and would rather sleep.