non-standard time
well, i guess when i post one measly test link to a lame song and get like 5 responses, it means it has been waaaaay too long since i updated this thing. it's amazing to think that at one time, i posted here up to 5 times a day, and now it's so infrequent that i feel like it should be accompanied by some sort of toast or ritual. i do miss the nice catharsis of journal writing, though, so hopefully in the next few months i will find a bit of a happy medium between "part-time job livejournaller" and "biannual livejournaller". watch this space.
at any rate, here's what's been going on. since we last spoke, i:
- moved to new york city. i live in williamsburg brooklyn, which is where all the artists moved like 6 years ago when they were priced out of the lower east side. today when you walk down the street in billyburg it looks like this: warehouse warehouse wine bar warehouse old italian rowhouse warehouse warehouse $1,000,000 condo warehouse indie record shop. plus stunning views of manhattan and an amazingly short commute to my job in midtown manhattan. all in all the transition was not as rough as i expected. my apartment is big and nice, unlike a lot of apartments here, and my roommate is at least 97% sane.
- started my new gig as a real live a&r man. i spend some time looking for new artists. so far i have co-signed two artists, Kirsten Price (not the porn star), and The Gossip. yes, that's right: northwest boy makes good and signs a kill rock stars band from portland. i am over the moon about both of them and they are going to have startling contributions to the 2007 musical landscape, just you wait. i've also got a few other artists that i'm working on signing as we speak so keep all appropriate appendages crossed for me.
i also spend a lot of time helping to "put together albums", which is the other, somewhat more demanding side of a&r. this means finding wonderful producers and songwriters and engineers and mixers and studios and managers to be able to bring to different projects around the label, as need be. i'm one of the people who "specializes" in pop, so lately i've been working a lot on finding/piecing together songs, etc. for the new albums from Jennifer Lopez and Amerie, as well as a new artist coming to epic in 2007 called The Dey (think a latin Fugees). I also put together a wicked Natasha Bedingfield remix featuring Kardinal Offishall that no one's heard yet, but hopefully will one day.
- went to italy for the first time with my dad, whose lung cancer is back and is much harder to treat this time, but thankfully he has been feeling ok.
- continued to enjoy the company of all my awesome old friends who live in new york now (ellen, kailin, travis, ian, anil) as well as make some new ones (florian and chris eggermont for starters).
- have found myself ironically lonely in a city of 11 million. just can't meet a nice girl to save my life. i'm sure it's largely my fault - when work doesn't feel like work, you suddenly find yourself doing it all the time instead of engaging in the sorts of extracurriculars where you might actually meet someone great. but to be fair to me, it's kinda hard to meet people here. sometimes i feel like i'm hiding in plain sight, at least in a romantic sense. and it's sometimes made worse when i am surrounded by the apparent new york pastime of making out in the subway!
- have been missing seattle as much as ever, and LA much more than i ever expected. don't want to dwell on this too much though. i'm so lucky to have this opportunity, and more specifically, to have the opportunity to have such clarity about where in the world i NEED to be right now, that it's really kind of a moot thing. plus, work will be taking me to both places a lot next year. i'm still permitted to pine for Pine St. or long for Los Feliz every now and again though.
anyways, since i'm NOT planning for this to be biannual anymore, i'm gonna leave it at that for now, even if i'm leaving some things out. hope everything's well in your world.
at any rate, here's what's been going on. since we last spoke, i:
- moved to new york city. i live in williamsburg brooklyn, which is where all the artists moved like 6 years ago when they were priced out of the lower east side. today when you walk down the street in billyburg it looks like this: warehouse warehouse wine bar warehouse old italian rowhouse warehouse warehouse $1,000,000 condo warehouse indie record shop. plus stunning views of manhattan and an amazingly short commute to my job in midtown manhattan. all in all the transition was not as rough as i expected. my apartment is big and nice, unlike a lot of apartments here, and my roommate is at least 97% sane.
- started my new gig as a real live a&r man. i spend some time looking for new artists. so far i have co-signed two artists, Kirsten Price (not the porn star), and The Gossip. yes, that's right: northwest boy makes good and signs a kill rock stars band from portland. i am over the moon about both of them and they are going to have startling contributions to the 2007 musical landscape, just you wait. i've also got a few other artists that i'm working on signing as we speak so keep all appropriate appendages crossed for me.
i also spend a lot of time helping to "put together albums", which is the other, somewhat more demanding side of a&r. this means finding wonderful producers and songwriters and engineers and mixers and studios and managers to be able to bring to different projects around the label, as need be. i'm one of the people who "specializes" in pop, so lately i've been working a lot on finding/piecing together songs, etc. for the new albums from Jennifer Lopez and Amerie, as well as a new artist coming to epic in 2007 called The Dey (think a latin Fugees). I also put together a wicked Natasha Bedingfield remix featuring Kardinal Offishall that no one's heard yet, but hopefully will one day.
- went to italy for the first time with my dad, whose lung cancer is back and is much harder to treat this time, but thankfully he has been feeling ok.
- continued to enjoy the company of all my awesome old friends who live in new york now (ellen, kailin, travis, ian, anil) as well as make some new ones (florian and chris eggermont for starters).
- have found myself ironically lonely in a city of 11 million. just can't meet a nice girl to save my life. i'm sure it's largely my fault - when work doesn't feel like work, you suddenly find yourself doing it all the time instead of engaging in the sorts of extracurriculars where you might actually meet someone great. but to be fair to me, it's kinda hard to meet people here. sometimes i feel like i'm hiding in plain sight, at least in a romantic sense. and it's sometimes made worse when i am surrounded by the apparent new york pastime of making out in the subway!
- have been missing seattle as much as ever, and LA much more than i ever expected. don't want to dwell on this too much though. i'm so lucky to have this opportunity, and more specifically, to have the opportunity to have such clarity about where in the world i NEED to be right now, that it's really kind of a moot thing. plus, work will be taking me to both places a lot next year. i'm still permitted to pine for Pine St. or long for Los Feliz every now and again though.
anyways, since i'm NOT planning for this to be biannual anymore, i'm gonna leave it at that for now, even if i'm leaving some things out. hope everything's well in your world.