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Sick!

I'm Giving In and Starting a Blog. For Starters, Some Background Info.

Hello World Wide Web,

I love to live behind the scenes.  However, a few of my friends (ahem Laura Lolly and Amanda Palmer) have encouraged me to blog in the past.  I was reluctant as I didn't see the point.  But as I realize more and more that I pretty much live an immersive life in which there is no on or offline it seemed to make more sense.  For more on that check out Nokia's study on The Future of Entertainment HERE on Dave Kusek's Blog.  On top of immersive living, I recently accepted a new job in Miami at Live Nation Artists.  Our first artist is Madonna. Sick!

Although I've been working in music for 6 years, moving to Miami itself from my comfortable little life in Williamsburg, Brooklyn was obviously a drastic change.  Ontop of the fact that I was leaving the greatest city in the world for a state that single-handedly put GWB into the White House, I was also leaving a wonderful world of friends, artists, and colleagues that I am lucky to know.  In addition, I have met so many amazing people all over the globe on my travels that I figured this is a realistic way to help stay in touch.  There's a strong chance this blog will have a readership solely consisting of Sean Francis and Laura Keating, but that's exactly the point.  I love and miss you guys!

I'm from a horrible white, rich, Republican village in Wisconsin (no clue why they officially call it a village, it's just a small town) called Hartland which is a suburb 20 minutes outside of Milwaukee.  Though I guess I shouldn't knock too hard.  The Dresden Dolls' and HUMANWINE seemed to love their stays in H-Town at my parents' house.  Despite its bland and often closed-minded residents, I was raised by wonderful hippie-leaning liberal parents and suppose in hindsight that had I not loathed Hartland quite so much, I may not have had the motivation to get out.  I can't remember music not being a part of my life and I was raised on a steady diet of The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Janis Joplin with modern artists like REM and The Cure often thrown into the mix.  My father is one of the best swim coaches in the country and would often trade influences with his HS swimmers to stay current.  My first concert was Steve Miller at the Marcus Ampitheatre when I was 5.  I fell asleep.  In about first grade I had my first obsession with a "band," NKOTB, which was followed by an evolution of Paula Abdoul, Alicia Silverstone-era Aerosmith, before settling on Britpop ruling my life from 7th grade on.  My tastes now expand far beyond Noel Gallagher, but that's a good reference point.  I spent my childhood and teenage years going to tons of concerts in Milwaukee in Chicago with my friends and would often wonder "Who are those people standing at the side of the stage, and how do I get that vantage point?"

In middle school I would sit in my room and obsess over organizing my constantly growing CD collection and (no joke) make lists of what labels the artists I loved were on to see which roster I would most likely want to work for.  Geffen often won.  Yay Mark Kates!  Who knew the man making a lot happen in Geffen world at the time would someday be my good friend.  Btw, Mark manages MGMT, The Cribs and Doves.  Check out links on the side panel for more as well as his badass company, Fenway Recordings.  In 8th grade I discovered The Passman Book and realized that one really could have a real job in Music.  When I was a sophmore I started thinking about college and majors.  Almost every option was either a traditional Music degree or Music Therapy.  I had taken piano lessons for years, but was also a very serious athlete and eventually had to turn more of my focus on swimming.  I wasn't that great at piano anyway, but still enjoy it once in awhile.

Eventually I stumbled on a school in Boston called Northeastern University who had a Music Industry program.  In addition, NU is world famous for it's "co-op" program in which students alternate semesters going to school and working in their respective fields.  A school was going to give me college credit to intern at say, a label?  Score!  It's funny that's what my thought process was, "label." I don't think it quite occurred to me what options were out there.  Anyway, NU also had a Division I swim program and for that and various other reasons I went with NU over NYU.  Oh and I HAD to go to school in a major concert market as many Britpop bands at the time would only do 8-15 city tours and Milwaukee was often not one of them.  Though it was fun to go see Kula Shaker and other big UK bands in Milwaukee with a crowd of under 100 since it's not as much of a taste making city as it's coastal counterparts.  Crispian Mills and the band probably didn't think it was that fun though.  Who knew that Bob Ezrin, who produced their second album, would someday be my boss?  So cool!

Off I went on a swimming scholarship to NU at age 17 equally as ready to dive into rock n roll world.  I immersed myself in the Boston music scene almost immediately.  Within the first month I regularly started attending shows like Badly Drawn Boy's first US concert ever @ The Paradise.  He played for 3 hours and his debut album, The House of The Bewilderbeast which is one of my all-time faves, wasn't even out yet.  When folks started to walk out to catch the T, he insulted them with a shtick that fans now often come to expect.  Within the same week I went to see Doves, also at the Paradise, touring on their debut album that was practically the soundtrack to my freshman year, along with BDB.  But what piqued my interest almost as much was the support band called The Strokes.  I bought their $5 cardboard EP from one of the band members and headed out to Somerville a few weeks later to catch them playing the closing of Gallery Bershard.  Not surprisingly, Amanda Palmer was also in the room, but I didn't know who she was we wouldn't formerly cross paths with oneanother for a few more years.  I'm not like the biggest Strokes fan in the world but their shows at TT The Bear's in Cambridge, MA back in the day really used to rip.

During my sophomore year I excitedly went on a few interviews for my first co-op.  I went with Powderfinger Promotions, which is a college radio promo company working for the wonderful David Avery and Winifred Chane.  Powderfinger is named after the Neil Young song and in hindsight, I am so lucky that my first music job was working for Dave and Win who are just such wonderful, music loving people.  Powderfinger worked a lot of Jammy-leaning albums and I would often hear "Kevin Morris from SciFidelity" mentioned who would later become my boss and a large part of my life.  That makes it sound like we dated, ha.  Far from it!  And his wife Wendy is an uber-babe hero of mine.  Anyway, Win rules over at CMJ now, is one of my BFF's and was my roommate at SXSW a few weeks ago.  That summer I purposely pursued new co-ops as although I loved Powderfinger, I had no clue what I wanted to do and figured the best way to figure that out was just to try everything.  Thus, I split my summer between Q Division, an indie label in Somerville and WBCN-FM, New England's largest alternative rock station. I worked in the promotions department for Cha-chi and Melissa. The day I started was the week prior to the WBCN annual River Rave (which had some legit lineups back in the day, Oedipus has great taste) and I remember Cha-Chi yelling at sales people like crazy.  Scary!  But I genuinely complemented his awesome mini-collection of Beatles memorabilia that adorned his office and we hit it off from there on out.  He slipped me 4 (!) All Access passes to The River Rave for helping him out that week and told me to have fun with my friends.  Kyle from Tenacious D gave me his phone number at the festival which was both creepy and funny.  Cha-chi was a big turning point as he showed me the world of comped tickets.  I remember him saying "Emily, I AM the Ticket Master."  And it was true.  Working in promotions, Cha-chi regularly hooked up free tix to everything from Britpop shows at The Paradise to Paul McCartney at The Fleet Center.  Really Chach, I can't thank you enough for that.  There is NO WAY I would have been able to afford tickets to all of those shows and it fed me a steady diet of Rock throughout college.  But I learned just as much working at Q Division across the river as it was my first time really working with artists directly and also hatched my first merch gig.  Ed Valaskus, who now runs Q Division's label, asked me to sell merch for Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo for an upcoming gig at The Paradise.  I was psyched!  In middle school, as a regular merch-buying music fan I would always wonder how the kids behind the table got their gigs.  Anyway, Ed seemed pleased with my merching skills and invited me to Maine with Kay and the band.  Wow!  After my first taste of a mini-tour (even though it was just a one-off) I was hooked.  I continued merching for the bands Ed founded and also plays bass in: The Gentlemen and The Gravel Pit. My corporate rock radio world was also intertwined with indie Boston as The Gentlemen had won the WBCN Rock N Roll Rumble the year prior and also performed at the BCN River Rave. I had a BLAST merching for those guys, had school girl crushes on all of The Gentlemen (except Mike, he was married) and learned a ton.  Somewhere in there I was also training to try and qualify for the Olympic Trials in swimming.  

The following summer was the debut of Bonnaroo!  Win was one of the editors at Skope Magazine and scored press passes through Ken, Dave, Steven and Ever at Big Hassle. Thank you guys! Win is also a kickass photographer and we had a blast shooting the shows from the pit and watching the press conferences.  In hindsight, this experience set the tone for the next few years: loads of music festivals with tons of perks and access.  So awesome!  When we got back to Boston I continued working at that summer's mix of internships: Don Law's (now Live Nation's New England) office and often did the guest list at Avalon and ripped tickets at The Paradise.  Aka a really awesome college job as it allowed even more free gigs + the ability to get one's friends in.  As a side note, I would like to state that I obviously pay for any shows where the band is making little or no money.  But I work my ASS off and slave away for artists and don't think it is a travesty for industry folk to secure comped tickets.  Obviously I love and live for live music, but going to shows is part of my job as well.  There isn't a single gig from a local Miami band to a major international rock festival that I don't take something away and learn from.

TBC.  Time for bed.  Winter Music Conference kicked my ass last night.