Strike!

I feel like I need to wrap things up somehow; to sum up for you and myself the results of the summer.

But the thing is that after my first two college summers, there WAS something to wrap up; some summing to be done. Because they were over, they were finished, and no matter how bad I wanted to (which was a lot), I could never continue them.

But this time? This time is different because it is going to continue. Whether it continues in Los Angeles, with a New Media department, or at a record label is still up in the air, but what’s for sure is that it will still be indie, glam, cutthroat, and more wonderful than words can ever explain.

Most important part of the summer: realizing that I CAN and WILL be able to make a living doing exactly what I love.

But on a more entertaining and less depressing note, here you go:
Top 5 moments/adventures of the summer:
1. "Hi, I’m Pouyan:" Having my favorite keyboardist introduce himself to me.
2. "Wanna sleep on our floor?:" Riding in a band’s tour van to a closed beach, jumping the barrier and playing in the Pacific for an hour in the middle of the night.
3. "Know what I like about you? You eat like a dude:" The amazing guys I worked with every day.
4. "MEET ME AT RAINBOW ROOM!:" The lead singer of some band pulling me into pictures with him for Dutch Esquire at Viper Room when I was the only sober one at the club.
5. "Do you want a drink or something?:" Meeting pretty much every screamo, emo, and punk band on the scene at the first two dates of Warped Tour and the countless cheap shows I managed to get into.
The two music videos I was in, the all-access passes to countless shows, the phone calls to random Immortal bands and the awesome unreleased mixes I listened to everyday don’t even make the cut.

The one thing this summer had in common with every other one was that there was a very specific soundtrack to summer ‘07, all of which I will never be able to listen to again without thinking of this summer...

Side A: Songs I Can’t Sit Still While Listening To:
Scary Kids Scaring Kids– Darkest Hour (This makes the list because even though it’s old, I found myself re-enacting the video with the other label interns every time we went anywhere. Shotgun!)
Halifax– Snow In Hollywood (I never saw snow in Hollywood, but I did see an awful lot of great bands play there.)
Family Force 5– Replace Me (The band has a guy in it named Crouton, which is enough to generally make me not listen to them, but this one’s awfully catchy.)
Aiden– One Love (Oh, come on. Everyone needs more pop goth in their lives.)
Love Hate Hero– Amity (My current pet band. And the remix is somehow even better.)
The Receiving End Of Sirens– Planning A Prison Break (What is wrong with a jailbreak, baby?)
Blaqk Audio– Stiff Kittens (I spent most of the summer counting down the release of this album. I really am a 15-year-old skater boy at heart.)
Knights Are Coming– Sex City (This song is amazing because I think it’s meant to be serious, but the lyrics make it such a joke I’m not sure.)
Emarosa– Casablanca (They slept on the rock star couch, I had to include this one.)
Funeral For A Friend– Reunion (Brit punk pop goes... to Southern California?)
The Academy Is...– We’ve Got A Big Mess On Our Hands (Suck up your FBR and skinny-boy objections, they were good before anyone knew it.)
Against Me!– Thrash Unreal (I was in the video. Enough said.)
Shiny Toy Guns– You Are The One (Reminds me of The Sounds, who obviously are amazing)
A Heartwell Ending– Medicated Kisses (Try to listen and not sing.)
Bonus Secret Hidden Track: Scary Kids Scaring Kids– Faces (SAIL AWAY THESE FACES! I was in this video too. My messenger bag makes a more prominent appearance than I do.)

Side B: Ubersweet Really Chill Indie Rock Ballads I Secretly Wish Were Written About Me:
Boys Like Girls– Thunder Acoustic (Other than this song, they are a pretty silly band, but this one makes up for the shallowness.)
Cartel– The Minstrel’s Prayer (ATL, represent!)
Ryan Adams– La Cienega Just Smiled (Not new and definitely not about a girl, but as a Southern-California-first-timer, the whole idea took on new meaning.)
Plain White T’s– Hey There Delilah (To put it in the words of my former boss, this guy set the bar higher for ugly guys playing guitar everywhere.)
Mayday Parade– Jersey (With an album called ‘A Lesson In Romantics,’ did you really expect them NOT to make this list?)
The National– Abel (Is amazing, and thus even though it’s old, completely deserves this list.)
Rock Kills Kid– I Turn My Camera On (I’m not sure who did this song first, but Rock Kills Kid does an awfully good version)
The Get Up Kids– I’ll Catch You (Not new, but I saw New Found Glory twice in the last six months on two different continents completely by accident both times, and I totally wish I was the one being caught, so it qualifies for this list.)
Hot Rod Circuit– Stateside (shouldn’t really count as either chill or a ballad, but I still wish I was the "crazy girl" for whom Andy Jackson pines... And to whom he brings a half gallon of milk.)

*I don’t like Cold War Kids and I am going to quit pretending like I do.
I don’t think anyone TRULY likes Bright Eyes, and I am tired of everyone acting like he is the reigning king of indie music. I’ll say what everyone else is afraid to: Pete Yorn is better.
There. Now that I’ve lost all taste points forever, if you still want to be my friend, MySpace me or something, because I miss you.

And the lessons? Well, here’s a quick snapshot:
1. No matter how hard you work, sometimes it will never be good enough. Particularly when you’re told to find a dozen vintage metal non-matching lunchboxes with 45 minutes notice on a Thursday in June.
2. If they’re talking about everyone else TO you, they’re probably talking about YOU to everyone else.
3. Ask and you shall receive. Be a good intern and you don’t have to ask.
4. Treat every phone call like they’re your new best friend and you’ll end up with contacts that last longer than the job.
5. Be honest about your feelings; chances are you are less transparent than you think anyway... [Why, at the age of 21, do I still find myself handling those questions by ducking and blushing instead of being able to shrug and tell the truth?]

So things are kind of left hanging, which sucks because for the next two semesters, my life is in the balance and I have no idea where I’ll end up. But maybe it rocks... because no doors were shut, so when it’s time to go back, I’ve got options... and things and people and situations waiting for me.

I miss California, I’ll miss the free schwag, the calling of the rock stars, the drama, the glamour, the glitter, the CD release parties, list concerts, wristbands, phone calls, new friends, new awkwardness, random compliments, random rock stars, awesome job, and perhaps most of all...
you.

So stay in touch. MySpace. Email. Text. Phone, if you want... I don’t really care. But for heaven’s sake, don’t take all this away from me now.

To put it in the words of Mayday Parade, "Oh, Cali is calling, and I'm never going back to Georgia, not at least till I have to..."
~Mayday Blair

Tear away these faces...

New pics! New vids! New glam!

Yay for adding another "on the list" show to my repertoire... Went to the El Rey last night for the band's show just in time for the last opening act, Boys' Night Out from somewhere in Canada. Scary Kids took the stage right on time, and all the Immortal employees chilled at the back watching the most ridiculous live show ever. The thing about Scary Kids is that they are INFINITELY more exciting live than any other band in the history of the world. Between their headbanging double guitarists and the keyboardist who only ACTUALLY plays about 5% of every song, their stage presence is not quite like any other band. (How many times have YOU seen a keyboardist under five-and-a-half-feet tall pick his instrument up off of its stand and play it vertically with his tongue before the band's set is even half over? Also, how are his arms even long enough to reach from one end to the other?)

I hadn't seen Scary Kids perform since Warped Tour in June, so it was awesome seeing them live again, playing, of course, all the amazing songs I've come to jam to in the bus every morning on the way to work.

I've done SO MUCH random stuff involving their tour and album release this summer that I am thinking I might pay a visit to Charlotte to catch them live again in a few weeks... It's the closest they'll be to ATL, and... I mean... they're awesome! And, of course, I never get tired of being on the list. :)


Reena, the other Immortal intern, and me at the video shoot for "Faces" in an underground meatpacking building.
Dress: not mine.
Belt: studded, and most definitely mine.
Eyeliner: thick.
Hair: FABULOUS.


The hair was teased into a giant puffball before being twisted into bobbypins with "an emphasis on your awesome bangline." The next morning I had to condition three times to get all the tangles out from the backcombing!

"I have to go now. Yeah, I'm about to eat some chicken."
~Blair

Now accepting positions in upcoming indie rock videos...

Wow. I think it's time we get something out on the table. This is not like one of my bogus confessions where I pretend that I am ashamed of something that I am actually proud of, like when I say that I am an emo kid. This is legit.

I get starstruck.

It's time I came to grips with that. Even after this summer of hanging out with band members and rock stars, calling them on the phone, letting them sleep on my floor and convincing them to put me on their lists, I STILL get starstruck. Not always-- it depends on the celeb, but the thing is that if they are in a band, it is likely I'll get starstruck.

Here's one for the books: I can handle myself-- my stomach doesn't even flutter-- when MAGIC JOHNSON says "good afternoon" to me. But when the keyboardist of my favorite screamo band signed to the label where I work introduces himself, my tongue goes useless and despite the way I blinked coyly, all I managed to get out was "I'm Blaiiiiir," even though my brain was screaming "I WORK FOR YOUR LABEL, JUST SAY THAT I WORK FOR YOUR LABEL! AND THAT HE IS THE COOLEST PERFORMER I HAVE EVER SEEN! AND ALSO THE SMALLEST!"

But he's not even famous famous; I could tell you his name or show you his picture, and unless you are a lot more of a scenester than I am thinking you are, you would have no idea who he is. Just some 21-year-old short kid with a funny name and amazing hair from the Western US.

This is the thing about being a person who gets starstruck. I HAVE been around enough "celebrities" that I LOOK like I know what I'm doing. I know how to walk straight to the door of a venue and FAKE like I belong, whether I do or not. And with my dark-dyed swoop, thick eyeliner and electric-guitar-shaped earrings, I look like a legit scenester. So people will come and introduce themselves to me (like the time I scored an invite to a band's afterparty just by standing next to the lead guitarist and looking bored), but being starstruck means that you can't trust anything your brain tells you.

Even though it would have been perfectly logical to say that I worked for the band's label, it would OBVIOUSLY be hugely problematic to announce that the keyboardist is the shortest person I have ever seen take the stage. And since in that split-second time frame it's impossible to differentiate which is ok to say, I have to settle for nothing but my name.

One of the guys I work for is always quiet and never really says anything to me, except for when he pulls through last minute with some ridiculously amazing deal: "Hey Blair, wanna go to Warped Tour tomorrow with an All-Access backstage pass?" or "Hey Blair, wanna be in the Scary Kids Scaring Kids' new video on Monday?" Which is how I ended up wandering into the meatpacking district with a Starbucks cup this morning at 10am. I took the bus with one friend to the corner of Mateo Street. We were supposed to walk one block from there to Willow Street, where the set/warehouse was. We walked a block to an unmarked street-- "Ok, let's try it." We turned down the street and ended up in front of a warehouse-style building full of... TV sets? This can't be right, we thought, so we walked out and into the next doorway, marked "Los Angeles Kickboxing Gym." Standing in the doorway with a stairwell going up and another going down, I felt like Philippe the horse in Beauty and the Beast-- all my instincts pointing me upward where it was light, and the set assistant I had passed in the street telling me to go down the [pitch black] staircase.
So I stepped from the sunny Southern California morning into the pitch blackness of the basement warehouse. Which turned out to be a former slaughterhouse complete with vaulted doors dividing up the corridors with labels stencilled on them like "KILLING ROOM." I swear. The whole thing is rat poop in corners, crumbling plaster walls, meat hooks hanging from the low ceilings, vaulted doors and tunnel after tunnel. I can't explain how ridiculously horror movie this place was... We sat down in director's chairs with two of the guys from the label in front of a monitor where we could watch the band filming take after take walking down one of the tunnels singing the first verse of the song and waited for our call time. But pretty soon the wardrobe lady came through calling for all the extras-- and announces to me and the other intern that we can't be in the shoot because we're not in all black. "I'm sorry," I said, "I work for the label and they just told us to come down-- we had no idea we had to be in black." "The label? You're with Immortal?" the wardrober snapped to attention. "Hold on, I think one of the other girls came with extra clothes." She walked me out to the awning outside where most of the band and a couple of the extras were trying to get some sun. I met the band a couple months ago, but I had re-introduced myself to most of them already by the time the wardrobe lady dragged me over to them. I had not, however, told them that I worked for Immortal, because they are never on particularly good terms with the label owner.

The wardrobe lady walks over to the band and the two extras that are hanging out with them (friends from back in the day) and says "these two fine young ladies work for Immortal--" everyone stops talking "and need some clothes to wear. Anyone have anything extra?"
"They're with the label?" "They're with the label!" we heard, and one of the girls rolled her eyes and told her we'd find her pink bag downstairs and we could wear whatever we wanted.

Schlepping back into the basement, I found her bag on one of the portable vanities set up down there (why I have no idea; there was no light to use the mirror with). I found a slinky black halter dress, walked through a vaulted door that I left open only a sliver, and changed clothes in the pitch blackness. I walked back out, having no idea how it looked, but when I saw the look on the keyboardist's face as I emerged from the vault, I decided it was probably a good choice.

"Let's get you some jewelry, and then you need to get to hair and makeup ASAP," we were told, before being decked out with really clunky amazing silver jewels. I walked upstairs and outside to have my hair done, sat still while she backcombed my hair into a wild mess and then twisted it back into a punk-goes-prom-with-swoop style, and I knew the look they were going for had worked when I saw my boss walking toward me, yelled "Hey, Isaac," and he looked right at me without a shred of recognition while trying to figure out how this girl in the glam cocktail dress knew his name.

We went back downstairs and walking around in the inky blackness I felt like such a movie star-- wherever I went, the light seemed always to be either right behind me, lighting up my silhouette and casting my shadow all over the cement floor or else directly in front of me so all I could see were the silhouettes of the people I was walking toward. I got some really intense looks, and all the girl extras kept asking why I got MY hair done and no one would do theirs. As soon as you drop the label-bomb on a video set, you are catered to hand and foot because, technically, you could end the shoot if you wanted because your company is paying for the whole thing. Obviously I couldn't end the shoot because I am a lowly intern, but no one on the set knew that, and every time my bosses walked by, they told me to just go with it, so go with it I did.

We watched the band shoot their last few takes, applied our last coats of eyeliner, and walked into a room marked "Kill Room" to do our shot. The theme of the video is all futuristic and crazy, so apparently in the future, there is only one drink, and it's neon green and drank out of tall macaroni-shaped glasses. We stood around mingling in a room full of steam looking futuristic while the band watched from the sidelines. All in all, it was a good time-- scary to be in the dankest basement (once a slaughterhouse, it's now used to film porn) I've ever seen, exciting to be hanging out with the coolest/hottest band of the moment, and ridiculously glam to be in the slinkiest cocktail dress ever, a comfy pair of Chucks with completely mod hair and talking to all the single members of the band like best friends.

Goooooood times. And the best part? They've got a real show tonight at the El Rey. And guess who's on the list?

Awkward moment of the day: I'm talking to the really awesome keyboardist, and, well... here's a transcript of what happened:
Background: Blair is looking for a bottle of water, notices keyboardist standing at table WITH a bottle of water.
Blair, thinking: "Shoulders back, back straight, stomach in, lips pursed... push your hair back gently... deep breath and..."
Keyboardist, out loud: "If you're looking for water, there's some over there."
Blair, thinking: "HE initiated conversation! Rock on!"
Blair, out loud: "Thanks! Hey, you guys were great, by the way..." (meaning the whole day's filming, not the most recent shot)
Keyboardist: "Yeah, it was all tracked, so no big deal."
Blair, thinking: "Ok, B, way to go, now he thinks you're dumb because WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND DOESN'T KNOW THAT A MUSIC VIDEO SHOOT IS TRACKED??? Quick, clarify!"
Blair, out loud: "Yeah, I know, I just mean... you were so convincing about it."
Blair, thinking: "AWKWARDAWKWARDAWKWARD, WHY couldn't I be SMOOTHER??? And more importantly, why couldn't HE be TALLER?? I'd be WAY more under control if I wasn't staring down at the top of his head! How tall is this kid anyway? 5'3"? "

So probably this guy thinks that I am some ridiculously shallow label employee who can't tell the difference between a recording and a live performance, despite the fact that I have set up pretty much all their record signings of the summer, sent out thousands of their posters and hundreds of their not-yet-released watermark sophomore albums.

Coolyan,
Blair

I bet she's still a sucker for those famous faces...

Famous people I've met/run into/talked to on the phone this summer, chronologically-ish:
*Doris Roberts.
*Kate Beckinsale.
*As Cities Burn.
*My American Heart.
*Bad Religion.
*Scary Kids Scaring Kids.
*Adema.
*Dave Navarro.
*Magic Johnson.
*Winona Ryder.
*Say Anything.
*There For Tomorrow.
*Emarosa.
*Hot Rod Circuit.
*Against Me!
Oh, and I may have been bought a drink by Shannon Leto, but I can neither confirm or deny that rumor.

I think that's all, but the summer has been so ridiculous I can't actually remember if there WERE any others. It also depends how many albums one has to sell before they are considered famous-- I've met an awful lot of starving bands.

But the most recent one was WINONA RYDER today... I won't tell you where, because you'd never believe it anyway, but I swear it's true. This is why I LOVE Los Angeles.

Oh, and in case you were concerned, I figured out what I'm going to wear to the video shoot. Here's a hint: it involves Converse sneakers, aviator sunglasses, lots of eyeliner, and a studded belt. All in black and white, which seems to be not only all I wear but also all I buy lately.

Los Angeles, I'm yours.
~Groupietern.

P.S. If anyone knows how I can score a Blaqk Audio CD in the next six days ORRRRR where I can meet Davey Havok and/or Jade Puget prior to me leaving this coast-- help a sister out. (ASAP, thanks.)

Oh yeah, I said it.

Some guy from Greenpeace stopped me in Santa Monica a couple days ago and asked if I was opposed to global warming. I like to pretend that I like Greenpeace and I like to pretend that I am a vegetarian, but the truth is I don't really know anything about Greenpeace and I've been eating meat for almost a year.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I'm in a hurry but I take the bus," I said self-importantly. For the rest of my life, I will never feel guilty about whatever chemicals my car may or may not be putting off because I have monthly public transportation passes dating back an entire YEAR.

How's that for self-righteous?
~GreenB

professional music video actress

So I just got asked to be in a music video for these guys:

I don't know anything about it except that they're one of my top 10 favorite bands, the shoot is in downtown LA, and since they are signed to my label, I don't even have to go to work on Monday.

I'm not gonna lie; I'm stoked.
Oh no! What am I going to wear!??

Love,
Scary Girl Scaring Girls.

P.S. This same band is playing here on Tuesday-- when trying to make a list of Immortal employees planning on going, my boss waved me off when I said I wanted to go. "I know, I know YOU want to go. No worries, I wrote it down already!" I really am a groupie.

Oh, what a ridiculous week it's been...
Perhaps Mayday Parade sums it up best: "I'm never going back to Georgia; not at least till I have to..."

More and more things are piling up lately to make me NOT want to go back to Atlanta-- it's so funny how these things go with me; when I left Emory I was so sad to go, now it's time to go back and I just don't want to. I didn't want to leave Emory fifteen months ago because I knew that when I came back (whenever that was) it would be completely different. Now I am making plans to go back, it's getting more and more real, and I have no desire to go back-- it feels like I graduated high school, went through my entire freshman year at Emory, and then was told I have to move back home and go back to one more year of high school. It's a closed book in my head now, mostly because in France all my friends were twenty-somethings who were done with school and now, in California, all my friends are people my age who didn't go to school in order to work in music.

So I don't want to leave California; I'm doing right now what I want to do for the rest of my life-- why should I abandon it, even if it is "only" for nine months? And equally I don't want to go back to Georgia. Everything's different now; people are dating, engaged, that were single when I left. Over half of my friends graduated in May, some of them stayed in Atlanta, including the one I'll be living with, but they're not going to be on campus anymore. And then there's my schedule-- stupid French classes that are stupid now because what am I gonna learn from 130 minutes a week in a classroom that I DIDN'T learn in a year living in the country? Three PE classes (some things never change-- I hated PE as a kid; put off Health in high school until senior year; have managed to take NO PE classes as a college student yet. If only they counted all those hikes from last summer...); a lab science; blah blah blah...

Things I don't want to go back to; situations I don't want to face; and a job and a lifestyle here that I DON'T want to (or have to) leave.

Oh, calm down, I'm going back to school. Mostly only because I already have the coolest roommate ever planned and I can't let her down this late in the game.

In other news, all the other interns finished this week, making me the only one left. Who suddenly gets told things like this, by the same guy that nicknamed me Normaltern:
"Blair, I like you because you eat like a dude."
"Uhh, what?" I ask, swallowing a bite of burrito from the Mexican place across the street from work.
"Yeah, you eat like a dude, and I think that's awesome. I hate when girls are only about salad and... and... yogurt."
I squinted my eyes at him, trying to decide how to respond. He's probably the only person in the world that could say that to me and I would take it as a compliment.

Maybe, to put it in the words of my favorite Western 90's rockers, "I'm never going back to college, I'll just work my day job..."
~Normaltern.

P.S. I recently learned that the English translation for "rie de veau" is sweetbreads, meaning I have eaten veal pancreas on multiple occasions while in France, and I had no idea. Wow.

Here's a rant for you...

When I was younger, I used to make mental notes of things I would never do to my children; usually things my parents had the indecency to do to me. Usually I told them about the additions to my list, and they would say "Oh just wait until you get older and you'll do that to your kids all the time."

The truth is that I don't remember many of the things that I put on the list, but I do remember the main one was that I would never, EVER tell my children that "life's not fair." And I am proud to say that in a year of nannying, two summers of camp staffing, and a decade (can you believe it-- A DECADE) of babysitting, I have listened to more whines of "BUT THAT'S NOT FAAAAAAAAIR!" than I can count, and I have never, EVER countered with "Life's not fair, it's time you learned that."

Now that I don't live with my parents anymore, I find myself instead making lists of things I will never do to "my" interns. I am sure that at some point I will work somewhere where there will be interns under me-- in music, that's just how things work. As far as internships go, mine has been astoundingly wonderful. I have nothing bad to say about Immortal, it's been lots of fun, I've learned more than I thought possible, and scored more free schwag than any 21-year-old ought to be allowed to have.

But occasionally something ridiculous happens and I add another bullet to the list of things I don't want to do to my future interns. (#1 on the list? I will never ignore the interns until I have a task I don't want to do, then go introduce myself to them and make them do it. Especially five minutes before they need to go, when the project is going to take an hour and a half.)

This week has been madness, though... Starting last week, I was taught how to post things UPS to help out the accounts woman that does all the mail. BUT I am NOT the mail girl. So the woman from Accounts Payable, who taught me how to do the mail, told me I can't post anything without her approval. Weird rule, but ok. BUT the problem comes because I am constantly asked by MY boss to mail things, and then she DOESN'T give approval. "Just wait," she says, "I have to make sure [with her boss] that it's ok to send out." But stop and think about this-- I need to send out PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL FOR OUR BANDS. That's what record labels do; since when do we need APPROVAL to do it? So today when my boss walked through the mailroom and saw 23 envelopes he asked me to mail on THURSDAY still sitting in the mailroom, he came to me upset that they hadn't been mailed yet. (Legitimately so; he asked me to do it four days ago! I've never not done something he asked me to do immediately, so I think he was mostly confused, but he was definitely upset.) I've been asking Accounts Payable every day if I could mail them out yet (despite the fact that I HATE UPSing things), and she keeps telling me I can't. And he keeps telling me to do it anyway. Usually I would do whatever he says, since he is the coolest guy I have ever met in my life. But the problem is this: My boss thinks he is higher on the totem pole than the Accounts Payable woman. But the woman in Accounts Payable thinks that because she is the assistant to someone higher than MY boss, that she is higher on the totem pole. And my boss (rightly, I would say) thinks that because he is nobody's assistant and has his own position, that HE is higher. And it gets worse: they started at Immortal the same week, so they can't even claim seniority over each other.
And then there's Normaltern (my work nickname, acquired my first week on the job), stuck in the middle and trying not to get in trouble with anyone.
Grrrrr.

Tammy Faye died??? How does no one tell me these things?? And here's a [terribly irreverent] question: Who is gonna keep Max Factor in business now??? Also, do you think she honestly believed her eye makeup was attractive? Didn't she notice that the first thing anyone ever said about her was "the one with the clumpy mascara"? And honestly, I've reapplied mascara over old mascara and it NEVER looks like that-- how DO you think she did it?

Love, love, love, love, love, love,
B

P.S. I think there is a significant dearth of band members with very slight lisps.

N.E.R.D.

Quote of the week:
"I like to say your name every time I talk to you, Blair, because when I say it fast it sounds like 'player,' which would be the coolest name ever."
~A pretty awesome music video director I work with.


Evidence that I am, actually, quite lame:

I'm not sure which of these is worst; I'll leave it up to you to rank the following:
1. I want to see Rush Hour 3 because it is set in Paris.
2. Yesterday I was on the bus to work, and I pulled the string for my stop, but when the lady stopped the bus, I wasn't at the door yet. She pulled to the side of the street and stopped for a split second, but she didn't open the door. "Wait wait wait," I croaked, but I have caught glandular fever or something and the lady didn't hear me (despite the fact that I was right next to her), so she kept driving and I ended up half an mile away from work before she stopped again.
3. Today I was working reception at the label. Some random guy walked in to take a tour of the building. "Hi," I croaked, looking up (and up and up) at him. "Hello," he smiled warmly, looking around the entryway. A few minutes later, the building owner walked in to give the guy a tour, and I forgot all about his presence. Until 15 minutes later, when the second-in-command at the label walked through reception, slightly breathless. "Can you BELIEVE this?" she gushed (this woman is old enough to be my mother). "What?" I asked, still clueless. "We go days and days with no one exciting coming to work and then MAGIC JOHNSON comes in to take a tour? I can't even believe this!"
Oh yeah. I talked to Magic Johnson. He was chilling in my office, the entire Immortal staff was FREAKING out, and I behaved like the only non-starstruck one only because I had no idea who he was.

But then I started thinking about it after he left, and I can only think of TWO American athletes I could identify by face-- Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman.

But if any guy from any of the seventy-three bands on this summer's Warped Tour walked into a club where I happened to be, I could pick them out from across a crowded dance floor.

Call me L.A.M.E.,
Blay-errrr

Free Concerts! Summer Sickness! Lost Voice!

"Heaven forbid you end up alone, and don't know why..."
~The Fray

Note to all aspiring acoustic-y indie bands: if you don't want a career in music, and just want a diversion for a couple years and then millions of dollars to play with for the rest of your life, hire The Fray's manager. They've been touring for two years on the same album, have re-released three different versions of the same album, and scored at least three radio hits. They're about to take a year off to record a new album, but my (amateur) prediction is that they will hit major sophomore slump-- who wouldn't after success that quick?
That said, I still have always had a soft spot for them.

Wednesday I went to work feeling vaguely sick. I had to work late (till 7), but at 645, I got a text from a friend with an extra ticket to see The Fray-- in an hour. I'm 21, I said yes. Mainly because The Fray is one of those bands that I've liked since before anyone had heard of them, but now they are so famous I would never spend $40 to see a band that has gone mainstream anyway. The spare ticket had been provided by a record label, which meant that it was a really good seat. Rock on. Despite the lead singer's lack of stage presence when he WASN'T behind the piano, they were a fun band to watch, playing a hilarious cover of Shakira and Wyclef Jean's "Hips Don't Lie," and lapsing seemlessly into Oasis' "Wonderwall" during the ending jam on "Vienna."
["Wonderwall," by the way, is, I firmly believe, this millennium's version of "Amazing Grace." Watts' song can be put to any tune and it works (try, for example, singing it to the "Gilligan's Island" theme). Oasis' masterpiece can be inserted into tons of songs and it fits, AND as soon as someone puts it into their song, I fall in love.]
Anyway, the show was cool. I've never been to a piano-centric concert, except for Michael Flynn and his band, the name of which I can't remember, but this one was good... And The Fray, if nothing else, proves that that dorky kid you went to high school with (you know the one-- he graduated high school and undergrad having never shaved a day in his life; played piano and wore a calculator watch?) WILL come out on top. Looks may not improve and he may keep on wearing that calculator watch, but your mom was right, ladies. Be nice to him now; someday you'll be begging for tickets to see his show.

Free concerts of the summer for Blair +1.

The next day I walked into work and had 429 envelopes to put stamps on. "Why?" you ask, because when you have 429 envelopes to send out in the US Mail, the post office won't put stamps on them. (I, for the record, labeled the envelopes, labeled and packaged the CDs to go in the envelopes, stuffed the envelopes, unstuffed the envelopes when my boss decided to add something else to it, sealed the envelopes, unsealed the envelopes, switched out the CDs when we realized a different version had to go out, resealed the envelopes, and then was told we had to put FOUR DIFFERENT STAMPS on each envelope. Welcome to a week in the life of an intern.)

So the post office won't stamp them (they cost $1.98 each to mail, which meant they took FOUR STAMPS) and I am blessed with the opportunity of stamping them all. In the middle of stamping them, one of the guys at work walked through and asked how it was going. "Fine," I replied, "but the stamps made my fingers all sticky."
"Whoa! And your voice all manly!" he replied. "What kind of a disease is that?"
"I think I just went to too many shows..." I replied, not wanting to explain that three of the six rock stars that stayed with me last week were sick. (It's not so professional to have OTHER labels' bands sleeping in your living room.)

And for the last two days I've tried to answer phones and set up in-store record signings for my favorite band signed to our label while sounding like a man. I'm getting sicker, I think, but I suppose based on the way I've been rocking out every night, that's to be expected.

I need my favorite pet rock stars here-- the band that stayed with us last week was sponsored by Vitamin Water. When travelling in big cities, they said they are constantly asked for money by homeless guys who don't realize the band is often a van-roof away from being homeless themselves. The band has no money, so instead they give them a CASE of Vitamin Water. Not a bottle, not a 6pack, but a CASE. (Vitamin Water, by the way, costs about $1.50 a bottle. Too much for me to splurge on, considering I don't actually like it anyway, but it is probably also very good for sick groupies.)
Heaven Forbid,
B

P.S. I found this written on the website of the band that has been my favorite for six years now:
"I'm just looking for a nice girl that can spell, who can be bothered to come to my shows every once in awhile."
Umm, hello?

Hey Miss Murder...

"Your voice was the soundtrack of my summer..."
~Boys Like Girls.

Later that same week...
Wow, so my current claim to fame is as follows: in the course of a week, I was on the list at three shows, invited to an afterparty, went backstage at Incubus' opening night, had six rock stars on my floor two nights in a row, rode in a tour van and was in a music video.

Against Me! was filming a music video yesterday in Sun Valley, I applied and got a spot in it! 1pm yesterday was the call time; I got there about 1230 because I knew I was going to have to go through wardrobe. They put me in a black halter cocktail dress with a very flowy skirt (this comes into play later, I promise), and then we began the wait. They were running WAY behind; the background dancers (which is what I was) ended up sitting in holding for almost seven hours, and finally at 8pm they called us to the set. The guys were all in tuxes, the girls were all in black cocktail dresses with bling jewelry they gave us. The plotline of the video was really good, but it was a pretty low budget shoot (for an indie band from my ORIGINAL hometown-- Gaines-vegas), so everything took forever.
Basically they would turn on music and we would start dancing-- I was placed in the front, which means maybe I'll actually be seen in it, which is cool. We started out dancing chill to Billy Idol, then faster to some ridiculous song, then all-out moshing to a really hardcore song.

All of the guys except one were the super-skinny emo types... but that one other guy was shaped like a football player. He was at least 6'3", and in the middle of the moshing, he climbed on top of a table that was part of the set, knocked all the glasses off of it, and jumped off as though he was going to crowdsurf over us.
Crowdsurf. In a crowd of about 20, 10 of whom were girls in heels. All of the girls happened to be standing in front of the table at that exact moment; he jumped into the air, the girls jumped out of the way, and the guy landed flat on his stomach on the tile floor of the set on a pile of broken glass from the wine glasses he had kicked to the floor.
Well done.
It was kind of ridiculous, but completely his own fault-- as soon as the moshing started, the girls freaked-- we were all in stilettos provided by wardrobe; one of the "waiters" had dropped a tray of grapes, which smashed on the floor, leaving those slippery peels everywhere. We all took off our shoes thinking it would make us less likely to slip, but then the glass broke... it was kind of madness.
And by kind of, I mean completely.

But so fun. Pretty much I can't wait until the video comes out...
Met the band, too-- add that one to the list.
Thrash so real,
B

It's cool, she's with the band(s).

Quote of the week:
Singer: "Dude, I called you twice and you didn't answer your phone, and now I get in here and your phone is sitting right next to you!"
Drums: "Look, you didn't call me, it didn't ring!"
Singer, pulls out phone and flips to recent call list: "RIGHT HERE! Dialed Lucas at 253am!"
Drums: "It's only 130am! What, you're calling me from the future now?"


A guy I have tremendous respect for once told me that I am like "that girl from Almost Famous... you know, what was her name? Penny... yeah, Penny Lane."
I took it as a compliment, and have definitely lived up to that rep this week.

I've never been to so many live shows in one week, except for when I was working for David*Crowder Band. And the craziest part? I didn't pay for one of them!

"She said 'what?' and I told her that I didn't know..."
Saturday night: Laced Confection CD release party. Bouncer let me in free, probably by accident.

"RING THE BELLS!"
Monday night: The Perfect Victim concert at on Sunset Strip. I know the band; got in for free. The Perfect Victim opened for Metal Skool, an 80's cover band that plays notoriously wild shows every Monday night at the Key Club. We went to the Rainbow Room for dinner with the band before the show. The cool thing about the Rainbow Room is that despite the fact that it is one of the most well-known restaurants in LA with an A-list clientele, it is also some of the cheapest food I have found in Southern California. While sitting at our huge red leather booth noshing on their famous raisin nut bread, I looked up to see a man walking toward our table dressed all in black with a Jared Leto hat on... I recognized the jawline immediately, causing mine to drop to the floor as he made eye contact. Oh, yes, my celebrity sighting status has gone up three notches: it was Dave Navarro, of Jane's Addiction fame.

I've never really listened to any of Dave Navarro's music, but I did know that he has had the most ridiculously rock star life of pretty much anyone ever, including a murdered mother, a non-English-speaking father, three marriages, a heroin addiction, and an autobiography written before the age of 35. He sat down at the table next to us with a huge case marked Fragile, looking exactly like a rock star ought to look when eating dinner at the Rainbow Room at 7:30 in the evening.

Anyway, we walked next door to the Key Club and made our way to the pit as the band slipped backstage to do their set. Their set was awesome, which was great since several label scouts were watching. After they left the stage, we met them at the bar and the guitarist, who I had never met, threw his arm around me and yelled into my ear "MY NAME IS PRIESTLEY, I LOVE YOU, AND I AM A GUITAR GOD!" Then later on: "Me and Jake [the other guitarist] are such guitar gods that they are putting us on the cover of Guitar World!" I've set up ads in Guitar World before, and I knew the chances of an unsigned band making it to the cover were slim, but Priestley was so convinced that I decided to ask Jake, who had already consumed the exact amount of alcohol you would expect a 21-year-old lead guitarist to have consumed after playing a flawless set to Capitol, Hopeless, and Universal Records reps.
"Jake!" I yelled in his ear. He turned toward me and put one of the extra straws in his drink into my mouth.
"Are you and Priestly really going to be on the cover of Guitar World?"
"Someday..." he responded dreamily.

Metal Skool, the headlining band, took the stage and we made our way to the back of the pit to watch. They played all the amazing 80's covers-- Ratt, Whitesnake, Guns n Roses, Kansas, and, most importantly, "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey. I ran into a guy who I think might have been Shannon Leto, the drummer of my favorite band, but I'm not sure... After the show we stood on the side of Sunset Boulevard, did the emo rally call, and eventually made our way back to the other intern's apartment, where we both spent the night, showing up for work the next morning still unshowered and vaguely dirty.
Bedtime: 4am.

"The sky resembles a backlit canopy..."
Tuesday night: Sold-out opening night of Incubus' Light Grenades tour at the Greek Theatre; I had an all-access pass and my name on Incubus' list.

There was a problem with getting the list to guest services, so the other two Immortal interns and I were stuck waiting with the rest of Incubus' friends outside the venue until a few minutes before the opening act, but it didn't matter because I SAW INCUBUS (with an all-access pass!) for free in their hometown! Of all the shows I've ever been to (and that's alot), I can honestly say they put on the best concert I have ever seen. Despite the lead singer's lack of the theatrics so popular in his genre, the band got along better than any I have ever seen play together-- they clearly enjoy what they do, and that ALWAYS comes through in a performance, no matter the music style. It also helps that they're on their sixth album, so the selection of songs they have to pull from is unbelievable, but they still played all three of the songs that I "couldn't live without" hearing live, including an acoustic version of "Earth To Bella," one of those songs that, ever since the first time I heard it, I have wished was about me. AND they played for almost two hours, forgetting the intro to one of the songs from their first album, which always makes me laugh. (They even found a June bug onstage "In July, how odd!", which the lead singer threw at the drummer, who jumped off of his stool and refused to sit back down till they found the bug and got rid of it.) Post-show we hung out in hospitality, watching out for Brandon Boyd, and I randomly ended up meeting a guy who works for Billboard (that's why I LOVE this town-- I do music, and everywhere I go, music people collect and it's wonderful!). The venue was a little too big to be really phenomenal, BUT it's set against one of the Hollywood Hills, surrounded by tall pines, and the stars shining down... awesome. Best part of the night (SLASH perhaps highlight of the summer) was the post-encore song, an extended version of "Wish You Were Here," one of my all-time favorite songs. Amazing. Lyrics to come. Post-show we went to House Of Pies. If you can't tell by the name that it was OBVIOUSLY made for post-concert eats, then I don't know... I had pecan pie with ice cream, which we ate sitting at the counter in the diner.
Bedtime: 130am.

"You are the bluest light..."

Wednesday night: Sky Eats Airplane/Odd Project/Emarosa show at the Knitting Factory. I was on the band's list, got in for free again.


"Ok, ok," you may be saying, "you were on the list on Monday because you knew the band, on Tuesday because they're signed to your label, but this? How did you pull that off?"

Kasey, the other intern, and I decided to go to this show over the weekend. I had heard and liked Sky Eats Airplane, so I checked out their opener (Emarosa) and found out they are from Lexington, KY, one of the [many] places I consider some form of home. So I sent them an email, said I was from Kentucky and excited to see them live. I got an email back, and before I knew it Kasey and I were on the phone with the band, who had no place to stay the night of the show, which we found out early in the afternoon on the day of. But Kasey has her own apartment, and I always stay there after concerts anyway... and Kentucky boys just rock anyway... So we went to the show, windmilled with the best of 'em, and then drove circles on Hollywood Blvd until the band's equipment was loaded up, at which point we went to IHOP (where else would you take a band after a concert?) and chowed down. After introductions had been made, without thinking about how awkward it would be, I accidentally blurted "You don't have any Ale8 in your van, do you?" All jaws dropped; all eyes turned to me.

"Nnnnooo, but you get MAJOR props for knowing what that is," the guitarist replied. They followed us back to Kasey's apartment where we watched Johnny Knoxville's movie (you know which one), drank orange juice, and one by one fell asleep. Luckily they had sleeping bags, so it wasn't a problem that all they had to sleep on was the living room floor. The next morning Kasey left for work at 8, but I didn't have to leave till 1030. I got up, got dressed, and tiptoed through the gauntlet of sleeping emo boys in the front room. That afternoon, their show for that night got cancelled, so they asked if they could stay with us again. Which meant I was staying with Kasey again. She and I got off work, met back at their apartment, and waited for them to get back home. Because we were all kind of exhausted, we decided to go to Venice Beach, wander around and get dinner. We rode there in the band's van (all kinds of madness-- I felt like Mark Wahlberg in Rock Star, especially when the Talking Heads came on). We got to the beach and it was closed (surprise surprise; it was at least 10 by the time we got there), but we jumped the fence (Dashboard Confessional, anyone?) and played around on the sand for a couple hours. Eventually we got too hungry to hang out any longer, so we left and drove from Venice to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. We wandered up and down the Promenade, listening to the street performers, which boggled the band. ("Why do they come out here to play? Do they think someone will recognize them HERE and decide to sign them? Maybe we should give them some money...") Pretty soon I ended up in Urban Outfitters, the only store on the promenade still open, with two of the guys shopping for new girl pants and cheap sale t-shirts. ("I love this place, cuz everyone that works here looks like me and they never stare like we're weird.") We got dinner at a Mexican place somewhere where the server asked "are you guys in a band?" and we just laughed, eventually riding in the band's dirty stickered van back to Kasey's place in West Hollywood, where we hung out some more, did laundry, and all around had a blast, especially after the lead singer returned from a food run to the gas station with a roll of Oreos and a half gallon of milk to drink out of a 64 oz. Big Gulp cup. The best part of the whole night was that they didn't stop being a band just because we were there... And hanging out with them for that long was awesome; I grilled them about being in a band, management, etc., and they grilled me back about working for a label, post-college plans, etc. I felt kind of bad for them-- they're trailer blew up halfway through the tour and they had to buy a new one, now they're all completely broke. Glimpses of my post-college days? Perhaps. Among the six guys in the band, there were six flat-irons (I had never even met a guy who knew what a hair straightener was) and more pairs of girl pants than I could count. All I can say is that I would trade wardrobes with any of them in a heartbeat, and probably I'd be able to fit in all of it.

Oh, and then on Friday at work I called the guys from my favorite band signed to our label-- how's this for awkward, though: I thought I was calling their manager, so when the 17-year-old drummer answered the phone I was so thrown off neither of us knew what to say.

As glam as it gets...,
Live from Los Angeles,
Penny Lane's replacement,
Sugar High.


P.S. This week the other intern from Immortal and I went to Sprinkles Cupcakes for a snack. Sprinkles, in case you didn't know, is Pete Wentz's preferred snack of choice. Pete Wentz is the mouthpiece of Fall Out Boy, and all he ever talks about is those cupcakes... so we went to try them for ourselves. They were good, but an hour later Kasey and I both felt so sick we swore never to go back. Not only that, but we also didn't even see Pete there (which means we'll probably troll the place again even though the cupcakes weren't that good; Oh, the pains of being a groupie).

...And then I found $5

Since when did my life become this amazing?
Ridiculous it has always been... but glamourous?
There's no denying it now, she's with the band and she's never going back.

Are you in?
~B

After-Hours Clubs! After-Hours After-Parties! After-Midnight Breakfast!

"And the neighbors, they complain pretty near every day..."
~TAI...

Have you ever had unlucky clothes?

Last night I went to On The Rox, the nightclub above the Roxy on the Sunset Strip. I couldn't decide what to wear, but finally chose a soft black halter with sequins around the neckline. It's a great shirt for going out because it's so comfortable but still so glam; unfortunately nothing good has ever happened to me in it. I don't even mean nothing good; I mean every time I've worn it bad things have happened. Which is doubly inconvenient because it looks really good. So last night (which was billed as the "luckiest night of the millennium" [7/7/07? Get it?]), I decided to give the shirt one last chance. It must have worked because not only did nothing spectacularly bad happen (except for the collective behavior of all the guys I came with, who I immediately spent the night trying to avoid), but the guitarist for the first band even came up and made conversation after his band's set. Perhaps the tide has turned for my favorite off-brand going-out top.

I went with two of the other girl interns from work, one of the guy interns and a bunch of his friends. All of the guys were mainly annoying, but the girls and I had a good time rocking out to Laced Confection and then Ryan Crosby, who was headlining (another CD release party). And then, when Laced Confection announced they were having an afterparty, we decided to go.

But there was still time to kill before that, so we ditched the guys, blew off the club and walked to Mel's Diner, The Majestic of Hollywood. We ate pancakes and drank coffee, and then got out our (handwritten) directions and headed to Ventura for the afterparty. On the way there, we started thinking about what we were about to do...

The directions didn't really say where the party was other than the street and the neighborhood; we only figured out it was Ventura when we realized we were going (very) north. We had talked to the band at On The Rox and told them we were going to come, they were really nice, and we thought it would be fun.
Then when we got close to the house where the party was going to be, we started to doubt the whole situation-- out loud to each other.

"Ok, so what if it's just the band and us?"
"So? We talked to them at the club, they were nice guys..."
"Yeah, but if we aren't having a good time, how will we get out of there without being awkward?"
"Besides that, it's a band afterparty! It's gonna be packed! There'll be tons of people there, it'll be like the video for "Weekend Warriors!"
"Ok, that would be fun..."
"But what if it's just the band and their girlfriends?"
"What kind of band throws an afterparty with their girlfriends? That would just be weird."
"Ok, but it's still possible. It's also possible that it's just going to be a bunch of groupie girls, because what kind of people go to these sorts of parties?"
"What do you mean 'what kind of people go to these parties?' I thought you two do it all the time!"

We drove past the house where the party was... it was well-lit, friendly-looking, and tempting to go, since we all live in apartments and haven't set foot in a real house in weeks, but then we pansied out and just came home instead, acting out the Scary Kids Scaring Kids music video for "My Darkest Hour," and generally rocking out.

I had a good time with the girls. If only the guys were not such losers...

She's so lucky,
B

Blast From The [distant] Past...

When I looooooooooooook intooooooooooo your light blue eyyyyyyyyyyyyyes"
~BSB

Ok, so it's not that distant. But it is when you're only 21. I recently came across an article online about Brian Littrell, the former member of the Backstreet Boys who was always my favorite and may or may not have played a role in my decision to go to college in ATL. He's making music now as a solo Christian artist, he hosted the Dove Awards, is still touring, has released at least 3 music videos for his sole solo album (arguably making it successful regardless of sales-- do you know how much a video costs? Not to mention the fact that most Christian artists don't even make them at all).

And there are rumors that the dear old BSBs are in the studio again, preparing their second "reunion" album since their wild success at the turn of the millennium. Minus, of course, dear Kevin, whose Mountain I lived on last summer. No really. How my ex-boss would flip if he heard me refer to it as Kevin's Mountain. Nevertheless, it was the primary reason I took the job. That and the fact that I had heard the snickerdoodles were spectacular.

But the real point of this is that there must be some kind of benefit to becoming rapidly worldwide famous at the age of 17. Because this guy doesn't look a day older today than he did when their record-breaking success Millennium was released in May of 1999. [Is it weird that I remembered that?]
Here, see for yourself:



Now you tell me how old that guy looks. Or maybe the fact that I don't think he looks old is simply a sign that I too am getting old.

On an unrelated sidenote, I've always thought the pastor of the church I go to in Atlanta looks like an older version of Brian Littrell. Check him out:

The weird part of that is that Brian (the Backstreet Boy) lives next to Louie (the pastor).

Which has always made me want to go visit him at home, just to see. Can you imagine living next door to a Backstreet Boy? Knowing that if you ran out of milk, that is who you would have to go borrow it from? Wow.

In other former crush news, James Marsden is in Hairspray, which in itself is enough to make me want to go sit for hours in the blistering sun at the premiere.

Teenybopping,

B

P.S. As long as we're on the subject of me acting younger than I am, Ratatouille came out last week-ish and I really want to see it, solely because it is set in France. I can't tell any of my hipster friends that I want to see it, so I'm thinking of going alone. I had a friend who really wanted to see Shrek when it came out, so he went on the morning of the day it came out, by himself, to see it at the theatre. Can you imagine being a young mom and running into a 25-year-old guy at the theatre watching Shrek 2 alone? If he can do that, I can totally go see Ratatouille alone... right?

I bet you're still a sucker...

"California... the state where you never find a dance floor empty."
~ 2Pac, California Love

Ok, ok, I admit it. I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next 21-year-old record label intern... at least when it has to do with a musician.
I read a book a few years ago called "The Walrus Was Paul" about the alleged death of Paul McCartney. I don't know how well-known the theory was back in the day, but the book argued more or less that Paul had died (probably in a car wreck) during the Beatles' heyday, immediately prior to the release of "Let It Be." After his death, because the record label and the rest of the band didn't want to quit recording, they found someone that looked like him and faked that he was still alive. The book had all kinds of awesome "proofs" of the theory, some of them believable, some of them ridiculous, and some of them just creepy.
After I read the book, I had nightmares for a week. I don't know why, it wasn't a ghost story. But it completely freaked me out.

Conversely, there's a theory now that Tupac Shakur is still alive. Tupac, in case you don't know, was a rapper killed in the mid-90's in a drive-by shooting. Not known for his pacificity, he was in a car with the owner of his record label (Suge Knight, a known gang member) when he was shot in the head and killed. Or at least that's what most everyone thinks. Two months after his death, a rival rapper, Biggie Smalls, was killed in a similar fashion, and there has always been [logical, likely true] theories that his death was retribution for Shakur's. Neither death was very well investigated, which is odd, because I think if it happened today (eleven years later) it would be the center of news for weeks.

Things like that just don't happen now, and it seems odd that only eleven years ago, it was considered par for the course and no big deal. Maybe it has more to do with the rise of rap as a legitimate genre of music than anything else, but today the hiphop industry is not looked at as legit, to coin an MC Hammer phrase. No one thinks that famous people are actually part of gangs, or actually deal drugs, or whatever, primarily because it's been proven that artists like Vanilla Ice and Ja Rule came from middle-class backgrounds and never set foot on the other side of the tracks. But back in the 90's... Suge Knight and his henchmen beat up artists trying to get off their label; kidnapped rival record label owners; and killed each other in gang-related shootings. The only ones left still famous today that really were around back then are Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, but Dr. Dre (as everyone knows) is dead and locked in Eminem's basement, so really that leaves Snoop, who coaches a little league team somewhere in California, which means he's kind of a sellout.

The LAPD, never known for its righteous officers, had been exposed over and over as having connections with Tupac, Dre, Knight, and the rest of the Death Row Records crew, so is it really so much more farfetched to think that they could help him fake his death? I'm not saying I believe it, but I am saying this theory has a lot more validity than a lot out there.
You know the saying about protesting too much? It's not directly related to this, but when most famous people die, there are not photos of them on the autopsy table available online. But there have always been photos of Tupac widely available on the internet, even on posters and t-shirts, which is the only way I knew they existed. It seems like the whole situation was orchestrated to be easy to "prove" his death.
Again, I'm not saying I believe he's going to show back up on Saturday, but after reading through the "proofs," all of which revolve around the number 7 (hence the Saturday return-- it's 7/7/07). Most of them are fairly coincidental, BUT thanks to computer music programs like ProTools, it's easy now to listen to music played backwards. I've never believed in the validity of those, mainly because I've never listened to anything backwards. But after listening to "This Life I Lead" recorded backwards on WavePad, the words "Yeah, I am alive" are so obvious it's creepy. And the fact that he's come out with more albums since his death than he did while he was alive? Weird.

I don't think it's true. I don't think he's coming back. But the theory is creepy and weird to me, and if he were to show back up, it would be a little bit nuts.

Plus, let's look at this logically. Faking your own death is not legal, so if he shows back up now, he'd be immediately arrested, so if, somehow, he has managed to stay alive and under the radar for ELEVEN years, why not keep it up and stay on permanent vacation, collecting royalties from his "posthumous" albums and chilling on a beach in Jamaica?

Phoo, it still gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Thug Life,
B

Dirt and Hippie Love Cakes...

"But we got spaghetti! And blankets."
~Mitch Hedberg.


Top 7 Cover songs:

7. "Song 2"-- Blur/AFI.

6. "Wonderwall"-- Oasis/Ryan Adams.

5. "Enjoy The Silence"-- Depeche Mode/Anberlin.

4. "Don't Stop Believing"-- Journey/Plans To Leave.

3. "Smile Like You Mean It"-- The Killers/David Gray.

2. "Dancing In The Moonlight"-- Thin Lizzy/Jeff Buckley

1. "Shadowlands"-- Joy Division/The Killers.



Honorable Mention goes to "Under Pressure" by the immortal combination of Queen and Bowie, covered by the mere mortal duo of My Chemical Romance and The Used.

Another day, another list, another memory

Interviewer: "Which album would you want with you if you were stuck on a desert island?"
Jade Puget: "I'd build a lifeboat out of sand."
Davey Havok: "Wait... what?"

Today my boss asked me what my desert island albums are. It's an extremely valid question-- I gave him a quick top 5, but the more I thought about what my mental state would probably be if stuck on a desert island, the more unsure I became about my answer. So I decided the point of the question is to see which albums I could listen to over and over and not which albums I would want with me in times of great mental distress and potential scorching sunburns.
So here's the answer. Again, this isn't an all-time list. But if I was dropped onto an island in the Pacific Ocean tomorrow, all alone, this is what I would want to have with me.

1. Sing The Sorrow-- AFI. It's a classic, what can I say?
2. A Beautiful Lie-- 30 Seconds To Mars. How long have I owned this album now and still find myself listening to it at least once a week??
3. Light Grenades-- Incubus. Catchy hooks like "Anna Molly" (say it out loud, you'll get it eventually) plus emotional ballads like "Earth To Bella" combine to make an astoundingly good 5th album, definitely their overall best.
4. Truth, Soul, Rock and Roll-- The Elms. They've been my favorite band for... well, as long as I've HAD a favorite band, and this album from 2003 takes the cake as their best.
5. Between The Dim And The Dark-- Jump Little Children. Mellow but exotic... it reminds me of the taste of cigars and cherry coke, and there's not a song on it that fails.

Honorable Mentions:
Whiskeytown-- Pneumonia.
The Weepies-- Say I Am You.
The Sounds-- Living In America.
Pete Yorn-- MusicForTheMorningAfter.
Far Too Jones-- Shame and Her Sister.

In other news, I spend approximately 40 hours a week emailing and calling random people all over the US. Given that the reason I call them is always music-related, I feel like it is only a matter of time until I contact someone I actually know. Yesterday I dialed (for work!) a 606 area code and had to fight the urge to tell the person I used to live where they do. But what this means is that I called someone who is probably IN the county I worked in last summer (composed of 799 other people) because they listen to one of our top-selling bands... and I didn't even tell them I'm a pretend Kentucky-girl at heart.

Last year fourth of July was so ridiculous...

I miss Kentucky, and I miss my family;
Oh, the sweetest winds they blow across the South.
~Tadpole.

Exchanging Sunshine...

What a weekend... things have been crazy for the last week out here in the plastic world of rock. Last week I was in the office till 7pm every night, then Friday kicked off the Lucky 13th Warped Tour, which meant absolute MADNESS.

Friday morning I drove to Pomona with the other intern in her car packed full of Immortal Records and Scary Kids Scaring Kids merch. I was on the phone with my boss every ten minutes on the way there, either because we were lost or he was checking in on us, then when we arrived guest services slapped wristbands on us and the mayhem commenced.
The Immortal merch guy called me and we met him in the bus lot, where we loaded the extra t-shirts and CDs into someone else's trailer (on rehearsal night our band's trailer broke, so now they are sharing with some random band, leading my boss to joke that he is going to quit our label and form his own, called Eleventh Hour Records) and then schlepped to the Immortal tent. Once we arrived, the merch guy left to get lunch, and I was left manning the tent. Flashback to two summers ago, when I spent every evening selling another band's merch to middle-schoolers who rocked my world. But this is what I love to do, so rock on. I could hear Boys Like Girls playing from the Hurley stage behind me, and pretty soon Yellowcard took the stage in front of the tent, announcing that it was 107degrees out. Two years ago when I was selling merch and all around being a groupie, when we had weather like that my boss would make us all drink two glasses of water at breakfast before we were allowed to get up from the table. Warped Tour 2007 didn't even have free water, even for employees. BUT Monster energy drinks were there for free, leading to every college student's worst nightmare: do I drink a Monster, which will keep me headbanging for the rest of the day, cool me down, AND is free? Or do I pay five dollars for a small bottle of water? I started out with Monsters, but pretty soon both me and the merch guy were shaking from all the sugar and caffeine and the significant dearth of water in us. There are no words for how hot 107degrees in the California desert is... Oh, yes, I've been hotter, but picture it: we're on a DIRT fairground in the middle of the desert; there are 11,000 kids there dressed in head-to-toe black; hardly any water kiosks to be found, and the ones that ARE still around are almost out of $5 bottles, and now the desert wind is picking up, throwing dust all over our sweaty bodies. I sweated through my tank top while carrying the shirts to the tent and spent the rest of the day slippery. My hair was soaked from the roots downward, my knees stained from kneeling on the ground to fold shirts, and I was loving every minute. Later on when I quit sweating (probably from dehydration, not because it had cooled off) I could feel the crust of dirt on me from the wind. My sunglasses were coated in dust, I was vaguely pink from the sun, and I had a blast. We were all sore from jumping around in mosh pits (I got a few breaks during the day and managed to see most of New Found Glory's set, a few Tiger Army songs until the dust picked up and literally obscured the band, the tail of Anberlin's set AND the entire Scary Kids Scaring Kids show), standing in the hot sun all day, and not eating... well... anything, but it was awesome.
Watching Scary Kids was amazing-- they are signed to the label I work for, and they put on a really fun show. The keyboardist is the most fun to watch; since there are only keyboard parts during the intro to the songs, the rest of the time he spends dancing onstage with mane-like hair, and at the end of the show he grabbed the neckline of his t-shirt and ripped it the shirt off, literally, straight down the front. Pretty much it was amazing.
My boss found out I wanted to come back and offered me the last pass he had for Saturday's show in Ventura, about an hour and a half outside Los Angeles, so Saturday morning I woke up early, dressed in a fresh wifebeater and different shorts, and headed off to Ventura. When I arrived, my boss met me at the gate with an all-access sticker pass and a fresh wristband, which got me in even more places than the band from Friday. I wasn't stopped anywhere I tried to go all day long, which was awesome. Eventually I ended up in the bus area looking for a bathroom that WASN'T a port-a-potty... The bus pen at Warped Tour is almost as big as the grounds for Warped Tour-- 50 bands to transport; each of those bands has a tent with a staff that doesn't ride the band's bus; every record label represented has a tent, and then there are the miscellaneous tents, for skateboard companies, magazines, clothing lines, etc., and don't forget about the trucks for equipment-- there are FIVE stages going at all times on the tour. All the big bands hang out in the bus area until it's time for their set, which I knew, but really all I cared about was finding a [semi]clean bathroom. I ran into the lead singer of Coheed & Cambria, a pretty big band that I can't stand, but the lead singer is recognizable a mile away by his huge curly hair. In trying to get back OUT of the bus pen, I walked through a gate I thought would take me to the main grounds, looked to the left, and realized I was at in the backstage area of the stage where Bad Religion was playing... Oh, yes, that's right, THE Bad Religion, like, from 1984. They came out with a new album about a month ago, and they definitely take the cake as the oldest act on the tour. There are bands on this tour who weren't even BORN when Bad Religion was already recording! I mean, they're legendary. (And they're actually not nearly as hardcore as that name makes them sound.)
I made my way back to the Immortal tent, where one of the guys from the label had just arrived with his 2 year old in a stroller with soundproof headphones. We all hung out for a few minutes, and then... sniff sniff... "What's that smell?" the merch guy asked.
"Oh no..." I murmured, recognizing it from my days of living in a frat house with interconnected vents. The guy from the label left with his son, and pretty soon the smell drifted away. About an hour later, the band at the tent next to ours arrived at their tent to do a signing... and the smell returned. They left... and so did the smell. They came back a few hours later to prep for their set on the Hurley stage, and... oh, yes, so did the smell. So rock on, As Cities Burn. And know that you smell strong enough that you nearly hotboxed the tent NEXT to your own.

Oh, and just so you know I haven't fallen completely victim to the scene, here's proof I am still the same awkward thirteen-year-old in a twenty-one-year-old's body:
I'm standing at the merch table, chilling by myself, when this guy walks by. He doesn't even pay attention to our tent, he's just walking by. But I look up and see him (I must have made eye contact-- I HOPE I made eye contact first), and I recognized him. That NEVER happens to me in Southern California. In fact, that hasn't happened to me since last summer when I was living in Southeastern Kentucky. So I opened my mouth and out came
"Hey! I saw--"
[at that point I realized I had no idea what to say]
"your band..."
[at that point I realized I forgot the band's name]
"last week at..."
[at that point I realized I had forgotten the name of the venue]
"the... the..."
[at that point I realized there was no non-awkward way out of the encounter]
"KNITTING FACTORY! Yeah, the knitting factory... last week."
I got a confused look from the guy, and I realized I had left out the key part of the anecdote.
"And you guys were really amazing!" I finished enthusiastically.

"Thanks....?" he said bewilderedly. "I'm... so glad you came?" he said, clearly having no idea how to handle being RECOGNIZED by a Warped Tour employee. "We, uh... we hope to see you again."

Here is why this was awkward, besides the obvious:
1. His band is unsigned. The gig I saw them at was their first in nine months.
2. They are a local LA band, and most of the Warped Tour staff (which is what he thought I was) is not from California, which is why he was so confused about being recognized.
3. He's not even the lead singer; he was only the bassist. Granted, I usually pay more attention to the bassists than anyone else onstage, but still. I am highly doubting he's ever been recognized for his BAND.

And then suddenly there's this sweaty emo girl telling him his band was amazing when opening for someone else's CD release party in the middle of the week at a tiny venue in the middle of Hollywood. Awkward.
You can take the girl out of middle school, but you can't take the middle-schooler out of the girl...

Nevertheless, I've fallen in love with those four magical words: "I'm on the list."

For blue eyes, and dark skies...
~B

Time for another...

"10, 9, 8, and I'm breaking away..."
~Shiny Toy Guns

People keep asking me who my favorite bands are. The more I do music, the more I have no idea. So here is, instead, a list of my top 10 music videos, complete with links to go view them at your leisure. Don't watch them, you won't enjoy them if you are over 40. Except for #2. Watch that one. And then go out and buy the album.
[Compiler's note: I don't actually watch a lot of music videos, and when I do, my standards are pretty high. So this isn't an all-time list... it's just recently.]

10. "We've Got A Big Mess On Our Hands"-- The Academy Is... TWO William Becketts? I think I could handle that, and the Pete Wentz cameo is pretty amazing.
9. "Are You In?"-- Incubus. This one really only makes the list because I want to be one of the girls in the video. And because the singer has a four-and-a-half octave vocal range.
8. "Move Along"-- The All-American Rejects. That black shirt the lead singer wears when singing in the pool? Yeah, I have the same one.
7. "Silver and Cold"-- AFI. Filmed in Prague. I've been there, it really does look like this.
6. "All That I've Got"-- The Used. I won't lie, after 30 Seconds to Mars perfected the old-scary-house video, this one kind of faded in awesomeness, but it's still a classic.
5. "My Darkest Hour"-- Scary Kids Scaring Kids. They're on my label, but the video is hilarious only because it may as well be me and my friends in that car.
3. "I Write Sins Not Tragedies"-- Panic! At the Disco. Eyes painted on eyelids? I'm always a sucker for a circus in a church.
2. "Stateside"-- Hot Rod Circuit. I have been watching this video for weeks at work now, since way before it was released, and I STILL can't watch it without getting the giggles. Current favorite part: the looks on the band's faces at the doctor's office.
1. "From Yesterday"-- 30 Seconds To Mars. This "epic" is nearly fifteen minutes of fist-in-the-air, hair-in-the-face, black-clothed, fireworks-and-subtitles emo goodness.

As I said, you should probably not watch them, mainly because if you do, you too are likely to start piercing random parts of your face, growing your hair into a swoop, and wearing nothing but Chuck Taylor's and concert tees. But do watch number two. You won't regret it.

Cinematic!
~B

This is what I live for.

Kind of a dramatic title, I know. But I spent the last 48 hours with 11,000 emo kids, and dramatic is exactly what that is.

To put it in the words of my boss at the Immortal tent yesterday, in 107degree heat with the sweat pouring down my back:
"What's a girl like you, on her way to a degree from Emory University, doing working at a record label? And more importantly, why do you want to be a merch girl?"

Details later when I have rehydrated, slept, and washed. Probably not in that order.

Live from the pit,
Your favorite merch girl.

The Perfect Fan...

"It sucks to grow up..."
~Ben Folds

This is why I love my parents:

Blair, in France in April, approximately midnight Greenwich Mean Time: "Oh my gosh, you'll never believe what happened tonight! I met the bassist from Jimmy Eat World! The concert was soooo amazing!"
Mom: "Oh, good, you've found yourself a new man... you're coming back to the US to have my grandchildren, but their last name is going to be Eatworld..."

or this:

My dad: "Hey, do you think you could send me some Incubus CDs to give away with our anti-drug campaign?"
Blair, from a bus somewhere in Santa Monica: "Umm... I could, but in all their interviews they credit marijuana with giving them the creativity they need to write songs, so they may not be the best bet. Also they have a song called Psychopsilocybin."

or this:

From an email I got last week:
"MIKE EINZIGER's birthday is today! He's turning 31! In case you didn't know, he's in Incubus... Love from your mother."

or this:

My mom, after seeing a picture of one of the bands I work for: "Oh, he would be ok for a son-in-law if you erased those pictures on his arms, cut off that hair, wiped off that makeup and got those things out of his ears."

or this:

My dad, on the phone, after my insistence (insistance?) that he wouldn't like the bands I promote: "I like emo."

To put it in the words of the immortal DJ Jazzy Jeff,

Parents just don't understand,
The Fresh Princ(ess) Buh-lair

Every summer has one of those days...

"Hollywood hills and suburban thrills...
~The Academy Is...

The most important thing I left out of last night's concert review was that The Academy Is... has been singing the soundtrack of my life since I discovered them almost two years ago. I love their music, but more importantly, it seems every phase of my life for the past two years can be summed up to the tune of one of their songs... Attention, The Phrase That Pays, Slow Down, Checkmarks, We've Got A Real Big Mess On Our Hands...

Anyway, every summer has one of those days... my first college summer it was the day of the maelstrom and pool party in Wildwood, New Jersey; probably the most underappreciated I had ever felt in my life. Last summer it was the day I broke the Slush Puppie machine and then tried to mop up the mess with a mop coated in floor wax. This summer it was... today.

I walked into work this morning feeling extra-glam. I was channeling retro Bon Jovi videos, with my hair in my eyes,oversize sunglasses, vintage-looking band tee, homemade cut off jean skirt with leggings underneath, and Chuck Taylors. I feel, in outfits like that, like I belong at a record label...
But I walked in this morning, and immediately all hell broke loose.
BLAIR! My real boss said, "make a street team for Adema!"
BLAIR! My unofficial boss (who I generally take direction from) said, "Find out where I can buy 400 sheets of gloss text 80lb. paper!"
BLAIR! The head of the label (who never bothers messing with the intern) said, "Price out 300 standard shot glasses with a band logo, then find out how much 300 cans of Red Bull would be to go with it.
BLAIR! The OWNER of the label (of whom I am terrified) said, "I need ten vintage metal lunchboxes by tomorrow morning. And I needed to find out where to buy them an hour ago."

Immediately the lunchboxes went to the top of the pile, even though he was the last to ask. As I am on the phone with every toy, school supply, and general merchandise store in Southern California, those same people walked past my desk again...
"Have you finished the street team?"
"Can you fill these merchandise orders?"
"The receptionist is going to lunch, cover phones for a minute."
"Did you get back to that journalist about the Hot Rod Circuit promotion?"

So I kept calling for the lunchboxes, knowing that project would never be satisfactory, forgot to fill in account numbers on the orders I sent out, never finished making a street team, found all the information I could for 300 custom made shot glasses to be delivered by Friday, and got in touch with the wholesale distributor of Red Bull.
I was thanked by the label head, who insists on calling me Sexy Lips after hearing last week's story of being hit on by Adema's lead singer.
I was consoled by my unofficial boss, who understood the getting distracted by the label owner's whims.
I was shot down by the label owner, the pictures I had printed shoved back into my hand and told they were useless, despite the fact that I stayed an hour after I was scheduled to in order to finish the lunchbox project.
And then I was scolded by the woman who was supposed to be doing the lunchbox project, told that I hadn't done a good enough job.

I, for the record, called every "toy" listed in the greater Los Angeles phone book, most of whom are NAMED Toy and thus don't speak good English-- I was hung up on more times this afternoon than ever before in my life. I spent an hour and a half making calls, another hour checking things online.
I can live with the thanklessness... I just wish they would at least realize I am not JUST an intern. My boss gets it, the guys I usually work with don't treat me like just another intern... but to the label owner and the management woman-- I'm just "take-a-tern," the latest in free help technology.
Fine, I realize that's really all an intern ever is. But it makes me an awful lot more grateful for my favorite pretend boss, the one that teaches me to read sales sheets, use distribution networks, publicize bands, and all around be cool.

Hold your head high,
B

Hi, My Name Is Blair...

...And I’m a music snob.

"Drop a heart, break a name..."
~Fall Out Boy

Last night was the Honda Civic Tour at the LA Forum, which is not in Los Angeles at all, but in Inglewood, which is only approximately half a step above Compton.

I went by myself, kind of at the last minute, but I still managed to end up with a second row ticket directly next to the stage, which means I didn’t get a full-on view, but I had the best view of anyone there except those kids in the pit getting smashed. Cobra Starship opened, and though I tend to disapprove of any emo/rock bands with girls in them, they rocked. Not only do they have their own hand gesture ("Get your fangs up!"), but the girl in the band plays the keytar. All the time. And the lead singer, though not gorgeous, was the most fun performer I have seen since Motion City Soundtrack.

Following them was Paul Wall– I purposely waited to go check out the merch table until he hit the stage. I mean, first of all, he’s a rapper. (Note to Paul Wall’s record label: there is nothing an emo kid hates more than a rapper, except perhaps a carnivore.) And more importantly, he’s a no-good rapper. Not to mention the fact that rap went out when tight pants came in. Enough said.

And then The Academy Is... hit the stage, which is really the reason I was there. I saw them live a couple years ago, and they were amazing, but even now that they are more famous, they are still amazing in concert. I think the lead, William Beckett, has gained weight since the last time I saw them (which is good– I think I could have broken him in half with one hand last time I saw them). Their new album came out two months ago, and they’re not headlining for it, which is pretty awesome. Not to mention the fact that the lead singer is probably going to be the next candidate for a Blair haircut AND he sang all the instrumental parts from the album, which pretty much kicked.

The lead singer is the one in the middle. I couldn't find a decent shot that would fully define his skinniness, but look at those legs in the middle... It's kind of unfair.

+44 came out after that... not because they are any good, but because when any band is composed of exactly two thirds of Blink-182, you let them do whatever they want. When Blink broke up, the lead singer/bassist and drummer stayed together, found two more guys, and became +44. They kept the immaturity of Blink-182, and apparently some of the music rights, since they performed my all time favorite Blink song, Girl At the Rock Show. The mature, less prone to playing music in nothing but a tube sock remainder of Blink (Angels and Airwaves’ Tom DeLonge) moved more away from their roots, which is awesome, and the reason why Angels and Airwaves has always been my preferred piece of Blink. But nevertheless, +44 put on a good set– I know I have never seen a drummer as amazing or as entertaining as Travis Barker... he came out with a mohawk and jeans and nothing else, covered in tattoos from the waist up. As soon as he played the opening solo for the opening song, the mohawk was limp from the headbanging. I noticed a woman in the wings of the stage, carrying a sleeping baby girl in a white dress with HUGE headphones on– the kind that block out all noise. The woman stayed there with the baby for the whole set, and I knew it must belong to one of the guys in the band, but I didn’t know who until they left the stage, Travis climbed down from the drum riser, walked past the woman, and took the baby from her arms. (All of which makes sense since the whole band is from LA. Of COURSE their families were there.) But then I started thinking about it– I mean, honestly, how crazy for that little girl... can you imagine growing up with a dad covered with tattoos (and a mohawk) known for having played on top of the Radio City Music Hall marquee naked?

But it was clear he loved the baby, so I've gotta hand it to him. Plus his clothing line is amazing.

Fall Out Boy was the headlining act, and even though I had seen them before (in Atlanta a year and a half ago), they were still amazing. The dynamic between Pete Wentz (the bassist but not the singer) and the rest of the band is odd– he writes the songs, but just because he happens to be the most attractive one in the band, he is always the one that Mcs between songs, and the one everyone loves to love (or loves to hate, depending on your level of emo-ness). Anyway, this was the first set I had seen involving a change of clothes since the last time I saw the Backstreet Boys, which may or may not have been on their last major tour...
A little too much pyrotechnic activity, but they played all the good songs (and some of the bad ones– WHY does ANYONE like "Where Is Your Boy Tonight?" I’ll tell you where your boy is: he’s hiding in the green room until you finish this song). Plus, I would give anything for a shiny black bass with a red bat on it.
All in all, the show was amazing... despite the fact that the cab ride I took home from it cost me as much as another ticket (thanks, Dodgers game that got out the same time as Fall Out Boy concert. Thanks).

This is Pete Wentz, the mouthpiece of Fall Out Boy and one of those few people that I think looks better making this face than he does normally. His clothing line is also amazing.

Man, it turns out I really am a groupie of the highest order.

~B

P.S. Guys with legitimately good music taste who understand the reason WHY music is good and know how to explain themselves are a rare find, even in Los Angeles. Guys who get drunk and then want to drive you somewhere are much more common. And so, in closing, always remember shoes are for dancing, not just for gazing.

You know it's been a good night when...

...you roll off of someone else's couch 15 minutes before you need to leave, then spend all day at work covered in someone ELSE's sweat from the night before.


Last night one of the bands signed to my label played a show at The Viper Room in West Hollywood. The Viper Room is this club/bar owned by Johnny Depp and is touted as the most exclusive club on the Sunset Strip. It only holds a couple hundred, and all the coolest bands and DJs play there. I knew the place was small, so I assumed it would be, you know, cozy, with black velvet stools and purple neon lights, or a red floor and a shiny black bar...

No.

What I got was a hole-in-the-wall sandwiched between an office building and a condo with a black plywood front, the smallest stage I have ever seen shoved in the corner, and waitresses in cutoff Jack Daniels t-shirts. Kind of disappointing, Johnny. And here I was, thinking we were buddies because of the whole Kentucky/Paris/Los Angeles thing. You're killing me, Depp.

Anyway, the headlining band, Adema, is the one signed to my label. They're a metal group, pretty hardcore, and actually quite famous. They've released five albums and are about to go on tour for their sixth, which drops in August. I've done their SoundScan reports, analyzing their top 20 markets and things like that, so despite the fact that the music is not really my style, I was excited to see them live. I've also spent many an afternoon burning copies of their unreleased album to send as promotion to radio stations. Which means I have heard the unreleased album over and over. So when they played their "new" songs, I already knew them. Rock on.

I also proofread the liner notes for their newest album... So go buy it, and then know that it was edited (sort of) by me.

But that's not the good part. First of all, because I work for Immortal, I was on the list. The guestlist. Oh yeah, that's right. The same girl that has probably never been on the list for a frat party at Emory is suddenly on the list for a midweek concert at the hottest venue in Southern California. Being on the list, however, means that you have to [literally, I couldn't make this up] go to the bouncer at the door and tell him THE SECRET PASSWORD before he lets you in. So I get there with one of the other Immortal interns, and, true to hipster form, the bouncer acts like we have to be approved or something before he lets us in. So he takes my ID and gives me a fierce look. "We're on the list," I say, "we work for Immortal." He keeps inspecting my ID, which, due to some stupid loophole in North Carolina government, will continue to say "under 21" until I am 26. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW ANNOYING THAT IS? In HUGE letters right over the photo on my license it says "UNDER 21!" which I have not been since last autumn, and despite the fact that my birthday is right on there, it always creates unnecessary delays.

So anyway, back to the story:

"We're on the list," I say.

"What list?" he asks fiercely, in typical bouncer style (intimidating even though he was in a tux).

I look furtively from side to side, then "Kill the headlights."

A chin up nod from the bouncer, and we're in.
"Right this way, ladies..."

HOW HARDCORE IS THAT? Kill the headlights? Can you THINK of a better password? There might as well have been a spinning bookshelf, I mean honestly.


So we go upstairs, catch the last of the opening act, then grab a seat at a table marked "RESERVED." We sit through the Adema set and toward the end the boyfriend of the other intern and his roommate arrive... both of whom are on the list at Spider Club for later on in the night. We had planned on heading to Spider after the Adema set with them.

The band put on a good performance, including a lead guitarist who came out in a Guy Fawkes mask, which almost made me pee my pants out of fright. Oh, and the other guitarist looks like a tree. So there's that.



Ok. Set over. We stand up to get ready to leave, and lead singer (Bobby) walks by us on his way to the Green Room at the back of the place. He had performed the whole set without a shirt on, and all of a sudden there is a sweaty rock star stopping at our table. I don't know if he thought we were cool, or if maybe he was just attracted by the mystery of the reserved table, but he stopped at our table, gave us high fives, and then walked into the green room. I remained unfazed. (I work for this band, I can handle it. Had it been, like, AFI, on the other hand, I'd have been flipping out.) Then he came back out from the green room, walked up to me and said (I wish I could insert audio here so you would know what it sounded like):

"YOU. are beautiful."

"Thanks," I said.

"OH MY GOD, AND YOUR LIPS!? Your LIPS! You have such gorgeous lips!"

"Thanks," I said, pushing my hair back, as though I am hit on by half-naked rock stars everyday.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Blair!" I yell back because it's still so loud, "I WORK FOR IMMORTAL!"

"Yeah!? That's awesome!"

Just then a European-looking man with a huge camera walked over and asked the lead singer in a thick accent "May I take your picture for my magazine?"

He grabbed my waist.

"Only if we can include some hotness in the picture!"

"Sure, sure," said the photographer. Wanting to befriend the European, I asked what magazine he was with.

"Dutch Esquire."

"WHAT?!"

"Yeah, I am photographer for Esquire in Holland. This is for travel section."


Which means that, in a month or so, I am probably going to be in the travel section of a magazine in HOLLAND, photographed on the arm of a rockstar in downtown Hollywood.

Just then someone tapped me on the shoulder. I whirled around to see the bass player (who looks like he could be part of Hell's Angels) standing behind me trying to get to the lead singer. Bobby, the lead singer, saw the bassist at the same moment I did, and immediately said,

"LOOK WHAT I FOUND! These LIPS!"

"Ahh, yeah, nice," said bassist, not as impressed as the lead singer.

"Well, it was nice to meet you, have a fabulous night, I think we are going to leave," I said all in one breath, trying to pull away the people I came with.

"Wait!" said the lead singer, grabbing my arm, "Where are you and your friends going?"

"Spider Club. You want to come?" I asked.

"No, I can't. I mean, I really can't. We have to go to Rainbow Room... it's like our thing. But look," he says, reaching into his pocket, "I have all this cash that they gave us to go out tonight... it's late enough now that the cover is cheap and we won't need it all. Here, take this and go to Rainbow Room-- we'll meet you there," he explains, pushing a bill into my hand. As the most rational person in the group, I looked down to see a fifty dollar bill in my hand.

Rainbow Room was about a block away, and we still had a couple hours before everything closed, and now we had enough money to pay cover... so...

Spider Club forgotten, we headed to the Rainbow Room, sitting down in a round booth in the back corner, between two other tables of metalheads, at which point I realized I had never eaten dinner.

"GRILLED CHEESE," I blurted, suddenly starving.
"CHEESE FRIES!" says the guy next to me.
We order our food, sit munching on each other's plates, and waiting for our rock star friends to arrive. The band showed up soon, fully dressed by now, and greeted us excitedly, as though we were good friends.



I don't know how this happened. I don't. I mean, I am the girl that tried every trick in the book to get backstage at the Panic! show in Paris last fall, then again at 30 Seconds To Mars in the winter (that time kind of worked), and then again at the Give It A Name festival in the spring. Arguably that time was a success, given that I met a couple drummers, a bassist, and a lead guitarist, but I never had a conversation at a show with anyone where THEY were the ones who initiated it, and then gave me $50 to meet them afterward?



All I have to say is that if this is what it is to work for a record label, then ROCK, my friends.
Love,
B

P.S. A quick note to the guy that lives on the corner outside my place: It may not LOOK like I speak Spanish, but I DO, and I understand every word you say every time I walk by, and it's not going to make me stop and talk to you if you keep saying it.