SYP Says

Best Songs of 2007: Week 4/23-4/30: The Rat by The Walkmen

"The Rat" by The Walkmen 

I am completely addicted to this song--I listen to it every morning on my way to work. Not only is it super catchy, but it has this rawness and anger that really comes through and gets you going.

You've got a nerve to be asking a favor
You've got a nerve to be calling my number
I know we've been through this before
Can't you hear me, I'm calling out your name?
Can't you see me, I'm pounding on your door?

Hamilton Leithauser, the lead singer of this NYC indie rock band, sometimes sounds like a weird cross between Bob Dylan and Bono. Awesome drumming in this song btw--check out the video below.

Karaoke Queen...uh huh, uh huh

At last week's Guitar Center retreat, I made it to the semifinals of the softball tournament (and even got to third base!), played bongos until my hands hurt, even won a Special Recognition award (very very cool),

and...

sang karaoke...

for hours...

in an almost empty room...

but I had a blast and that's what counts, right? In order to protect the innocent, I won't share the names of my fellow karaoke brothers-in-arms, but I can share a few of our hit tunes. I'm sure we sounded amazing. Sorry you missed it.  :)

1. "That's the Way (I Like It)" by KC & the Sunshine Band
2. "Takin' Care of Business" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive
3. "My Girl" by The Temptations
4. "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel
5. "Brick House" by The Commodores

Best Songs of 2007: Week 4/16-4/23: Party Girl by U2

"Party Girl" by U2

In honor of the fun I had at last week's Guitar Center retreat, this week's song is "Party Girl," an old favorite of mine from U2's 1983 live album, Under a Blood Red Sky. It is easily one of my top 5 U2 songs--not well-known by most, but try it. You'll like it.

This is U2 performing "Party Girl" live from Paris 1987.

Fenway Shmenway

So what that I wasted 12 hours of this weekend watching the Red Sox sweep my beloved Yankees in Fenway for the first time in 17 years. And just how is it that with the league's highest payroll, our pitching stinks so much??? It is a mystery to me, but say it with me, people: It's only April...

I went over to the Yanksfan vs Soxfan blog where I read this post which made me feel a little better because I was thinking the exact same thing:

at least our closer does not make a stupid face everytime he looks in. The sox had to make history to beat the yanks, they can't do it every time.

Posted by: SOXH8ER | Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 11:47 PM

OK...just let me get through the week and then we'll see you darn Red Sox in Yankee stadium.

Air Guitar Nation

I recently recorded a 45-minute documentary on the Sundance Channel called Air Guitar in Oulo. It focuses on one (odd) Canadian's journey to the World Air Guitar Championships in Oulo, Finland. I found it both fascinating and painful, mostly because the guy seemed lonely and completely misunderstood, but I have to admit the movie stuck with me.

Last week, I was going to buy additional tickets to the Ashland Independent Film Festival (beyond the world premiere of Bruce Campbell's newest, My Name Is Bruce) and noticed Air Guitar Nation was showing on Saturday night. I thought it was the same movie I'd already seen, but, no, it is actually a new film about air guitar which chronicles the birth of the US Air Guitar Championships.

Funnily enough, Air Guitar Nation is distributed by New Video, the same company that produces and distributes the DVDs I used to market at A&E and The History Channel. I spent quite a bit of time with them over the years, especially early on in my A&E career when I focused a lot of energy marketing The Avengers releases in the US. Kudos to Susan and Steve--this is their first foray into theatrical releases and I'm sure it'll be a success. Small world.

Anyway, fans have a chance to rock themselves into a featured role on the Air Guitar Nation DVD. Through June 1, you can submit photos of yourself playing air guitar and the winner will be on the DVD extras and win a trip for two to the US Air Guitar finals in NYC this summer. The top 10 finalists will be featured at http://www.AirGuitarNation.com. 

If you have no idea what air guitar even is (or just want to be amused for a couple minutes), check out this video. If you want to be really cool and play a real guitar, visit GuitarCenter.com or MusiciansFriend.com!

Best Songs of 2007: Week 4/9-4/16: Mountains by Sparklehorse

"Mountains" by Sparklehorse

After a 5-year hiatus, Mark Linkous is back with more of his mysterious, beautiful, dream-like indie rock. His singing is always a bit plaintive, even when he tries to sound upbeat, the lyrics surreal, guitars fuzzy. I love all of the songs on Sparklehorse's newest album, Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain--thanks, Tuck, for reminding me about this one!

Here's a video of the title track from the same album,"Don't Take My Sunshine Away." This is a live version from the festival para gente sentada, November 2006:

Guitar Center Retreat

Guitar Center has a yearly corporate retreat for eligible employees. Last year, I had worked at GC less than 2 months before I attended, so I knew very few of the hundreds of guys who were there. Besides the all-night jam rooms, one of the long-standing retreat traditions is softball. It's a required event and considering the number of people in management now, just organizing it must be a feat.

As a child, I played teeball poorly (that damn tee was always getting in the way) and I was no star at softball either. I was usually placed in left field where I spent the majority of games humming, daydreaming, and every once in a while mustering up enough energy to yell "hey batter, batter, batter." I was marginally better at soccer which I played for a couple of years; my field hockey career OTOH was cut short when a monster of a girl landed her stick right into my gut. I've always been much better at individual sports like tennis, hiking, skiing, and more adventurous activities (I'm dying to learn how to hang glide!). Team sports...not so much.

When I found out I had to play softball, I was imagining a game or two at the most. Little did I know that this was the big leagues. Yes, I know, the fact that "winning" is one of Guitar Center's 7 core values should have been a tip-off.

I ended up playing from 4 in the afternoon to 1 in the morning. That's right--9 hours of almost continuous softball. My coach was Dave Weiderman who is in charge of the Hollywood Rockwalk. This guy was serious. A softball nazi. No drinking anything but water and almost no eating allowed...no nuthin' to come between us and the ball. People were diving left and right like we were in the World Series and the ambulance came to treat the injured (apparently also a yearly event). After all that, what do you know--we ended up winning the championship. I even got on first base. (It was the cheers of "pigtail power" from the sidelines that inspired me.)

This trophy's the proof. When I told my mom, I'm pretty sure she thought I was lying. Tomorrow, I'm off to this year's retreat. Wish me luck!

Tonic NYC Closing

Was looking at my blog traffic (such as it is...although now higher thanks to that lovely Wall Street Journal article!) and noticed that someone got to my site by Googling "tonic closing down nyc". I actually didn't know Tonic was closing after almost a decade, but I had mentioned it in a post last August about one of my trips back to NYC and I guess that got spidered.

Anyway, I'm sad to hear it, not because it was ever a regular haunt of mine, but because it was known as a home for experimental music and there are too few of those. The Lower East Side is becoming just another spot for high-rise condos and seems to be slowly losing the places and vibe that I love.

I guess Tonic is still continuing on in a way--although the location on Norfolk Street is closing today, Melissa and John, the owners, will be presenting new music in existing venues like the Abron's Arts Center located just a few blocks away.

In a small world kind of thing, Melissa knows Mike Sanzone who is a good friend of Jeff's (and whose art I recently blogged about) and another friend of Jeff's, Heather Greene, a pianist and songwriter who we used to see perform at Joe's Pub in the East Village. Heather moved to Scotland last year and we hear her songs are starting to catch fire in Europe where she's on tour (go, Heather!). Anyway, I've never met Melissa, but I do wish her luck keeping the spirit of Tonic alive.

WSJ & SYP

Today was a big day for me! Thanks to Marketing Headhunter Extraordinaire, Harry Joiner, I was in the print edition of The Wall Street Journal, front cover of the Marketplace section in an article about How Blogging Can Help You Get a New Job.

Sure, the whole article was interesting, but the part that really matters is here:

Some companies encourage employees to blog because they can use them to recruit others. When recruiter Harry Joiner was hired to fill two positions at Musician's Friend Inc. in November, he used an employee's personal blog to help sell his client's rural location of Medford, Ore., to job seekers. "Candidates were using Medford as a reason not to consider the jobs," he says. "As a marketer, I thought, if you can't change it, promote it."

The blog, by So Young Park, the company's director of e-commerce marketing and customer-relationship management, describes her move to the area a year ago from New York City. It includes details about her work, her experience owning a car for the first time, a bear sighting near her new home and related topics. While she started the blog to share information about her experiences with family and friends back East, she acknowledges that it has also been a good resource for attracting job hunters.

Mr. Joiner says he linked to the blog in ads he posted on job boards and in emails to potential candidates. He says it helped him get professionals to leave jobs in Los Angeles. "The blog made a ton of difference," he says. "It humanized [Ms. Park] to candidates and made the jobs more attractive."

Interested in a job at Musician's Friend? Click here for open positions at our corporate headquarters, as well as great jobs from friends of mine at other great companies.

Here's the full article or download wsj_syp_article_4.10.07.doc

This is, like, the coolest thing ever. :)

SYP, Oregonian???

Last Thanksgiving, I blogged about my reluctance to give up my NY license, because I'm a New Yorker gosh darn it! However, I recently  replaced the first car I ever owned (the Jeep Liberty I bought at Manhattan Chrysler last January) with a new Jeep Wrangler. As a result, I got Oregon plates and, yes, an Oregon license. I studied all night on Easter Sunday and crammed my little brain (already full of sales metrics, marketing jargon, pop culture trivia, and other odds and ends) with a plethora of traffic and driving-related facts. I passed with a 93% and am now the proud owner of the worst Oregon driver's license picture in history. So there you go. I am an official Oregonian. Wanna make something of it?