Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Thought I'd post about the Late Night taping! Before the show started a comedian came out to get all of us laughing and ready for the show. He quickly explained how things were going to happen and next thing I know The Roots make an entrance and start playing some songs for us. The show began shortly after! The guests on this evening were Artie Lange, Olivia Munn, and Chef David Chang. Oh, and Susan Sarandon made a surprise visit!

Here I am! Along with my friends John, Greg, and Kendal.

Matty D

Busy Week!

In the last two weeks or so I've made it to many shows!

10/15 - I went and saw a band we (The MuseBox) work with called Hey Ocean at Piano's.

10/17 - Saw a band from Missouri called The Bottle Rockets. Great Alt-Country Band. The show was at the Mercury Lounge.

10/21 - We (The MuseBox) put on a free showcase for two bands called Parlovr and Little Fish. This show was at Bowery Electric.

10/22 - The MuseBox put on a CMJ showcase for several bands we work with at Webster Hall. I really enjoyed the group called Bottle Up And Go.

10/23 - I volunteered at CMJ.

And tonight I am going to a live taping of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon!

Should be fun!!!

Matchooo

Memphis opening!

Hey everybody ~

Last night I worked the opening night of the new musical, Memphis. The red carpet was not very spectacular, but getting to got to the after-party at the Hard Rock Cafe was pretty sweet. I escorted the cast members through the crowds to the press line for photos as they arrived at the party. After the photos were over, I got to just hang out at the party.

Tori and I saw the show over the weekend and really enjoyed it. The music and choreography were really tight, though the plot was fairly bland. The story takes place in segregated Memphis during the 1950s. A white DJ named Huey Calhoun finds success playing ''race'' music and finds himself falling in (forbidden) love with a black singer named Felicia Farrow. The original music was composed by David Bryan, keyboardist and a founding member of Bon Jovi.

Nostalgia.

For about the past two weeks, I have been getting random intense feelings of nostalgia. Maybe it's the changing seasons or something, but what I know for sure is there are some days I want to go back in time. This all started when I was looking through old documents at my internship and found a tour press release for Motion City Soundtrack and The Format. These two (fantastic) bands toured together in 2006 and three of my best friends and I took a super-fun road trip to Cleveland, OH for the show at the Agora Theater. It was a date featured prominently on the release - March 31, 2006. The fourth time I would see Motion City Soundtrack live in less than a year. (For those curious minds out there, to date I've been to 8 MCS shows. Great times!)
As I was reading this press release and as The Format was serendipitously pumping through the speakers in our office, I could not help but remember my former self, a girl from suburban Ohio, about to graduate Catholic school and head south to a Baptist university with a music business program that no one I knew had even heard of. If you would have told me then I would be interning with the publicity company for these bands who made music I listened to on repeat while driving in my car, I would have laughed. But here I am.
Tonight when we were at Island Def Jam, I had another bout of intense nostalgia. Erik brought up Fall Out Boy and the fact that their strong internet fan base was a tipping point in their success at a major label. I instantly remembered sitting in my den after school and streaming From Under the Cork Tree on purevolume.com. This was in February and that album dropped in late April. I remember hearing "Sugar, We're Going Down" and thinking "WOW." I had been listening to FOB for almost a year and my love for the pop-punk GEM that is Take This to Your Grave led me to become a total fan girl of Pete Wentz and Co. Needless to say their impeding massive success story turned me away from them for a while (it's SO not punk to like mainstream bands), but they always have a place in my heart--and my CD player.

I think it's important for all of us to remember that we are music fans first and formost. The sole reason I got to this place in my life is that I lived for this music, these bands. Recently, the business side of music has made me a little jaded. The hunt for the next big thing, the next way to make a buck off the emotions of song annoys me from time to time. I don't know about you but the second I forget about being "Jessica who blasts pop-punk at top volume everyday" or the moment I don't feel a sense of longing to just be the girl driving around listening to Motion City and singing along from the front row of a show in Cleveland, is the second I leave the industry. I'm doing what I'm doing so that other kids across the country who are like the teen I was can connect to the music that so changed my life.

Luckily, I haven't reached the point of total cynicism just yet and the new MCS single makes me just as happy as when I heard them for the first time :)

A Little Joy

The last time I wrote I talked about getting into free concerts because of my internship, and that's exactly what I'm going to write about now.

This past summer I discovered a band called Little Joy, and their debut album quickly became my summer jam. One of my best friends and I would always put it on when we were cooking dinner or driving around aimlessly. I'm awful at describing music, but it's great pop with a Brazilian feel.

I had no idea that they were part of Beggars until I started working at the office and saw one of their posters on the wall, and when I found out that they were playing a show at Webster Hall I decided that I HAD to go, so I got myself on the list before it filled up and did my best to prepare myself for the awesome rock that was about to occur.

The concert was great, as I expected it to be. Devendra Banhart was a secret guest opener. I had never really listened to his stuff, and I probably won't start, but some of the stuff he did was pretty cool. He was dressed like he was at Bonnaroo, totally druggy and greasy, but oddly enough after his set I saw him in the VIP section and he looked clean and had changed into a suit. Weird.

Anyway, Little Joy did not disappoint. They played pretty much their entire album (I didn't notice if they missed any songs) as well as some new tunes and covers. I sort of got my dance on during the encore, and after the show a fellow Beggars intern and I attempted to pass out stickers for a new band called The xx and flyers for a different show the next night, but the people at Webster Hall didn't seem too into it. At the Yo La Tengo show most people took the flyers that I was handing out, but at the end of the night I still had a ton of stickers and stuff.

As much as I loved the show it did make me a little homesick, as it made me miss my friend who would have loved to have seen Little Joy with me. It's sort of rough in NYC. It can be hard to make friends. At least, it's harder to make friends than it is in Nashville, where it's really easy to meet new people, at least for me. I always took that for granted. I mean, I love NYC and all that it has to offer, but people who live here, people who walk down the street, a lot of them seem really lonely. You know, it probably doesn't help that most of the other interns where I work are 25.

Should Have Seen it in Color...

It's been a while since, I've blogged (Sorry Ben and Bekah!) Let me re-cap about all of the exciting adventures I've been on lately.

I'd like to start out by thanking the Lord it is no longer disgustingly hot. I love fall! Shannon and I went to see the Braves and the Mets play in Queens! I'm so glad the Mets are terrible so that college kids on a budget can pay 15 bucks to see them get beat. (It really was like watching little league.) Go Braves!!

We finally got to go on the Circle Line Cruise on Belmont's tab. It was worth every penny Bob Fisher paid. It was such an amazing day and the perfect way to usher in this Fall season. Later that night, we went to Williamsburg in Brooklyn to have dinner with Anna and Emily (BU alumnas). I think it's worth mentioning we made smores over a fire fueled by the pages of last month's Rolling Stone.

My best friend from home came to visit this weekend! Yay. I needed a familiar face because I was getting a little homesick! We had a great weekend complete with a lot of Nashville events. On Friday night we saw a country concert at the Bowery Ball Room (Jamey Johnson and Randy Houser)! We were exhausted but decided to go because some one gave us free tickets. I didn't expect many people to be there, but we walked into a packed house! And to my further surprise, when Jamey Johnson played his hit song "In Color" the entire house sang every single word and Jamey really only joined in on the chorus. It was a crazy NYC experience! To further the Nashville feeling (that I miss so much), we went to a West Point football game on Saturdaay to watch Vandy! West Point is beautiful and so was everything about the hour train ride it took to get us there!

So, that's what I do when I'm not at my internship. I guess I should touch on what I've been doing at work in the publicity world. I've been working hard and learning A LOT. I like being busy; time flies. I have been doing a lot of tour market research looking for press outlets. I've also tried to organize stuff because our office is a mess! We threw out a lot of old magazines and we're sending them to charities. We also sent some to certain artists on the label who are currently in prison (hard to say with a straight face), and I know of one who is going to be very excited we got rid of a bunch of old Playboys and Penthouses.

PEACE AND LOVE.
amy

Hello!

NYC has been amazing! Some of the standout moments so far include being treated like stars at the restaurant B. Smith’s, seeing a Yankee’s games while they played my hometown team the Kansas City Royals, and a tour on the ferry.

Last weekend I went to the Lucinda Williams concert and this weekend I believe I will be going to an NBA game!

Mateo Dowd

Mary Poppins on Broadway

Jessica and I have been wanting to see Mary Poppins on Broadway since we arrived. On Thursday night, we finally found the time to go. We went to the TKTS booth in Brooklyn to try and score discounted tickets. We were able to get 16th row orchestra seats for half price! Pretty sweet deal! I definitely recommend going to the TKTS booth in Brooklyn over the one in Times Square, because there was no line. The show took place at the New Amsterdam Theater. The theater was beautiful and it was packed with people of all ages. The set was amazing. I always wondered how they were going to pull off Mary Poppins on a stage, but they did. The show was great- very entertaining and almost went right along with the movie. Jessica and I felt like we were reliving our childhood! If you grew up watching the movie, this show is a must see!!

Shannon

A Steady Rain - opening night!!

Hey kids,

So I got to work the opening night of A Steady Rain - even got to meet and congratulate Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig between the performance and the after-party. Before the show I worked on the red carpet outside the theater making sure the celebrity guests knew where they were going and keeping the swarming crowds away from them. Some of them included: Jerry Seinfeld, Naomi Watts, Liev Schreiber, Whoopi Goldberg, Matthew Broderick, Matt Morrison, Jeff Goldblum, Regis Philbin, Jeffrey Wright, Darren Aronofsky, and Rupert Murdoch.

During the performance, I helped set everything up for the post-show press junket at the Harvard Club. Following the press conference (check out the photos), the stars went to the after-party and everyone from my office went out to Joe Allen (right next to B Smith!) and it was really good. A Steady Rain runs until Dec. 6th and is grossing over $1 million per week.

Daniel Craig, writer Keith Huff, director John Crowley, and Hugh Jackman)

















(Daniel Craig, his girlfriend Satsuki Mitchell, Debra Lee-Funess,
her husband Hugh Jackman, and my boss Michael Hartman)














(My fellow intern Joshua and I)



Some other interesting things from this week:

I bought the new Paramore and Relient K albums and I'm enjoying them very much. The Amazon Exclusive track that came with the Relient K album sounded strangely like Owl City - so I looked up the track producer and it just happens to be Adam Young! And word on the street is that Adam Young and Matt Thiessen are looking to embark on a collaborative project called "Goodbye Dubai". So if you've ever wondered what techno-Relient K would sound like, we may find out very soon!

Until next week -
izh

Journeys...and BLINK!

First things first, my internship was crazy busy and awesome last week because Brand New's album Daisy debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard 200. WOW. It is pretty phenomenal considering the entire album leaked about 2 weeks before its release and was available for free stream on MySpace for 2 days. It just goes to show that having a rabid fan base--and BN fans are hard to the core--can be a major determinate for an artist's success. You can check out some Brand New songs here. (I recommend the title track "Daisy"... so goood!)
This past weekend, I ventured to Grand Central Station in the wee hours of the morning to board a train to New Haven at 7:07 AM. It was ridiculous. I was going there to watch my friend Jess' school flag football team play Yale Divinity School's team. Even though it was cold, muddy and super early for a Saturday, I have to admit it was sweet to see Yale, and where I could have been a student if only I focused on academics instead of going to see bands.
Which leads me to my next exciting adventure: seeing blink182 at Madison Square Garden! AMAZING. I saw the show back in August in Cincinnati, but there's no way I was going to miss them at MSG. Keep in mind that blink182 was my obsession in life from like 2001-until ...ummm now. Let's be serious, they're still my fave :)
This date was supposed to be the final date of their "reunion" tour but due to DJ AM's untimely death, (he and blink drummer Travis Barker were great friends and played insane shows together with Travis drumming to live beats), a few dates had to be re-routed for this week. But the show was still incredible. One thing is for sure about blink182--they want you to have the best time ever at their shows, have a FUN life in general and never take yourself too seriously. I love it. Not to mention, Travis' drum solos are worth every penny of outrageous Ticketmaster fees. Plus, Mark and Tom do things like hug each other, talk about the early days of the band and how inane the "indefinite hiatus" was. Things that make chicks like me practically cry with 'happiness that they are back together. I could go on and on, but I'll spare you anymore blink details.
Up this week: More music publicity and wandering the streets of NYC. Sounds good to me.
Unitl the future. . .

Free shows galore!!!

Well, I finally found the post inviting me to this fabulous blog, so I'm going to blog about something that I know: free stuff.

Working for Beggars Group has some incredible perks! I can have almost any Beggars release that I want and on top of that I get VIP seats (when available) to any Beggars show.

My first free show was Yo La Tengo on September 25th at the Roseland Ballroom. Let me tell you something - the Roseland Ballroom is SWANKY. I mean to say that it is a nice place. That Rose Bar is something what I imagine when I think of bars that I will never see.

Anyway, Yo La Tengo was amazing. I've been listening to their new record (which I got for free) on the subway a lot, so I was really pumped for the show. What I didn't realize was that there was going to be a cool light show. Now, I don't mean laser lights or stage lights sweeping around and whatnot, what I mean is there was a screen behind YLT, and a group of people manually created the light show by reflecting lights and mirrors and whatnot onto the screen. Since I was upstairs in the VIP section I could actually walk behind the screen and watch them work, which I was cool. Here's a picture:
And here's a video:


The bottom line is that I have the best internship ever, and I plan on taking full advantage of not only the perks, but working with a real indie label. I'm often disappointed by the lack of discussion concerning the indies in classes at Belmont, especially since many of the professors have made it clear that they believe that major labels are, for the most part, dinosaurs.

Sunday's Adventure

Yesterday, we all went on the Circle Line Cruise. We couldn't have asked for better weather. We arrived at the port around 11:20am - barely making it on board. We had train issues that morning. When we got there, Emily Bines and Anna Pandorf were waiting on us with our tickets. We stood on the bow for mostly the entire trip, which provided us with a wonderful view.

After the cruise, we all headed to Juniors in Times Square where we filled up on huge meals and tasty desserts. To end our day, we went over to Emily and Anna's apartment for dinner. They made us delicious chili and cornbread. I think we were all ready for a home cooked meal! The night got interesting when we decided to make s'mores on a mini grill in their backyard. After many failed attempts, we used an issue of Rolling Stone Magazine to start the fire (You know you go to Belmont when you use Rolling Stone Magazine to start a fire). We still had some problems, but I am pretty sure we all got to enjoy at least one s'more. It was a perfect day and a great way to end (or start) the week.

Shannon