I Finally Saw Jane’s Addiction Live

Back in 1991 I remember asking — begging — my parents to let me go downtown to see Jane’s Addiction at the Metro. I believe Nirvana was opening. Finally, 18 years later, I saw Jane’s at an even smaller venue and the result was well worth the wait. Jane’s Addiction and their small body of work from 1988-1991 more or less was the best music that I had ever heard and to this day the raw power and authenticity of those songs remain vital and fresh to my ears.

So I felt like a 15-year-old last Monday night when I got to see Jane’s Addiction with a few hundred others at the Echoplex, down the street from where I live. And I’m still buzzing about the show nearly a week later.

Feel what I’m feeling by rockin’ to these great multi-camera video clips with soundboard audio that the band posted to Pitchfork.tv this weekend.

Stop!

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Silver Jews: Brought Down by The Man? And a Look Back at my Interview With David Berman

Earlier this week, David Berman, primary tentacle of Silver Jews, posted what amounted to a disturbing (if true) revelation to his many fans and admirers: His “…gravest secret. Worse than suicide, worse than crack addiction — his father, Robert Berman, aka Dr. Evil. This followed a post announcing the end of Silver Jews and Berman’s career as a songwriter… moving on to other means, perhaps screenwriting, as he also alluded to in our interview.

“This winter I decided that the SJ’s were too small of a force to ever come close to undoing a millionth of all the harm he [Richard Berman] has caused,” Berman wrote. A Jan. 31 show at Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, Tenn., will be the last of the Joos. Either way, the records left behind are nothing short of legendary and I feel fortunate to have seen the Silver Jews on each of their two tours. Read the thread at Drag City and see some other reactions here and here.

Republished below is an e-mail interview I conducted with David Berman last September, for LAist.

david berman of silver jews. the joos perform at echoplex tonight

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Live Earth’s 2009 Green Inaugural Ball Video Project

The Live Earth logo

This morning Live Earth announced its partnership with Magnify.net — and to begin with a bang — we’re putting out a call for video submissions for the 2009 Green Inaugural Ball! (Live Earth is Executive Producer). Shira Lazar came by to shoot this great promo last night — check it out for more info and ideas on how your video/film can be included in the project — the best submissions will be screened at the Green Ball hosted by Al Gore and attended by dozens of celebs, musicians (to be announced), and leaders of the environmental movement and the new green economy.


Via Live Earth’s Video site powered by Magnify.

submit video to live earth(Click here if you wish to download the original video file to publish / share / spread the word using your preferred video platform and here to embed from Blip). You can upload your video to YouTube or any other video site you choose but please be sure to tag the video GIB09 so we can find it.

One week until the Inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. Six days until the 2009 Green Inaugural Ball. Less than THREE days to submit your video to the 2009 Green Inaugural Ball video project!

Please tag all videos / posts GIB09

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Resolving to Blog More Everywhere

bloggingIt’s a tradition of mine to declare each year to be the Best Ever, each summer the Best Ever, etc. What can I say, I wake up every day feeling like I’m going to save the world — whatever that means. Last year really was the best year so far — the longest, most productive, and most enjoyable. Professionally I closed out a year of employ with Warner/Chappell Music and moved on to my current job at Live Earth, where I am director of interactive — a position so exciting, all-encompassing, and full of boundless possibilities, that I am still training myself to get an adequate amount of sleep. Thanks to the closure of the office for the past ten days, I have slept — a lot — and am now gearing up to return to 125% productivity.

My one-day-at-a-time lifestyle makes it difficult to put an entire year in perspective, for I don’t generally think in terms of beginnings and ends; life is more like an upwardly mobile spiral that cycles with the seasons. And yes, I very much recognize the seasons even here in Los Angeles. While we don’t really have Winter, I could never really pinpoint Spring in Chicago. So the grass and weeds in my yard may be greener than they ever have been before (it’s a brown wasteland in summer) but the days are only now finally growing longer.

I’m very grateful to do what I love professionally and have met some incredible people recently and am ambitious about a 2009 which is bound to include many exciting goals, milestones, and accomplishments on a monthly, weekly, and daily level.

I will blog more this year, however, as is obvious by my recent dearth of blogging, I currently favor other publishing avenues – be it my work blog, or LAist, where I continue to serve as News Editor. There are other places where I plan to publish stuff as well — stay tuned on that. (I DO need to update this blog to a new theme and would still like a WOOZradio logo to celebrate the 10th anniversary of my internet radio station).

I’ve added a “lifestream” tab to this blog where you can follow much of my activities, thoughts, and schemes if you wish. Over the past year I’ve continued utilizing the social web as a personal archive and journal via microblogging and other services.

Much of this is aggregated on my Friendfeed page.
I am an active Twitter user.
I enjoy keeping up with friends and events on Facebook and Upcoming.
I actively post photos on my Flickr account and stream live video to Qik, among other places.
And I continue growing my professional network on LinkedIn.

I keep a list of the (many more) social media tools and services I use here. Please contact or “friend” me on any of the above by clicking on the hyperlinked details. If you’re interested in the sites I browse (when I can), you can browse them too or add my OPML feed to your personal news reader at netzoo.net/opml.

Coming soon: I’ll blog about many of the individuals who’s online presence has helped inspire and influence me in the past year via Twitter and elsewhere.

Happy New Year!