Youtube Friday - Mashup edition

The "Beatles" performing Stairway to Heaven. Sweet.

Diana and her Birthday Doughnuts

We gathered 'round the kitchen table yesterday to celebrate Diana D'Angelo's birthday, and this time we did things a little different. Eschewing our traditional cakes, Diana went for an awesome selection of doughnuts from the highly touted Doughnut Plant, on Grand St. in the heart of the old Jewish Lower East Side (in fact, a couple doors down from the last great bialy baker, Kossars).



Notice the cleverly placed Shore Fire-branded water bottles!

Watch Your Back, Renee Fleming!

Here's why I love living in New York. My daughter Emma's school has an arts partnership with the Metropolitan Opera, and yesterday they staged a performance of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. A member of the Met Opera Guild spent ten weeks with Emma's kindergarten class: they wrote their own songs, created sets, costumes etc..

Emma took her role as a "medium sized billy goat" very seriously, and talked about it for weeks. Here's a pic of her, mid-performance.


And the parent paparazzi.

Paul Thorn's Southern Fried Tales Come To NYC

Last week Southern raconteur Paul Thorn swung through NYC for a raucous 2 night stand at the Living Room. The always hilarious Paul had the crowd doubled over with laughter at both shows as Shore Fire friends Tad Hendrickson, Martin Johnson, Meredith Ochs, Mike Greenhaus, Chuck Eddy, Gene Santoro, Brian Bingham, Jim Bessman, Kandia Crazy Horse and Emily Hulme all came through to enjoy the tunes and the laughs. Though he threatened all journalists with eternal damnation for any bad reviews, everyone still had quite a time with Mr. Paul.

Each night after the shows we headed over to the latin bistro Paladar for drinks, delicious food and a few more songs from Paul. The first night everyone in attendance was floored by country royalty Carlene Carter's duet with Paul on "Let The Circle Be Unbroken" (see the photo above). It was quite a whirlwind couple of days, with stops at Sirius and Uncensored Interview HQ thrown in the mix as well, but I can't wait for Paul to come back again real soon.

Here's a shot of Paul, Nick Baily and Myself. Three handsome devils if I do say so myself:

YouTube Friday: How Come We Didn't See This Being Filmed Edition

Thanks to the folks over at Chicagoist (whose roundups of “awesomeness” never fail to deliver) for pointing us towards this great RJD2 "Work It Out" video earlier this week.

And, yes, Reader, that WAS filmed right outside the Shore Fire office! And - right again! – the camera DOES pan up to the top of our office building in the very last shot! Good work!

Bell X1 Takes Off

Joined Bell X1 on the set of Conan O'Brien with the fine folks of Yep Roc Records and Intrigue Management on Tuesday. Bell X1 sounded resplendent, singing their single "Rocky Took a Lover." The day also saw a recommendation from the Very Short List: "it's simply one of the best records we've heard in a long time."

Here's me on the set of Conan:



Here's Emily Bass, Steve Gardner and Jim LoGrando of Yep Roc in the green room:



Bell X1 completely blew away Joe's Pub on Wednesday. Paul and boys sounded amazing and the SRO crowd was riveted. I can't wait for their March 15 at the Bowery!

View from My Room, Trains and Boats and Planes

In case you're wondering, here's the view from my office on one recent winter evening, over about a half hour period. It's looking west across the great New York Harbor (**), towards New Jersey. The neighborhood in the foreground is Brooklyn Heights; if you squint, just left of center on the horizon is the Statue of Liberty. If you know what you're looking for, you can just make out Ellis Island. There's also a shot of our downtown Manhattan view.




**As I look out on this panoramic view of New York harbor, I sometimes imagine the hundreds of British war vessels anchored there in the summer of 1776 as they prepared for their August invasion of Brooklyn. And I think of George Washington riding over our neighborhood, leading the defense and then preparing for his war-winning evacuation of the Heights to Manhattan. But wouldn't anyone?

First Shore Fire Birthday of the New Year, Prize goes to...

...Maggie Poulos, who was rewarded with a tasty cake last week at the Shore Fire Brooklyn HQ! Happy Birthday, Maggie

Giving Back in Brooklyn

According to the Coalition for the Homeless, there are over 35,000 homeless New Yorkers who sought the aid of shelters in 2007. Last Friday I had the opportunity to meet a small fraction of Brooklyn’s homeless community by spending the day volunteering at Park Slope Christian Help’s (CHIPS) soup kitchen. I didn’t even realize a shelter existed right in my neighborhood until Shore Fire made a holiday donation to the charity.

CHIPS is lucky to have a number of regular volunteers who quickly put me to work making an enormous salad. There was no dressing so I had to get creative and concoct my own from lemons, spices and oil and vinegar. During meal service I ran dishes back and forth between the cafeteria and the kitchen. Even though I haven’t had a dishwasher since moving to New York, I definitely topped my dishwashing record and didn’t break a single one in the process. It was all in a day’s work for CHIPs and the volunteers to feed about 100 hungry mouths in the local community who really appreciate the help.

For more information on donating or volunteering at CHIPS: http://www.chipsonline.org/

Coaltion for the Homeless:
http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/

Lunch service at CHIPS soup kitchen.

Roseanne, a weekly volunteer spooning butternut squash into a serving pan.

Volunteers serve Friday's menu of chicken with rice and beans cafeteria style.

I Think Ted Nugent's Following Me

A friend forwarded this to me, and it's too genius to keep to myself. Sure there's that album covers battle that made the rounds a year or so back, but I prefer the lo-tech album cover shenanigans on display at Sleevefaces.

As noted on the site: "Sleevefaces is a compendium of pictures of people strategically posed behind album covers to match the photo on the cover. Some of the photos are freaking hilarious. A couple are NSFW, mostly due to the content on the album covers, so be advised!"

A few also feature current or recent Shore Fire clients like Nick Cave, The Black Crowes, and Richard Thompson. I thought the Ted Nugent/Pink Floyd jammy was particularly inspired.

William Howard Taft

That's the name of the song that NYC duo The Two Man Gentlemen Band performed during a recent visit to Shore Fire Headquarters. An impromptu show isn't out of the ordinary for these gents, who spend much of their free time entertaining in places like Central Park (when they're not touring, which takes up about 200 days of their year).

These impeccably dressed gentlemen put on a raucous, hilarious and interactive live show, complete with the ceremonial distribution of free kazoos to audience members. Catch them as they tour up and down the east coast this winter/spring.


Here's a photo of the duo, consisting of Andy Bean on Banjo and The Councilman on Bass, along with Nancie S. Martin and myself (with kazoo in hand) following their performance.

Chuck Prophet Graces Letterman

San Francisco rocker Chuck Prophet killed on his reinterpretation of "Doubter Out of Jesus" last night on The Late Show w/ David Letterman. He incorporated the house band's horn section and had Paul Shaffer playing some type of bell-like contraption.



Here he is backstage, down the hall from a prim and proper Tom Brokaw!



Here's Chuck cracking up Shore Fire staffer Matt Hanks and Yep Roc publicist James Bailey on the set after the shoot.

And the clip on YouTube:

Return to Your Youth

Imagine you're a teenage wanna-be musician, alone in your room with your instrument, listening to the music you love and the musicians you hope to be as good as someday. (Actually, many of you probably don't have to imagine.)

If that was you in the '70s, chances are Return to Forever was on the turntable. Even if jazz or fusion weren't your thing, you knew Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Al DiMeola and Lenny White were the best at what they did.

Return to Forever are now a client (they're reuniting this summer for their first tour together in 25 years), and what I learned from seeing Chick Corea and his Elektric Band play recently is that teenage wanna-bes are still a big part of their audience - and so are their parents, the teenagers of yesteryear.

During my own awkward years, I spent many hours at the piano trying to figure out how Chick did that, and it made me happy to see so many young necks craning to watch his fingers fly.

Here's a too-fuzzy clip of RTF three decades ago. Don't you love Lenny's tuxedo t-shirt?

New Year's Eve Down Under...

Here's what New Year's Eve looked like in Auckland, courtesy Nick Baily and Rebecca Phillips





Where I'd like to be... the west coast of New Zealand!