Nancie & The Rockers

I'm very proud of the years I spent at Mattel in the '90s, producing the first computer games for girls and launching Barbie.com. So I was pleased and very gratified last week to be invited back to their corporate headquarters in El Segundo, CA to speak to an employee conference about "The Future of Music."

My conclusions were fueled by my own personal Magic 8 Ball, but basically the gist of it was:

• Kids have always loved music;
• There are lots of new and traditional ways to discover music;
• We have to be creative about finding new ways to make money from it;
  
• Music is a personal soundtrack, not a CD; and
• "The Macarena" and "Crank That" have more in common than you think.

There were many musical interludes, and much appreciation for our client Baby Loves Hip Hop's efforts to provide parents with music they can enjoy with their children.

But for some reason, the international audience particularly enjoyed this video of a long-forgotten '80s band (the hair alone is worth a view):

2 Items off my Bucket List

The last two days have been pretty busy with client activity for me, but i can't complain, because it's allowed me to scratch two items off my own personal bucket list.

Yesterday I accompanied Ladybug Mecca to the NPR studios on 42nd Street for an interview with Day to Day on the outstanding new kids' album Baby Loves Hip Hop, released earlier this week by Baby Loves Music. She, host Christopher Johnson, and Baby Loves Music founder Andy Hurwitz had a lively and wide-ranging conversation about the challenges and fun of making a hip-hop record for the preschool set. However, it was a special treat for me to meet her because Ladybug is a former member of Digable Planets, whose debut album Reachin was the first CD I ever bought with my own money a-way way back in 1993.

This morning, I met another of my heroes. It happened while I was at NY1 News with Three Graces, a wonderful vocal trio who just released their debut album and finished a tour with Paul Potts. However, they have an especially big performance coming up when they play for The Pope April 19 during his visit to the United States. I brought them to New York 1 News for an interview with the station's amazing arts reporter Stephanie Simon, who had previously interviewed them during their show in NYC with Paul Potts.


As we were leaving, I saw Pat Kiernan, the morning news anchor on NY1, standing across the newsroom. I asked Stephanie if she could introduce us, and she did. Pat is beloved by many New Yorkers (including myself and several other shore fire staffers) for his impeccably deadpan delivery and sardonic wit, which really shine during his signature segment, In the papers. From left to right, it's me, Pat, Sara Gettelfinger, Kelly Levesque, and Joy Kabanuck. If you live in the five boroughs, watch NY1 on Monday when the Three Graces story is set to begin airing.