When I walked into Pearl Street, I had no idea I would soon encounter Mick Jagger’s incarnated self in The Booze’s lead singer Chaz Tolliver; watch a musical giant (quite literally) in Earl Greyhound’s Matt Whyte; or get blasted in the face by OK Go’s confetti canons.

When I walked out of Pearl Street, I had a new expectation for how head-shakingly fantastic every other Tuesday night show should be.

If you get a chance to see any of these bands, I highly recommend it. I can assure you, hearing a recording does not do any of them justice.

Read the entire review here…

And special thanks to @nagelface for the pass hook up and for taking this shot:

myself with drummers extraordinaire PJ Curtis of The Booze + Big Ricc Sheridan of Earl Greyhound

Bonus features of the night included talking shop with Ryan’s Smashing Life and Music Savage and meeting videographer Steve Legare.

Read the entire review here…

This slide show is from The Builders and The Butchers record release at the wonder ballroom in PDX with Loch Lomond & Ah Holly Fam’ly.

Check out the entire review right here…

Currently working with design legend and all around bad ass Austin Howe on getting the word out about his new book Designer’s Don’t Read, preaching and practicing some interactive and social media strategy with Matt @ Factory 25, helping out Pascal @ booquet, cranking out ridiculous iPhone apps with Kyle from Big Sprocket and just accepted a post as an associate editor (as well as photographer and writer) with melophobe.com ( @melophobe ). Honestly, I think I did that more to remind me what to do tomorrow than to tell you all whats going on.

OK, back to the point of this post. I was discussing a social media strategy with Matt from Factory 25 today and he asked if there was a good rule he should be following on twitter for the ratio of personal content to content relating information about his products. There are a ton of posts about twitter’s golden ratio being friends to followers, but isn’t the real golden ratio to be found in the ratio of the kind of content you’re putting out?

My first reaction to Matt’s question was to recoil in horror. OK not horror, but I’ll admit it hurt a little. I hated to think that something that I feel is so organic and based on relationships could have a “golden rule.” I mean it’s all about conversations and not campaigns right (thanks for that @mzkagan)? Be genuine and passionate about what you’re talking about and good things will happen. Surely this is more art than science right?

I’m sure there will be both scientific and go-on-your-gut approaches to this question, but before we go that far we really need to define the kinds of content a little further. Matt originally thought that there were two kinds of content, marketing his goods and relaying information. I know some reports have broken twitter content down into 20 or so themes, but really that would make for one messy ratio. To make it easier, lets say there are three kinds of tweets, ones that are:

1. marketing something (even if it’s yourself)
2. relaying relevant & interesting information
3. expressing personal feelings or things unrelated to what you’re marketing and having conversations

Even writing that I realize that if what you’re marketing is yourself then 1 & 3 are pretty much the same thing, but for the rest of this post, let’s assume that what’s being marketed is goods and not personal services or a personality.

While I haven’t done any solid research on the subject, my initial response was to try out a ratio of 1 (marketing someting) : 2 (relaying information) : 2 (personal & conversational). Going on the idea that even on a heavy day Matt would probably be posting 10 tweets, that would mean two of them were product related, four were industry/entertainment related and four were personal & conversational.

Would love to hear other kinds of crazy math pertaining to this subject…

Until this past week.

I was talking to my buddy Kyle, Head Geek @ BigSprocket and founder of LetsTalkiPhone.com, and mentioned that someone should make an iPhone app that lets you interrupt or talk trash your friends and coworkers in the *ahem* style of Kanye West on the VMAs. Well wouldn’t ya know it, Kyle thought it was a funny idea and we started tossing thoughts back and forth. 48 hours later, our first collaboration was submitted to the app store.

I’ve been lucky enough to work with very good creative developers in my time and Kyle definitely fits that description. Not only were we able to both concentrate on our own tasks and push stuff back and forth to each other at a fever pitch, but we could openly let the other know when something needed to be addressed and know that it would get done quickly and with quality. Gotta love it that feeling…

Kyle’s product page is here and once the (frustratingly slow) app approval process is complete you can find it over here.

waking up 20 minutes or so from niagra falls was awesome.

walking out into a side-ways rainstorm was less awesome, so we decided to just hot-foot it towards massachusetts.

a few things learned crossing the country:

• i’d immediately go back to: omaha, deadwood and yellowstone.
• i wouldn’t go back to but am glad i saw: custer state park, the badlands, s.e. oregon
• i won’t go back unless paid to: idaho
• surprisingly enough, the best part of the drive was cruising through northern nebraska on route 20. no construction, no traffic, no speed traps.
• the worst part of the drive: highway 90 from NY to Mass. construction everywhere, costs a fortune (paid tolls twice in 3 miles) and the drivers are as you’d expect them to be in NY and Mass. keep your head on a swivel.
• neely loooooves livestock.
• cole is a bit of an exhibitionist
• gas is expensive everywhere
• candy can make the difference between misery and happiness
• cheap hotels are no longer cheap
• benoit is pronounced differently everywhere
• chicago has too many people in it (says larry the valet)
• sitting in the front of a cruiser is kinda fun, i can see why cops like it
• cops that laugh while giving you a ticket are worse than cops that are @holes while giving you a ticket
• music is my muse and broadcast radio (for the most part) sucks beyond all comprehension
• i’m completely dependent on my iphone, damn it.
• my iphone doesn’t work well as a phone
• i’ll most likely fly everywhere i go outside of new england from now on

soon to come OVER HERE (well relatively soon anyway) will be a whole buncha more pics from the trip. for now here’s a few i’ve gotten to:

*** a note on the playlists you’ve seen here: i’ll be putting them up for download as soon as i get a chance. stay tuned. ***

local(e) listenings:
Oliver James – fleet foxes
Moving, shaking – great lake swimmers
Kentucky gambler – tom leach
One day at a time – 2Pac
Islands on the coast – band of horses
Spinning plates – radiohead
Make you crazy – Brett dennan
Trust me – the fray

DOWNLOAD THE TUNES HERE

That’s right.
Nothing.

That’s one boring state.
The sunset in henrys lake was downright amazing, but other than that I’m just glad it’s over.

(yes this post is a day behind, apparently they don’t have the internet in idaho or yellowstone national park)
and now for the musical hits of the day…

Local(e) listings 2:
Black river killer – blitzen trapper
Do wah diddy – Corey Harris
Cracks in a photograph – Ryan Adams
Redemption Song – matisyahu
Where happiness lives – Magnet
Lowdown – MMJ
Wantin her again – ben kweller
Suddenly – the bogmen
Whatever I fear – toad the wet sprocket
I saw the light – tom leach

DOWNLOAD THE TUNES HERE

i’ve been really bad about keeping fresh stuff up here, but things are crazy busy on all fronts.

as my way of apologizing i’m not even going to make you dig for these tunes, i’m just going to give them to you HERE.

if anyone who wears a suit asks where you got them… it wasn’t from me :)

what you’re gettin’ is listed below…

• hayden: let’s break up
• jim byrnes: walk on boy
• sam roberts: bridge to nowhere
• chief: stealing
• kid cudi: day n nite | 50 ways to make a record
• eminem: hello
• blitzen trapper: black river killer
• m. ward: to go home
• iron & wine: belated promise ring
• samamidon: fall on my knees
• bon iver: for emma forever ago (a capella from la blogoteque)
• grizzly bear: two weeks
• crystal antlers: andrew
• forest sun: drops in the ocean | no regrets
• bob schneider: blue mountain (live on MOKB radio) | sugar king (live on MOKB radio)

not all of these are for everyone, but hopefully you can find a few tunes to keep your chosen digital music player from turning into that kid a few doors down from you during college who couldn’t pay for cable so he watched 20 episodes of south park that he recorded at his parents house the summer before over and over and over and over and over and…

ok so here’s the second and a half installment of music ramblings. i started it a looooooong time ago (about a month an a half ago) but things have gotten rather busy ’round these parts.

hey better late than never, right? in this edition: those darlins, hacienda and dan auerbach

those darlins:
in other words: ” The best pop groups create their own universe, and make up their own ways of playing music and dealing with the big, bad world outside. Those Darlins are a pop group, if they are any one thing, which doesn’t mean anybody with ears can’t hear the country and rock ‘n’ roll in their sound and stance. Or maybe this trio of young women (early twenties, although no one’s telling exactly), who live a long stone’s throw from Nashville, Tennessee in the college town of Murfreesboro, are punks straight out of London or Cleveland, 1977.”

my take: country-pop punks… best way to describe this band. the girls and they dapper drummer put on fun, blistering set and it was just what i needed to hear after tussling with security over getting my camera in.

check out: drivin’ nails in my coffin, snaggle tooth mama

hacienda:
in other words: “There is something to get excited about in south-central Texas. In fact the buzz surrounding San Antonio‘s Hacienda may signal a rebirth of young rock n’ roll -with emphasis on the “roll”- to the country’s landscape. Formed by cousins Abraham Villanueva (piano/vocals) and Dante Schwebel (guitar/vocals), together with Abraham’s brothers Jaime (drums/vocals) and Rene Villanueva (bass/vocals), this Mexican-American quartet blends a raw yet sophisticated style of pop music with harmonies reminiscent of the Beatles and Beach Boys.”

my take: there’s no doubt these guys are talented musicians (and visually entertaining too) but none of their stuff really stuck out to me. they were a fantastic backing band for dan auerbach though.

check out: she’s got a hold on me, shake ya

dan auerbach:
in other words: The Black Keys’ singer-guitarist releases his self-produced solo debut, mixing, he says, “psychedelia, soul music, loud and soft guitars.” Backed by a full band, he prowls the dark end of the street, with gritty, impassioned vocals lending drama to tales of romantic betrayal and suspicious minds.

my take: if you’re a fan of music with grit and soul (think A3 from the sopranos soundtrack) then click as quickly as you can and download this album (keep it hid). it was on steady rotation for good few weeks (that’s a feat, trust me) and i still find myself using it as a motivational tool to get things done. throw in as stirring a tune as i’ve heard in a long time (trouble weighs a ton) and i’m buying this album twice.

check out: trouble weighs a ton, i want some more, the prowl, my last mistake, mean monsoon

again, just buy the album and get it over with…

using all the social medianess i can muster (including twitter, facebook pages, facebook ads, blip.fm, ning and the oldest form of social media, rubbin’ shoulders with people) this new venture has proved not only a viable creative outlet for me, but a fun exercise in practicing what i preach as a righteous route for clients.

about the site:
photography, for me, is about capturing a significant moment. one that speaks volumes about what it was like to be present at that particular instant.

a live performance (be it musical or otherwise) is filled with these moments. split seconds that build on each other to construct the arc of the whole event.

it doesn’t seem possible that one element or person would be able to tell that story completely. you’ll see a lot of pictures from me that don’t concentrate on the performer’s faces, but instead their shoes, hands, instruments, pedals, and lists… all parts of the whole

i just love doing this and what’s better than doing what you love?

**update**
after a steady push on the variety of social networks listed above, about a month and a half of effort has translated into being in talks to shoot for an online music mag and possibilities ranging from an exhibit to a residency at a local music hall.

roles: concept, design, photography, production, social media, strategy