D*J*E
Music. Law. Radio. Entertainment.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Another plug for Rebekah Chesnes
My dear friend and flautist extrodinaire, Rebekah Chesnes, is the featured artist for this month on the Soldier's Angels website. Soldier's Angels is a charity supporting our troops and their families. Rebekah is donating a portion of the proceeds from each copy of Introducing Rebekah Chesnes that is sold.
Please visit the following sites to find out more about Rebekah and Soldier's Angels, and purchase her album.
Official Rebekah Chesnes website

Street Symphony Artist Alliance Label

Soldier's Angels
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Glenn Hughes and Chad Smith at the Whisky
It's VERY late so I am going to make this short. Tonight, I had one of the BEST concert experiences. I went to see Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple) and Chad Smith (RHCP) play at the Whisky.

First, let me say - I was in the front row!!! Woo!

One of the opening bands, Kingbaby, is fantastic. I have seen them play before and was definitely not disappointed. I met the lead singer, Lance, who was very nice. We talked a little business, and hopefully I will soon be featuring the band on Electric Effect.

Then Glenn and Chad took the stage. I thought this was going to be a good show, but it FAR exceeded my expectations. I would definitely put this show on my list of all-time best concerts I have attended. Glenn can ROCK. Chad is such an insanely electric drummer. Jeff, the guitarist, was also phenomenal, but unfortunately I do not know his last name.

Not only are they all incredible musicians, but you could tell they were having a blast on stage. They all interacted with the crowd (Glenn shooke my hand, and Chad winked, smiled, and gestured to me), which was great. Plus, Glenn was genuinely appreciative and visibly touched by the cheers for his music. It was wonderful to see such a great talent be so humbled by those that admire him.

My friend Jordan and I made friends with some really nice guys, Pat and Mike, that had driven in from San Diego. Jordan had gotten one of Glenn's guitar picks and gave it to me. At the end of the show, Pat got one of Chad's drum sticks. I had told him that I am a huge RHCP fan, and so we made a trade at his offering -- my Glenn guitar pick for his Chad drum stick.
That drum stick is totally getting framed along with my ticket stub.

Anyway, I'm going to close this blog entry because I am barely coherant enough to type. Hopefully this entry was coherant enough for you to understand.
Definitely check out Glenn Hughes at www.glennhughes.com and www.myspace.com/glennhughesonline.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Technical Difficulties
My schedule has become so busy, I decided to record a new episode of Electric Effect while driving in my car, using the microphone attachment on my iPod. The other night, I took my new recording and fired up ProTools to put together the new episode. Everything was fine until I had some technical difficulties. The computer locked up and I had to shut it down by holding down the power button. This caused something to go completely haywire because when I went to turn the computer back on, it wouldn't boot.

One of my very good friends is a technological genius and told me to bring the computer over to his place to fix it. He got the computer to boot and recovered the files. Other than our conclusion that the hard drive was toast, things were looking good and I left the computer at his house while we let the computer copy the files to an external drive. I later got news from him that the computer locked up again while he was trying to back up my data, and he could not get it to reboot again. This also meant that we were not able to save my data. He then hooked the computer up to his computer and got it to boot that way. However, his computer could not recognize anything on my computer. Things were looking bad.

Next, things went from bad to worse. I went by his house today to pick up the computer. Not only is my computer toast, but now his is having the same problems as mine because he had connected our computers together. Here is my friend, one of the best people I know - not to mention the most generous, who took a large chunk of time out of his busy schedule to try to fix my computer. What happens? His computer gets screwed up. I feel really bad.

From his house, I took the computer to an Apple store where they confirmed its grim fate. As I stated, the hard drive is toast. Furthermore, the CD drive doesn't work, as my friend's CD is stuck in there and we can't get it out. If that wasn't enough, there may be problems with the logic board, and there could also be some video issues. Of course, I did not do a recent data back-up. I decided to take the computer to an authorized repair shop who could try to do some data recovery for me. I had an hour until the repair place closed for the weekend, and ideally, the shop was about 30 minutes away. However, because it was Friday rush-hour in LA, I couldn't even make it there in an hour. Closing time arrived and I wasn't even there yet. With a sigh, I just drove home.

It has been one of those days where one thing after another goes wrong. I still have a broken computer and have to wait until Monday to take it in for repair, where it will wait for 2-4 days before even being looked at because the repair place is so busy.

Needless to say, episodes of Electric Effect are going to be delayed. June is a big month because several bands have new releases and gigs that I was supposed to promote. Insert sigh number two, here.

I'll keep you updated on the computer status.

Meanwhile, Happy Birthday to my good friend Eric, and my super Homie-G-Money A.J.

More later...
Only in LA
On Thursday night I had a delicious dinner of Brazilian food in Hollywood with a friend from college. After dinner, I am driving down Sunset Blvd., which happens to be one of my favorite streets to drive on in LA. I stop at a red light and I look up to see Dave Navarro waiting to make a left turn across the street from me. It was such an LA-Hollywood moment and I loved it. Except for today's unbearable traffic, LA is just the most wonderful city. I love Los Angeles.