DJE

Busy!

2007-09-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

Once again, it has taken me a while to post an update!

Since the last post, I had a whirlwind of a birthday celebration, which involved a week straight of non-stop partying. It was electric! My friend Rebekah Chesnes flew into LA and we painted the town with theatre, food, music and dancing!

School is now back in full swing and it is busier than ever. This semester I'm taking Constitutional Law, Evidence, Federal Income Tax, and Music Industry Contracts. Obviously, Music Industry Contracts is my favorite class. Classwork and studying has been constant, and while the material we cover in second year is harder than the first year material, it seems easier because we have gotten the hang of how law school works. I've also found we don't go over cases as dilligently as in first year and some of my classes rely less on the Socratic Method (where the professor calls on specific students to explain a case).

I also got my grades from my summer classes and they both are great. I'm very happy with the outcome.

Aside from just classes, I have been working hard as the President of my school's Entertainment and Sports Law Society. We have a TON of events planned for this year and have lined up a lot of great speakers. Most of our meetings involve a panel of speakers which I think will be really fun and informative for the students.

Our first meeting was a smash! We had Donald Passman speak, who is a very well known music industry attorney and is responsible for some of the biggest deals the industry has ever seen. I think the success of this meeting will really help to set the tone for a great year.

In addition to all the busy school stuff, I have found some time to go out and pursue my other interests, like Electric Effect. I've been out doing some swing dancing which has been great fun and gotten to see some live music - namely one great indie artist that I'll be speaking about more in the near future.

I'll post more soon.
~D*J*E

Starry Night

2007-07-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

This weekend I attended the Starry Night gala honoring Quincy Jones, put on by The Grammy Foundation.

The outdoor evening event featured dinner and an all-star concert under the stars. The concert featured performances by Herbie Hancock, Nancy Wilson, Clark Terry, John Legend, Kanye West, Gloria Estefan (who was fabulous despite not rehearsing), Patti Labelle (who sang one of the best versions of "Over the Rainbow" I have ever heard) and others. I was also excited to see Nathan East on bass. Mr. East has toured extensively with Eric Clapton and he is a fabulous bass player.

I escorted Herbie Hancock for the evening, saw many celebrities and spoke with Naomi Campbell. I also saw many other industry people I knew and enjoyed seeing all of them.

Here is a photograph of me on the red carpet:

This photo was taken on a cell phone and didn't come out that great under the bright lights. I did the best I could with it in post processing.
(Thanks to Joe for the photo!)

It's been awhile...

2007-07-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

So many song lyrics come to mind with that subject...

It really has been quite a long time since my last post. It's been a CRAZY two months. I have been working for my professor and studying A LOT for my classes. I just finished final exmas for my summer school classes and I am excited to get a bit of a break!

Both of my classes were very interesting. My Criminal Procedure class was all about the IV Amendment (Searches and Seizures), the V Amendment (right against self-incrimination and due process), Miranda Rights (not part of the V Amendment but related/based), and the VI Amendment (right to counsel). It was informative to learn about the rights afforded to everyone and the fact that so many people have no idea of their rights. It was also interesting to see the dynamics between the students in the class. Some were very anti-law enforcement officers. Others, like a friend of mine who is a former officer, is pro-law enforcement. I was a bit surprised to find myself siding more on the law enforcement side of the cases. Forgive me for lack of a better word, but a lot of the defendants were just so stupid. However, I guess that is why they got caught. The thing I keep in mind is that I am just an outsider reading the stories of the troubles in which people got themselves involved. Hindsight is 20/20, as is an objective third party.

My other class was Music Publishing. In addition to looking at cases, we looked at actual publishing contracts and the different types of deals that can be made between the writer and the publisher. We also looked at the different kinds of licenses for different uses of musical compositions and even had mock negotiations. Our professor is one of the top music publishing attorneys and the class has been really worthwhile.

Now for something on a more personal note:
Lately, I have been encountering many people with a complete lack of manners. It is really not that hard to reply to an email, return a phone call or make time for a meeting. It is incredibly frustrating when things need to get done and people cannot get themselves together enough to do their parts.

In addition, when a person receives an invitation, especially one with an RSVP date, it is important to actually read the e-mail, pay attention to that date and actually respond by the designated RSVP date. Even if a person does not know whether he can attend, respond to the host and say he does not yet know. To not respond at all is rude, inconsiderate and ill-mannered.
Manners never go out of style.

Another plug for Rebekah Chesnes

2007-06-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

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

Glenn Hughes and Chad Smith at the Whisky

2007-06-03T02:50:00.000-07:00

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.

Technical Difficulties

2007-06-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

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.

New album release of note

2007-05-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

My dear friend Rebekah Chesnes has just released her debut album on the Street Symphony Artist Alliance label. The classical album is available on CDBaby, Amazon, and iTunes. Please visit the following websites for more information:
Official Rebekah Chesnes website
Street Symphony Artist Alliance Label

A looong week

2007-05-27T21:06:00.000-07:00

This has been quite a loooong week. I have spent most of the week researching bootlegging and writing about the legal issues of podcasting.

I did have one completely infuriating incident occur earlier this week. I was supposed to do a photoshoot this weekend. I have known the photographer for a while and he was supposedly a friend of mine. Everyone was trading services on the shoot - someone was donating use of the location, the photographer was supposed to donate his time to take photos (for which he would get to use the photos in his portfolio), and I would get to use the pictures on my website.

I confirmed the date and time with the photographer and then called the person donating the location to confirm the time and date with him. I then called the photographer back to let him know everything was set for the shoot. He then informs me that in the last five minutes "something else came up." What was that something else? It was another photoshoot.

So this "professional" photographer cancelled on me at the last minute to take another shoot. If that wasn't bad enough, he did not understand that what he did was wrong. His response was "Sorry, these things happen. Go on Craigslist to find someone else." After trying to make him see that what he did was unprofessional, inconsiderate, and self-centered, he still did not understand the consequences of his actions. Those consequences being that the entire shoot was cancelled (and so far not rescheduled) because of him.

Note to everyone: When you have a prior commitment, you keep that prior commitment and reschedule the new commitment.

A little law...

2007-05-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day as a Research Assistant. I will be working on an entertainment law treatise and it should be quite interesting. My first assignments involve the following topics:
1. A memo on the legalities and legal issues of podcasting, complete with hypotheticals where problem situations could arise.
2. Bootlegging statutes (in areas such as music, not alcohol. We passed that era a while ago).
3. Piracy in sound recordings.
4. False imprisonment.
5. Paparazzi legislation.
6. Third party beneficiaries.

Unfortunately I cannot post the articles I will be writing, but will probably be able to post information on where to get the treatise once it's published.

More to come...

First video

2007-05-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

I filmed a video just to say hello while out in Hollywood last night. I apologize for the quality, as we hadn't quite figured out the resolution and camera settings. The audio is low quality as well, but the street was noisy, so I'm lucky it came out at all.
I hope to do more videos for you in the future. So it begins!

New photos

2007-05-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a very fun productive promotional day. A podcaster friend of mine, Russ from The Mep Report, came over and we did an impromptu photoshoot. Russ needed some photos for an article that will be appearing in his alma mater's newspaper and asked me to snap a few shots. They came out quite well (if I may say so myself). He snapped a few pics of me, which I have posted below for you. Then we followed up the shoot with some excellent sushi in Hollywood.
Here are the pics and I'll be posting a short video in a few minutes:

All photographs Copyright 2007 Erin Jacobson. All Rights Reserved.

First Entertainment Sports Law Society Meeting

2007-05-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

I held the first meeting as President of our school's Entertainment Sports Law Society this weekend and it was great. Thankfully, all of us are on the same page with what we want to achieve in the coming year. We are really looking forward to a lot of networking events, a charity talent/variety show, and some on-campus concerts. I will definitely keep you updated on the exciting happenings!

Here's a picture of our board:

From L-R: Alex DiBona (Treasurer), Stu Simone (VP Entertainment), Nicole Pierson (VP Sports), Jessica Munoz (Secretary), Me! (President), Jordan Chatfield (VP Student Affairs)

First year of law school = DONE!

2007-05-20T21:21:00.001-07:00

My first year of law school is officially done! It's been a crazy year and I can hardly believe it's over. I feel good about my final exams, although we won't find out grades for a few months. I did get some great news -- I got my grade for my writing class and it was quite good! I was very pleased with that and I also have some exciting things coming up which I can't talk about yet, but will post as soon as it's official.

The night school ended, our school rented out a club/restaurant for an end of the year party/dance. Here's a few pics from the party of me with some classmates:

Day 2

2007-05-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

It’s day two of blogging, and I’m still excited about it. Yesterday’s events put me on a creative roll and it has been fantastic. I started writing ad and imaging spots again, which is one of my favorite parts of doing radio. Today, I have been doing a lot of online work for Electric Effect. I want to make sure I’m on all the proper podcasting sites so I am visible to podcasting aficionados.

As I mentioned yesterday, tomorrow is my last final for the Spring semester, for my Torts class. While proximate cause is perplexing everyone in class, including me, I am feeling comfortable with the rest of the material.

I don’t have any earth-shattering news or profound musings this evening. More to come later...

~D*J*E

Thoughts

2007-05-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

It was suggested to me that I begin regularly blogging about my thoughts on the subjects that interest me like music, law, radio, and entertainment. It was also suggested that I keep you all informed of my life and views as a law student and member of the music and radio/podcast industries. So it begins...

A bit about me for those who are new to my life:
I'm a law student pursuing entertainment law with a goal of representing musicians. I also have a podcast radio show called Electric Effect, featuring unsigned and indie bands in Los Angeles. Music has always been one of my passions and I am lucky to be able to merge it with law. I work with a lot of independent musicians and I see them constantly encountering bad deals. I want to represent artists to make sure they can build solid careers and make good choices. Basically, I can help make the business part of their careers run smoothly, allowing them more time and energy to focus on being creative.

In the past, I did college radio, worked at record labels and on other professional radio shows, worked promotions for indie artists, and so on. I do everything for Electric Effect myself, so I'm quite busy. I also write a music review column called Eclectric Ink, which is featured online and in my law school newspaper.

Okay, enough background - here's the scoop on my day:

Today was very busy and very interesting. I spent the day studying, working on a lot of business stuff for Electric Effect, and updating Eclectric Ink. I have my last final (Torts) for the Spring semester in a day and I must say I am glad to be almost done! I won't be getting lazy, however. I start work for my Copyright professor the following week. I am his research assistant and will be helping with volume two of his entertainment law treatise. I'm really excited about that because I will get to expand my knowledge on entertainment law.

I also got a phone call from a prominent podcaster today reaching out to my cause and offering some electric ideas. It's amazing how fantastic opportunities can come one's way when least expected. He is the one who suggested I start this blog and I'm really looking forward to this new blog project.

Finally, here are two YouTube videos I have to share with you:

This video was sent to me by Wei, one of my law school friends. While some actions referenced in this video are part of what gives lawyers a bad rap, it's still quite funny - especially if you've taken a torts class.

Next, I have to share this video to exemplify why Prince is a complete genius. No explanation is really needed, but I always love sharing frequent examples to prove it.

I'm out for the night.
Keep the effect electric,
~D*J*E