The new disrupted music industry finds a lot of big acts taking private corporate gigs to spread the word and fatten the brokerage accounts. Sounds good to me. These partnerships between brands and bands probably sound distasteful to all of my old stand-out rock and roll friends, but honestly it's pretty great. There's magic happening out there, and we love it when we get to be involved. This month we hung with John Legend on an Air BnB show, celebrated James Harden the new NBA MVP, at the elementary school he attended in LA with the Boss Rick Ross and Famous Dex, We did a big fundraiser for Chrysalis, who finds jobs for those in need with R.LUM.R and Jamie Foxx, and a whole lot more... Big month for tech with E3 gigs, and even an old-school automotive tour of the east and west coasts. Summertime, and the livin' is easy...
So I write about all of these fun gigs every month, and yes they are fun and they're important to me, but I pound out these gigs to pay the bills and raise a cute family. Mission Accomplished, Homeys. At least so far... Olivia graduated from Mayfield Senior School and is Wisconsin-bound in August. That's all folks - Both kids in college, we out. JK - although Cheryl did celebrate Olivia's graduation party as being her retirement party, too... What an amazing trip it's been - can't wait to see what comes next. Young parents - PLEASE take massive amounts of video at every age... Thanks for indulging me.
April was hectic. Lots of gigs at work and lots of fanboy gigs, too. Just for fun, we thought we'd mix up all the photos and let you piece it back together. Dior, Girlboss, Alt J, Pussy Riot, Adidas, Banny Grove, Phoebe Bridgers, Hermes, Mazda, Grammy Committee, NCL, The Live Nudes, Handmaid's Tale. Can you figure out which ones we got paid for, and which ones I bought tickets to? Me neither – it was a blur. See you in May.
We had some sweet Oscar gigs this year - and a ton of other gigs which is why this March post is dropping in the middle of April. David Rodgers and AgenC and Sequoia and a few others had us out to spice up their Glam-Slams, at all the chic joints in town. We were at the Dolby for the Governors Ball and at the Sunset Plaza Hotel for Hugo Boss and Bev Wilshire for Essence Awards and Tao for Fox Searchlight and Piaget brought us to the notorious Penthouse 64 at the Chateau Marmont where Howard Hughes used to stay to spy on starlets at the pool. Apparently time wasn't up back then. Thanks for the soundtrack to this video, Sufjan - You should have won the best original song Oscar.
Has anyone caught on to the fact that every other month our post is about a Kamp Grizzly gig? Seriously - amazing events these folks do. This one was for the NBA All-Star Week that was happening at the Staples Center. The gig was at the old American Apparel factory which is now a beanie-and-beard hipster joint for creative types. It was two days of 15,000 people enjoying a celeb basketball game (spoiler - Snoop was really high), interactive recording opportunities, concert with Childish Gambino and a ton of others including a cameo by Yeezy himself, new sneaker drops all over the joint, and an insane museum-like experience inside the first floor of the old warehouse which you will see in the video. Kamp also had us doing shows at Nice Kicks in DTLA and a big Footlocker show with Rick Ross where we took over the courtyard at Hollywood and Highland. Huge thanks to the hard-hitting creative team working with us including Lighting Designer Kate Stoval and Trevor Burk brewing up insane visuals. LOVE
The Recording Academy celebrated the 60th Grammy Awards this year, and they moved it back to New York for the occasion. Branden and Rex were gracious enough to bring us out to do our thing. Always the best week of the year, 2018 did not disappoint. The Person of the Year celebration was for Fleetwood Mac. Remember last year, it was our beloved Tom Petty to whom Stevie Nicks paid a heartbreaking tribute. Lorde and Miley and Allison Krause and Portugal the Man and many others played Fleetwood Mac tunes, then The Mac themselves came out and tore down Radio City Music Hall. The Grammy show at Madison Square Garden was great, regardless of what the haters say - Miley and Elton doing Tiny Dancer was unforgettable. And our big afterparty was in Times Square and raged until 3am. If you watch this video until the end, you'll see Adam and some of the boys huffing it across Queensboro Bridge - Their Uber had a flat tire on the way to JFK. You think Kendrick got cheated? How about these rock star techs, man!?