… OK, just kidding. That is all of them!
Took the day off today. Napped. Began work on my Brightest Star’s Christmas gift (which is by far the coolest gift I will have ever given). Ordered pizza, drank coffee and am now up at 5 a.m. listening to music and avoiding journalism. Not because I hate journalism — I don’t. I’m just riding this day off wave, man.
So the things I discuss tend to be fairly circular. It’s not a small circle, but I’ll usually come back around to talking about, say, how much I love fun.’s Aim and Ignite album. It has been, ohmygod, SUCH a good year for music, but this album is one of my top three favorites. Probably my most favorite… Or a tie with Bitte Orca, I’m not sure.
Nate Ruess is the only songwriter who can make me teary, e.g. the song he wrote for/about his parents:
(not the full song, but I liked the intro. You should really just buy the album, guy!)
I can go on and on about how much I love anything Nate Ruess touches, but I’ll skip it. I just mostly wanted to tell you that I’ve listened to the album, from start to finish, upwards of 200 times since July. And that says nothing of how many times I’ve listened to “At Least I’m Not As Sad (As I Used To Be)” and “Be Calm.”
Last week I interviewed Will Hoge. Will represents the beginning of my understanding of this weird industry and how things work, really, so it was a very big deal for me. He is also one of my very favorite musicians, so I maybe had to take a shot of Stoli before I walked into the venue to introduce myself. And, this guy has an incredible memory because he remembered me. I’ve met him twice before in brief passing, once in 2006 and once in 2007.
The interview just ended up being a discussion about the music industry, which is such an honor because he’s certainly well-versed on the topic.
I also interviewed him on November 10th, which happened to be the very day he vowed to do everything within his power to give up the day job and be a real musician back in 1996. So that was a pretty awesome and strong question to start the interview off with. (Investigative journalism is the best!)
I have a handful of musicians who I can only dream of sitting down to interview. Will Hoge was one of them.
I’m still trying to find the words to express how proud and excited and honored I am by the fact that I’m crossing people off of that list.
We’ve made friends with musicians who I genuinely respect. I have a dreamy heartthrob’s phone number. We get festival access as members of the press. We have PR contacts who work with internationally-revered musicians. It’s all crazy and weird and surreal. Nick and I work too hard on the site, every day, even when nothing gets posted, but it still blows my mind above anyone else’s when I think about all of those things.
Shit just keeps happening, and it’s becoming this behemoth, crazy thing. Is this how things get started? Is it all happening?
Is this real life?
I mean, I’m still peeing my pants over having met Nate Ruess back in August. You know what I mean?
