Yesterday was something of an oddity, well maybe that’s not an appropriate description. See several musical things all were vying for my time. I was working on one of the new songs for the next album. I got a phone call telling me of an event at the Knitting Factory for something called Celebrity Access and that I should go at 6 p.m. One problem was that I already had another songwriter’s meeting at 7 in Pasadena. Then to make things even more fun, I was asked by a friend who wants to start a Beach Boys tribute band with me as the lead singer to meet with some of the other people who would be involved. Topping that off, I wanted to eat some sushi and watch the premier of LOST with Erin.
The trick becomes how do I get to all of these things without being a total dick at any one part. To start, I left my house at ten to 5. I figured with evening traffic it would take at least 45 minutes to get there and a few more to park. I could get there slightly early before start time to mingle and then jet out by 6:45 to make it over to Pasadena. Traffic, what traffic? I got there in 25 minutes. So I was waaaaaaay early. To make it even more fun, it got started late. Like around 6:20. The concept of Celebrity Access is great if you’re a booking agent or a talent buyer. It makes zero sense to join as an artist. That ended up being something I shouldn’t have worried about.
I zip over to Pasadena for SongNet’s thing with Debora Holland who was apparently the lead singer for Animal Logic. She’s done quite a bit of stuff in the music industry and now apparently teaches the graduate courses in Commercial Music at a local University. She was interesting to listen to. At one point my phone rang, I had forgotten to turn it off. She started groovin to my ringtone and asked it was my song. Sheepishly I said yes and excused myself from the room. Turns out the Beach Boys people weren’t meeting so I was able to stay a few minutes for the song critique, but then things started running long and I needed to boot back across the valley to get dinner, dinner of sushi. The place of choice does an all you can eat thing and it’s quite good for roughly $26. However you have to get there by 9 to partake. Thus I was speeding like a demon. I got there at 8:58.
After that it was time for LOST. Happiness is Erin has a TiVo, so it makes it easy to skip the commercials which saves time. I decided to watch the 1 hour special with the producers of the show to get caught up on all the events. Then came the new episode. I enjoyed it. However, I gotta say that ABC made a stupid mistake in how they split up the current season. See it started back in like late September and had a few episodes then went on hiatus. In the meantime ABC started two other shows that have subsequently been cancelled. Not only that, they stop the storyline for LOST midseason. ARGH!
As you can see, that’s a semi eventful day. A Day In The Life of a musician. Personally, I think it’s rather bold to name your song after a popular song that’s already widely known. Especially if that title comes from the Beatles. Mind you, I didn’t latch on to the title first. It was the strange sample of the Classical guitar desending line. As rap/hip hop goes, the verse is the strong point to this song. In fact it’s stupid strong, much stronger than the chorus.
Another thing I like about Furyus is that his rapping style isn’t a military machine gun racing off rounds of words in typical rap fashion. There is lots of thought going into the flow of the phrases. That’s an important thing. It shows that when Furyus is brought into the fold of a producer that can really get where he’s at musicially, I think it will open some much bigger doors for him. I could envision his style catching on even to fans of Eminem. I do think the chorus could have been a little stronger. Especially since it’s hook could be worked on a little more to tighten it up.
The rest of the CD is bit more in the true Hip Hop genre. This is certainly the most commercial of all the songs. I’ve read that my choice to today had already been getting some promo at the college radio market. Not bad. So bite the bullet, take heed of the parental sticker and just go get the CD anyway. I think it’ll grow on you.