Kari In Wonderland

Andrew McMahon's solo tour was a welcome departure from the normal style and pace of his Jack's Mannequin shows. "An Evening with Andrew McMahon" as one of my tickets called it, felt more like and episode of VH1 Storytellers. The audience was let in to Andrew's world and the stories behind some of his songs. The most intriguing story by far was that of "Walking By" where he explains how the line "my cheshire cat doorstop..." came to be. Videos and details ...

See bottom of post for how to apply.

 

 

Looking for interns! Atlantic Records digital media & e-commerce!



Atlantic Records is looking for a few bright, motivated, and creative college students who want hands-on experience producing online and mobile content for artists like Paramore, T.I., Flo Rida, Simple Plan, Lupe Fiasco, Plies, Death Cab For Cutie and many more. We’re looking for people who love music and have a great feel for what’s “next” in the online world. We are the first to work with new products and technologies as they relate to marketing and are consistently on the cutting edge of the music industry.


Digital Media intern

Do you spend waaaay too much time on Facebook, Myspace, Purevolume, and YouTube? Are you constantly texting your friends and getting the newest ringtones? This might be the place for you! We’re looking for one or two self-proclaimed computer geeks who are always on top of the newest trends and technology to help us out in the Digital Media and E-commerce department. You’ll work on anything from designing banner ads to creating and managing profiles on social networking sites and sending out mobile alerts for our artists. Every day is different in our department, but as long as you’re hungry for experience and can take initiative on projects you’ll love it here!

Responsibilities:
-Design and maintain social networking sites for Atlantic artists
-Upload videos
-Create banners for contests and promos
-Collect current news and information about Atlantic artists for mobile blasts
-Assist in tracking Atlantic artists online and mobile growth




Web design/development intern

Web Development interns will get to work on projects for some of the world's most renowned musicians.   In addition to working on full-blown websites, contest pages, artist blogs, email-blasts, MySpace pages and widgets, interns will also have the chance to experiment with some of the newest and hottest technologies on the web, like the Facebook API and OpenSocial.  The Web Development intern should be self-starting, reliable, and ready to produce in a fast-paced, yet exciting work environment

Required Skills:
Photoshop (laying out graphics, image resizing, cropping, exporting)
HTML (hand-coding)
hand-coded (and valid) XHTML
CSS
Experience skinning out MySpace pages
Creating Flash animations (Actionscript (3.0 preferred))
Programming in PHP or xxJavaScript
Knowledge of  Facebook Applications and/or the Facebook API




It’s important for any Digital Media & Ecommerce intern to be self-starting, reliable, and ready to produce in a fast-paced environment. All applicants must be able to commit to twenty hours a week. This internship is unpaid and interns must be receiving college credit. This is an excellent opportunity to learn about a part of the music industry that is constantly growing.



For both internships you MUST be able to receive college credit and be able to get to our New York office.  Also, please note, this is an unpaid internship.


TO APPLY: Email your resume and cover letter to: internship@atlantic-records.com with the subject line "Internship"

Mud, mud, more mud, and music. That pretty much sums up the All Points West festival for 2009. Even before it started to rain on Friday, the ground was already a bit soggy, so once it started to pour, it was a 5 year old’s dream playground of slushy, gooey, mud.  Kind of like Woodstock all over again, right? Details on the festival ...

Taylor Momsen threw herself a 16th birthday party in New York last night---and as a present to her guests, her band The Pretty Reckless put on a brief set that showed off her snarly hard-rock style. See party pics ...

Billboard.com

 

I'm trying to clean and organize and get rid of stuff I don't want/need anymore.  I've got a bunch of clothes I never wear, and I'm sure once I actually start going through things I'll find a ton of other stuff too.  I want to know if it's worth the effort/time to sell this stuff on Ebay.  I know that they charge to list items (although I read that they might stop that for people who don't list alot.)  Plus they take a % of what the item sells for and paypal charges for people to send you $, right?  Is it worth it, or is there some other site that's better?  Opinions please!

I'm pretty sure my words (or anyone else's for that matter) cannot do justice to the performance of No Doubt, so I will use them sparingly and back them up with photographic evidence.  This tour is one of the best I've seen in years, from any band--the energy level is insane!  How Gwen Stefani can run around for an hour and a half and still sound amazing at the same time is beyond me.  As charasmatic a front woman as you can find, she interacted with the crowd, signing autographs, and even dragged one lucky guy on stage for a hug (I guess it pays to have a "Let's Hug" sign)!  Everyone from the the front row, to the very last was jumping, dancing and singing along the entire time. The band looked like they were having as much fun as the fans, and that's the way it should be!

It was fall the last time Jack's Mannequin was in New York City, but on April 22, 2009, they returned for a spring set at Irving Plaza:

The agenda for the night:


Dr. J's army of action figures:












When Andrew started to introduce "Caves", someone in the crowd shouted it out first, so Andrew said that everyone should play a game. "I'll give you hints and you guess what song it is. This next song is about my socks. See you have no clue what it is. You lose New York." It was pretty amusing.























These last 2 are probably 2 of my favorites of the night:



I LOVE this shot:

It's been such a busy week and it's not even over yet!  So much craziness at work, and yesterday Cute is What We Aim for and Flo Rida were here.  When I got to work I ended up riding up in the same elevator with Flo Rida and now his song Elevator has been stuck in my head for 2 days--not that that's a bad thing.  He's really tall, and  actually very cool, and said hi to everyone on his way to the studio.

Cute Is What We Aim For did a few acoustic songs in the studio...not sure where they're going to end up, but I'll post links when I find out.  They were also filming a music video around the office and Shaant brough his new puppy, Sgt. Sebastian, who is starring in the video.  He's super cute and just wanted to investigate everything!




I think he's training to be an attack pug--or at least a spy!



I also went to their show at Irving Plaza last night.  The set was fun, had a lot of energy and I was amused by the old school Nickelodeon style back drops. 

"Practice Makes Perfect"


"Risque"

It's January and by default the most boring month I've come to know.  There are no good shows coming up until Feb and the weather is drab and dreary out, so aside from hopefully resurrecting our Flip Cup Fridays, I need some other stuff to do.  Those of you in the cold weather places, what do you do for fun in January that doesn't include snow???????  

These past few weeks have been absolutely ridiculous!  The weather's gone from 60 degrees one day to snowing the next.  I don't understand why, if it can get up to 60 degrees, it can't just stay there.   The holidays always make me miss O-Town...I had so many fun times when they were around.  Years ago they did some holiday greetings and Silent Night at Good Morning America and I always think of that when holiday decorations start showing up in stores.



I went to 2 shows last week--Shinedown at Starland Ballroom on Thursday and The Trans-Siberian Orchestra on Saturday.  Both shows were really great.  I had never seen TSO before and it was so cool.  Steven Tyler was the special guest and did 2 songs with them. 


"Sweet Emotion"



Shinedown "Second Chance"



We've got about a week and a half off from work starting mid next week, and I don't have any plans.  I really want to go somewhere warm, but unless there's some sort of ridiculously cheap airfare, I think I'll be staying home.  I don't know if I can stay home with nothing to do for that long!  Does anyone have any ideas on fun places to go in the NYC area that aren't all the normal touristy things, or any super cheap bargain flights to California?

So yesterday we had 2 bands in the studio--A Rocket to the Moon and Cute Is What We Aim For. 

Nick from A Rocket to the Moon performed 3 songs ("Just Another One", "Fear of Flying" and "Dakota") and the rest of the guys hung out and watched from the side.  Not sure where the finished videos are going, but the band did post a clip on their Buzznet page. 

















CIWWAF came in later in the day:Shaant and Dave performed "Loser" and "Doctor"...












Shaant, Dave and Jeff also did a little Q&A session:

CMJ is this week in NYC and it's been interesting but most of the bands playing I've never heard of.  Went to see Coheed and Cambria on Tuesday b/c 1. I've never seen them, 2. Haven't been to Terminal 5 yet and wanted to check it out, and 3.  It was the closest venue to my car and I didn't feel like traveling far.  It was actually pretty cool.  The venue is insanely huge--2 balcony levels!  They're filming a live dvd and playing 3 or 4 shows there this week, and I think they're playing an album each night which is cool. 

Yesterday I went to the screen of Kevin Smith's new movie-"Zack and Miri Make a Porno".  Kevin Smith is one of my favorite writer/directors, so it was cool to get to see it early.  The movie was really funny--don't think I laughed that much at a movie in a really long time.  Plus, after the screening, he did a Q&A for about an hour which was super exciting!  I have the dvd "An Evening with Kevin Smith" that's about 3 or 4 hours long of just him doing Q&A's at different colleges, but it's way cooler when you get to be at one in person! 

Tonight I think I might go try and see Saves the Day.  If I don't make it in time for that, then maybe I'll go see Coheed again, or this band called the Takeover UK. 

Haven't decided if I want to do anything on Sat or just stay in and crash.  I suppose I can always crash on Sunday!

So excited!  Besides being pin straight, my hair has always been what I describe as dry and staticy (yes, I'm inventing a new word).  It's like that year-round and I've never had any luck finding a product to make it not dry.  I'm always trying anything that sounds like it'll work--heat protectors, glossing creams, anything.  Well I was looking in Harmon the other day and needed to get some more Garnier spray gel, so I decided to see what other products they had.  There was this Sleek & Shine Anti-Humidity Smoothing Milk that looked promising so I decided to try it since it was under $4.  This stuff is AMAZING!  For the first time ever, my hair feels silky and smooth and light instead of dry and gross and heavy!  I feel like I'm in a fantasy sequence b/c I never thought I'd find anything that would work.  If you have the same problem with dry hair, I would highly recommend that you try this stuff...super bargain and totally worth every cent!

So I decided to enter this contest on Sugarloot for best b&w photo.  If you have a few seconds, please click the photo below and vote for me!   Thanks!!!!!

Article

"If this wasn't enough for the 45-year-old actor, Depp will also play the Mad Hatter in director Tim Burton's adaptation of the classic "Alice in Wonderland," using a mix of 3D animation and performance capture technology similar to that used for 2007's "Beowulf."



I cannot begin to express my outrage and disgust at this!  Has Tim Burton made a few good movies? Sure.  But my problem with Tim Burton is that his style is so intense that I think it takes away from the story.  You can automatically tell when you're watching a Tim Burton movie--and I don't think that's a good thing.  Were Edward Scissorhands and Nightmare Before Christmas good, yeah, but those were not based on classic books.  He completely turned Charlie and the Chocolate Factory into a ridiculous mess!  It's an awesome book and the first movie (which the screenplay for was written by the author of the book) was fantastic.  Besides the fact that there should never have been a remake, he butchered it.  I read an article years ago that he claimed he was keeping truer to the story in the book--bullshit!  Except for the squirrels and Veruca, he didn't keep truer to the book.  All that shit he made up about Wonka's father never happened!  So now he's going to go fuck up one of my favorite books (and Disney cartoon) Alice In Wonderland.  Can't he go ruin up Snow White instead?   ~*#(*!(#$&!*@*)!*@)!*#(!&#(!@*#!)(#*(@#*&

So there's a Nabisco factory in NJ...and I was driving past it the other day with my windows down and it smelled AMAZING!  It was like being inside a tiny bakery when fresh cookies come out of the oven!  Can I go live there?  It reminded me of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the original movie, not the dreadful remake).  I love that movie and I wish that the candy room in it really existed so I could go visit!

There's this smurfs cd--Smolfeparty.  It's not in english, but it's so amusing!  The first song is Rihanna's "Umbrella" but translated into smurf (which is I think a mix of the smurf language and maybe Dutch? Not quite sure)  But nontheless, I am quite amused.  And I learned that the Smurfs originated in Belgium years before they became a cartoon in the US. 

I was never a fan of school and summer never lasted long enough.  That's why we all look bored.  My bangs were super long...got them trimmed this weekend though--sooooo much better now!

Just got back...<3 them!  Such a good show, will post videos either tomorrow or Monday!  I really liked The White Tie Affair.  Inner Party System was pretty good too, and I liked their lighting.  Wasn't too impressed with The Medic Droid.  They had a bunch of technical issues, and that aside, still not so great.  They had too much "dead silence" in between songs.  I'm of the theory that if you're not going to go straight into your next song, then you need to talk to the crowd, because I shouldn't be able to hear the conversations of everyone in the room while waiting for your next song. 
Kill Hannah was really good.  I LOVE having the balcony all to myself!  (If you have any video requests, let me know, b/c I'm not sure if I'm putting the whole thing on YouTube yet.) Videos!
Set list is as follows:

Intro
Boys and Girls
Believer
Love You To Death
Paper Dolls
Crazy Angel
Black Poison Blood
Home
Kennedy
The Collapse
The Chase
Acid Rain
Nerve Gas
Chicago
Humming Birds...
Lips Like Morphine

Videos!