I'm graduating in June & I want to work in the music industry!
After 5 long years, I'm graduating from UCLA w/a B.A. in Psychology & minor in Classics (if the paperwork gets thru). After much soul-searching, career counseling & exploration, I've finally decided that I want to work in the music industry. I have the most experience in music journalism (writing reviews for La Plume Noire, Vendetta Magazine, & other music writing in classes) and promotion for various street teams and UCLA's radio station). I have some DJ training, and I would love to share my huge collection of music with the world, hopefully soon. I'm also interested in producing, marketing & artist management. I'm open to all kinds of music, but I have strong preferences to British rock & indie pop music and big beat electronic music, though there seems to be a lot of cool American bands recently. Some of my favorite bands are Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (check out Down Here - my BRMC website!, Echo & the Bunnymen, Dubstar, New Order, XTC, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Idlewild, Feeder, Garbage, The Smiths, The Sundays, Lush, Salako, Super Furry Animals, BT, Chemical Brothers, Bowery Electric, Prodigy, Trash Can Sinatras, Swerverdriver, Blur, Fungus, Love Spirals Downwards, Laura Watling, Beulah, etc. I want to take a trip to England in August for some music festivals, hopefully V2002, Reading, Leeds, and whatever I can get to while I'm there. If you know anything about other good festivals, please e-mail me at porcupiny@mac.com!
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Recent Concerts I've attended
I've been very lucky to go to a lot of in-stores and concerts recently & most of them have been free! I don't know many people who are really into music, so it's hard getting to shows sometimes. I've got to be pretty clever to convince my own brother to go to one! Here's a list of concerts I've been to recently and a few I'm planning to go to, along with my comments about them:
May 31: Badly Drawn Boy @ Amoeba: in his only LA appearance! May 27: Allen Clapp (Orange Peels), Majestic, Charming, Simpatico @ Knitting Factory: so many cool bands for only $7! May 15: Cranes @ Amoeba: a little mellow but still cool; May 14: Jealous Sound (ex-Knapsack), Rum Diary (I get to promote this band!), Sunday's Best @ UCLA; May 11: Ladytron (DJ set) @ Club Bang! (my first trip there, I heard Badly Drawn Boy was also there!); May 7: Super Furry Animals @ El Rey Theatre: an excellent multimedia experience! Apr 27-28: Coachella Festival (Indio, CA): check out my Coachella journal! April 25: Paul Westerberg @ Amoeba: he actually packed the store! He's a cool guy, me & my brother got our pictures taken with him. Apr 6: Spiritualized & Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (B.R.M.C.) @ Cane's Bar & Grill (San Diego) - I'm still reliving it in my mind! B.R.M.C. blew me away, Spiritualized soothed my soul! Mar 20: Lo-Fidelity Allstars @ 1650: one of the loudest (& most fun) shows I've been to! Mar 19: My Vitriol, Mazarin, Walkmen (ex-Jonathan Fire Eater) @ Spaceland: I got there late so I missed half of My Vitriol's set (which was still great), the other bands paled in comparison. Feb 27: Phantom Planet @ Westwood Plaza: they seem to be getting pretty big on the radio.
Feb 21: Elbow @ Virgin: very powerful even unplugged! Guy Garvey is the next Peter Gabriel! Feb 19: South @ Amoeba: young, fresh fellas! No, they're really cool, beautiful music that reminds me of the Stone Roses. "Paint the Silence" is an instant classic!
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Who am I? What am I doing here? Why am I reading this?
So, you may have guessed by now that music is my life. Yes, it's true... my main joys in life are listening to music, thinking or writing about music, buying CD's & music magazines, and planning my future around the music industry... which is actually scarier than enjoyable at times. I don't really like to schmooze, though I do like meeting people and getting to know and understand them. I haven't met many who are really into music, so maybe I will when I start working. The one thing that I haven't really done that I want to do in music is learn to play guitar. I have an acoustic one (and a broken one signed by Ian McCulloch and Will Sargeant of Echo & the Bunnymen in their Electrafixion days). I haven't found the time to learn or the person to teach me to play. I thought it may be easy to learn on my own since I can play piano, but I really need to take the time to do it. So, there's me in a nutshell, I'm sure there's other things that are interesting about me, but you'll have to e-mail me to find out more on that.
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Advice to anyone who's still reading...
It's important to establish your identity and know what you love to do before you end up conforming to standards set by others (parents, friends, bosses, etc.). I ignored things that I felt were most important to me for too long since I wanted to make other people happy. I hid the aspect of my identity that I felt so strongly about because I wanted to fit in, but I never could until I embraced my own identity. Yeah, it sounds a little trite, but it's true - no one knows you better than yourself and you can't let others dictate your life. It's how I've felt being a youngest child with friends and family who think they know what's best for me. Some of them did, but I wouldn't listen to them. I had to come to it on my own, and I'm really happy that I did. I feel like my life is on the right path, not one that will be seen highly by others, but one that will make me enjoy my life the most and in turn, enrich the lives of others.
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I see the future and it's internet radio!
When I was working with UCLA's radio station a few years ago, they switched to internet radio only. I was thinking, "That's dumb, who's going to listen to that?" Well, I've changed my mind since I started listening to a lot of Internet radio recently and it's actually a very good idea. People who really want to hear a station that plays good music will listen, and people who are happy with mediocre radio won't. Makes sense, doesn't it? Well, that's the same with all good music - it just needs a little bit of promotion. So, here's my way of promoting 3WK - a cool underground internet radio station that plays great music. Check it out!
IDLEWILD ROCK
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