Roxanne Tellier – Musical Friends Are Making Me Happy

No matter how you’ve lived your life … saintly, and with a whiff of heaven in your aura, Dora, or a little naughtily, with a more checkered past than you’d care to admit … you want to be rounding third base and heading into home plate with a fine group of worthy team mates, and a cheering section that still likes you, whether because of, or despite, your resume and reputation.

I must have done something right, because I’m blessed with a lot of wonderful people in my corner.And so many of us share a musical background.

Cameron Carpenter: Past and Present Tens – Take Off Your Shirt And Jacket

One of the perks working in the music business is (was) the free clothes. Tee-shirts, hoodies, hats, toques, scarves, you name and some label or artist would find a way to incorporate their logo on it. The big score was always the record label or band tour jacket. In the days of big record company conventions one of the first thing you would do was check your hotel room as more often than not there would be a swag bag waiting for you full of all kinds of treats. Some of these I still possess and others have long disappeared or been given away to friends.

Nadia Elkharadly: There’s a right way, and there’s a WRONG way.

As a music journalist/music lovin’ gal about town, I get a lot of music sent my way.  And I mean A LOT.  Between publicists asking me to review their latest client’s most amazing poppy, shoe-gazey (that term needs to die in a fire), metal, rock, whatever album, to people asking me to listen to their friends’ bands, to bands themselves asking me to give their latest single a listen or video a few, I’m inundated with music coming from every place you can imagine.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining.  I adore music and discovering new music is why I got into this non/low paying gig in the first place.  But there’s definitely a right way to ask someone in the music business to listen to your life’s work.  There’s also a wrong way.  Let’s start with the right way.

Nadia Elkharadly: Bands I wish I could see live

I definitely go to more concerts than the average person.  Some are small scale, like 25 people in a tiny bar.  Others are huge, like selling out huge sports arena huge.  Sometimes it starts to wear a little thin, the constant going out to different venues night after night, seeing band after band.  Don’t get me wrong, I still, and will always, love live music.  But as I mentioned in my last column, the excitement waxes and wanes when it comes to all the shows I go to.  But sometimes a special show comes along that really rekindles my passion for live music.  One of those such shows happened just the other day.