Starting my trip off the Jingle Jared way.
I am at the airport in Colorado waiting to fly back east. This week made me remember what it used to be like to be on tour. I spent 5 days on the road, but instead of rocking a stage every night covered in sweat and whiskey, I rocked some board rooms covered in…well…sweat and whiskey (just kidding).
Tired at the airport after countless meetings over the past week.
Day 1.
-Touched down in LA
-Took a jog (thats my 4th jog of 2009. Eye of the Tiger Baby!)
-Went for drinks with our friends from VH1 music (we had some laughs, some margaritas and called it a night at some time in the wee hours of tuesday morning…note to self, this is not the best way to cure jet lag. In fact it has the opposite effect.
Day 2.
-Electronic Arts. I met a really cool music supervisor at EA and we talked about getting Jingle Punks music in the mix. So if you are one of our artists and are reading this and think your music could work well in titles like Madden and FIFA AND you have distribution or a release coming up for late 09 or top of 2010 please send us your latest and greatest.
Recording at DJ Lethal's studio on day 2
-Playboy TV. Went to the Playboy production facilities to give a Jingle Demo. We discussed which shows our music would work best for and I showed them some examples of some of the recent work we did for A&E, Bravo and MTV.
-Fuel TV. Met head of the music Dept. and a new friend Patrick. Both of them are super nice. Patrick helped us play connect the dots in LA with other places he thought our music would be a good fit. He also set us up with a meeting at Berman Braun which took place the next day. The music guru from FUEL figured out we knew a lot of people in common because he used to winter in Florida with all the old people (like me. If you are a Jew from Toronto, like me, you would know exactly what I am talking about). We also had friends in common from NYC’s music scene. Apparently his best friend Grant used to be in a band The Fiasco which my old band Group Sounds played with often.
Day 3.
-CAA. Went to the DeathStar. Yes. CAA is a frightening place to go. It is designed to give the visitor a psychological disadvantage. We discussed Jingle Punks future plans to work in the medium of film. Made it out unscathed…phew!
-Berman Braun. This company is also huge. They do a bunch of shows on NBC including a new hospital drama Mercy. We discussed Jingle Punks getting integrated into their production departments. Our new friend at B&B was super smart and really nice. She got what we were doing and had some good suggestions of how we could get in the mix with them.
E!. Met with Daily 10 producer. They are already a client so we just shot the shit and talked about some of the new features we have in our player. He asked us to make some new bins for him of our latest and greatest in each genre.
Drinks. Met with my friend Stan M and Jen B. We had drinks then met up with my other LA friend Brian who I believe is the next Spielberg….he even wears a Panavision Jacket and carries a directors chair and megaphone with him everywhere he goes. He turned 30 so we got him, um, drunk…I guess thats the best word for this.
My final meeting place...Starz in Colorado.
Day 4. Woke up a little under the weather but headed right to ITV. This was possibly the most interesting meeting yet. Met with VP of Current programming there walked me through their immediate music needs. He seemed to have all sorts of good ideas about music in TV and he also has a roster of really cool content that we hope to be part of.
VH1. Met with the line producer at Creature films. They do tons of Rock Docs and Behind the Music. We already have a deal in place so this was just another chance to get feedback on the player and see what we could do to improve our services.
Downtime. Finally got to relax for a few minutes by a pool. Exhausted.
Flight to Colorado. Delayed. Finally got into Colorado at 1am. Was ready to crash but alas, no cars could be rented to get to my hotel so I took a monster cab ride. Checked into the hotel and a raging party was going down. Drunk ass hooligans (damn I sound old) were causing a racous in the lobby and I was unlucky enough to be on…yes you guessed it, 1st floor. Music finally stopped around 4am, but then the fist fights in the parking lot ensued. I thought I was gonna be a victim of a home invasion (I know Im a paranoid Jew…I know!)
Day 5. Woked up and felt pretty beat but had to rock a 30 person meeting at Starz. Pulled it together with some Coffee and hydration. The meeting went great. Starz is officially our new client. We are servicing a bunch of channel that they own. The facility was awesome state of the art everything and they had some great things to say about Jingle Punks.
There you have it. I survived a hard week on the road. Not quite like the way I did it in my 20′s but I’d rather be doing this than anything else in the world. Now I am off to Toronto to see my little ones.
