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LIFESWELL TURNS ONE January 26 2012
This time last year, I introduced LIFESWELL to my readers, the every last Thursday of the month get down at Blu Monkey thrown by Rick & Ray. The original goal for the event was to feature the firm’s talent collective by integrating them into a party platform. So for the first six months of 2011, the Rhythm Natives were available to accompany artists like Thurzday, KO The Legend, and KidFrost. By mid-year, we shifted focus on our DJs. So for the latter half of 2011, the residents accompanied guest DJs like Lady Sha, Spintelect, As-Is, and SoSuperSam.
Tonight, we will celebrate LIFESWELL’s One Year Anniversary. It’s been a whirlwind, a learning process, a guarantee that at the end of every month I’d be with my entire crew. Who knows what’s in store for us in the coming months. We just know that at least for one day, you gotta stop what you’re doing, head out to a bar, dance, and celebrate that life is good. See you tonight.
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HERE, THERE, EVERYWHERE January 25 2012
If you know anything about me, you’ll know that I’ve got my hand in quite a few things. I run this blog, I own Rick & Ray Creative Management, I consult for Backside, I do sales for Soul Assassins, etc, etc. There are some days when all those things collide. Like yesterday.
My afternoon started in at Backside Burbank. I checked out the new Soul Assassins build out and took note of what product is hot and what’s not.
I couldn’t leave without having Jojo put up the LiFESWELL One Year Anniversary poster.
Then off to Echo Park to the other Backside location to meet Eric. Spring/Summer orders, interviews, store t-shirts, new stickers, oh my.
These candles just came in, immortalizing hip-hop’s greatest artists.
It quickly became 6:30p. I had 30 minutes to make it to DTLA and didn’t have dinner yet. A Bayou Beast from my favorite, Two Boots Pizza, was an easy decision.
Made it right on time.
I was there to meet with Nonstndrd and Christine Alane. We’re working on her website to complement her EP release next month.
Knocked that out and headed back to the valley to meet with Khem (Red Grizzly) and pick up these visuals.
Finally, my last stop was to meet Paul and Butch at Blu Monkey. I had some final details to confirm for LiFESWELL this Thursday.
I need a company car. And a nap.
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BLOG ABOUT BLOG [PART TWO] January 24 2012
Last night, I came across a screen shot of how CA looked when I did the second major update to the site back in ‘08:
The site before this was designed to only focus on t-shirts. There was a blog, but it wasn’t updated regularly. So I made the switch to become more personal, and connect with the end user. After all, CA was a personal project to begin with.
What this redesign taught me was discipline. At this point it’s clockwork, but I had to learn the importance of editing photos the morning after an event, creating a weekly blog schedule, staying up real late to update because I had an early morning meeting set up and wouldn’t have time. It also taught me creativity. There are many times when I felt uninspired, when I had nothing to say. But then I thought about you, and how you give me your attention and time. I had to meet my end of the bargain. So I would really think hard about what I would post on here. At the end of the day, it was never about the content, it was about consistency.
Back in 2008, I probably had two readers: me and my business partner. Yet I still told stories as if millions of you were reading. Nothing beats the blog when telling your story, or the observed stories of others. Sure, we have a slew of social networks that do that for us more efficiently and quickly. But there is no other comprehensive and unfettered format like the blog. A lot of you agree, because eventually y’all came around and put up with shoddy photography and sometimes repetitive content. Thanks!
Blog About Blog, Part One can be read HERE
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IN ACTION January 23 2012
Rhythm Natives, Rocky Rivera, and Bambu live from The Echoplex last Thursday:
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PRE-SHOW January 20 2012
Peace to everyone that came through to The Echoplex last night to see the Rhythm Natives x Rocky Rivera x Bambu show. The team had a great night. I have a ton of photos, but I’ll start with how things looked before they hit the stage.
Over in the green room, Shelly doin’ work.
Rhythm Natives wardrobe provided by Illest and Fatlace.
Thanks for the hospitality, Echoplex.
Bambu getting the stage together.
Back in the green room.
First in line, braving the cold together. That’s cute.
Attention! DJ Phatrick has upgraded his Motorola RAZR for the iPhone!
Ok, here are a few performance shots from the night.
More coverage coming soon.
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