Chicharon Adventures: Blog

RSWD

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Almost forgot to post these, so yah, late pass.

We went to the The Hundreds’ RSWD anniversary/pop up shop opening last Wednesday night. Imagine a bunch of creative types - from fashion to music - in attendance. Congrats to The Hundreds family; 5 years strong on Rosewood.

POSSE UP

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After I snapped that photo of DJ JeffCee below, I put the Canon in his backpack and left it on stage. Once I got it back, I took like three other pictures. The others were taken from Glen’s Instagram. Coverage fail. Either way, Dream Alive and the partnership between Rick & Ray, Critical Beatdown, and Capsule were successful. Peace to all that came through. By the way, Basicali’s EP is available for download now. Get it HERE.

DREAM ALIVE

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Tonight, Rick & Ray joins Critical Beatdown for “Dream Alive”, the EP release party for Basicali at Little Temple in LA.

Basicali (artist, videographer, clothing line owner) approached us last month to be a part of the night. It was a no brainer; Basicali is good friends with our artist Garfield Adams and is even featured on GA’s album. Critical Beatdown is a DJ collective that both DJ EROK and JustPudge claim. Going further, Capsule is part of the mix. Glen gets his haircut there, Bojo helped construct the space, and my longtime friend is Jay-P, one of the owners. Got all that?

“Dream Alive” is Basicali’s latest EP and we’re gonna celebrate its release tonight. In case you want to get hip before you go tonight or before the official release, you can download the title track HERE.

Join us tonight at Little Temple. RSVP at for FREE ADMISSION before 11p. $5 cover if you’re not on the list, or arrive after 11p. 21+

MEET N’ EAT

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A few weeks ago, Jovin (Rick & Ray) put me on to an artist named Kixxie Siete. I familiarized myself with him by sifting through his many YouTube videos, and cosigned. Then sure enough at The Echoplex when Bam, Rocky, and RN had their show, Kixxie and his crew, Argonautix, were in attendance. We met, exchanged numbers, we did the mutual follow on Twitter, I invited them to Lifeswell, they came, and then we all agreed to take things a little further. So we had dinner.

There are a thousand things that can come from a creative management firm-blog-musician relationship. My career is testament to that. Although I can’t yet define what those things will be for Argonautix and my crew, I do know this: it’s always good to surround yourself with passionate people who carve their own way. It’s an added bonus when those people are young (Kixxie, Jon, and Bryan are all under 25). They keep me on my toes.

Kixxie Siete.

Jon.

Bryan.

SUNNY TEAS

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I couldn’t think of anything else to title this entry about the Rhythm Natives and Garfield Adams at Scotland Yard so I went with my favorite drink served at the pub…Anyways, here are some photos from last Saturday night. RN just locked in a residency there, and will start on Saturday, March 17. Mark your calendar.

CREW LOVE

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This is how LIFESWELL’s One Year Anniversary looked for the Rick & Ray team. Full coverage coming soon.

Photos by Red Grizzly for Rick & Ray/Chicharon Adventures

ON TO THE NEXT ONE

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LIFESWELL was a huge success; thanks to everyone that came through to celebrate the anniversary. I’m back posting another event, this time for the Rhythm Natives. They were on stage last week in Hollywood at The Echoplex and tonight they’re on stage in Canoga Park at Scotland Yard. They’ll be sharing stage time with their fellow Rick & Ray artist, Garfield Adams, which should result in a dope jam session. The show is free, 21+, get there by 10p, and Justin behind the bar serves Sunny Teas. See you tonight!

LIFESWELL TURNS ONE

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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.

HERE, THERE, EVERYWHERE

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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.

BLOG ABOUT BLOG [PART TWO]

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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