I LOVE MONEYOK! Let's see if I can do this.
We'll start from LAST saturday, January 21: I bid Brandon farewell for Nightmare of Ewe's UK tour opening for Fallout Boy -- which felt sort of like cutting off all my hair -- and made my way uptown to DJ Jordana the Intern's friend's 18th birthday party. What's awesome about those kids is that, thanks to Jordana, they all love really amazing music. They were dancing and bopping around to all the songs I'd typically play at Stolen Tranmission or Misshapes, and then some of the songs i'm typically too nervous to try out. I was overjoyed when I put on "Huddle Formation" by the Go! Team and the entire dancefloor filled up with upper east side girls losing their shit.
After that I hopped in a cab and went to Karen's new digs across the street from Irving Plaza. Mark Holmes was already there keeping Ms. Plus Uno company. "Holy shit, i didn't know you dated that dude!" was his greeting for me, in reference to a boy i breifly dated a few years ago, whose girlfriend breifly dated Mark. Small world. We hopped in a cab and made our way down to Movida to meet up with Mikey Way, Alicia, Gurj, Lisa, Andy Greenwald, and some dude named Buddy from an emo band... say anything or strike anywhere or something with an S. I managed to get us to the VIP room where we were treated with bottle of complimentry Grey Goose and mixers. "So this is how you roll now?" asked Andy. I used to be his intern and now he's a lusted after author of emo-books and i'm a emo herder.
Mikey and I threw down some tunes for the folks at Movida. Not sure if they were feeling our selection, and not sure we were doing a particularly good job of mixing.
But by the time our set was over, our Grey Goose was finished and we cabbed it over to Misshapes
so we could be photographed... i mean, dance.
By the way, the quote of the night from saturday evening:
"I just did coke for the first time! I can't feel my teeth! Let's go to misshapes!"
Sunday I gathered a super-impromptu group of people together (it was originally supposed to be just me, gurj, josh, and lisa cause i'm trying to set two of those kids up and i'm not saying who), for brunch. It turned into a posse that found it's way back at Apartment 3A. You'd think that Geordan was Commander Stoner since he got the great idea of wanting a milkshake. After failing to find a place that would deliver, we walked across the street, bought icecream and milk and had a milkshapes party. It was glamourous and lots of black was worn. Lots of fringe was shorn. Lots of lactose ingested.
Brian and Joe from
Permanent ME came over and Brian played me a new song that he wrote. By the way, PM are on my label.
Monday I stayed in the office til midnight. Fun. Actually, it was. It was way more fun when I got home and found out that I finally recieved the four Girls Gone Wild DVDs that I had ordered for Brandon for him to take on tour (d'oh!). Gurj and I got super stoked and decided to watch all four dvds and take photos of ourselves watching them.
Here is my face upon opening the box:
Here is Gurj touching a bum:
Me attempting to be the girl out of the Ring... but with GGW... i was hoping i could get inside the tv or vice versa (dont worry, lawrence, i'm not a lebanese):
Tuesday I boarded a bus at Worldwide Plaza for the Foxwoods. Island/Def Jam organized a really fucking amazing retreat for the entire company of about 200 employees. The trip sounded like it could be a total bust, but in reality it was one of the most positively constructive work-related events I've ever attended. The concept was to introduce the ENTIRE company to what would be up and coming in all of the different facets of the label and it's joint ventures (stolen transmission, having just officially started less than two months ago, didn't participate in a presentation). We got to hear the up and coming singles in hip hop, rock, r&b... whatever we were putting out. The presentations, which lasted about 6 hours, was mostly hosted by LA Reid and Jay Z. It was accented by live performances by people like Damone, Loser, Crisette Michelle, Lionel Richie, and LL Cool J, among about 30 others that you'll all probably hear about endlessly.
Two highlights of the presentation was hearing the Rhianna single for "S.O.S." for the first time. That shit is THE JAM. It's along the lines of Gwen's "What U Waiting For" and Madonna's "Hung Up." The song sample's Soft Cell's version of "Tainted Love," and the track moves between new wave and pop hip hop/r&b seamlessly. I managed to get a copy of it to DJ, but I'm 100% positive that I can't spread it out. I have been playing it non-stop at my desk... Jay Z and his boy TyTy A&R'ed it. It's a hit.
Another highlight was when LA Reid played former Recover singer Dan Keyes' "Discoteque." Flashed up on the massive projector screen was a lanky white boy whose photos hardly showed off how totally gorgeous he is. Instead, he appeared slightly awkward like a Dior Homme model. When the song started blasting through the deafening sound system you could practically see the disbelief on the staff's faces. Once the song was over the room applauded. It was the only track the room applauded for. "Yup, it's a hit," said LA Reid, as he laughed in stokedness for how well it was recieved. "That was a Rob Stevenson Stolen Transmission..." me, alex, and eric speck woooed "do you guys know about Rob's new label Stolen Transmission?"
"wooo!" i said.
Jay Z found me in the crowd, laughed and nodded at me.
"it's his new label. stolen transmission."
we had been officially introduced.
This is us (rob, me, alex, and eric):
This all happened on Day 2. That evening we all congregated for dinner and then made our way back to the theatre that had become our second home. I sat down between Rob and Alex, and Jay Z took seats behind us. It was time for the evening's concert of Crisette Michelle and Lionel Richie. Crisette is a new R&B singer that LA and Jay feel insanely lucky to have on the label, and with reason. Hardly a dry eye in the audience as the gorgeous woman sang and played piano. I'm not a huge fan of R&B and even I was covered in goosebumps. But my mood was not made too mellow... Lionel came on stage and played ALL HIS HITS. I danced on the ceiling. I said Hello, it's you i'm looking for. I became a brick house. fuck yeah. I called Scott Stereogum during "hello" thinking he'd be stoked on it. Hopefully he was.
I then went with Alex and Scott from the office to the casino to gamble. Sitting down at my table, drunk as a skunk, gambling with the complimentry $25 chip that island def jam gave all of us, I was up, and then i was down on my black jack wins. Eventually Scott and Alex got into an argument with a guy sitting next to me who spent the entire time staring at my boobs, about advice i was being given. The guy wanted to prove to Alex and Scott that he knew what he was talking about so much that he threw down $110 on my hand and played it for me. I lost. Turned to the dude, patted him on the back and said "Sorry! Thanks anyway!" hopped off my stool and walked away with the boys.
We made our way into LA Reid's palacial suite where he was throwing a party. As I walked through the doors, "Brickhouse" was playing and Lionel was hanging out, smiling ear to ear and having a talk with some employees. I snooped around for a bit and found the food room where I planted myself in because of the cheese tray. The way to my heart? A tray of cheese. If I were ever on death row, that would be my last meal. "Rob! There's a cheese tray! I'm in heaven!"
Thursday we had group building activities that were productive, but by the time they were over, i was starving and tired. I was immediately brought back from the dead, however, when Jay Z got up on stage with Nas and declared their beef over for all of us to see for our own eyes. Nas, dressed in a leather motorcycle jacket and ripped jeans, complimented Jay on his maturity. I didn't know they had beef, so I was kinda confused as to what the big deal was, but apparently I was witnessing something awesome. I think what was more awesome (save for sitting behind a truly stunning Kelis), was LL Cool J's performance which was accented by him throwing about $400 into the audience and dancing on stage with a bunch of female staff members. Alex tried to get me to go up, but I wasn't drunk enough. In retrospect, I regret this completely. The image of me in a viva-grunge baby doll dress from H&M and chucks, booty dancing with LL would've been unreal. Maybe next time?
Afterwards we were treated to a massive party at the Hard Rock Cafe. I managed to shove about 3 or 4 mini-bottles of champagne down my throat. At one point i was goofing off with Rob, Alex, and Eric, showing them my ill-advised dancing skills when from behind I heard a deep voiced "Ugh, ugh, ugh." I turned around and Jay Z was dancing behind me. I turned around slightly embarrassed but not about to miss out on an opportunity to dance with HOVA, I continued dancing going "Ugh, ugh, ugh." "I miss your purple hair" the Jigga told me, "it was edgy. you should dye it back." My hair is black now. I assured him I would dye it back immediately (i'm not gonna... my hair will fall out...boy). I had him lean over so he could hear what I was gonna say "I want to be the Jay Z to Rob's LA Reid." "Good luck!" he told me before turning to Rob and yelling out for the 39th time that week "The KING OF ROCK!!!"
Alex and I made our rounds to teh various hotel rooms our friends occupied before deciding to go gambling at 5am. I lost another $25 and called it a night. The next morning, me and my hungover boarded the bus and came home.
Here is me using Alex as a pillow for my bus journey:
A few hours later I DJed at orchard bar. Had an amazing fucking time.
Saturday I got brunch with Karen and Gurj. Walked around with Gurj and then made plans for her new room. Lindsay moved out a few weeks ago and so Gurj is moving into her old room and we're re-converted gurj's old room back into a living room. knocking down the wall that was built by my dad and putting the furniature that's in my room/the living room into there. I can't fucking wait to have a real bedroom again!!! After we made our plans, Gideon came over and started talking about the war stricken lands he and his dad have visited. I wasn't about to let Gideon be a kill-joy on himself, so i sat him down in front of the television and made him watch Girls Gone Wild.
It was wild.
Last nigth I went to see Her Daily Obsession with Gurj and Lisa. We were all high off our assses from paint fumes. We had spent the day painting gurj's room purple and anything else we could paint purple. By the time I got there, Jenne had already been there for ages waiting for us. We watched at few bands and Josh turned to me and complimented my watch.
"I'm glad you're wearing that watch. I saw it on your bookshelf on the left hand side and thought you should be wearing it."
"wow you have an amazing memory!"
"yeah, i'll never forget much this band sucks."
HDO were great though. Their single is for sale. Buy it.
OK. I'm done. Tonight I'm going out with Gideon and some dudes that he thinks are cool that I thought were cool when he told me who they were when we were on the phone. I think he said paul rudd, but i'm not sure. I don't care. All i know is that Gid spent way too long in nations that are depraved and needs a bit of cheering up, and that's what I need to do. Cheer up GidRock.
