Today consisted mostly of two things: news stories and research.

I did three news stories today. Then I created a tour date page for the band Firewater. Enter Tad.

Tad suggested that I do some research on the events going on to commemorate Israel’s 60th b-day and compile a list of them for him, so I spent the next couple of hours on Google doing that. It was hard, believe it or not, to find a site that was concise and organized enough to list their events. Some sites were missing the venues, others, the descriptions of the events. In the end, I found about 20-30 events from around the country and saved it in a Word document to send over to Tad.

He came over some time afterwards to help me edit superfluous events and set up some guidelines for how they should appear in the magazine and the GR site, respectively. I created two separate event files to suit both mediums. I’ll have to polish the info and make it more readable, plus find a few more events– namely in L.A. I didn’t have enough time to finish the task so I’ll have to do so on Tuesday.

I became very Zen during this task. It taught me the value of patience, because believe me, you need a lot of patience to go through each page of Google search results looking for specks of valuable event information. Hopefully, things will go smoothly Tuesday and the end result will be commendable.

Yesterday I had to do my first interview transcription. The artist was Michael Dorf, and he was interviewed by Tad.

I immediately felt like William Miller in Almost Famous in that scene where he’s transcribing his interview with Stillwater and I kind of freaked out a bit ’cause I felt like I was almost if not just as cool as William at that moment.

I didn’t  initally know which way to approach it. At first, I simply played the recording and typed as I listened. Then I realized this was near impossible, at the rate that they were speaking. I slowed down the speed of the cassette player and tried again,with better but not perfect results. After a while, I resorted to playing it, memorizing as much as I could of what was said, stopping the cassette player, then typing it up. It took longer, but the results were more precise.

I never realized how  hard transcribing what someone says could be. Dorf says “you know…” and “uh..” and “like” a lot, just like the rest of us. I guess some part of me just hoped he’d speak without these extra words to make my job easier. What’s difficult is that when you start to speak, you’re on a certain train of thought that abruptly– grammatically and otherwise– gets derailed when you add in a “you know…” or what-have-you. In the end, I omitted all the “you knows” as they amounted to too many and worked on stringing these fragmented snippets of speech together, all the while intent on not altering a word of what Dorf said. It took me about an hour. Quite a learning experience.

Bill suggested I get started with the  digital issue– also another first– but we quickly encountered technical problems which were fixed, replaced with more problems, fixed, replaced, etc. So eventually, he said we’d have to put a hold on it and I went back to my routine of updating tour dates. The whole time we were trying to do the digital issue, I was apprehensive and afraid to make any wrong moves– computers and I don’t get along– so I was relieved that at least for now, I won’t have to deal with technology and its testy temperament.

Yesterday was a hectic day. Did three news stories, then went on to look up tour dates. After some hours, Bill called me over go over my CD reviews and Spotlight piece. He offered some constructive criticism, the main one being that perhaps I took this initial advice to be more casual in my writing too much to heart. So now I have to work on being casual…but not too much so. He also spoke of conciseness and suggested that perhaps I buy an issue of Rolling Stone or something and read up on some seasoned critics’ reviews to draw inspiration from. So I might head to the bookstore later on today to do just that.

About half an hour before I was to leave, Bill told me about an obituary that had to be typed up. Apparently reggae producer Joe Gibbs died last February. I offered to do it. It was kind of rushed and kind of bad, which explains why Bill had to change it around a bit after I left: http://globalrhythm.com/worldnews/JoeGibbsPassesAwayat65.cfm

So now I’ve got to work on revising and proofreading my pieces for next week. I wanna be good one day. Not just good. Really really really good. At any cost. Okay maybe not at any cost. But I really want to be good. I wanna be Lester Bangs good.

After taking a couple of days off as per trying circumstances, I have triumphantly returned to the GR office.

My review of Pacifika’s Ascunsion has been quoted on the band’s website: http://www.pacifikaonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=29

Did a news story today, as well as entering some This Just In press release info into the database. Presently, I’m working on tourdates– a tedious process, but not difficult.

Tad forwarded me an email from a woman who requested that 6 GR issues be sent to her. As I’ve never sent anything out before– my work here has thus far been confined to the computer– I asked Tom for some help. As sending stuff out is part of his job, he was able to teach me the basics: what envelope to use, how to calculate the cost of the shipping based on the package’s weight, etc. It wasn’t too bad once I learned the steps. It kind of reminded me of working in the general office at my middle school– sending out letters, making labels, blahblahblah– it was fun.

I might start working on the digital issue a bit later, as well as uploading music vids onto the site. Both things are new to me.

It’s rather quiet here save for the sound of typing and one or two phone conversations. Eerily quiet. I miss having the guy behind me blast his eccentric music all day.

Just finished writing my Noa Babayof spotlight piece. It was harder this time around, as the press kit was freakin’ 38 pages– I skimmed it and gathered what I felt to be the most pertinent points, quotes and anecdotes, and incorporated that into my piece, along with, of course, my own opinions on Babayof’s debut album, From A Window To A Wall. As a result, the finished product ran about 160 words over what was required. Lengthiness continues to be a problem for me.

The album’s quite phenomenal, and this is saying a lot, seeing as how I only had extracts from it from her MySpace page to draw from: http://www.myspace.com/noababayof Give “Marching Band” a listen; it will haunt your dreams and make your heart pang; it’s that spectacular.

Taking what I learned from my Mahmoodi Spotlight, I tried to catch myself every time I started using phrases like, “with which,” etc., reminding myself that in music journalism, ending sentences with prepositions is okay. I even briefly address Noa herself at the end of my piece– if that’s not being casual, I don’t know what is.

Bill says he’s still waiting on her CD to arrive from Tel Aviv– at this point I’d just like to have it to add to my personal collection. This singer is effin’ awesome. Reminds me of a cross between Annie Lennox, Joni Mitchell, and Imogen Heap. Weird combination, I know, but it works. Her voice is so rich and powerful and harrowing, it’s impossible to forget.

Don’t want to do Spring Break readings so I think I’ll indulge myself with more Noa Babayof music to pass the time…

I just typed up my second round of CD reviews: Global Noize by DJ Logic and Jason Miles, and Evolution, by Amos Hoffman. The former fits no genre– it mixes jazz, world beats and electronica to create something totally weird but pleasant; the latter fuses Middle Eastern melodies with African rhythms. So both efforts were hybrids, which proved a tad challenging to convey in a review.

I took the advice Bill gave me the last time I reviewed CDs and tried to make my writing more casual and direct. I steered away from overt wordiness whenever possible, and I’m rather proud of the finished product. Hopefully Bill and Tad will like it too. The advice I’ve gotten concerning my writing has been eye-opening, and I intend to keep it in mind every time I do a CD review, Spotlight piece, or whatever comes my way in the world of A&E journalism.

I wrote four news stories for the website today. http://globalrhythm.com/WorldNews/ The set begins with the story on the Evita DVD release.

Exciting stuff– the new issue of GR came out and it was the first thing that greeted me when I stepped out of the elevator and into the office. I’ve got a few news stories in there, including Andy Palacio’s obituary, my Pouya Mahmoodi Spotlight piece, and my Pacifika record review. It was a thrilling moment, seeing my name attached to those things in a magazine. It felt really, really good.

I spent the rest of the day updating tour dates before my internet crashed.

 A first– I’m blogging LIVE from GR. Watch out for wardrobe malfunctions and expletives accidentally uttered.

So I just found out who Jim White is a few minutes ago but I’m convinced he’s a genius.

I saw him perform acoustic– my second live performance here– and he sang a couple of songs, the lyrics of which are currently embedded in my head. Harrowing, heavy stuff. There was one song about chasing tornadoes, which was so Dylanesque I couldn’t help but become entranced. Not only that, this guy’s funny as hell. He’s met some people and seen some things I didn’t even know were at my disposal to meet and see in New York City.

Aside from Jim White, I spent this morning updating the “This Just In” file on the server with press release information for different bands/authors. Pretty routine stuff, but it took me a while, as data entry can prove to be a meticulous task when placed in my hands. Meticulous, but definitely not difficult– I’ve got the hang of this stuff by now.

Also did a news story about DeVotchKa’s North American tour– their biggest one yet. http://globalrhythm.com/worldnews/DeVotchKaAnnouncesItsLargestAmericanTourToDate.cfm Tada.

Bill just asked if I’d like to do some CD reviews. Sweet.

I’m sampling the music now. It’s quite different from the last batch I was given when I first started here. Different in an interesting way. Different in an I’m-not-sure-if-this-is-commendable-or-atrocious-yet kinda way. So far I’ve listened to two CDs and they’re all instrumental. Definitely not used to reviewing purely instrumental music, so this will be a challenge.

Bill also says I’ve got another Spotlight in my future so I’m excited about that.

This Steven Bernstein musician I’m listening to right now actually isn’t all that bad. Lotsa catchy guitar riffs and sultry roundabout rounds on the sax coupled with some somnabulistic drumming. It’s hard to categorize but it definitely gets my attention and keeps me awake.

-A day later-

Okay, so it’s Saturday now– not quite so “live” anymore, but I’ll go ahead and post this anyway.