Two suitcases

So for the last two years I’ve owned nothing more than two suitcases. Moving from Florida to San Francisco, San Francisco to Stockholm, and back again. So needless to say, upon my return to the Bay Area this past month, I’ve been quite swamped with getting things back in order. From moving into a new apartment, working Noise Pop, volunteering with ATC, and just catching up on things, it’s been a whirlwind. So let me take a moment to recap.

Noise Pop was again a huge success. This year I worked merch for some amazing bands, including:
Atlas Sound, who played a special acoustic show with vocalist Bradford Cox, at the infamous Great American Music Hall.

Rogue Wave, who played a surprise intimate show at the small indie club Bottom of the Hill.

Then I got the real treat of working the green room for Industry Noise. An all day conference for, as they put it, “MUSICIANS, MUSIC LOVERS, INDUSTRY SCHMUCKS, and TECH GEEKS.” The conference afforded me some great opportunities to meet a lot of incredible people, including Claudia Gonson of the Magnetic Fields, and industry professionals of YouTube, Pandora and Apple. Though my most memorable encounter was with one of my new favorite people, Josh Freese (permanent member of A Perfect Circle, The Vandals, and Devo, but who has also played drums in Weezer, Nine Inch Nails, Guns n’ Roses and with Sting). He’s quite a character, very charismatic, laid back, and just an amazing person to share a coffee and conversation with at 9 in the morning.

Aside from working, I also was able to take in some great shows and art galleries during the festival.
I managed to get backstage for the Dodos and Magik*Magik Orchestra performance at the Palace of Fine Arts. A truly beautiful performance. My friend Sean captured some incredible audio from the show, check it out here.

I also got to enjoy Art of Noise , a gallery of art inspired by music. With the most interesting piece of the night coming from Ted Riederer, who transforms musical performances into permanent pieces of art.

So here’s to the months ahead, may they be as busy and interesting as these last few have been.