So fresh and so clean-clean, now that I’ve returned from the tornado of fun that is the High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, Ca. Lots of great performances of new acts and old favorites coalesced with the celebrations of friends at our traditional summer board meeting of mayhem.

I left the festival yesterday after Nathan Moore’s amazing solo set beneath the trees. I also left with a severed toe, a chipped tooth, broken shoes, muddy feet, sunburnt face and bruised hands. Just like I should feel after a great party. What exactly happened? I would say that we happened, and we happened upon the scene that we know so well and we did it up exactly right. I was only there this year for 2 1/2 days but I was reeling from the weekend the whole way home which took me about 7 hours because I kept pulling over to rest and resume.

We had a fantastic set up this year which all the props go to the Vegas crew for getting everything situated up on cripple creek and creating an extreamly festive “Christmas in July” themed party. I forgot my blow-up draddle dammit. This year consisted of everything under the sun with the potential of fun, including slow dancing with aliens, streamer learning classes, tandom bike break dancing, sunrise bull-fighting, ect. I’ll post the photo link as soon as OB gives it the go. A photo is worth a thousands words and too much happened for words and laughs so if you’d like an inkling into how it all went down, I’ll just leave it to the photographs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oberpar/sets/72157606045902635/
_________________

As for music highlights I have to undoubtably go with the Guitarmeggeddon set led by Sean Leahy along with a cast of HS Allstars including Eric McFadden, Dan Lebowitz, Steve Adams, Papa Mali, Daria Johnson, and the other Sean Leahe from Isabella. Their song selection was a raucous conglomeration of head banging beasts. This year’s line-up was also kind enough to give a shout out to co-founder/ shredder Josh Clark who had a gig at Rothbury and couldn’t be there, but the band passed around a bottle of Maker’s Mark to schwill on in his honor. Josh would’ve been proud of how it all went down in the name of the Guitarmeggedon legacy.

It had been a few years since I saw Buckethead and he played a lot of some of my favorites from his album ‘Colma’, a beautifully melodic album about his Mothers town. We caught The Slip and their alter ego Suprise Me Mr. Davis a couple times throughout the fest and they are always more than awesome moment setters. There was another RV set on top of the same infamous TLG “Balloon” RV which as we remember it was the set to set the record for all RV sets. Bostonian Ryan Mountbleau played Vaudeville to serenade us at one of our pit stops at the Mini-Van of Mega Fun.  Also nearby was the great group emsamble called Sleep Depravation, who we seek out each year right after midnight and they jam to our hearts delight. I saw Mike Gordon’s main stage set and his back-up band was Max Creek with the guitarist playing a Langudoc guitar! It was the most heavy hitting rock standard Gordon set i’ve seen yet in his side project career but i gotta say that it felt neat when Mike started to really get into a jam but the guitarrist wasn’t going with it fully…because when Mike would look over, it made me think he misses Trey’s style. Caught a late night show of the New Orleans band Dumpstafunk, which put us all in the right spot on a saturday night in the Funk’n Jamhouse where 8 years ago I met my great friend and fantastic dancing buddy, Bill, who suprisingly was camped right in our area this year. But that’s what High Sierra is about, the place where I get to see everyone I know who does what I do, in a place that seriously caters to everything we are and everything we do. And notable mention to “Markaritaville” where there was this great tent set up in front of the Big Meadow stage and this dude named Mark would make you free bottomless top shelf margaritas, that was very, very cool and delicious. Then as you stroll and hydrate and drink some more, you never really expected where you’d ever end up next, but every place the wind would take you, it was exactly where you should be.

Oh High Sierra, how I love thee.

Filed under: General by phoreal

I feel like a platinum plated bottle of Don Perion champagne, still bubbly after a four night run of fun that will go down in history as totally insane. We did it folks, we won! Now i’m gonna rap a little bit about how it all begun.

“And we would’ve gone to Eau Claire!” -CA HAHAHAHAHAHA!

No, it had to go down like this. We had an agenda and it was meant to be. 2 nights in Vegas, 2 nights in San Franscisco. A trip like a roller coaster, but better because you might spill your drinks on a rollercoaster.

Starting from the San Jose airport I was already excited and was getting numerous “Viva!” texts meanwhile trying to tame myself with $13.00 airport coctails. I boarded the plane and took the first seat in the front; an open seat in between two older professional looking guys with laptops. I immediately started into conversation about Vegas and the prophesized adventure and that we all needed drinks stat. The guy to my left leans over to the guy on my right and says ” This is going to be a really short flight.” They both laughed largely and then entertained my nonsense the whole time.They wern’t even going to Vegas, they were getting off at the layover in L.A. and I was going to send them home with the funnest airplane conversation they’ve ever had. It was pretty bad…in the best way. The next leg was Vegas bound and I got a new aisle mate. She was a grade school teacher who wore a mu-mu and a blindingly bright gold cross. The guys in the next row gave us drink vouchers and we got more Bloody Mary’s and talked the whole trip about what we’d do in Vegas. It was hysterical. She was a dirty 60 year old grade school teacher, and we both knew we were gonna ROCK Vegas. So my flight felt like 5 minutes and I arrived pretty tossed. Met up with the amigos and it was on. Friends flew out from all over and I met a lot of new enthusiasts as well. Everyone’s smiles were as brilliant as the Vegas lights themselves. We had been ready, we were finally there.

Thursday night was the first show and it was scheduled to be special. The solo sets with each band member of Tea Leaf Green sans Scotty. The fantastic Reed Mathis opened the show and sat poised on a pedistal with a guitar and a mic and played us some beautiful originals and a couple covers. It was a real treat because we’d never seen Reed in this light as a stunning solo artist. Good stuff. So, next up was a great rockin set from Mr. bad ass himself, guitar virtuoso extraordinaire, Josh Clark, who brought us such classics as “F**k you blinking light” and “Your mama’s got nothing on me. To cap the night off was a sultry set of keyboardand classics by our well seasoned solo señor Trevor Garrod. Later in the show, he brought out a gorgeous and talented cello player to accompany a few songs who was none other than our company’s own Stebbie Dewart!

{welcomed distractions are present at the time being seeing as though I’d still like to review the second night in Vegas as well as the 2 night SF GAMH blowout awesomeness, then Guitarmegeddon last night, however I am heading out the d oor to head up to Quincy for my 8th year tradtion of the High Sierra Music Festival!! And I’m pleased to announce that as of confirmation yesterday, I will be head in out to NYC 2 days after I return from the mountains to join the east coast chapter for a week of TLg and Turbine on the boat. ) So, with that, i’ll have to get back to these reviews and updates later and keep the ball rollin.

Happy 4th of July weekend everybody!!! Celebrating our Independence, Freedom and our ability to rock the f**k out!!! Enjoy

to be cont’d…

Filed under: General by phoreal

I probably should feel just how I look this morning which is ironically interesting after getting home at 3am after an all day trip from San Diego to Santa Cruz but my initial greeting to the world was a boisterous smile and pat on the back for my good taste in agendas. In short, we rocked the phuck outta Southern California this weekend and I should also mention that our favorite band was in town as well.

Of course when Tea Leaf Green schedules a L.A. run, I will be there. It is my old hometown that taught me how to rock so I like to give back to the town by showing it all that i learned.

Because everyone is gearing up for the Vegas>GAMH run in two weeks, this trip was a little off the radar so that made it hard to find other leafers to roll with so I put an ad on Craigslist. This led me to a kid that goes to UCSC and just finished for the year and he needed to get back home to Hollywood. He traveled with a guitar, a briefcase and a microwave. He was a very cool indie kid that now loves TLg. A day before I was to set out south, I got a call from my famed friend Joe Femino and he was to join us in the trip and join me in stirring up the nether regions of our state on our lil’ Tea Leaf tour. This was good. This was a great story itself.

We had an 8 hour drive to L.A. and a lot of music to share along the way. The indie kid in the back seat was diggin many of our picks and we all shared rounds on the sounds. I got us lost in Oxnard (rep’n the OX) trying to find my brother at a wake so I could get a key from him so I just hopped on PCH, Highway 1 and we caught the rest of the drive along the ocean for a fantastic sunset and a perfect way to enter L.A. What was really perfect is that even though I lost us some time there, we were still going to make it for TLG’s set and the kid who we had to drop off lived a block from the venue and gave me great directions to weave our way through that part of the city. Plus, as difficult as it is to park in the city, we found an overnight lot for $5. What? Super cool.

Arriving to the venue which looked like the classic old Hollywood movie theatre turned music venue complete with ticket box in front, the bright lights were upon us. We rolled in giddy and made an immediate left to the bar for shots of Patron and were front row bound. Ran into several crew members along the way and we all coagulated accordingly. Unfortunately, this is where I skip my whole review of the show and go directly to the next night. Not because I don’t remember because I do, but because I was not that into it for the sake of the way the set flowed especially for a one setter and that’s all I have to say. But I mention this because we saw two nights of shows back to back and the contrast plays a big part in the recognition of the awesomeness at hand, gives us gratitude for what we got.

SAN DIEGO!!! The next nights show in San Diego brought the heat in a major way and more than compensated for the mellow nature of the previous night . And I just have to say that as much as this band rocks my world, I would always only want them to play whatever they want even if it was a sleeper show on a friday night in Hollywood. Case and point: San Diego.

The venue called The Wave house was located at the magnificent San Diego Beach Boardwalk and the stage was large and tall and they had a great sound system. The dancefloor was literally in the sand and luckily I had gotten a call from our Treasurer earlier so I knew to wear flip flops. Beyond the crowd, there were hammocks in between palm trees and fire bits around the bar as well as a wave machine that you could actually surf in, like a ride, we were at a boardwalk afterall, with rollercoasters and everything but the best ride of the night by far…was the show.

Earlier in the day, Labiacci and I stopped by his old hometown of Huntington Beach (which ironically sued Santa Cruz for the title of Surf City U.S.A. long ago, but no bitterness here, this is a really great town and actually has good surf) and we recruited a grip of great new-to-me friends, great musicians too to caravan the 2 hours to see the show. We spent some time kickin it there so when we arrived in SD, we made it just in time to walk through the enterance at the first notes of “Let Us Go”. We found our crew and our dancing area up front and the show was on and the band was on fire! By the third song, Biatchi and I look at eachother with eyes of agreement that this already makes up for last nights show…and it kept on going and going. Every song was persued with passion the band was happy you could tell. The crowd was jumping and fists were pumping, as this was the best place to be in the whole world to be if you wanted to dance your ass off and rage it like you meant it.

Since this show was on the beach, the night capped off with some beach bull-fighting and the unvieling of the great bottle of red wine that I smuggled from Spain. The waters were warm and the wine was delicious, what more can I say, I like how it all goes down in San Diego!

Filed under: General by phoreal

Holy crap it’s June already?

Break out the ears of corn and the wiffle balls, the heat is on!

The great 08′ is sailing by like a strong winds of stardust and it’s kicking up the necessity of my intentions; sweet sweet motivations.

Hello Summer Rarrrrrrrrrr!

Turbine will be the first band that I get uploaded to the new radio site! The site, which is almost ready to unviel it’s new look, is extactic. And I was excited to tell the guys when they called me as they were driving across the country on their way to Wakarusa as it was our 1 year anniversary of meeting! They said that they are going to debut at the festival this one awesome song that we all wrote one night on a rooftop in NYC. I wish I could’ve made it out to Waka this year but alas, I have to be working with my current job at the Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa, which is alright but it’s no Waka. I also mentioned to Sauce to find them and introduce himself. I hope everyone has a fantastic time out there this year! I know you’re all gonna rage it up of course, it’s Wakarusa, where fun is your only option.

Be sure to tune into www.dgold.info/radio on 6/10/2008 at 6:00pst or 8:00central and 9:00 est for a very Special Edition of Honest Tunes Radio which will feature Turbine in the studio!! Our good friend Dgold hosts the show and will play music in association with our beloved Wakarusa Festival.

The festival I am going to www.harmonyfestival.com has many different acts with a broad spectrum of diversity. I’m stoked to see Arrested Development, BLVD. and Geoege Clinton WITH Parliment Funkadelic. Also very happy that our local groove Byron Space Circus will be playing there too!

On another local note, Santa Cruz resident Nathan Dennan (Brett’s little Brother) a great singer/songwriter/keyboardist, is looking for band members to join in with a new group. Post a comment if you know anyone who is interested and i will give you his email.

Next week, the transportation director and I will set sail back to L.A. and then San Diego for a lil’ TLG rendezvous in the southern nether regions of rock.

Happy Friday everyone!

Counting down the days til VEGAS! and our scheduled board meeting to defy all board meetings!

Rock on!

-Mgmt

(more…)

Filed under: General by phoreal

That’s right. With more info to be released soon. We now have a radio site and we are stoked.

After several weeks of going through the music of many of our unsigned friends meanwhile learning how to use turntables while thoughts of recording our own freestyle jams, one thing led to another and through the help and advice of good amigos we are now all set up soon to launch what i’ve envisioned all along.

www.phorealradio.com

I’ve teamed up with the fantastic crew from xsite media Los Angeles to host some new and upcoming bands to the radio and internet waves. If you want to get your music our there, feel free to contact me until everything is up and explains itself.

I got a lot of messages this morning. My apologies, I lost my phone for a majority of the weekend. Ah, good times never sieze to entertain.

With intent of catching up sooner than later,

-Mgmt.

Filed under: General by phoreal

My Horoscope this week: I found it quite amusing.

“Your life in the coming weeks may resemble a dream of sailing deep beneath the waves in a yellow submarine where a nonstop party is going on. It’ll be as if you’re plowing through deep, heavy, murky waters inside a brightly-lit high-tech vessel that is controlled by slightly chaotic connoisseurs of fun. You may feel a bit claustrophobic, but that could encourage your imagination to run wild, which will be a good thing as long as you don’t believe everything it tells you. In conclusion, Scorpio, get ready for entertaining adventures that will range from being a bit creepy to totally delicious. “

Phuck Yeah! (.com) Well, I’m down with the totally delicious part but i’ve been deeply training my awareness so I hope to slide by the bit creepy part but i’m ready for everything nonetheless. C’mon world, bring it! So, It’s memorial weekend starting tomorrow and the world is our oyster, it’s just what we signed up for, so we’ll see what kind of slight chaos it will entail.

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and I’m looking forward to raging it up with ya’ll in the upcoming month for the L.A. TLG run and the Vegas blowout in June. Summer seems to be here. The sweet winds are taking over and the surf is high. How’s the crew hangin?

Amor,

-Mgmt.

Here are all your beautiful horoscopes too: http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/allsigns.html

Filed under: General by phoreal

Hollywood was looking so good and really, what an amazing weekend across the board. I love the kinda weekend where your travels occupy so many different activities…like a game show; full of excitement and debaucheristic gladiator like chaos.

I had a joint agenda journey entailing the STS9 two night run at The House of Blues in Hollywood as well as a fantastic family gathering in L.A. I had a nice 7 hour coastal drive to get the city Friday night and went straight to the venue to find the show had sold out both nights, which was very cool for the band. It was great to be back on the Sunset Strip again since last year and it was still ragin in all it’s neon lighted, hot steppin’ glory. Right as I arrived I started to chat up an employee who worked there while I waiting for my crew show up and apparenty we had a good conversation because he gave me an all access wristband. Seconds later I ran into the crew from SC (Ben, Breanna, Hannah, April and Jason) who all joined me backstage to start the party at the bar.

The HOB venue is by far on of the coolest venues in L.A. and no one should ever miss checking out the upstairs lounge with walls of tibetan tapistries and statues of dieties in little cove like kick it areas, meanwhile the ambient DJ spins and the socialites mingle amongst the most exquisite selection of wine. It’s quite a thing and unique to my norm but the main attraction is the show level downstairs and that’s where we focus on all the action. Shortly after, I also met up with Q Ma who flew in from Philly and Winter who flew in from Tennessee. Basically, we had all the workings for an awesome gathering of friends gathering in the name of fun.

As far as the shows, I think they were some of the best that i’ve ever seen of STS9. They were playing with so much raw umph and intricacy. You could feel them throwing a ton of driven energy out in every note and the audience was hugely eminating from it. It was a fuckin get down rage, a no holds barred blast from start to finish.

The first night afterparty was at a really cool house in old Hollywood and I just remember taking lots of silly pictures on other peoples cameras. I ran into Matty there and finally met Murphy and got to discuss music for a short duration without mentioning the epic show we just came from that he just made happen. So then after our parade back to the strip where half of the crew went back to the Hyatt, I decided to go to The Roosevelt Hotel for a nightcap and by 9am Cam and I were driving down Laurel Canyon rocking out to Tea Leaf Green while I was pointing out Jim Morrisons old house and the mansion where The Beatles first ate acid.

Once I came to my senses, I dropped Cam off and headed into the Valley to see my good and longest known friend Stina for lunch before hopping over to my Brothers house. I got to my brothers party, it was so wonderful to see everyone, it had been 6 months since i last saw my family and everyone was there to celebrate Carly’s first birthday. Right as I walked into the house, my Mom greets me and then asks me to take off my sunglasses. I said ” No Mom, you know what’s under there.” I couldn’t let her see my distasterous bloodshot retinal vessels in fine form. She laughed and gave me a hug as we proceeded out join the party. I was there for 7 hours and got to catch up with everyone and basically hang tough with the fam again. My family is the funnest montage and it rocks when we all get together.

I didn’t want to leave the party but knew I’d be back so I sobered up and geared up to head back into Hollywood for night two of STS9. Again, another sic night of sound and sweat and everyone there was there to get the fuck down. My kind of show, my kind of party. Afterwards we made our way to the after party at The Roxy to see Conspiritor (members of The Disco Biscuits) and Schpongle (DJ from England), a show that started at 2am and went to 6am. Right upon arrival we ran into an old Phish friend, Truman and that was rad so he joined our party as well. One hilarious thing to note was that as we were trying to catch a cab from our hotel to the show we couldn’t get a cab since there were too many of us so we started to walk the 2 mile trek but seconds later, an empty Los Angeles city bus pulled over and offered us all a free ride right to the venue. How random and awesome is that!

Now, while I was partaking in the adventure that was the southern California scene, there was a 5 night Phil run at the Warfield which I look forward to hearing all the details of this week.

And also my car just turned over to 100,000 miles yesterday. “I’ve got to keep on movin’”

Filed under: General by phoreal

A Very Happy Birthday to our P.R. Guy, Sir OB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We thank you for everything you do, we couldn’t do it without you, and we think you are very awesome.

I’d also like to wish Miss Erin go Bragh a stupendous Birthday as well!!!!!!!!!!

And to that, it aslo happens to be my Half Birthday!!! (which I celebrate way more than my original birthday)

So, Woo-Hoo! A fine day to celebrate on this fine day of celebration!

Cheers to everyone! And may you all have an absolutly fantastic day full of much fantasticness!

Rock on!

-Mgmt

Filed under: General by phoreal

Such a classic phrase spoken by my good friend IllumiNATE this weekend is response to why we sometimes procrastiNATE. I had to adapt that phrase seeing as that being new to updating a site but being me and all over the place, I am finding the indifference of the task is not in my favor since what I am favoring is being in the presence of these experiances rather than implement them further in ink. Blat boom…

But I do and will contuinually try my best.

So let’s see… as the title suggests, It has been from Friday to Friday since I acknowledged this inquisition. Oh and what of the many of cool things have such occured in the meantime; Vegas plans in full swing, Lost Angeles STS9 2 night run gathering all set, Erika and Jaime got married, first annnual Awesometown happened and I heard it was a friggin blast!, Marco Benevento, Reed Mathis and Matthew C. at Yoshi’s on Tuesday was excellent and well as Blue Turtle Seduction in La Honda from where i left off and they opened with R. Kelly’s song to get it all going and so funny to the fact that OHD had commented on that song as the last comment too. Phew.

And so now it’s Monday and after a long weekend of festivities and beach blowouts, tomorrow will bring me back up to the city for a gathering of a different sort. Hope to see many of you there…

*~*~*~*~*~*Happy 30th Birthday Plateface!!!*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Filed under: General by phoreal

I’m not sure if my Father was well studied in Eastern thought but he once told me of a way to improve your memory. He said that if you remember your dreams to write them down when you first wake up and this act of recollection activates the cerebellum and stimulates the memory sensors.

I’ve been having the most vivid dreams lately and they all pertain to musical experiances in some way; Friends, setlists, passion, the usual. Dreams are like an extra education that you receive wheather you are aware of it or not. I awake having learned lessons from what I feel is deeply imortant to me and I move forward with a greater sense of my appreciation for these things. My dreams show me that when certain imperrative things in my life affect me on a sub-conscious level to the point that they infultrate my dreams, then I must become more attentive to these things that may need my attention; Or is it that I may need them?

I use this metaphor to describe my current situation about seeing new music.

Since there is such a vast assortment of options, and I have a selective nature in general, it sometimes seems that we can have a lot of fun with this uncertainty. I like to look at it always in a more serendipidious manner when manifesting music. Kind of a right place, right time thinking. However, what am I missing and how do I go about seeking more variety out of these exciting new ventures. Ah, ha, I see, it’s like photography.

When I go out with my camera and shoot what inspires me, I am open to the world and all it’s many facets, howver I also do know what I like which is usually what draws me in one direction one way or another. So anyway, I took this notion and opened up the local weekly paper and went to the music section. Just for kicks and giggles, find an artist or an act that you associate with their name or title and disregard those, and instead, entertain the obscure and outlandish and check out some new music you would have otherwise never heard of. Broddening the spectrum of musicial appreciation one random occurance at a time. You win some, you lose some…but sometimes, you just never know.

Filed under: General by phoreal