leftovers

The year was 2002. My favorite band, The Human League, was part of a retro concert package in the UK (the Here and Now Tour) which included many other 80s bands. One of them I had never heard of, but was getting rave reviews from my overseas friends who were able to attend. The band was Altered Images and they were best known for a song called "Happy Birthday," which I didn't think I had ever heard before. I was record shopping at Aron's in Hollywood one weekend while they were having a parking lot sale. At this time, I was DJing two nights a week at Gold 9, so I was buying a lot of albums, especially when I could find them for cheap! I found Altered Images "Bite" at this sale and shortly thereafter began to play it quite a bit in my apartment, where I had my turntables set up as kind of my own little nightclub. I was immediately drawn to lead singer Clare Grogan's voice, and the lush pop of "Don't Talk To Me About Love." From...

My first favorite band was The Thompson Twins. I don't know how or why. When I was at the age where someone decides that they have a favorite band, something about the Twins spoke to me and I just became obsessed. While many people quickly move on from the bands and artists they liked as a child, I am not one of those people. Thompson Twins are still a favorite of mine, but over the years, other bands have replaced them in the top spot. One such band, The Human League, has been with me for almost as long. They had been one of my favorite bands since I was about 12 or so, but they moved in to first place probably around the summer after my senior year in high school, when they released "Octopus." Here are all their studio albums ranked from least favorite, to favorite! 10.  HYSTERIA 1984 The dreaded follow up Considering they are my favorite band, I obviously wouldn't say Human League have ever made a totally awful album, but this one is definitely the closest t...

2011 was quite a year for new music! Of course, the biggest happening was that my fave band of all time, The Human League, released a new album, "Credo," in March. But so much more awesome music was made too - Aqua dropped their comeback album "Megalomania," the full edition of "All You Need Is Now" by Duran Duran came out early in the year, Blondie's long-awaited "Panic of Girls" hit the streets, and Tiffany released her first country album, "Rose Tattoo" shortly after her SyFy movie "Mega Python vs. Gatoroid", co-starring Deborah Gibson, was aired. Several other past favorite artists of mine released new material too: Melanie C (aka Sporty Spice), Scritti Politti, and CSS. It was a difficult process to compile, but here's my top 10 of 2011! 10. "A Day Late And A Dollar Short" - Scritti Politti This song is great and sounds like a good mesh between the more poppy, electronic 80's Scritti and the more...

On August 15, 1998, after convincing my brother and our friend Randy to drive with me from Hays to Chicago, I saw The Human League live for the first time. It was the first time I had been to Chicago, the first time I saw one of my favorite bands live, and the first time I went to a concert by myself. It was one of those life changing experiences. Before that, I had just bought records, tapes and CD's of my favorite bands and hoped that I might catch their videos on MTV or see photos of them in Rolling Stone or some other magazine. With the Internet came the ability to find out even more about these bands, and when I found out that The Human League, a band I had been collecting records of since I was about 10, was going to be touring the US I just had to go. I've blogged about this journey previously so I won't go into details about it again. Before the past weekend, I had seen the band five times since then. August 17, 2003 at House of Blues in West Hollywood, CA (al...

Today the Human League released their video for "Night People" on their official website. I watched it immediately when I woke up, but the first time I watched it I was pretty disappointed that the band members don't actually appear in the video at all. Rather, it is more of a short film that documents five different "night people" as they prepare for an evening on the town, go out to their clubs of choice, party with friends, and then head back home. It ended up growing on me after a few times watching it, and I really like the characters and the stories they each tell, but of course it would have been nice to at least have a cameo from the band in there. I guess it's a marketing attempt to disguise the fact that Phil and the girls are older than the average electro band, but I'm not really sure that anyone is going to become a Human League fan at this point in time and not realize that they have been around for awhile. I worked on editing the video...

What an exciting day for me! I woke up and checked my e-mail, only to find that the Human League had sent out their brand new single, "Night People," since I had signed up for their e-mail list! I had to play it right away, and of course, I loved it! It sounds so much better than the iPhone clip that someone posted on YouTube from when they debuted it in Berlin. I almost wish I hadn't listened to that version, but it's worth it to finally hear the produced, studio version! It's got a really dark bassline sound and lots of weird noises in it, and an almost-chanted vocal delivery on the verses. The bridge section, with the girls singing, is really uplifting and fun, and then Phil really takes off at the end of it, singing "Get away, get away, get away, get away, I wanna know, I wanna go!" I just love it! I played it several times while I was getting ready for work. Then, at work, I found that people started posting the remixes, which had been playe...

Happy birthday to my father! I often forget to send a card but I always make sure to call him. I waited for later in the day, and by then he was at a steakhouse with mom, waiting for Adrienne to arrive, so I’m sure he was having a good birthday. At work, I had a meeting with some people from a French TV show who wanted to film our security officers in Hollywood. Kerry was out of the office so I just tried to get all the information taken down, but they wanted to ride with the officers which I’m not really sure if that is something we can allow. The first new photos of the Human League were posted online today! There is a closeup of Phil, Joanne and Susan with a black background and a white streak of lights going through them. It’s really cool and so 2010! There were also a few other “behind the scenes” photos that surfaced on a makeup artist’s blog who worked on the shoot, showing that there are other photos from the session that haven’t been released yet and givin...

Well, I am really hungover today. At my job, I get two floating holidays per year, which I’ll be able to take advantage of in the future by choosing one as the day after LA Pride, and the other as the day after Halloween. Not so much a holiday, but recovery from one. I did make it through the entire work day, which was nice, as I barely got any sleep last night. The surprise of the day was that the Human League’s website went live, and features a very brief (10 second) clip of the new single “Night People”! Very excited about that! They are my favorite band and I have been following them since I was 10 or so. I’m so glad that they’ve never broken up and that they are going to be releasing another new album in another new decade!

I had a meeting this morning with the marketing and PR person for the new show that Cirque du Soleil is bringing to Hollywood. It's going to be a very big deal! It will be at the Kodak Theatre all year, except for during the time that the Oscars will be using it. Kerry and I are wanting to make sure the BID and Cirque can work together, and we're talking about collaborating on some promotional campaigns. I went to Amoeba on my lunch break and ended up getting "Made In Sheffield," this documentary about Human League, ABC, and other bands that came out of that scene in the late 70's. I already had it on VHS but I'm trying to upgrade everything that I really love to have on DVD, and it was only $8 since it was used. Dylan and I met Rob and Steven at Silver Spoon tonight for Glee Club, the first time we have gone this season! But, it was the Rocky Horror Glee Show episode so we couldn't miss it. It was really, really fun and I am back to loving the show.

Since I was out at the LANI forum yesterday, we postponed Business Watch to today. I was frazzled trying to get everything ready this morning cause I had quite a few things to do before the meeting, but it all worked out fine. We didn't have a guest speaker but I was hoping that maybe because it was Friday that we would have a good crowd, but only a few people showed up. Kylie Minogue's new song, "All The Lovers" debuted on the internet today and I found a way to burn it from youtube onto a CD so I could listen in the car. I can't wait to buy the album when it comes out! Marc, James, and Brad all rode down to Long Beach with me for Shitting Glitter's show at DiPiazza's. It was pride weekend in Long Beach but unfortunately we didn't really get the pride crowd to come out to the show. But it was nice because AJ's mom, stepdad, and little brother were there and they loved the show. I had a lot of fun and they recorded it too so hopefully I'l...

I got up early this morning so I could make it down to USC for the LANI (Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative) Community Forum. I know about LANI because they manage one of the BIDs in Los Angeles that is part of the BID Consortium and so I met Monica there who works for LANI and she is so nice. I had been invited to the forum before but this was my first time attending. As soon as I got there, I ran into people I knew, including a friend from the City Clerk's Office and one from the Office of Community Beautification. So I sat down with the latter for the free breakfast and the keynote speaker, who was Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries. Now, you all probably know how I normally feel about people with religious titles affixed to their names, but this guy was really inspirational. His company helps former gang members become productive members of society, getting jobs and educations. He had a lot of really wise things to say about how without kinship, there is no communit...

Well, this day will forever live on in my memory as it was today, just short of 10 years after I moved to Los Angeles, that I finally made it into the LA Times, the main local newspaper here! While doing our Homeless Registry last month, a photographer and reporter accompanied my team so I was hoping that I would be included, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. First off, I was just honored that those in charge of the registry chose to have the Times people go out with me team. But the fact that there, in print, was a photo of me - sitting on the sidewalk interviewing a homeless person - I was just dumbfounded and completely honored. I got the e-mail from Kerry Morrison, Director of the Hollywood Property Owner's Alliance (and one of the driving forces behind Hollywood 4RWD, who organized the Registry) with a link to the article. There were a few pictures of me on the online slideshow, but it was my friend Josep who commented on my Facebook Page that I was also in the pri...

Dylan took a half day off work so he could take his mom to a Doctor's appointment, and to get her car out of impound. I can't remember if I mentioned that her car had been stolen while parked in North Hollywood; on Mother's Day, LAPD called her to say they had found it, but that it had been involved in a wreck on the 5 freeway. We were worried that it was totalled, but Dylan said it wasn't as bad as they had said and that she was able to drive it home. I went to Susan's to cut checks today, but she was out with Jeff picking out their wedding cake! They are getting married on Sunday. I'm really happy for her. As I was leaving, Laura called me and said she was stuck downtown. She had gone down for her background check and interview for the security job with Hollywood Media District that I referred her for, but when she came out to put money in the meter, her car was gone. She said it had been stolen, but knowing what I do about parking in downtown LA, I figu...