My life over the past few years has been quite the journey. Four years ago I was a 19 (almost 20) year old who was just about to start working at Best Buy for the Christmas season, and a few months later I moved to Boston to start at a tiny startup called gamerDNA. At gamerDNA I was the 8th employee and we worked from the CEO's kitchen table, grew to 20+, went through layoffs and lots of late nights, but created many great memories. Then for the past two years I've been living in San Francisco, working at various game companies, including Playfish for the past year, where I've been working with Facebook Game communities for The Sims and MONOPOLY. Life's been a fucking ride, man.
 

On Monday I announced that I was leaving Playfish and that I had accepted a Community Manager job at a small SF startup called RootMusic. This was the result of some soul searching, lots of hardwork, and it was a decision that frankly scared the shit out of me. At this point I'm pretty well connected in the video game industry, I've had the pleasure of working for some great companies with amazing people, and now I'm turning my back on all of that and starting fresh. Not only did I announce that I was leaving on Monday, but Tuesday was my last day at Playfish, and today was my first day at RootMusic. Intense, to say the least.

I'm extremely excited right now. It's currently 11pm, I got home just recently from my first day at work, and I'm honestly at a loss for words. I've got a huge amount of responsibility and a lot of people are looking to me to make some big decisions and be involved in many different projects. But this is what I've been looking for, I'll get to work at a music company that works with virtually every top Band/Musician in the industry, but also makes a product that a tiny high school garage band could use to great effect. The music industry is changing rapidly, and RootMusic will be there to lead the charge. To think that I've been fortunate enough to land a role at such a company just blows my mind, and I can't wait to spend many years with these great people and go onto this next chapter in my life journey.

This new job is going to be stressful, it's going to be really hard, and it's definitely going to be intense. But I'm really looking forward to a very rewarding experience, and I can't wait to make an impact on how Community Management is done in the music industry. This is very much like a dream job, a dream that I started to formulate recently as I prepared to meet Tom Delonge from Blink-182 and came up with a pitch to him/his manager for reasons they should hire me as their Social Media Manager. They didn't end up calling me back, but the important part was that it got my wheels turning in my head, and it got me to where I am today.

Today is a great day. I can't wait for tomorrow.

In January I made a post about new New Year's Resolutions, and while I haven't done some of them, I can actually cross most of the resolutions of my list. The one resolution that I'm most excited about and feel like I've successfully kicked the shit out of is "Go to More Concerts".  This year I've gone to Coachella, Outside Lands, seen Best Coast/Wavves, went to a small Alkaline Trio show, and tomorrow I'll be seeing Blink-182 (from the pit!). Next week I'm going to another Blink-182 show down in Mountain View, and I'm even going to meet Tom Delonge, the guitarist for Blink-182. It's super surreal that I'll get to meet Tom, since he's some what of a hero of mine, so I'm very excited to finally meet him and hopefully tell him how much his bands mean to me. Later this month I'll be going to Treasure Island, a relatively large music festival in San Francisco.

Not to mention a new Blink-182 album came out this week, "Neighborhoods", which is their first album in eight years. I also got my first tattoo, which is a huge guitar that's the length of my left forearm.  2011 has been an amazing year for music and I'm super happy about that.

Coachella

Coachella was an amazing experience. Over three days, I saw some of my  favorite bands: The Strokes, Cut Copy, Arcade Fire, Best Coast, Jimmy Eat World, Kings of Leon, Mumford & Sons, and many more.  While having a great music experience, I also had an amazing human experience with some of the best people I know. I drove down to Coachella with a couple friends from San Francisco, and we stayed in a house together with two of our other friends from SF/Boston. The house had a pool and hot tub, grill, and a really nice kitchen & livingroom. Essentially we would go to awesome concerts all day, come back to a vacation home and hangout in the pool and chill out. It was such an awesome experience and I can't wait to do it again next year with the same group of people.

My Tattoo

On July 2nd I got my first tattoo: My dad's electric guitar that he named "Old Glory". Old Glory is the only guitar that I own that was my dad's, so it has a lot of sentimental value to me and it's something that I hope to keep a hold of forever. I decided to get the tattoo because I felt like this was one of the best ways to pay tribute to my dad, remember his talents and gift as an amazing musician, and symbolize my love for music and love for my dad – all at the same time. I'm very happy with and proud of my tattoo, and I know my dad would be too.

Outside Lands

In August I went to San Francisco's Outside Lands, a three day festival in Golden Gate Park. Not only is the music lineup stellar, but the park is a beautiful setting for a three day outdoor music fest. Joy Formidable (pictured) blew me away with their fantastic sound and fun stage presence, and Muse once against melted my face with one of the best performances I've ever seen. Arcade Fire, Phantogram, The Black Keys, Best Coast, and John Fogerty all put on great shows too.

Next Up?

Tomorrow I drive all the way up past Sacramento to see Blink-182 from the pit. I'm excited to see these guys live for the seventh time, and the first time in over two years. Then on Wednesday next week I'll see Blink in Mountain View, and meet Tom Delonge as a part of his 'Keep a Breast' fundraiser. I'm excited to get the chance to meet the guitarist/vocalist for my all-time favorite band, and I hope to get a minute to tell him how much his band means to me and how much they've changed/shaped my life.

I've got a couple more shows coming up…I'm seeing the Crocodiles and Dum Dum Girls in a few days, going to Treasure Island Music Festival in a couple weeks to see Death from Above 1979 and Cut Copy, and in November I'm going to see New Found Glory.  Tons of concerts!

All in all, I think I've spent at least a couple grand on music this year…but it has been money well spent. Music has transformed my life and has been a central pillar of my life since birth. I've started to think a lot more about music, the music industry, and I hope to work in the music industry some day. I think there is a huge opportunity to take what I do for game companies and bring that to a music company or band…and that has me very excited for the future of social media, community management, and above all else, music.

Last Sunday the Grammy’s were on and I imagined to catch them..pretty much by accident.  About a half hour before the Grammy’s started I was checking out Twitter Search to see what people were talking about for the hashtag #Grammys. Luck would have it that I saw someone mention something about how Blink 182 was presenting an award…their first time together publically as a group in almost 5 years.  I had to watch.

Blink 182 is my favorite band of all time.  They may not be the best musicians in the world, write the best songs, etc…but I love em.  I’ve seen Blink about five times live and each time it was fantastic, I own all their albums, their biography, and their two documentaries they’ve put out.  Needless to say I’m a huge fan

Welp…last week Blink 182 announced live on the Grammy’s that they are back together AND recording a new album and getting ready to tour this summer.  I’m super excited to hear what their new album will be like, especially after all the hardship that Travis Barker (Drummer, almost died in a plane crash back in Sept) has been through.  Blink’s last album was a huge changed but a loved it, along with the 3 albums that were created by the Blink 182 offshoot bands once they broke up in 2005.

I’ll have their album the first day and I *have* to see them when they tour this summer.  Even if it means flying somewhere to make sure that happens.  It’s gotta happen!

Some related links that I’d like to pass on since I’m talking about music:

Last.fm -A neat music website that tracks all your music through player plugins and allows you to discover new music and new people.  I like it quite a bit..and it shares a lot of similarities with what we’re doing at work which is also pretty cool   You can check out my profile here: http://www.last.fm/user/qforq

AbsolutePunk.net – Arguably the best source of news for Alternative Rock bands.  This is basically what Joystiq/Kotaku would be if they were about music.  AbsolutePunk is a fantastic website that I’ve been going to for about 6-7 yrs now and I suggest that you check it out if you’re into alternative rock groups.  You can find the Blink 182 news page here

Well I’m all moved in, I’ve got my own internet and cable setup from RCN and I’ve been enjoying my new TV.  The move itself went fine and only took a couple hours and about 3 car trips – so not bad at all.

I got pretty bored Sunday and Monday because I had no cable or internet connection but the cable installer guy finally came in the afternoon on Monday to setup my internet and cable.  This guy was a nice Boston normal guy…but obviously was just trained to do that trade and wasn’t super in to the internets or how things worked.  I was amazed when I used the acronym "ISP" and my internet service provider installer asked me "What does ‘ISP’ mean?".  He also had no idea that Comcast screws with your internet connection and blocks certain ports (ports for torrents for example).  I don’t think he even knew what a port was.  Oh well, he was cool and hooked up my stuff and it works.  Thank you, Mr. RCN dude.

For my gaming update, I’m currently heavily addicted to my Xbox 360(especially now since I have a big HD plasma screen to enjoy it on) and playing Grand Theft Auto IV quite a bit.  I think I’m about 70% done with the storyline in the game.  I’ve also been playing a lot more Rock Band lately, mostly because we bought Rock Band for the office and the developers of the game are right across the street from us.  I went from being okay at playing songs on medium on guitar to now being able to play pretty much every song on hard.  I’ve also noticed a decent improvement in my drum skills in the game, which I’m happy about since I’ve always loved drums and used to play drums when I was a kid.  The downloadable content for Rock Band continues to be awesome and I’m currently addicted to songs from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Muse and the one Angels and Airwaves song in the game.   All the Small Things by Blink-182 is also in the game, which I bought and it’s fun to play, but the song is so overplayed to me I’d have a lot more fun if it was a song like "Always", "Josie",  "Dammit" or maybe "Rock Show".  Whats my Age Again would probably be more fun that All the Small Things.

Oh well, it’s Blink and they’re my favorite band so I can’t complain too much

Current Music Addictions:  Muse, Tegan and Sara, and Spoon.

That’s about it!  Have a great rest of the week and enjoy the fast approaching weekend(already!).