Interests include (but are not limited to) music, movies, art, walking around the city...enjoying LIFE!
Music
Currently in heavy rotation on my ipod: The Beatles, Bedlam, the break & repair method, Jackson Browne, Jimmy Buffett, Tai Burnette, Guy Clark, Lloyd Cole, Crowded House, Miles Davis, EMPYR, Alejandro Escovedo, Al Green, Gil Scott Heron, John Hiatt, The Hold Steady, Buddy Holly, Hunters & Collectors, Walter Hyatt, Zaki Ibrahim, Gregory Isaacs, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Jay Joyce (R.I.P. Maxwell), KaiserCartel, Matt Keating, Alison Krauss, Little Feat, Lyle Lovett, Paul McCartney, Bob Marley, Willie Nelson, Patty Hurst Shifter, Tom Petty, David Poe, The Police, The Priests, R.E.M., Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson, Carrie Rodriguez, The Rolling Stones, Romantica, Schuburt, Guy Sebastian, She & Him, Paul Simon, J. Chris Smith, Southside Johnny, Bruce Springsteen, Talking Heads, Ben Taylor, James Taylor, Teddy Thompson, U2, Townes van Zandt, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder, etc. (adding & sometimes subtracting - all the time)
Movies
A River Runs Through It, Across The Universe, Amelie, Big Fish, Days Of Heaven, Fandango, Field Of Dreams, Groundhog Day, It's A Wonderful Life, Kill Bill, Sin City, Unusual Suspects, Waking Life, Wings Of Desire... Want to see more films in 2009!!!
Television
Arrested Development (just discovered, how did i miss it?), Daily Show, Entourage, George Lopez, Grey's Anatomy, NSCI, Rachel Maddow, The Sopranos (RIP), The West Wing (RIP)
Books
Reading Ball Four by Jim Bouton right now. Hey, it's v=baseball season! ok, ok - a partcial list: The Collected Poems (Carl Sanburg); The Collected Poems (Yevgeny Yevtshenko); The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand); Gandhi's Truth (Erik Erikson); Letters To a Young Poet (Rainer Maria Rilke); 100 Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez); The Prince of Tides (Pat Conroy); Shoeless Joe (W.P. Kinsella); Short Stories (Langston Hughes); Spoon River Anthology (Edgar Lee Masters); Stories and Legends (Leo Tolstoy); Story People (Brian Andreas); The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (Sogyal Rinpoche); Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (Pablo Neruda); Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson); Winters' Tale (Mark Helprin); The World Is A Room (Amichai), will add to this list later...
Heroes
see - who i'd like to meet. add my parents (happens once you've become one).
marketing & artist development for SIN (Sony music Independent Network). artist management for mood indigo ent. (clients include: Carrie Rodriguez, KaiserCartel, Patty Hurst Shifter, and Tai Burnette).
john's Companies
mood indigo entertainment New York, NY US president/owner artist management
sept 2005 - present
Sony Music New York, NY US Marketing Manager SIN - Sony music Independent Network
About me: i'm a music industry weasel. i work for SIN (yes, I don't make this stuff up) - Sony music Independent Network. i also have my own small artist management company - mood indigo entertainment, which i maintain at the same time. i have somehow managed to only work with genuine REAL people on the business side (for the most part) and people who's music I LOVE (on the artist side). so I'm pretty damn lucky professionally. hoping to continue that positive trend and face the challenges ahead with grace.
i'm also STILL striving to have a personal life (but, gettiing better at it)...
i have a son (aka a mini me) who is in 7th grade & is now a straight A student (go Brenman)! he lives with me half the time - so there's a lot of juggling of schedules/life. he's a lotta fun to hang out with 99.8% of the time. that .2 % is usually when he's rebelling against me being parental. he's a good kid - it's his job to push boundaries on occassion - keep me honest. i have to become better about making sure he does his homework - give him a bit more structure. on it. we live in harlem now - we moved from brooklyn last year (i hope to be un-packed and all moved in before our year anniversary, ugh). had to move closer to his school to make life work better. it does, i just didn't forcast a major loss of income when i took the leap into higher rent. but, i'll manage - always do...
i want more poetry in my life. want to be healthier - get in better shape (across the board) - find balance. i tend to drift towards extremes. not always a bad thing, not always a good. again, trying for/struggling with - balance...
i have great friends and people in my life i truly love & care about who (for the most part) are supportive of my various quests. sadly, most of them are scattered about the country - but that makes traveling all the more fun. plus, everyone seems to come to NYC every now and then (thank god). the people i'm close to - we catch up where we left off in mere minutes. that's kinda nice...
anyway, i'm working on trying to figure out how to make my personal life work better. under the illusion that once that happens everything else will be better too. work stuff will creep in alot just cause that's the nature of what i do - but, the personal stuff will never again be on the back burner. learning that if i don't take care of me i kinda suck for others. simple lesson i've finally learned (a little late, i know)...
still struggling with the death of my Pops at the end of February. We didn't always get along but i loved him and never imagined i'd feel this rudderless with him not around. after a week of packing up his house i raced back to NYC to keep my job, then dove into SXSW, then job & Shorty and i feel like i'm not through grieving. Guessing this Summer when Bren's away at camp - there will be time for that? Or maybe it's just a process, cause I seem to be mopey about it alot these days.
Today, moving office stuff from old to new. Very exciting. Probably will do some bills and catch up on the pile of magazines before dad duty kicks in. Also have to get a new alarm clock. The other one was killed by Shorty (he claims by me). CONFLICT! Went to Rabbi Gary's 25th Rabbinical (sp?) service last night. He's a rematkable guy, had to support. Was nice but too long. I wanted to hear him speak, instead was almost an all music program. I love music, but sometimes need words. Got two haiku's out of it. One is in the headline. The other: the deep blues & greens of stained glass reminded him of the sea. Eh, they just came & are what they are. Anyway, hi ho hi ho...off to work i go...
that's me (and my world) as of this writing (05/02/09), from Harlem (USA).
Who I'd like to meet: Louis Armstrong, Paul Blackburn, Bono, The Budda, Christ, Pat Conroy, Phil Cousineau, Dalia Lama, Miles Davis, Gandhi, Spaulding Gray, Mark Helprin, Langston Hughes, Gregory Isaacs, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Bob Marley, Willie Nelson, Pablo Neruda, Barak Obama, Carl Sandburg, Gil Scott Heron, Bruce Springsteen, William Carlos Williams...
hey my nyc area friend, just letting you know that my show for saturday in the nyc area on July 4th 2009 will be canceled due to the venue not promoting me properly in their areas of promotion, and I am about 2 days drive away from NYC and my manager is very picky aboput everything being perfect, so nothing is going right, and the show has been canceled, do not fret tho I will have a show in the area one way or another and very soon,
thank you and i hope i have not inconvenienced you too much, mad love your musical friend A aka Sm
