Jason O’Grady’s Blog

Last year, on my birthday, I posted a blog entry about the significance of the date June 6, 2006. Anyone who’s a fan of horror movies knows that 6/6/6 is associated with the horror movie “The Omen” from 1976.

Twentieth Century Fox released a remake of the 1976 horror classic “The Omen 666” (2006) (trailer, IMBD) on June 6, 2006. In their marketing of the film Twentieth Century Fox posted “6/6/6″ billboards for the film everywhere.

My wife threw a bowling party in Philly for my birthday and I had some fun telling people that the billboards were for my party Kinda fun…

It should also be noted that 06 June 1944 is also known as D-Day comemmorating the Battle of Normandy during World War II. My grandfather was a seaman on a British ship that was present at the battle of Normandy so this date in history is near and dear to me.

The Battle of Normandy was fought in 1944 between the German forces occupying Western Europe and the invading Allied forces as part of the larger conflict of World War II. Over sixty years later, the Normandy invasion, codenamed Operation Overlord, still remains the largest seaborne invasion in history, involving almost three million troops crossing the English Channel from England to Normandy in then German-occupied France.

The majority of the Allied forces were composed of American, British, Canadian, and French units. Other countries including Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Poland also took a major part.

The Normandy invasion began with overnight airborne paratrooper and glider landings, massive air attacks and naval bombardments, and an early morning amphibious assault on June 6, “D-Day”. The battle for Normandy continued for more than two months, with campaigns to establish, expand, and eventually break out of the Allied beachheads. It concluded with the liberation of Paris and the fall of the Falaise Pocket.

Update: For anyone who misinterpreted this post as something that it’s not, shame on you. Perhaps you should educate yourself on blogging before jumping to irrational conclusions. It’s embarrassing that you have to be so petty as to point to a innocuous, humorous blog post about my birthday in an attempt to discredit me. Keep reading guys…

Pearl Jam is definitely one of my favorite bands and they’re playing tomorrow on Saturday Night Live. I was super-jazzed to get a phone call from my cousin today inviting me to attend the SNL dress rehersal in NYC tomorrow night! I’m looking forward to seeing PJ on Memorial Day weekend in Camden, NJ on May 27 then in East Rutherford, NJ on June 1 and June 3. See you on tour!

Reminds of this funny suprise appearance that Eddie did on Letterman a while back:

Winter Music Conference is hands-down, one of my favorite events of the year. It’s a dance music festival in Miami, just at time when you’re totally sick of the winter (at least up here in the northeast.) It forces you to get in shape for the summer early and dance your ass off in the nice weather. Everyone is dressed to the nines and the beaches, bars and clubs are all on their top game.

Following is some of our coverage of WMC for various outlets. Image galleries to come….

- WMC06: Ultra Music Festival in Miami (Create Digital Music)

- Carry-On 2006 (UMF After Party) (JBLOG)

- WMC06 Session: FinalScratch 2/Traktor (PowerPage)

- WMC06 Session: Audio Lab - Ableton Live (PowerPage)

- WMC06 Session: Dance Music on Radio (JBLOG)

Contributed by: DJ Eldorado

Miami - After the amazing Ultra Music Festival here an after party was held at the American Airlines Airlines arena that did not disappoint. After not being sure that I would be able to stay awake after rocking the all-day UMF event at Bayside Park, I was pleasantly surprised by the show dubbed “Carry-On.”

Carry On is billed as the official UMF8 after party and the lineup included James Zabiela, Sandra Collins & Vello Virkhaus, The Orb, Danny Tenaglia and Rabbit in the Moon.

We went early to the American Airlines Arena area to scout tickets (10:30 pm as opposed to after midnight last year) and what a difference that made. Last year a throng of partygoers descended upon the ticket windows and long lines prevailed. It took us over an hour to get in. This year getting our tickets early (at the expense of missing some of Paul Van Dyk’s set) proved prescient.

James Zabiela, Sandra Collins & Vello Virkhaus were on the verge of putting us to sleep. The Orb was better, but lacked the real thump to get the crowd moving. When New York-based Danny Tenaglia took the stage, they turned off the obnoxious pixel boards ads around the perimeter of the arena and bathed the room with deep purple lights. Danny tore through an energetic progressive house set that got heads bouncing and whipped the crowd into a crazy dancing frenzy.

Rabbit in the Moon was completely over the top with a set packed with slammin’ beats and high tech performance art and costumed performers. One guy came out dressed like a crazy Transformer wielding a massive gun that shot sparks, then a mad professor in a lab coat came out, then Transformer-man was back wearing an amazing suit built of LEDs that were changing colors and patterns. It was as if he had a giant pixel board wrapped around his body! Later two Chinese dragons came out on stage to the sound of some pretty trippy trance/house jams.

What a show. I have a new found respect for Danny Tenaglia and Rabbit In The Moon - especially since I almost didn’t make it to their sets.

One of the best sessions at Winter Music Conference 2006 was about what the future holds for dance music on the public airwaves, titled “Dance Music on the Radio?”

The star-studded panel of industry veterans, included Micheal Spinella of AOL Radio, Skyy - the Program Director at XM Radio’s BPM dance station, amongst other traditional media people. A number of salient points were made on what makes a great record and how to get dance music played on regular radio and how to sustain a record. Michelle Southern, one of the few female Program Directors in the country, made the point to really consider your audience. This is two-fold in that you should consider the audience of the busy Program Director, who would prefer to hear a variety of radio edits, over a longer composition of music. And, in the case of tradional radio, the station is geared to an audience segment and the music has to fit that segment.

Michelle and her sidekick, John McQueen have the advantage in the New Orleans market of having more than one station to try out new music. Skyy of XM Radio, a medium that is more liberal in the music that can be played, looks for emotion passion, and a great hook in a song or record. Carillo of KNRJ Radio looks to mix shows and clubs for direct feedback on what works and what dance songs may make the crossover to terrestrial radio. Spinella of AOL Music, which has numerous stations in the Dance and Electronica category, said that good production is essential and identifying a great record is about gut instict and research. What about promoting dance records to regular radio stations? The idea is to walk the fine line between persistence and being a pest. Lucas Prada and his promotion of the dance hit, And She Said, is a good example.

He has worked hard to build relationships with program directors, as well as taking the time to talk with the key people who can get his music played. Also, he made sure that the radio edit got produced. Kelly Rowland of Destiny’s Child was one of the conference attendees that took part in the Q and A, using the time to plug her new songs coming out in the dance category. Yet another attendee asked about the future of Regeaton, a latin-influced genre of dance. Last, a gentleman with an album that blends live guitar and a heavy metal sound with electronically composed music stood up to ask about its place on the radio. The panel concluded that dance music has a place on the radio, and Carillo emphasized that one of the most exciting things is that there is not just one formula for a dance song, there is room for variety and creativity.

Contributed by: Liz Dreisacker

Although I had every reason not to go out (sunburn, tired from yardwork, school night, etc.) I decided to make the short trip to the House of Blues in Atlantic City to catch The Pretenders show last night.

From the Press of AC’s “Sassy and full of energy Hynde, Pretenders still have what it takes“:

When she wasn’t leading her four-man band through kicking versions of the band’s ’80s hits, she was poking fun at her fans, dissing the band’s soon-to-be-released boxed set (“the dregs”) and dedicating a song to two late bandmates (“They couldn’t be here tonight. Because they’re dead,” she cracked).

“It’s good to see so many old fans in the audience,” she said early on, surveying the crowd. “It’s sad, but it’s good.”

(Warning: The Press charges for articles after 30 days)

Chrissie Hynde also commented that she couldn’t be bothered with writing new songs, “it’s a pain in the ass.” Although we (purposefully) missed the beginning of the show both encores were strong, with “Back on the Chain Gang,” “Fools Must Die,” “Cuban Slide” and “Porcelain” in the first and “Precious,” “Don’t Get Me Wrong” and “Mystery Achievement.”

The Pretenders are promoting their Loose Screw album, which is now in stores.

I should start out by saying that I used to be a huge fan of The Sopranos, but I’ve kinda fallen off the bandwagon because the last two years plotlines have been kinda lame and the character development has pretty much been stillborn. The only interesting part of the last season was the pressure on Andrean to dime out the family to the FBI. Other than that, I could care less.

It also irks me that The Sopranos need to take a TWO YEAR hiatus. What’s that about? I’m sorry but I totally lost interest in the show in the past two years, and I’ve moved on.

That said, I’m not a total hypocrit either. I watched last night’s premiere episode of the final “full” season of the show, just in case someone wanted to talk about it around the water cooler.

I need to digest the show a little more but was anyone else suprised at the gross amount of product placement in the new season? What, did James Gandolfini ask for THAT much of a raise? (No wonder they’re trying to kill him off!)

I’m surely missing some but here are some of the product placements on last night’s episode:

- Eating food from Stewart’s at Bada Bing
- The Philips TV at Junior’s
- The Brianna Loves Jenna movie poster in the Bing
- Tony’s Cingular RAZR phone
- David Yurman watches
- Carmella’s Porsche Cayenne

Yuck! No thanks.
I’ll stick to 24, thank you.