Archive for the ‘Videos’ Category

By Joe Klein

Today, in an email sent out to fans that signed up a few weeks ago to hear the first new Jackson 5 track from the upcoming release “I Want You Back! Unreleased Maters,” Motown Records announced that four more tracks were available for “preview” online.

This brings a total of five tracks now unveiled to the public, of a total of twelve that are on the new album, which will be released on November 10. The project is being produced and marketed by UNIVERSAL MUSIC ENTERPRISES, the division of the Universal Music Group that is responsible for repackaging and marketing of most of UMG’s back catalog product, including the Motown label.

In an exclusive story we broke online back in mid-September (weeks before the “official” press release about the new album), and in a subsequent article we posted online, we wrote about our friend Russ Terrana, the engineer who mixed these newly-discovered “lost tracks” of the Jackson 5 over a month-long period from the end of August until the end of September.

(***UPDATED 10/23/09*** A press release about the new J5 songs was issued by UME and hit the wires early today and appeared on the Reuters news service a short time later.)

We also published three blog posts about the project here on our own company blog over the last month. In those articles, we mentioned how Russ worked tirelessly and diligently in a state-of the-art digital recording facility in Scots Valley, California called ROCKER STUDIOS, owned by his good friend, RICK VIERRA. Russ and Rick employed a battery of digital tools and tricks to bring the 40 year-old analog audio master tapes back to life and recreate the very same sounds Russ achieved when mixing the original Jackson 5 hits forty years ago! The result is a collection of tracks that sound like clean, digitally re-mastered versions of J5 songs recorded and mixed back in 1970. But these tracks were, in fact, mixed down just last month!

Recreating the classic Motown “sound of the sixties” with such precision and accuracy is most definitely a feat to be marveled at, deserving of praise from the most experienced recording engineers, pop music historians and fans alike. That it was accomplished on the earliest recordings of the legendary Jackson brothers makes these new recordings that much more notable.

Of the tracks just made public, the song I’LL TRY YOU’LL TRY (MAYBE WE’LL ALL GET BY) is particularly worth a listen, as it features a truly “classic” Motown style and sound, eerily reminiscent of hits like I CAN’T GET NEXT TO YOU by The Temptations and the version of I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE recorded by Gladys Knight and The Pips. Russ mixed both of these classics as well back in the old Detroit Motown studios (before Motown moved their entire label operations and studios out to Hollywood in the early seventies).

Check out the sound of these two late sixties chart-toppers in the videos below, then listen to the new Jackson 5 track “I’ll Try You’ll Try” and you’ll hear the similarities! Of course the new J5 mixes perfectly emulate the sound of the early Jackson 5 hits. But by listening to these two other tracks, it becomes clear how Russ really did achieve a signature “Motown Sound” that carried over between artists and evolved through the years. The audio style and textures Russ molded in the sixties, seventies and eighties really did influence recorded pop music in many ways that few appreciate to this day!

You can hear the four new J5 tracks mixed by Russ online now, by clicking on the photo of the group at the top of this post, or click here to be taken directly to the page where you can preview the four new tracks and order the new album online.

As Motown’s chief recording engineer for over twenty years (up until the very end of Berry Gordy’s ownership of the label), Russ is credited for having mixed and recorded no less than an incredible 89 number one hit singles, hundreds of additional charted singles and many hundreds (if not thousands) more tracks from hundreds more Motown albums. This is a feat unequaled by any other pop music recording engineer in history, making Russ a true “living legend” in the history of pop music!

All of us at New Media Creative take our collective hats off to Russ Terrana! We plan to release an extensive follow-up article (or two) about about our gifted, old friend to coincide with the release of the new Jackson 5 album on November 10. So do stand by for that.

RUSS TERRANA AND RICK VIERRA IN ROCKER STUDIOS

Meanwhile, coming up next on the company blog, extensive coverage and commentary about last week’s Blogworld and New Media Expo and all the big new media and social networking news to emerge from that conference and the just-ended Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco. There’s so much to report that it’s taken us a couple of days just to gather all the information! Now that we’ve taken it all in, we’ll try to boil it all and make sense of it all here on the company blog over the next several days. As always, STAY TUNED!

For the last sevaral weeks, we’ve been preoccupied with matters of health and matters of state. Dealing with bouts of on and off again illnesses and making constant adjustments to the much changed economy along as well as an ever changing business climate has pre-empted our blogging efforts recently. But, finally, having caught our breath we’re pretty back on track and marching forward once again!

Looking back over the first couple of months of the year, we start with a final recap of our crazy trip to the Bay Area and Las Vegas for the a series of trade shows and conferences. We previously offered up our overview of the MacWorld Expo, Consumer Electronics Show, Social Media Jungle and WordCamp Las Vegas. Our two weeks in the Bay Area and Vegas culminated with our attending AFFILIATE SUMMIT WEST, a great conference targeting those making (or wanting to make) gobs o’cash online with affiliate marketing, blog marketing, social media marketing and other forms online monetization. Even with economy spiraling downward at the beginning of the year, strategies to enhance online marketing efforts have emerged as the true bright spots in an otherwise dismal economy. In fact, attending Affiliate Summit, you’d never guess we were near the bottom of a serious recession.

There was a lot of valuable information at several of the conference’s breakout sessions. The first day’s “Meet Market” and then the “official” exhibits during the second and third days of the event were literally abuzz with the chatter of internet commerce and online profits. Monetization was the overwhelming keyword of the whole event and the scent of money was definitely in the air, literally. In fact, one company, had one of those “grab for cash booths” filled with paper bills and a big fan and let lines of people in to grab as much dough as they could in thirty seconds and one of the event’s organizers, MISSY WARD, was handing out her own customized hundred dollar bills!

New Media Creative associate Brett Bumeter and and I did some intensive networking, made some great new contacts and laid the groundwork for a number of new deals and campaigns. Hats off to organizer Summit organizer SHAWN COLLINS and his team for staging their latest very successful event, which was attended by nearly 3,500 people, with hundreds of exhibitors from the wide world of affiliate marketing.

Of course there were a few more posh parties on Sunday and Monday night at a few of the strip’s hot cubs. including the Moon at the Palms and the Voodoo Lounge at the Venetian Hotel. Probably the wildest was thrown at an established Las Vegas “party mansion” in the middle of the city (off the strip by a few miles) and came complete with the obligatory bare breasted beauties!

Here is a cool little video recap of Affiliate Summit West 2009 in Las Vegas…..

 Here are a few photos from January’s event……

GARY VAYNERCHEK AND JIM KUKRAL	JOEL COMM

BRETT AND TED MURPHY PARTY WITH THE IZEA INSIDERS	JOE AND WARREN WHITLOCK

JOE WITH IZEA INSIDERS	BRETT WITH THE INSIDERS

SHAWN COLLINS ON THE TRIKE	MISSY WARD TAKES A SPILL

MISSY WARD AND JOE	JOE, SHAWN COLLINS AND BRETT

Our trip to San Francisco and Vegas (plus a few additional stops on the way made the start of the year truly memorable.

In the couple of months since, we’ve experienced so much…….the inauguration of our new president, the Super Bowl, a new season of American Idol and the ongoing evolution of new media, social networking and affilitate marketing. There have already been several smaller new media conferences and meet-ups during February and March, culminating over the last couple of weeks with the always awesome and massive South By Southwest gathering in Austin, Texas. We couldn’t make it to SXSW this year but, thanks to the current presence and prevalence of Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, UStream, Qik, Brightkite and a few other social media services, we feel like we we’ve been in the middle of it all! Many sessions and some of the hottest parties streamed live online as they were happening, and we even chatted with some of our friends in attendance as they stepped up to the cameras. Being able to experience events as they happen and even interact with those there is a rich and rewarding new media experience to be sure.

We’ll be doing a bit of travelling over the next week or two and, no, we don’t plan to do any live streaming ourselves as we move about, but we’ll be back with more commentary and observations about this very eventful first quarter of the year. Of course, our blog will also have news about upcoming events and projects for New Media Creative.

We really do hope to blog and, yes, even tweet more often in the coming weeks and months, as this should be a most interesting year to be sure!

So, here is our promised (but inexcusably late) recap of the party scene from our vantage point during the week of the CES last month in Las Vegas…..Again, better late than never!

The CES parties blasted off at full throttle on Thursday night, shortly after New Media Creative’s JOE KLEIN, BRETT BUMETER and party partner, Rock And Roll Geek MICHAEL BUTLER, teamed up in Sin City. First was the annual CES SHOWSTOPPERS show floor and buffet at the WYNN HOTEL, which we dropped in on for a quick go-around, and the G4TV Best Of The Best Of CES Awards Ceremony, which we did not have a chance to attend. (G4TV did air a video recap of the event, which can no longer be accessed from the G4TV sight. But the clip is archived here.)

Here are a couple of shots of SHOWSTOPPERS…..

After ShowStoppers, we headed the few blocks up the strip to the PALAZZO HOTEL for a very nice dinner and drinks shindig thrown by the folks from IBM and LENOVO. Great food and drinks. Then it was on to the INTEL CES KICKOFF PARTY party in the Palazzo’s Sportsbook Bar and Grill. This was a pretty wild bash to be sure, co-hosted by ZAPPOS.COM, BRIAN SOLIS, SARAH LACY and FRANK GRUBER. Both events were well attended by a broad contingent of new media glitterati. Since Michael and Joe were already pretty beat from an eight-hour drive from San Francisco, it was nice that both of these parties were within walking distance in the same hotel! Still, after the Intel shindig it was time to call it a night. Two parties on the first night in Vegas, after a very long day, was more than enough!
 
                 JOE, DAVID BERKOWITZ AND BRETT                                      JOE AND JOHN FURRIER

Here are a few shots of the wild and crazy Intel CES kickoff bash…..

 
Friday night In Vegas is always a party night in Vegas. But the Friday night of CES is always the biggest Friday night of the year, and 2009 was no exception, to be sure. There were parties and soirees everywhere, on and off The Strip. One of the cooler “new media” bashes of the evening was the “IT WON’T STAY IN VEGAS” blogapalooza at the infamous ATOMIC TESTING MUSEUM in Vegas. This very cool event was hosted by JASON PRESTON and the PARNASSUS GROUP, along with an impressive list of sponsors. Helping organize the event and creating a healthy dose of buzz was ROBERT SCOBLE (and his very sweet wife Maryam), GARY VAYNERCHUK, and a very large throng of other new and social media notables, movers and shakers.

JOE AND ROBERT SCOBLE	EFREN TOSCANO AND JOE

RICK CALVERT AND JOE	ROBERT SCOBLE AND SARAH LANE

LEVAR BURTON, who is now making waves as a “celebrity tweep” on the red hot social media network TWITTER was on hand for this bash and decided to take on an additional role—that of  celebrity interviewer—by shooting a brief Flip-Cam video of Scoble, himself a fully established celeb in the tech and social media world and long-time “A-list” blogger.

Here is the video clip shot by Levar Burton…..

It was difficult to stay for very long at the evening’s first party, with so many others raving on this Friday night. For starters, there was a great CES party to promote the Blackberry RIM at The Palm Hotel’s great PEARL venue that featured a nice little acoustic set from recording artist JOHN MAYER.

Here is a video clip of Mayer performing “NO SUCH THING” at the event….

Another “A-list” event Friday night was the Dealer Awards Show staged by MONSTER CABLE which included a concert by DIANA ROSS at the PARIS HOTEL.

A video clip of the timeless diva performing “MY WORLD IS EMPTY WITHOUT YOU” at the show….. 

As was expected, there were  too many after-hours shindigs to attend, or even keep track of (with a constant flow of party info streaming on TWITTER during the entire week). Yet another hot ticket on Friday night was a huge party sponsored by INTEL along with P.C. COM at the Luxor Hotel’s LAX club. The highlight of the event was a set by the COUNTING CROWS, who were introduced by model and television personality BROOKE BURKE.

A couple of other noteworthy happenings on Friday evening included the lavish LEADERS IN TECHNOLOGY banquet at the Venetian and a more intimate and subdued affair at Planet Hollywood’s trendy PRIVE club which was sponsored by the internet telephony service SKYPE. Appropriately, Blue Skypetinis were served.

After we hit the expo floors of the CES and the AEE on Saturday, it was time to party the night away in Vegas, baby! The evening was filled with a handful of smaller, more private soirees, but the big event that dominated Saturday night was the wet and wild 26th ANNUAL AVN ADULT MOVIE AWARDS SHOW at the MANDALAY BAY hotel, and the after-party that followed at the Luxor Hotel’s hot night club LAX. Just as the Adult Expo was during the day Saturday, the awards ceremony was crammed full of adult entertainment stars, celebrities and their entourages. Click on the logo below to visit the official awards show site, which includes lists of the nominees and winners as well as a collection of photo galleries.

The private party we attended Saturday night was itself a pretty crazy one at the rented Vegas pad of popular veteran podcasters DAWN MICELI AND DREW DOMKUS. Dawn and her songwriting partner PAUL BLANN performed some very interesting original tunes, which were every bit as “X-Rated” as any of the adult videos at the AEE! It was very cool to attend a relatively small party of old podcaster friends amidst all of the lavish sponsored tech bashes of the past ten days. D&D’s party was reminiscent of the early days of the podcasting phenomenon a few years ago. (In fact, I met New Media Creative associate Brett Bumeter at a Podshow podcasters party at the Podcast and Portable Media Expo in 2006. The alcohol flowed, the music played and the revelry went on for hours, and it was the last CES party we would attend!

Here are a few photos from Dawn and Drew’s get together during their Vegas Vacation…..
  
                     DAWN, JOE AND MICHAEL                                             DREW, JOE AND MICHAEL
 

In our final Vegas recap post, we’ll provide a recap of the very well-attended AFFILIATE SUMMIT WEST which took place at the Rio Hotel. Coming soon!

Here is the recent interview of New Media Creative’s Joe Klein by Chuck Joiner that was just posted on MACVOICES TV. It’s a decent interview where Joe talks about his return to production in the new media realm, his views on new media as well as his take on the convergence of blogs, podcasts and video content.

The interview was shot on the second day of the 2009 MacWorld Expo in the “Podloft” located high above the main exhibit floor of this year’s conference a couple weeks ago.

Click on the play button in the video player below to watch the interview.