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This is in response to Jack’s posting.

I haven’t travelled or lived as long as Jack (sorry Jack), so I don’t have multitudes of memories for many, but here it goes. These are places that stick in my mind because of the music I heard there. Not chronological and maybe not all venues.

The Wiltern: Patti Smith (1996), Natalie Merchant (1995), Sigur Ros, Travis, Wilco, The Decemberists, Green Day. I think my favorite venue.

The Artist Lounge, WBR – The White Stripes, Neil Young, R.E.M., Randy Newman. I sat in here, cross legged next to Jack White listening to Icky Thump.

Blackbird Studio, Nashville, TN – Last year I went and heard the last R.E.M. record for the first time in the fall. The entire band sitting behind me as I was in the producers seat listening, eyes drilling into my neck it felt like.

The Armory Studio, Vancouver – Three of us from WBR went up to hear Accelerate (before it had a name, this was just as they started recording). We were I think in our hearts, scared to death since this record was following up Around the Sun. What if it sucked? What if what we heard sucked the life out of the room? What would we say?

We all three sat in Aeron chairs facing the studio monitors as Jacknife Lee queued up “Living Well is the Best Revenge” full blast, in early demo form. We all three pulled out our iPhones and/or Blackberry’s and texted Michael, who was in Georgia.

Peter Buck’s condo – the first time I heard most of Accelerate, before the band headed to Dublin.

The Showbox, Seattle, WA – one of the most emotionally stirring performances I’ve ever seen: Patti Smith.

Jones Beach, NY – The first time I had an after-show pass. Patti Smith was there and I got to finally meet her.

The Casbah, San Diego – I spent the day with the Minus 5 taking photographs (700 frames, which became my final project in college). Also saw the Decemberists there opening for someone else, playing to maybe 20 people.

The 40 Watt Club, Athens, GA – I lit a couch on fire.

This has been an awful few weeks for facing the finality of what we idolize and hold dear as heroes.

Two weeks ago three guys who meant a huge amount to me called it a day.

And today the day was called, too early, for another who helped shape who I came to be through his contributions to the world.

Farewell Steve Jobs.

I have a lot of R.E.M. stories, most of which I can tell in some version or another. They might be interesting, they might not be, but I’ll get around to telling some of them on this blog. 16 years is a long time to have worked with people you idolize, and I experienced the whole “Almost Famous” thing from beginning to end really.

Anyhow, stories forthcoming, read if you wish.

Today REM called it a day. I’ve known the day was coming for a bit in my heart. I’ll remain friends with everyone in the REM family and wish everyone the best. I owe them all more than I can ever express. The last 16 years of working with them has been an honor.

Not much more I can say.

If you are a fan or if any way effected by the band, leave your thoughts at Thank You REM

I remember when I was about 10 years old playing this video (from Tourfilm) on VHS over and over again. Everything about this clip was amazing: the Gang of Four a cappella at the beginning, the chair, the compiling of clips from other nights, Jim McKay’s direction. The weariness in Stipe’s eyes (this was recorded at the end of a year long tour) and the imitation/tribute to John King (from Gang of Four).

It was a mystery on every level. I remember summer nights, window open to the sounds of coyotes in the neighborhood and everyone but me sleeping as I watched this.

Every person I know in the music business has a story like this though. Mine is not unique. And I’d wager everyone in any business that involves some sort of passion (gaming, movies, startups, etc) has a story like this. In a year or two, it’ll be seeing the Social Network. Maybe people were inspired by Microserfs, or a video game, or something else.

What drives us is trying to achieve the promise of the mystery.

As much as I’ve done, I’ve not achieved that. Nor do I ever want to.

And that is my thought on another summer night.

Last night at an event I had to introduce myself to a few people and as I’ve been doing since I left WMG, it goes something like:

“I worked as the head of technology at Warner Bros. Records and Warner Music Group until I left in January”

That is a pedigree origin story.

A friend who I was with admonished me however: “Tell the real story!”

Now, the real story I’ve always been a bit embarrassed by, and proud of.

“I ran a fan site for R.E.M. since I was 16, and started working at their label in 2005.”

That is the passion origin story.

This begs the question: what matters most, pedigree or passion? Is it better to be defined by what you did, or why you did it?

I don’t have the answer to that.

But I suppose I’ll have to get used to answering the question of “what do you do?” with “well, when I was 16, I was really bored one evening….”

I just got back from a trip to New York City (and surrounding areas) with my family, and as a part of this trip we had a rather convoluted travel/transport situation to get into the city after some time on Long Island.

Long story short: we landed at JFK, got a rental car for some things on Long Island and in New Jersey before heading into the city. To coordinate this, we were going to drop off the car at Newark and get a car service into the city.

Since FoundersCard has a discount for LimoRes, and Uber doesn’t have many cars in the area (and we needed a toddler seat), I decided to use LimoRes to book the car.

We had booked the car for pickup at 4:50PM. The car arrived 30 minutes early (which was great), but without a car seat. This was not ideal. I had explicitly called the dispatcher to ensure that we had a car seat provided. Being that LimoRes dispatch is in New York City, and Pride was going on this day, the driver warned us it would take him over an hour to go get the car seat.

We waited and waited, and I called to find out status. The driver ended up having to stop at a Target in NJ to get a car seat. He came back, we (four adults and one two year old) loaded into the car and were off out of the pit of hell that is Newark.

As we left, we were happy to finally be going into the city. We were with my wife’s brother and his girlfriend who were leaving the next day, so they were anxious to get into the city. Right as we left, right about here, we get a flat. The driver pulls over and we stop.

If you look at the map, you can see we are now blocking one lane on a two way onramp, right at a split, around a blind corner. Cars are zooming past.

The driver takes all our luggage out and puts it on the side of the road. I ask him to call for another car, but he thinks he can change the spare. I advise him that a car falling on his passengers is probably not covered under his liability insurance.

So now our luggage is on the side of the road, drivers are speeding past and honking. I get out of the car to see if I can at least keep him from throwing our bags down only to get a lit cigarette thrown at my head. At this point I call LimoRes dispatch and they advise me that no cars are in the area.

A taxi cab (non yellow cab) shows up and offers to take us into the city for 80 bucks, but they didn’t have room for all of us. I send away my brother-in-law and his girlfriend. Meanwhile I’m contemplating hailing another cab and buying the toddler seat from the driver.

The driver does not know how to lower the spare tire, so I help and get it to lower a bit. At this point two police cars show up to divert traffic with flares. They also call a tow truck. That tow truck calls another tow truck as they don’t know how to change the tires on this car. As it turns out the spare is flat and stuck.

It is now 45 minutes since we broke down and my wife and son are getting upset in the car.

The police are getting impatient by this time and insisting that the driver get his car towed. I am now getting furious and calling LimoRes dispatch and screaming that we need another driver.

Right as they are starting to lift the car we’re in, another suburban shows up to take us into the city and LimoRes advises us that we won’t be charged for this one. The driver is understandably upset at a 0 dollar fare but at least its a car and moving.

We end up getting into the city two hours later than planned.

So to summarize:

• Do not ever use LimoRes
• LimoRes does not consider the fact that a two year old + family are stuck at the side of a busy offramp cause for concern
• We received no follow up after this incident.

Charles Fraas who just took over LimoRes as CEO on 4/1/11 and Seth Lasser who is their new CMO as of the first of June should know what drivers and their employees are doing in the name of their company. FoundersCard should immediately remove them from their vendors.

From now on, I’ll associate this company with lit cigarettes thrown at my head, an incompetent driver, dismissive dispatch, a police officer who offered to yell at dispatch for me and a crying two year old on the side of the freeway in New Jersey.

For the record: we used Legends Limousine on the way out of the city and they were really good.