But what reviewers tend to miss is that a feature doesn’t have to be particularly useful or functional to inspire curiosity and intrigue. If they brighten up the humdrum experience of using a phone, even superficially and occasionally, that might be enough.
Yesterday, l spent the day with some old friends. Marty Austin and Dan Williford are the guitarists from lxt Adux, a band we took through the early eighties club scene in the search of the elusive record contract.
If you Google the band, you’ll find we have, even still, a following in Italy where we were named one of the premier bands of the eighties on several internet lists. Even though these lists are maintained by someone in their back bedroom, I personally find it a hell of an honor anyone cares that much. And copies of the original vinyl “Brainstorm” album are worth $150/ea if you have them.
We didn’t get the elusive contract because our music was ahead of its time: a kind of a mash up of King Crimson (both phases), Primus and Zappa complete with multiple time signatures and key changes in a time when three power chord hair bands were raking in millions.
Maybe it would have never been the right time, we were so busy perfecting the ideas and the performance we never really stopped to see if people could tap their foot to what we were doing. After all, one reviewer, giving our album four stars (out of five) starts a glowing 2009 review led with: “Los Angeles based Ixt Adux were yet another late 70s / early 80s US band that had absolutely no chance of commercial success.”
Still, it was the most amazing, creative period I’ve ever lived through. For us, it actually was about the craft. We worked at it for seven years and the end everyone moved on to another chapter in their lives two albums and dozens of shows later.
For the most part we stayed in touch through out the years, although we lost touch with Marty. After while, it really started to bother me and eventually I fired a Jungian bottle rocket (subject of another post) and we found him.
The really great thing is we’ve started playing again. Free form jams at first, but eventually we started going back to the material we were working on when we split up. The unfinished business. We’ve been tapping around at it, wire brushing off the rust, digging down into muscle memory to cross the gulf of time.
Yesterday, we worked through some arrangements. The rehearsal discipline from thirty years ago was there, like only a day had gone by. We made some big strides in getting a difficult piece of music back on its feet. It was an awesome day with two of the coolest people I’ll ever know. I just want the world to know how grateful I am, that we’re alive and together and making music.
It’s like the world has been restored.
For an idea of what the band was like in its native element, check out a 1982 performance at Lincoln Park in Santa Monica of Dan Williford’s previously unreleased Ms. Conception here. – Ed.
Below is the transcript of the full interview I conducted with Dr. Richard Sudek, Director of Chapman University’s Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics. The center is nationally recognized as a leader in the field and Chapman has produced a number of notable entrepreneurs, including our client, Frank Delgadillo, creator of the Ambiguous and Comune action wear lines.
Excerpts from this interview appeared in Impact (formerly Caypen) magazine in both their online and print editions.
Q: Can you give us some background on the Leatherby Center and what you do here?
Sudek: I’m the Director of the Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics.
PM: What is your background?
Sudek: I had my own computer company, built starting with $250 and sold it, so I’m not your typical academic. What I’m really trying to do is change the entrepreneurial ecosystem here in OrangeCounty. The entrepreneurial ecosystem is poorly connected from my perception. We’d like Chapman to be involved in helping connect it. We’d like Chapman to be the place where entrepreneurs, inventors and investors meet and collaborate.
Most of our energy is outward facing rather inward facing.
One of the things to point out is that Chapman one of the best kept secrets here in OrangeCounty. We’re a top 50 business school. We have a Nobel prize winner in economics. Our entrepreneurship program is ranked 13th by BusinessWeek. Because I wanted to cross connect the university, we built this thing called ESUN, Entrepreneur Student University Network. Originally it was designed to be small, so we started with the local schools; Cal Tech. USC, UCLA, Loyola, Pepperdyne, UCI, Fullerton and Claremont McKenna to try to cross connect our centers which we’re starting to do.
The thing that really launched this is we created this competition called California Dreaming. And we brought in other schools such as Oklahoma, BYU, Berkeley and Hawaii, etc and created a $100,000 business plan competition that we have in April. Next year it will be a $200,000. It’s going actually be two different competitions a business plan competition and fast pitch competition. Microsemi will be the anchor sponsor, as they were last year. The idea is to get students in front of investors, not just to win cash. I brought in VCs and angels from the bay area and local VCs and angels.
One of the teams, BYU, who won the competition, got some equity funding from this in late April. So that’s the idea is to get students connected to that.
PM: So you’re trying to build the hub for this kind of activity here?
Sudek: Yes. Now this reaches outward across different states so the idea is the help students in general although focused on Chapman, OrangeCounty, Southern California, going out from there.
Continue reading “Dr. Richard Sudek Interview | Peter Mehit”
Our client Steve Tsirtsis, the owner of the Citrus City Grille restaurants in Orange and Corona, lost his son to cancer this year. Wanting to make his son’s passing meaningful, he and his wife Agatha established Tasos Projects for Kids, a non-profit foundation that,
“…is dedicated to helping kids who have lost a parent to cancer. From counseling services to music, athletic and educational scholarships and monetary support, Tasos Project is a resource center for kids 0-18 years old.”
Tasos Projects for Kids is having its inaugural fundraiser at the Citrus City Grille on Sunday, June 23, 2013 starting at 5:00pm. The event includes wonderful food, two drinks and a great time. Also will be a silent auction featuring including signed Fender guitars, (1) night stay in a bungalow at Rancho Las Lomas in Silverado Canyon, Dodger Tickets, Private Flight to Catalina with Lunch, Heidi Burkhardt artwork, Teeth Whitening/Sonicare Basket, Wedding Dress, Jewelry, Starr Motorcycle School Class Gift Certificate, Stila MakeUp GIft Basket, Mini Grand Piano and much, much more!
Tickets are available at Citrus City Grille in Corona and Orange, Blush Bridal Couture in Tustin.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Today, President Obama issued the following letter to all Verizon customers:
Dear Verizon Customers,
Yesterday it came to light that the National Security Agency has been collecting millions of phone records from you each and every day. Since that news was released, many of you have called the White House with questions and concerns about this new program. To save my time and yours, here are answers to three of the F.A.Q.s (Frequently Asked Questions) we’ve been hearing from you:
The El Reno EF-5 Tornado that killed three storm chasers surprised them by changing from the typical northeast track to a southerly track, trapping them.
There are literally dozens of videos of this tornado, but I’ve posted the ones that communicate the instantaneous threat those following these storms found themselves in.
Adding to the mix were scores of amateur chasers and hundreds of regular citizens, who left the relative safety of their homes because they mistook the advice of a weatherman who advised a portion of the viewers to head south. Hundreds clogged the roads, making retreat impossible for those at the front of the line.
Continue reading “El Reno was a Killing Field | YouTube Videos”
Dispatches From The Front 