Sing For China at The Center

This was a rather special event.  These bands were amazing and it’s exciting to see this sort of talent coming from China.  We were quite happy to be a part of it and so was the lucky winner of the raffle.  Ed, Dusty and I definitely have some cool ideas brewing for these guys.

SING FOR CHINA

JUMP is very proud and excited to sponsor three of China’s biggest indie rock bands for the SING FOR CHINA event at Bennett Media Studios this Thursday.  Should be a lot of fun as is the norm with Culture Catch events.

Here’s some background on the bands.

About the Bands

Hedgehog:

photo credit, Matthew Niederhauser

Hedgehog, powered by pint-size female drummer/vocalist Atom, represent the best of China’s rock scene. The band was a featured headliner at the Modern Sky Festival in 2008 and Strawberry Festival (Beijing) in May of 2009. Hedgehog’s 2006 debut Noise Hit World was a critic favorite in China, and their 2008 release Blue Day Dreaming helped catapult them to the top of the Chinese indie-rock world.

On SPIN Magazine’s website:

http://spinearth.tv/report/hedgehog-rocks-chinas-future

Strawberry Festival, Beijing:

http://www.vimeo.com/4443832

More:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=1300348224

http://cn.profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=1300348224

http://newindiemusicinhongkong.blogspot.com/2009/04/hedgehog-tour-09-atomic-rock.html

Queen Sea Big Shark:

Expect a barrage of rock n’ roll-electro power punches from arguably the most ferocious rockers on the Beijing scene. QSBS rarely disappoints in delivering tight, raunchy instrumentation fronted by the frenetic, full-body assault of singer Fu Han, a woman seemingly possessed on stage. The band supported the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the Modern Sky Festival (Beijing) in 2007 and recently headlined the Converse sponsored “Love Noise” tour in China (featured here on the Dazed and Confused website: http://dazeddigital.com/projects/Converse-LoveNoise/Music.aspx.

For more about QSBS, visit:

http://www.myspace.cn/queenseabigshark

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6shj4_queen-sea-big-shark-in-hohaiyan-roc_music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAd2lvLwq50

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkaSw-0IO1E&feature=related

Casino Demon:

Veering from raw, noisy guitar bursts to tight, rapid-paced assaults, Casino Demon during 2006 moved from the outskirts of the Beijing live music scene to the forefront. At heart, they’re a good-time rock n’ roll band that really like to crank it up. Casino Demon recently celebrated the release of their new album, Teenage, in March of 2009.

Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDSBjO6ndpc

http://dazeddigital.com/projects/Converse-LoveNoise/Music.aspx#CasinoDemon

It was one hell of a good week.

So the Project NY show was an amazing success.  The line looked fantastic and we did more business the first day in NY than we did all three days in the last Vegas show so I can only imagine what will happen at the next Vegas show.  I’m already getting ready for Compass this week!  Besides all our favorite buyers and many new buyers, we had some high profile people roll thru the booth as well.  The celebrity love continues.

First we had Kenny Loggins swing by and he was totally into the Vanquish in Purple Croco.

You might remember Kenny as the creator of some 80s megahits like Dangerzone!!!!

This video makes me want to jump up and exclaim “YES!!”  Totally my next karaoke conquest.

Shortly after, we had Ryan Grant of the Greenbay Packers, who was already a JUMP fan, check out the new line.

Again, at this show, the heavy hitters are the Vanquish and of course the new Zeto that will be in stores for August.  What we did was take these two items and really blow them up to offer our customers a lot of options.  Here’s a sneak peek at some of the new Vanquish that Courtney from American Rag picked out for her stores in the West Coast.

So after such a successful first day of show, we didn’t feel guilty partying hard after the second day of the show at our store in SoHo.  We had the usual fare, Serrano Ham (which always leaves me hungry for more the day after I have it), cocktails sponsored by Red Bull and of course, Johnnie Walker.

We had a fantastic turnout.

There’s me, Harry Chen and Lawrence Chen.

Click on people’s faces in the photo to tag them.

Here’s Michelle Suh, Bloomingdale’s Art Director and Cara Diorio, Bloomingdale’s Asst. Buyer.

Here we are with Don Calder, owner of Local Celebrity and his friend.

Some random Austrian people who were lucky enough to be walking down Spring St.

Starr Ferguson, Saks Buyer and my old Lord & Taylor colleague, getting herself the Vanquish in Green Purple Reflex Patent.

Herman and our homeboy Eric Yang, handbag manufacturing magnate.

Lerny and friend.

Xiao-li, Saks Assistant Buyer and Shawn, our Saks Buyer.

Diana Tse, Steven Alan buyer and Lana Wong.

Larry with a random cougar from the street.

Don’t know who those two dudes were but they got MINGED.

There’s Darius, YRB editor on the right with some friends.

Here’s Tahirah, owner of Krisol in LA, and I.

Ed Bennett, brought his friends, Faye Ly, actress and model and Tora Brava, musician to join the festitivies.

Some of our lovely staff manning the liquor.

Here’s Alex, certified ham slicer and Joy.  We conquered that ham.

And it looks like it was a big week for parties in SoHo as the next night Guess had a big opening party around the corner from us.

Lydia Hearst and Michelle Trachtenberg were there.

And the darling Amber Rose was looking fly.

We took this picture together after the interview but my boy, Henry, was all nervous and it came out like this.  She told Henry and I we were cute.  That’s why I’m blushing.

The following night was another event!  THE CENTER hosted the Midsummer Night’s Salon with my buddy’s Ed Bennett and Dusty Wright.  Following all the real performances we had a jam session where we did our rendition of Hound Dog.

It was quite a week!!

Here’s the video of Glenn Tillbrook performing at Culture Catch

more about “Glenn Tilbrook plays “Product” on Cul…“, posted with vodpod

Catch my cameo at the 2:00 mark.

Culture Catch X The Takeover UK

I had the unique opportunity to stop by The Center (otherwise the residence and creative compound of Ed Bennett) and enjoy a live performance as part of Culture Catch by The Takeover UK, a young band out of Pittsburgh.  It’s always cool to see performances at Ed’s place because he’s got a variety of “venues” even in his own home.  This time, the guys performed in his living room and it was totally dope.  It was all acoustic and I was struck by the unique way in which they were able to harmonize three singers in all their songs.  Beyond their harmonic abilities, they and their music had all the trappings of an “it” pop/rock band.  In other words, they’re really fucking good.  It was live streamed on ustream and was also filmed and recorded for Quicktime on the Apple website.  I’ll post it up when it becomes available.  And of course they had to be wearing JUMP.

There’s Dusty and the band.

Derek’s wearing the Vanquish Grey Ivis Patent and Josh is wearing the Vague Taupe Patent.

Nick on piano.

Josh enjoying a book on Kitchens.

They stopped by the SoHo store to hang out for a bit before heading out to a photo shoot.  Got themselves some shoes!  Here’s Nick, Mark, Derek and Josh.  They left a bunch of their EPsat the store so stop by and nick one for your listening pleasure.

I liked these guys so much that we’re talking about doing an in-store acoustic performance the next time they’re in town.  Sometime in July.  Keep you guys posted.  They have a pretty funny blog too.  Here’s one of their videos.

Their song was also used for the Castle promo.

It’s actually quite interesting to meet these different types of artists and see how they can make JUMP their own.  It’s a testament to the diversity of the brand that Busta Rhymes can look sick wearing them and a drummer from a band like The Takeover UK can look just as good in them.

Culture Catch X Henry Butler X The Sopranos

After having met Dusty Wright (the man behind Culture Catch) and Ed Bennett (founder of VH1) at my friend’s mom’s birthday party (random, but cool), they kindly invited me to their Culture Catch events.  Each of which have been very intimate invitation-only performances held at some amazing townhouse or some other crazy loft.  Last week’s was at the residence of Joe Scarpinito in Tribeca.  The event featured Henry Butler, a blind pianist from New Orleans.  I introduced him to the Monderer for Jump Gatsby in Black Dentelle and when he started feeling it, he was immediately impressed.  He could tell through his hands that it was a special shoe.

Also in attendance were a host of characters from The Sopranos, notably Michael Imperioli who made the introduction for Henry and who also flipped for the Vanquish Grey Nappa.

His performance was amazing.  The things he was doing with that piano without the ability to see was breathtaking.  Must’ve been the shoes.  Check out Complex’s writeup on him.

My hair’s shorter now.

My homies, Ed and Dusty.

That’s Norena, Henry’s manager, Michael, his wife Victoria and Dusty.

The caterer was wearing one of our shoes from last season, completely unsolicited.

Dope view from the roof.

Joe had quite a collection of artwork.  I recognized this piece from a Chinese artist, Yue Minjun.  As usual, it was quite a unique event.  I’m certainly looking forward to the next one!

Glenn Tilbrook X Culture Catch X Ed Bennett

On Sunday, I was invited to my friend, John’s mom Shirley’s birthday party at Trump Tower on the West Side. Shirley herself is a fun lady and she had quite a few interesting guests at her party, one of whom was a gentleman named Ed Bennett. After speaking to him for a bit, I learned he was one of the founders of VH1. He invited me over to his house in the West Village to check out a live feed recording he would be doing with Glenn Tilbrook from the 80s Brit band, Squeeze. They had hits like Tempted and Pulling Mussels from a Shell.  This is from one of his concerts.

So I went to check it out and sweet baby Jesus, Ed’s place was by far the sickest pad I’d ever seen in Manhattan.  When he bought the place 9 years ago, it was a little two car auto repair garage and he basically took it apart, kept the facade and rebuilt it into a 5 story house.  It’s there where he runs Bennett Media Studio where he records artists, has performances and even hosts art exhibitions.  We met Glenn and introduced him to JUMP and he loved it.  He makes it work with a suit eh?  He’s wearing the Vaine in Graphite Patent.

Check out Ed’s pad.

Glenn’s an excellent and rather funny performer.  The whole thing was orchestrated by Culture Catch who did a quick interview/Q&A with him and will be posting it on their site.

After the performance he came to the store to buy another pair of Monderer for Jump for himself and a pair for his wife.

I don’t know how to smile.