#Adventures in Randomness and Rock & Roll w @leah_cevoli
<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Leah. She's pretty rad and has an INCREDIBLY random life. Like, no - for reals ... did you know she has an obsession with vampires, psychics, and tarot card readers ... and she had more sex as a teenager than in her 30s ... anddddd she even had two ex boyfriends die violently - one from a heroin overdose, and the other was murdered. Holy moly roli poli oli - that shit be cray cray. Either way, she's now here to write about her life, love, and all things nerd. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LEAH!!</editorsnote>
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Leah_Cevoli
Happy February TNTML Community.. I'm tempted to talk about Valentine's Day, but I'll save that post for next week.
January for me, was all about tech conventions. I spent 6 days in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show working as a promotional model for Blackberry, which I told ya a little about in my first post for TNTML.
I was home in LA for a week after CES, and then it was off to Anaheim California for The NAMM Show www.namm.org
NAMM is awesome, and if you are in the music industry at all, you owe it to yourself to check it out at least once.
I moved to Los Angeles in the summer of 1999, and just a few short months later, the rock n roll community began buzzing about NAMM... what is NAMM I wanted to know... and how do I get there? At this point, although I had just been on tour with Poison for 2 months, I wasn't really officially a part of the music Industry, or the entertainment industry in general. I was honestly just a huge rock fan, with dreams of meeting her rock n roll prince under the neon lights of the Sunset Strip, just like in my favorite music videos.
Flashback about 9 months earlier to Philadelphia... an acquaintance of mine invited me to a show at the Trocadero. Some "new" band called Kid Rock was headlining and she had won tickets. We got there as the show was ending, and this part is really fuzzy, but somehow, her and I ended up chilling on the bus with Mr. Rock and his merry cohorts for a few hours. This was right at the time when their first album had just gone gold, and they had received (I think that night) a phone call inviting them to perform at Woodstock '99. They were on cloud nine.
The gal I was with, and Mr. Rock, hit it off so much (that night), that they sent the tour bus on to New York without them, as Kid Rock decided to rent a room that night to get to know my friend a little better. I was invited to stay, as was his guitar player, a guy named Jason. Anyways, long story short, my evening was relatively tame. Jason and I kept to our side of the bed, and the other two dissapeared into the bathroom for a very long time. I had my own car with me, so once the birds began chirping, I quietly slipped out and drove home, figuring they'd make sure the girl I was with got a taxi home, before they flew out to meet up with the rest of the band. They did.
Over the course of the next year.. I ran into them a few more times... culminating in my very first NAMM.
See, the thing about musicians, they tour so much, that the people they see on tour, do become like a bunch of misfit family members, and even more so, when you bond in say you're hometown, and then run into each other in another state. Now Phily aint Detroit and vice versa.. but neither city are LA... so when I ran into the Kid Rock team in LA... it was like a meeting of old friends.. and next thing I know, I found myself driving to Anaheim in a convertible rental car, with a guy who was managing some of the band's stuff at the time.
I remember this day so freakin' vividly, and I'm not sure why. I had been up all night, partying with the KR camp, and partaking in their party goods of choice at the time... the partying continued on into the next day, oh who am I kidding, the partying continued all weekend.. and at the convention itself.
I was wearing dungaree overalls, which were very popular at the time. I was much thinner, and did the whole half-shirt under the overalls, so that you could see the entire sides of my waist, and probably the strings of my g-string. My hair was down to my ass, blonde streaks on either side of my face, with the ends died purple.. and I walked around that convention, with my purple/john lennon/round sunglasses on (inside), like I was some sort of rock goddess.... So strange that I remember every detail, but I do.
I remember every detail about my outfit that day, but that's about it. lol Seriously.
I have no idea what I did, who I spoke to, or what I saw at NAMM. But, I know I was there with the Kid Rock family.
Anyway, point is, a lot has changed since that first NAMM experience.
Now, I go there, sober, to truly network, talk about business opportunities, see old friends, and lately as a host, I go to interview musicians, artists, vendors, and friends.
This past year, was no different. I only managed to make it there for one day, but I had plenty of adventures.
Oh, and just as a DISCLAIMER: I doubt any one in the Kid Rock Camp 2012, would know my name, or remember the above story from 1999/2000.. but it was fun while it lasted.