The Kingsmen, Doubles, NYC. 2/29/08
Anyone who reads this blog is probably inclined to think: this girl is all sass and no class. Well, you’d be mostly right, but sometimes I can class it up. Sometimes.
This blog entry is going to be a bit different than the others since it didnt take place at a conventional show, or even at any sort of conventional music event… it took place at an engagement party on 5th Avenue at some fancy schmancy hotel at some fancy schmancy members only club called Doubles. It was for my dear old friend Chris Kelly and his fiance Leah. At one point in his life, when he was 17/18 years old, Chris was being poised to be former Island/DefJam head Lyor Cohen’s protege. He would come into the office every day after school and try to figure out how to save the music industry. Lyor had him on speed dial.
There were stories about how a teenaged Chris would have one of the conference rooms set up with graphs and pie charts and numerical equations… there were rumors that he had thought of iTunes years before it existed. After about a year, Chris decided that he wanted to become a brain surgeon and a couple years later he was teaching biology to pre-med students at Columbia University (coincedently he taught one of my oldest friends … which lead her to say “you know that guy!?”) and writing cookbooks. In about 5 years he will be doing surgery on people’s brains (if he isn’t doing so already). I met my current partner, former Island/DefJam exec and Stolen Transmission co-founder Rob Stevenson through Chris when he was an intern. I met Chris on AOL in 1998 when we bonded over Placebo. He was 14 and I was 18. He told me he was 18. I really didnt have any reason to not believe him.
Anyway, last night, Lyor was there… along with about 300 other people to celebrate Chris’ engagement to this wonderful woman Leah. And as a surprise Leah hired the Kingsmen — an a capella group from Columbia University. Dressed as your typical ivy leaguers in kahki pants, navy blazer, and university tie, the group got up infront of the crowd and performed The Beatles’ “She Loves You,” The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows,” and Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl.” Now, incase you caught it… the Kingsmen is also the name of the classic band whose biggest hit was “Louie Louie”. I dont know if anyone caught that.
March 1st, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I worked at IDJ in those days and remember Chris. I thought he was someone’s kid the first time I saw him b/c he looked like he was about 9! It was probably around 2001. We all had these giant mp3 players that were almost the size of a vhs tape and held 6 gigs (they may have been the first hard drive based players ever - “Hango Personal Jukebox”). Other than a couple of us geeks in New Media, he likely knew how to use them better than anyone and probably asked “why the hell are they so big??”. They where HUGE - didn’t even fit into your pocket. One of our senior execs once called them the Flintstone’s mp3 players once the iPod came out a couple years later. Anyway, congrats to Chris.
March 1st, 2008 at 1:04 pm
He looks EXACTLY the same, but maybe with a little bit of hair on his face.