Two fun vids & a new song from Leo Moctezuma! Enjoy
More blogs. Less chatter. :)
Kyle Kannenberg, who is Production Designer for this year’s Open Artist benefit, We Are Golden, has submitted an amazing concept and video to get his own show on Oprah’s TV Network. Check it out and vote for him.
VIDEO LINK HERE!
Gina Katon, perhaps THE sexiest dancer in LA who has danced for me several times including LA PRIDE in 08, is in the studio recording music! I wanted to share this clip that I found on her Facebook page.
VIDEO LINK HERE!
Leo Moctezuma, who most recently danced and co-choreographed P!NK’s FUN HOUSE Tour, has been recording songs for his new album. Check out his single “Unconditional”. Word on the street is that he’s also recorded the song in Spanish and is shooting a video for it with director Cole Walliser and director of choreography, Brian Friedman (his choreography, directing and producing credits are too long to list!). This video WILL be HOT!
LISTEN HERE!
I’m finishing up vocals for my CD. I had a title I loved but it looks like Macy Gray STOLE IT! I might just use it anyway. Maybe I’ll post a song leak soon!
Go make your dreams happen folks! Nobody’s gonna do it FOR us! XOXO KP
CD Release info, Jonte, Praying Small up and running, MD-ing a new rock musical in July & some other random goodness!
I haven’t posted in weeks! The MAJOR excuse I have is that I’ve been finishing up production for my 3rd full-length CD, Sell-out. I’ll spare you the gloriously gory details, but I will tell you that 5 of the tracks are co-produced by the brilliant Ellis Miah & 4 are co-produced by a tremendous artist named Kazzer . Track 10 will be the version of Hallelujah that I’ve been performing around town for the last 5 years or so, produced by yours truly. I’m beyond excited that Seth Von Paulus who runs shop and engineers at Linda Perry’s studio will be mixing the tracks.
I produced vocals for Jonte a few weeks ago. Incredible artist. First off, he showed up the first day of recording in an emerald green beauty queen/talent competition dress, some high-ass heels and a full face of make-up. Flawless. He was performing at “United For A Cause”, a charity event at The Highlands in a few days and had 4 tracks without proper backing vox recorded on them. We rocked it out in my studio and he blew the ROOF off of The Highlands. No wonder it’s said that Beyonce and Rihanna got their style from Jonte!
Praying Small opened at the Noho Arts Center a few week-ends ago. I got hired originally to compose original underscoring for this play, but at some point I was hornswoggled into doing ambient sound effects for the play as well. I spent about 50 hours total on the sound effects which were cut a few days before the opening to everyone’s great relief! Frankly, because they were horribly distracting to the play. We’d perceived this from the start, but I come from a theatre background and I was taught to give the director what he wants. 50 hours later… Anyway, go check out the play. It’s wonderfully written and acted and my original music remains the underscoring for the play.
I’ll be music directing an LA reading of a new musical that Kristin Hanggi, director of Broadway’s Rock Of Ages & Ben Dector, an LA film and TV composer are developing. The reading will happen in July. Anything Ms. Hanggi involves herself in is a project worth being a part of. I’m honored to be working with her again.
I’ve got some gigs coming up. The shows that are booked are my New York CD release performance and Open Artist’s “We Are Golden” benefit concert here in LA. My NYC release party is Monday, August 9th at 8pm at Rockwood Music Hall. For you New Yorkers, it will mark my first performance in New York City in over a decade. Yikes! The “We Are Golden” concert is on Monday night, September 27th at Arena Night Club in Hollywood, CA. We have some big names for you this year, all to benefit Lifeworks‘ mentoring program for LGBT&Q youth. I will also be doing a CD release performance in Los Angeles and in my hometown of Watertown, NY in August. More info to come!
Also producing music for Kelly Meyersfield, Phoebe Carter, Kurtis Simmons and some other uniquely talented artists this Summer.
Here’s a vid of an artist I’m working with named Giulietta that I’ve mentioned previously. This is an unplugged version of her first single, “Here We Go (again)” arranged by us and shot and recorded in my studio. She’s MAJOR.
That’s all I got. Word to yer mama. XOXO KP
Reading of a movie w/ music, Sam Sparro, P!NK & stuff
It’s been a few weeks since my last post and I think I promised that the next one would be the shortest ever. Let’s just say that it was so short that it was invisible to the human eye! -mostly because I don’t think this is going to be a short post…OK, I know it’s not going to be. :P
Last Monday Sam Sparro sang a few songs downtown at an evening called Mustache Mondays. It’s an alternative night at a space called La Cita on Hill between 3rd & 4th Streets. A wild, musical performance art piece is presented each week at around midnight. It’s usually one of those performances that is equal parts ghastly and extraordinary! It’s always a blast & usually brings me back to my 20s in New York City. When my friend Darryl posted that Sam was performing, I was in. I’ve always been a fan of Sam, who I’ve met a few times before. Darryl and I spent some time with him at the Sunset Junction in Silverlake a few years back and I met him once before that when he worked at Aroma Cafe in Studio City. I’d learned about him through a producer who did a remix for me years ago named Jesse Rogg. Jesse produced Sam’s first album, the one with the hit “Black & Gold” on it.
I was intrigued to see how the venue was going to accommodate Sam’s performance. I’ve seen Sam, who is also a DJ, in smaller venues but this one sort of defies description. Sam was announced at midnight sharp and a larger than usual crowd quickly gathered around the dance floor. Jesse played tracks from his laptop and Sam sang his face off as usual. SOUND, however, was less than desirable. OK, it was a mess. At one point Sam’s mic shorted out completely and the MC for the evening handed her/his mic to Sam mid-song. Sam was a terrific sport and his drunken fans didn’t seem to care much that they couldn’t actually hear him. It was Sam Sparro. -At Mustache Mondays. All was as it should be in the LA alternative music scene!
Lately, I’ve been pondering P!NK. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her and visiting Australia to see her sold out tour through one of my best friends, Leo, who co-choreographed and danced on the tour. -And I would like to make the point that I met her once for a few moments at the tour’s kick-off party where Leo introduced me to her. The next time I saw her, several months later in Australia, she greeted me warmly, remembering my name from our brief meeting before. That’s how present this talented woman is. Shortly thereafter, I was blown away by her Funhouse Tour performance. As you may have heard, she sounds better live than on her albums & she is so in the moment, so personal in her performance that you feel like you’re hanging out with her, having drinks together in some hole-in-the-wall dive bar. Her connected communication as an artist is a quality I search out but seldom see in popular music.
…But I digress. Today, a client came for her singing lesson, and she asked if we could work on a P!NK song. P!NK songs are great for voice lessons because they are well written & the vocal range is both high and low, a good stretch for most singers. I have songbooks from her last two albums and use them frequently.
We’d been working on “Sober”, but my client asked if we could look at “Dear Mr. President”, a song from her album, I’m Not Dead Yet. As we were going through the song it occurred to me that P!NK’s songwriting has heavy roots in folk music. When you think of songs like “Dear Mr. President”, “Stupid Girls”, “I’ve Got Money Now” and many others, you notice that her songs oftentimes express her political & social views on the current state of affairs on this planet. If it’s possible, I gained even more respect for her work in that moment.
Lastly, I wanted to share with you my experience this past Saturday when Darryl Stephens and I coordinated an informal 1st reading of our film script with original music. It was as thrilling for me as it was terrifying! We invited around 20 of our talented friends to come and help us read through the script. We played skeletally produced versions of the songs for the film as they occur in the script. As I’ve mentioned D and I have been working on the script regularly for a little over a year & I’d started to lose objectivity on how the project was going. -So, we purposely invited a variety of friends from different walks of life to get as many points of view for feedback as possible. Chris D’Arienzo, the talented writer of the script for the 80s rock broadway musical Rock Of Ages, read the lead character of Coyote, a 40 year old rockstar who finds himself in the middle of a comeback tour, with just the right touch of humor and bravado. A bunch of LA’s most talented, working tour dancers read roles uncannily resembling their own lives…some roles written with them in mind. We BBQd, had cocktails and made a party out of it. The feedback was insightful and D and I will now dig into a rewrite, not too major but substantial. I’m also going to focus on getting the music more fully produced, with demo singers, real guitars, drums, etc. Then the hard part begins. -Getting it produced!
In other news, Skyline released a video for their single, “Not The Only One”. Check it out. It’s really wonderful.
Also, check out the SIZZLE REEL of a brilliantly talented production designer named Kyle Kannenberg. Perhaps you can hire this uber-talented designer before he becomes so famous that we won’t be able to afford him anymore. Kyle has graciously agreed to art direct the 3rd annual Open Artists With Open Arms benefit. How lucky are we?
Long blog… Again… My sis-in-law informed me that blogs are supposed to be short. Rats. I’ll do better next time. Promise. :P
3rd Annual “Open Artists w/ Open Arms” WE ARE GOLDEN benefit concert for LIFEWORKS
Last night marked the 1st meeting in 2010 for a benefit concert that my friends and I have been producing for a couple of years now. Bestie and fellow artist, Guy B, and I were chatting on the phone back in 08 about doing a concert together. We thought it make sense for us to find a worthy cause for the show to benefit.
Over the years I’ve been homing in on my “career concept”, a great habit I had gotten into when I was taking acting classes at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. I define a career concept as a phrase, sentence, or paragraph that sums up what you are about as an artist & perhaps more importantly gets you out of bed in the morning. My career concept had always included a vaguely philanthropistic “I wanna do good works for the planet” vibe, but I’d never gotten specific about HOW and WHO I wanted to help. Moreover, in the back of my mind I had attached the qualifying phrase “When I’m famous and have lots of money and a greater circle of influence…THEN I’ll save the planet!”
…well, we’re still waiting for THAT glorious day to arrive!
For those of you who know Guy B., and if you don’t I encourage you to do so, he is an artist with a strong spiritual purpose. He knew of a brilliant cause called Lifeworks, a mentorship program for LGBT&Q youth (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, and – you guessed it - questioning youth…because we are THAT PC!). We had our cause. Now let’s put on a show!
Collectively, Guy & I know a LOT of artists here in LA. Guy asked Brad Bilanin, his co-founder and partner at Media Temple Productions & I asked Kevin Stea, probably the most accomplished working dancer (as a popular art form) on the planet. Brad would head up marketing and branding & Kevin would direct. We had our team.
Then we hit up our talented friends to help with the cause. My friend Tod donated the use of his club space at The Highlands, a very sexy, state-of-the art venue in Hollywood. Working actor and comedian Alec Mapa agreed to host the night. Other artists we love and admire joined the show; DJ Derek Montiero, Leo Moctezuma, Darryl Stephens, Wilson Cruz, Christine O’leary, Racheal Cantu & a bevy of the most talented dancers, singers, musicians, circus performers, producers, and hair & make-up artists in Los Angeles. The result was one of the most magical nights of my life.
We had our share of terrifying moments. My favorite moment to regale from that year occurred on the day of the show at around 2pm. Someone uncovered that somehow, despite our meticulous planning, we had NO red carpet for our red carpet event! Several celebrities and some major press had been confirmed…but NO CARPET! In one of my favorite Guy B moments, he picked up the phone and started dialing. WIthin a few hours a complimentary red carpet was delivered to The Highlands and the day was saved! I still don’t know the details and it may have involved the Isreali mob but I prefer to imagine that it was the magic that comes from creating art with a purpose. 
We crossed fingers that we might draw an audience of 500 to attend the event, & our hopes were far surpassed as we packed The Highlands with 800 or more (we lost count in our initiative to get people into the club so we could start on time) hip, colorful, supportive attendees who were the greatest audience ever! I’ll never forget walking into the green room a half hour before the show & realizing there were literally about 100 artists volunteering their time and talents to this concert.
-And it all blossomed from a casual phone call between two friends throwing around ideas about how they could create art together. That “green room moment” will forever be a defining moment in my life, & that first show one of my greatest accomplishments.
Well, you know what they say about magical opening nights. Sometimes, a terrible 2nd performance follows. Well, the 2nd annual “Open Artists with Open Arms” concert, POP GOES THE WORLD was by no means terrible, but it presented some of the many challenges which accompany growing pains. We set out to at LEAST double the size of our show…more sets, bigger space, bigger celebrities, more press, more awareness, MORE! Also, Lifeworks had just recently become a part of the Gay & Lesbian Center which is a huge organization. Being under the umbrella of a huge organization brings it’s challenges as well as it’s benefits.
On the brilliant side, the show featured several top-notch, well-known performers including JoJo (Pop Billboard charting recording artist), Blake Lewis (2nd place American Idol contestant), Fanny Pak (America’s Best Dance Crew), Carmit Bachar (Original Pussycat Doll) & others who levitated the theatre with their talent. We focused our attention for this 2nd show on the kids. We found a space twice the size of the previous year’s venue called The Avalon, a beautiful, historical theatre in Hollywood on Vine just above Hollywood Blvd. We created an amazing pre-show youth lounge for the kids and invited them to attend for FREE. We reached out to neighboring high-school GSAs (gay-straight alliances) and invited them to attend the show as well. We had at least 200 kids up in the balcony for the show that night and those kids embodied the spirit & energy of the evening. They walked away with a free pair of red Levi’s skinny jeans and a bunch of other donated goodies in their gift bags. I got the flu a few days before the show but squeaked out a decent performance with very little voice. I won’t go into detail, but we encountered some -hysterical now/devastating then- SNAFUs (Situation Normal: All Fucked Up) that made the weeks leading up to the event stressful to say the least. It was a MAJOR growing and learning year & totally worth it.
Wiser from experience, we embark upon our 3rd annual OAwOA benefit concert for Lifeworks with a theme of abundance, “We Are Golden”. Brad, who has become a brilliant Executive Producer for the event, is also on the Board Of Directors for Lifeworks. We are honored by the talents and experience of Kyle Kannenberg, Trey Campbell and Ron Pennywell, who are now part of the core team. This week we’re focused on finding a great space for our event. We are leaning toward Arena, a cavernous club space in Hollywood that would be a blast fill up with beautiful art. We plan on diversifying performances to include other exciting, cutting edge art-forms that will make love to your senses! We are more positive and excited than ever as we embark upon pre-production for an event that will occur in September of 2010. Are your seatbelts fastened??
In other news Carmen Perez’s single, “Overload” gained a spot (it was 41 last week, not 43 as I had reported) and is at #40 on the Dance Billboard Charts. I started work on my cover of “Hallelujah” that will be featured in the play Praying Small this year in LA. The play has already been optioned for a film (because that’s what happens to good plays in LA!) and I will hopefully be doing the score for the film. I’m writing songs for several projects in development which I’ll keep you posted on as they develop. Other stuff is happening too, but this is officially my longest blog EVER and I don’t want to scare you away! The next blog will be the SHORTEST blog ever. Promise.
All the best to you this week! I encourage you to take even 1 action a day in the direction of your dreams. XOXO
INSPIRED. Great art in LA!
OK, it’s simply one of those weeks that makes me super happy to live in this amazing city full of beautiful, talented artists!
Because I’ve just come from CATHERINE FEENY’S show at the Hotel Cafe, I’ll start there. If you haven’t checked her out, you MUST. Vocally, she’s stunning and her songwriting is unbeatable. A few years ago her song “Mr Blue”, was placed in a film called Running With Scissors in a climactic montage which garnered her some mainstream success. Since then, she’s lived in England, toured all over Europe, and now she’s back in the states and residing in Portland. Lucky for us, she does a show for us here in LA every few months. I even got a little shout out tonight as her “old vocal coach”, because I’m so loud that she couldn’t help but hear me in the audience! 
In my humble opinion, the most special thing about Catherine Feeny is her stunning communication with an audience. Do yourself a favor, visit her website and check out her songs. You won’t be sorry!
Tuesday night was my dear friend Travis Terry’s cabaret at MBar. Travis is a singularly special artist. When I met him in a musical artists workshop almost a decade ago, Travis was terrified of singing! But out of his own glorious stubbornness & tenacity, little by little he began to conquer his fear. Tuesday night was nothing short of a proclamation. Travis is officially a seasoned musical artist. He packed the house and gave a wonderful performance full of personal stories, intimate moments, and a creative mix of songs from many genres in a beautiful, rich baritone. We are all very proud of him.
Wednesday night, I got together with some good friends to see the National Tour of Mary Poppins. One of my very best friends from college, Fran Curry, is a “star dresser” on the tour. I probably wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t for her involvement, but I must say I’m glad I went. Aside from delightful familiar childhood tunes, a brilliant set & some spectacular magical stage tricks, it was the SINGING that really impressed me. Because I don’t go to the opera and most of my friends & clients are singers of popular music, I don’t get to hear classically trained, operatic singers that often. It made up for the conventional acting which always seems to disappoint me when I go to traditional musical theatre productions. Some day we’ll get both and hopefully, I’ll be involved in those productions!
This afternoon Skyline came over for a music rehearsal to get ready for a performance they have this Monday @ 9PM at Jamie Foxx’s “Foxx Hole” at the Conga Room, downtown. They’ve been together a year and a half now. I’ve been music directing them for about a year. I’m proud to say they’ve made AMAZING strides and they sound wonderful. The harmonies are tighter and more consistent, the blend is lush and balanced, and each of them has developed their own unique style and tone as a soloist. Here is a LINK to “ALL BRAND NEW”, an a cappella piece, and an acoustic version of “MAN ON THE MOON”. Ellis Miah and I are going to start writing a killer retro-uptempo tune for them within the next few weeks. I’m excited about that fierceness!
-So much more, but enough is enough! -Some brilliant new singing clients, a gorgeous country song demoed, a fantastic meeting with a music publisher (great guy & fellow new york Italian), more good work with Darryl on the movie musical and other stuff. I can’t believe the work-week is over. Thankfully, I enjoy working on Saturday and Sunday too.
OH! The most exciting moment of the week…CHRIS CORNELL was hanging out backstage after Mary Poppins with his wife and kids! When Fran nonchalantly pointed out that he was feet away, a pretty much lost my shit…inside, of course, because I’m far too cool to be star-struck! (not really) :P Let’s just say that if I was hard pressed to choose a hero, it would have to be Chris Cornell. Cute kiddies too! Here’s a LINK to a soundcheck of his cover of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean which he rocked WAY before that dude on American Idol. ENJOY!
Have a brilliant week-end. :P KP
PS: Here’s a cute picture of Kelly King getting her hair Diana Ross-ed OUT before the Pop Goes The World benefit concert on 11.11.09. Check out her very well done video for “working girl“ which is conquering the Billboard Charts as we speak. Nighty night.
iam100k.com
