I am proud to be a volunteer for The Make-A-Wish Foundation. Make-A-Wish grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy! I encourage any readers to donate money or your time to making a dream come true.
Music is my passion so when Jon at Make-A-Wish offered the volunteers tickets to the Greek Theater, I jumped on the opportunity to fill a couple of seats for Friday with The Emotions, Keith Sweat and The Gap Band featuring Charlie Wilson. I was also given the opportunity to attend Sunday night's concert with Phil Lesh and Friends (Phil Lesh was the Bass player for the Grateful Dead). Vermont's Grace Potter and the Nocturnals opened for Phil. Grace is from Vermont and rocked it, especially since the sun was still up at 5:30pm when her set began.
Friday night I met up with DJ and Actor 'World Wide' Webb mid-way through the show to witness The Gap Band in action. Hot, flashy dancers, the showmanship of Charlie Wilson and MANY hits including 'Outstanding' and 'Early in the Morning' made for an enjoyable evening on a cool California night. The stage antics reminded me of Morris Day and The Time and the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. My guess is The Gap Band pulled from JB and The Time may very well have pulled from The Gap Band.
Charlie Wilson's good friend, Snoop Dogg, took the stage toward the end of the song "I don't Believe You Wanna Get Up and Dance (oops upside)" while they all sang "Snoops upside your head"... They continued with Snoop's new single: "Sensual Seduction" and ended the show with "What's My Name? (Snoop Doggy Dogg). It was fun but I found it a bit strange that The Gap Band did not close their set with "You Dropped A Bomb" or the wedding favorite "Party Train". Charlie was looking at his watch and I know the Greek management is very strict about their noise curfew so perhaps they simply ran out of time?
It was great to catch up with Webb and hear about all the movie and music projects he has cooking! Watch out for him... he's gonna blow up!
Keith Sweat did a great job and reminded me how many R&B hits ("Make It Last Forever", "I Want Her" and "Nobody") I used to play back in the day. Bobby Brown made a brief appearance to sing some back-up vocals with Keith. He let the audience know that they shared a friendly rivalry in the early 90's as each were appearing on the Billboard Charts frequently.
Sunday at the Greek found me meeting up with DJ/Drummer Keith for a night of 'jam rock'. Shows featuring ex-Grateful Dead musicians and 'Jam' artists are probably the most fun you will ever have at a concert. You just let yourself go and dance all night! Great vibes and of course, a lot of Grateful Dead favorites. Keith currently plays in two rock bands: Watson 66 and The Harbingers. He also has a jazz trio available for private events.
Thank you, Jon at Make-A-Wish for a great weekend of classic music and a re-education for DJ Peace.
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| Posted by Mark Peace Thomas at | | | |
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I was pleasantly surprised that I was included in Pasadena Magazine's "The Bride's guide: '08 Wedding Directory". Here is the text from page 105 (March 2008 Editiion):
Thank you Pasadena Magazine for including Awesome Entertainment in your wedding edition. |
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| Posted by Mark Peace Thomas at | | | |
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| Posted by Mark Peace Thomas at | | | |
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This letter sums up why after 19 years as a disc jockey I continue to invest in education. It allows me to improve on my Master of Ceremony techniques, music programming and wedding direction skills...
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| Posted by Mark Peace Thomas at | | | |
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A Photo is worth a thousand words and here we see that the magic of family, friends, romance and music has our newly married groom, Henry Chen, heating up the night as removes his jacket before he begins to remove the garter from the leg of his lovely new bride, Eva.
Thank you to Michael Erdkamp at:
Memories By Michael
for supplying the photo.
Of course an even bigger THANK YOU to Eva and Henry for having me be a part of their big day. DJ Santiago Barbalace assisted.
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| Posted by Mark Peace Thomas at | | | |
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DJ PEACE (your friendly neighborhood Wedding Entertainment Director and blogger) catches up with Tone-Loc after his performance at the 2008 Mobile Beat Disc Jockey Conference at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. Peace and Zan arrived just in time to see 'Tone' sing his party favorites: Funky Cold Medina and Wild Thing.
DJ Zan The Man and DJ Webb presented a seminar at the 2008 Mobile Beat Disc Jockey Conference 2008. Although it was 8:00am in the morning on the last day of the show, the turnout was exceptional. Zan is the author of "Success A-Z" which covers the 26 principles of success. Gerald created the first of his new CD series "Powerful Affirmations for Disc Jockeys". Both the book and CD sold out at the conference bookstore after their motivational and inspirational talk.
The first annual Wed Guild dinner was held at Lawry's Prime Rib Restaurant in Las Vegas in 2008. I am proud to be an official 'Wedding Entertainment Director' along with some of the best entertainers throughout the country. The first dinner included (Pictured from left to right on top): DJ Peace (Pasadena), Neal Howard(Atlanta), Randy Bartlett (Sacramento), Ron Ruth (Kansas City), Bill James (Ontario Canada), Bill Hermann(Mineapolis), Peter Merryand his wife Lisa (Ladera Ranch, CA), David Louis (Hawaii), Marcello Pedalino (Newton, NJ), Ben Miller (Bloomington, IL), Curtis Hoekstra (Phoenix, AZ), Shawn Whittemore (Lake Oswego, OR), Jim Cerone (Indianopolis, IN) (Pictured from left to right on Bottom Row) Matt Graumann (Simi Valley, CA), Larry Williams (Reno, NV), Elisabeth Scott Daley (Williamsburg, VA), Mitch Taylor (Gladstone, MI), Mike Anderson (Sacramento, CA) and Andy Austin (Dallas, TX). Unable to attend: Alex Tamas (Victoria, British Columbia). Also missed: Mark & Rebecca Ferrell(Temecula, CA).
Meanwhile back at the GRAMMYS pre-telecast awards... DJ Zan 'The Man' shows Tia Carrera his first copy of his new book 'Success A-Z'. Tia Carrera was a 2008 Grammy nominee for Best Hawaiin Music Album for Hawaiiana [Daniel Ho Creations]... A beautiful actress with a voice like an angel? One word says it all... Schwing! |
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| Posted by Mark Peace Thomas at | | | |
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Jeff and I attended the National Association of Recording Arts & Sciences "Sounds of Change" which was held at the Ebell Theater in Los Angeles. "Sounds of Change" highlighted the role that music has playe din key moments of our social, cultural and political history.
The performers included:
Grammy Nominee: Natasha Bedingfield performing John Lennon's "Imagine" (Jeff has a whole new respect for the top 40 pop star after hearing her sing an awesome rendition).
Grammy Winner: Music Legend John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival) performing his relatively new song: Deja Vu and clsoing with the classic: Fortunate Son
Grammy Winner & Music Legend Jerry Lee Lewis who performed a couple of rock and roll numbers including the party favorite: Great Balls of Fire! (Jeff thought he kicked butt and he did. I saw him open for the rock band "X" years ago and he is a great performer).
Grammy Nominee Chrisette Michele sang "We Shall Overcome"
Grammy Nominee Ryan Shaw opened the Grammy Foundation Event with a classic Sam Cooke tune.
Grammy Nominee Musiq Soulchild nailed Bob Marley's: Redemption Song.
DJ Hapa from the 'Scratch Academy' showed off his digital scratching techniques while blending a montage of music from BIGGIE to Marvin. Speaking of Marvin, Ryan, Musiq and Natasha closed the show with Marvin Gaye's classic: What's Goin On.
I had the good fortune to meet Natasha's mom, Molly Bedingfield, at the cocktail reception following the presentation. Molly is the founder of Global Angels, a charity with a mission "To make the world a safer and kinder place for all children." Check out the website and DONATE!! Even small amounts can assist with their 5 causes:
1) To Feed and educate children living in poverty.
2) To Empower Street children and orphans.
3) To provide Freedom, Rehabilitation and Protection to trafficked children and child slaves.
4) To provide acces to clean water to all children, and protecting those taht are under the ravages of environmental change.
5) To support Children living with disability or life threatening illness.
Their PROMISE is that every dollar they receive from public donations will go directly to support projects working with children at grass-root levels.
I also ran into singer/songwriter Amanda Holmes who is active with GRAMMY U while studying at USC. Jeff and I met her and her friends at the Red Bull mixer last week. She was promoting her performance which was upcoming at Aura in Studio City. Unfortunately Jeff and I worked and made it to the nightclub too late to catch her set. I'm looking forward to hearing her music.
Another highlight was spotting Rupert Boneham who was my wife's favorite 'survivor':
What was Rupert doing at a music industry event?
He is the Vice-President of I Saw You on TV, a brand new record label featuring over 160 artists! Jeff and I talked to him briefly and met two other execs from the label. I'm looking forward to hearing (and playing) the comedians, reality stars, movie instrumentals and other tracks that they'll be releasing in the summer of 2008.
All-in-all, it was a great night and I'm looking forward to the 50th Anniversary Grammy Awards this Sunday. The NARAS after-party will feature Cyndi Lauper and Natasha Bedingfield. Should be a fun night with Zan, Keith and my cousin Brian.
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| Posted by Mark Peace Thomas at | | | |
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