Thursday, April 17, 2014

Professional Shout Outs

In my last post, I joked about how I tone down my work attire on days when I also have rap shows in the evenings. But sometimes when you have the annual Silver Society dinner to attend before your rap show, you don’t have that option. Then you have to show up to the rap show in your most professional business attire. Occupational hazard.

It’s always a bit of a shock to the system to go from my work events to Paul’s work events, but I kinda love it. It reminds me of how much we expand each others world views. At the Silver Society dinner, we heard a talk on some of the silver from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent catalog of their American silver collection. When I was in grad school, I spent a year long internship at the Met doing research on colonial silver for this catalog, so it was a topic near and dear to my heart. I formed great relationships with the two silver curators there, so I was super honored when they both thanked me for my work during their lecture. I got a shout out in a room full of silver curators, scholars, and researchers from major museums and institutions across the world. I felt like the coolest nerd in the room.

PremRock
But as soon as the lecture and dinner were over, I hopped in a cab and raced to Williamsburg to get to PremRock's release show for his new album, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. It's Prem’s fifth album, all of which have been engineered by Paul, and there was no way I was going to miss celebrating that achievement! Prem always puts on a fantastic show, and this new album is some of his best work. You can buy it for only $5 on his bandcamp. One of my coworkers came, liked what she heard, and bought two of his albums. Maybe we’ll be listening to rap (instead of classical) in the silver department soon?

Willie Green & PremRock
Prem asked Paul to join him on stage to perform a few oldies from their album, PremRock & Willie Green. Following a glowing introduction from Prem, Paul took the stage to a crowd chanting his name. It’s a good feeling to be celebrated for your work. I imagine the exhilaration he felt was equivalent to mine as I got shouted out at the Silver Society. I kid, I kid. Kind of.

So here’s my shout out to all the musicians that night- PremRock, Willie Green, Armand Hammer, Curly Castro, Zilla Rocca, Karma Kids, and Mo Niklz. This isn’t a hobby for these guys. This is their passion, their calling, and they put in the work. A special congratulations to PremRock, who treats his pursuit of music with the up-most professionalism. He is very deserving of all of his success.